Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Religious Sleaze

The following is the crudest, sleaziest example of hucksters "selling religion" to line their pockets.



The above makes obvious the old saying that "religion is the opium of the masses". The idea that "God" is just waiting to shower wealth on you is nutty. But people will end up shelling out money to religious quacks like Peter Popoff. From the guy who is telling you that God will shower you with money (from Wikipedia):
At Popoff's peak in 1987, according to his comptroller, he took in $4.3 million a month.[21] After his exposure on the Tonight show he declared bankruptcy in 1987.[7]

According to Charity Navigator, in FY2004, Peter Popoff received $548,167 as president of his organization and the Peter Popoff Ministries raised $16,220,066 in revenue in FYE 2004.[22] Then in FY2005, Popoff received $628,732, his wife Elizabeth received $203,029, his son received $182,166, and daughter received $176,290 with $23,556,469 in revenue.[22] These figures are from IRS documents, which "only outline the millions of dollars people give Popoff's organization in the US." [15]
When the guy telling you that his "miracle water" will allow God to shower you with wealth is himself declaring bankruptcy despite receiving tens of millions of dollars, you should be skeptical. But fools rush to embrace religion for the very fact that it rejects reason in favour of "faith". They have the audacity to claim that religion is all the more powerful because it requires a "leap of faith" and the more outrageous the gap between reason and the idiocy they sell, the more "powerful" the religious claim!

For me, the real icing on the cupcake is the Madison Avenue touch selling the miracle packet of spring water "now in a larger size"! Funny. If this packet truly provides a miracle. Why would you need a bigger packet? To get a bigger miracle? Since when are miracles sized by the "packets" the come inside of? Nutty!

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