Religion and Commerce

For my take on things, Moreno, that’s the errant direction I am not discussing.
Whereas you are thinking of laws holding the theologies and philosophies at question of harm, I am referring to practitioners leading people directly in prescription.

This is why I said before that it is not comparable to a philosophical book where one gathers ideas from.

There is a vast difference between me being your spiritual leader and telling you something that you need to do in practice, in good faith that I have your safety in mind, that returns to you harm, and you picking up a religious text of some form and determining outcomes on your own from it.

This wasn’t a book, or a removed instance of capacity of intimacy, but instead direct intimacy of me prescribing to you what your actions should be and those actions that I conveyed to you to do, returning harm unto you.

In no means is this a question of the theological or philosophical capacity for conveyance, but instead a question against the actions contracted between two parties in good faith, that render damages or harm to the recipient party of the good faith social contract.

You can’t make a direct social contract using a book in nearly the same way as a direct spiritual leader conducts among their followers, and there in lies the difference.

Moreno,

I’m not sure, but I think you may be misreading my intention here. I’m not attacking religion. I’m witnessing in the news a broadening sense of the attempt and ability to hold religions (and psychics, etc.) accountable for some of their claims – in ways that have traditionally been considered off-limits because of the separation of church and state. Though most or all of the responses here have been to discuss this as a political issue (“get those damn religionists” or “leave me alone”), I didn’t intend for that to be the topic. The topic I intended was to take this political direction as a fact, and then consider what it will mean for religious beliefs and claims. That’s why I posted this in the religion forum rather than the social sciences forum. It’s about NOMA, basically. Is it right or wrong to make false claims with positive intentions? How much metaphysical speculation, whether of the creative sort or the traditional sort, is beneficial? If the political climate changed so thoroughly that it became impossible to make speculative assertions, would that fundamentally cripple various religions? Or could that be seen as a positive thing, forcing religions to concentrate on their essential points? One major thing to consider is this: people don’t give much money to organizations that just preach kindness and mercy. The money usually comes in when there’s some spectacular cosmology and mythology involved, that satisfies some kind of craving that people have. Does that mean that making money is the reason for a certain cosmology? Not at all.

I imagine all these things, which is why I’m discussing this. Again, I think you’ve misconstrued my OP as an attack on religion. It’s hard to know why this misunderstanding would happen, when I explicitly state that I am religious.

It seems like you are trying to make this into a black and white issue, an all or nothing scenario. I’ve tried to point out that culpability is nearly always considered as a matter of degree. Judges and juries look at multiple factors and considerations. I’m not sure why you don’t see it that way – you rejected an example I brought up illustrating this point. I mean, it’s not like the Angolan church was accused of murder.

Again, I think there are differences of degree in the kind of claims that get made. It seems somewhat nihilistic to think of all claims, of all kinds, as essentially the same in the eyes of the law (or of anyone). It reminds me of the Christian notion that all sins are the same in the eyes of God – I think such an idea is a misguided. As I mentioned before, I think most of us agree that certain kinds of religious leader can be shown to be so greedy, self-serving, manipulative, etc. that when combined with some kind of claim, it is easy to hold them accountable for their actions according to the standards of any sane society. There is a point where “the separation of church and state” can afford no more protection.

Moreno,

Didn’t we already discuss chickens or something? My answer to all these examples is that it has to do with an overall picture that is formed when weighing the evidence in a case. If a killing isn’t automatically a murder, why would an unfulfilled promise automatically be a scam? And even if “murder” or “scam” are judged to be the case, there is still a large variety of outcomes, with respect to suitable punishments, etc.

And they can be held accountable for these things. Are you just trying to say why discuss this in a religious context when you think politicians and corporations are a bigger problem?

I thought the OP was fairly clear that it is an example of a trend I see happening – a trend of holding religions accountable for their claims. I never claimed that the example was typical of churches.

Yes, I think the biggest issue is when religious claims intersect with the real world. Claims about healing, for instance. This isn’t a black and white issue though – positive thinking has been shown to help people heal. Prayer too, if I’m not mistaken. But I think it’s important to be guarded about the kinds of results that can be expected. I think it’s wrong to make spectacular claims about such things.

Why not? It’s an example of how “various factors and pieces of the puzzle …lead to any judgment of culpability”. I have no idea why you object to this.

I’m not engaging in activism here, so I have no idea why you keep bringing up priorities.

Ok, so you’re not against noble lies. Me neither, to be honest. But would you allow a juice manufacturer to tell white lies on their products, in order to get people to drink juice rather than soda? This thread is about the intersection of religion and commerce. That’s the topic.

That’s probably a fair assessment. Though I wouldn’t underestimate the ambitions of the people who are most interested in taking things in this direction.

I’ve made a partial pretty disorganized case against the implied proposal, but rather than do what might be seen as hijack the thread I will not post at least for a while, check in later and see where it has gone.

