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My mother, who is incredibly religious and is slowly slipping into dementia, has started giving money to Andrew Micheal's. I consider this guy an ass-clown, not because he is a Christian, because he is a 'faith healer'. I know that my mother is giving money to this guy because I monitor her bank accounts and email. Yeah, it sounds horrible to watch someone like this and it is. I don't trust her ability to make informed decisions and she has proven in the past that she is easily manipulated. If I was a 'Christian' the conversation would probably go a lot better. Because I am the spawn of Satan, aka an atheist, anytime I bring up something remotely religious it becomes a major issue between us. I'm trying to figure out how to convince her without seeming like I'm insulting her beliefs. Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.

Why does she give him money, religion should be between the person and God, and no so called middle man should intervene in this, maybe you should explain this to your mother.

On the other hand if the money is going to something humanitarian with a proof and that the amount is negligible then I believe it is also fine and good thing you are monitoring the account, you should just put in place a strategy to how to approach the thing with her, and I believe the best way to convince someone is to have a discussion with them calmly and with argumentation

Sounds like a really shit situation on all fronts. Dementia is horrible but even people with their fully functioning mind fall victim to these supposed faith healer charlatans. Probably not gonna do much good but try get her to watch or read something that exposes the faith healer scammers.

I've never heard of this guy but it might help if you found some Christian criticism of the guy.  (Criticism from atheists and unbelievers might not go very far.)

There are probably some controversy around the guy and nobody bickers more than the religious so it should be possible to find some criticism somewhere.

I really feel for you, it's a horrible situation. The problem, of course, is that there's no rational way to talk about it. When faith is taken as a virtue in and of itself, then it trumps rationality every time. The only way I can think of to make her understand this is to try and make the point that this man is NOT a man of God. See if anyone has done some research on this guy.

consider digging up dirt on him/her.. and if the televangelist is a televangelist, then there is certainly a fair load of shit going on. then tell your mom about it.

I can't dig up anything on him. I'll try and cross reference his name, and see if anything comes up then.

Trying to convince people to change their belief is not easy, let alone if they have early signs of dementia. People are attached a lot to emotion and the model they have in their brain, whether these are true or not. Imagine the silly situation, in which you are live in England and think you are an Englishman for 60 years - then someone comes by and say you are an Irishman. Of course,  a mental transition is not easy and deals with a lot of emotion. Avoid religious discussion, this is not your goal.

I think you goal is that money does not go from her to him.
There are various ways to deal with the situation. I have made a list of some options:

- ignore
- by reason: very difficult, because of the model in brain
- by emotion 1:  use an imposter, make the money go to you
- by emotion 2:  use another Christian to convince her not to do it
- by emotion 3:  use some text in the bible to convince her. to make it seem magical, you could make it appear in the room  :P
- tech 1:  a custom DNS-server which forwards mail to you instead of him (MITM attack).
- tech 2:  break the computer, format C:\
- tech 3:  identity theft:  use a sendmail tool, fake his from adress. tell you have a new email address.
- legal:  you could find a law related to it

The best is probably the emotion approach, using another christian.
be careful and make the best of your time. Dementia is terrible, your mother is still here now

 :(  As a Christian I am more upset with what some of these televangelists are doing.  I know that God will judge them in the end, so they will get their due.  But until then, it is so frustrating seeing them take advantage of the innocent and those that have good hearts.

Is there anyway you could get a court order to have control of how she spends her money?  Do you have any siblings or relatives that you could get support from in order to do that?  If someone has dementia it is actually a common thing to do I believe.  Then you could make sure all of her financial needs are met but she would not be able to spend money on things like this.

I am really sad for you.  I am sure you are not the "spawn of satan" as you put it either!  ;)  You are probably just a highly intelligent person that has seen too much crap that takes place in the church and have studied "science" and now have a hard time accepting the Bible to be true (although I believe that what is taught as "science" today is not entirely trustworthy but that is another discussion).  If it is any comfort, Jesus hates this kind of crap too.  There will be many that claim to do good things for God only to be told when they get to heaven to "depart from me I never knew you."  That is something they should be thinking about.

Easy,

Tamper with the TV, short curcuit it or something to make sure it doesn't work anymore. Keep doing this to every TV then tell her God wants you to stop giving this guy money

You can also use parental channel blocking

Convincing a Christian never works.

change it to channel 667

Also you can try this : First you're going to have to convince one of your friends to dress up as a televangelist. Next you'll have to record him in front of a green screen or at a church preaching hardcore Christianity. Then have a phone number on the screen for donations using the green screen. Finally take the tape/dvd and put it in at your mother's house and BAM! Your friend gets the money that you can then funnel back into her accounts. It's foolproof.

That is a very simple action that may benefit her a lot. As long as she doesn't go on to the next fraudster.

OK, you need to get full Power of Attorney or guardianship before she gets so far gone that you can't and the courts intervene.

With full POA or guardianship you can stop the donations and preserve her funds as she will for sure need them in future.

Hit up your local lawyer.

My $.02.

;)

I find this a little bizarre but I'd suggest that you make it clear to your mother that it's not a good send money in.  Sort of simple as that really or you could look for evidence of a scam taking place might help.

I once caught my fixed income grand mother writing a $3000 check to mail to a televangelist because he need help 'building his ministry' and she just had to help. I just let her write the check and told her I would put it in the mail for her.
About a year later she had a pipe burst in her house causing almost $2000 dollars in damage. At this point she was living pretty much hand to mouth, thinking she had sent most of her savings to that televangelist. I went to her house and gave her back the envelope I told her I would mail for her. She was utterly shocked.
I told her: "Granny, I told you I would mail this for you, and today I am living up to that promise by delivering it to the person that truly needs and deserves it."
She hugged me for almost an hour, and until she died whenever I visited she never failed to hug and thank me for protecting her life savings in spite if her.

Can't say I like the deception but it worked out for the best.   Was your grandmother mentally impaired in any way at the time, like the OP? 

Maybe look for alternative outlets for her that will at least do good with the money they get from her

I hate when I see elderly people that shouldn't be giving money giving money. They r old and had a long life and deserve to treat themselves not other peoplw

it's their choice to naively donate to people they shouldn't be though. it kind of bugs me too, but they are just doing what they want to.. you can't stop that.

In this situation it's not her choice. She is being manipulated.

it's her choice to be manipulated. no one's holding a gun to her head.

If you were slipping into Dementia, would you want somebody to trust you?

Dementia:

http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/guide/alzheimers-dementia

It's pretty easy to manipulate a good percentage of the people who have it.

we don't know that she has dementia. that's apples to oranges.

'Slipping'. And I said nothing about having it, I said 'slipping'.

Are you serious? OP said so in the first post.

oh, you're right.. i skimmed through the first post before making thatp ost and didn't see mention of dementia.

This is the right answer. Let her know that you're concerned about her running out of money and offer to take over her finances. Unfortunately this will create more work for you, but you'll be able to preserve her wealth. You can tell her to make a list of organizations that you'll donate to after she's gone and no longer needs the money for herself.

Don't bother to argue about religion or discredit the preacher. Anything you say that runs counter to her existing beliefs will be dismissed as Satan's attempts to deceive her.

The problem is, it is his mother after all - so maybe he doesn't want to do that.
Or he has brothers / sisters, which would make the issue more complicated.

He can either get control of the matter or let things go to Hell.

His choice.

Thank you for your kind reply!

My $.02.

;)