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Sorry, son, but society voted and you're wrong.

Ah, so "right" and "wrong" can be determined by popular vote now?

Is not that nice... All those committees voting for Pi to be "3" or for rejecting the theory of evolution are now vindicated, aren't they?

Your response is an example of Appeal to Authority: unable to defend the point yourself, you can only state, that some others support it. Fail.

....because L Ron was a delusional narcissistic paranoid and pathological liar, and he was scared of the doctors.

Great read if you want to learn about the sociopath: http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/b...

See, something like this sort of happened before and when the University of CA systesm was sued, the judge dimissed it.

When TN students start getting rejection letters from accredited universities or at the very least colleges that understand that this is the 21st Century, maybe they'll change their tune.

This also happened with Kansas when one of their school boards banned teaching of evolution and California told their students to not even apply to their schools.

In the meantime, the rest of the World - even die hard theocratic countries - are pushing science educatoin. China is already on our heels when it comes scientifc progress.

Religious fundamentalism is destroying science education in this country - and giving everyone else of faith a bad name.

See, something like this sort of happened before and when the University of CA systesm was sued, the judge dimissed it.

When TN students start getting rejection letters from accredited universities or at the very least colleges that understand that this is the 21st Century, maybe they'll change their tune.

This also happened with Kansas when one of their school boards banned teaching of evolution and California told their students to not even apply to their schools.

In the meantime, the rest of the World - even die hard theocratic countries - are pushing science educatoin. China is already on our heels when it comes scientifc progress.

Religious fundamentalism is destroying science education in this country - and giving everyone else of faith a bad name.

Atheists are between 8% and 16% of the US population, but just 0.2% of the prison population.

Tell that to people who question atheists' morality.

Most atheists do what they want so long as it does not directly harm other people. Most atheists are very moral people who put a lot of thought into their beliefs instead of just accepting accepting the default dogma of their society.

About 10% of USA citizens are atheists, but atheists only make up about 0.02% of the prison population.

I think it very unlikely there is a god, just as I think it unlikely there is a tooth fairy. BUT, if you were to show me compelling proof of gods existence I would be willing to change my mind. God would have to get busy reducing some of the evil in the world before I'd accept he is good.

There's far more religious people in prison than Atheists.

Also far less crime in countries with high rates of Atheism.

And murder rates seem directly correlated with Christian belief, not inversely as you might expect.

Christians are also much more likely to divorce than Atheists

So on the whole ... if there is a heaven, and entrance is based on good behavior and actions, there's probably going to be more atheists there then Christians.

Killing all Christians and burning all churches = wet dream of every slashdot anti-theist.

No, the wet dream (if we have one) is for them to get a fucking clue, then start actually being the people they thought they were in their delusions.

At least we respect freedom of religion in this country

But not freedom from religion.

The only real danger comes when a group of them (i.e. Crusaders or Jihadists) get it into their head that the sky god wants them to kill. But in the modern world that's (thankfully) a relatively rare thing.

You haven't been watching the news in the past, ooh, decade have you?

And as for religion leads to less crime, HA!
Atheists in the US make up a few percent of the free population. In prison though, less than half of one percent. A perp is more likely to be a god-botherer than an unholy heathen. Source: http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm

You effectively beat me to it anyway, but I'll still add my two cents:
He doesn't fly a tomcat, he pilots "Tom Cruise Missiles"

No it can't. Science builds positive evidence.

Dude you are embarrassing yourself. It apparently never occurred to you that evidence collected can also contradict many theories. Thus evidence can be "positive" for some theories, reinforcing them, and at the same time lead to discrediting of other theories, thus be "negative" for them. That is the very process of elimination which landed the "Turtles All The Way Down" idea along with the Flat Earth and Creationism in the same garbage bin of science.

Sigh. I'll try one last time before writing you off as lost. Since you apparently are so convinced of my wrongness you won't listen to my logic, let me quote renown skeptic James Randi in a guest lecture at Caltech. I presume you won't question his reasoning ability nor the institution he at which he gave the lecture:

We skeptics, as Michael Shermer clearly pointed out, are not in the business of debunking. If I were in the business of debunking, and I've often had that label pinned on me and I've always resented it and denied it - it means I would go into an investigation convinced that "this ain't so and I'm going to show you that it isn't." I'm not a lawyer; I don't have an advocacy position to take. I go into a situation as an investigator.

