Churches should be taxed with exemptions for charity. That would affect the televangelists who solicit the pensions of the elderly who have been frightened into believing they can pay for their sins.
You can’t separate church and state. People vote their religious convictions.
People join political party’s out of religious convictions. In fact, belonging to a political party is very much like a religious conviction.
Religion is always given a “pass”. If you spent time looking at all the exemptions granted churches for their activities, you’d be amazed at how far we’ve bent over backwards to provide preferential treatment of all religious organizations. The dubious activities of televangelists is proof in point. They rake in millions of dollars “selling” promises they have no way of keeping. Beyond that, if we applied the same administrative cost/charitable work yardstick to religions as we apply to other non-profits, there wouldn’t be a church group that could stand the test. The Salvation Army might be the only exception. The incidents of fraud and corruption in the religious media are too numerous to mention. Televangelists might be the poster child, but they’re the tip of the iceberg. The millions raked in selling trinkets, CDs, DVDs, and books are the largest part of selling religion. It’s a business and a damned BIG business.
The issue of religious belief in society is a far more complex issue. In the main, responsible government must remain staunchly secular, not only to protect those of religious conviction, but those who reject religion. It is to be expected that people will vote their values, but religion should be practiced in the home, the church, temple, synagogue, of choice. It should be the responsibility of every religion to avoid promoting their particular ideology any place where general society is affected. If you want freedom of religion, it follows that you must be capable of granting freedom FROM religion as well. Obviously, almost all religions fail that test.
The mandate of heaven was a Chinese political philosophy for validating the legitimacy of the rulers.
The short and sweet of the system was that if good things were happening, then the ruler’s societal methods were divinely right, and therefore no one could overthrow them. If bad things were happening, then the ruler’s societal methods were divinely wrong, and therefore someone could overthrow them.
Originally, it is viewed through the historical lens, the Zhou dynasty established the Mandate of Heaven simply to justify why they were justified in taking over the Shang dynasty. So originally it was a terrible thing, because it was just yet another emperor declaring that they were divinely right, and retroactively (and fictitiously - because the accounts they claimed were of impossible conditions since their predecessors didn’t believe in divinities as they did) declaring all before them were errant and that was why it was OK that they just killed your leader and now are in control of you.
But what eventually happened was that it turned into a political check and balance system (OK…more or less. We all know there’s no such thing as a perfect checks and balance system as people will find ways to abuse any system for control), whereby the rulers, over time, ambitioned more and more to be the emblem of Confucianism (as it was held that the ideal of Confucianism was what the divine approved of the most), and that meant ruling with the ideals of Confucianism…which, on the whole, was a pretty good philosophy for political rule (Confucianism, that is).
So it gave the “people” (translation: rich [mostly] male land owning population) power to claim that the emperor was a pile of crap and overthrow them, by claiming that they abused society and violated the mandate of heaven; and therefore brought suffering upon their people.
This eventually popped up a “golden boy” (as mentioned before) of the system who reigned perfectly…I mean…you couldn’t get more crunchy (in the Chinese way) than this guy.
He always consulted with the ministers and never disrespected their wisdom, and always took them very seriously into consideration. His wife, Empress Dou, was devoutly Taoist (she was said to be absolutely obsessed with Lao Zi’s writings) and openly influential in compassion (in the Taoist way of non-action form of compassion), and she eventually even taught her son to be as his Father and rule with all the great ideals of the Chinese “golden age”.
But the point is that all of this was a sort of check and balance of rulers where previously there wasn’t really any check and balance except for that they were heirs and no one had killed them yet.
The comparison being drafted is that, in regards to religion, we don’t really have an example of what we are gearing up for.
We have this history of a religion getting picked and championed and the rest wiped out; or all religions being wiped out and the government being absolute in enforcing secularism on the personal level.
Neither of these approaches has panned out very well, so I doubt any modern society of massively culturally mixed societies are in a rush to institute either of these options (considering after installment, the given society typically only lasts around a hundred or some odd years and then everyone is so pissed off with being told how to existentially feel that they just let slip all sense of their responsibility scales to society…more often implicitly than explicitly).
So, to me, the closest we have in comparison is this mandate of heaven bit in China’s golden age.
It wasn’t a separation of “Church and State”, directly, but it is an example of a massive claims which people would believe in fully being counter-checked against the one making the claims - something the Western Culture hasn’t really seen religion (as a whole) do…well…really, ever.
So if we go forward and start demanding that religious institutions are to be held to their claims in responsibility, then I would assume a similar form of human behavior would eventually arise as what arose in China under the Mandate of Heaven.
That is to say, the level of disregard would go down, and self-awareness of the societal responsibility to fulfill claims as proclaimed would be increasingly more common as more and more court cases began to arise in a newly permitted system of religious claim accountability.
It wouldn’t remove all bad behavior and corruption any more than the Chinese Mandate of Heaven did, as those attributes will always exist in every facet of human society as long as humans exist in mass numbers as a single society.
However, what it would do is increase the motivation to be more careful about encouraging people to follow along with extraordinary claims that have any potential of harming the individuals, especially as “harm” from such interactions gets a wider birth of legal definition (as is beginning to take place).
Somebody has to fleece the sheep.
Soooo… what’s your plan, Stan? 
I plan on not getting fleeced … any more.
How about U?
I gave it up in my teens. Shaggy dog story: My mother was a dedicated hellfire and damnation sort of christian. As a teenage smartass, I decided to poke her in the ribs a little. One sunday morning I tuned the TV into some televangelist show and turned the sound off. I asked mom to watch for a few minutes and then I asked, "How is what you’re watching any different than the Ed Sullivan Show? I got nothing but a stare, and ended up fixing my own dinner. She was not amused. I fought the war with the rest of family for another 10 years or so before they gave up.
Oddly, I married a girl who was a regular church goer, but not a religion pusher. I made sure that each of my children attended church with mom every Sunday until it was clear that they weren’t satisfied with what they were seeing. Why? Because they needed to have something to compare when they began asking about dad’s Taoism. It worked out OK for each of them. The wife still teaches Sunday School and I go about my business as usual. We accept each other’s spiritual nature and we DO NOT talk religion…
It seems very odd to me that they should be considered more to blame due to what drew people to the event, rather than simply to blame for not organizing well, providing the right security or whatever.
Look out politicians because your rallies at least should be next.
So if they had promised a free chicken to everyone and 150,000 came and got chickens they wouldn’t be to blame?
One can test most psychic claims.
i don’t think you can put people in jail for not having their heart in the right place. If they break the law, then…
Let’s put this in perspective. Very few people have gone to jail for the financial crisis that radically damaged the lives of certainly thousands of people, and damaged the lives of millions and millions of others. There was systematic crime. But only a few really extreme, flashy criminals were prosecuted. It was a system of lies. Let’s start with them.
If some psychic tells you you are going to meet a tall dark stranger before Christmas and you don’t, who cares. If they tell you to give them all your money or you will not meet the stranger, send them to prison.
Moreno,
The issue at hand that makes a difference is that of questioning, not just the example cases, but the general status of offering people a religious solution that ends up causing harm.
The reason that it is in question is because the standard up until now has been to leave it on the shoulders of those adhering, and to have no specific laws for religious institutions regarding their claims and whether or not they can fulfill those claims.
Let’s just toss the two examples out for the moment and address the general concept.
Religious institutions generally are left alone when their prescriptions and claims do not work out for an adherent. This permits the environment whereby the religious institutions are free to make any claim, regardless of the outcome, and the fallout is generally left upon the feet of the adherent.
In commercial marketing, there is generally a set of laws regulating the ability to make claims that are incapable of being rendered in guarantee.
Because religion is seen as a willful act of the individual to adhere to culturally, it is generally not seen as the same as a marketed product.
However, there is no real difference between the two when harm comes into the result.
It doesn’t really matter whether banks or politicians are or are not held accountable in like fashion in a given country, as to whether or not religious institutions should or should not be held to some fashion of responsibility for the claims in which they prescribe to an adherent.
Whether we think the individuals are idiots or not, they are trusting the provider to prescribe a successful remedy for their existential ailment in some fashion, and the provider is not required to adhere to a form of ethos regarding the general safety and care of the adherent due to the results of their prescriptions.
In fact, if the adherents are gullible suckers or idiots, then that is more of a reason to hold the one making the claims and prescriptions accountable; unless they too can prove that they are equally as ignorant of the consequences as the adherents - in which case they should be held accountable for offering prescriptions and practices without full knowledge of their trade.
I can easily start up a spiritual center and offer remedies for depression and link it to evil energy, and then prescribe people to change their diets and choices in their quality of living in the assertion that it pleases the divine right of good energy.
This may all seem benign, but I can also then later declare that I received a revelation from the divine energies that homosexuals were the absolute worst energy that will suck your soul dry and cause you all the ill in your life.
I can prescribe that every adherent do everything in their will to remove homosexual individuals from their lives so to attain right energy.
Now a bunch of adherents, after getting everyone emotionally invested at great length before the anti-homosexual decree, are going to cut off friends and family members from being part of their life.
I, the prescriber, have destroyed social unities by a claim.
The claim also asserts that in destroying social unity, the individuals will find good energy and be rid of their depressions.
Now, if even a single adherent increases in depression because they have an actual physiological variation of clinical depression and the adherence to the order to rid homosexuals from their lives removed them from proximity with their only remaining parent and caused them much suffering as a result, all the while believing that they will be alleviated from their suffering as a result of following this very difficult path that I repeatedly assure them is gainful spiritually for them, then it should stand to be of good measure that I should be held accountable for the harm caused by my reckless prescription which did not alleviate their existential suffering, but instead increased it many fold; not to mention damaged a portion of social stability in the community.
I don’t see any fault in holding such laws, and I’ve always thought that it was odd that such laws were absent, considering the ramifications of unchecked cultural prescriptions on merely the grounds of unverifiable metaphysical authority for the alleviation of existential suffering.
All the telefundies have to say when you did not get your miracle is that you lack faith.
Jayson,
I think that makes sense to me. What I see happening now is a basic process of moving from crudeness (“separation of church and state”) to a much closer and more subtle examination of what this slogan means and how it can occur in a politically and philosophically consistent way. And what that might lead to is something similar to yet different from what you’ve described as happening in China, i.e. “enlightened rule”: a natural and justified place for moral and intellectual virtues in the public sphere, with the extravagant claims of religions brought down to earth – a coming together or a finer parsing, depending on how you look at it. I believe that given the framework of “separation of church and state”, claims regarding right and wrong, causes of happiness and suffering, and probably all metaphysical claims, will always be protected given the current language of the Constitution. But claims regarding healing, for instance, may become untenable, given that money is changing hands (though the transaction is typically indirect). The “not enough faith” clause that Ierrellus points out might not hold up to scrutiny. In other words, a doctor and a priest may both fail to heal a person, but the priest, in recommending that the doctor is not consulted, may in the future be held responsible. I suppose this would depend on the kinds of tactics used by the priest – it is these tactics which would help a judge or jury determine whether any particular person is a “victim” or whether it is simply a lifestyle choice and the person in question subsequently changed their mind about their values and decisions.
Tentative,
What kinds of promises, though? That’s the important point, I think. I don’t really know what televangelists promise. Promising an eternal afterlife seems protected to me, unless it can be reasonably shown that a person has been a victim of illegal methods of mind control. You could say all methods of mind control are bad, but I think that’s far too broad a statement to be anywhere close to reasonable. We expect people to have a certain healthy amount of independence and integrity.
I don’t know about this “yardstick”. What is it? Also, can you clarify for me how the government regulates the sales of CD’s, books, etc. by religious organizations? Is the government hands off about it? Or do they regulate that aspect of the organization as a normal business like any other?
I’m confused by the bolded sentence. My religion (Buddhism) consists of certain beliefs, for instance that certain kinds of actions are healthy, wholesome, and lead away from suffering, while other kinds of actions are the opposite (I believe in karma). So far, so uncontroversial. But I also sometimes believe in a more or less literal version of reincarnation. The least controversial way of stating this? - genes and memes. The most controversial way of stating this? – “I” didn’t begin at birth, and “I” don’t end at death. Are you saying it is my responsibility to avoid promoting such beliefs in public? I’m not a missionary or anything – yuck – but you could say that just by having a discussion about such things on a website like this one I am “promoting” my “particular ideology”.
Moreno,
I think it’s reasonable to place blame on the conscious lying and manipulation that contributed to the death of 16 people due to greed – even if it’s that special kind of greed that can be defended as “doing what it takes to keep on doing (some other) good”.
I don’t think so, in general. The nature of the claims is completely different. A politician claims to try and do what he can to solve messy problems, and his power is inherently compromised. Read again what that church claimed. Maybe it’s because we’re so used to such claims that we can’t see them with fresh eyes and see how completely disgusting they are.
It depends. There are various factors and pieces of the puzzle that lead to any judgment of culpability. The various aspects of the situation present an overall picture – it is on the basis of such an overall picture that some decision is made. This is almost always true. For instance, criminals who provide strong evidence of a harsh upbringing will often receive a lesser sentence – in effect, more forgiveness.
And? Are you saying that they should be held accountable for false claims? Interestingly, police departments have been known to consult psychics to help find missing persons.
I think maybe you misunderstood what I was referring to. Let’s take noble lies. This psychic may have changed her client’s jar of water to black using some additive. But maybe she knew something about this relative and used this deception in order to give good advice. And that advice just happened to cost a hell of a lot of money. So… was this deception legal? And, whether legal or not, was it right? Was it a good thing to do?
Perspective is fine, but this subject happens to be what I decided to post about.
What if they charge $10,000, and you’re a millionaire?
Excellent points Jayson, and I agree with you in spirit - but legally, isn’t the claim that homosexuality is wrong exactly the kind of claim that is most specifically (currently) protected?
In no way would I support curbing your beliefs or public discussion of the same. BUT… when you attempt to control others through political action based on your religious beliefs, then the government should have the responsibility to shut that down. You believe in creationism? OK. But pressuring law makers to pass laws forcing the teaching of creationism in schools? Supporting the passage of laws restricting gays from marraige because of your religious convictions? Your privately held values should remain silent when it infringes on others. In a pluralistic society, it is the responsibility of government to represent and defend ALL it’s citizens - not just those of a particular religion. Religions that fail to honor their “freedom” to hold and teach their religious values in the home and church and at the same time, demand by law that others follow suit is wrong - dead wrong.
Quite.
And so I’ll respond after the following…
It’s not the focal of the fact that homosexuality is or is not a protected theological clause that’s in question, but instead what was gained in the adherence comparative to damages accrued from the same result.
Meaning, the point of the example that I compiled only serves to function as a problem if the individual does not receive elation as expected, and the prescription to sever social ties compounds further damages.
Before, in just about all ancient civilizations, any religiously affiliated group or individual (even in mixed culture societies) was judged by how much unity or destruction of unity they caused within the society.
Destruction of societal bond and unification was considered a strong threat of death to the civilization, and therefore a violation of social contract in some fashion (though, typically, too many instances occurring from one demographic typically also included death or removal of the adherents to that given group in violation).
Clearly, it cannot be said for our cultures today that all advice for avoidance of demographics of society are to be ridden of.
However, where there is needless (produced no evident gain) social destruction among a claim of harm; I would find that within merit of reprimand for, at the very least, negligent and non-gainful destruction of society.
Which brings me back around to the first post in response above.
I agree that there’s no way to hold accountability for the metaphysical claims, nor do I think there’s anything of the kind reasonably within question.
Instead, like you, I see it as applicable to hold responsible where religious institutions, or leading individuals, are using religion to command or offer endophysical (as opposed to metaphysical) prescriptions should those prescriptions result in any adherent’s complaint of harm.
Essentially, the reason that I see this as making sense is because it’s the adherent that must first claim harm.
It is from within the culture that the complaint should arise, and then at that point it is held accountable.
So, if no adherent claims harm, then there’s nothing to process against the institution or leader; it only occurs when harm from within is claimed. At that point, the endophysical prescriptions are reviewed for damages, to include the consideration of damages upon unity of society in the prescriptions, should they apply in the claim of harm.
