As many who know me are aware, my opinion of human beings in general is not very high. Like many open-minded people, however, there is a scale upon which I place people, according to the depths of their depravity and not just a high and a low. A spectrum of moral highs and lows, if you will.
Among those at the bottom, along with the murderers, the manipulators, the thieves, I also place the evangelicals, the fundamentalists, the mega church pastors, preachers, priests. These low-lifers that feed upon the miseries, the illnesses, those wretched poor, the most vulnerable and gullible. Bottom feeders like the Reverend Peter Popoff, Mark Driscoll, and others. There have been numerous con-men and women over the millennia that, having little other talent, used subterfuge, lies, deceit, to control others and extract great amounts of money. The people attending and contributing to these large churches have allowed themselves to be used to enrich a pastor, preacher, or reverend while the original message of the church is lost, unless that message was always a lie. There are some, myself included, that believe the sole reason for the existence of religion, if not from the beginning, soon after its incarnation, is for the control and manipulation of people.
The people being fed upon are desperate, usually sick, many terminal and grasping at any straw to extend their lives. These rotten pseudo-religious swindlers tell these desperate people whatever lies necessary in order to separate them from their money. This is not something that just emerged. This greed and theft and deceit has been part of religion since near the beginning. By using the words of religion, including Biblical passages, or from whatever tome, snake oil salesmen have been able to live lavishly upon the misery and suffering of society for nearly two millennia. Such a horrible lot even make murderers and thieves look tame.