[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Rob. You can't change peoples hearts by force of will, or the strength of your conviction, your the reality of what you are speaking. I agree with you completely, hypocrisy is horrifying. However, not ALL religious people or organizations or groups are as hypocritical an experience as your wife's recent experience.
Like I said, when people are sincerely praying for each other, they are directly thinking about each other, and thought is the first step to motivate people towards action. Only after they feel it, will they act on it. Prayer is a form of thinking, meditating, and reflecting about each other, and in that process, people are moved to action. Trust that. I've been witness to it for my entire life. Empty anger only creates those negative things you are against. Your attitude is not helpful, and did all that mean-spirited cursing honestly make you feel any better? Really?


Yes, again many religious people are indeed shamefully self-indulged hypocrites. I agree completely. However, I have also seen many sincere acts by these religious people as well. There are many ministries which are poor, hurting, or suffering peoples only life-line. The Orthodox Church is what helped close the Gulags, be they in Russia or Ethiopia. Te Catholic Church helped chase out those duppy genocidal military dictatorships in Central America. Priests, pastors, and genuinely religious people worked EVERY SINGLE DAY IN THE TRENCHES, IN THE COMMUNITY, JUST AS YOU ARE ASKING PEOPLE TO DO. You need to respect that. It is part of reality. Even if God is entirely a myth and organized religion a crafty ploy, many people on a daily basis do extreme good for each others having been moved by their faith. That is what you are not understanding. All those people may not have jumped off that bus and radically changed the situation. However, you can't know what that seed planted will produce inevitably in their hearts. In the future, those might be the strongest ally and actor towards solving those problems. However, your attitude is counter-productive. You need to focus on the hypocrisy itself, not focusing so much on those peoples faith or your own lack there-of. Accept that many people believe different things, and they shouldn't be a dick or hypocrite about it and neither should you. When you are telling people FUCK YOU and being all caustic, how is that constructive, how does that help any other person? You are free to vent. I vent here all the time. However, it is a common theme of yours across like the past ten years I've known your ass. Calm down. Hate God inside your heart all you'd like, curse religion every day, but try your best not to make it so personal against other people. You're not helping them, and you're not helping yourself.