PayPal Pulls Out of Pornhub, Hurting 'Hundreds of Thousands' of Performers (vice.com) 235
Pornhub announced late Wednesday that PayPal is no longer supporting payments for Pornhub -- a decision that will impact thousands of performers using the site as a source of income. From a report: Most visitors to Pornhub likely think of it as a website that simply provides access to an endless supply of free porn, but Pornhub also allows performers to upload, sell, and otherwise monetize videos they make themselves. Performers who used PayPal to get paid for this work now have to switch to a different payment method. "We are all devastated by PayPal's decision to stop payouts to over a hundred thousand performers who rely on them for their livelihoods," the company said on its blog. It then directed models to set up a new payment method, with instructions on how PayPal users can transfer pending payments. "We sincerely apologize if this causes any delays and we will have staff working around the clock to make sure all payouts are processed as fast as possible on the new payment methods," the statement said.
What's the plan here? (Score:5, Interesting)
Did anyone ever stop using Paypal because they allowed hookers to use the service too? What dumb fuck business person thought "Hey lets fire our customers! That will really rake in the dough for sure!"
Every other week I see some article about Paypal canceling someone. How the hell are they still in business?
Re:What's the plan here? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's probably due to chargebacks and disputes.
Can you imagine the disputes that get raised on PayPal for PornHub? "I asked her to shove a pineapple up her arse and she refused, I want my money back!" What is the performer going to so, send screencaps of the stream with a pineapple up her arse?
PayPal HR are probably worried about the effect dealing with that must have on staff too.
Re:What's the plan here? (Score:5, Funny)
send screencaps of the stream with a pineapple up her arse?
I mean...yeah. If you shoved a pineapple up your ass, you damn well deserve to get paid for it.
Re:What's the plan here? (Score:5, Funny)
Have pineapple in ass, wheres my check?
Re:What's the plan here? (Score:4, Funny)
Have pineapple in ear, instructions unclear.
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For me it's not about the money.
Re:What's the plan here? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:What's the plan here? (Score:4, Funny)
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Nope another internet social media service ran into the same problem, though it was kept hidden. When you separate the performance platform from the payment platform, how do you control the age of the performer, the answer is, you cannot and hence under age performers who shifted from one platform to this platform were discovered (likely once again by the IRS) and so that payment method had to be shut down.
Always keep in mind at what age young people start desiring the things that money can buy and start l
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PayPal HR are probably worried about the effect dealing with that must have on staff too.
HR probably would prefer staff not running around with raging boners all the time. \_()_/
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It was an example. In the example the performer clearly identifies as a she.
You can use pronouns for specifics, as long as it' the correct one.
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No one hired you to be the PC police so kindly STFU.
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You people need to stop automatically assigning female genders to your fantasy stories.
Why? I fantasize about women, so why wouldn't I cast them in my fantasies?
Re:What's the plan here? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hahaha! SJW getting bogged down in stupid accusations!? WT actual F? Do you even hear yourself?
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Re:What's the plan here? (Score:5, Funny)
What makes you assume that it is a "he" doing the dreaming? Very telling. Next time just keep it gender neutral.
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Nice assumption of gender there. You should use the pronoun "they", not "she".
No. I'll use whatever pronouns I feel like using.
Are you one of those types who think that women only exist for performing for men?
Are you one of those types who thinks that if he virtue signals enough he'll get laid?
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"Did anyone ever stop using Paypal because they allowed hookers to use the service too?"
If any business needed a payment method where the receipient didn't get to know your credit card number, this is the one.
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"If any business needed a payment method where the recipient didn't get to know your credit card number, this is the one."
(Hit send too fast.)
Imagine millions of married men relying on the fact that *paypal on the credit card statement is interpreted as shit bought at Aliexpress instead of private porn payments.
This will ruin the lives of a lot of divorce judges.
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Imagine millions of married men relying on the fact that *paypal on the credit card statement is interpreted as shit bought at Aliexpress instead of private porn payments.
The credit card statements I've gotten that have Paypal charges have both Paypal and the merchant name in the charge line.
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Plan? They are hardcore virtue signalling! This is not a rational act in any way. I hope these cretins die soon.
That's what they said when they cut off porn befor (Score:5, Insightful)
Many years ago, before there were as many payment options as there are today, PayPal cut off not only porn, but anyone suspected of doing business with porn sites. They wanted to have a more respectable brand.
