How do people of faith separate out charlatans?

Great Debates
1

Is it just a matter of whomever is most convincing “wins”?

There’s a couple of scenarios here… first is the scam: A charlatan attempts to assert claims of divinity. Is there a litmus test that can be put to the charlatan’s claims that is impossible for a charlatan to fake? The charlatan need not be human to be not-God.

Second, is the non-scam scenario. A truly divine being appears, but has a tough time convincing skeptics. Is there a miracle that could be performed that would convince all? What if this being makes demands that are disagreeable to some? (i.e all must worship the one true God)

2

IMHO they don’t.
They don’t even try.

The things I’ve seen… :smack:

3

That reminds me of Oh God! in which George Burns proved he was the Supreme Being by doing card tricks.

4

Well, there are procedures in the Torah by which Jews are meant to evaluate anyone claiming prophecy:

To summarize: The prophet must be an Israelite, and must resemble Moses in certain ways. The prophecy must be spoken in G-d’s name. The people are allowed to demand of him a sign that his prophecy is valid, and that sign must then come true. Even if that sign does come true, the prophecy must not say to worship other dieties, such a prophecy is by definition invalid.

Even given these guidelines, it was easy for false prophets to gain a following amongst the people. The Book of Jeremiah indicates that despite Jeremiah’s well-accepted credentials as a prophet, the people preferred to listen to false prophets offering false hope and a “you’re doing OK” message rather than to his true prophecies of Jerusalem’s imminent doom if they don’t repent. The existence and validity of prophecy doesn’t change basic human nature.

5

It’s so taken out of context because that only applies to prophecy that applies to the Israelites. The Torah was written by jews and for jews, it’s not meant to apply to everyone.

At this point however, I’d be willing to bet I have some jewish ancestry in there somehow and don’t know it, simply because of cross-breeding over thousands of years.

In America we are too permissive with people claiming to be religious. No one really takes Pat Robertson to task for his lies and profiteering, because of that permissiveness.

Erek

6

Yep. That’s it. We consciously forsake the critical-thinking skills we use in every other aspect of life. If anyone says something vaguely religious, I believe it.

7

So, how do you do it, and what happens if you apply the same principles you use for weeding out the charlatans to your own faith?

8

No, in my experience, it’s only in regards to whatever religion you happen to believe in. I’ve heard plenty of religious folk express amusement or contempt for the religious beliefs and customs of others, while ignoring the silliness or nastiness of their own. The same Catholic who finds voodoo magic a silly idea may have no problems with transubstantiation, pregnant virgins, talking burning bushes or ( in some cases ) exorcism.

9

It intrigues me to see the range in peoples beliefs and the question of why they believe as they do.

I used to read Deepak Chopra. Although he used rehashed material presented in a new age package it was new to me and interesting. I went to hear him speak at a local book signing. While I was there I realized the positive vibe and atmosphere in the room was not coming from Deepak but from the people gathered to hear him. They had brought their hope for something more. There “higher” selves if you will. A yearning for peace of mind and a higher purpose than the mere struggle for existance and material gain.
Sunday mornings I run sound at a local church. I see the same thing there. They seek the spirit and their desire to believe is so strong that emotion is mistaken for the Holy Spirit. Just humans being humans.

Belief has as much to do with emotion as reasoning. It’s timing too. When I first became involved in Christianity it was based on a spiritual experience but also the people I happened to be around at the time of that experience and their influence. I believed what they told me because I wanted to at the time. Add to that what information you have access to.
Many people are simply surrounded by a group that support their beliefs rather than challenge them. The books they read are all written by others who support their belief. When contrary beliefs come along they not only have to question their own beliefs but risk challenging their group and risking rejection. It takes a little courage to do that.
The same principles apply to the non believer.

In Matthew 13 Jesus tells the parable of the seeds and the different ground they fall on. Pretty insightful into the psychology of the average person.

10

Regarding the OP. Obviously people of faith *don’t *always weed out the charlatans. Charlatans large and small abound useing people’s desire to believe to their own advantage. I wonder how much these charlatans actually believe in their own story. Jim Jones had to be insane didn’t he?

There seems to be ample evidence now that Joseph Smith made up the whole Book of Mormon story. In his day it would have been hard for the average person to accumulate the evidence. Pnce firmly established it seems impossible for people to give up that belief held by millions of people. I do see changes as information becomes more available. certain traditions and beliefs will fade becuase it is way to obvious to newer generations that these things simply can’t be true.

11

How does one judge the reliability of people one encounters in general?

Setting aside the case where someone reporting a particular experience is well-known to the person making the judgement – as presumably in that situation one has a decent idea what the likelihood is that that person is just making random shit up.

How well does the person in question communicate? People standing on streetcorners shouting and spewing spittle on passers-by do not impress with their trustworthiness; their internet equivalent, people wandering through and posting in large chunks of all caps and with a gratuitous use of bangs, likewise.

