Atheists: How many years were you being bamboozled and swindled out of your money before you realized it?

Question

....before you realized what the scheme was all about....

Answer 1

Didn't take that long for me to realize that if a god is all-powerful, he doesn't need money.

Answer 2

People are bamboozled and swindled by all around him . Only the methods and volume differs. So there is no difference between an atheist and a spirtualist in this aspect.

Answer 3

I went to church for 15 years...I had some good pastors and some bad. I'd say of those 15 years, six of them were with good pastors who truly tried to use the money to do good in this world and not line their pockets. So I guess I was bamboozled for 9 years.

Answer 4

You are assuming that religious institutions are swindling people based on false gods. That's not necessarily the case.

The work that good churches do is still important. The social aspects of a good church are important. The moral lessons are important. The support network is important.

So whether you have faith in the religious views or not doesn't matter. It's not necessarily a swindle.

Answer 5

Everybody is still being bamboozled and swindled out of their money. They just do not realize it. The scheme to today is called taxes.

Examples: Food tax, gasoline tax, road tax, CDL tax, tag tax, car tax, sales tax, income tax, state tax, federal tax, county tax, pollution tax, cell phone tax, 911 emergency tax, liquor tax, clothe tax, shoes tax, maintenance tax, cigarette tax, furniture tax, appliances tax, electronics tax, insurance tax, loan tax, water tax, sewer tax, electricity tax, land tax, building tax, residential tax, commercial tax, if you can name it it probably has a tax on it. There is only one exception to this taxation - AIR!

Umm ... did not this country break away from England because of taxes? And just exactly where is all these taxes being applied today? Salaries for Politicians who do what ... to sit around and be paid to think how to induce more taxes.

How many years were you being bamboozled and swindled out of your money before you realized it?
....before you realized what the scheme was all about....

Answer 6

About 40 years.
.

Answer 7

Yup we just want your money. Especially that dastardly Mother Theresa, she was always scamming for a way into people's pocket books. Stop seeing only the version of Christianity that you want to see. Do people use religion to scam the stupid, the unwitting, and the desperate? The answer is an unequivocal yes, but the scriptures condemn those types of "preachers" and warn us to avoid them.

Answer 8

I realized very young I was still in Sunday school. They sat us down and told us that 20% of our income was a good amount to "Donate" to the church. They put it to us like this.
If you get one dollar for an allowance and took twenty cents and put that aside for your church you would still have eighty cents to spend on the things you like. Then when you get older and have a job and you make one hundred dollars you would set aside twenty dollars for the church and you would still have eighty whole dollars to buy the things you like.
I smiled and nodded but inside I said "F&ck you lady.

Answer 9

I started as an atheist, so 0 years, but even when I was an atheist it struck me that there were atheists, and then there were exchristians.

Not the same thing, really.

Answer 10

I got out of it about the time I turned 18. I really didn't have much opportunity before then, so I don't feel too badly about having fallen for it up until then.