Are stock markets halal?

[kritikvernunft]

If a practice is not halal, you can reasonably assume that it will backfire somewhere somewhere it the future, in this life, or possibly even in the next one. The corollary is obviously that when you see something badly backfiring, that you could reasonably start searching for a haram practice that may lie at the basis of what is going wrong.

In other words, the Backfiring Corollary Theorem conjectures that for everything that goes wrong, there exists a haram practice that causes it.

For example, the banking system will always end up collapsing. The Quranic text points out that charging interest ("riba") is fundamentally haram, while Riba is clearly a core feature of the banking system. This nicely explains upfront any future calamities in the banking system. No need to look any further.

If we look at a second example, we can see that even without a collapsing banking system, paper money will on the long term always collapse. Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value – zero. Often Rather Quickly. (Voltaire, 1694-1778).

The value of paper money rests on the belief that its emitter will not debase its value by emitting more of it. Therefore, it represents the false pagan belief that the national state can be trusted. Consequently, it is a form of polytheism ("shirk"). Furthermore, Theory of Deception says that it is the aggregate belief itself in the deceptive statement (a=b) -- large numbers of people really believing it -- that fuels the growth in the total amount of deception (b-a)². This then explains Voltaire's Law. The complete destruction of the value of paper money, occurs because all false pagan beliefs ultimately and completely backfire.

Pure monotheist faith says that in the One God we trust and in nothing else. Everything else must be treated with varying degrees of suspicion. Every possible departure from pure monotheist faith will eventually always snowball into its own punishment. If you have acted upon the false belief in something else than the One God, you will have to pay. The natural corollary of this system invariant is that, on the other hand, exclusive faith in the One God ("monotheism", "tawhid") will be rewarded handsomely, later in this life, or in the next one.

The previous examples were rather simple to analyze. We could clearly see where things were wrong. The stock exchange is a much more difficult object of study. Why will the stock exchange always collapse and lose all of its value?

There is an absolutely obnoxious business model possible with stock markets.

Quite a few people have noticed that the stock markets go down, and particular shares go down very visibly, when there are bombing attacks. For example, when the airport in Brussels, Belgium, got suicide-bombed, the stock of Air France-KLM started tanking. Several tour operators started tanking too.

A put option is the right to sell stock at a particular price. If the value of the stock goes down, the value of the put option goes up. In a simple example, imagine that you buy the right to sell 100 000 shares in Air France at 15 Euro at 1.5 Euro per share. Therefore, you spend 1.5 x 100 000 = 150 000 Euro to enter this position. After the bombing attack, the spot price (current price) becomes 11 Euro. This means that these put options are now worth (15-11) x 100 000 = 400 000 Euro. Therefore, your profits, resulting from the bombing attack, are 400 000 - 150 000 Euro = 250 000 Euro.

Consequently, if you know beforehand that the bombing attack will take place, you can buy these put options before the attack, and cash out after the attack. It would be a one-way, always-money-making bet. It would not particularly be stretch to say: Why not just organize such attack by yourself? The attack would certainly fund itself.

What we can see, is something badly backfiring here. There is a fundamental flaw in the situation that allows people to make lots of money by unceremoniously killing other people. Therefore, according to the Backfiring Corollary Theorem, there is something fundamentally wrong with the stock market mechanism itself, caused by a haram practice that underlies it.

Now, investment in itself is not fundamentally haram. Trade is also not fundamentally haram. Still, strange but true, the entire stock exchange mechanism still turns out to be haram.

Furthermore, when behaviour is ultimately self-defeating, it can only be morally wrong. It is quite easy to see why this may be so. The reason why shares have value in the first place, is because they represent the profits from a business -- a group of people -- buying supplies from their suppliers and selling products or services to their customers, both of which are just other groups of people. If you kill these people, there would be no production nor sales, and therefore no profits. Therefore, it looks like the stock market has somewhere an innate propensity to destroy its own profits, by unceremoniously killing anybody involved in one way or another in the underlying business of the company whose shares are traded on the stock market.

Therefore, my questions:

Which exactly is the haram practice underlying the stock market that causes this problem? Can you pinpoint something? In my impression, it is not interest ("riba") in this case. Why is the stock market still fundamentally evil, even though it just represents behaviour that consists of otherwise possibly permissible investment and trade?

['abd al-hakeem]

Can't you simply acknowledge that Allah said 'No' to riba/interest, and accept it in spite of what is subsequently forbidden thereafter?

