by frankiespeakin 15 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Harold Camping's Rapture Campaign: Can He Be Sued for Fraud?
As an atheist group asks the California attorney general for action, legal scholars say efforts are almost certainly doomed.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/juneweb-only/campingsuedfraud.html
Religious Liberty: Overviews and History:
http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2056&context=wmlr
PRIVATE
AND GOVERNMENTAL REMEDIES FOR RELIGIOUS
FRAUD
The potential rewards for defrauding the faithful are great and
the disincentives few. Because of the country's tradition of religious
freedom, religious organizations are the least regulated corporations
in our society. Public and judicial opposition to governmental
interference with religious organizations has remained
consistently high ever since Thomas Jefferson called for "a wall of
separation between church and state.""
9
Past attempts
by
states to curb fraudulent or deceptive religious
practices have faced opposition in both the courts and the legislatures.
Although the Supreme Court has refused to let religious organizations
hide behind the first amendment to avoid "punishment
of acts inimical to the peace, good order and morals of society
,"
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I was born in and was not able to escape until I was 31 years old, thanks in large part to 1976.
I remember in my younger days my blood boiling because I missed out on college and a proper education.
I thought if the world and life was fair God would make it up to me.
But God says he is no respecter of persons.
And they say God helps those who help themselves.
In my 30's-50's I frequently murmured I want a refund, this is not what I bargained for.
Now and my 60's I'm no longer looking for a refund, I am just sitting watching all the wreckage the Jw's cause.
But, the Catholics, Baptist, Muslims and a multitude of other groups and affiliations cause great damage also.
I was visiting with a former JW and former Catholic a few weeks back talking about all the baggage the JW's
gave us and the Catholic said you are not the only one with baggage, I have 6 kids to support.
Catholics who follow the church don't or didn't use birth control.
Most Christian denominations go to war and support the military a lot of people who go in the military get messed up
either physically or mentally or both. Most wars the US gets involved with are bogus money making endeavors for the rich.
I'll be willing to think about suing organization's for their methods when secular society in general expects adults to take greater responsibility for their religious choices.
Sure, when you're born into a religious organization it is perhaps harder to spot the lunacy and get the hell out - but hey, it's not impossible to do. I loved my JW grandparents and my JW parents but have no doubt they were in their own respective ways wilfully gullible enough to commit themselves and their children's lives to the religion. At some level, they "weighed" up the organization and checked in with their lives. I weighed up the organization and checked out and saved my life!
I'm not hard done by - I certainly see evidence of the huge life or death struggle of others - women in particular - trying to extricate themselves from oppressive belief systems around the world in which they are literally hounded and persecuted for daring to leave. For example, in some countries you dice with certain death or literal defacing by acid attack when you dare leave the religion of your birth. As it currently happens, these are primarily countries in which extreme forms of Islam dominate. But lest we condemn Islam, it was not too long ago that ugly persecutory mobs turned on the JWs in Canada and the good old USA in crude and vile attempts to stop the witnesses converting Catholics.
Steve,
::I'll be willing to think about suing organization's for their methods when secular society in general expects adults to take greater responsibility for their religious choices.::
How will you know when society in general expects adults to take greater responciblity for religious choices? What will be an indicator?
I have thought of this too, a class action lawsuit for selling magazines with inaccurate information, deceptive practice at its best ... bastards!