It caused quite a bit of upheaval back in the day because suddenly the porn sites couldn't pay their web hosting companies, site designers, software programmers, etc. Since the site designers weren't getting paid by the porn sites, they in turn couldn't pay their hosting bill, or pay the programmer managing their CMS. Money had been flowing around through the industry and suddenly nobody could pay anyone because the original source of funding, the users, could no longer pay. At the same time, PayPal froze everyone's accounts for several months. So not only did the industry not have money coming in, money they had already earned got locked up.
I ended up putting together a couple of deals where Mark owed Jason, Jason owed Travis, and Travis owed Mark. So with a few phone calls the bills got zeroed out, marked "paid" just by passing an IOU around until it got back to the person who wrote it.
It's unfortunate that Pornhub didn't learn from history - PayPal already completely screwed over the industry before. They could have graciously exited by announcing no more porn payments would be processed after February thereby giving people a couple of months to make other arrangements. They didn't do even that much last time, so Pornhub should have known better than to rely on them.
Please learn from history, people. What has happened before will probably happen again. A person or company who screwed people over before is a person or company who will screw you over soon enough.
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> Nothing stopped them form using a CC, or writing a check.
At the time, it cost thousands of dollars and took several months to get a credit card merchant account - if you ended up getting approved.
> That performer can't stop looking off screen? probably a guy with a gun standing there.
Lol, no. Well I shouldn't LOL because sex trafficking *is* a thing in prostitution; Asian and Mexican "massage parlors" primarily. In porn, not really. I know the people, I've hung out with the performers.
Re:That's what they said when they cut off porn be (Score:4, Insightful)
They couldn't pay them off books. That was the problem. Nothing stopped them form using a CC, or writing a check.
Porn has a nasty, fraudulent abusive 'back end'. Something people never talk about because they like to assume it's all free will while the slap their willy.
That performer can't stop looking off screen? probably a guy with a gun standing there.
Oh, and you know this how? Or are you just regurgitating propaganda?
Because if any of that were true, we would be seeing cases in court and a lot of them. We do not.
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https://www.engadget.com/2015/... [engadget.com]
To the GP though. Paypal has restricted porn sites since they started, it was in their TOS until 2015. So any porn sites you were working with were violating Paypal's rules, that is the reason they kept getting shutdown.
2003-2015 after eBay purchase in 2002 (Score:3)
> Paypal has restricted porn sites since they started, it was in their TOS until 2015
It was in their TOS from 2003-2015.
eBay bought it in 2002 and in 2003 shut down all of the accounts that they suspected were doing business with adult sites. For several years prior to that, it used used extensively by adult sites. It caused quite a problem in the adult industry and beyond because it hit web hosting companies, SEO experts, people doing CMS and other programming, etc.
When a web host has 50% of their in
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Your morals have no place in my transaction. the only morals that need to be worried about are mine, the purchaser. Or are we going to start allowing credit card companies to decide what we can and cannot purchase?
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Pulls Out... (Score:5, Funny)
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It's a pretty cliche plot line. The rich guy pulls out and leaves a mess everywhere, while the girls he screwed are left begging for more.
New Headline... (Score:5, Funny)
"Paypal pulls out of Pornhub, leaves massive cream pie."
Re:New Headline... (Score:4, Funny)
"Paypal pulls out of Pornhub, leaves massive cream pie."
This will all come to a climax. Let's hope for a happy ending.
A likely story (Score:2)
Best Title ever! (Score:2)
It wasn't a moral decision... (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't a moral decision on paypals part. The fraud levels are very very high in this vertical and paypal is done taking the risk. I only know this because, I work in the same industry at a competitor.
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Re:It wasn't a moral decision... (Score:5, Funny)
I only know this because, I work in the same industry at a competitor.
A competitor to Paypal or to Pornhub?
To be honest, with your user name, it could kinda go either way....
Re:It wasn't a moral decision... (Score:5, Interesting)
Competitor to paypal (fintech).
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I believe their increased risk will come from higher insurance rates and may show up on financial audits (fraud / charge back rate per transaction) which could hamper their future business opportunities. Paypal doesn't face increased fees or charge backs since they are both the gateway and payment processor in this scenario. Those chargeback fees would go direct to the merchant.
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Paypal LOVES to flip-flop on this topic; they go through their cycles where they ban any payments for porn, then they say they're ok with it, then they ban-hammer again. Over and over. This allows Paypal's promoters to stave off competition by saying "no, no, Paypal is totally usable for this, honest."