What do you hope to achieve by nit picking the instruction of Allah, Exalted and Wise...?

Maybe it was forbidden because of the propensity for oppression, which, incidentally, you have already mentioned in your post... Incidentally Allah subhanahu wa Ta'ala forbade HIMSELF from oppression... Investigate Islamic banking instead of challenging your Creator on a public forum.

Quite a lot of books being read with very few mentions of the Qur'an... You should ask @Scimitar about the bani Israel syndrome...

[kritikvernunft]

Can't you simply acknowledge that Allah said 'No' to riba/interest, and accept it in spite of what is subsequently forbidden thereafter?

You may have misunderstood my question. I said about the banking system that it is asking for trouble because of their outlawed riba/interest practices. I said about the stock market that it does not use riba/interest, but that it is also seems to have evil consequences. So, the problem there is not riba/interest. Therefore, there must be another problem. What is it?

What do you hope to achieve by nit picking the instruction of Allah, Exalted and Wise...?

I was not questioning the instruction of Allah. I just pointed out that not all problems are related to riba/interest. There are other forbidden behaviours too. The stock market seems to lead to evil outcomes. So, what is the underlying misbehaviour that causes it, if you know that this time it is not the practice of riba/interest?

Investigate Islamic banking instead of challenging your Creator on a public forum.

I am not questioning the ban on riba/interest. I am just pointing out that there is a serious problem with the stock markets but that it does not seem to be due to the problem of riba/interest. So, what particular misbehaviour leads to the evil described?

['abd al-hakeem]

Of all that, you glossed the one reference that would actually answer your question... Islamic Banking.

Not being an Islamic banking specialist, myself, I suggest, as I suggested before, to investigate it for yourself...

May Allah subhanahu wa Ta'ala give you the answers you seek. Amin ya Rabbil alamin

[kritikvernunft]

Of all that, you glossed the one reference that would actually answer your question... Islamic Banking. Not being an Islamic banking specialist, myself, I suggest, as I suggested before, to investigate it for yourself... May Allah subhanahu wa Ta'ala give you the answers you seek. Amin ya Rabbil alamin

Thanks. It is about stock markets, however, and not really about riba/interest banking.

There is no lending/borrowing going on in stock markets, or anything else related to riba/interest.
It is all about the shares in companies that will give you the right to draw a commensurate share of their profits.

Still, stock markets seem to promote a few evil and literally murderous outcomes.

Of course, you can easily see that riba/interest banking has murderous outcomes too, but that can be mostly explained by misbehaviour related to riba/interest. So, there is no mystery as to why riba/interest banking is fundamentally dangerous. It is literally mentioned as evil in the religious scriptures. That is why you should not expect anything else but evil outcomes.

Stock markets, however, do not involve interest/riba. So, what underlying misbehaviour manages to make stock markets utterly evil and murderous? Because they really are. So, where is the catch?

[Tim_the_Plumber]

The value of paper money rests on the belief that its emitter will not debase its value by emitting more of it. Therefore, it represents the false pagan belief that the national state can be trusted. Consequently, it is a form of polytheism ("shirk"). Furthermore, Theory of Deception says that it is the aggregate belief itself in the deceptive statement (a=b) -- large numbers of people really believing it -- that fuels the growth in the total amount of deception (b-a)². This then explains Voltaire's Law. The complete destruction of the value of paper money, occurs because all false pagan beliefs ultimately and completely backfire.

I think you should avoid investing in the stock market whilst you use this sort of reasoning. Throwing in maths of no meaning to try to make gibberish more credible will make you suceptible to the gibberish of others. It will make you a sucker.

[kritikvernunft]

I think you should avoid investing in the stock market whilst you use this sort of reasoning.

Well, in the business model at stake you can buy 1 million dollars worth of put options on IBM, and then find someone to bomb their global headquarters (or do it by yourself), then watch how the share price drops in value right in front of you, and then cash in on your put options, now probably worth at least 5+ million dollars.
This is a one-way bet. Your investment strategy will always be in the money.
Stock markets are evil, since they allow you to make lots of money, just by killing lots of people.
My question is now: Why is it even possible to do that?
In all other cases, there was an explanation readily available: the other business models rest on riba/interests. So, it is absolutely normal that they have utmost evil outcomes. In this case, the explanation is not trivial. There is fundamentally something evil about stock markets, but it is not clear to me what fundamental misbehaviour is at stake here.

Throwing in maths of no meaning to try to make gibberish more credible will make you suceptible to the gibberish of others. It will make you a sucker.

