Lindani Mangena led a scam with several co-conspirators to con fellow Seventh-Day Adventists in London out of £3.2 million.
“You may think, as you hear the evidence, that the victims were much more ready to believe what they were told because it came from members of the same tight-knit religious community.
“They naively accepted the absurd claims of the returns that they could make on the money they gave to the defendants, and their suspicions were not aroused by the absence of things like receipts that you might expect when you invested money."
Huh, imagine that. People who believe that having "faith" is good and that expecting "proof" or "evidence" for absurd claims is bad fall for a scam wherein fellow christians tell them to "just believe" and "have faith" that they'll get 25 times their investment back. Absolutely Shocking!
Because it is obscenely offensive to rational people for anyone to use their personal superstitious beliefs as a basis to
5 comments:
Just to clarify, this wasn't just about having faith and believing, most of the investors new someone or new of someone who had actually invested and received the returns promised. It was that coupled with, for many people, a personal knowledge of the young men and their families that convinced people to invest, not just blind faith. As with many news stories there is more to it that in recorded in print.
Thanks for the information Madeline, but that's precisely my point. They *knew* men and their families (or even worse, knew somebody who knew the men), and that was enough to trust them with large sums of money without receipts, a prospectus, a brokers license, or anything normal people would expect with this kind of transaction.
The stereotypical image is of religious families perpetually teaching generation after generation not to think critically and to "just believe" instead. As this story demonstrates, the stereotype is frequently proven accurate.
Even if the men weren't squandering the money and were actually coming through with the promised return on investment, where would they have come up with that kind of return for everyone? Certainly nothing legal. A person raised to be a good critical thinker would have immediately recognized something fishy was going on, whereas those raised to "just believe" in the unbelievable clearly did not.
I hear what you are saying, however it seems that you have made some assumptions here (as I could be as well!) Firstly, that all Christians don't have the skill of critical thinking, whilst this might be true for some it is not true for all.
Secondly, that those brought up outside of organised religion are trained in critical thinking, well I can tell you that working within schools and youth organisations that just aint so!
Thirdly, that this sort of thing could only happen within a faith based religion. Not so, it could have happened to any community where there was are common values, morals, levels of trust. As let's be honest, in current society, how many people are struggling because of the credit, instant gratification sales pitch that is pushed at us through all media's without responsibility? How many have done so not knowing the full implications of the credit terms that they have signed up to? How many have trust the credit institution because they have banked with them for years or have seen them on television but not really know how they worked? How many each year spend hundred of pounds in December on people they don't bother with for the other 364 day of the year in the name of protocol and face a financial nightmare come January.
Trust was not the only reason why these people invested, there are socio-economic reasons two, some of these people struggled for every penny that they could get (yes you would have thought that they would have held on to it tighter) But many tested out with a smaller amount of money and then invested more. Not only that they knew people who had received money back, saw the benefit.
This wasn't a just believe situation, many deliberated for some time before getting involved and questioned and queries, there was evidence and for some receipts.
It is a big assumption that everybody with any common sense would expect a prospectus, brokers license, or any thing "normal" with this kind of transaction. That's all good and well if you know about Financial Investments, but many of these people didn't! That's not restricted to people of faith at all, you could go anywhere in the world and find people who don't know anything about financial investments, but will invest based on promised returns.
I could talk about this forever and I am sure that you could too. being of faith is not a problem, what is a problem is the dependency on second hand information to form the basis of that faith. I have a deep faith in Christ Jesus and have learnt how wonderful God is through my own experience, sadly too often people depend on someone else's explaination.
I'm actually hyper critical which isn't always a good thing but has it's uses:)
Wow, Madeline, thanks for a very well thought out reply. You make several excellent points that I fully agree with.
I certainly didn't intend to give the impression that lack of religious upbringing or belief in a higher power comes with critical thinking skills, or that this kind of thing could *only* happen to religious people. Gullible people certainly come in all shapes and flavors.
However, it is my position that religious beliefs strongly encourage uncritical thinking about at least one subject (god). When one holds any beliefs for which they have no evidence, they aren't thinking critically. Period. That uncritical thinking then tends to spread and affect other aspects the believer's life making them more susceptible to additional absurd beliefs without sufficient evidence. Is a belief in god absolutely necessary to fall for scams like this? Certainly not! Is it a big enabler? I think so.
I completely agree with you that because the "club" that people are a part of has particular beliefs and norms often common sense and decency can go completely out of the window. This is often very prevalent in church and as Martin Luther King says
"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."
Hence the exsistance of this blog, if good people didn't stay silent we wouldn't have so many instances of abuse in all its forms coming out of the church."
I'm not sure if it's a lack of critical thinking as more a need to belong and so because "I want to belong and be accepted I don't want to rock the boat". That may still come down to critical thinking as you put it. But I feel that there are many factors that cause the sheep mentality of many church members, peer pressure, a sense of belonging, spiritual/emotional abuse and the inherent need for many leaders to have and hold onto power which sets a series of events in place which almost trap members with and without their permission. Humanity itself plays a big part in this.
What you see happen in faith based environments happens within the working world and again the need for acceptance plays it's part here as well. Enron comes to mind! LOL
Godmocker, I know that God exists not because someone told me, but because of the interaction he has had and has in my life and because through it all I have faith.
I think for me it's no so much the beliefs as the people who bastardize them for their own motives and gain, that I have the problem with. :0
I hear you though! LOL
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