Pious fraud

One of the things one has to be attuned to as a skeptic (a person from Missouri) is the phenomenon of "pious fraud."

In its classic form it consists of creating evidence or distorting evidence or lying in order to win converts to a religion.  The idea is that saving the soul is more important than little details like honesty.

I remember seeing a brochure from a fundamentalist group listing all the prophesies of the Old Testament that were fulfilled by Jesus.  Thing is it is all a pious fraud.  None of the points exactly point to Jesus and most of them were not even prophesies, and the details of the Jesus story was manipulated to fit.

This doesn't just apply to religion.  People who have a conspiracy theory are notorious for this.  So are people who support one of the countless pseudo-sciences or bizarre phenomena we hear tell of.

I think in fact this is the main reason personal testimony is not credible, on its own.  Supporting evidence may be credible, but even then the personal testimony counts for nothing (it is possible to commit pious fraud in favor of something that is in fact true).

So when someone tells me this or that based on testimony or their own experience, I may be polite and not say what I think, but I'm thinking, "It's more likely that you lie."