To be perfectly fair, I can't prove a negative, but I go into this thing prepared to be shown. Am I prejudiced against it? Oh, yes! I have to admit that. But if you've been sitting by a chimney for 63 years on the evening of December 24 and a fat man in a red suit has never bounced down that chimney, you can say, "One hundred percent of my evidence shows me that this claim is not necessarily so. I cannot prove that it isn't, but it's not very likely to be true, based on what we know."

The Santa Claus example may seem trivial and a little inappropriate, but it is actually a good metaphor for so many paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Another is flying reindeer. This one we can actually test. (Please don't tell the SPCA about this.) I don't really want to do the experiment, but let's walk through it as if I were doing it. It's a thought experiment. Let's select, by some randomizing process, a thousand reindeer. We'll number them and get them all together in a reindeer truck (I don't know what you put reindeer in) and take them to the top of the World Trade Center in New York. We are going to test whether or not reindeer can fly. You have your reindeer all lined up, a video-camera operator standing by, lots of pads of paper and pens at work. The time is now ten past ten in the morning.

OK, first experiment. Number one reindeer, please, up to the edge. Camera going? Good. Push. Uhh, write down "no". Really NO! Number two. Push. I don't know what the result of the experiment will be; I suspect strongly what it will be, based upon my meagre knowledge of the aerodynamics of the average reindeer, though I'm not an expert on it. But based upon previous accounts of what reindeer can and cannot do, I think we are going to end up with a pile of very unhappy and broken reindeer at the foot of the World Trade Center. And probably a couple of policemen will be standing by a squad car saying, "I don't know, but here comes another one."

What have we proven with this experiment? Have we proven that reindeer cannot fly? No, of course not. We have only shown that on this occasion, under these conditions of atmospheric pressure, temperature, radiation, at this position geographically, at this season, that these 1000 reindeer either could not or chose not to fly. (If the second is the case, then we certainly know something of the intelligence of the average reindeer.) However, we have not, and can not, prove the negative that reindeer cannot fly, technically, rationally, and philosophically speaking. People will often look at this example and say, "Well, how many reindeer would you have to test?" I'm not going to get into the statistics of the argument; I will only tell you that you cannot prove a negative.

Maybe because we already know it's all about mormons in space?

The Rutherford Institute is currently involved in defending a 10 year old boy named Raymond Raines. The case is scheduled to be heard in a federal district court in St. Louis Missouri. What terrible crime did this young boy commit? Praying over his lunch! ...

No offense, but I'm going to have to call shenanigans...repeatedly. First of all, the Rutherford Institute wasn't "defending" Raines as the Raines family appears to have filed the lawsuit. I also note that the only references I can find to it appear to be detail-free (and highly credulous) mentions of it in arguments that Christianity is somehow under attack in America. Oh, and this, which points out that the Superintendent claims that Raines "was disciplined for some matters that were totally independent of silent praying. We did a very thorough investigation. We talked to teachers, administrators, and also to some students, and we could not find any evidence of the allegations that the parent and the student made." I haven't gotten my hands on the original Washington Post article, but indications are that the specific claims of the plaintiff aren't exactly clear. I'm not inclined to believe that a school in the Bible Belt with a pastor on the school board has anything resembling a policy against private prayer. No, I think that we'll have to chalk this one up to the same gremlins who perpetuate the "You only use 10% of your brain" and "The World Trade Center fell faster than free-fall speed" myths.

