(July 24, 2010 at 6:56 pm)Mr Olefemi Wrote: Thank you for the welcome,I would like to say that religion is a very positive force in the world,what saddens me is how charlatans use it to lead people astray.In my town,for every one genuine pastor there are roughly 2 or 3 fakes and the sad fact is that they are very popular with the people.I distance myself from them because all they want is money.
My religion has a very bad name but maybe one day soon this will slowly begin to change.The teachings of Jesus Christ are very simple and I have always thought to myself that the only reason that a big fuss was made about him was because what he was teaching was so different to what people were used to before.But now it is normal and still there are those who try to turn what is simple teachings into a money making machine.I am against the pope also by the way.
It's no different in the united states. People who pray on the faithful's gullibility.
Depending on my mood, I tend to put the blame either on the scam artist and those gullible enough to fall for it but regardless of that, it's still a scam.
But my view on the failing of religion has more to do with even the legitimate pastors of any faith who have let their own views blind them to their own teachings on god's love. The kind of people I'm talking about are the kind of pastor who will take the word of the bible to back up their own backward morality.
Take the homosexuals for example, if a pastor finds reason to believe that the bible says that homosexuality is an abomination upon the lord and the pastor agrees, then people who fall into that cycle treat homosexuals as less-than-human. Whether it's simply by trying to 'convert' them into heterosexuality or by passing laws to execute them for being gay, like what was attempted in Uganda.
Those kinds of pastors seem to prefer to selectively follow some ordinances more than others.
Most christian pastors I've come to know preach love, forgiveness, and empathy for your fellow man.
Yet, when it comes to being homosexual, many pasters throw 'love', 'forgiveness', and 'empathy' out the window to be able to stone gay people on the streets if they could.
Arguably, I could say that for all pastors (because God himself preaches one thing and does another, like all the genocides from the old testiment and the new genocides in the new testiment as well as the torture of his own son) but what makes having faith in that sense worthwhile is that it can teach that kind of morality and provide a positive effect on the lives of many people.
