What do you do when you hand over all your money before a promised Doomsday, but Doomsday never comes? You go find the next best thing: a lawyer. That is the situation in Australia where a court has frozen the assets of Pastor Rocco Leo and his associates at Agape Ministries after followers demanded their money back. While there appears to have been no written contract, this appears a novel inverse of a force majeure claim: the act of God never came.
Former church member, Martin Penney, and another plaintiff are suing to get back more than $400,000 and $1 million they gave respectively to the church based on promises of a Doomsday.
It appears that Judgment Day will be relocated to a more mundane forum at the Adelaide District Court. Of course, the pastor still has time to make good on the Doomsday promise.
Source: ABC.
That’s embarrassing. Two mentions in a week for my home country.
This would be funny if it weren’t soooo sad!!!! Becoming clearer and clearer concerning the ‘blind leading the blind.’ lol. These folks are willing to give away their money ONLY if they will no longer need it, huh? So much for ‘sell all you have…give it to the poor..come follow me”!!!
Interesting post. Thanks.
Carolyn
I’m with the defendant on this one. A contract in which one undertakes to bring about Doomsday in return for money ought to be unenforceable as violative of public policy. If the plaintiffs proceed on a fraud theory, they run up against the issue of reasonable reliance. Fools and their money.
Were I the court, I would deny relief on the basis that no sane person could reasonably believe the promised event would occur. Unreasonable reliance will not support a contract action and I would leave the credulous “followers” exactly like I found them. My advice to the faithful: take your tax write off.
Mike A:
I see great minds not only think alike but simultaneously at 9:20 a.m.
mespo,
If you claim that they are insane, exactly when did this mind set, set in?
Mike A,
Hey man its happened before. It called the Millerites, in which I believe was the church before the Morman’s were run off to UTAH.
Pete,
Australia another Texas Repeat…..or is that Pete…..
“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24: 36)
Reminds me of all the folk who like or dislike the “Arizona Law” or the “Health Reform Law” but have never read them.
The blind leading the blind?
mespo, LOL. Should we volunteer for the defense?
The Church of Scientology has been involved in a lot of litigation including allegations of fraud, I think.
AY, I vaguely remember reading about the Millerites. These sorts of groups still flourish, of course. They seem to like the west.
Mike A,
If you will look at a book that was published by a UT-Austin Doctoral Candidate, Philosopher I think. The Doomsday Soothsayer….or something like that.
It charted the path of the Millerite and they seem to end where the Mormon’s picked up. The groups both left upstate NY and some went around the northern part of Ontario and the others took the southern route. Then somehow or another they meet in IL and they all head west. I even think that I recall that he was killed by an angry mob of dissenters…
A lot has been left out to keep this short.
The plantiffs already received something of value, their LIVES.
How crazy does one have to be to sue for not dying?
I think the 7th Day Adventist/Jehovah’s Witnesses have been through this at least twice maybe 3 times
LMAO – “A fool and his money are soon parted.”
Buddha,
After the above, where do we sign Bdaman?
vlf2112–
“A fool and his money are soon parted.”
I guess these folks thought the saying was: A fool and his money are soon DEPARTED.
Elaine M.,
You are so correct, now, they can go to the Mega Churches and be really Fleeced….
I wonder if they would turn as white as snow…
These folks should have given their money to Dr. Strangelove.
Might as well been looking for Mr. Goodbar as well….
god help the defense department if Mike A and mespo move into the Pentagon
AY’s suggestion of reading material on the Millerites is one I’m going to follow up … I’ve never heard of them and the subject intrigues me. Thank you, sir.
This suit surprises me. There have been studies on religions which preached the endtimes, those giving a specific date or even time. Most normally, when the prophesied time somehow fails to occur, members become more bound to the cult leader than ever before. The formula is: failure = success!
Blouise,
Some say that the Adventists are a derivative of the Millerites. I think that it is very coincidental that the paths of escape, for both Miller and Smith run so parallel.
Even Ol’ Gomer knows that sometimes tomorrow never comes….
It appears to a bit stranger than just a promise that doomsday was coming:
“Their claims allege the religious group promised them a haven on a South Pacific island, to protect them from microchips the government was planning to implant in all humans.
It claims the religious group told its members they would go to hell if they were microchipped and that the government would put them in concentration camps, gas or behead them if they refused the chips.
The legal claims allege the religious group told members they had to give money to help relocate all members to the island and build infrastructure.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/16/2928339.htm
So, I’d say the plaintiffs are more than just your average, run of the mill fools – they must be barking mad.
Good to see you, EC.
I was starting to think the Cookie Monster got you.
Bonjour BIL – No cookie monster – just hovering around, enjoying the discussions…
Rowan Atkinson as the devil welcoming sinners–including lawyers and atheists–to hell.
I read last week that SCOTUS (yeah i know this case is in Oz) has ruled that promises to perform miracles aren’t enforceable.
The case was mentioned in the Texas case about the school that wanted to offer a MS in science education to teach creationism as science.
