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throwRA_17297 t1_j1kjuo9 wrote

I recently had this conversation with a friend of mine who’s about to be ordained (Catholic, doing his diaconate rn), so I’m curious if you’d say the same:

Do you think an atheist could fake their way into becoming a priest/pastor?

My friend says no, he thinks you just wouldn’t survive the seminar because your sermons wouldn’t be convincing if you don’t genuinely believe. He says they’d definitely notice.

(I say yea, it can be done. Of course there’s not really any reason to and the ethical implications are something else, but I’ve been successfully pretending to be a devout Christian for ten years now - for safety reasons, not in order to dupe Christianity or something. I’m relatively confident I could convince anyone of my belief.)

Oh also, please don’t take this the wrong way, this whole discussion was just born out of curiosity, and although I’m an atheist I think Christianity, like other religions, has a lot of fascinating facets that are worth learning about. :)

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revanon OP t1_j1konig wrote

IIRC, the Unitarian Universalists do ordain atheist pastors, so an atheist would not (and should not) have to fake it there.

But more to the core of your point--yes, someone could fake their way thru the process, just as they could in other professions. There are doctors and nurses who discredit medical science, biologists who discredit life science, journalists who discredit journalism, etc. If they made it to where they are, of course there can be pastors who faked it as well. As to why that is, I think we as a society will make choices to reward fakery rather than truth for reasons of convenience. I wish that were not so, for my profession and for others.

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rydan t1_j1lan3b wrote

Shouldn't god speak to you though and tell you something isn't right with this person? I know when I was in Intervarsity they'd pray over who should be on the leadership team and only pick the ones god himself appointed. Strangely it was always the popular ones.

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