A philosophy that concludes thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s ass based on a set of principles and arguments is not fraudulent, since it is making its assumptions clear. A religion that says this because God ordered it is a different story. In this case, no disagreements are allowed. The guy who claimed God told him this was actively fraudulent; the people who transmit the rule without bothering to check if there is evidence that God ever really ordered it are participants in the fraud (like those who pass on a chain letter) and the average adherent of the religion saying this is the patsy.
I certainly disagree about this: I do not think it is possible to subconsciously deceive someone. Deception is an active mental process.
No, it’s not necessarily conscious. Plants and animals and microorganisms deceive without thought. And humans deceive while believing they speak the truth; like the person who says they’ll love you forever, when they’ll likely fall out of love with you if a better match comes along. The most effective lie tends to be the one you believe.
I used quotes around intention because I was speaking metaphorically; religion “intends” deception the way a microorganism sneaking past the immune system does. Religion is not conscious, but it’s not a passive thing either; it’s an evolving system. At least as alive in it’s own way as a virus.
The Methodist church is certainly an organization that seeks power. Pastors have moral authority over the lives and actions of their worshippers. This authority can affect everything from what they consume to how they vote. While it is true that such power is ultimately unenforceable, it propagates itself through the usual channels of societal norms, customs, and good ol’ shunning/ peer pressure. It is maintained by spreading about a bunch of drivel and dogma so that people will voluntarily place themselves under it’s authority.
Generally, that level of societal manipulation implies an agenda, regardless of intent. Seeking power is not in an of itself a bad thing; it is what is done with it that counts. The church, and most religions in general have utilized it to retard the advancement of society in an effort to spread their particular brand of make-believe.
I’m sorry , I meant the *actual *definition and meaning rather than your personal one.
There is fraud in religion when someone offers “salvation” and their motive is money. That’s intent. I’d say we could stretch the “impostor” part of fraud to folks who teach as absolute truth something they have doubts about. That part of fraud would be hard to detect since we can’t read minds. As I said before, I think people who continually claim to highly value the truth but refuse to honestly examine evidence that challenges their doctrine might be included.
Unconscious deceptiveness such as what, teaching something as true that you eventually discover isn’t?, doesn’t qualify.
I think it’s hilariously ironic that you put this in a post about religion being a fraud. 
I don’t think that religion is a fraudulent anything…that implies a conscious effort to deceive across a broad range or very diverse systems of belief. I don’t buy that all of them are CONSCIOUS efforts to deceive. I think religion was and is a way for some to explain what they don’t understand and to comfort or give faith to those in need. Personally, I find the whole thing unnecessary, but I don’t paint with such a broad brush as to label all of them in it solely or wholly (or holy) for the money.
That said however, I do believe that religion has been and is about power…power over peoples beliefs and in many cases over their lives (and ‘souls’) as well. And certainly a lot of religions are about that power, money being simply one aspect of that.
It’s easy to become too cynical, however, and to try and paint everyone who believes with broad strokes as deluded…and paint those who are preaching to them as scheming, money grubbing con artists. This misses the boat on the reality of religion as it has shaped human history though…and I think it stems mostly from a very Christian-centric view of history and religion.
-XT
To my mind I think it’s valid to draw a distinction between a religious organisation and it’s individual members.
If a member of the religion believes everything he promises (and I would think almost all do - never underestimate the degree with which a human can delude himself) I would have difficulty calling this fraudulent since it is done in good faith (no pun inteneded). This becomes more difficult if you consider people who remain deluded in the face of clearly contradictory evidence however.
Large religious organisations such as the Catholic Church (particularly it’s Medieval incarnation) are different. Clearly these organisations have evolved to be self perpetuating or they would not exist, and to do this adequately I would argue that they cannot by their very nature acting in the best interests of most of it’s members a significant portion of the time (the s.o.b.s at the top excepted). Additionally it is irrelevant to the perpetuation of the organisation if it’s promises are true or not (although they should not be disprovable) so long as they achieve it’s aim. I would certainly call that fraudulent.
So I would say that whilst the concept of religion isn’t in itself fraudulent the formation of almost any organisation around it that gathers money and excerts power must be, and the older and larger the more fraudelent. I also think this of large charitable organisations, but that’s a different topic.
Most people would use the phrase “making money” to mean making profit. In business, if more money flows out than in, that means you’re not making any money; you’re losing money. Hence I find it misleading to say that the Methodist Church or any other non-profit is making money. Money flows in, money flows out, the exact amount of money in the bank at any given time varies for practical reasons, but no person makes money from it.
In any case, to call something a “money making scheme” implies that its purpose is to bring an inflow of money. So unless there’s evidence that the Methodist clergy run the church with the express purpose of bringing in money, the statement that prompted this thread is false.
I think fraudulent’s a possibility, and that it isn’t dependent upon the fradulently obtained good being money, but I don’t really see any way of knowing for certain. For one thing, the vast majority of a religious organisation is going to be the adherents, the defrauded (if there is fraud occurring). But really whether there’s fraud going on depends on whether those in authority believe what they’re saying or not, and without reading their minds we don’t have any way to know if they’re being honest or not (though I suppose hypocritical behaviour might be a good indicator).