Of course, math looks like gibberish; and sofware source code even more so.
That is certainly one reason why I make so much money.
If everybody could understand what I do for a living, everybody would be making lots of money.
You and I know, that this is, of course, not the case.

This kind of things does not make you a sucker, believe me, but a millionaire, and in some cases, like if you are Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brinn, or Larry Page, even a hunderds-of-billionaire. If it were simple to produce half a trillion dollars of value (Google, Facebook, Apple), everybody would do it, no? It requires a deep understanding of things that look like gibberish! That's why so few people are willing and capable of doing this, and why the ones who do, are so bloody rich! ;-)

In fact, I like philosophizing much more than making money. If the reverse were the case, I would be trying to make some more money instead of philosophizing here, wouldn't I? So, I doubt that I will ever become a hunderds-of-billionaire. I don't care, because I would not know what to spend that kind of money on anyway. Maybe on getting some more time to philosophize? ;-)

[Eric H]

Greetings and peace be with you kritikvernunft;

I am not questioning the ban on riba/interest. I am just pointing out that there is a serious problem with the stock markets but that it does not seem to be due to the problem of riba/interest. So, what particular misbehaviour leads to the evil described

The stock market has very little to do with investing, otherwise you would leave your money in a company for years, and you would also have a concern for that company. Is gambling evil? Because the stock market benefits from the principles of gambling, by trying to stack the odds in your favour, before you place your bet.

In the spirit of praying for justice for all people

Eric

[Scimitar]

http://www.imranhosein.org/books/480-the-prohibition-of-ribah-in-the-quran-and-sunnah.html

Selling stock you do not own to anonymous buyers for an interest based profit which fluctuates is haraam. The day to day movements of the stockmarket are somewhat random, so trying to time the market and make money off the random swings is gambling in a different form.

Makes it haraam.

Scimi

[ardianto]

Investment is halal. Transferring (selling) investment to other party is halal, because this is trading. Buying commodity and sell it again when the price increased is halal too.

What haram is if you were cheating in stock trading like commit insider trading or spread false rumors.

Selling stock you do not own to anonymous buyers for an interest based profit which fluctuates is haraam.

Stock broker do sales by order from the stocks owner. Being sales representative like this is allowed in Islam. What forbidden is selling someone's stuff without order from the stuff owner.

[kritikvernunft]

The stock market has very little to do with investing, otherwise you would leave your money in a company for years, and you would also have a concern for that company. Is gambling evil?

Greetings and peace Eric. Good question! Does the Quran outlaw gambling explicitly? A ban on gambling would indeed explain the problem. I have been able to find this:

Quran 2:219. They ask you about wine and gambling. Say, "In them is great sin and [yet, some] benefit for people. But their sin is greater than their benefit." And they ask you what they should spend. Say, "The excess [beyond needs]." Thus Allah makes clear to you the verses [of revelation] that you might give thought.

Quran 5:90-91. O who you believe! Intoxicants (e.g. alcohol) and gambling and idols and (lottery by) arrows are an abomination of Satan’s work, so avoid them so that you may get salvation. Satan's only desire is to create among you enmity and hatred by means of intoxicants and gambling and stop you from praying and remembering Allah. Will you not then desist?

So, there is certainly no doubt about the religious status of gambling. The Quranic text condemns this practice as Satanic behaviour.

Because the stock market benefits from the principles of gambling, by trying to stack the odds in your favour, before you place your bet.

There can obviously not be a blanket ban on "doing something that could also go wrong", because approximately everything we do, could go wrong in one way or another. So, there would indeed be a problem as to what exactly the term gambling means.

There is a big argument in the USA, indeed exactly over the definition of the term gambling, with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, where online daily fantasy sports operators such as FanDuel and DraftKings argue that their games do not constitute gambling because there is skill involved, while the state regulators do not agree, and want to ban these games.

The game operators argue that the players are not gambling, because the games require skills. Here you can find a few articles about the issue:

• Why The Gambling Vs. Game Of Skill Debate In Fantasy Sports Won’t Go Away
• Skill, chance, gambling, legality: They're all separate

Investors in the stock market could use a similar argument, and claim that what they do, mostly requires "skill" to do that successfully. In the articles, you can find lots of counter-arguments against that kind of claims, but then in the context of online daily fantasy sports.

So, the question rather becomes, is there is generally-accepted fiqh that classifies investing in the stock market as gambling ?

