22 Responses to “Scams, Cons, and Fraud, or as I like to call it – Christianity”

1. quantum_flux says:

   February 8, 2008 at 3:08 pm

   I have a dream:

   “I have a dream, where some day, just the facts will be taught in schools. I have a dream where one day the personal opinions and politics of teachers won’t even enter into the arena of public education without first having been prefaced with ‘this is my opinion’. I have a….”

   Okay, just talking like old MLK there!
2. what says:

   February 8, 2008 at 3:43 pm

   From the article:

   The deal was Stephens’ last. He died the following month, struck down by a heart attack while praying with a neighbor outside of his Texas home.

   Now there’s a death we can all poke fun at!
3. karen says:

   February 8, 2008 at 4:04 pm

   As soon as the show was over, Cojanis got on the phone to find out how to invest in the venture. Days later the 70-year-old retiree received a form letter addressed, “Dear End Time Servant.” It claimed that the oil reserves at Ness’ planned drilling site ranged “from one billion to 40 billion barrels…putting this prospect in a class of the super giant oil fields of the world.” Without a second thought, Cojanis bought $120,000 worth of stock in Ness. “Faith is a gift God puts in your heart,” he explained when I visited him in October at his cluttered town house, piled with crumpled boxes of prophecy-themed newsletters and cassette tapes of old Christian radio shows. “And I didn’t have any doubt that Ness was a plan of God. He raised up Hayseed Stephens to find Israel’s oil.”

   Uh-huh.

   Eight years later, Ness has yet to sink so much as an initial borehole for a Dead Sea well. In fact, for most of its existence it has never even held exploration rights in Israel. Its U.S. headquarters, a barnlike storefront topped with an open Bible sprouting an oil well, was shuttered in 2006. Since then, its stock price has fallen from a high of nearly $5 to a mere 3 cents; Cojanis’ $120,000 investment is now worth $3,000. Not that he’s worried. “I’m glad the stock price is in the tank,” he says. “When they hit oil and the stock goes sky-high, that means Armageddon is around the corner.” At that point, he plans to use his gains to spread the word that the end times are here, preparing as many souls for heaven as possible.

   Uh-huh.
   They’re not going to hit oil, cuz the company’s gone under with your money there fella.
   But you’re 70. Armageddon’s comin’ for ya soon anyway, and you’ll have such fun at the party.

   So many decent things could have been done with the money this guy swindled out of gullible people who wanted to help bring about the end of the world. *sigh*
4. alatham says:

   February 8, 2008 at 4:33 pm

   Had 70 year old fool Cojanis bailed out towards the end there, he would have made back his investment 90 times over.

   I want to turn $120,000 into $11,000,000 at the expense of religious fools.

   I know day trading is dangerous, but if you know it’s a scam, is it possible to pull out before it comes crashing down?
5. charlie says:

   February 8, 2008 at 5:58 pm

   what state originated the term snake skin oil salesman
6. Zac Hunter says:

   February 8, 2008 at 7:03 pm

   Its just sad
7. rdmiller3 says:

   February 8, 2008 at 9:08 pm

   What’s particularly sad is that anyone would be glad for the end of the world.
8. quantum_flux says:

   February 8, 2008 at 9:10 pm

   Is circumcision in South Africa a solution to the AIDS epidemic!? I think not!

   http://www.physorg.com/news121678452.html
9. rdmiller3 says:

   February 8, 2008 at 9:10 pm

   Charlie, it’s “snake oil”.

   Check out the Wikipedia article.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil
10. rna2dna says:

    February 8, 2008 at 11:57 pm

    The comments to the story are funny.

    This one is generally typical of the comments by christians:

    …Invest your money in bonafide ministries, believers, not in these possible fraudulent activities which promise a future return…

    So far I haven’t allowed myself to take advantage of the Christian stupidity but, would it be more ethical to take their money and contribute at least some to a worthy cause, such as American Atheists?
11. Rons95Stang says:

    February 9, 2008 at 8:06 am

    Look at this
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/us/09religion.html?ref=us

    But its not for the money.Its for god
12. FlyingWeasel says:

    February 9, 2008 at 11:31 am

    alatham said
    

    “Had 70 year old fool Cojanis bailed out towards the end there, he would have made back his investment 90 times over”

    Among those swayed was Michael, a 53-year-old Kansas farmer who asked that his last name not be used. In 1999, he invested half a million dollars in Ness, learning only later that the shares he bought couldn’t be resold?a claim echoed in lawsuits filed by other Ness stockholders
13. FlyingWeasel says:

    February 9, 2008 at 11:41 am

    quantum flux said
    

    Is circumcision in South Africa a solution to the AIDS epidemic!? I think not!

    there is some legitimate evidence that guard cells in the foreskin, basically little vangaurds of the immune system which are probobly in place to help prevent normal infections under the foreskin, can act as an infection site for the HIV virus which, as we all know, attacks immune cells. without those guard cells HIV doesn’t have such a direct line to the immune cells it needs to infect, lessening the chance of infection.

    at least, this is what the research has suggested, and it does seem to be legitimate research. lets not let ourselves become dogmatic, eh?
14. DD Dropout says:

    February 10, 2008 at 1:09 pm

    Seems like this never was a publicly traded stock if there was no way to sell it afterwards.

