Oi! Mormon guy! Prove it!

[Mysturji]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/05/l ... s-origins/
Oh, fuck I hope so.
Catholics in 5... 4... 3...

[Bella Fortuna]

ALL religions make unverifiable claims and are frauds... it's kinda their whole business!

[mistermack]

I think there is certainly a place for a law that makes it illegal for a religion to CHARGE it's followers money.
Genuinely voluntary gifts are something different, but if you charge money for something, it should be subject to all of the business laws. I can see this catching on.

You are on very different legal ground, when you make ''donations'' obligatory.
I can't see why ex-mormons couldn't reclaim every penny that they paid, on the grounds of having paid it under duress, and false promises.

And Trading Standards should be taking a keen interest in the mormons, as they are clearly operating as a business.

[Svartalf]

pfffftttt, a british judge against a merkin organisation... enough problems of jurisdiction that this will come to naught.

[mistermack]

pfffftttt, a british judge against a merkin organisation... enough problems of jurisdiction that this will come to naught.

Probably.
But it would cost them dear, if it started a debate, which ended with them losing their charity status.
And the argument is there. How can you claim to be a charity, if people are OBLIGED to give?
That's a business, not a charity.

[Svartalf]

Man, if they start stripping denoms of their tax free statute, the mormons will be the last to suffer, they have enough lobbying power to make sure of that.

[mistermack]

Man, if they start stripping denoms of their tax free statute, the mormons will be the last to suffer, they have enough lobbying power to make sure of that.

I doubt it. Not in the UK.
Anyway, it's not stripping denoms, it those who charge a fee, which is a different principle.

[Blind groper]

Mormonism is one of the clearest cases, though. The founder, Joseph Smith, had a criminal record and had time in prison for swindling. It is kind of ironic that the primary skill needed by an evangelist is also the primary skill needed by a swindler. The gift of the gab. Or do you guys think that may not be a total coincidence?

[Svartalf]

After what L Ron hubbard did in creating scientology, I no longer believe in coincidences.
What I find hard to believe is the number of idiots who fall for it and follow every weird ritual they are told to go through.

[Blind groper]

There are three modern religions that were begun by swindlers. Obviously Mormonism. Also obviously, Scientology. The third is spiritualism, which was begun by a couple of women who pretended to speak to the dead. When they had reached a great age, they admitted it was a con job, but by that time the spiritualist church was established, and continues to this day despite the confessions of its founders.

[Audley Strange]

After what L Ron hubbard did in creating scientology, I no longer believe in coincidences.
What I find hard to believe is the number of idiots who fall for it and follow every weird ritual they are told to go through.

I've been watching a lot about cults recently and what comes across, to me is that most of those who get involved in them are people who are lost or disconnected from reality prior to even going into the cult. They are usually not very bright and are often credulous and weak minded, but think they are special, different from the masses and when some charlatan panders to that they succumb to whatever woo they are selling usually to their cost.

One of the very telling things in one of the documentaries I watched, about Marshall Applewhite's Heaven's Gate, had a cultist who still had a conviction that the mass suicide was the cult ascending to a higher plane and when questioned about them dying for such odd beliefs made a very pertinent point, that people die and kill for their beliefs all the time and thus the Heaven's Gate cult was no different in that regard than any other faith. Which is fair play since I suspect that those in the major religions think they are special too.

[Svartalf]

Special as in special needs, maybe?

[Warren Dew]

There are three modern religions that were begun by swindlers. Obviously Mormonism. Also obviously, Scientology. The third is spiritualism, which was begun by a couple of women who pretended to speak to the dead. When they had reached a great age, they admitted it was a con job, but by that time the spiritualist church was established, and continues to this day despite the confessions of its founders.

I don't think Joseph Smith was any more obviously a swindler than was Moses.

[Audley Strange]

Special as in special needs, maybe?

No. (Well yeah but no.)

If you look at most cults or faiths the central premise always seems to be that corporeal reality is akin to a cosmic X-Factor in which we are expected to perform to the standards of imaginary judges, whether that be Thunder Gods or aliens or transdimensional intelligences. As we see on things like the X-factor there are many mundane people erroneously convinced of their own abilities to ascend to the celestial, the celebrity. This to me is the key to understanding why people join cults and religions. It is the desperation to believe they are somehow part of a special club, not merely a cog in the machine, it is the need to convince themselves they are as important as they think they are.

This is why cults and religions work better for it than political movements (though I'd say many people get into politics because they assume that they are important enough that the world should do what they say) they hook people in with mystery. They are all slightly vague, odd and alien to the outsider by design because they don't understand "the secret" only the chosen, the special get to know that. Which is why they tend to be such intolerably smug bastards. It never occurs to them that they are just being told a shaggy dog story, that would be unacceptable to them and their inflated perception of themselves, so it must be, needs to be the truth and Outsiders "just don't get it" or whatever self-rationalisation they need to continue deluding themselves. Which is why they seem to consider differences in opinion attacks upon their worldview. Part of them knows they're bananas.

[Mysturji]

Cult: A small, unpopular religion.
Religion: A large, popular cult.