We find it curious, however, when believing Mormons mount a grassroots campaign. The LDS Church’s foundational claim is that God guides it by revelation. A grassroots campaign in effect denies that claim. Why remain in a religion whose foundational claim you reject?

We can suggest some possible reasons: family pressure, social pressure, social advantages, dependence on church welfare, group security, sunk cost fallacy, and post-purchase rationalization, to name a few. All of these are quite human and therefore quite understandable, even though none argues for an iota of truth to the religion itself.

We understand why a judge would shrink from that can of worms. Really we do. But we find it regrettable. Not just the Mormon Church, but most churches make myriad allegations of fact that evidence contradicts. When any organization, even a church, persists in making demonstrably false statements and uses those statements to take money from followers, there are no two ways about it. It is FRAUD. And FRAUD is very much an issue to bring before a jury.

As we noted in our prior post, if Monson, the Pope, Pat Robertson, or any of a host of others were lone fortune-tellers using “beliefs” to take a mark’s money, no judge would hesitate to haul them before a jury, and no jury would hesitate to convict them. For that matter, any secular organization doing the same would be summarily indicted and convicted. When it comes to using fraudulent claims to take people’s money, religion deserves no pass.

Click here to read more in The Salt Lake Tribune.

For its part, the Mormon Church has argued that its claims are statements of belief, not fact. This walks an even finer line, and it may ultimately come back to haunt the church, given that every discourse by a Mormon leader ends with words to the effect of, “I know this church is true, I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, I know that The Book of Mormon is the word of God.”

This marks the first time that criminal fraud charges have been brought against a Mormon Church leader since the 1826 conviction of Joseph Smith. (Criminal charges brought against Brigham Young, who succeeded Smith, were for polygamy.) Before claiming prophethood and starting a church, Smith claimed to be able to locate buried treasure by use of a “seer stone.” When he failed to produce the least amount of treasure for his clients, one of them pressed charges. Smith would later claim to use a seer stone to translate The Book of Mormon.

Though we think the case has merit, we think the odds of a conviction are nil. On the merit side, the only difference between a fortune-teller who exacts money for curse removal—for which criminal convictions are routinely obtained in the US—and a church that exacts “donations” for equally unprovable claims is one of scale. It is that matter of scale that brings us to the nil side. Going after individual fortune-tellers is one thing; going after a full-fledged religion is quite another. The charges in the case at hand are arguably applicable to religion in general. Legit or not, we doubt that the UK will want to open such a precedent-setting can of worms.

Which we think is a shame. We would like to see it opened there and in the US. There is no bigger con than religion. In the immortal words of the late George Carlin:

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