Yes, RELIGION. It's actually pretty GENIUS if you look at it the way I do. Religion brings in TRILLIONS of dollars for selling a product that NO ONE EVEN KNOWS IF IT WORKS UNTIL YOU DIE! Now THAT my friends is GENIUS! Let me elaborate.
Every business has to have the same key elements to actually be able to be called a business. Those key elements are 1. A Product to offer and 2. Customers with money. Next you need some staff and a bad ass Salesman to not only train the staff but to be the face of the business. This person has to have these qualities; charisma, wit, sharpness, a great smile, must be clean looking, and most of all...have an answer for everything. I have done sales, I have trained hundreds and hundreds of people how to do sales. I taught people how to have an answer for everything, it's not very difficult. Next you need a location. It doesn't have to be a fancy location or the best looking because if your product is good enough, people will come. You can always move to a bigger better location once you sell enough product.
Now let's look at Religion. It has all of these things. The product is Faith. This includes God, Jesus, all the stories in the Bible or Koran or Torah or Book of Mormon or Dhamma or Bhagavad Gita or...OK there are a lot. The customer base is HUGE! It's everyone. There are just over 7 billion people on the planet right now. Let's just say that 66.66% (2/3) follow a religion. That's about 4.7 billion people. That's a lot! Can you imagine if that many different people bought your product???? Next, your bad ass Salesman. The Preacher, Priest, Pastor, Imam, Rabbi, and the list goes on. These guys, never women, stand up there and try to sell this INTANGIBLE product as best as they can. He uses all the sales qualities to get through to you that HIS religion is the BEST one and the better he does at making this product sound freaking awesome, the more money you will be willing to pay for it. Donate, donate, donate, donate and donate. Some religions require you to pay a certain percentage of your income into the Church no matter what you make. And they sell you on the idea that this is what the Religion wants you to do. Genius!
Man Religion has got it going on! It has everything that we all want in life. Money, friends, a long list of assets. Plus they DON"T PAY TAXES!! And you really just keep buying and buying and buying this product over and over again and you have no idea if it's real. Yeah, you can point out the, "Well, this happened to me so I know it's real." But you can also never rule out "coincidence." You'll NEVER truly know until you're dead. There will either be everything you were ever promised waiting for you after you die, or there will be nothing. Absolutely nothing, like it was before you were born. Remember that? Yeah, me neither. Now, just speculating and using my own guess on numbers if 4.6 billion people are actively buying this product and spend on average $1000 a year on Religion that's $4,700,000,000,000 or $4.7 trillion in revenue every year!!!! On a product that may or may not work! I told you before, this is genius...from a business standpoint. I honestly think that number is low. It very well could be A LOT higher.
But remember Religion also has it's enemies. It has caused more war than anything else in History. Religion can be very dangerous. Use this product wisely. This product has killed more people than cigarettes, cancer, heart attack, drugs, alcohol, and everything else combined through war and hate. After every Sermon or speech or sales pitch, that same Bad Ass Salesman should leave you with a little disclaimer warning and it should go something like this:
"WARNING: THIS PRODUCT MAY CAUSE YOU EXTREME HARM FROM SOMEONE WHO BUYS THIS SAME PRODUCT MADE BY ANOTHER GOD. BELIEVING IN THIS PRODUCT MAY CAUSE YOU AN EARLY DEMISE. THIS PRODUCT IS VERY, VERY DANGEROUS AND MAY NOT EVER WORK. THIS PRODUCT ALSO MAY BE ALL MAKE BELIEVE."
So, I leave you with this. Religion is either the BIGGEST business on the PLANET, or the BIGGEST SCAM on the PLANET. No living person will EVER know. The only thing that keeps me from starting one is that you have to go through the whole Cult thing first before you grow large enough to be called a Religion. And we all know that can't be too much fun... ;)
Cheers!!
K.A. Ball
I agree with your notion that religion is a big business often overlooked when talking about large profits. With religion growing every day it is a very notable candidate for Forbes' Blackmarket list. However, you were correct in your assumption that your estimations may be a tad off.
ReplyDeleteIn 2005, the total charitable contributions in the U.S. was only $260 billion. Of that, only, $93.18 billion were recorded to religious affiliations. Now, you ARE talking about the world, not just the U.S., but that leaves the balance of the estimated $4.7 trillion at $4.607 trillion for the rest of the world.
In these estimations, you must also consider that in those 4.6 billion followers, many give nothing. $1,000 may be a bit high for an average family contribution. That leads to the next point of consideration. Many of those counted in that figure are family members of one single, designated "head of household" doing the donating i.e. kids, wife, husband.
Then, you must look at the fact that churches, temples, synagogues, etc... all have overhead. As they say in the business world, "we can't keep these lights and air conditioning on with faith alone." That may be ironically a bit true in this case, being that "faith" is actually the product, but you get the drift.
Enjoy
Miss you from Nashville buddy!
Brent
Awesome Brent! However, I wasn't saying that they donate $1000 a year, I said spend $1000 a year on Religion. This means books, trips, outings, supplies, jewelry, church clothes and everything else that has to do with Religion. I bet if there was someway to actually account for all of these things combined, my number would be way to low. In other words, any dollar spent for any type of religious purpose. The money is endless and definitely the biggest industry in the world, EVER. Plus, your stats from 2005 were just REPORTED numbers, that's like saying you report every single penny you make from playing a kick ass show. Highly unlikely don't you think? :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting! Share this on with your friends!!
Cheers!
K.A. Ball
Do "Jesus is my Homeboy" shirts count?
ReplyDeleteGood question. I would have to say yes, they count. :)
ReplyDelete