Discussion Main / ScamReligion

Wow you mad.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that prediction was in earnest and not intended to "fool" anyone into buying into it. And also it wasn't an effort to make money.

Eponymous Kid, what do you think that religion is? It makes money from donations, and that includes expanding facilitites, hiring staff, making billboards, etc. all to terrify people into joining their sect and giving vast sums of money to warn people of the incoming Apocalypse! Scam or not, it is still susceptible to Hanlon's Law: Incompetence and irresponsibility can reach levels indestinguishable from active malevolence.

That's why I think failed sects or ones openly admitted to be scams, as well as ones that former members admit were only after their money. Such as Happyology. As far as failed predictions, well, since all religions are bunk, even Christianity has had obviously failed prophecies, such as Jesus saying he would return within the lifetimes of his followers, so that may lead to-who am I kidding? It WILL lead to Über flame wars. So let's just stick to the confirmed scam cults.

I have a really great idea where, in the interest of not starting an Über flame war, you stop trying to start one.

I'm just saying there's a difference between "being bunk" and lying according to an ulterior motive. Being incorrect isn't the same as deception.

Wow. This is exactly why I said what I said over at the discussion page for Belief Makes You Stupid—because of people like DamianYerrick and "All Religions Are Bunk" JJames, who equate a single radio host to an entire religion. A religion which comprises a third of the global population and is comprised of thousands of varying denominations, theologies, and doctrines.

Never mind that the guy they're holding up as the religion had declared all the established churches "apostate" in the 80's, which kind of says something. Oh, and let's not forget that there are quite a number of articles out there from various theologicial and denominational viewpoints dismantling the guy's rationale for his doomsday prediction.

It really is depressing to see just how many people like these two came out of the woodwork this year to bash Christians over Harold Camping. Even more depressing when they want to make TVTropes a mouthpiece for their beliefs.

It's only a scam if the leader new it was false. You can only really make the argument for something like Scientology. If the leader legitimately believed it to be true then it's not really a scam, is it?

The idea is that we don't want christians to add Islam as an example and vice versa and so on. It is uncontroversial That a certain Real life religion is a Scam Religion according to a certain character or setting. But actually Scam Religion in Real Life? Lets not go there. :-)

I'm a bit tired right now but if I'm reading this right you're saying this is the only trope on the site that has a "no real life examples" disclaimer, right?

It's not, not by a long shot. A handful of examples would include: Small Name, Big Ego Life Will Kill You Brainless Beauty Complete Monster Jerkass

The reason why listing fictional examples are okay is (I'm guessing) there's a final authority on the issue (the author). What with there being no final word on real life people have to form their own opinions.

And like everyone's grandpa used to say "Opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got one and everyone thinks everyone else's stinks.".

In cases where there is no definite answer people will be keen to replace the missing facts with their own opinions. Let's pretend that by some miracle we avoid a flame war (which we wouldn't but since it's the most obvious yet not the only problem let's get it out of the way so we can look at the others). We'd still have Edit Wars and Natter unbounded to deal with.

I didn't say it was the only trope with "no real life examples" on it. I said this happens with religion tropes almost exclusively That said, I didn't realize there were no Real Life examples for Complete Monster, Jerkass, or Small Name, Big Ego, so I admit to not looking into the subject very deeply before I posted here.

I'm also not saying that any of this should be changed. But why don't the race tropes have this? Why doesn't Ethnic Scrappy have a disclaimer that says "no real life examples to the tune of 'race/ethnic group x as a whole'"? Why doesn't Uncle Tomfoolery say "don't just put a black person you don't like here"?

Honestly - I've no clue why. With all the racist jagoffs on the internet I'm surprised there hasn't been any trouble so far, at least enough to get those pages locked.

Given what Ekron Dye said shhhhh don't tell anybody maybe we can keep this going without any trouble lol

Who needs Real Life examples? It would just be a list of every organized supernatural and magical worldview there is. All others wouldn't be there, they'd just be wrong, not victims of a scam, haha.

Why can’t we just put a generic Cults in sort of like how equal opportunity evil has pirates and mercenaries and waffen-ss?

> If the priests of Egypt can perform some of the same miracles, then the gods presumably exist

There are other explanations, you know. Like Simon Magus, they could have been faking it.

> b) that at very least, it's approaching violating the "no real life examples" rule.

Only if you're a believer. Reality is resoundingly indifferent of what you believe. And the Bible is a myth compendium anyway...

There's an episode dedicated specifically to Mormons — a Mormon family moves into town and they're uber-nice as you described. But it also depicts the founding of Mormonism as absolutely fraudulent ("Joseph Smith found the golden plates, dum dum dum dum dum! Even though nobody else ever saw then, dum dum dum dum dum!")