I'm going to go a little further on this, though, because the article you linked to is a classic example of the type of content-free, outrage-laden pap that feeds the persecution complex of a group of people who essentially run the country in every measurable way. Point by point:

1) The thesis of the article is that the ACLU is a crazy left-wing organization that's out to destroy Christianity. I can find absolutely no evidence that the ACLU was involved in any of the specific cases the article mentions specifically enough to be fact-checked.
2) The Mike Ruestik incident (even more than the Raines incident) appears to be completely uncorroborated by anything other than a few anti-ACLU web sites claiming it's true. Given that the legal premise is ridiculous on its face, I'm led to conclude one of three things. Either this thing never happened, the lawyer involved has no involvement with the ACLU, or the ACLU's legal representatives are shockingly incompetent. Given the ACLU's history of legal successes and the fact that the right seems to regard it as the same type of omnipotent monster that Islamists regard the CIA as, I'm strongly leaning toward the first option with a limited chance at the second.
3) The Tanya Meyers case seems equally full of crap. Again, we have an example of the ACLU doing something evil with no actual evidence that the ACLU was involved. Even going back to the "source" (George Grant's "Trial and Error"), even Grant doesn't appear to claim that it was an ACLU action. I can't track the footnote back because I can't find any source for "The Journal of Non-Registered Churches and Charities" or even any hint that it actually exists.
4) The Layle French actually happened (and you can actually find court documents to boot!), but the lawsuit brought against them was brought by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, a government entity, not the ACLU. Why? Housing discrimination on the basis of marital status is illegal. French lost the case in summary judgment. I also hope that Mr. French isn't really facing "financial ruin" as the article claims given that he has an extra home to rent out and the judgment against him was $1048.

The rest of the article is just the typical attempt to smear the ACLU as an anarchist / communist organization by association, most of it cribbed from George Grant. I mean, "It should be evident to all that the ACLU is a formidable anti-family, anti-mor

It's no secret that the one demographic you can count on to be child molesters is catholic priests.

Atheists also tend to be exteremely under-represented in prison... bleevers are bigger criminals than us. See these statistics.

Instead of optical bugs in homes, where a resonable and constitutional expectation of privacy exists, we should take Keith Henson's suggestion and put cameras on those with _no_ expectation of privacy--the police and elected officials! Maybe that would slow down the corruption.

For details of this "little brother is watching" turnabout on 'domestic spying' see these links:

http://www.csoonline.com/read/090402/edge_badge.ht ml
http://www.outlander.com/badgecamera/social_effect s.htm
http://www.holysmoke.org/kh/kh620.htm

Tyranny, by whatever name it calls itself, ust be fought by those in it's grip.

I hope you realize that you are probably taking that Hawking quote out of context. The whole thing can be found at http://www.holysmoke.org/cre014.htm where it becomes clear that he was discussing a variety of origin stories/ideas.

You're funny :)

Talk about misrepresenting the government's position, and then wrapping yourself up in the robes of the oppressed!

You can't scream about "fairness" when the backers of intelligent design try to do an end run around the science community, the science process, good pedagogy and teachers to strike at the soft, sympathetic elected officials to sneak themselves into grade 9 classes.

Creationist tactics reek of contrived dualism: the utterly incorrect "if you're wrong on X then we must be right" view. If evolution were in some fantasy land 'disproven' tomorrow, that would not make literal biblical creationism automatically right. Neither would creationists in this day and age tolerate a grade 8 science class being taught about body thetans. Creationists are not interested in "fairness".

However, if ID ever gets a decent legal and scientific team on its side, we should make some headway.

Not just "scientific team", but if it ever gets decent science on its side like the Discovery Institute was supposed to do in 'Phase I: Scientific Research, Writing & Publicity' and was supposed to be the basis of everything that followed. But they got lazy, wanted a shortcut, and moved straight on to Phase III: Cultural Confrontation & Renewal.

If it could be shown that any one of these propositions does not hold, then Biblical creationism would crumble.

Horsepuckey. They have been proven wrong, and the response has been to just move the goalposts off the field, or as seems to be more common, just keep repeating exactly what you have just stated. It's a slick ruse, occasionally having to concede a point, and then to just stick it right back in as though nothing happened.

If you want to learn more about specific pieces of the evidence, you can buy books and read papers from any number of creation institutes, it's not worth discussing them here as I've done so many times before.

I have done so with many, and they repeat the same, tired mistakes. I find it interesting the way they present it, though. They use good logic in many spots, and then pull a switcheroo or an assumption out of the air at step 1, 5, or 10.

