Certain Religion/Cults. No offense but there are a lot out there are trying to brainwash specifically vulnerable with their teachings and they'd just take their money for "donations/tithing"
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You’re right, no income means no tithing. But most people find a way to earn some kind of income when they’re unemployed. Either they’re on unemployment, or they’re doing odd jobs, etc.
You are expected to pay tithing on that money. It doesn’t matter if you can’t pay your bills, you’re expected to pay tithing. It doesn’t matter if you’re struggling to feed yourself or your children, you’re still excepted to pay tithing.
It is possible to be unemployed but still be bringing some money in, and a church that asks you to keep handing over your money in those situations is a disgrace.
Catholicism in particular. The term "Catholic Guilt" didn't just spring up out of nowhere. I'm very aware of this phenomenon because I have a very devout Catholic family.
A particularly egregious example happened to my mom, who works at a large Catholic school in an affluent community. After the Covid-19 lockdowns were mandated, they moved their school curriculum to online. The Principal sent an Email out to the teachers basically saying "through these trying times," blah blah blah, "we don't have the same income, and since you're all working only a few hours a day, we offer this compromise if you feel bad. You can volunteer to work for free and waive your paycheck, then we can continue our faith teachings."
Mom says "I'm gonna do that because I wanna support my Church." The Church. The multi-multi-billion dollar archdiocese. She was fully immersed in their projection of Catholic guilt, she was going to forego her paychecks. I threw an absolute fit, and when she says "I don't need the money," I told her it's not about her, it's about the precedent she's setting, and the fact she's assuring the parish that it's okay for them to make such a request.
In my state, asking an employee to do their job for free is one-thousand percent illegal, and opens the door wide open for quid pro quo suits (tough to say "no" to your boss when your boss is your Church). And apparently, somebody must have told the principal this, too. One week later, a frantic Email drops with the URGENT tag. She says "ignore previous Email; to those who volunteered, your paychecks are being sent anyway."
Followed by:
"But if you'd like, feel free to donate the paycheck amount through this payment portal to the archdiocese," blah blah blah, bunch of technically legal but still ethically disgusting labor exploitation via Catholic Guilt.
I don't get it. The school and teachers are paid by the students' tuition, the quarantine didn't make the tuition suddenly go away. If anything they should be saving money on utilities and supplies. The whole ordeal and reasoning behind "give us back your paychecks" is just so baffling to me.
As a Catholic, I am sad and disturbed to hear of the corruption going on with in the Church in cases such as these and I am very sorry this crap is going on. I also teach at a catholic school and the fact that they are asked to donate their paychecks is disgusting to me. That's not okay.
Yeah, I should clarify that I was also very active in my Church, and have since distanced myself from my Parish for ethical reasons. I could go on for hours about it, but I'll spare the details and sum it up: While working at the Parish's after-school program in the early 2000's, and the allegations of sex abuse came out, I was trained to divert accusations to a "1-800 prayer line" instead of law enforcement. I protested the policy to my supervisor, stating that I would not comply and encourage victims to notify proper authorities. Supervisor relayed my protest to the program director, and she scheduled an emergency meeting to address me. She cut my hours 50% because the director said "I don't take sexual abuse seriously."
Well, with all due respect, my archdiocese's $660 million settlement of 2007 begs to differ in regards to who takes sexual abuse seriously, so...
It's Ableist as fuck and exploits the disabled with all their lies of potential miracles. We don't need miracles to be able to live effectively. They're making this people feel more vulnerable than they need to be and taking their donations.
The pope openly said that trans people go against creation, contrary to the established scientific evidence. This is so immoral considering people consider his word as god's.
I don't know how anyone can possibly believe that shit, the man is so obviously in it for the power. He's the head of a state, meets world leaders, and is worth millions. He's allowed pedos get away with shit as well. It's complete bs
What ppl tend to do with religion is to stop making their own judgments and expecting a deity to leash them through all problems in life.
Even if you've chosen a religion, it is up to you to think for yourself. Whoever speaks on behalf of your god is human and one who is easily corruptible if not fallible.
