converting the helpless or shearing the sheep that can't run away

I've been thinking about something that used to bother me when I worked with the mentally handicapped... Why is it that evangelical Christians target the mentally handicapped and the physically infirm for conversion attempts? I would see this on a semi regular basis the hard sell conversion fallowed by a basic ignoring of the person once they were bought in. I would see people car pooling to the church while the guy I was working with made efforts and sacrifices to get to the church any way he could to be isolated on a bench with only me sitting beside him. This would continue this way until broken and despondent he'd quit going to the church as no one there "liked" him. The other extreme of this is that they arrived were given lots of attention and were held up as evidence of gods plan and infinite compassion then after a few weeks we would be sitting on the bench again. Him singing along with hymns if the church did that sort of thing or just sitting there quietly. What bothers me about this is that the offer of inclusion and of being a part of the whole community seems to only apply to people that fit the image of what the church wishes to present itself as. The offers of fellowship, of making one better, leading to loneliness, false expectations and eventually outbursts. This bothers me when the church says that those who believe will be cured if they believe enough... that certain places and things will lead to healing and making one blessed. This just strikes me as cruel. As no one who didn't at least have a chance of recovery has ever been healed by prayer. So I wonder why would people say these things to people who can't defend themselves, who can't reason it all the way through. It seems negligent, abusive and dangerous to say that god will punish certain people, as some take it into their own hands to punish those who they view as wicked, being unable to process the repercussions of their actions makes this a ticking time bomb. All this makes me wonder why do evangelicals target the mentally handy caped, the infirm, the old and dieing... my thoughts are that they are easy sheep to fleece in the flock and by targeting them in their own mind they are being kind and good, saving their souls... but that is lazy and it doesn't help those in need now.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Atheism
• Theism
• mentally
• handi-capped
• physically
• disabled

[Nhurm]

The truth is that the modern evangelical preacher, regardless of the size of the church, is a scam artist. The tradition goes back about 200 years to tent revivals in rural parts of the country. The practitioner was always in reality an entertainer making his living by providing a peculiar form of show with audience participation. The well being of the audience is of no concern. If it were he would simply leave them and their money alone

[mordesmortes]

@Nhurm I agree but I find it interesting that we allow this certain type of snake oil to spread unabated when there are preachers doing nothing but exploiting people. I suppose the trick here is to ask how often the collection plate gets passed and to who the collection goes. Basically I agree with George Carlin "Tax the shit out of churches" I would be a little more charitable and say tax the shit out of anything that stays in the church and that isn't re-directed to a legitimate charity.

[Nhurm]

@mordesmortes Agreed. Taxing all entities of a 'religious nature' is a good idea, and the taxes should be punitive as for any income not redirected for socially beneficial efforts. My personal favourite approach though would be to prosecute them for fraud along with homoeopaths, astrologers and whoever else markets things blatantly false and harmful for the sole purpose of extracting funds from the vulnerable. To me this is no different than regulating harmful food additives or pesticides.

[mordesmortes]

@Nhurm The thing is to treat them fairly and use the same rules that apply to everything else in the world... they are selling a product and can´t prove the claims made...  it at least deserves warning labels

[SiriusMined]

Well, I can explain the ignoring....they didn't want the mentally handicapped person to speak, and be revealed as the smarter person! ;-)

[mordesmortes]

@SiriusMined Well I think the type of simple questions that the mentally handi-capped tend to ask might be the issue to be honest. As simple questions seem to be the best questions to ask to get to the truth.

[mordesmortes]

@barbnoon1 I remember being a child in church and getting slapped for a question I asked, I'm presuming it was about what I was being taught but I suppose it could have been about if they were real or something like that. But that is besides the point... the simplest questions seem to be the ones that are the hardest for preachers to answer... like Why doesn't god just show itself? Why do bad things happen to good people... and the like.

[BobChaos23]

Perhaps they think it is an easy sell? O_o