Religion is a Business

[jasonsorrell]

I uploaded a video titled "Pagan Pretenders" this weekend on my Youtube channel (www.youtube.com/egodiabolus666) discussing Neo-Pagans who are trying to make Satanism into some version of their own Pagan system of belief rather than being actual Satanists. During that video, I mentioned that the purpose of religion is to make money. That idea has stuck with me, and I decide to explore it a little further.

Religion is one of our stranger concepts... one of those ideas that everyone seems to understand yet few can really define in a comprehensive and concise manner. I might say that religion is an attempt to explain things (our minds have an inherent need to tack reason onto the phenomenon it observes), but religion is not science. It may have been the seat of science at one time, but science has since released itself from much of the baggage of religion and now the two concepts are generally at odds. I might say that religion is a system of values, morals, and behaviors, but religion is neither philosophy nor is it politics and law. Again, religion may have at one time served these purposes, but each of these fields has become distinct from religion and the authority of religious institutions. I could say that religion is modern mythology except that mythology is considered by most to be fantasy and delusions while those that embrace the concept of religion would argue that religion's distinction from mythology is that religion is real.

...

Read the rest of this post and other posts of a theological/occult/esoteric nature at: crawlingchaoscoc.blogspot.com/2011/02/religion-is-business.html

[boksmutant]

while those that embrace the concept of religion would argue that religion's distinction from mythology is that religion is real.

It is unfortunate that people can't handle the facts about what they worship & the reality of it.

Awake!

[iandiabhal]

Here is a question - is "religion" an activity defined by worship or in deference to an externalized entity or being - or a philosophical thought process?
Could religion be an "admiration", as opposed to faith-based obediance to some dogmatic or evangelical tenets?
If religion is a "business" then it is surely less "divine" than the CEO-slash-priest has led you to believe that it is. Reminds me of that old joke about the Baptist church - lets throw the offering plate money in the air - what stays suspended there or mysteriously vanishes is God's money, what hits the ground is the minister's money.

"Feebly, their ministers play the devil's game to fill their tabernacles and pay the mortgages on their temples. Alas, too long have they studied "righteousness", and poor and incompetent devils they make."

[LostSoul]

Sadly, religion; christian, neo-pagan, satanism, and the like have become big business. It's a sad state of the human condition. We're always looking to make a profit.

[iandiabhal]

Well nothing wrong with making a profit - as long as your honest about it, and aren't concealing a money-making enterprise and major financial operation behind a tax-exempt status and smoke-screen. I haven't seen many wealthy-looking pagan churches - I have on the other hand seen some pretty expensive - obscenely immense "sanctuaries" and edifices maintained by Christians fleecing the "faithful". Heck, they ought to be thanking Satan - it has been Satan that has kept them in business all these years after all!

[LostSoul]

Well, technically; they'd be considered "temples"; but, yeah. It is hell and damnation that does keep those coffers filled.

[iandiabhal]

Well I would submit they could be called temples or sanctuaries..just other terms for a church.