Anyone want to edit Wikipedia? I'm thinking religion should be mentioned.
A pyramid scheme is a business model that recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products. As recruiting multiplies, recruiting becomes quickly impossible, and most members are unable to profit; as such, pyramid schemes are unsustainable and often illegal. Pyramid schemes have existed for at least a century in different guises. Some multi-level marketing plans have been classified as pyramid schemes.
The religious service for sale is the cleansing and preparation of the soul and the religious product they sell is eternal life after death in paradise. The fact that none of it is real makes no difference to the gullible schmucks who buy what they're selling. I don't see it as a pyriamid scheme but it's clearly a scam. After all, people pay real money to purchase products and services that exist only in their imaginations.
And that reward is eternal awareness with none of the things that made human life joyful. Just praising and exalting the ultimate narcissist who did this to you. Forever. And ever. And ever.
I don't think most religios have really thought this through.
Nice comparison, except that in religion the hoped-for payback is not monetary, but spiritual (psychological). It's an important difference. Otherwise they're very similar. Better leave the Wiki page alone.
@FvckY0u If you make the change, I predict it will not stand for long.
@FvckY0u Oh yeah, organized religion is definitely a scam, bigger and older than Ponzi by far!
@Flyingsaucesir Yes. There are legions who edit Wiki not on a lark, but as an obsession.
@BufftonBeotch I wonder, what do they think they are doing?
@Flyingsaucesir Circle Jerk?
@BufftonBeotch There was an 80s band by that name
@BufftonBeotch There must also be legions continuously rectifying errors.
@Flyingsaucesir I even double check something so simple as In and Out dates for the famous or historical figures.
DOB - Death dates.
Let alone anything else.
@BufftonBeotch Speaking of historical figures...
@Flyingsaucesir They are adequately heathen and irreverent.
@Flyingsaucesir Punk greats!!
I haven't edited Wiki for ages. Definitely a source to be fact checked.
Amway is both a pyramid scheme with a mostly useless product and an organization rife with fundamentalist fanaticism.
M parents got into Amway mostly so they could get good deals on the products. They even had an Amway vacuum cleaner. Bob Hope was once into Amway. Now they are all dead and I have the vacuum cleaner.
@DenoPenno I only became acquainted with the worthless soaps and knowing people entwined with Amway having boxes of them stacked in their garage because a certain amount had to be purchased each week for the agent not to lose their place in the organization.
One thing I did learn from Amway is what I can write off on taxes. My brother in law and wife, invited me over because I thought, they really liked me. Meanwhile all I was is another customer for a pyramid scheme.
Yeah but "supplying investments or sale of products" is done by religions as well. They are something else.
Religions are the undisputed master indoctrinators of youth and sellers of false hope to the masses.
A reel popped up in my feed of children clearly under ten in one of the worst types of psycho churches being forced to stand with their hands raised and pray until a little girl, who was sobbing her eyes out, started doing that s̶p̶e̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶n̶g̶u̶e̶s̶ babbling and stomping around. And the ones brainwashing her started clapping and saying things like "Love Jesus!" "Dance like, David!"
And the comments were all praising it.
I felt sick and terrified that those children have almost zero chance for a life other than that. Probably home-schooled, they will never know the joy of the world.
@BufftonBeotch for the one year that I had exposure, like a virus, to religion when I was 7, we were living close to my aunt's family - they had become Pentecostal. My dad was in the army and stationed in Korea for a year. My mom wasn't having much success as a single parent and when her sister offered to take me to their temple on Sundays, she jumped at the chance to get at least one of us out of her hair for a couple hours. My sister was only 3 and was to young apparently.
I was not too popular in the Sunday school because I asked questions instead of just drinking the koolaid and I was smarter then the average bear cub.
One Sunday after the brainwashing attempt, I'm sitting next to my Aunt while "Brother" Cope delivers his usual hellfire sermon and my Aunt starts babbling. I had no idea what was happening. Then she started jerking around and really acting crazy. Just all sorts of nonsense coming out of her mouth. Everyone around us is doing the praise Jesus bit. I suddenly found myself in the aisle running up towards the doors (it used to be a movie theater). I got out to the front lobby and sat on one of the couches and cried. Eventually my uncle found ne and used a pay phone to call my Mom to come downtown to get me.
I told her what happened and that I was never going back there again. I did not like being around my Aunt for a long time after that either. She told me it was called speaking in tongues and was sorry it scared me, but it was the holy spirit speaking through her. I just thought she was crazy. My uncle tried to bribe me with ice cream and stuff like that to come back (we were poor and didn't get that sort stuff very often) but I said no. I am so glad I was smarter then the average bear cub at 7 and escaped that lunacy.
@Wander2023 I learned that many adults were not to be trusted because of this sort of thing.
And since I was forced by my mother to go to this fundy church I went into "deep fake."
I won a number of their stupid bible bees and whatever other shit they wanted from a good little christian girl.
Sounds about right. The scheme only works if there are moore and more people recruited. Therefore, have lots and lots of babies to ensure the perpetuation of the scheme.
Well, ever since they ran out of new countries to invade and do there convert or die brand of genocide a couple centuries ago.
@BufftonBeotch There's always a new country to invade. Next one might exist on The Moon.