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I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

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Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#71

Post by smsm42 »

mikeash wrote: post #59
smsm42 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which religions do you mean and how exactly do you know they encourage telepathic communications with their God? Do you have sources that confirm your opinion and if so, which sources are those? >>> they only frown on those which aren't approved by the religion. That's a vacuous statement - of course religions approve only things that they approve, and disapprove things that they disapprove. But among the things many…

I was using an unconventional way to describe prayer. The Abrahamic religions all, as far as I know, encourage prayer, and most of them that I know of encourage attempting to receive and interpret a reply. It's common enough that major national political candidates talk about attempting it without getting laughed off the stage. My point about "aren't approved" is that many religions explicitly recommend divination, f…

Whoever said to you that prayer is "telepathic communication to God", awaiting a reply which needs interpreting, was not, I am afraid, very knowledgeable in the topic. At least as far as my limited knowledge of these goes, there's no such thing in these religions. Prayer can be many things to many people but it's certainly not an act of conjuring of some spirit and divining some revelations directly from God, like shamans.

Receiving direct messages from God is commonly called prophecy, and, depending on the religion, prophets are extinct since hundreds to thousands years. I don't think any mainstream religion claims to have prophets today - there are, of course, various freaks, but mainstream religious communities never make such claims.

So your description - unless, of course, you can back it up with some sources that contradict what I said - appears inadequate.

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#72

Post by herbig »

smsm42 wrote: post #37
herbig wrote: post #2

"I’m superstitious, so one night I told myself, All right, if I win a game of hearts with less than 15 points, I’ll do it. I’d never scored that low in my life, so when I landed at 11 points, I thought it was a sign and decided to buy a ticket." There's your problem right there. People like this are prone to other irrational thinking. I would bet that the vast majority of people who fall for this stuff are also deepl…

You know there's a difference between being religious and asking Hearts game to tell you if you should participate in the 419 scam? Most religions actually frown very hard of those kind of things. For Avraamic religions, there's a direct prohibition of such practices in Leviticus 19:26.

Of course there are differences, but I'm talking about the similarities.

If you go around looking for signs, you will find them. Who/what was it that sent him that sign?

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#73

Post by rralian »

austenallred wrote: post #56
columbo wrote: post #16

I'm glad the guy decided to tell his story. Most people are ashamed to admit that they fell victim to a hustler. They don't want to be seen as stupid, or get ridiculed by others. About the same time (ten years ago) I went in for a job interview that turned out to be a hustle. They promised they were looking for programmers (really generic, like they didn't know what they were asking for). When I showed up at the door…

I ran into the same sort of scam back in the day. I was trying to get by as a content writer, and a guy called me up and said, "Look at my site, I think it needs some new content." He wasn't sure what he needed, and it was definitely poorly written, so I figured I could help out. He told me he wanted to meet me at his office at a local community college. Community colleges regularly have offices available for small s…

That reminds me of an 'interview' I went on shortly after college. There was a job ad in the paper looking for energetic people to fill a marketing position. My dad warned me against it, but of course I didn't listen. I went to the interview, and it was a big sales pitch on the company, with about 20 of us prospectives. The energetic marketers were doing a big rally, getting everyone pumped up, though being incredibly vague about what we did. They wanted us to go on a field trip with some of their marketers (or something... I don't remember the exact justification), and I'm embarrassed to say that I got in the car with a couple of them. We then proceeded to drive out to some town, get out of the car, and then they put on an AT&T (or sprint, who remembers) badge and started to walk up to people door-to-door to get them to switch long distance. Not quite as bad as getting beaten up or even having them shake me down for money... but still, stuck without wheels, two towns over, basically forced to walk with these dudes through their door-to-door slimy pitches. I think I pretty much deserved what I got.

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#75

Post by smsm42 »

Crito wrote: post #62
smsm42 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really can't understand why you chose to answer my comment with this. I pointed out pretty clearly that a practice of homebrewn divination, in which the hero of the article engaged, is not "religious" and actually is explicitly forbidden by many religions. In response to that, you offer me meaningless platitude not connected to anything on the topic. What are you trying to accomplish here?

Now maybe my brand of Christianity was pretty unusually wacko (Lutherans are the real nutters right? Total extremists, rivals of those Westboro chaps really... /s) , but I am pretty sure they explicitly endorsed homebrew divination. The idea that you could "do it yourself" is actually a rather central concept to that particular brand of religion, though instead of tea leaves it used sore knees...

