Religious Ministers: First free job training program for religious ministers and workers who...

...no longer believe in their religion.  This job training program must be available to all religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Scientology, etc.) and run by only ex-ministers.  It is set up so that currently working ministers who have lost their faith can secretly receive job training for a non-religious job without their congregation, church officials, fellow ministers, etc. knowing.  And once they have completed their job training, the program will help them get their first job as far as resume writing, interview training, and even assisting them financially to fly to job interviews and relocation.

      It doesn't do anyone any good to have religious ministers who no longer believe serving as ministers simply because they feel trapped in their job.  They are not properly serving their congregation and they're living a lie.  The latter will assuredly cause them stress, depression, and other psychological problems.

      Jack Decker has a great deal of empathy for these non-believing religious ministers.  He himself was once highly religious and was on a path of becoming a minister when he paused to examine his own religion and found it wanting.  The more he researched his own religion (which was Christianity, specifically Lutheranism), the less it could stand up to the light of reason.  He tried to make it as easy as possible for his religion to pass this examination by not requiring historical facts, a personal communication from or with God, or even a miracle.  All he required was that the religion's own logic did not contradict itself.  In the process of his research, he eventually came up with ten questions that he needed his religion to satisfactorily answer for him to proceed and become a minister for it.  The ten questions dealt with the self-contradictions within his religion that he could not resolve himself.

      Jack then went and talked to numerous ministers sincerely hoping that they would be able to answer his questions adequately to resolve these issues.  He first talked to ministers of his own religion (Lutheran) but when they could not answer his questions, he sought out other ministers, which included Baptists, Episcopalians, Fundamentalists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Roman Catholic (first meeting with a priest who then referred him to a Bishop).  None of them ... NONE of them were able to answer a single one of Jack's questions adequately and ALL eventually said, "You have to have faith."  That was not an acceptable answer for Jack.  Such an answer was a cop-out as far as Jack was concerned.

      During this journey of exploration, Jack lost his own faith.  The final straw that broke the camel's back was when he read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, specifically the speech by John Galt at the end of the book.  And he stumbled upon this book by mere chance.  While living in Milwaukee in the summer of 1985, he was at a bookstore late at night looking for something to read.  A bookseller there asked if he could help and what were Jack's interests.  When Jack said one of his interests was architecture, the bookseller asked if he liked Frank Lloyd Wright.  Jack said he liked Wright's Prairie Home style of architecture and the bookseller suggested Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, as it was loosely based on Wright's life.  Jack went home and read it from cover to cover non-stop.  He returned the next day, told the bookseller how much he enjoyed the book, and the bookseller said, "Well, if you liked Fountainhead, you'll love Atlas Shrugged."  From then forward, Jack was an atheist and eventually developed into a realist.

      Jack feels fortunate that he came to this realization about religion BEFORE he became a religious minister and wants to help those who came to such a realization AFTER they became ministers.  Thus the reason for this challenge.

1) First religious organization to publicly commit to donating at least $10 million a year to the above organization with no strings attached.  [While immature religious organizations will do this challenge as they believe it will hurt other religions, they might be surprised when ministers of their own religion get help from the above organization.  More mature religious organizations will do this with the partial goal to actually help their own ministers who have lost their faith to transition to a new job.  These mature religions will know that non-believing ministers don't help their religion or congregation and thus the best thing they can do is help them move onto something else in life.  The most mature religions will even leave the door open for their ex-ministers to come back in when they regain their faith.]

2) First atheist or realist talk show host to champion this challenge and have on their show at least 100 former religious ministers who have lost their faith to discuss how they lost it and what they've done since they lost it.  Each interview must be separate, at least seven minutes in length, and available for listening on the show's website.

3) First atheist or realist talk show host who is a former religious minister to champion this challenge and have on their show at least 100 former religious ministers who have lost their faith to discuss how they lost it and what they've done since they lost it.  Each interview must be separate, at least seven minutes in length, and available for listening on the show's website.