Vampyroteuthis

I don't remember reading this question here before but here it is.

Do you think that the religious leaders who are the top level such as priests, ministers or what have you, really and honestly believe in most of the beliefs they foist upon their followers? Granted that many religious teachings are not "wrong" in and of themselves such as "love thy neighbor" but when grouped with other biased and bigoted teachings the good is tainted by bad.

Through my line of work, I find that my ability to believe in what people say has been badly erroded. So I can't help but wonder if sane, highly educated people actually believe in jesus, god or the bible. It just seems almost impossible to me. I won't speculate on what their motivations might be since I'm hyper cynical and mostly believe the worst of people. Or am at least not at all surprised when people prove to be liars or worse.

What do YOU believe?

Spanky

A very interesting question. I have to admit it is one I ask often. I would have to say I too question many religious leaders' beliefs. Especially here in America, religion and religious leaders seem to be used hand in hand for money and power. We see Mr. Haggert as a recent example. Others like Robertson, Falwell, Dobson, these guys have to be complete cons. Usings people and the Bible for their own individual empires. Of course this is an American phenomonon. I also don't think that G Bush is in one bit religious. I think he just uses it to blind people from what he really is!
Now, when it comes to other leaders and intellectuals I would have to say, yes, they honestly believe. The Pope and those in the Vatican I would say are mostly sincere. Why, I don't know?
Sorry, I could post more but I have to bring the boy to daycare!





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Toto

It is an interesting question. A generation ago, academics assumed that true believers were nuts and their leaders were charlatans. I think views are more nuanced now.

But there are certainly enough stories about ministers going to seminary, learning about the Bible, and losing their faith. Many of those people stuck with the church and kept their doubts to themselves, because they had some social goals that were more important than their own intellectual comfort.

All that said, I think this topic is more of a General Religious Discussion topic, not BCH.

funinspace

I think most of the Christian leaders really believe. The vast majority of them work very hard and are only modestly paid for the number of hours they put it. I'm sure there's a small number who started out believing, and are now charlatans, grubbing for money. Some small number of others have lost faith, but stay for social/personal reasons.

Lonely_Road_Of_Faith

How do you explain people like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson...and others like them? A lot of high profile preachers seem to be in it for the money and the power. Weather or not somebody truly believes, when they encourage their followers based on purely political agendas, that doesn't seem to line up very well with anything the bible records Jesus as actually saying.

For example, regardless of what the OT or Paul says about homosexuality, getting one's point of view written into law specifically to deny others' rights does not seem to line up with 'love thy neighbor' very well. This sort of behavior is not only encouraged, but practically required among the politically active christian coalition types.

I can at least understand from an intellectual point of view why they don't like abortion, but some of the other hot button issues evangelicals get worked up about like gay marriage, gun control, immigration etc. seem entirely motivated by conservative politics.

A couple years ago I stopped considering myself a Christian, in part because at the time I thought the pharisees appeared to have more followers within Christianity then Jesus did. Hipocrisy seems a bit more of a problem in Christianity then within most religions, from my point of view.

Honestly, I would say that based on my experience a majority of people especially the leaders...and most of all the leaders who make a point of being on TV a lot...don't believe a word of it, they're just in it for what they can get out of it. Some may only be modestly paid, but getting people to follow you means power, and power is better then money to some people.

funinspace

You left off Benny Hinn Well I said "some". Whether that's 2% or 10%, I could not say. And I certainly wasn't focused on the TV big mouths. What percentage of preachers, have lined their pockets? How many churches are in the US? Let's just say 30M go regularly, and each church has 100 attendees a week. That would need about 300,000 preachers. How many big ticket TV preacher are out there? At 10%, we could have 30,000 thieves at work…

People are people, I never laid any claims that faith is real. Why is it surprising that they cannot follow their canon, or even agree to what it says? You have everything from Neo-Con warmongers to the Amish within this thing called Christianity. Humans seam to like rules, and they made a god that has lots of them. I think a big problem for Christian discernment of their canon, is that their writers never even conceived of the possibility that their people would rule countries.

Krosis

Another similar thread from WAAAAAAAaaaaay back when.. about Catholicism..

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=84695

-A