Nothing compares to the passing of the collection plate...

I suspect the bigger fear is losing business to mass flock fleecers like Copeland, et al.

through the computer screen.

"You can open for business/worship (what's the difference?), but we get 50% of the $ you take in."

Make it $500 for an individual's first offense and keep doubling it every time thereafter. They'll $ocial distance for sure.

Which they want, of course.

Especially here.

And to blank out everything except the central focus. The drug: God.

And they say, all Christianity is a cult; having come from the older priestly "cultus" (Latin), or cultural concentration on a temple, etc.

For some, politics is a substitute for religion.

But cut 39%?

What do you claim as the appropriate usage level, so that the rest of us can understand how lindysalsagal's usage especially exceeds it?

If you vote in every election, are you addicted to voting?

Is whether you are destructive; "a danger to yourself or others."

The problem with this thread, as I see it, is that most people are not destructive or dangerous. So the term addictive does not apply.

To go further, and I have done so many times here, the real problem is with authoritarians who operate in every hierarchy. No matter the organization, there will invariably be some members who wish to control others. And these members will generally claim to be acting in the best interests of the organization, and its members. Some of these authoritarians might truly believe that they are acting for the best.

We see this tendency everywhere, in theistic societies, the majority, and the few atheistic societies. The authoritarians will always try to divide and control.

And the white evangelicals voted about 90% for Trump

If black Evangelicals did not vote for Trump, could the problem be racism? Trump is an open racist.

If Evangelicals of every color supported Trump, I might agree that Evangelism is the root cause, but if mainly white Evangelicals are supportive of Trump, my view is that racism is the key.

From black evangelicalism.

They started together. But began to diverge decades ago. If you listen to their services, clearly one is rather liberal, the other is conservative. Like the split in say, Presbyterians, the split is deep enough to change formal doctrinal emphasis. Within these religions, themselves.

Religions split all the time. The way Protestantism split from Catholicism.

To the extent that they are both stll religions, they both emphasize magical thinking, to be sure. But then the differences soon appear.

In my view, racism is foundational to the white experience in this country. Which is not to say that white people as a group are racist, just that racism is so embedded in the white experience that it distorts everything.

Have accessed their vulnerabilities by promising relief from common causes of suffering. Its calculated and malicious. And it personally serves those who can harness the inherent powers. Humans were bred to adapt, and by adapting to the entrance expectations, they become enslaved to it, unable to see the damage religion causes.

...they steadfastly refuse to take responsibility for their life, and death. They want to live forever, so they willfully embrace whatever narrative gives them that comfort, regardless of the fact the narrative does not comport with reality.

It's willful, purposed, ignorance, nothing more.

All so they may 'believe' and have 'faith' in the magic story they have been sold: that they will live forever.

No, guys. You've gotta get it right while you're on earth. No 2nd chances.

...and who do you meet in the great beyond?

Alzheimers grandma? 20-yo grandma?

Are people who died as infants always infants?

Do people with cognitive disabilities keep their disability with them? If not, are they still who they were?

Is there a difference between someone born blind verses someone who could see and lost their eyesight in life? Do they both get equal vision in heaven?

And the one that kills it for me.
How could you ever be in a state of bliss, knowing that there are good people in hell?
Burning in 'conscious torment for eternity'.
People you knew, people you loved.
What kind of rat-bastard would you have to be to exist in a state of 'bliss' while you look down and see your grandmother, your best friend, or your child burning forever.

And if it is some magical hand wave that excuses this paradox, how is that 'you', then?

Magic and wishful dreams, that all it is, with no more substance than the tooth fairy or the green tiger-striped wickernacker, with purple boots covered in pink-polka dots and an ermine hat topped with one big silver tassel, I just conjured up in my imagination.

It's all pretend.