I have hard time believing Lutherans really go against direct word of the Bible (which is, as far as I know, according to their faith, a direct word of God) and practice divination, but I admit, I don't know too much about the details of the Lutheran faith. If I had to choose, I'd rather point at Calvinists with their predestination and signs of being among the saved, even though even there you can't really solicit those signs AFAIK. But as for Lutherans - could you explain which practice of Lutherans you mean - what exactly and using which procedures Lutherans are using for fortune telling?

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#76

Post by zequel »

He lost me at "All right, if I win a game of hearts with less than 15 points, I’ll do it.."

Superstitious to the nth degree, I can't stand this deeply flawed thinking, ie gamblers' logic. It makes me want to vomit.

E: And it doesn't matter what year, if you're going to let the outcome of a hearts game determine your actions, I have a oujia board to sell you.

E2: After going back and reading it again, this reads too closely to fiction to be real IMO.

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#77

Post by viiralvx »

As a first generation Nigerian American, it is situations like these that encourage people to make jokes.

But being more serious, I really am sort of appalled at how gullible some people are. Honestly, some of these scenarios are the most shady and preposterous situations, yet they still believe it to be true?

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#78

Post by mikeash »

smsm42 wrote: post #71
mikeash wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was using an unconventional way to describe prayer. The Abrahamic religions all, as far as I know, encourage prayer, and most of them that I know of encourage attempting to receive and interpret a reply. It's common enough that major national political candidates talk about attempting it without getting laughed off the stage. My point about "aren't approved" is that many religions explicitly recommend divination, f…

Whoever said to you that prayer is "telepathic communication to God", awaiting a reply which needs interpreting, was not, I am afraid, very knowledgeable in the topic. At least as far as my limited knowledge of these goes, there's no such thing in these religions. Prayer can be many things to many people but it's certainly not an act of conjuring of some spirit and divining some revelations directly from God, like sh…

"38% of Americans say that they have done something because God told them to"

http://today.yougov.com/news/2013/10/25/god-told-me/

Prayer is absolutely "telepathic communication to God" in at least one direction. Prayer is something you can do in complete silence, and God is still supposed to be able to hear you. In any other context we would call that "telepathy".

The other direction is not quite as clear, but clearly a lot of people believe it. Beyond telepathic responses, there are physical replies to telepathic requests, for example:

http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/if-a-person-asks-in-p...

http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/why-werent-my-prayers...

Note that the answers are not "this is bad and you should definitely not do it", but rather a simple command to trust that God or the lesser beings will do what's best.

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#79

Post by mikeash »

Crito wrote: post #65
mikeash wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was using an unconventional way to describe prayer. The Abrahamic religions all, as far as I know, encourage prayer, and most of them that I know of encourage attempting to receive and interpret a reply. It's common enough that major national political candidates talk about attempting it without getting laughed off the stage. My point about "aren't approved" is that many religions explicitly recommend divination, f…

Exactly. In mainstream Christianity in the US at least, asking your god or saints for help or advice is totally kosher. It is only when you try to communicate with other sorts of beings or things that all of the "witchcraft" stuff kicks in.

My favorite quote on the matter:

"The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive."

(Note: don't take my quoting of Sam Harris as an endorsement of him in general. I have no idea whether he's worth endorsing or not, having read essentially nothing of his beyond that quote.)

Re: I Flew to Lagos and Got Beaten Up Because of a Nigerian Email Scam

#80

Post by grecy »

A very naive and trusting friend of mine got hooked on a Nigerian scam once.

After lots of back and forward, they sent an express UPS package full of $500 travelers checks in USD ($10k if I remember) to her apartment in NYC.

They wanted her to deposit them in her account, and immediately transfer 10% to them, and she could keep the rest.

We took them into the bank asking if they were real, after about an hour they finally told us no, and the only reason they had figured it out was because we asked, and their manager had just taken a course in detecting false travelers checks the month before. He said they were better than the fakes used on his course, and they passed all tests bar the very last and most time consuming one.

Likely a regular bank would have credited her account $10k, she would have transferred the 10%, and many months later the bank would come back asking for everything back. It would have worked, if I had not been visiting when the package arrived.

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