It is an interesting OP. I should have said that earlier.

Thanks for contributing, Moreno. Come back any time. Your views always resonate with me.

I’m not getting swept up into a ‘culture is changing, becoming more evolved, or is on a cognitive-education tipping point of a more enlightened age’ debate, as it more or less encompasses a sectarian viewpoint, and every sect, no matter or ‘religious’ or ‘atheists’ are thinking they are the next big wave, while at the same time lamenting how they are threatened or declining- which is blah. Men are today as they were yesterday, and will be much the same tomorrow. Evolution doesn’t happen that quickly, but our natural viewpoints always seem so special, informed, and bias towards itself. This is for me and everyone else.

I think in the original OP, the Ugandan government was certainly justified for shutting down for a period of review- from a perspective of safety, the large scale meetups FOR A LIMITED TIME- which 60 days is realistic, for large gatherings, but the church as a whole, no. Not household of chapel gatherings, but large ones like this that clearly turned fucked up in the end- it’s hard to get trampled from 12 people in a living room escaping because the curtain catches fire. Is it a infringement on our religious freedoms? Yep, but one that isn’t permanent, is quite short term, and is for the long term safety of the members from dying under such stupid circumstances.

This is going to involve the equivelent of a fire marshall looking at the cold facts of ingress and egress in and out of large events, how emergency crews will respond, and responsibilities of necessary security and police forces to coral people from violent, life ending panic when something accidentally goes wrong.

Yes, a Church, Mosque, tree shine, temple, or even a university class room or legion’s standard can be designated as sacred and untouchable- but we also have to remember the Church in the west isn’t designed after a Synagogue, but roman Basilica- a market place where men would walk around, buying goods- very similar to a indoor bazaar. It’s completely rational and acceptible to say ‘upper limit is this’ incase something happens, like a priest’s robe catches onfire, stumbling around in flames infront of a scared parishioners. It’s a structure like any other.

This other monkey babble, such as Irrelius bringing in taxation- imposing his ‘atheistic spiritualism’- religion by any other name- over more formal gatherings of the more established religious- has nothing to do with the safety of people in attendance to anything. It’s a safety issue, and we gotta take this into account as our main understanding. If your congregation is considered too large to fit inside of the church, consider it a complement and start looking to build a second site somewhere. This goes for any group meeting up, not just religious.

Fire Marshalls, and hiring competent security, could of solved this. It has nothing to do with commerce. Uganda is a former british colony, and certainly has similar liability clauses that exist in other formerly british nations. This isn’t hard to figure out. Big groups of people do stupid stuff, it’s been known since Aeneas the Tactician first wrote on this in his work ‘On the Defense of the Fortified City’… the rule for the last 2400 years in the western world has been making sure groups are guarded and coordinated by informed guards when mass hysteria takes place.

This got jack to do with religion. It was never a religious question- as I’ve pointed to it’s origins in Aeneas’ work. No special cults, no antagonisms between church, ideology, or state. It’s literally that simple.

No further debate about religion, or commerce- it’s not applicable. It never was, and the case can’t be rationally be made from this perspective. It’s a done story, we’ve known for ages how to solve this one. It’s stupid simple, and God isn’t to blame for it. Our capacity to panic and react to others panicking is. The need for government to insure it’s population isn’t systematically knocked off from panic. A backdoor sneak attack on religion is completely unwarranted, as I can easily point out countless scenarios were non-religious meetups turned out even worst. This is just a backdoor sneak attack by the less than honest to tear a hole into group meetings by those you despise for whatever petty bias. Rest assured, your viewpoint probably won’t be around in a few generations, so your angst will not last. Not saying all men will become religious, or vice versa- but I doubt this petty positioning will exist as it does not in five or six generations. It doesn’t work, isn’t conductive on any side, and is a big dead end that needlessly antagonizes groups of men against other groups of men who have more in common than they care to admit.

Fire Marshals, if large groups, use security. If you need help getting information on how to figure out how many people is safe, email me- no matter what country, ideology, or religious creed you are, and I will find someone local to you, or will hook you up with a competent means to figure out the formulas on your own in countries with no such offices to guide you. I can also explain to you how to set up a competent security force that can manage crowds. In Uganda, Mongolia, Tajikistan, wherever. If you can read this, and are in doubt, PM me, and I’ll get back to you. Don’t do something stupid like ban religion because of a crowd stampede, or ban education because of a school stampede, or ban food because of a supermarket stampede. It’s the most thickheaded and prejudice course you can go, and doesn’t resolve anything. Short term banning until you figure this out- which will take days at most, is okay for complex locations. Don’t do this to philosophy clubs or church clubs meeting up by the dozen in a house of cafe because you dislike it.

