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is that, by and large, priests do not seek out people who are vulnerable

What are you talking about, every organized religion does this. If people weren’t vulnerable to being lied to by charlatans, there wouldn’t be any religious institutions. And I’ll spare you the longwinded rant about the pressure to tithe other than to say that it exists and it’s extremely aggressive.

Also, you’re very much proving their point unintentionally. Quote from the first sentence in the wikipedia article for the slang term ‘basic’ :

Basic is a slang term in American popular culture used pejoratively to describe middle class white people, especially women, who are perceived to prefer mainstream products, trends, and music.

You’re using a gendered insult to dismiss their claims of bias based on gender lines. I usually try to be more constructive than this but wow are you off the mark here.

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homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

is that, by and large, priests do not seek out people who are vulnerable

What are you talking about, every organized religion does this.

As an aside, the Jewish religion specifically discourages this.

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AVincentInSpace@pawb.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Religion panders to the vulnerable, that I’ll grant you. But no major organized religion I’m aware of, apart from scientology, actively tries to soak people. (And before you say it, the collection plate does not count.) We respect people’s beliefs as long as the people who tell them to believe them aren’t doing so solely because they have something to gain.

Second of all, I wasn’t even aware that “basic” was a gendered insult. What I meant was that people make fun of mainstream things because they’re mainstream, and have since time immemorial, and that people who follow whatever the mainstream believes in lieu of having a personality deserve to be mocked.

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- homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  But no major organized religion I’m aware of, apart from scientology, actively tries to soak people. (And before you say it, the collection plate does not count.)
  
  We used to call them “tv preachers”. They’d be on all the time with a phone number on the screen to call and donate money. Over time they became “mainstream” that millions now follow and now they’re loosely called “Evangelicals”. They’re nominally “Christian”, functionally “Protestant” but most do not follow a particular established denomination.
  
  Make no mistake, the “soaking” is central to that form of “Christianity”.
  
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  - AVincentInSpace@pawb.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    And I would not ask anyone to “respect the beliefs” of someone whose only religion comes in the form of televangelism. There is a big difference between a religious leader and a charlatan, and it is our duty as friends and family members to try to help get people out from under the thumb of the latter.
    
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