[HGT]

As salam Alaikum, trading stocks is considered gambling and addictive. Many have committed suicide and keeps your mind wondering. All you are doing is money laundry for dajjals companies.

[greenhill]

Playing in the stock market is like gambling. The fluctuation of the price in most cases does not reflect true value. Largely speculation. I consider that gambling.

(Although I do like br Ardianto's distinction) but speculating on share prices is straight forward gambling.

[AwanTaqwa]

Why gambling is haram. In all business we do calculation but there is also speculation. In business parties who involves will gain value of the business transactions. It could be the goods, profit or service.

In gambling and lottery the parties involve will try to beat each other. One party gain benefit and the other party got nothing. Hence there us a winner and looser in gambling/lottery. This make it a haram activity. In Islam we must help each other, not to beat each other.

Please correct me if I am wrong!

[Tim_the_Plumber]

Well, in the business model at stake you can buy 1 million dollars worth of put options on IBM, and then find someone to bomb their global headquarters (or do it by yourself), then watch how the share price drops in value right in front of you, and then cash in on your put options, now probably worth at least 5+ million dollars.
This is a one-way bet. Your investment strategy will always be in the money.
Stock markets are evil, since they allow you to make lots of money, just by killing lots of people.
My question is now: Why is it even possible to do that?
In all other cases, there was an explanation readily available: the other business models rest on riba/interests. So, it is absolutely normal that they have utmost evil outcomes. In this case, the explanation is not trivial. There is fundamentally something evil about stock markets, but it is not clear to me what fundamental misbehaviour is at stake here.

Of course, math looks like gibberish; and sofware source code even more so.
That is certainly one reason why I make so much money.
If everybody could understand what I do for a living, everybody would be making lots of money.
You and I know, that this is, of course, not the case.

This kind of things does not make you a sucker, believe me, but a millionaire, and in some cases, like if you are Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brinn, or Larry Page, even a hunderds-of-billionaire. If it were simple to produce half a trillion dollars of value (Google, Facebook, Apple), everybody would do it, no? It requires a deep understanding of things that look like gibberish! That's why so few people are willing and capable of doing this, and why the ones who do, are so bloody rich! ;-)

In fact, I like philosophizing much more than making money. If the reverse were the case, I would be trying to make some more money instead of philosophizing here, wouldn't I? So, I doubt that I will ever become a hunderds-of-billionaire. I don't care, because I would not know what to spend that kind of money on anyway. Maybe on getting some more time to philosophize? ;-)

The value of paper money rests on the belief that its emitter will not debase its value by emitting more of it. Therefore, it represents the false pagan belief that the national state can be trusted. Consequently, it is a form of polytheism ("shirk"). Furthermore, Theory of Deception says that it is the aggregate belief itself in the deceptive statement (a=b) -- large numbers of people really believing it -- that fuels the growth in the total amount of deception (b-a)². This then explains Voltaire's Law. The complete destruction of the value of paper money, occurs because all false pagan beliefs ultimately and completely backfire.

If you write that you have no idea about maths.

When you say you are a millionare I think you are not telling the truth.

If you had any understanding of what a=b and (a-b)² was you would not have posted it as it is zero. a-b (where b is the same as a) = 0. Zero squared is still nothing.

[kritikvernunft]

If you write that you have no idea about maths. When you say you are a millionare I think you are not telling the truth.

Ok. Let's see if you have any math skills, since you have the temerity of judging other people on theirs.

As an example, let us establish that it is not hard for me to prove that I control the following bitcoin address:

https://blockchain.info/address/1FMz...v6WiDnBb38kuAP

For the message: Hello
A signature is: G9//wD67GIpQEsmAohXKmVK4v6eIegV9/AQEMQLJRewOcfHR8eiHaMXtoM/rZTsWevqjYIMYYScZWgyrjrOGGw4=

There are obviously an almost infinitely large number of signatures that can all be traced back to the same private key, and therefore bitcoin address.

Here you can verify that this signature is indeed valid: verification.

Therefore, you know that I control this bitcoin address, and hence that I control the money that it contains. In other words, I would certainly be able to prove that I own a particular amount of money. I obviously have other assets too, besides bitcoin, but for those it would be much more difficult to establish value and prove ownership. Only for cryptocurrencies, it is trivial to do so. But then again, if you had a million dollar or more, you would know this! ;-)

Of course, I could move all my coins into one address and prove that I own them ...
There is, however, a warning against using private keys -- that also control money -- for signing. Signing weakens Bitcoin security?
I need a better incentive. Seriously, why would I do that?