This discussion is over. It’s bullshit to continue on. Read Aeneas the Tactician, which is now online, for better insight if anyone gets confused.

Anon,

I know you were interested in where commerce, in the form of money, crosses religion. However, to me, this is already well regulated in most societies.
It’s not terribly interesting to me, as the matter of leverage is at hand in that an exchange of money occurred and thereby offers a tangible handle to pliably work around in law.

Where I find it fascinating and difficult is where money isn’t existent.
My argument is that commerce still exists in this environment, and my claim of such is based on the existence of a form of social contract. Specifically, in legal terms, an implied contract.
I see it as such, as an implied contract is a contract that is held existant in the absence of an explicit (or express) contract when the denial of one existing permits the existence of unjust enrichment to one of the parties involved in the relationship.

By unjust enrichment, it is meant that a condition where a benefit of some fashion is retained by one party without any compensation, though the circumstances are clear that the provision of that benefit is not intended as a gift.

The benefit gained by the individual offering spiritual prescriptions is the adherent, and the compensation for adherence by the recipient is an advantage perceived out of good faith; whereby good faith is the earnest intent to fulfill a promise without taking an unfair advantage over another person.

Negligence, thereby, is held accountable due to the assumed good faith position by the recipient of the provider of prescriptions, as if the provider claims an absence of awareness of the implied contract, then they are held accountable for negligence if there is an existence of a duty or expectation to exercise reasonable care over their relationship, a failure to exercise said reasonable care, a cause of physical harm by their negligent conduct, or a physical harm in the form of actual damages to property; as well as a clear line showing that the harm is within the scope of liability of the provider.

Which means, harm occurred, and they should have known harm was possible as a reasonable individual (up to the court’s say on this portion) would have been aware.

I hold the weight of responsibility resting mostly on the side of the provider of spiritual prescriptions as they are claiming an offer of expertise and/or knowledge to those willing to adhere who have not the knowledge the provider proposes the capacity of offering.

Thanks for the comments, Jayson and CN. I apologize for not responding, I think maybe I’m losing interest in the topic or something. It has nothing to do with you guys!

Hey Jay, can you cite any court judgments against the provider of prescriptions? And how are these matters regulated in most societies?

Sure they are regulated by conviction of fraud or crimes.

But donations are a different matter.

Case in point is that of Jim Bakker back in the 1980s & 90s. There was a class action, against Bakker, by 160,000 donors, that was thrown out. So the implied contract standing is weak.

Swaggert and Bakker are back at it–fleecing the impressionable. What law can stop this? What has become of the fundies who picket funerals?

Just to clarify, are you asking for cases of implied contract violations?

Yes, cases where donors won in court, and got their donations back.

Oh, that?
Loads.

For one example, look up Vaughn Reeves.
He swindled massive amounts (10 or 13 million) of donations from elderly for building Churches and then pocketed the money.
This was a 2010 case.
Last I read, he was serving a 50 some-odd year sentence.

That’s not an implied contract as I was using it though.
Because mine is more challenging; there’s no exchange of money.

Most implied contracts are civil cases between folks like you and me.
I was piecing the legal logic together in an argument as to why I think the case could be made even in the absence of monetary exchange; though I don’t believe any such legal suit as of yet exists regarding religious institutions.

I think I’m misunderstanding you Jay. Reeves doesn’t fit my question. His is investment fraud.

What I’m wondering is if ordinary donors to a church have been able to get their donations back when they discover their donations were misused.

In Jim Bakkers case, 160,000 were unable to reclaim their donations.

I’m not aware of any such case, but that also wasn’t my intention.

That’s a monetary concern; I wasn’t looking at monetary exchange and return, but the absence of such.

For example of what I’m referring to in the argument that I’ve laid out, imagine that I’m a guy that lives in your town.
Now imagine that I’ve spent my own money, we’ll imagine that I’m well off, to put together a weekend trip for kids.
I go over everything with you and you decide that it sounds great, and there’s no cost, so why not let the kids have some fun.
I take your kids out and they get hurt because I didn’t take any precautions for their safety.

If you took me to court, you would likely win that case because there was an implied contract of good faith that I had your child’s safety in mind, and therefore my neglect of such presents an instance of unjust enrichment because I got what I wanted (your kids), but you did not get what you wanted (your kids safely taking a camping trip).

I was using this same form of legal logic and applying it to spiritual advisers and leaders.

Got it. Thanks …

What became of the suit against the Baptist fundies who picket funerals?

Weatboro Baptist won 1st amendment rights. The guy that brought suit owes them over $16,000 for legal fees.

Yep,
So we can picket Westboro Baptist Church 24/7 and they can’t do jack shit.
And we can picket their funerals too.

Ex-members will do more damage to this hate group than picketing them : Banished: Lauren Drain

Play the odds in your favor. Don’t listen, or give money, to anyone claiming to speak for God.