Tag: jesus

Marketing to Believers

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Do you believe in God and Jesus?

Why?

Likely because your mother taught you to — marketing to you throughout your formative years the benefits of belief:

  • Community
  • Solace
  • Salvation

Your beliefs were marketed to you through holiday celebrations, and maybe Sunday school and prayer. Even if mom, and/or your dad, didn’t directly push their beliefs onto you, they likely sold your religion to you via example: crossing themselves when hopeful; saying (and believing) “thank god,” instead of giving the credit to the person or people who brought about whatever they were thankful for.

Religion is a PRODUCT. Always has been — a way for the few in power to control the masses. Christians, Jews, Muslims, and all major religions have become successful, thriving businesses through MARKETING.

For most, your entire belief system is based on what has been advertised, marketed, and sold to you through your family first, then media, and likely your social circle — Christians hang out with other Christ believers, Jews with Jews, Muslims…etc., associate with their own “kind.”

Christianity is by far the largest held religious construct with 2.5 BILLION believers, almost a third of the global population.

By far, Christianity produces more marketing than any other religion. Like fake news, Christianity not only sells you on believing in the ethereal but also sells you on what to believe. They sell you on who and what to vote for, what you buy, and often who you shop from.

It is impossible to find real numbers on how much Christianity spends on advertising. Christian marketing pros make sure it’s a black box because they don’t want you to know they are spending trillions annually to sell you on believing, or concertizing your existing faith by selling you politicians, books, and businesses that megaphone Christianity. Christian books, too many to begin to count, Christian Superstores and Mega-Churches, TV and online evangelist, and movies like The Passion of the Christ, Noah, Heaven Is for Real, all are subtle (and not so subtle) marketing campaigns to convince you to become a Christian, or buy the products and services of Christian organizations if you are already a believer.

In fact, Christianity’s foundation is not God or morality. It is MARKETING. By Christian law, it is every Christian’s obligation to market — PROSELYTIZE Christianity to the world.

Most of you believe as you do because your belief system was manufactured and marketed to you continually throughout your life.

Faith-based marketing (FBM), generally Christian, is a strategy that recognizes the importance of religion to consumers. FBM attempts to tie an organization or specific product to a religion. Chick-fil-A, Hobby Lobby, Tyson Foods, Jet Blue, and the list goes on, associate themselves as Christian organizations to better market their products to the over $5.1 trillion a year spent by Christian buyers. Most of these companies use Christianity as a convenient cover story, but they do not practice Christian values. The struggling clothing retailer, and Christianity advocate, Forever 21, demoted most full-time workers to part-time status to avoid paying them medical benefits. This is typical for companies espousing Christianity. They market to your beliefs, quote the Bible to manipulate you into thinking they have any morality at all, to maximize your Christian dollars.

Passengers on Alaska Airlines received pocket-sized prayer cards along with their refreshments (until the backlash by customers threatened to hurt their income). Businesses that are not affiliated with any religion, like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Bank of America, Dairy Queen, McDonald’s, Clorox, Delta Airlines all sponsor MegaChurch events. 20th Century Fox has a division called FoxFaith that produces religious-oriented films, often sponsored by the companies vying for your Christian dollars, and the Republican Party (GOP Marketing).

Christianity has been marketing to Republicans since the mid-1950s. President Dwight D. Eisenhower spearheaded the phrase “under God,” be added to the Pledge of Allegiance, and the 1955 law requiring “In God We Trust” to be printed on all U.S. currency. Dwight was not religious, but saw the Republican base swung strongly Christian, so he converted to Presbyterian, was publicly baptized, and won reelection a year later by a landslide.

In the early 1980s, a coordinated effort by the executive director of the College Republicans for Ronald Reagan, Ralph Reed, Pat Roberson (700 club televangelist), and Jerry Falwell (Young Warriors for Christ) campaigned to Christians to turn them into “America’s most powerful Republican voting bloc.” He sent direct mail marketing to church mailing lists across the U.S. to convince them that ‘liberals,’ and non-believers were destroying America, and reminding the church members about their obligation to vote for candidates that espoused Christianity. And it’s worked!

Republicans are now THE party of Christians. During the Capital Riots, Christian signage was everywhere: “Jesus Saves!” and “God, guns & guts made America, let’s keep all three!” Most of the Capital Rioters were/are Christian ‘believers.’ Crowds chanted, “Shout if you love Jesus!” And the crowd cheered back, “Shout if you love Trump!”

Target-marketing to Christians, especially low — mid-income Christians, has exceptionally high conversion rates — gets these people to buy, try, and subscribe with each campaign.

Why?

Conservative Christians are way more likely to buy into marketing than any other target demographic.

But why?

It is pretty simple, really. People who choose to believe in fairy tales (like a virgin birth of a married woman, resurrection, and eternal afterlife with a judge at the gates), without THINKING— just believing, taking it on faith that their mother and society must be ‘right’ — are exponentially easier to convince to believe in anything, no matter how absurd. So, when Fox News and other conservative media flood the internet and TV with marketing claiming the ‘2020 Election is a fraud, and Trump won, not Biden,” Christians tend to believe it.

