One aspect most ‘religions’ have in common is contact with the spiritual, this is also the case for other things that are not considered religions, such as yoga, acupuncture, and even martial arts. Some people perceive a benefit from such spiritual enlightenment, as such there does seem to be value to it. Is acupuncture a fraudulent moneymaking scheme because we can’t find any chi channels inside the human body, though people appear to get relief from it? Are martial arts a fraudulent moneymaking scheme because the energy they seem to tap into science can’t seem to find?
Um, does every philosophy make promises to those that follow them?
Takes money from the masses? Makes promises it can’t deliver? Claims sole possession of morality? Yep, it’s true… The Democratic* party is fraudulent. =)
*Insert name of any other organizational group you’d like…
I think you’re totally failing to see there is no issue. That’s just not how science works.
- You claim that if entities contradict one another then all but one must fraudulent.
This only works for entities that are based on faith, and therefore claim their God is the “one true God,” and all others, naturally, must be false. Science has no “one true” anything. Science has theories built on sound evidence, that’s all.
- The entities known as scientists contradict one another.
There are no such “entities”. Science is not organized or structured like religion is. There are theories, but those theories have to be substantiated. Faith based religion doesn’t rely on such things. In fact, it practically eschews them.
- Therefore all scientists but one must be fraudulent.
This conclusion is wrong because your initial premises are completely in error and defy common knowledge.
So, you’re argument is dismissed based on it being completely wrong.
QED :rolleyes:
Neither. Your doctor is looking after your health while your accountant is looking after your wallet. The two goals conflict to some degree. Your analogy fails, different religions are supposedly addressing underlying truth.
The entire argument of “Is all religion fraudulent?” depends on two things:
**1) Your definition of fraud.
- Your definition of religion.**
The definitions for each are far too malleable to come up with a solid debate. You can bend the definitions to support any argument you want depending on your agenda or the way you see the world.
If the only reason why they get relief is the placebo effect, then yes it’s a fraud. And the explanation of how it’s supposed to work is definitely false.
Since they can still beat people up, no, at least not completely. There’s no evidence they tap into any special energy anyway.
As I see it, it requires deceptiveness, conscious * or not. A fraud is designed to lure you away from the truth; a simple error does so by accident. Religion is all about convincing people of a fantasy, and convincing them to ignore contrary evidence; it qualifies.
Why bother ? The negative effects of religion are so huge that any positive effects don’t matter. And that assumes that there are any positive effects that can’t be gotten from a less destructive source. There’s a distinct “At least he made the trains run on time” aura to arguments like that.
Personally, I think people’s attitude towards others is a couple orders of magnitude more important than their religious beliefs or lack of them. From my perspective, theists believe some pretty odd things, but so do many atheists. My own beliefs and attitudes are somewhat contradictory. To take an example, belief in free will is almost as magical as believing in a god.
I’d like to live in a world that places little emphasis on religion (and the UK is in fact highly secular). Bigoted religious extremism disgusts me. Religion can be viewed as a product of culture, or vice-versa (I believe the relationship to be complicit). It’s easy to find examples where religion has fuelled conflict, but most religions also have worthwhile things to say.
Going back to the OP, I’ve always considered ‘fraud’ to imply conscious deceit.
And if that’s the philosophy that one espouses, can it be tested empirically?
Such a claim fails for the same reason. The Methodist Church as a body has no power. Any person, whether a Bishop or an ordinary believer, can leave at any time and never come back. And each individual clergymember is among the least powerful people in society.
Consider the power wielded by almost anyone else in society. Politicians and judges all have power, obviously. Police, firefighters, and doctors all have authority in certain situations. Teachers and professors have authority over their classes. Anyone who owns a business has control over certain things. Even a lowly cashier and waiter has the power to charge customers certain amounts of money. A pastor is one of the very few working people who can never make anyone do anything.
To conclude, religion is not a power-seeking scheme, since religious people neither seek nor find power.
What difference does that make?
A business is a for-profit operation. The purpose is to make money. If money gets made, it either goes to the owner(s) or gets invested back into the business. The Methodist Church is not a for-profit operation. It makes no profit and has no owner. Nobody benefits from the money that the Methodist Church takes in. It all either gets spent or gets put in an endowment to be spent later. Hence the Methodist Church is not a “money-making organization”. What more can be said?
Fraudulent generally requires an intent to deceive. Using it as a synonym for “incorrect” is a usage far out of the mainstream use of the word. Can we all agree that, without intent to deceive, nothing is fraudulent? If you disagree with this, it’d be useful to say so, so that folks can appreciate your idiosyncratic use of the word.
That said, I think there are few fraudulent religions. Taken literally, I think most religions are incorrect, but that’s different.
