“Prosperity Gospel” makes my blood boil
The Time article “Did God Want You to Get That Mortgage?” is exactly the kind of thing I mentioned in the comments here that disturbs me greatly. Do the pastors that preach this personally take responsibility when things go wrong for their parishioners who take this kind of advice? Of course not. Either the individual wasn’t devoted enough to God (thus their own fault), or God has a plan (thus God’s fault), but never the individual’s fault (who was stupid enough to believe this shit), or the pastor’s/church’s fault (for pushing it).
Just a week or so ago our pastor was pumping for additional donations, and said that God has already blessed him with $120 towards the extra financial commitments he had made to the church for the upcoming events/year. Give the money you don’t even have, because God will give it to you.
Makes me sick, but it is prevalent in Christian theology since the early Church. God blesses the faithful, whether that is military victory, money, land, punishment of enemies . . . it encourages the faithful to take risks they otherwise wouldn’t take on the belief that God will save/support them, unless he doesn’t, in which case they are just wretched sinners anyway and deserved it, but God will beam them to Heaven after death.
If the God of the Bible (or of the Koran, or whatever) exists, and is a just being, then surely he will give a pass to all those who turn away from Him based on the behavior of so many who purport to follow Him. Maybe that’s guilt by association, but you can barely find a church (or other place of worship relating to the associated diety) today that doesn’t preach exclusivity, favoritism, intolerance. Things that drive wedges between individuals and cultures. Until they become like us, that is.
on October 3, 2008 on 7:08 pm
Yes, but can a person choose a lifestyle of sin and expect to get a pass from God? Along the same line of thought as yours, people who reject God and go their own way might easily claim that they should be permitted to what is right in their own eyes and expect God to save them from the consequences of their own actions. You might reject churches for their exclusivity, favoritism and “intolerance” (which usually isn’t anything of the sort), but are you then going to do your own thing and expect God to rescue you? Although I agree with you about the prosperity gospel, I’m convinced that you’re not taking the argument nearly far enough. The whole freaking world is doing its own thing, and no one can understand why God isn’t on their side.
on October 3, 2008 on 8:33 pm
“Yes, but can a person choose a lifestyle of sin and expect to get a pass from God?”
According to the Bible, all people choose lives of sin. People are sinners, and sinners eventually choose sin. You might not have sinned in the last minute, or the last hour, but you will sin, and when you do it will be by choice. You didn’t have to do it. You will have options not to do it. But you will choose to do it.
Why do you get a pass? Because of exclusivity. Your religion, your beliefs are right and true while others are false.
“The whole freaking world is doing its own thing, and no one can understand why God isn’t on their side.”
The way the whole freaking world is, who can have any confidence that God is on their “side”? Millions of every major religion live in total poverty, so it seems as if material reward isn’t a good barometer (and why should it be if true reward is in the afterlife?). The bottom line is that there is no measurable, repeatable way to prove the validity of any religious faith over another beyond the fact that most barely pass the ridiculousness test.
on October 3, 2008 on 9:33 pm
“Why do you get a pass? Because of exclusivity. Your religion, your beliefs are right and true while others are false.”
And why not? What is more telling of a person’s motives than what they are willing to believe? Everyone sins, but not everyone repents. Most people will defend their deeds to the grave. Scarce few will admit fault. Everyone is wrong in some way, but to deliberately go your own way, invent your own “truth” and expect no hard consequences? Everyone stands outside of righteousness, but some enter through the door. We could beat ourselves against the wall all day trying to make our own entrance, and we could complain about the bruises…and gripe at the people who use the door for their exclusivity.
You talk about people not willing to face the consequences of their own actions. I’m a strong believer in that. You don’t get to follow your own god and get your butt saved by the God. In financial terms, you can’t do what you like and expect no bad results. In spiritual terms, you can’t do it either.
on October 3, 2008 on 9:49 pm
I saw this article today and started to send it to you, I disagree strongly with the prosperity gospel as described in the article. I do believe that God blesses some (though not necessarily everyone) and if you could actually do a randomized, controlled double blind study, you might find a statistically significant increase in those “blessings” that givers receive compared to what you’d randomly expect to happen in a “that’s just part of life” worldview. But of course, you can’t really do such a study. Or could you?