There’s a difference between fraud and being incorrect, and if you believe religious organisations are wrong, that doesn’t mean they’re therefore scheming.
But i’m not particuarly impressed with the personal nature of the defence.
Huh? According to Acts, the disputes that Paul was involved in were settled by theological discussion, not by counting up money.
Checking the defintion of authority, a Methodist minister certainly does not have any of the first four definitions. The only authority he or she could possibly have is definition 5: “an accepted source of information”. In that regard a Methodist minister might have some authority over the lives of churchgoers, but not to any different degree than family, friends, co-workers, or participants in any normal relationship. While it’s conceivable that a minister could convince someone to vote or buy, any one of use could achieve the same on this message board.
And if a minister’s power propagates through “societal norms, customs, and peer pressure”, isn’t that the only good method for power to propagate, since it’s the only alternative to gaining power by force?
What exactly has the Methodist Church done to “retard the advancement of society”? And how to you tell what constitutes “advancement of society” rather than regression of society?
Where did I say anything about disputes?
I certainly suspect that James/Peter’s church reliance on money from Antioch was a factor in their deciding in meeting with Paul in the first place and letting him continue to call himself a follower of Jesus, but that’s not really relevant to the current subject. The point is that Paul certainly had extra money to go around as collected from just his church. He’s known to have brought money to support them through a famine, and he brought more just before his death. Quite possibly this was a regular thing, but we have at least those two cases documented.
I’m actually not sure about Mohammed since he was magically exempt from most of his strictures.
[QUOTE]
–noun, plural -ties.
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the power to determine, adjudicate, or otherwise settle issues or disputes; jurisdiction; the right to control, command, or determine.
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a power or right delegated or given; authorization: Who has the authority to grant permission?
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a person or body of persons in whom authority is vested, as a governmental agency.
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Usually, authorities. persons having the legal power to make and enforce the law; government: They finally persuaded the authorities that they were not involved in espionage.
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an accepted source of information, advice, etc.
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an expert on a subject: He is an authority on baseball.
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persuasive force; conviction: She spoke with authority.
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right to respect or acceptance of one's word, command, thought, etc.; commanding influence: the authority of a parent; the authority of a great writer.
/QUOTE]
Actually, all of the above can apply to a minister to varying degrees. I mentioned that the acceptance of their authority is ultimately the choice of the individual. However, the church has a long history of cultural indoctrination and manipulation that tilts the playing field fairly in their favor.
I would define the advancement of society as: " The process leading towards the goal of: All people, regardless of birth, race, sex, or economic class, gain equal access to factual information, and the chance to employ it freely and without punishment in their pursuit of life."
How many people do you think the catholic church for example would truly have in active participatory membership if everyone had access to information about the world and the real, uninfluenced chance to choose about belief?
Eh. You’re generalizing from one particular religious school of thought to all religions. A LOT of religious philosophy acknowledges doubt. Hellenistic Rome built altars to unknown gods.
Huh. So would you agree that religion is not literally fraudulent, that it’s only fraudulent when you’re speaking metaphorically? I think it’s a weird metaphor, but whatever–as long as we can agree that, literally speaking, there’s no fraud, then I’ll cede the weird metaphor to you.
Are you asking if the philosophy of scientific empiricism can be tested empirically? 
I don’t really know, IANAPhilosopher, but the point of my short query, was intended to ask whether we (collectively, the ones discussing this) are prepared to label as “fraud” everything that is not methodologically empirical in nature, that is to say “scientific”.
So, just to be clear in my mind, if a philosophy (and I’m afraid I’m using the term perhaps more loosely than a philosopher would desire) were to say “an eye for an eye” is a good idea for a stable society because either:
a) game theory around the iterated prisoner’s dilemma shows that tit-for-tat with initial cooperation has the highest mutual success factor or,
b) God says so.
The latter would be fraudulent even though it makes the same request of it’s followers as the former, and offers the same reward?
Sure, because the justification is fraudulent. Early people in a Ponzi scheme make money, but they are are still involved in a fraud. The problem is that though this particular teaching is correct, others may not be morally justified, but still justified by the “god said so” argument. How do you tell the difference without ethical reasoning? If you conclude one of God’s commands is unethical, how do you argue against it?
Brain Glutton, you’ve posted several comments in this thread which I think don’t hold up:
You have no way of knowing this. And it simply isn’t true anyway. I can remember going through a stage of accepting as true what I had read about Joseph Smith when I was in my late teens. I doubt that I was the only exception.
The Church was founded on someone who denied the Christ more than once. (Simon Peter) and Paul talked about having doubts. And there was “Doubting Thomas.” The church has a long tradition of leaders who struggle with their faith.
Amazing. I was taught from childhood that there are many paths to God. It wasn’t official church doctrine, but I know many leaders in our church who believe that to be true.
Me too. But then, bigoted extremism of any kind disgusts me. And sometimes that takes the form of comments against religion.
Voyager, I love your question: “If you conclude one of God’s commands is unethical, how do you argue against it?” Not many people can get away with asking that in GD. You leave me laughing and shaking my head.
Stop provoking my thoughts! :mad: