Scam Religion: Difference between revisions

Often a [[Parody Religion]]. See also [[Church of Happyology]] and [[God Guise]]. Contrast [[Path of Inspiration]], where the cult members are [[Obliviously Evil]] [[Mook]]s of some kind of [[Evil Overlord]] or [[Ancient Conspiracy]], and [[Scary Amoral Religion]], which leads its followers into depravity.

'''NOTE:''' Only add examples that can be objectively verified to be scams ''according to the narrative''.

{{examples}}

* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'': The Church of Leto, led by [[Sinister Minister|Father Cornello]], who gathers followers in Lior by convincing them he can do amazing miracles with power given to him by the sun god, Leto. In reality he's just a regular alchemist (and not even a particularly talented one), albeit one with a Philosopher's Stone that enhances his alchemy. Edward uncovers the scam very early on in the manga. Much, ''much'' later, we find out he was going to [[Life Energy|use his follower's souls]] as part of the [[Gambit Pileup]] orchestrated by the [[Big Bad]].

** It's implied that the Ishvalan religion was invented by {{spoiler|Father}} in order to have an easy genocide target when the time came. Of course, its also implied that this god intervened in the fight between {{spoiler|Wrath}} and Scar, blinding the former with a ray of light at a key moment, so [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane|who knows]].

* ''[[The Tatami Galaxy]]'' has a combination religion/pyramid scheme.

* ''[[Fables]]'': in The Great Fables Crossover, [[Unwanted False Faith|the belief in Blue Boy]] temporarily turns into this as Jack takes over as its shepherd.

* In ''[[Leap of Faith (film)|Leap of Faith]]'', [[Steve Martin]]'s character is a self-confessed [[Con Man]] who sees religion simply as a way to scam the people who attend his revival meetings. However, he's forced to rethink his views on religion when {{spoiler|the people's faith starts resulting in actual miracles.}}

* ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]'': The seventh book features a monkey trickster who makes people believe in a fake Aslan that is really a donkey in a cheap lion costume.

* <s>Scientology?</s> Nothing to see here. There's Fosterism in ''[[Stranger in A Strange Land]]''.

* Fighting a scam religion forms the main plots of books eight and nine of ''[[Ranger's Apprentice]].''

* The ''[[Sliders]]'' episode "Prophets and Loss" has a fundamentalist church which "sends its believers to paradise" with what the protagonists think is Sliding technology {{spoiler|but is actually a human incinerator}}.

* ''[[Law & Order: Special Victims Unit]]'' the SVU team take on a cult leader, who brainwashes women into his cult by making them his wives so he can get access to their bank accounts.

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' dealt with destroying many of these, from the parasitic Goa'uld, to the demigodlike Ori, and even a few fringe cults, like the time an SG team member went crazy/rogue and declared himself a god.

* [[Hudson and Landry]]'s "Fredrickism" skit; involving the worship of creator Freddie Schultz, obeying the 26 Commandments grants you immortality, and under investigation by the IRS.

* ''[[Transhuman Space]]'', with its memetic science, has several bizarre religions, most of which are at least partly engineered. Some of them are genuine, at least one [[Unwanted False Faith|started as a joke that got out of hand]], and then there's things like Ecoherence, which is pretty close to being an eviromentalism-themed [[Church of Happyology]], carefully designed to create "self-reinforcing cycles of dependency", and charging for brain-scans to judge how "coherent" its followers are. And the Unified Way, which was created ''[[Path of Inspiration|as a weapon]]''.

* ''[[Dragonlance]]'' had the Seekers, who used the void left after the gods abandoned the world in the wake of the Cataclysm to seize power by peddling false religion.

* ''[[Pathfinder]]'' features the Church of the Living God, a [[Cult]] run by a man in [[God Guise]] who employs mages disguised as priests to enforce his will.

* The classic ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' adventure ''[[The Temple of Elemental Evil]]'' was this twice-over. Most cultists believed they were simply worshiping the destructive powers of the elements. However, it was actually a ruse by the demon lord Zuggtmoy, who designed the ruse in order to better recruit worshipers and gain power; few mortals worshiped her directly, because a goddess of fungus isn't all-too appealing. {{spoiler|However, only a very small inner circle of the cult knew that Zuggtmoy was also being played by a sucker by the true focus of the Temple, [[The Man Behind the Man| the mad god of destruction, Tharizdun.]]}}

* The cult of the god Zhakata in the realm of G'Henna, from the ''[[Ravenloft]]'' setting is one of the worst examples of this trope in RPGs (possibly the worst example ''period''). Zhakata is a god of famine and most of the food produced in the realm is sacrificed to him (and actually eaten by the [[Corrupt Church| corrupt priesthood]], naturally). His worship involves voluntary human sacrifice via starvation, among other such pleasant things. Worshippers hope that their sacrifice will mean that Zhakata will transform from his evil Devourer aspect to his benevolent Provider aspect, and reward them with an era of bounty. The thing is, even in-universe ''Zhakhata isn't real'' (Ravenloft itself grants spells to the cult's leaders), so people are killing themselves for no reason in hope that a fictional savior will come. Zhakhata is actually a delusion of Yagno Petrovna, the high priest. Yagno is aware on some level that his god doesn't really exist, and part of the [[Ironic Hell]] he has to suffer as a Darklord is living in doubt that his lifelong faith is a sham. Despite this, he [[Ignorant of His Own Ignorance| chooses to continue to delude himself]] and promote Zhakata regardless. This willingness to let people suffer and die for a lie is what keeps Yagno as the Darklord of G'henna.

* The Rhythm of Life Church in the musical ''[[Sweet Charity]]''. It was supposedly founded at the urging of a mysterious Voice:

{{quote|And the voice said, "Brother, there's a million pigeons

Ready to be hooked on new religions." }}

* ''[[Fall From Heaven]]'' has a spirit magic user in the backstory who regularly did this.

* ''[[Fable|Fable II]]'' features [[Fun with Acronyms|T.O.B.Y.]], the Temple of Business and Yodeling, also known as the Temple of Benevolent Yokels. A quest in Bloodstone involves you running errands for the founder, Toby, but you eventually find out it's just a front for Toby to find suckers he can con into buying useless crap or running errands for him.

{{quote|'''Minato''': You're scamming them, too?}}

* The Church of Wayne in ''[[Scary Go Round]]'' is really just a con to net money and women for Wayne.

* Movementarianism from ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' (which is also Happyology).

* ''[[South Park]]'' has portrayed both Scientology and Mormonism is this way. Ironically, other episodes have shown that Mormons are the only people who get into Heaven, [[Spoof Aesop|so it's not taking itself that seriously]].