Looking for high engagement with your marketing? Target and SELL your products, services, and ideas (real or fake) to true Christian believers.

What Religion Are You?

by jcafesin, posted in Religion

When I say I’m an atheist, the very next question most people ask is: “Well, what were you raised? What were your parents?”

Human beings.

Somehow that answer isn’t good enough. They’re looking to place me in a spiritual box and lock me into a religion and all the stereotypes that go along with it.

All my life I’ve been told I’m a Jew — by my parents, by my relatives, by society at large, simply because my parents professed to be Jews. But if I don’t believe in god, or any supreme being, or even higher power; if entropy is what rules my universe, then am I still Jewish?

Jews believe in one god.

I believe in none.

Some would argue I am culturally Jewish, a product of my parentage. But it’s ludicrous I’m considered Jewish solely because my parents were (and technically just my mother need be, according to Jewish law). Let’s get one thing straight. Judaism is NOT a race. It is practiced globally, from members of our Supreme Court to jungle tribes in Africa that pray to one God with ancient Hebrew texts. The thread that holds them together is not racial, or even cultural, but spiritual — a belief system. There are no cultural similarities between the African tribes and our former or current Chief Justices. Take away the religious string and there’s really nothing left of their cultural Judaism.

I adhere to no religion, don’t celebrate any religious holidays, and believe passing down to our children fantastical mythologies that promote intellectual laziness is dangerous at best. Growing up, my family celebrated the major Jewish holidays, though I never cared for the antiquated rituals and sexist roles we all played. Jewish parables were too often warped tales filled with praising their solipsistic god instead of people for their hard-earned achievements. I don’t like brisket, noodle koogle, or most deli foods. And as holidays go, the New Year’s Eve and Thanksgiving always meant the most to me culturally, and the food is far better.

If I’m culturally anything, it’s white, middle-class, American. Like most of us, I grew up with people of my socioeconomic status. I was raised in a relatively safe, suburban neighborhood — religiously, even racially diverse, but everyone made around the same amount of money. More fine grain, I’m culturally a native Californian. We have a whole other way of thinking out here than the rest of the world. Level of intelligence would be my third greatest cultural influence. I find I gravitate to thinkers — those who explore and question.

So how does this make me a Jew?

Liking bagels, or preferring salmon to ham, doesn’t define one culturally. Nor does espousing the virtues of education, or denouncing violence, or promoting empathy. These ideologies are widely held by most of our modern age. I’m not a Taoist because I believe in living a balanced life. And I’m not a Christian because I think Christ, or likely his myth, had a lot of charitable ideas.

What does it mean to say you are Jewish, or Christian, or Mormon, if you don’t embrace their belief system? If you were raised Christian and you didn’t believe in God, or Christ, would you still be considered a Christian? Hell, if you believed in God, but NOT Christ, could you still be a Christian?

What religion are you?

Most would respond with whatever religion we were raised. We practice the rituals our parents bestowed upon us. But the more important question is: What do you believe?

Think about it.

Have you let your parents define your spirituality? Beyond what you’ve been raised, have you considered what religious ideologies you actually believe in, if any? ‘Be kind. Work hard. Love your family and neighbors.’ These cultural beliefs began 200,000 years ago when we were still living in caves and aren’t exclusive to any particular religion. They may have been adopted as Christian, or Jewish morality, but the truth is ‘Be Kind’ stemmed from our need to be social. Humans are social creatures, and greedy, ungrateful, thoughtless behavior does not win friends or attract lovers.

Omitting how you were raised, what do YOU actually believe in?

If you don’t believe the fantastical bible stories, Old or New Testament, are a recounting of historic events, then it’s likely you understand these books were written by literate MEN — the highest echelon of society at the time — to control the masses of illiterate layman with parables that instilled fear. You also likely know that these powerful men imposed rules and roles to maintain the social structure they created, and assigned the administration of this order to an almighty [jealous and vengeful (Nahum 1:2–8)] God whose authority could not (as an ethereal being), and must not be questioned. If you do not believe in this God, or that his adventures in these bibles are real, then you are likely an agnostic or an atheist.

ag·nos·tic (a la Google); noun

  1. a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

a·the·ist (a la Google); noun

  1. a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.

You don’t have to subscribe to a religion to be spiritual. You can feel connected to this earth and all that’s here without being a Buddhist. You can believe in charity without being a Christian. You can encourage education without being Jewish. You don’t have to pass on bizarre, horrific tales to frighten children into adhering to rules handed down from men on high thousands of years ago. You can practice and teach values — choose to live a moral life: be kind, generous, honest, empathetic, loving, compassionate, without religion.

Why would you choose to be kind without a vengeful God threatening Hell if you aren’t? You’ve advanced enough in human development to understand each of us must continually contribute to humanity, and this planet we inhabit, for our race to survive, and thrive.