We'll Never Tell What We Did (We Trusted You)

This is the kind of article that either cracks us up or makes us cry, because the answer to the question ("Are religious people easy targets for scams?") is obvious. If you'll believe in (as one reader put it) "a virgin birth, global flood, speaking in tongues, faith healing, a 7000-year-old Earth, et al" then, yeah, you're a sucker who's ripe for the picking:

Major frauds exposed by federal investigators in recent years have targeted Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists and other religious groups, from $190 million lost in a three-year scam promoted by a Christian radio host in Minnesota to an estimated $1.4 billion conned from thousands of Utah Mormons.

Is it simply too easy for con artists to prey on people of faith?

“We’ve seen where it’s an outsider who has come into the fold, and we’ve seen some where it’s a person who has been a member of the community for decades,” said Lori Schock, director of investment education and advocacy for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“We’ve had cases where people quote Scripture, that the Lord wants you to make money. And when the house of cards comes crashing down, the victims sometimes lose more than just their money. Sometimes, they lose their faith, and it’s extremely sad.”

Why do religious groups make such easy targets? For one, a swindler who professes the same faith, or belongs to the same congregation, has an easy time earning trust, however misplaced. Duped investors, meanwhile, also hesitate to suspect or report on one of their own, Schock added.

Although the FBI’s Utah Securities Fraud Task Force has issued a warning to members of the Latter-day Saints, the SEC hasn’t examined whether religious groups are more susceptible to “affinity fraud”—scams that target specific demographics, whether evangelical Christians or the elderly. But researchers say it’s a question worth considering.

But few chose to consider it - or anything else - beyond who's going to win the Oscars tonight, or American Idol tomorrow.

Meanwhile, this nation's dreams - and hard-earned cash - are just being frittered away,...

Mary Was A Virgin (The Rest Is Easy After That)

Maybe because they're willing to buy into bullshit stories to begin with?

Convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff bilked billions of dollars out of thousands of fellow Jews, including charities like the Elie Wiesel Foundation and Steven Spielberg Wunderkinder Foundation.

Other major frauds exposed by federal investigators in recent years have targeted Jehovah's Witnesses, Baptists, black churches and other denominations, from $190 million lost in a three-year scam promoted by a Christian radio host in Minnesota to an estimated $1.4 billion conned from thousands of Utah Mormons.

Now three Pakistani immigrants -- two believed to have fled the U.S. -- are accused of swindling $30 million from hundreds of Chicago-area Muslims with an investment plan they promised complied with Islamic law.

Is it simply too easy for con artists to prey on people of faith?

"We've seen where it's an outsider who has come into the fold, and we've seen some where it's a person who has been a member of the community for decades," said Lori Schock, director of investment education and advocacy for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

"We've had cases where people quote Scripture, that the Lord wants you to make money. And when the house of cards comes crashing down, the victims sometimes lose more than just their money -- sometimes they lose their faith, and it's extremely sad."

Why do religious groups make such easy targets?

Don't look at us - it must be another one of life's little mysteries.

Or, you know, "God's love". LOL.

I Blame Religion (I Just Don't Know Which One)

"Last September, [Jonathan] Ayers, a 28-year-old Baptist pastor from Lavonia, Georgia, was gunned down by a North Georgia narcotics task force in the parking lot of a gas station. Ayers had not been a suspect in any drug investigation. And even today, police acknowledge he was not using or trafficking in illicit drugs. Instead, Ayers had either been ministering to or having an affair with (depending on whom you believe) Johanna Kayla Jones Barrett, the actual target of the investigation."

-- Radley Balko, with a story he (and Glenn "I don't have to be right" Reynolds) blame on the drug war - and absolutely, positively, nothing else - defying all Reason.

I should add that, growing up in South Central, Los Angeles, an area notorious for preachers who sleep with their flock - and that was only cleared of drugs by a harsh police intervention - I don't think Balko or Reynolds knows dick about the subject.

But then, as I said, Reynolds is so smart he doesn't have to be right.

Jesus Said "Don't Taze Me, Bro!": Hilarious

Yea, "As If" (The Fashion Show is Nice Though)

"Being the son of a Baptist minister, I often marveled at the amount of spiritual and psychological energy put forth every Sunday in church, as if people were laying their problems and emotional chains at the feet of something greater."

-- Dr. Boyce Watkins, slipping up while answering the question, "Why Are Celebs Stuck on Scientology?", through Black Voices.com.

John McCain: The Strong Silent Type

"Traversing the country this week on a tour of places that have shaped his life and informed his values, John McCain spoke in strikingly personal language to introduce himself to the American public.

But missing so far is any significant mention of religious faith.

In an Oprah Winfrey-era where soul-baring and expressions of faith are the norm for public figures, the presumptive Republican nominee, open and candid about much else, retains a shroud of privacy around his Christianity.

Raised Episcopalian, McCain now attends a Baptist megachurch in Phoenix. But he has not been baptized and rarely talks of his faith in anything but the broadest terms or as it relates to how it enabled him to survive 5 ½ years in captivity as a POW.

In this way, McCain, 71, is a throwback to an earlier generation when such personal matters were kept personal. To talk of Jesus Christ in the comfortable, matter of fact fashion of the past two baby-boom era presidents would be unthinkable."

-- Jonathan Martin, writing in Politico.com

He didn't explore Buddhism as a prisoner of war; he's never had to "find himself"; and the only place the words "woo" and "John McCain" get anywhere near each other is in The New York Times.

John McCain: TMR's choice for president.