by bob young <alaspectrum@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Feb 12, 2008 at 08:50 PM
Midwinter wrote:
> bob young <alaspectrum@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> said :
>
> > OED 'SCAM' - a trick or swindle, a fraud.
> >
> > It is a scam because thousands preach to millons making claims on
> > subjects that have never been verified and claiming them to be 'facts'
> > . The swindle is worsened when it is perpetrated on children at an
> > age where they normally find the data becomes lodged in their brains
> > for the rest of their lives.
> >
> > If that is not a scam I don't know what is.
>
> Okay, so we presume that you're using a definition of 'religion' that
> requires preaching. That narrows the field a little and already
> invalidates your sweeping use of the word 'religion'.
>
> Still then, a fraudster usually hopes to make some material gain from
> fraud. So what material gain does a religious person seek?
To be a scam in the religious context the gain need not be material or
financial.
A scammer makes promises based on lies which is the single most relevant
reason for atheism.
Atheists accept that the majority of religious people obtain some form of
gratification from their beliefs which in a sense replaces the monetary
gains of the regular scam.
The way it is done is what we object to, the lie about an imaginary god.
> Bearing in
> mind once again that your answer would need to include *all* religious
> people.