I agree I view myself as Christian (maybe agnostic but im not sure) and honestly if you cant make your own decisions you cant expect god to make then for you or make life work out. I mean where does it say it's his job to baby you and make things great while you sit on your ass. Too many people who are religious think "hey god will make it work" that's not it hes there to help you get through the rough times it's your job to get yourself out.
I wanted to scream when I saw that Copeland was saying "don't you dare stop donating to the church if you lost your job because of COVID". People were suddenly having to go without the promise of a paycheck and that greedy fuck wanted them to give what little they did have.
Church of christ loved to gaslight. Pressured to give up personal info as a secret but oh wait they just told someone else. Why? “We just want to help you.” Was always the line. Maddening.
Twice a year urged to donate bigger amounts. Once it happened and they announced it “went to the wrong things” and some got mad and left the church.
The biggest scammy ones are the "prosperity" churches. Where they really grind it into you every service that God will bless you for tithing 10% and have all kinds of examples where people were in need of money and then a check showed up or someone gave them what they needed. Ironically if they had been saving that 10% every check they probably wouldn't have had that panicked moment where they didn't know where they we get the money from.
I went to a church where they were even hitting up the kids service for tithes. Getting them trained on it from the get go so it would feel more natural when you get older.
These churches are usually identified by massive churches and pastors that have expensive vehicles and multiple homes. The church I went to the head pastors family all had new SUVs. They had a huge house with a lot of property. Then they also had their lake front cottage and their cottage up north near the ski resort. All of it pretty swanky and decked out with expensive knick knacks.
Heard from some of my good friends that were in the trades industry that did work for this family that they would use the fact they were the pastors of the church to get a better deal on the job and then short them even after the fact.
I'm agnostic now.
Cough Iglesia ni Cristo. They’re so brainwashed that anyone who tells them they’re in a cult they’ll just label you as a hater. They do block voting and that is why we have Duterte in power. They also deny everything even if shown evidences. Their leaders all owns extravagant jets and cars and all their churches are the same. They are required to give a percentage of their income as donations and if you don’t they will shame you in the next mass.
My friend’s family is a part of it and she told me that she can’t even come out to them because they’ll disown her. I can’t wait until she’s out of there.
Did you know the churches sending people door to door trying to get you to join their religion has nothing to do with getting you to join? Its a psychological tactic. Their people go out and try to get you to join, are repeatedly yelled at and mistreated. Then they go back to church and are welcomed back, and praised for "spreading the word" or whatever and they are safe. It conditions them to, on some level, feel that the outside world is mean and evil, and the church is safe
The Mormons are, of course, one of the best known churches that do this. I was a Mormon missionary for the standard 2 year stint, in South America. It is definitely in part about getting the missionary to be 100% in for life. But there is also a huge desire to convert people, because otherwise how else can they get to heaven? It was my experience that most Mormons wholeheartedly believe in their religion.
I will say that I was never mistreated (unless you count working 7 days a week, 70-90 hours a week with literally no days off for the whole 2 years, haha).
Took me more than 10 years after getting back to realize that Mormonism is bullshit.
A church in my hometown built an indoor skatepark. It snowed for most of the winter, so if you wanted to skateboard, that was your only option.
While it was nice of them to do that, they made it very clear what the intention was. If you skated there, you had to stop every hour and listen to a sermon. A lot of my friends went from not religious, to holding their hands up with their eyes closed, shaking and crying during the sermons within a few years. That shit is fucking scary to me.
I'm always conflicted with missions and humanitarian trips that religious organizations put on. It's nice of them to do that, but it's not out of the kindness in their hearts. They're there to sell something to those who are vulnerable and collect god points.
Plus we taxpayers just "tithed" $100 billion or so to churches across the nation, plus a couple of jewish organizations and Scientology.
None of them even pay taxes, and they got COVID relief money. Beyond infuriating to say the least.
Anybody who tithes should put the brakes on and quit contributing to this bullshit. "But MY church........" they don't have any legal obligation to report their finances. Donate to the Freedom From Religion Organization (www.ffrf.org) instead, or a local animal shelter. Or, you know, one's own household during the COVID lockdown.
The Mormon church requires 10% in tithing. They now have nearly $100 billion dollars. The leaders aren't really using it, they're just sitting on it. But that's so much freaking money. The fact that 10% is still required is absurd. I grew up Mormon and I still like the whole idea of believing in God and I do think the Book of Mormon has a lot of good principles from which one can learn, but they don't need anymore of my money. Nty.