    Given that we have a very heavy concentration of pump and dump stock scammers locally who appear regularly in our news, I have wondered how to take something from them, myself.

    My scenario would involve identifying one of their stocks in the pump stages and selling it short, for later profit when the price inevitably falls. I suspect the pros would have a few tricks to counteract this since they would do it to each other in a heartbeat. You would have to be sure they had just about run out of ways to move the price up, for one thing.

    This use of religion to con people is known as ‘affinity fraud’. I like to think of it as analogous to remoras tagging along with sharks.
    —
    Why bless you! Yes, if you insist, I will take your money to do good works. Trust me. You will get your return on your investment once you are in Heaven. Heh.
15. Danger says:

    February 11, 2008 at 2:44 am

    Flying Weasel,

    Certainly there seems to be good evidence that male circumcision can, in some environments at least, reduce the liklihood of HIV infection.

    I do, however, believe that this decision is one that should be left to the individual. Male infants and pre-pubescent children do not become infected with HIV through having a foreskin.

    There is absolutely no precedent for doing surgical proceedures on healthy babies, as a preventative therapy for potential future illnesses. However, AIDS is a new challenge for humanity, and such measures may be needed, if proven to be efficatious.

    Personally, I’ve always been perplexed about the thought processes of parents, who seeing their baby boy for the first time, exclaim “what a treasure, what a joy…now lets hack away at his genitals.”

    One could take this “pre-emptive” surgery to further extremes. Did you know that removal of the eyeballs at birth, completely eliminates the chance of mortality due to eye tumors? Now I am not suggesting that foreskins are as important as eyeball, however the principle is the same.
16. digital_dawg says:

    February 11, 2008 at 3:09 am

    “One of these days the oil is going to come,” he says. “And when it does, Ness’ stock is going through the roof. I have no doubt that it will happen in God’s perfect timing.”

    If the oil is bringing the end time then why the preoccupation with the money?
17. septos says:

    February 11, 2008 at 7:15 am

    A Jehovah’s witness told me (about 15 years ago) the world would end when the whore of babylon(the pope) would ride (controll) the 7 headed beastie thing (the un)untill the sins piled up to (Yada Yada Yada).
    How many end of world scenarios are out there anyway?
18. FlyingWeasel says:

    February 11, 2008 at 10:20 am

    danger:

    you’re right that there is no precedent for performing surgery on otherwise healthy babies, but many babies undergo surgery to correct congenital defects to prevent health issues. In my mind, its a matter of the likelyhood that the infant will suffer from the health issue in question and the risk of performing the procedure. essentially:

    riskP/riskI = x where riskP is the risk of the procedure, riskI is the likelyhood that the infant will develope the given condition, and rispP is the likelyhood that the infant will suffer harm as a result of the procedure. if X is large, than the procedure should be performed, if it is small, then it should not be performed.

    for instance, if the infant has a heart condition that has a near 100 percent likelyhood of killing the child in its first few years of life, and the procedure has about a 30 percent chance of killing the child now, then X = 30/100 = .3 and you should definately perform the procedure.

    now, in subsaharan africa, I beleive that about one third of the populace ends up contracting aids? and male circumcision has like a 0 percent fatality and complication rate, then X = .001/30 = .0003 and once again, go for it.

    on the other hand, the likelyhood that a given infant will die from a burst appendix is probobly pretty small, like 5 percent? I’m just making these numbers up to demonstrate my point… whereas the likelyhood that an infant would suffer complications if you removed said appendix is probobly around 5 percent also, maybe a bit higher, so x = 5/5 = 1, and maybe thats not such a great idea.
19. FlyingWeasel says:

    February 11, 2008 at 10:21 am

    sorry, I seem to have defined riskP twice in that post. disregard.
20. FlyingWeasel says:

    February 11, 2008 at 10:23 am

    oh durn it, I also meant to say that if x is small the procedure should be performed whereas if it is large it should not, or else you could just make the formula riskI/riskP=x and the rest of the post would be accurate.
21. Danger says:

    February 11, 2008 at 9:25 pm

    FW,

    Yes this is the way to determine if these proceedures are advisable. Just a couple of points though.

    a) As I stated before, no male infant or pre-pubescent child has ever contracted HIV from having a foreskin. Therefore there is absolutely no need to perform this proceedure on babies. Individuals should surely have the right to choose this proceedure if they wish, when they become sexually active. This distiguishes infant circumcision from your example of a heart ailment.

    In fact, it is yet to be conclusively proven that INFANT circumcision can protect against HIV infection (although we know that adult circumcision defintely can) although it seems likely that it can.

    b) I think if we put in the real figures, the result (x) may be somewhat different. The risk of mortality from circumcision is very low, but certainly not zero (perhaps 16/100,000). Also, the only mode of HIV transfer that this therapy can protect against is female to male (although, naturally, those men that are subsequently infected can pass on the virus through male-female or male-male intercourse).

    Despite these limitations, areas with very high HIV incidence and low circumcision incidence (eg sub-Saharan Africa) could very well benefit by this therapy.

    Perhaps Moses was onto something???
22. Danger says:

    February 11, 2008 at 9:29 pm

    FW,

    Also, although the infection rates in areas of Sub-Saharan Africa are indeed 30%, the mortality rate directly due to infection is much lower. This is a reflection of the lengthy incubation time of AIDS progression, giving people a chance to die of something else first (if I could put it this way!).