Trust me I'm a Bishop..

Love this little story, televangelist billionaire Bishop Edir Macedo, head of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (a rather ambitious title if ever I heard one!) has instructed his 8 million followers to take a three week "secular media" fast, i.e. don't read the papers, watch TV or do Facebook for 3 weeks, apparently because it's good for their soul. What the good Bishop has neglected to mention in his communication is that this abstinence is likely to neatly correspond to a scandal involving him and his money grabbing cult church, just as his previous two "media fasts" have.

In a statement Macedo says,

"It will be a fast from each and every kind of secular information: TV, internet, newspapers, magazines, radios … from everything that is not Godly"

Also neglecting to remind readers that he personally owns the third biggest television network in Brazil.

It's hard for a rationalist like me to look at this story and not conclude that those 8 million people must be a bunch of feckless imbeciles were it not for the myriad dumb things that humans of all strokes get caught up in. If only we had a general rule of thumb we could follow to avoid being duped, conned and encouraged to be delusional... here's a thought, how about if we avoid believing things that have absolutely no evidence for them being true, ESPECIALLY when they require us to give cash to people that have a vested interest in us believing.

- too complicated?