General personal presentation: while a number of prophets are known to be the sort of people who wear their clothes to rags and lurk in deserts and the like, most of those aren’t trying to collect followings. Does the person look and behave like someone who is sane and reasonable?

What other information is available on this person, and what does it indicate about their trustworthiness or reliability? Have they been charged with tax fraud? Do they help little old ladies cross the street? Do people who know them report that they are decent folks or not? How do they respond to ridicule or hostility? Is all of this consistent with what they are purporting?

Does the person have a sense of the appropriate about communicating their experiences? Is every moment all about what their god told them to do? Are they coming across as namedropping or seeking justification from an authority to me? Do they mention it when relevant (as when someone asks about such experiences) or do they go beyond that and try to take control of situations when someone brings that sort of thing up?

What do they expect me to do about it? Someone who says, “I had this experience” I am entirely willing to agree that they believe they had this experience. Someone who wants me to do something for them, behave in a certain way, or otherwise go out of my way has to meet a much higher standard. I am of the “If your god wants me to do something, It can tell me Itself” school. If their god wants them to persuade other people to behave in a certain way, the onus is on them to actually be persuasive about it. “God said so” is not sufficient; neither is “I said so.”

For evaluating the reported stuff itself: is the stuff reported consistent with knowledge of the behaviours of that particular god, as reported in lore or pattern of other people’s experiences that are considered authoritative? If I am personally familiar with that god, is it consistent with my experiences of same? Are they making claims that are backed up by any meaningful evidence or support in the lore, and do I find those logic chains credible? Are they claiming capacities for which there can be evidence collected?

I don’t feel a great need to accept various other people as authorities; I am entirely capable of accepting other people’s personal revelations as important to them without agreeing, accepting their authority over me personally, or whatever else. I presume other people are going to make their own judgements on the matter by whatever standards satisfy them.

12

What do you mean by “people of faith” in the thread title? If you mean someone who already has a strong religious belief, they can test the potential charlatan against their own religious basics: is what he’s saying and how he’s behaving consistent with the Bible (or other holy book), or with long-accepted church teaching, or with personal experience of God/truth/etc.?

13

the exact same way you weed out untruth: Logic, examination of evidence, common sense, etc.

With allowance being made that it’s not a subject upon which one can ever be totally sure, I remain convinced.
Are you seriously suggesting that all people of faith accept everything uncritically? :dubious:

14

Quite bluntly, Furt is calling this one right. Some religious people buy whatever they’re told by a religious leader. But the overwhelming majority of them have formed their opinions through two different modes: (a) faith, meaning trust. They put their trust in a God whom they believe to have existence and whom in many cases they feel they have encountered in one way or another. And (b) reasoned analysis. Given assertion X, they weigh it against their knowledge of God and His attributes, their understanding of the world about them, their standards for credence and skepticism, etc. Because their standards are not your own doesn’t mean they’re permitting themselves to be passively deluded.

And while for convenience’ sake I’ve written this in western monotheistic style, you may feel free to substitute in any vocabulary you like with reference to the object of belief: a trust that they can achieve enlightenment by following Buddhist practices, a faith in a pantheon of gods who may or may not be characteristics of each other, a struggle between those Powers devoted to good and those devoted to evil, etc., etc.

Typically, people reject charlatans when they resort to avarice and demagoguery, and go beyond a “standard orthodox” belief system to one too narrowly focused on one doctrine or facet of the belief system, and they arrive at the decision to reject such a charlatan in a graded fashion, the more skeptical and sincerely orthodox doing so first and the others following in a drawn-out process as the charlatan becomes more and more obviously phony and/or unorthodox.

15

Are you speaking of your own faith in the “you, your own personal beliefs” or more the “the particular faith as in religion and denomination” way? Perhaps both.

16

I don’t think I agree with you here. I don’t think people of particular denominations accept everything uncritically but I think the arguement can be made that they accept certain things uncritically that are illogical when honestly examining the evidence.

I have a brother who is a brilliant guy in many areas but has a few blind spots when it comes to his religious beliefs. My sister is a lovely woamn who trusts her Bible commentaries and the folks of her congregation more than she does her own ability to reason it out. A dear old freind and I have had several conversations where I’ve tried to get her to just use reason, think about it and tell me what she really thinks rather than what her friends at chuch say is true.
The most I get is “Well I just think there must be something you’re missing”
Yeah, when it comes to my beliefs I think what I’m missing is peer pressure.

There is an emotional need to be a part of a certain group and I think that makes people* not * question as much as they might in other situations where critical thinking is needed.

When talking of beliefs that seem to not make sense you might get. “Well we really can’t undersatand God’s ways, but it’s right there in the Bible”
or one of my favorites.

