Reply #16: You seem to be assuming that *all* religion is a form of social hypocrisy

[starroute]

And that, as a result, it amounts to blind platitudes that can be mouthed without doing moral harm to the person who engages in it on false pretenses.

But what if that's not true? Or, at the very least, what if you believe that's not true?

Pentecostalism is not like mainstream religion, where you can just go to church, sit in a pew, stand up or kneel on demand, and follow along in the hymn book. In many ways, it might best be described as a form of magic with a light wash of Christian trappings. And if you sincerely believe in either magic or a more authentic form of Christianity, going along with something like that has got to give you pause.

There's also the fact that what's being described here is a cult. So the prisoner is being asked to volunteer to let themselves be brainwashed for a year and hope their personality is still intact when they come out the other end. That's a lot to ask of anyone, especially someone who is probably in a psychologically vulnerable position to begin with.