I kind of like Joel Osteen. I think he mainly talks about how to improve your life. His crazy talk is very limited if non existent. I’v never heard him promise a parishioner a new car or faith healing if they send in $25.
More importantly, they’ll listen to someone who tells them that they will be saved because they’re listening to him, usually just before the plates are passed.
No, Christianity at its start was based on love and tolerance. Then they crucified the only true Christian, everybody took note of what happened to damn dirty Samaritan lovers, and one thing led to another. It’s an old story, but a good one.
That’s just the original Hebrew for Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
Joel Osteen is likable in a kind of bland Costco tempura sort of way. But I’d rather read James Cone.
I don’t recall ever hearing of a group of people motivated or inspired to fly planes into buildings that were on drugs, or to blow themselves and others up.
Maybe you’re listening to the wrong music. I no longer consider myself religious, though I am a theist, but when I was, my religious experiences were very similar to how I experience some of the songs I love that have most moved me.
But that’s exactly what the Catholics do and people listen to them ;).
(This is not, btw, as is common on this site, knee-jerk anti-Catholicism… even though I am a Lutheran, I have lots of respect for my Catholic brothers and sisters - this allows some good natured ribbing - and no, I didn’t become Christian for the jokes)
So, this religious ecstasy… they just pass it through the confessional screen?
I think fundamentalists religions forbid listening to secular music for this exact reason. They know the same emotional experience can be had whether someone is singing the words to “My Sweet Lord” or “He’s So Fine”.
You could take the holy ghost music of a black Pentacostal church, play it in a dance club, and see the same level of frenzy.
So I think the fundamentalists are right to be afraid. Music is a very powerful way to tap into people’s emotions. Once a person realizes that it’s the music that makes them feel happy and hopeful, they don’t really need the serious religious stuff.
I can assure you this is a very minor portion of fundies. After all, if Southern Baptists were required not to listen to secular music, how in the world would country music survive? 
It’s maybe shallow of me, but I’ve always felt like Fatboy Slim’s Song For Shelter covers this pretty well. Which makes it, maybe, the most dangerous song ever written?
The second musketeer? 