Religious practice is costly in terms of material sacrifice (at least one's prayer time), emotional expenditure (inciting fears and hopes), and cognitive effort (maintaining both factual and counterintuitive networks of beliefs).

I just don't think religion should be a money making organization. There is never a need to send churches or cults money for any reason. If you want to feel good about yourself or make your God happy, give your money directly to a charity or a homeless person. But once again this is my opinion, and I don't want to be in a position of also dictating.

Got enough guilt to start my own religion.

I saw myself founding a religion, marching into Asia riding an elephant, a turban on my head and in my hand the new Koran that I would have composed to suit my needs.

To bootstrap a new money, create a religion around it. The core teaching is to hodl at all costs, no matter the temptation, until all unbelievers capitulate.

You would say that he felt that money had made him holy.

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

I thought, if you can become an angel for 27 dollars. It would be fun to do more of it

If you’ve made it this far in starting your own religion it means you’ve assembled a nice group of hopeless people desperately avoiding the Uncomfortable Truth by studying a bunch of bullshit you’ve made up, ignoring their friends, and telling their families to fuck off. Now it’s time to get serious. The beauty of a religion is that the more you promise your followers salvation, enlightenment, world peace, perfect happiness, or whatever, the more they will fail to live up to that promise. And the more they fail to live up to that promise, the more they’ll blame themselves and feel guilty. And the more they blame themselves and feel guilty, the more they’ll do whatever you tell them to do to make up for it. Some people might call this the cycle of psychological abuse. But let’s not allow such terms to ruin our fun.

Most people who started theartre started it with passion and not money. But the new practitioners are more interested in money. They don’t show passion. What they don’t know is that money comes when the passion is there.

I already knew that Max’s type of messianic enterprise is a gold mine. The legions of the lonely, the mentally and emotionally starved, the bewildered and resentful, the angry daydreamers—who of them wouldn’t chip in five or ten dollars to buy a substitute for God, or Mom, or Big Brother, or the New Jerusalem?

...each religious community on its own is very rich. But when it comes to religious community members who are willing to stick their necks out, come together, and work across religions, there is very little money for that. Even the biggest governments don’t provide financial support for that kind of work.

There’s such a thing as spiritual capital that has economic function and potential.

Undershaft: My religion? Well, my dear, I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.