Faith Makes You Gullible

On September 28th, The Los Angeles Times reported:

"A San Fernando Valley doctor and evangelical minister who federal prosecutors said used bogus herbal medications to offer false hope to dozens of people suffering from diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's was found guilty Tuesday of nearly a dozen federal charges."

Later the article goes on to explain how Christine Daniel stole money from evangelical cancer patients by claiming to have an herbal cure for cancer, even going so far as to tell one patient she had been cured of her terminal breast cancer. That patient died several months later. According to the Times, Daniels used the Trinity Broadcasting Network, an evangelical Christian broadcaster, to find her prey.

Reportedly, Daniels charged her "patients" anywhere from $4,270 to $150,000 dollars for the fraudulent treatments. Moreover, patients were taken to low income hotels where they were given placebo ointments and medications. The Times goes on to say that Daniels instructed her clients to report their payments as donations in order to help her avoid corporate taxes.

The religious make easy prey for criminals like this because they have already demonstrated their willingness to believe any kind of nonsense without a shred of evidence. While evangelical Christians obstinately deny realities such as evolution and climate science, two phenomena for which their is an overabundance of scientific facts and evidence, they wholeheartedly chase after quackery like this. In a sense, this is the price they pay for closing their minds to facts and evidence in order to cling to their dogmatic religious ideologies that are based on nothing more than quaint legends and myths. In fact, scams like that which Daniels pedaled are no different than the remedies offered by their religious clergy when they tell their congregations that prayer or some supernatural cosmic daddy will cure them or make them rich.

Ultimately, religious believers set themselves up for this kind of abuse by their willingness to believe anything that makes them feel good, with no regard for evidence or science.