Yes and yes, since the sole change you’ve made in each case is a change in intent, and that’s crucial to the definition of “fraud.” Similarly, if they’re engaged in a criminal enterprise, and a law legalizes what they do, their actions become legal overnight; if that law is repealed, the acts become criminal overnight. It’s a bizarre hypothetical, but the way you phrased it, of course it changes its fraudulent status overnight, twice.
The Methodist Church does not offer its members anything in exchange for anything. They do not offer any promises or rewards in this or any other life in exchange for time and money, nor in exchange for anything else. A Methodist Church may at times preach that God offers eternal life, but none would ever claim that the Church offers eternal reward.
Firstly, that claim about the Catholic Church is an urban legend. Second, ownership of land does not make the Catholic Church “money-making”. The land that the Catholic Church owns is used for the purpose of serving Catholics and the poor, not merely owned for the sake of ownership.
I think it’s safe to say that Cagey intended the second definition from Random House, which is “an underhand plot; intrigue”. Even by your definition, though, I don’t see how the Methodist Church would be a “scheme”. True, they have an outline of a plan for certain events such as church services, but for most things they do there’s no fixed plan, only a guideline to do as much good work as possible.
ITR, do you accept your point number 2 in the OP is invalid?
As I see it though, the “intent” in question is of the religion itself. No, it’s not consciously deceiving anyone; but consciousness isn’t required for deception. The people involved may not be fraudulent, but the religion is.
One can give an obvious counterexample: Christianity during its frist three centuries. It had no government support; in fact, it faced a great deal of government opposition. It also thrived chiefly among the working poor, slaves, women, and other groups that had very little money. Yet it did not die out, but instead spread widely.
Further, we can give an obvious counterexample in more recent times: Christianity. Though most Americans probably aren’t aware of it, Christian communities have thrived for centuries among the poor in places where the greater culture was quite hostile to them. The Christian community in Japan has numbered in the hundreds of thousands since the 16th century. Various Christian groups have maintained themselves in India, and they’re so old that their origins can’t be traced for sure. These groups obviously did not succeed because of money or government support.
Advertising, travel, and organizational structure are not required for a religion. Further, none of these things cost money. Early Christian missionaries did advertising and traveling without money. Early Coptic monks built their houses by hand–no cost there. Training does not necessarily require money if it doesn’t use expensive materials.
This betrays an ignorance of history on your part. As I’ve already said, the earliest Christian groups were extremely bad at attracting money and government support. By contrast, other Christian groups were much better. To take one obvious example, Arianism had much better luck attracting support from powerful people, the government and the military, during the fourth century than did traditional Christianity. Yet eventually Arianism bit the dust while traditional Christianity survived. So the actual facts are the opposite of what you say. Indeed, one might even suggest that the survival of original Christian doctrine among the poor, in the face of powerful opposition, demands an explanation.
Actually I’m still having trouble grasping how the Church can be a “money-making organization” when it doesn’t make any money.
Fact: The Methodist Church makes no profit.
Fact: No owner or stockholder gets any money from the Methodist Church.
Fact: Those who work for the Methodist Church are mainly poor and could probably earn more money doing something else.
So if it’s a “money-making organization”, what actual person or persons are making the money?
It makes no money? Try this - the balance sheet of one United Methodist Church indicating revenues of in excess of $500,000 per year. Certainly “making money” under any legal definition of the term.
Which is of no relevance ot whether it is money making or not. It is defined as a non-profit under the tax code because of the way it disposes of the money it makes.
Again irrelevant to its money making status. Relevant to its tax status, but that is admitted to be a non-profit one.
Utterly irrelevant to its money making status.
This more than anything shows what you don’t understand. The organization is money making. It isn’t a bad thing. It is definitional. You are trying to argue that because it is an organization that does good things, that is populated by good people, it cannot be “money making.” And that is just garbage.
The United Methodist Church raises large amounts of money every year from multiple sources - investment income, donations from members, sale of goods and services etc. It also spends that money in multiple way s- upkeep on buildings, salaries for employees, “good works” and many other things. If it did not make money, it could not continue.
None of that counters what I said. St. Paul may have preached to the poor, and yet he was bringing (literal) bags of money back to the Jewish-Christians. You’ll happen to note that the Jewish-Christian version of Christianity died out where Paul’s version ended up becoming king.
You can become quite wealthy off the poor. Just look at TV preachers who buy themselves Ferraris and mansions.
Can you read this again and tell me if it’s really what you meant to write? I don’t see any way that a religion can have an intention, any more than a cross-stitch technique can have an intent, any more than natural selection can have an intent. The intent lies entirely in the neural connections of the people practicing the religion, and if there’s no intent to deceive there, it’s not fraudulent.