[Is religion really] "A fraudulent money-making scheme"

Left_Hand_of_Dorkness · June 25, 2009, 11:03am

I wonder, if this is a common use, if you can find me three different uses on the web of “fraudulent” being used where the author does not think deliberate deception is involved.

Sage_Rat · June 25, 2009, 11:34am

Em…while a minister might vary between simple advice and religious doctrine, in either case the listeners are liable to view it as doctrine. It’s “force of law” on your list.

The Bible is The Word. The Truth. The Law.

You don’t obey and you go to Hell.

If you don’t believe that, your version of Christianity is non-representative and frankly isn’t what’s called Christianity.

Left_Hand_of_Dorkness · June 25, 2009, 2:09pm

Blatantly untrue. Here, for example is the Catholic Church’s current Nicene Creed:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, the only-begotten, born of the Father before all ages.
Light of light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made.
Who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, and became man.
He was also crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried.
And He rose again on the third day, according to the scriptures.
And He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father.
And He will come again with glory, to judge the living and the dead, and of His kingdom there will be no end.
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke through the prophets.
In one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I profess one baptism for the remission of sins.
I expect the resurrection of the dead; and the life of the world to come.
Amen.

This is, I believe, the most important statement of belief for Catholics. I invite you to find anywhere in there either a statement that the Bible is “The Word. The Truth. The Law,” OR a statement that unbelievers go to hell.

Yes, there are some fundamentalist sects, especially in the US, especially since the mid-nineteenth century, that have the beliefs you claim. But they are very far from universal.

begbert2 · June 25, 2009, 4:37pm

Google is filled with instances where a deliberate crime or deception is happening, likely because deliberate deception is actual news. And honestly, I don’t care enough about this to dig any harder than a google search. So if you want to stand on a little pedestal and proclaim that you’ve won your little semantic argument from assertion (since I rebutted your appeals to dictionary), go to it. It still won’t make you a shred more convincing to people who don’t exclusively use the ‘deliberate deception only’ definition for the term.

ITR_champion · June 25, 2009, 4:44pm

Revenant_Threshold:

It can’t be voluntarily terminated. You can’t decide that you don’t believe in advice anymore. A change in opinion has to be affected by outside events - perhaps the advice frequently doesn’t work, or the advice giver lowers themselves in your esteem in some way. The power of advice isn’t voluntarily given, either; attention is voluntarily given (in most cases) certainly, but as far as ministers go, that attention is (at least as far as a led service goes) voluntarily granted.

Advice can be as much as a force, a compulsion, as is an armed guard forcing you to do something. An advisor can have great power, because while an armed assault would certainly give some power, that power is granted grudgingly, unwillingly, and will be taken back at the first chance - and that armed person will likely never get another chance to have that power. An advisor can have continuing power, and what is more it can actually change a person’s mind - even when you are no longer giving advice, the effects of that advice remain. If you hold me up with a gun and force me to say that I am wrong on this subject, I will likely say it, but when you’re gone I won’t anymore (and i’ll probably avoid you). If you manage to convince me i’m wrong, not only will I believe it after you’ve gone off to something else, I might even try to convince others in turn.

I’m afraid we may have reached the point where we just can’t communicate any further because our definitions are too far apart. I Use the definition of advice from Random House: “an opinion or recommendation offered as a guide to action, conduct, etc…” By that definition advice is voluntary and cannot be otherwise. If someone gives me advice, I decide whether to take it or not, with the same decision-making facility that I use to decide what I eat for breakfast. Even if I take advice from a source repeatedly, I can still choose to stop doing so at any moment, just as I can eat bran flakes for many days in a row and then suddenly choose to eat oatmeal.

You say that “a change in opinion has to be affected by outside events”, but on what grounds? What stops a person from changing their opinions without an outside change? I’ve done so and I’ve observed others doing so, thus I follow Socrates in believing that the mind is the driving force of a person and can overcome outside events.

Further, any attempt to erase the common sense understanding of the difference between voluntary choice and coercion carries dangers that should be obvious. All the books, documents, and such that form the basis of our free society simply assume that there’s a boundary between freedom and force. To redefine and declare that apparently voluntary relationships actually aren’t would open the door to all kinds of abuse.

Left_Hand_of_Dorkness · June 25, 2009, 4:54pm

Your use of the dictionary is absurd, and you can’t find any examples of the word in the “common” use you claim. Yeah, I think I’ll declare victory on this point.

ITR_champion · June 25, 2009, 5:04pm

Your cites suffer from two flaws, as usual. First they are from Wikipedia, which is not a reliable source. Second, they don’t say what you claim to say. Neither quote says that a minister’s advice equates to how not to burn in Hell, which is what you claimed.

People want guidance in this case for the same reason that they want guidance in any other case: because they believe that the guidance will help them achieve their goals better.

Cite?

All four statements that you made in that last post are flat, out-and-out false. Sooner or later, it’s going to occur to you that since I’m a Christian and you’re not a Christian, you look pretty silly when you dream up crazy beliefs and then try to tell me that Christians believe them. Then again, you’ve embarrassed yourself with incorrect statements about the Christian faith so many times that I guess you must not care about that.

begbert2 · June 25, 2009, 5:13pm

Absurd? Right.

