Swindled by an Affinity Group Member (Introduction)

Quite a while back, when many of us were still blogging on the other (unreliable) web site, Blog Source, I wrote a series of posts about trust. David Rochester inspired me by writing about not being able to trust other people, or, for that matter, himself.I had some additional posts I intended to write about trust, but never got around to it. If I live long enough (unlikely), I will get around to quite a bit of mischief.

A point I made is that like natural creatures such as “ant lions” that prey on ants by camouflaging to look like ants, many human predators pretend to be like someone you trust so they can prey on you. Some child predators pretend to be kindly uncles or Boy Scout leaders or Santa Clauses. Some mental health workers prey on patients so they can seduce them sexually. Some swindlers prey on Christians by pretending to be Christians. There are many examples. I describe this phenomenon as “affinity group” swindles.

As odd as it seems, there can be “positive” swindles as well as negative. In literature and movies (and perhaps, very rarely) in real life there is the character known as the “prostitute with a heart of gold.” I was walking down a street in Portland one day and a car drove driven by a black woman drove up next to me and she called though an open window to ask me if I wanted to go for a ride with her in her car. (This is true.)

I thought about taking her up on her offer, and asking her to remove her bra so I could check her heart (or at least some part of her anatomy) to see if it was golden, but I decided to refuse her offer, as kindly intended as it seemed. (I had a vague memory of my parents saying something about candy and strangers, or never looking a gift horse in the mouth, or always wear protection, or some such caution.)

Christians, please do not read the next paragraph. If you don’t accept this warning, I will at the least irritate you as I once irritated Cameron and her excellent husband, Tim, who is a minister.

(Too late, you are still reading, aren’t you? Well all my readers are allowed one free flame comment without flashback when I offend them.) As a non-believer, I regard Christianity as a myth. Christians often speak of the good Christianity has done for mankind and womankind. We can argue about the record, as Christians and atheists do constantly at World magazine’s evangelical Christian web site, but there is no doubt that over the centuries, Christianity, whether true or myth, has often accomplished and inspired many good deeds and results. As a believer in the myth school of thought, I have sometimes referred to Christianity as a “virtuous swindle.” An infelicitous phrase, I admit, but I have been unable to come up with a better brief tag.

This incredibly laborious post serves the purpose of introducing two posts where I describe two occasions where I was swindled by my affinity group.