Pious fraud

A pious fraud is a term used by skeptics for people who perform fraud in religion (for example, a pious fraud fakes miracles or psychic surgery) because of a sincere belief that the end justifies the means in religious matters.

The Oxford English Dictionary reports the phrase was first used in English in 1678. Edward Gibbon was particularly fond of the phrase, using it often in his monumental and controversial work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in which he criticized the likelihood of some of the martyrs and miracles of the early Christian church.

William Howells wrote about shamans that they know that their tricks are imposition but that all who studied them agree that they really believe in their power to deal with spirits. According to Howells, their main purpose is an honest one and they believe that this justifies the means of hoodwinking his followers in minor technical matters.

References

• Howells, William 1962 The Heathens: Primitive Man and his Religions New York: American Museum of National History [1]in Robert S. Ellwood Civilized Shamans: Sacred Biography and Founders of New Religious Movements, article that appeared in the book New Religions in a Postmodern World edited by Mikael Rothstein and Reender Kranenborg RENNER Studies in New religions Aarhus University press, 2003 ISBN 87-7288-748-6

External links

• Pious fraud Robert Todd Carroll's skeptic dictionary entry