Comment on Crystals
AVincentInSpace@pawb.social 5 weeks agoReligion 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.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
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”.
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.