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Coming soon, a new service from PornHub - PornPay!
Well (Score:3)
I for one applaud this move. The Porn side of the internet has always driven innovation. The quicker they are yanked off the teat of organizations like Paypal, the faster they will come up with a solution that doesn't involve Paypal at all. I'm pretty sure credit card companies are not going to stop dealing in porn and erotica unless a spotlight is shined directly on them - imagine the billion dollar losses. Oh, we see on your statement you bought a dildo on MasterCard? Sorry, your bank is going to drop you. Yeah right. Not going to happen.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
We've seen other payment processors, including card companies, recently refuse to deal with other lines of business they don't see as morally acceptable. Given that the economy doesn't and hasn't run on physical money in a long time I think its high time we limit payment processors' ability to judge who they can and can't do business with. Being able to use a VISA or whatever to pay for legal goods and services is close to a necessity in many cases.
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I don't disagree but I suspect that there will always be ways of influencing this. I mean just whisper "terrorism" and you can kill an entire legitimate business sector by crippling their ability to do business.
It's kind of funny how they target only certain kinds of "immoral' businesses though. If you are running some kind of scam in a legitimate business type, they don't seem to go after them.
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That is one of the best ways but they have monopoly control that allows them to keep out competitors as well. So you'll need regulation to at least block enforcement of exclusivity agreements while those competitors get started.
Of course cryptocurrency payment options represent a viable alternative as well.
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The monopoly control is created by the laws. Repeal those laws and PayPal will shrink to nothing or stop closing legitimate accounts. Exclusivity agreements exist in many industries and do little to maintain any monopoly positions. A local motorcycle shop only works on Ohlins brand suspension. I have suspension not Ohlins brand, so I go to a different shop. The exclusivity does not earn my business and another business grows.
The problem with cryptocurrency is I somehow have to get their value in dollars, so
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"The monopoly control is created by the laws."
In this case basic contract law. And the issue being discussed is the card vendors.
"Exclusivity agreements exist in many industries and do little to maintain any monopoly positions."
"A local motorcycle shop only works on Ohlins brand suspension."
A local motorcycle shop doesn't have a monopoly nor does the Ohlins brand so your example doesn't support your claim that exclusivity agreements do little to maintain monopoly positions. Actually, Ohlins does have a mono
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In fact, it does support the claim perfectly. If the shop or Ohlins were to gain crony government laws to grant them monopoly power, I would have to run Ohlins and go to that shop and we would all be whining about the motorcycle suspension monopoly.
The shop's choice to voluntarily enter an exclusive contract does not create a monopoly as monopoly would have to exist prior to the exclusive agreement for it to be a monopoly, by definition.
The banking industry is one of, if not the most, heavily regulated indu
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And I will certainly do so even if I am a little worried they are only looking at one side of the coin.
It's hard to find people who understand the difference between corporate tax cuts and trickle down economics because they aren't the same. That understand the risk/reward system of capitalism and nurture and support while also wanting to actually fix the bugs in monopoly treatment and punishments so that companies fail. Finding someone who understands we need to work to encourage our citizens out of the wo
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As others have pointed out (Score:2)
Even if a small profit can be made it might not be worth it. If I add 1% to my bottom line with adult entertainment but I could have spent that time and energy adding 2 or 3% by going after other, more profitable market spaces then I've lost out. Companies don't have unlimited energy to go after busi
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I for one applaud this move
My kneejerk reaction was what movie?
Then I read your post again, with my glasses on. D'oh! (homer facepalm)
PayPal does harm regularly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PayPal does harm regularly (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see how Paypal has gotten away with not being regulated like a bank. I still have my paypal account simply because its easier for people to send me money than it is to figure out how to pay from their bank to my bank. Paypal just made it simple enough for anyone to figure out. I even have a Paypal debit card.
There is very little that my bank does that paypal doesn't do. Time for paypal to be called a bank, and required to follow banking laws.
Which banking laws? (Score:2)
Which banking laws would those be? PayPal operates internationally and facilitates transfers between people/companies in different countries. If it was regulated as a bank in, lets say, the United States, then only US citizens/residents would be allowed to have accounts. To operate as it does now it would have to register in someplace with extremely lax banking laws which would kind of defeat the purpose.
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Why do you imagine that US banks can only have US customers?