“My friend so and so has been studying the Bible for years so they know what they’re talking about.” No, they have a better informed opinion but thats still all it is. And oh yeah, how have they been studying it? By reading books published by like minded people?

I thought about this quite a bit. I used to accept certain “truths” that I now no longer see as true. I’ve asked myself why I believed those things then and what caused me to let them go? In some ways questioning somebody’s church or religious tradition is like insulting their mother.

“Your mother drinks too much”
or
“Your mother is a liar and a gossip”

can be met with denial and defensive anger, even when it’s completely true.

17

Individuals do vary widely. As I mentioned recently, I know a woman who is both a Young Earth Creationist, reportedly, and a Mensan. My family has a friend who routinely gives money to televangelists and who tried to convince me of the virtues of speaking in tongues.

Since I can’t answer for them, I’ll speak strictly for myself. As an Episcopalian, I’ve got our good, old Three-Legged Stool of Scripture, Reason, and Tradition to keep in mind when considering religious matters. Please note that reason is right up there with tradition and may be even more important than tradition. I also have an anarchist streak which means I’m willing to grant very few people religious authority over me, and even then, they’d better be able to back up their position. The people who do are pretty much limited to the priests at my church and the Archbishop of Canterbury, but not my own bishop because I disagree with my bishop’s actions concerning homosexuality (he’s been talking about seceding from the Anglican Communion because we ordained a homosexual bishop).

I don’t support televangelists as a rule because I find their actions contradictory to the teachings of Christ as recorded in the Bible. Several years ago, a coworker tried to convince me I should have let God handle things rather than speaking up when a guy on my bus to work made fun of a handicapped man. Not only did I disagree with her because of my own beliefs on the matter, as someone who was not my priest, she had no authority to tell me what God says I should do. That comes across as more closed-minded than I am. To elaborate, unless you can produce some sort of moral authority I’m willing to accept as credible, I’m not going to do something just because someone tells me God says I should without asking a lot of questions.

Sure I can be fooled. Still, Christ does talk about being wary and watching for false prophets in the Gospel, and I’ve certainly seen enough scam artists in my time. I’m careful of whom I support, but if I said “I can never be fooled,” I’d prove I was a fool.

I’ve got the same tools an atheist has: logic and common sense. I can be swayed by my desire to be compassionate and do the right thing, but I’d be insulting atheists if I implied they couldn’t, too. If you tell me to do something I believe is wrong because “the Bible says so”, I’m going to ask you where, what the context is, and why I should believe you rather than more than a twenty years of life and faith. I’ve had some Christians try very hard to get me to change my mind on some issues. They haven’t succeeded although I have come to a better understanding of their point of view.

CJ

18

I sincerely hope reason is at least *as * important as tradition. When you look at the Christian community you see quite a varience of tradition. Tradition is a fine thing, but when it comes to beliefs there’s a problem when people mistake tradition for the truth. Jesus warned against this.

No person has any authority to tell you what you should believe. It’s great to have respect for years of study but in the final analysis even the Archbishop is only a man with his own opinions.
I’ve read and listened to lots of different theologians from various denominations. On some things they agree. " Love God and Love they Neighbor" and a few others, but on other things the theology varies. My conclusion is that they don’t know and I see no reason to think their opinion is more valid than my own.

Concerning “Because the Bible says so” IMHO believeing te Bible to be the word of God and the ultimate authority for learning about God is a major roadblock for spiritual growth, but that’s too far off subject to get into here.

The Bible is subject to interpretation and different groups have based different doctrine on their personal interpretation of the Bible. In the past I have defered to much more experienced students of the Bible and accepted their interpretation as the truth. Tradition plays a big role in that process. One generation teaches the next what to believe and it’s accepted without much questioning.That is tradition. Then the fact that so many believe the same thing seems to give weight to “it must be true”
I have no problem with people reading the Bible and deciding for themselves what they believe. I would just encourahe them to read other books and to at least consider ideas that weren’t within the tradition of their particular denomination. I encourage them to try and see the difference between tradition and truth as Christ asked. Our experience and internal make up is different so it’s expected that we won’t agree on everything. We can still respect each other and the individuals journey. My problem is with those who insist that their interpretation and their tradition is God’s will and anyone who disagrees is somehow lost or against God.

Soon I’ll be starting a thread about reincarnation in the Bible. You might be interested in that.

This particular thread is more about charlatans abd I do recognize a big difference between those intentionally manipulate peoples beliefs for there own gain and those who sincerely believe. Here in the south churches are big business. I think we often get preachers who are a mixture of sincere and charlatan. The desire to raise money and build a bigger better church {and incidently increasing their own income} is somehow seen as bringing glory to God.
“Hey look, we spent a million freakin dollars putting a sound system in our auditorium sized church. Glory to God.”

19

Is any sort of a time limit set on this in scripture or tradition? How long should one wait before deciding that the prophet is a fake?

Grim