Comment 21 by caseyg5 :

@Ben S, You are much too harsh on Teresa.

I don't believe I am.

Suppose you were a true believer for many years and slowly over time you began to have doubts about some of the things you were promoting because you began to realize that they were inherently flawed. I wonder how many employees of business out there would continue to be able to work knowing that products are cheap, badly designed, "strangely" break down after the warranty expires, etc., and expressing their objections? Does this make them frauds and phonies because they are hanging on to an income that feeds their families? By your thinking most of the world population working for employers could be labeled frauds for promoting products that have problems. I worked for a place that had product issues and it would officially lie about them. They weren't harmful problems, just quality ones. If I spoke out, I hit the streets. Food goes, housing goes. The company goes on. Who's screwed? Me!

A long winded way of saying your personal integrity has a price and that price is the effort of finding a new job.

Teresa didn't begin knowing that church teachings were full of it but evolved into it due to her brain actually working and examining facts from the inside of the company. Aren't whistleblowers honored now whereas once they were a pariah?

Whistleblowers are protected where they're blowing the whistle on a company that's doing something illegal - this is nothing like that at all.

Teresa lied to these people every week. Best I can see, when she did come clean it wasn't to the church, it was at a public event - which is the first they heard of her lack of belief. I'm not even remotely surprised they feel betrayed - they WERE betrayed.

How about if someone ran a writing group and week in, week out gave the impression they were a published author and dished out writing tips and advice to an attentive group - and then one day the group sees the group leader on TV crowing about how they're not really an author and don't believe all the shit they spoonfeeding the group. Or if a martial arts instructor is seen by his students on an internet page stating that he's not really a martial artist and those movements he's teaching aren't Wing Chun they're just things he saw on a Rosemary Conley yoga DVD. In either case would you expect the group to welcome them back with open arms?

Of course not.

Saying "But, I thought we were friends!" just seems laughable. If they were your friends, you wouldn't lie solidly to them every week.

Religious types get lambasted on these forums all the time for "Lying for Jesus", whether it's telling lies about atheists, about their own beliefs or even answering questions on evolutionary exam papers with the correct answer that they don't believe in. Why is it reprehensible for the religious to lie to atheists but acceptable for an atheist to lie to the religious?

It isn't. It smacks of double standards to me and I have no qualms saying so.