I declare you lose. So between us we’re tied. I guess we throw the final decision to the audience then…

Left_Hand_of_Dorkness · June 25, 2009, 5:21pm

Oh, absolutely. Anyone in this thread familiar with the common use of “fraudulent” in a way that excludes a deceptive intent? Anyone able to give a few cites of such a use?

Feel free also to start a poll in IMHO on the subject.

begbert2 · June 25, 2009, 5:32pm

Your persistence in digging your teeth in this is somehow annoying in some sort of perverse way. It makes me feel almost compelled not to give you the last word (noting that there’s a possibility that you continue to post on this inane subject for precisely the same reason).

For a cite, let’s start with the *OP *- the argument against it being fraudulent is strictly that it doesn’t require money - not a word about deliberate deception. Here’s the money quote: “A fraudulent organization is one that charges money for a good or service and does not deliver what they promised.” Not a single word about intent - only results. Heck, a reasonable argument could be made that for the purposes of this thread, the OP has specifically defined that intent has dick-all to do with the word.

But yeah - go on thinking that I’m the only person in the entire world who thinks that an organization can be fraudulent despite lacking a will to deliberately deceive with or and overt controller to impart such a will to it.

JThunder · June 25, 2009, 5:32pm

If I were the judge, I’d be handing you a trophy at this point.

Thing_Fish · June 25, 2009, 5:40pm

Yeah, I definitely think LHoD is the winner in this side squabble.

To the OP, I think it is a gross oversimplification to say that religion as a whole is a “fraudulent money-making scheme”. I am amused, however, that the Google ads are for something purporting to “give Christians the resources to follow God’s teachings about money”!

Left_Hand_of_Dorkness · June 25, 2009, 6:41pm

Howzabout it, ITR–do you agree with begbert’s interpretation of the OP? That is, do you think it is possible for something to be fraudulent when there is no intention for deceit?

Sage_Rat · June 25, 2009, 8:51pm

It’s a dictionary definition. It’s in the first paragraph, most general summary of the topics at point.

What’s your evidence that minister’s don’t teach doctrine, that there is no such thing as Biblical Law, that Christianity doesn’t believe in Hell, and/or that sinners don’t go there? Which one of those isn’t core to the beliefs of any major Christian organization that I need to justify pointing it out?

Left_Hand_of_Dorkness · June 25, 2009, 9:24pm

Start here

Generally speaking, religious liberals:

Reject the reality of Sheol.
Reject the reality of Hell as either a place of annihilation or eternal punishment.
Most look upon Hell as a concept, not as a place of punishment.
They view the various concepts of Hell in the Bible as myths. Although the writers of the Bible sincerely believed in Sheol and Hell, it has no real existence.

Of course many folks do believe in hell–but you’re vastly overgeneralizing when you suggest that it’s part of the definition of being Christian.

Locrian · June 25, 2009, 9:27pm

You and begbert sum it up right there.

It’s a business that sells a product that can not be checked for quality. I think it comes down to a lot of “Dude, if it’s true or not, you can still make a good living” type of thinking.

Sage_Rat · June 25, 2009, 9:37pm

I’m sure a could find a Christian group that believed that God’s a giant bunny. I’d want some evidence that this was a widely held belief before being willing to talk about Christianity in general terms with a bunny placed prominently.

ITR Champion might have his own personal version Christianity which has a thousand followers, but talking about his version instead of Christianity is pointless. That’s not a debate about Christianity, that’s a debate about one guy’s belief that has little to do with anybody else’s belief. Probably 90%+ of Christians believe in Hell, and the remaining 10%- is probably split up among groups so scattered in their beliefs from one another that considering them is swatting at gnats.

Christianity believes in Hell. Pretending otherwise isn’t just ignoring the Elephant in the Room, it’s ignoring the Rabid Elephant in the Room.

Sage_Rat · June 25, 2009, 9:43pm

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57565

95%. Hah, I guessed low. (And that’s probably not including Africa and South America which are going to be in the 99.9% range).

Locrian · June 25, 2009, 9:48pm

Ha! Great article. I love the part where one of the most popular responses was “Because the bible said so.”

“Is religion really a fraudulent money-making scheme?”
“No, because the bible says so.”

We’ll be hearing that argument soon, I imagine.

Left_Hand_of_Dorkness · June 25, 2009, 11:25pm

You’re fucking with us, right? Right?

First, you’re citing WorldNetDaily as if they’re reliable? Hmm.

Second:

If you need a lesson in sampling techniques, lemme know.

Edit: Here’s a better poll.

Topic		Replies	Views
Is it possible that all religions are attempts to explain one inexplicable thing? Great Debates	130	3841	July 8, 2005
Conceptions of Religion Great Debates	24	1210	June 15, 2004
One of many hints that organized religion is unecessary Great Debates	38	1571	May 26, 2002
The essence of religion Great Debates	18	1589	November 2, 2003
Organized Religion = Disguised Mafia Great Debates	20	1684	February 24, 2001

[Is religion really] "A fraudulent money-making scheme"

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