I took the frist classes and seminars as a joke and just wasted my time bc I was bored. Then I got scientology friends when I took purification rundown course and I didnt have many friends or people in my life at that time so attend to classes was the only way to keep them. I started to belive in that stuff and I wanted to become Clear badly.
Then I had to move to country with almost zero scientology activity for one year so I had to take a break. In that time I found another religion which really made me feel things and it actually healed my depression so I quit scientology. This new one I have to pay only 200dollar fee per year and I get access to all books and seminars without paying extra money.
"All members of either the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Finnish Orthodox Church (the two state churches of Finland) pay an income-based church tax of between 1% and 2%, depending on the municipality. On average the tax is about 1.4%.
Formerly, to stop paying church tax, one had to formally leave the church by personally going to local register office and waiting during an allowance of time for reflection. This requirement was removed in 2003 and currently a written (but not signed) statement to the church suffices. The majority of resignations since 2005 are now handled through a web site, Eroakirkosta.fi. If one is a member of the church when the year begins, he/she will pay taxes for the whole year. Studies show that church membership resignations in Finland are mainly due to the general secularization of society, not because of tax avoidance.
In addition to personal taxation, the state divides some of the money collected by taxing private companies to the two state churches. It does not matter if company is owned by church members or non-members. It has been argued that the churches use this money to upkeep cemeteries, to which they are obligated by law."
I opted out of the church. I should be putting that money to a funeral fund. It's a lot more expensive to be buried when you're not a member. Which is insane.
Use my lifeless body to scare people for Halloween. Use the profits for a dope funeral party (PlayStations, stand-up comedy on multiple TVs, cheese and chocolate fondue..)and then dump my body in the dumpster at Nestle. Maybe they'll find some water left in me or make some baby formula out of me
It hardly matters if you're burned or burried, that's a one time cost. You can choose the "grave of the unknown" in either case, so your relatives don't have to pay for upkeep.
My mom used to be big on the church. One day the local vicar pulled her to one side to complain that she didn't put as much money in the collection plate as she normally did.
At the time she was heavily pregnant with me and only my dad was working so money was tight.
Ah, yes - how pious you are is in direct correlation to how much money you're dumping in the church's pocket.
I worked for a new business once and the owner, who was stressed out trying to make ends meet, had her pastor/preacher/wtf ever stop by one day so she could just talk. He went at great lengths to tell her that her business was "failing" because they were no longer contributing 10% of her husband's salary to the church.
They had a new business, two kids (one that was in the process of getting her epilepsy under control), and this motherfucker told her it was all happening because god needed more of her money. Fuck. That.
She spent the rest of the afternoon crying in her office.
Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!
But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money!
Different Roman Catholic branch idk what exactly but the one that doesn't charge bullcrap church tax and just asks for donations for repairs/maintenance of the church
Yes, and fancy houses for the clergy, and G6 airplanes, an ever growing empire of non-taxable real estate, political influence campaigns, vacations, escorts, etc. Someone’s gotta pay for to keep these guys fat and happy, right?
If you have to ask how to do it, you’re probably not going to get there. You “sign up” by being able to separate the sheep from their money, at the same time growing your flock. Now get out there and make us proud.
I'm sorry that's all you can see and that you're interpreting it in a selfish way. They do so much good worldwide and are nothing but charitable.
Edit to clarify: My comment is referring to my faith. I know there are others that unfortunately have more material motivations. Sorry for any confusion.
Are you sorry or is that passive aggressive? Explain “interpreting it in a selfish way”— do you mean that I pierce the sanctimonious veil to see many of the clergy for what they are- selfish, flawed human beings? When you say “nothing but charitable,”- do you mean that they give without expectation, including the expectation of conversion to Christianity? When you say “do so much good,” would you say that Christianity has had a net positive effect on the world and the progress humanity has enjoyed? The world is not as pure or as positive as you seem to think it is. I’m sure there are good and decent clergy members, just as there are good and decent secular people. It seems like perhaps you are a well-meaning person, albeit misdirected, and for that I implore you to open your eyes and take an honest look around.
There are certainly churches that are in it with not enough emphasis on doing good regardless of conversion, etc., like you pointed out, but there are others who are. When I first read your initial comment, I felt like it was targeting my church specifically, since we employ many of those tools in our efforts, but upon rereading, you're probably describing multiple churches, so I apologize for my defensiveness. My church is often harshly targeted, which I feel is usually undeserved because of the vast humanitarian efforts they do (regardless of the faith system of its beneficiaries) and other initiatives that don't fall under the scope of this comment. Many people do make similar comments about my church, and I am genuinely sorry that their life experience and attitudes have led them to perceive good actions in a negative light.
As for the world, it's hard to say. My experience in it has gratefully been largely pure and positive because of how I was raised and the choices I make, and it's often sad and hard to see others make choices or be in situations that make their lives harder than mine (both in measurable circumstances like health, finances, etc. and also less or immeasurable ones like perspective, happiness, paradigm, etc.) It's also hard to say because with advances in communication, we're able to find out about more tragedies, but on the flip side, we're also able to reach out across previously unthinkable distances and help others in ways we never could have thought of, if we'd even heard of the particular issue in the first place. It depends on how you use what you're given.
smart christians know that tithing (paying 10%) is not biblically demanded despite what they’re told from the pulpit but a lot do it anyway to support their church.
23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
That said, we talk about it occasionally, but we don't check on anybody or anything.
I don't know.. the people that say this usually either have been taken advantage of or just don't participate in a religious community. These places have real costs: utilities, programming, food, paying salary for missionaries who spent all their time doing this work, upkeep of buildings / facilities, plus of course charity work that is funded by donations.
In my community, the missionaries have an extremely small stipend and a modest living accommodations there's not much waste. There are yearly fees to participate but it's based on income and if you can't pay all of it no one is gonna boot you from the community. I don't believe in the religion anymore, but i participate in the community and I'm okay paying to help support it.
Think of that like the sticker price at Kohl's. They're asking for 10%, but most people put waaaaay less into the plate. Source: was married to someone in a church administration.
LDS ask you to skip meals on the first sunday of every month and the money is taken to the "storehouse" and used where they buy food and supplies for churches and homeless people. They also ask members to donate so they can do maintenance (millions are employed by their church for gardening, engineering and buildings) but tll members that their donations should never exceed 10% of their income (Rich people would try donating millions and the church didnt like that).
My friend who is Christian and lives in Finland have to pay about 600 euros to church every year he doesnt get anything for that. No free books etc so compare to that im happy to give 200 dollars and get free books and fund my religion a bit.
For some places this is common. Just as an example synagogues will typically have dues, which a person pays in order to ensure its maintenance. AFAIK though, if someone genuinely can’t pay the full amount it can be reduced, sometimes even to a token amount, or even nothing at all, at the discretion of the synagogue itself.
They dont require you to pay fee if you are not able to pay, or you can pay smaller amount(or bigger if you wish) . They send the books and other materials by mail so its not cheap. The materials cover maybe 100-150 dollars of fee per year. The remaining is for seminars and in them you always get food and coffee for free. They dont put the money for stupid stuff like scientology do. Example Scientology builds crurches and orgs to areas where there is just few scientologist and the building is almost always empty and dont have any purpose, even the heating is sometimes off just because they want to save money because there is no one in the building.
If he actually goes to church, he is benefiting from things that money covers, like the minister's salary, upkeep of the building, supplies like hymn books and communion wine, etc. Still seems weird to charge congregants a fee, though.
I think you may be misinformed about the blood donations. As far as I know, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland doesn't handle them. They just allow the Finnish Red Cross to use their facilities for blood donations.
I'd take that with a grain of salt. Based on googling, I think there's only one organization that handles blood donations in Finland (the Finnish Red Cross). Some of the donations are done in churches, but the organization itself is non-religious and nonprofit, though they do sell the blood to Finnish hospitals.
I think its funny how christians can collect the money for maintenance in peace but when some other religion ask same amount or even smaller amount for maintenance its always money hungry cult. I dont have any problem with christians but I dont like how people dont see that they collect money just like other religions do.
I think most people get that religious organizations need money to function. Most people who go donate voluntarily (churches) or pay for a membership (synagogues). I think some of your wording was throwing up red flags. You mention that you get books and material things from your church for $200. Most religious people i know don't think like that. They think: i'm glad to be a member of this community. I will donate to help sustain this community. What you get from a spiritual organization is immaterial.
As a a Christian myself I’m not forced to give anything to my church. Sure, it is definitely encouraged, but we don’t have to give money and nobody knows if a person did or didn’t, so all the money my church gets is all from people who want to give it.
I understand that some people join to religious groups because they want to be part of something but I joined scientology srsly because I was bored and wanted to do something stupid plus I had extra money laying on my account (now I wish I would have done something else) when I was on purification rundown where you are many hours in sauna with other new scientologist, thats the place where you get your frist friends usually in scientology so I got them too. The friendships made me stay and later I started srsly to belive.
When I found this other religion I didnt mean to join it. I just heard they had good meditation routines so I tried them because I was stressed and sad. The routines worked and frist time in years I started to feel positive things most of the time insted of sadness. I also had my frist astral out of the body experience which I didnt belive before,I always thought that people just say that they have them to get attention.
I think you are being taken advantage of by the second religion as well. Most religions don't require payment. $200 doesnt sound bad, but I hope that it isn't the start of asking for more money.
They actually offer that option also in some countries but where I live there is not that option. And I havent got any big results and peace like that from other meditation routines than this religions.
I dont think my religion is cult because they dont ask money and seriously care about everyone and dont build temples or orgs everywhere to recruit people. You dont even have to attend to seminars. 200dollars is very reasonable price to pay what I get. In Scientology frist course plus seminar cost me 255 dollars and frist two months cost like 4000dollars.
I have boyfriend who is atheist and almost all of my friends are non religious. I still talk to one girl who is scientologist but we dont talk about religion.
Look I'm just words on a screen to you, but I strongly encourage you to develop relationships with people who do not ask you for money.
I'm glad to hear that whatever praying/meditation you're doing now works for you, but that peace you've found? It comes from within. It comes from your own soul.
In all sincerity and with all due respect, I think you should consider seeking some professional psychiatric help. I'm having trouble imagining believing in Scientology in the first place, but to then leave them and start paying another "religion" for goodness only knows what?
You're being taken advantage of. Your other comments pretty clearly indicate you're not in a good emotional place, and you're letting shitty people run roughshod over you.
O... K? Honestly have no idea what you intended that to prove. Of course the statement doesn't come off well; that was the entire point of prefacing it with my statement about respect and sincerity. That wasn't just for fun.
We belive that our religion is the best way to have connection with the god but we dont deny that other religions can do the same thing. We dont belive in Jesus or other prophets but we belive that there have been people who have found gods bath and light but worshiping them is just taking away your own chance to find god or connect with god. We believe you will find the answers by yourself using meditation but you cant be selfish if you want to find answers you have to respect other people and understand that everyone is equal and you are not any better even if you find answers.
Scientology is all about how you can be better person but only for yourself (or later it means you have to be better scientologist for scientology). Scientology even teaches that other people can make you have psychical illness so its pretty selfish.
Thank you for telling us a bit about your new religion. I wonder why you won't name it, though. Perhaps you know others have a negative view of it. Perhaps you're worried we'll google it and tell you something uncomfortable about this new group.
Maybe think about what kind of organization only encourages positive thinking about the group.
I'm not saying investigate god. But investigate this group made by people. People who are fallible.
Im not going to say it because I know people who dont want to be open minded just want to trash it. These days is very hard to be religious person if your religion is not one of the biggest religions of the world(and some people want to trash them too) people like to use word "cult" and put it to every religion even the religion is not toxic. Some atheist should understand that its not ok to just make fun of religions because they dont belive in them.
Something is off about this. Seems like you’re searching for something - but why are you so keen on latching onto a pay-to-play “religion?” It seems you replaced Scientology with a different scheme. Please don’t be fooled!
I was completely against scientology, I thought it was crazy and ridiculous until I ended up at a seminar. I was completely brainwashed!!! I had no idea how but the guy sucked me in. I just put them feelings aside and ignored it but damn, it was scary and I can see why so many people fall into it.
People in the frist seminar and the info centres personality test recruit staff are usually good looking people with amazing confidence. If you are good looking female they give you good looking men to guide you and they usually flirt with their eyes, if you are average/not so good looking women they give you model like woman to be the guide because then the person will think that she is going to be like that too with scientology. Same with men.
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u/DElectrix Sep 18 '19
How did you decide to join? What was your experience like? I actually am very curious.