Ierrellus,
The consideration of faith, aside from not being universal in religious infrastructures, isn’t capable of side-stepping the endophysical consideration, but only instead the metaphysical considerations.
What I mean by this is that if a party claims harm from adherence to a prescription from a given religious leader from a given religious institution, and that leader claims the harm fell upon the adherent due to a lack of faith; then the leader can be held accountable for willfully placing the individual within harms way without devoted effort to remove them from harm by using their trade to either increase the faith of the adherent, or increase the metaphysical or endophysical preservation of their adherent.
It’s what I call a ‘shepherd law’, because it’s like saying the sheep is responsible for securing its safety in the dark of night, and not the shepherd’s.
This isn’t the same as someone picking up a book of philosophy and taking from it whatever they want.
This is a question of social prescriptions that are actively engaged intimately.
It doesn’t stand up well for a Doctor, for instance, to hand someone medication and not tell them how to take it, nor to follow up with them to ensure that solution is continuing.
The Doctor doesn’t get to walk away from the event claiming that the individual didn’t bother to read the dosage directions or make followup appointments if the Doctor never bothered to offer the information or the option for followup appointments.
Similarly, it doesn’t follow for someone to offer prescriptions in sweeping fashion and then lack any actual follow-through with the individual in interest of preservation of the individual’s metaphysical and endophysical safety.
I focused on the example case because it was the example. And in fact it was an exceptional one. Most religions do not offer universal cures for the woes of the earthly plane - to use a randomly made up neo-religious phrase, mostly for fun - like the one in the example did. Most religions are offering solutions on the spiritual side. Of course there are exceptions.
I don’t know if that is the case or not. If the religious ‘expert’ or expert is directly making a practical mundane world based claim - I will heal your body, period or I will make you a million dollars if you… - I am pretty sure they are open to being charged in many countries, especially if money changes hands.
Generally because there is a direct financial transaction. I pay you for this product. There are specific, empirically testable claims made about the product.
If there is a clear pay for this and you will receive this testable for product, then there is no significant difference.
Why? The recent crisis happened because systematically banks sold products they knew had little value while claiming they did have greater value. This systematic misrepresentation of products led to untold destruction and misery and the effects are still coming in, possibly increasing. I cannot see how that is not a parallel to the situation presented as an example in the OP.
The politician example, I think, is actually a better parallel to the religious ones. Here we have claims being made about the results of this or that policy or the future action of the politician. The results are much harder to track empirically, though easier to track than many of the claims made by religions on the more spiritual side of claims.
I think if there is a purchase then secular laws should hold. I do understand that this can get fuzzy - were they pressured to donate in exchange for a guarantee of cancer healing, etc. But if there is a direct purchase promise and one can demonstrate that the promised result was not achieved by purchasers in general, then secular laws should be applied.
Or you can be a psychiatrist/pharmaceutical company and have managed to get the dominant paradigm in society and get a pass on precisely the kinds of consumer protection you are asking for in relation to religions.
A scientific critique of anti-depressants.
scientifica.com/2012/965908/
My response is not the response I would have in all contexts. In this forum the dominant paradigm is physicalist, science is the only way to knowledge, etc. In this context I am going to react defensively in a broader way than I might in another context. Here I am going to present secular crimes against consumers that get a pass because of the power of those who commit those crimes. Hence my examples coming from banking and now psychiatry/psychotropics. These people get passes regularly in Western society despite evidence of systematic criminal activity in the former and philosophical confusion and poor empirical support in the latter.
I would like have a more nuanced response, than I have here, in another context.
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As long as they are not advocating violence or crimes against homosexuals, it seems to me this falls under Freedom of Speech and should be responded to in other ways.
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And then demonization is common in secular society. This is done in relation to anarchists by the mainstream media - and this would include people, say, who are well read followers of Murray Bookchin and social ecology. This is done in relation to communists by many actors in modern society.
People who follow non-dominant religions are subject to this kind of abuse.
In fact going against norms of pretty much any kind leaves one open to systematic abuse and prejudice by secular society.
