I take the statement by an agent of the LDS church: "You should pay 10% of your income to our church because God will bless you with greater financial and spiritual prosperity now and planets and billions of beings to rule in the afterlife" as a false advertisement by a business. Shouldn't we, as a political body, regulate false advertising? Should product labels or religious leaders be allowed to publish whatever false claims they wish?

I hate to promote regulating verbal claims, but at least we could prevent them from printing them, like we do with cigarettes, couldn't we?

For false verbal claims, rather than any kind of verbal gag order, we could have a "Better Religious Bureau" that keeps track of religions making claims that some of its former customers (members) find to be invalid. Like the Better Business Bureau, the complaints may be against a company for doing something that is technically legal (like verbal religious claims), but things that a highly recommended religion or business wouldn't do. If the religious rating gets to be too low (only 2 out of 5 stars?) then it loses its privilege to be on the list of "Customer Satisfied Religions."

• Don't Regulate False Claims By Churches - johnpowell - March 19, 2001 - 20:53 UTC
  • Buyer Beware Religion - yanniru - March 19, 2001 - 22:12 UTC
    • Science beats religion on all fronts. - johnpowell - April 9, 2001 - 22:48 UTC