Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Vatican Offers Heaven For Twitter Follows

I've seen some interesting ways people have attempted to get more Twitter followers[1].  And I've seen all kinds of bullshit by religion[2].  Now I've seen them together[3].
In its latest attempt to keep up with the times the Vatican has married one of its oldest traditions to the world of social media by offering "indulgences" to followers of Pope Francis' tweets.
The church's granted indulgences reduce the time Catholics believe they will have to spend in purgatory after they have confessed and been absolved of their sins.
The remissions got a bad name in the Middle Ages because unscrupulous churchmen sold them for large sums of money. But now indulgences are being applied to the 21st century.
It's immoral enough to tell people they'll be punished after they die.  It's even more immoral to tell them they'll still be so punished if they follow all the rules of the religion.  These so called "indulgences" aren't indulgences.  It's not like they're ways for people to indulge in things they wouldn't otherwise.  They're just bread crumbs to throw to your religion's followers to get them to do things you want them to.

And now the Vatican is using them for something as petty as getting followers for the Pope on Twitter[4].  What the fuck, Vatican?  You've stooped to using the power of your massive church to get a bigger Klout[5] score?

I'm on Twitter[6] too, but I promise nothing to people for following me.  Not even a follow back, even though it's likely to happen as long as you're a real person and not a douchebag.  As a side note, the article states he's got more than 7 million followers, but it's only 2.6 million.

But back to this bullshit about indulgences.  They offer these things for a variety of things[7].  As far as I can tell, turning in a priest for molesting a child isn't among them.  Apparently their god is more concerned about getting the Pope more followers than Bieber[8] & Gaga[9] than protecting children from being raped or punishing the sick fucks who raped children.

If evil exists, the Vatican is it.

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1.  http://gawker.com/5826960/update-only-92-of-newt-gingrichs-twitter-followers-are-fake
2.  Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless
3.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/16/vatican-indulgences-pope-francis-tweets
4.  https://twitter.com/Pontiffex
5.  http://klout.com/#/Pontifex
6.  https://twitter.com/aparticularA
7.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence#Actions_for_which_indulgences_are_granted
8.  https://twitter.com/justinbieber
9.  https://twitter.com/ladygaga

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