NationStates

Please consider this on-its-surface-very-simple (but really, quite complicated) hypothetical:

You will be paid 5 million dollars if you change your religion (or adopt a new religion if you're currently non-religious). You can only choose between Christianity and Islam and very specifically, only the three largest denominations of either (so 6 options in total).

If you're already a Christian though, you have to choose one of the 3 Islamic choices. If you're already Islamic, you have to choose one of the 3 Christian choices.

If you "take the deal" you have to do the following:

1. Actively choose to believe in the new religion for at least a nearly continuous period of 10 years
2. For those 10 years, actively practice the new religion
3. Fo those 10 years, actively proselytise the new religion to all friends and family, old and new
4. Fo those 10 years, actively present yourself as a practitioner of the new religion to all friends and family, old and new

If you "take the deal" but fail to do 1-4 fo an accumulated period, then the deal may be revoked. When it does get revoked, the penalty is that you not only instantly lose the 5 million but also all of you money and all of your family's money... EVERYTHING. ALL GONE.

So think wisely.

Would you take the deal? Yes or no?

Now having said that, I believe the options come down to this:

1. No, my religious status is not for sale
2. No, it's unethical to gamble with my family's entire fortune
3. I would like to do it but I say No because I don't think it's possible to do one or more of terms 1-5 (ex Belief is not choice)
4. Yes, and it sounds easy
5. Yes, even though 1-5 is going to take some serious work

For the purposes of the hypothetical, assume the 5 million dollars is exempt from the laws of taxation and 100% legal (you can keep all of it).

Please choose an option and then discuss why it is the most reasonable, morally correct, and/or economically viable option. Feel free to debate with others.

Make that 100 Million, and I'll convert to atheism- the religion of "we believe God doesn't exist."

Praise be to my own brand of free-thought, totally not an amalgamation of Hitchens and Schopenhauer memes.

My option will be between option 1 and 2. For me, religion is a part of my identity and I don't think it's wise to gamble on something like that.

So the Christian options are Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and either Anglicanism or Oriental Orthodoxy, depending on the estimate. The Islamic options are Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, and Kharijite Islam.
My religious preferences are not for sale. I value my eternal soul more than any amount of money.

Diopolis wrote:So the Christian options are Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and either Anglicanism or Oriental Orthodoxy, depending on the estimate. The Islamic options are Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, and Kharijite Islam.
My religious preferences are not for sale. I value my eternal soul more than any amount of money.

you can reconvert to your original religion after 10 years without penalty though

Infected Mushroom wrote:

Diopolis wrote:So the Christian options are Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and either Anglicanism or Oriental Orthodoxy, depending on the estimate. The Islamic options are Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, and Kharijite Islam.
My religious preferences are not for sale. I value my eternal soul more than any amount of money.

you can reconvert to your original religion after 10 years without penalty though

Ten years of horrible sin, which leads to many times that in purgatory.

I can't say I would.

If I converted from my own religion, I doubt I'd be able to truly believe the one that I'd be converting to and that'd definitely feel wrong to me and my faith shouldn't really be something up for sale.

As a lapsed Anglican I could go back to it for the money if the amount was increased and I could use it for alms.

I take the deal, and then I disappear. Nobody knows where I went. Assuming I didn't hold up my end of the deal. My family has their wealth righteously seized, now on their own hunt for my blood too after royally f*cking them over. Nobody can find me. After years of searching, they find a cabin in the woods miles from where I had started. It's mine. I lived there for 68 years. After reading a journal, they find that I've not held up my end of the deal. I worship the sun. From the journal entries, it would seem that I fell in love with a forest dryad and we left for the Utah mesa. It's their only lead, so they go-but once they get to Utah, a strange woman in black robes approaches them and tells them they'll never find me and I'm far away from here. They try to apprehend her for questioning but she vanishes into thin air. Really, I was in disguise as the driver for the strange abrahamic debt collectors the entire time. I drive the car off the side of a cliff into a ravine. My forest dryad boyfriend who was hiding out in the woods and watching the whole ordeal unfold brings me back from the dead with his dryad magic and we disappear again, without a trace. I still have the five million dollars.

Hell to the fucking no. I’m jewish and I’m not going to change for anything

Not changing.

i'll sacrifice a goat for 5 dolllars these days ngl

Infected Mushroom wrote:If you "take the deal" but fail to do 1-4 fo an accumulated period, then the deal may be revoked. When it does get revoked, the penalty is that you not only instantly lose the 5 million but also all of you money and all of your family's money... EVERYTHING. ALL GONE.

Tbh there is nothing to stop me from taking the deal and then moving the money offshore and getting a new identity for myself, meaning I don't have to do anything that the deal entails.

No, because a) I don't want to fuck over my friends and family by being that arsehole or else fucking over my family if I can't follow the terms of the deal, b) because I don't feel like faith should be decided just on how much cash you're getting, and c) knowing the trickster God who made that deal, I'm probably ending up with five million Zimbabwean dollars, which I just don't see much demand for those in the collector's market: they prefer a hundred trillion.

The New California Republic wrote:

Infected Mushroom wrote:If you "take the deal" but fail to do 1-4 fo an accumulated period, then the deal may be revoked. When it does get revoked, the penalty is that you not only instantly lose the 5 million but also all of you money and all of your family's money... EVERYTHING. ALL GONE.

Tbh there is nothing to stop me from taking the deal and then moving the money offshore and getting a new identity for myself, meaning I don't have to do anything that the deal entails.

The money might be tracked, though.

Ayytaly wrote:

The New California Republic wrote:Tbh there is nothing to stop me from taking the deal and then moving the money offshore and getting a new identity for myself, meaning I don't have to do anything that the deal entails.

The money might be tracked, though.

Laundered correctly? Doubt it.

Nah, I'm a happy Presbyterian.

You act like 5 million is a lot of money in the modern day and age IM. For many people it is a hefty chunk of change but if you finance it out, in the grand scheme of things, it's hardly worth 10 years of following a religion you don't agree with.

No. The proselytizing part is what does it for me - although I could do a great deal of good with that money, it is not worth the negative impact on both me and others that the process would have.

The Chuck wrote:You act like 5 million is a lot of money in the modern day and age IM. For many people it is a hefty chunk of change but if you finance it out, in the grand scheme of things, it's hardly worth 10 years of following a religion you don't agree with.

Hence why I asked for more. Haven't decided on a figure yet, but it'd need to be a lot more.

I've been meaning to exercise more. Maybe I'll become one of those spinning sufis.

$5 million to go to mass every week? Cool.

The Chuck wrote:You act like 5 million is a lot of money in the modern day and age IM. For many people it is a hefty chunk of change but if you finance it out, in the grand scheme of things, it's hardly worth 10 years of following a religion you don't agree with.

how come?

Ifreann wrote:$5 million to go to mass every week? Cool.

Give me $5 million weekly rather than once over the ten year span and we might have a deal.

Kannap wrote:

Ifreann wrote:$5 million to go to mass every week? Cool.

Give me $5 million weekly rather than once over the ten year span and we might have a deal.

Man, I wish, I wsh. I mean, I'd physically practice the religion(not spiritually), and read the words of God secretly at nighttime.