Re:Which banking laws? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which banking laws would those be? PayPal operates internationally and facilitates transfers between people/companies in different countries. If it was regulated as a bank in, lets say, the United States, then only US citizens/residents would be allowed to have accounts. To operate as it does now it would have to register in someplace with extremely lax banking laws which would kind of defeat the purpose.
So you have PayPal US that conforms to US banking laws, PayPal EU that conforms to EU laws, etc. Problem solved.
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This exactly. We already have international banks that live by these rules. Calling Paypal a bank and requiring it conform to the laws of that country isn't that much of a step up. As pointed out below, in many countries it is already called a bank.
You know, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.
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In most countries it is a bank, e.g. Germany.
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PayPal have a banking license from the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier in Luxembourg. This allows them to provide banking services throughout the EU.
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PayPal had a banking licence for over a decade - in the EU.
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Decades long push for deregulation (Score:2)
Companies don't hire because regulations go away or because they have cash, they hire to meet demand. But it's hard to get folks to internalize that fact.
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I'm also at a loss as to why anyone keeps a balance in their PayPal. I still read reports of people who had their PayPal accounts frozen with an amount of money that was certainly more than even 6 months of revenue.
It's not a bank account!
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I stopped using PayPal. When I buy stuff on eBay they do the credit card payment (I'm not logged in, it's done as a guest) but if there is an issue I just complain to the card company rather than using their dispute system. The card company charges it back immediately and then PayPal can come to me for help.
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You do know that CC companies only give a limited number of trips to the chargeback pig trough before they cut off your protection. Right?
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I don't know if the UK ones do but so far I've not had any issues. It happens quite infrequently, fortunately.
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Well, just be ready for it somehow when or if it does happen.
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"now arbitrarily deciding porn is bad"
Are you sure about that? Because the TOS has banned certain activities and services for a decade, not "now". And the likely reason is more along resolving payment disputes in transactions of questionable legality. As a business model I would not put my money at risk like that.
They have always been bad, and it's likely unrelated to any moral argument. Stick to the facts.
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This is the future (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, some of you wanted the cyberpunk future. Now it's here. Megacorps are going to impose their morals on us and if you don't back down, they'll cut us off. This isn't a government thing. We've moved past that. Nobody's putting us in jail (yet). What's going to happen is a two-tier world.
When you're a good little toady and go along with the ruling class, they will allow us to live in the margins of their world. We can take payments on Paypal, post videos to Youtube, even make Reddit postings as long as they stay on the correct side of controversial. If not? They deplatform us and cast us out into the darkness. You haven't been physically been harmed, but you certainly have been cut off from elite-controlled society. Instead of the easy street of putting a Patreon link on your page and watching the money roll in, you're going to have to fight for every penny. This is no joke, Mastercard and Visa have been caught disconnecting payment systems from wrongthinkers. Look at how they removed Iran and Venezuela from the financial system. This is coming to our door.
And again, this doesn't involve government. It is just the ruling class showing class solidarity. We have overstayed their welcome. They use their platforms to divide us and make us fight with one another with identity politics, when we should all be united against them.
Re:This is the future (Score:5, Interesting)
Megacorps are going to impose their morals on us and if you don't back down, they'll cut us off. This isn't a government thing.
Of course it is. Corporations are a "government thing", a legal fiction, a government protection from liability in the event of wrongdoing.
This is why investment banks all stopped being Partnerships and started being Corporations just as soon as the law allowed them. They immediately started abusing Black-Shoals, treated credit default swaps as money, and crashed the economy with nobody personally liable for their actions.
There is a very good reason permanent corporations were forbidden in the US for the first ninety years of its existence. JP Morgan perfected the art of buying politicians and the rest, as they say, is a very ugly history.
"Corporations are not a government thing". My goodness, what schools get away with these days.
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1984? (Score:3)
Where Corporations ruled the world and the competing governments were extensions of competing Corporations?
The Googles, Amazons, Facebooks, Apples, and now PayPal are maneuvering to gain their positions for corporate conflicts and World Dominance.
Isn't the reason that the USA has all their "anti-trust" laws and regulations?
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1984 wasn't supposed to be a how-to novel.
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It's more like Jennifer Government.
Re:1984? (Score:4, Informative)
I think you are talking about Brave New World, and other similar novels. 1984 had nothing to do with corporations running the world, and had everything to do with the entire world being a Marxist hellhole with never ending war.