Of course two wrongs do nót make a right, but will all these types of demonization and prejudice fostering also be attacked legally?
Then you would be expecting to have more power here than you would in the same situation against a psychiatrist who gave your child anti-depressants and the child killed herself.
Again, if there is a direct purchase, I tend to agree, though the results need to be looked at in general, since makers of over the counter meds, for example, need not be successful in all cases - and, as an aside, thousands die each year taking these and few family members will get recompense for this and criminal charges are out of the question.
Right now some religions have dominance status in the West: Christianity, Judaism, even Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism…
In some discussion forums, I would likely be more sympathetic to the OP or at least to how the questions the OP is raising could be used to attack religions and possibly lead to policy, given the behavior of the major religions and much of my distaste for them. Though frankly, I think they are generally careful to avoid direct claims about earthly woes in direct financial transactions. However in this context, I want to point out that other dominant organizations in the West get away with this shit all the time. I suspect that much of the sympathy for attacking religious misdeeds will not, here at ILP, will not lead to similar attacks on dominator organizations that are secular - this could of course be wrong on my part and I have no idea if the OP writer’s position would be one I would be critical of. If people say, Oh, yeah, I would aim the same kinds of criticism at these secular organizations7actors, I know, at least that there is a certain level of fairness.
One strong concern I have is that the kind of logic that can come out of this line will lead to dominator actors going after minority spriritual religions/beliefs in society with the goal of eradicating them.
Would the same hold true if I said there was going to be a great concert, but in fact the concert sucked. I don’t think you could ask for extra damages - if there was a similar stampede and deaths - due to the cynical promises of the concert promoters.
Politicians make claims that they will do things they then do not do. These can be easy to track. Of course new situations arise, but these could just as easily be evaulated by the courts, since they must often evaluate extremely complicated contexts and their effects on the agents involved.
Politicians make claims about the effects of a policy they are trying to convince the public is a good one, often without divulging there own cynical interests or who has lobbied them and who the real benefactors are. Nafta and GAtt are good examples. It was clear that US jobs would be lost to any rational analyst and the lobbying was clearly coming from those who would gain, corporations. The exact processes that ended up taking place and the effects on the jobs and wages of US citizens came to pass as the critics predicted. Of course some politicians believed the BS and had their hearts in the right place, but there were key politicians who lied, earned money via campaign contributions and later positions in industry.
Sure, the claims are ridiculous. But that is part of my reaction to the OP. Here we have an example that is the exception rather than the rule. Most of the major religions would not make claims anything like this. Most of the minor ones also. Buddhism might be the only one that makes claims so directly, but there the adherent is expected to make a lifelong committment to serious practice before their suffering will be eliminated (or not be the same problem it was).
So part of my reaction was that the OP could be seen as implicitly arguing this example is a good general one. I don’t think it is. Here they were making specific secular claims. Ending misery could be interpreted fairly broadly and subtley and they might be able to slide away from that one in the way a Buddhist might. But unenemployment? Nah. And I cannot imagine most religions having a big meeting where if you come you are guanteed a job will arise in your life. Maybe the Na Myo ho Renge Kyo people come some steps in that direction, but most, not even close.
I don’t think that’s really a parallel.
Oh I believe some people are full on psyhics. I would want to see the power brokers in society held accountable for their claims and actions first. To me false psychics are a low priority.
It might have been a good thing to do.
Sure. You don’t have to respond to my broadening issue questions. I explain a bit more why I raise them in response to Jayson. But to sum it up quickly…I think this line of reasoning will not make a dent on the dominator religions - if, say, it were to lead to laws and policy. It will certainly not touch any of the major secular players either who are causing damage and selling garbage. What it will do however, I would guess, is end up being a part of attacks on players who have relatively little power. IOW it will become a tool of oppression, though certainly in some cases will target assholes or dangerous idiots. I’ve seen how similar lines of reasoning have led to the suppression of alternative health care that worked as well or better than mainstream medicine, even leading to the incarceration of doctors successful at treating certain diseases.
The powerful escape the application, those not so powerful do not and do not have it fairly applied.
To me the power context is critical.