Would some people "fake" a calling for the sake of a job?

As the saying goes, it's indoor work and no heavy lifting.

In the US, it's probably the easiest way to own a private jet if you're not a major rock star.

But seriously... losing one's faith is no joke when it can cost you your job, your home and possibly your relationship or family (I suppose RCs dodge that one)

Richard Dawkins and others set up The Clergy Project to provide support for clerics who no longer believe.

In Ireland, for a long time it was an escape route for those who did not wish to marry, if you get me. A route to respectability and indeed privilege, instead of condemnation and contempt.

I do wonder about popes, cardinals, archbishops and the likes, who usually spend many years studying theology over and above what the priest in a parish gets - does it never occur to them that it's all based on nothing other than hearsay? I strongly suspect the top guys are only too aware of this, but they're far too deeply invested in the sunk cost fallacy and they get a nice living off the sweat of others' brows.

If one person holds bizarre irrational beliefs, they're either weird or insane.

If millions of people hold bizarre irrational beliefs, it's a religion, and must be respected

That was why the RCC is against contraception. Son 1 gets the farm, son 2 might get an education, son 3 joins the clergy... and those who were too thick for that joined the "Christian" "Brothers"

There was a minor kerfuffle in my Dublin suburb in the late 70s. A son of one of the families across the road from us signed up for the priesthood, spent a few years getting a degree his family could not otherwise have afforded, then quit before becoming a made man. The tutting was audible from Earth orbit.

A few doors up, a good friend of my mother's suspected that her grandchild had not been baptised, so performed an impromptu ceremony in the kitchen sink.

They walk among us

A llittle harsh perhaps, but it's well known that study for the priesthood required completion of a degree before ordination, "brothers" did not require that. I'm sure your relative was a nice person who strove to make the world a better place, let's just say that not too many idealists ended up in Dublin's poorer suburbs.

How can anyone prove belief in anything? They can't. I could rhyme off all sorts of prayers learned off by rote in my childhood, despite not believing a word.

US evangelists are just successful manipulators of people. I hate what people call "charisma" - it's just a way of causing others to override their better judgment. This applies to politics too, of course!

1. You can fake a calling for the sake of a job.
2. But think twice. If the job requires a vocation that you haven't got, you're likely to hate being in the job. Is career misery a price you are willing to pay for prosperity?
3. Plus, you're fairly likely to do it badly, or at best in a mediocre fashion. So it's not likely to be a route to prosperity anyway.
4. Plus, even if you are sincere in your vocation, and good at your job, religious ministry isn't generally a route to prosperity. While there are a few fabulously wealthy televangelists in the US, for the great bulk of those working in ministry the pay is nothing to write home about. If you're going to fake it in some profession as a route to wealth, you'd be wiser to fake it in a profession that offers a better prospect of wealth. That's most professions, to be honest.
5. But if you're absolutely determined that faking it in religious ministry is the way to go, then what you should fake is being Jewish. On average rabbis are, by a considerable length, the best paid clergy of any religion or denomination.

Name one person who was killed up north on account of differing opinions about transsubstantiation.