Wrong book. It's NOT 1984. (Score:2)
The book wasn't about communism or fascism.
1984 was all about AUTHORITARIANISM by terror and language; based upon his 1st hand observations. The birth of modern propaganda was during his life. 1984 was set in a near future to make a point but it was random; he simply took that year and flipped the 48. The MAIN point was so important he created a whole chapter on newspeak which is outside of the story, cliff notes, movies, or even school readings. When an author feels the need for an addendum covering an
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Indeed. We do not even get to know who really holds the power in 1984, we just see how any kind of dissent or independent thought is crushed.
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Paypal fucked over WaterMelon (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't buy Paprium [paprium.com] because PayPal doesn't want to work with WM's Magical Game Factory, who put out other indie games suck as Pier Solar (I have my copy I purchased from them last time). They locked up funds and won't give them to WMMGF.
I don't want PayPal to decide who I get to do business with and screw over business I want to support.
It's as if (Score:5, Funny)
So many reasons (Score:2)
I don't think this has anything to do with morality. It's much more a risk vs reward sort of scenario. Here's some things to think about.
1. I worked with PayPal years ago when my company was issuing payments via the service. We moved enough money that PayPal took notice and contacted us to see just what we were doing. I worked for a very large company that almost everyone knows and the payments were completely legitimate. PayPal, however, was very concerned and went through many checks to ensure we had
Re:So many reasons (Score:4, Informative)
3. Trafficking is a thing. How do they know these models are all legitimate and providing these services of their own volition? They don't. Think of the wars against Backpage. PayPal doesn't want to be a part of that. If someone catches wind of a trafficking situation with some of these models and PayPal is involved as the primary mode of financial transfer you can only imagine the scale of the investigation that will spring up.
Bullshit. You have eaten up the propaganda without any fact-checking. There is "trafficking", but there is basically no sex trafficking. The whole thing is a "Big Lie". Cases where that really happens are so rare they make the international news. Hell, they charge sex-workers with trafficking themselves to get any numbers on that crime! This is an insane and deeply evil "War on Sex" (outside of marriage) perpetrated by fuckups that deeply desire to be able to force everybody to live how they want them to. And yes, basically everybody that does sex work chooses to do so with the only thing "forcing" them the constant need to get money that capitalism provides.
That's why there's a need for Libra (Score:2)
It's a shame Trump election revenge seeking poisoned anything connected to Facebook, there's a need for something like Libra and I don't see anyone standing up to put it together.
PornCoin (Score:2)
Do you want a competitor overnight? (Score:2)
Not chargebacks (Score:2)
For this to have happened the FDIC must have changed it's rules.
Bitcoin (Score:3)
This is why Bitcoin exists.
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If the payment company only services the porn/sex worker industry then this could be embarrassing on your CC statements.
Re:Fucking Catholibans! (Score:5, Insightful)
I figured out that religion was a scam when I was just a child. It's a means of control, full stop. At best, it's a benevolent means of control, but it's always a trick — and succumbing to it means impairing your logic facilities, by learning to believe things without supporting evidence.
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by learning to believe things without supporting evidence
A few religions are like that. Others aren't. In fact, most religions aren't faith-based at all, although the big ones definitely are, which most certainly isn't a coincidence.
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I would also suggest for every misguided horrid thing someone has done ostensibly motivated by religious faith; thousands of others joined together to do good works.
We're going to need some statistics on that. Religion is one of the leading causes of religious conflict, and throughout history it has been associated with murder and rape. That it occasionally encourages charity doesn't make up for that.
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I would also suggest for every misguided horrid thing someone has done ostensibly motivated by religious faith; thousands of others joined together to do good works.
We're going to need some statistics on that. Religion is one of the leading causes of religious conflict, and throughout history it has been associated with murder and rape. That it occasionally encourages charity doesn't make up for that.
Eh, religion is usually used as a smokescreen for some other kind of motivation in conflict. Usually conflict is nothing more than a land grab, a way to get more money or power. Religion just gives you the excuse to do what you would do anyway and provide legitimacy. Take the Crusades for example: nominally about Christianity against Muslims. However, as often as not, when Crusaders would take a city or fortress they would just kill or enslave everyone, regardless of if they were Muslim, Christian, Jewi
I don't care for religious charity (Score:2)
Also religious charity often comes with strings attached. Google "rice Christians".