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The arguments you make are flawed, because you are caught up in the mindset of "religious people == good people, therefore if there are no religious people, all these good, necessary things will not get done". This is demonstrably untrue. People remain generally good even when they are not fooled into being so by tales of an magical space god, and all those things are covered, as can be seen in every other rich country on earth. In fact, they are generally covered a lot better, so if you actually care about the plight of the needy you should be trying to get churches out of the charity business.


That is the deal, in the "fairy tale" Jesus didn't go find the best guys, he just went out and found whoever was available. That your porn loving, upskirt looking, money loving, not so pretty self is destined to do more then spank the monkey, visit strip clubs, watch tv, and play video games is a suprise to most people. They don't know that they can change the world yet be broken themselves at the same time. Many people feel they must be perfect first (which is impossible) before they can go out do whatever they are drawn to (in the positive).


On the other hand, preaching about how adulterous behavior is a straight ticket to hell and all adulterers need to be hanged while being MEGAadulterer in the background tends to hurt your cause.


Makes for good testimony if the person gets back on the straight and narrow though.

The part about going straight to hell, all sin is the same but repenting of what you have done (adultery, steal a pack of gum, whatever) is the ticket out of the dark place and back into a place where you can be of some benefit to others. It is hard to be a person who can make a difference and be a person who steals packs of gum at every opportunity. A person who is repenting but is falling short, that person is still in good enough shape to do whatever (work charity for instance) one can't expect to always be repenting and falling short for the same thing though. Luckily once one major sin is taken care of there is usually another big sin to work on next.


I was leaning more on the 'preachers' that talk about how people that aren't perfect are going to hell, and make all sorts of 'fire and brimstone' sermons... and then they get caught spending the collection plate money on a gay prostitutes.

Also similar are those 'televangelists' that end up spending all the money they collect on a mansion, expensive cars, and hookers.




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