Furthermore, I may control much more money than I own. Therefore, I could easily deceive you, because the money is not mine. You would only know how much I would be able to steal from other people! ;-)

By the way, since you are so good at math, what is my public key?

If you had any understanding of what a=b and (a-b)2 was you would not have posted it as it is zero. a-b (where b is the same as a) = 0. Zero squared is still nothing.

The deceptive statement is: a=b.

What does that mean "deceptive"? It obviously means that it is not true. So, these people believe that a=b, but in reality a is not equal to b. That is why it is called "deceptive".

How do you represent a difference, aka, the actual deception?

You could pick the expression a-b, but there is a problem with that. The deception represented by a-b and by b-a are equally large, but they have opposite signs. So, in order to get rid of the sign, what better function would you use to represent a difference?

A variance, of course: (a-b)²

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variance

The actual magnitude does not matter. You could also pick (a-b)²/4 as a measure for deception. or r*(a-b)² with r an arbitrary constant. Absolute values never mean anything anyway.

These people believe in the deceptive statement because they trust its source. However, it is the aggregate trust itself in a source that makes the source such an interesting target for subversion. The more people trust it, and the more they trust it, the more it is attractive to subvert it, and therefore, the more likely that it has been completely subverted already. That is why it is the belief itself in the deceptive statement that fuels the growth in the deception.

The religious corollary is that there is only one, single source that cannot be subverted: the One God. Everything else will just turn into a bigger lie, the more you believe it.

In fact, it gives the impression that it is our collective belief in the One God that powers the expansion of the universe. This is actually not inconsistent with the claim above, because claiming that the real world corresponds to the truth, is by definition just an arbitrary choice.

[Scimitar]

Investment is halal. Transferring (selling) investment to other party is halal, because this is trading. Buying commodity and sell it again when the price increased is halal too.

What haram is if you were cheating in stock trading like commit insider trading or spread false rumors.

Stock broker do sales by order from the stocks owner. Being sales representative like this is allowed in Islam. What forbidden is selling someone's stuff without order from the stuff owner.[/QUOTE]

I read this comment online and will post it here, for your consideration:

down vote

Assalamualaikum. The following comment is based on what I came to understand from Islamic talks I attended in the aftermath of the SE Asia stock market collapse which as many will remember, was the playground of the speculators. There are certain rules to Islamic transaction. Sorry that I can't provide evidence from Quran and hadeeth as much of this was discussed many years ago. Never-the-less, events in the life of the Prophet (saw) should justify many of these reasons. -Offer and acceptance in buying and selling. -Contracts such as those that start a company should have termination terms and clauses. -A business should not trade given a specified time frame to make loss. -Dealing in goods or services should be here and now. -It should benefit the Muslims. -Partners in a company should know respective members. These rules pretty much relegates the formation or involvement in PLCs. Sorry if this offends any Muslims who work in investment banks. However, we should be aware that Islamic economics is based on a Gold standard and 'cleaver dickie' playing the game or acceptance of the status quo will lead Muslims to ruin as is happening in the world. The success of a Muslim is not the wealth in his pocket and the ends do not justify the means. InshAllah someone can see sense in these comments. JazakAllah Khair for reading.

Speculating share markets is haraam in itself, let alone actually trading on that platform. There used to be a better way, once... then, there was this. Scimi

[ardianto]

Speculating share markets is haraam in itself, let alone actually trading on that platform. There used to be a better way, once... then, there was this.

Scimi

Stock market is a marketplace where you can buy shares of a company to invest your money. You can also sell your shares to anyone who interested to buy. When you sell your shares, the price probably higher than when you bought, and you get profit. But it also can be lower, and you get loss. Stock market is a place where we can trade the shares. This is a place of trading.

One thing you must remember, you should be wise when invest your money through stock market. Use deep analysis, use good calculation. Do not speculate because speculation will destroy you. Unfortunately there are people who ignore this. They use stock market as arena of speculation, and they lost their money.

Stock market was created as place of investment, not as arena of speculation. If there are people who speculate in stock market, this is not the stock market fault, but their fault.

[kritikvernunft]

http://www.imranhosein.org/books/480-the-prohibition-of-ribah-in-the-quran-and-sunnah.html

Salaam Scimi, In the video, Tisu Miku says that stock markets which would trade in the shares of businesses that are halal, are also halal. Of course, as he correctly remarks, very few businesses traded anywhere on any stock exchange around the world are halal, because they engage in interest/riba-infested business practices.