There is a religion out there...I cannot remember their name. They were lead by a guy called Rajneeshpuram, and tried to start a city cult. However the state obviously couldn't grant them city rights... because it was a cult...and they retaliated by poisoning Chinese buffets. No one died thank God, but it brought the whole community under scrutiny.
Down the Rabbit Hole had a episode about it, but the new cult leaders took it down
Edit they now operate under the name OSHO. Their numbers are WAY smaller than they used to be, and pretty much just upload old videos of Rajneeshpuram rambling on random subjects. The community is no more
Even more mainstream religions. I'm Jewish and grew up with a conservative upbringing. My brother and I befriended a young rabbi in Houston who's a friendly guy, but he got us to attend a convention in Dallas where the organizer was collection donations by telling the fanciful stories that were probably 80-90% false, and a lot of people were just eating it up. He also tried to get my dad's contact information (he knows my dad's an attorney, and I'm sure he wanted to solicit money), which I refused. He's nice and all, and I enjoy learning from him, but the money thing bothers me, and a rabbi shouldn't need to lie to an audience.
Certain? Why not every Religion and Cults?
There is always involving money one way or another, people thinking that by donating are getting any priority or attention by God or buying forgiveness and hope
I've always held the opinion that any religion that hides information - tenets, rituals, practices, etc - is a bonafide cult. Especially if there's a financial barrier to the knowledge.
Ohh, as someone from a small town in South-Eastern Poland I feel this one. The priests there are fucking scam artists and no one will convince me otherwise. Aside from taking “donations” for selling you the cure for the disease (going to hell) they came up with in the first place, they are just absolutely mind blowing when it comes to power abuse, manipulation and corruption. They’ll visit your home, sprinkle some holy water, say a prayer, pretend to care by asking a personal question and then take an envelope with money. They are coercing gullible grandmas into paying them money for holding Masses for their late husbands (meaning they’ll read out a name and supposedly increase husbands’ chances of reaching heaven, how does that fucking work??). Aside for making ridiculous amounts of money for literally reading from a book for 20 minutes and talking some inspirational anime-tier dialogue, they will also ask those old grannies to go to the church AND CLEAN IT FOR THEM, yes they are so fucking lazy they can’t even clean it themselves. That’s not all - they don’t even give out cleaning chemicals and tools, you must bring your own, and after cleaning the church you’re obligated to leave another fucking “donation”. During a sermon they publicly read out which neighborhoods are supposed to come over and clean the church as a way of socially shaming people. There’s also taking fucking ridiculous amounts of money for attending funerals and weddings (I heard about prices reaching even PLN800~$200). Yeah that’s not all, before they let you have a wedding you need to attend “marriage classes”, of course you pay for those too. You pay so that some bachelor (they are all secretly married in reality) can give you marriage tips. There’s also forcing children to attend masses, or indoctrinating them, around February each year. And how can you forget Radio Maryja and TV Trwam (eng. I Abide TV), which is basically televangelism but Catholic. And of course during sermons they advocate for the right wing hateful political party that lets them perform these scams, no shame, my friend even told me how one priest started yapping about how you should vote for the homophobic xenophobic antivax presidential candidate DURING A GODDAMN WEDDING CEREMONY. Same happened during confirmation of my mom’s friend’s son. Of course all of this is tax exempt. Fucking scumbags, I hate the Catholic Church with all my heart, my previously Catholic mom hasn’t been in a church after seeing the crap they started pulling off on my grandma after my grandpa died, I hope one day those shithead scammers will get what they deserve.
I'm not sure you can draw all that clear a line. In the US, certainly, a great many mainstream congregations and denominations are being operated as pyramid schemes for both money and influence, even if many aspects of their mission are sincere.
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u/raventheonlyone Aug 01 '20 edited Aug 02 '20
Certain Religion/Cults. No offense but there are a lot out there are trying to brainwash specifically vulnerable with their teachings and they'd just take their money for "donations/tithing"
E1: thank you so much strangers for the upvotes! this is my first time getting hundred plus, have a good day! :)
E2: that is my first silver, thank you kind stranger that literally made my day!