Anyway, goading people to give using guilt/reward as a tactic is not really any different than Bush or any other official scaring the poop out of Congress to get what he wants. We should give joyfully and not just to get something in return.
Speaking of our elected officials … This bailout just doesn’t sit well with me. I may be wrong but I’m just against the bailout (and extra $150 Billion in pork).
on October 4, 2008 on 3:07 am
“Everyone is wrong in some way, but to deliberately go your own way, invent your own “truth” and expect no hard consequences?”
Everyone invents their own truth. When it comes to interpreting the Bible, there is only the subjective. Are the Ten Commandments absolutes? Does the Bible prohibit homosexuality? Is the Earth 6,000 years old? How much do the Gospels deviate from the historical life of Jesus? Is there a Q Gospel? Is the end to the Gospel of Mark original or added later, and if added later what does that mean? Under what circumstances is divorce religiously authorized? What rites must a person go through during life to achieve eternal salvation? Does the Bible support the view of the superiority of the Aryan race? And for *every* question there may be a different meaning depending on which language you use–Greek, Latin, Hebrew, English (the many English interpretations)..
There are a million questions; those questions matter; everyone believes something different or some different combination of the millions of different ways to interpret the books of the Bible. For anyone to assert that the Bible is an objective reflection of anything is nonsensical, because even if it is, no one can agree on what its words actually mean.
“And why not?”
Because it is neither fair nor just.
on October 4, 2008 on 3:27 am
“I do believe that God blesses some (though not necessarily everyone) and if you could actually do a randomized, controlled double blind study, you might find a statistically significant increase in those “blessings” that givers receive compared to what you’d randomly expect to happen in a “that’s just part of life” worldview. But of course, you can’t really do such a study. Or could you?”
Only Christians? What is the measurement? Health? Wealth? Reported happiness? Marital longevity? You can’t measure satisfaction with the afterlife, so that’s out. What geographic range are you going to use? Even the poorest in the United States are unlikely to be as poorly off as the most extreme poor in Africa (many of whom are Christians and many of such Christians who end up starving, losing children, etc.)
So, no, I think the first problem is that you can’t agree on the appropriate parameters of any such study . . . not without a God that actually allows Himself/Herself to be tested. So that isn’t a flaw of man, it is an element of God that, happy coincidence!, prevents anyone from deriving non-subjective, non-anecdotal, legitimate study-based evidence.
I also am not in favor of the bailout. It was government policies that created this mess, and I don’t think that more government is the answer. But politicians can’t stand the accusation that they stood by and did nothing, so instead they decided to meddle some more, spend some more of our money. One can only hope that they do indeed recoup value when the economy recovers and the currently-worthless instruments (hopefully) recover value and are sold off.
I watched the whole Biden-Palin debate, but wasn’t planning on doing a blog entry about it. Bottom line: Biden won, but Palin did so much better than I think anyone expected that McCain may actually see a bump. Bottomer line: The format of the debate was intentionally set up to keep both VP candidates from screwing up, so we saw exactly what the parties wanted us to see–softball questions, no follow-ups, very, very little by way of direct exchange or challenge. It was designed to be idiot-proof . . . victory!
I actually liked some of what Palin said about responsibility and limited government, too bad it’s just lip service, the way it’s been with the Republican Party since the early 80’s. No one should fool themselves, McCain isn’t a small government conservative.
Also, Biden could have hammered global warming much more–if you don’t believe in anthopogenic causes of global warming then *you’re not going to believe that humans lowering their carbon footprint is going to make a difference*. Biden couldn’t have hit that topic lighter if he used a feather.
Anyway, just some thoughts on the debate.
on October 3, 2009 on 12:25 pm
Great site, how do I subscribe?