Men May Believe What They Cannot Prove
July 31, 2003 | 3 Comments
When you’re finished laughing at the silly headline I have a semi-serious point to make:
Food Columnist Suing Spiritual Advice Columnist for More Than $1M
A Naples Daily News food columnist is suing the paper’s spiritual advice columnist for more than $1 million, saying she was manipulated into writing the woman a $95,000 check as a “gift.”
Doris Reynolds, a Naples resident who writes the weekly “Let’s Talk Food” column for the paper, is suing fellow columnist Angela Passidomo Trafford, a Naples resident and spiritual teacher who writes a weekly spiritual advice column. The suit accuses Trafford of constructive fraud, unjust enrichment and civil theft. Trafford denies the allegations.
In the lawsuit, which was filed in Collier County Circuit Court on June 11, Reynolds says she went to Trafford for “spiritual self-healing treatment” from 1999 until May 2003. In an interview Thursday, Reynolds said she first used Trafford as her spiritual adviser in 1996 and has paid her between $2 million and $3 million for the treatments.
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Trafford received payment for services that were never rendered, according to the suit, and Trafford “intentionally misrepresented to Reynolds that she was a messenger of God and Reynolds needed to pay her.”
Ms. Reynolds’ legal battle will be uphill all the way. Claiming to be a messenger of God is a Constitutionally-endorsed scam. In the 1930’s Guy W. Ballard founded the “I Am” religious movement, claiming that he was a divine messenger named “Saint Germain” who had been endowed with supernatural powers to cure uncurable diseases. He sent out mass mailings soliciting funds based on these claims. In reversing the conviction, the Supreme Court held:
[W]e do not agree that the truth or verity of respondents’ religious doctrines or beliefs should have been submitted to the jury.
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Freedom of thought, which includes freedom of religious belief, is basic in a society of free men. . . . It embraces the right to maintain theories of life and of death and of the hereafter which are rank heresy to followers of the orthodox faiths.
Heresy trials are foreign to our Constitution. Men may believe what they cannot prove. They may not be put to the proof of their religious doctrines or beliefs. Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others. Yet the fact that they may be beyond the ken of mortals does not mean that they can be made suspect before the law. Many take their gospel from the New Testament. But it would hardly be supposed that they could be tried before a jury charged with the duty of determining whether those teachings contained false representations.
“Men may believe what they cannot prove.” Touching, isn’t it? Belief in the absence of proof — i.e., ignorance — transformed into a noble virtue, and a legally-protected one at that.
(link courtesy of Madhu “MadMan” Menon, Defender of Justice, Destroyer of Evil, and Keeper of the Knowledge)
NOTE: More on the “I Am” movement:
July 31st, 2003 @ 2:07 pm
You see before you the human brain at its worst, the mental abyss that religion has so successfully exploited for thousands of years.
The saddest aspect of this story is that thousands and thousands of lives are shaped and controlled by the advice these women dish out.
July 31st, 2003 @ 4:24 pm
Cool.
I am the Goddess. Believe me! Send lots of money now.
Hey, why not? I could use a million or two.
August 1st, 2003 @ 6:48 am
Well… I always think the courts should say, if someone’s enough of a fuckwit to send ALL their money to these frauds – tough! Now stop wasting taxpayers’ money, stop whining, and use some common sense. Ooh – common sense, there’s a thought…