What’s funny about this, and why I mention it, is that the defendant in the case is “Pastor Bob” Tilton. Sounds just like him to be promising miracles in exchange for money. His name seems to show up a *lot* in court decisions — either as plaintiff, defendant or by a court referring to one of his cases.
My favorite is his appeal of a felony conviction for fraud — he promised, for $1000 a crack, to “personally pray your prayer”. Investigators found sacks of envelopes in the dumpster behind his office, full of envelopes with checks removed and prayer requests still in them. I think his attorneys tried to cite the “miracles aren’t binding” case, but the judge ruled that since his “church” was incorporated as a for-profit business, and he essentially promised to perform a service, it’s a simple business transaction and he didn’t do his bit.
If you want to spend a fun day of reading, google him up and read some of the court case documents.
The modern day doomsdayers are those who sell national security.
The weapons they tout as those that will prevent doomsday are doomsday weapons, a.k.a. WMD.
They are the new holy water.
Meanwhile, the scientists who make the doomsday weapons include a doomsday in their dogma.
http://ecocosmology.blogspot.com/2009/11/life-according-to-science.html
EC,
My Love where hath thou been…..
The Robert Tilton part is funny. When asked by a reporter about his tossing of the envelopes and all the various estates that he had or has inside of the US and outside, regarding his austere lifestyle, his answer was well God never meant for me to be poor.
If you have ever seen a picture of the rat-bastard he looks like he could play the role of the Joker in Batman.
If God *does* blow up the world I’m going to sue him for propety damage. I put a lot of work into building that deck in the back yard.
These guys should look at the bright side.
All they lost was money, and all they suffered was abject and total public and private shame and humiliation.
At least they did not have to undergo castration and commit suicide like the end-of-the-worlders in the science fiction ufo flying saucer Heaven’s Gate cult out in California years ago.
Better dumb than dead.
Oh AY, you smooth talker you. How are you doing?
I have missed your presence more than you know. I see a future in you for the straight one liners….
Vince,
Are you sure during the “w” years that we did not get both?
Well, where there is a ‘beginning’…spatial law requires there be an ‘ending.’ It’s the ‘life’ we live between the two which matters greatly!
Carolyn
Hey FFLeo! I just ran across something I’d thought you might like. It’s, by leaps and bounds, the finest country song I know:
Yes, Mespo, that is great tune by Mr. Price; however, this one by him in 1956 is the best honky-tonk tune of all time. That intro/fill/back-up fiddle is heaven and is played by a fiddle hero of mine—Tommy Jackson, who was later sometimes accompanied by Dale Potter for a unique twin fiddle country swing style for this timeless tune.
FFLeo:
I like the artistic progression from honky-tonk singer to balladeer.
FFLEO,
That’s a fine tune. Seriously, you could teach a course on modern American music history if you were so inclined.
Buddha:
Seriously, you could teach a course on modern American music history if you were so inclined.
************
Who says he’s not already?
Any word from Mike S lately btw?
mespo,
True, true.
As to Mike S.? No, not a word. I was hoping he was staying in touch with the Prof. I’ve thought about sending him an e-mail, but I hesitate given the situation. He surely has enough on his mind without questions from me.
Buddha,
As a child of the 40s, I had the opportunity to live through a great era of musical transition. In my opinion, “the day the music died” for American popular music came with the British Invasion of the 60s–more specifically with the Beatles in 1962/63. I have a saying; the music was best BB (Before the Beatles).
Had the vagaries of life not interfered, I would have most likely been a professional musician.
Mespo, I agree, Mr. Price is a versatile musician.
I too miss Mike Spindell, especially since we are from the same era, although hippy v. goat-roper…
@Anonymously Yours… you took the words right out of my mouth. If this had happened back in 1863-ish, an entire denomination would cease to be. Jesus is comin’. Look busy.
(For Jill):
The most-cited study of a doomsday religion where the prophecy did not come true, which ended up with the followers being even more tightly bound to the cult is Leon Festinger’s “When Prophecy Fails.” They studied an actual UFO cult that arose in the 1950s and was associated with a particular woman. They noted that the people who had made the greatest commitment to the cult were the ones who became most tightly bound to it after the failed doomsday prophecy. Others who had made much more modest commitments found it easier to leave the cult.
Details here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails
I couldn’t help BUT laugh out loud at this because according to a Mayan prophesy, the world will end maybe in 2012. I was talking to a professional and he told me some people really do believe this and have high anxiety about it. My thinking is that maybe some of these people are christian in whatever form and really believe this is going to come true.
armageddon is another pentecostalist belief. That came and went and society is still living. Surely such people, who desperately need to hang on to something and use religion as that security ‘blanket’ need to get a life. Some use drugs, some drink, others turn to religion and then when life goes right, what’s merely coincidence, “they” say their “prayers” were answered.
I don’t buy into ANY of this hogwash. It’s not the person/people I don’t respect, it’s their delusional thinking, their rationale that I don’t respect and….it all boils down to….the power religion has OVER people who choose to believe or don’t question what doesn’t exist.