Still, imagine that you have a halal stock market only trading shares in halal companies. The ugly scenario described earlier on, would still be possible. You could still take a short position on any such halal company, carry out an ugly attack against it, and cash in on the resulting decrease in its share price. This risk is created exactly by the existence of a stock market and of course an associated derivative contract market. Without stock market, it would not be possible to engage in that kind of mischief.

In other words, even a halal stock market would carry the seeds of its own destruction, because people can still make lots of money by engaging in horrible mischief. How can a system be fundamentally halal, if in this system, the more people you kill, the more money you make?

Hence, there seems to be something wrong with stock markets, even if all companies in which they trade, are halal. Hence, there could be reasons why stock markets are fundamentally haraam, even if they trade in the shares of halal companies only.

The stock market behaves like ultimately every false god tends to do, by demanding human sacrifice and incentivizing you to kill its own believers. At the same time, if you shun trading with companies whose shares are listed in the stock market, it does not make sense to sacrifice you, because doing so would not affect the company's profits and hence its share price. Therefore, if you are a non-believer of the stock market, it will not threaten to sacrifice you.

The interest/riba banking system is also a dangerous false god. Rogue staff working in these banks can make money by faking the last transactions on your account after you die. So, if the rogue staff get the information that an account holder is dead, it becomes easy for them to back-date withdrawals and outgoing payments, because the only person who could complain that these transactions are fake, is dead now. From there, the next step is very small: Why not kill the account holder, so that you can fake his final transactions? The more money that the account holder holds in the bank, the more interesting it becomes to do that. Therefore, rich account holders can perfectly-well expect that it is their own bank that will kill them. So, the stronger the false belief (=amount of money trusted to a bank), the stronger the deception (=the likelihood that rogue bank staff will kill you). In other words, like every sufficiently-powerful false god, the banking system has a strong incentive to orchestrate the murder of its own customers.

[Tim_the_Plumber]

Ok. Let's see if you have any math skills, since you have the temerity of judging other people on theirs.

As an example, let us establish that it is not hard for me to prove that I control the following bitcoin address:

Virus site removed

For the message: Hello
A signature is: Virus site removed
There are obviously an almost infinitely large number of signatures that can all be traced back to the same private key, and therefore bitcoin address.

Here you can verify that this signature is indeed valid: Deleted

Therefore, you know that I control this bitcoin address, and hence that I control the money that it contains. In other words, I would certainly be able to prove that I own a particular amount of money. I obviously have other assets too, besides bitcoin, but for those it would be much more difficult to establish value and prove ownership. Only for cryptocurrencies, it is trivial to do so. But then again, if you had a million dollar or more, you would know this! ;-)

Of course, I could move all my coins into one address and prove that I own them ...
There is, however, a warning against using private keys -- that also control money -- for signing. Deleted
I need a better incentive. Seriously, why would I do that?

Furthermore, I may control much more money than I own. Therefore, I could easily deceive you, because the money is not mine. You would only know how much I would be able to steal from other people! ;-)

By the way, since you are so good at math, what is my public key?


The deceptive statement is: a=b.

What does that mean "deceptive"? It obviously means that it is not true. So, these people believe that a=b, but in reality a is not equal to b. That is why it is called "deceptive".

How do you represent a difference, aka, the actual deception?

You could pick the expression a-b, but there is a problem with that. The deception represented by a-b and by b-a are equally large, but they have opposite signs. So, in order to get rid of the sign, what better function would you use to represent a difference?

A variance, of course: (a-b)²

Deleted

The actual magnitude does not matter. You could also pick (a-b)²/4 as a measure for deception. or r*(a-b)² with r an arbitrary constant. Absolute values never mean anything anyway.

These people believe in the deceptive statement because they trust its source. However, it is the aggregate trust itself in a source that makes the source such an interesting target for subversion. The more people trust it, and the more they trust it, the more it is attractive to subvert it, and therefore, the more likely that it has been completely subverted already. That is why it is the belief itself in the deceptive statement that fuels the growth in the deception.

The religious corollary is that there is only one, single source that cannot be subverted: the One God. Everything else will just turn into a bigger lie, the more you believe it.

In fact, it gives the impression that it is our collective belief in the One God that powers the expansion of the universe. This is actually not inconsistent with the claim above, because claiming that the real world corresponds to the truth, is by definition just an arbitrary choice.

This a fishing attempt to get people to click onto a site that will give your computer a virus.

I strongly reccomend that this poster is banned.