Expert: Austin Cline - 1/11/2011

Question
Dear Mr. Cline,

I’m interested to know if any organizations or individuals have made a serious attempt to sue fundamentalist religions for fraud.  If not, is it possible in the United States?

I was raised in a religion that teaches as fact that humans were created about 6,000 years ago.  The chronology of James Ussher is the backbone of this teaching.  It is provably false.  The religion in which I was raised, and which I unfortunately taught my children, teaches that no human remains, human artifacts, human created art, tools, cooking sites, or any other evidence of human activity is more than roughly 6,000 years old.   Any religion that teaches this is committing fraud.   It is not a question of evolution.  It is provable fact that humans in their present form have been living on the earth for tens of thousands of years.  The same goes for teaching that a global flood occurred 4,380 years ago, submerging the highest mountains and killing all flesh except that which was preserved in a big floating zoo. Again, this date relies on Ussher’s Bible chronology.  By means of geology, ice core technology, tree rings and a host of other sciences, it is provable that this flood did not occur.  If a religion teaches it as fact they are committing fraud.

These are not spiritual matters, like going to heaven, praying for a cure or worshiping an idol.  These are matters of provable scientific fact.  This matters a great deal, because these supposed events are pivotal to the religion.  Without these fraudulent teachings, millions of people would be able to read the Bible as a book of principled tales and myths that may or may not lead them toward spirituality.  

By teaching these two myths as fact, families are enslaved to their religion unless, as I have, they dig into the science and find out they have been lied to.  The damages are not monetary.  This fraud caused me to expend decades of my life enslaved to a hope which was based on the lies.

If the funding was there can the courts stop this?

All the best,
Peter

Answer
Courts won't rule on the truth of any religious teachings - not just in fraud cases, but in any sort of case involving churches. Basically, courts won't take any position on whether any teaching is empirically true or not.

You can only sue a church for fraud on other grounds.