One of Dembski's latest on "specified complexity" is entirely like that. Strings out his math like a master. Then, in the last pages' worth of his paper, he lies about evolution. His entire mathematical proof is that you can't target a particular, exact spot in a mathematical space with a random walk; it needs explanation. In equating evolution with this, he implies that every generation would be using a 'random walk' with the express intention of producing you . My, my, jolly good, Dembski, you're such a smart man, but you lied on the last page to try to prove a false point about your opponents.

Papers like the ones Humphreys puts out are done in layers. The most "reasonable sounding" ones are the most public-facing, but they heavily rely on his other papers. When you check out his other papers, especially a couple of layers deep, you get gems like The Creation of Planetary Magnetic Fields which tries to prove that the Earth was a sphere of water, as he interprets in Genesis, and on the difficult steps, he invokes God in an utterly untestable manner...

In normal circumstances, the number of molecules in each of the four groups-three ortho and one para - is roughly equal. All the magnetic moments cancel out, so that water normally has no net magnetic moment of its own. However, God was under no requirement to create the water molecules in their normal order. For example, He could have created all the molecules with their proton magnetic moments lined up in a given direction

Sorry, just to clarify - when I referred to the "second one" (as in "the second one wouldn't qualify as a SLAPP in my book") I meant the holysmoke link, which was actually listed first in tomhudson's post.

Linkies: http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/lawer-from-hell.htm

snippet:
---&<---&<---
Scientology whore lawyer Jeremy Malcolm DMCAs Google

Following the lead of his master, the "lawyer from Hell" Jeremy Malcolm DMCA'ed Google, demanding the removal of "lawyer from Hell" sites about him.

http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/not ice.cgi?NoticeID=428

Attorney Demands Removal of "Lawyer From Hell" Sites

Dear Sirs

DMCA Complaint

I write to complain about infringements of copyrights held by me (which are also defamatory of me, but I realise defamation is outside of thee ambit of this complaint procedure). The search query which brings up each of the pages below is "[private]".

The results are as follows:
---&<---&<---

snippet:
---&<---&<---
cientology have a well deserved reputation of being a very aggressive organisation, accepting no criticism of their organisation or of their dead creator, L Ron Hubbard. They are legendary on the Internet with their attacks on freedom of speech, with legal action on almost every cotenant to force critics to take down web sites.

Well, my humble offering is no exception. Scientology in Perth, Western Australia has started legal action to force me to remove this site. When it became obvious that I was not going to do so, they threatened my ISP with legal action, asking him to remove my site. They even went so far as to offer him immunity from the upcoming lawsuit.

This page will be updated as the situation progresses.
The Players.
Jeremy Malcolm
The lawyer for Scientology is a local man called Jeremy Malcolm. JM used to be on the board of an organisation called Electronic Fronters Australia . EFA is "is a non-profit national organisation formed to protect and promote the civil liberties of users and operators of computer based communications systems."

From his position of fighting for freedom of speech, he is now fighting to stifle it. But that's life. I suppose a man has to do what a man feels he has to do. You can visit Jeremy Malcolm's web sites at the following locations.
---&<---&<---

He's a crackpot scientologist.

First hit: http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/lawer-from-hell.htm is really interesting.

My point: It's not possible to entirely divorce laws from religion. What laws we consider acceptable are based on our notion of the "good", and our notion of the "good" is partially informed by religious (or a-religious) beliefs.

Wrong! My notions of "good" are entirely underived from religious belief. Your notions might be, but understand that others don't need that.

The most recent attempts that come to mind for government rule based on athiesm are the Third Reich and the government of China. Not really the kind of governments I'm keen to live under.

That was government imposition of athiesm, mainly as a way to destroy competing power bases. That has exactly zero to do with the question of whether athiests can live moral lives. I note that Christians are much more likely to end up in prison than athiests are. And let's not even bring up all the horrific crimes committed in the name of religion.

This handy article on what to do with your plutonium once you've refined it. A must have for any organization interested in building such a device...

The method is just a technicality. I sure won't have to look hard to find another faith that condones genocide (verses 10-12) repeatedly (15.2, 15.3), or moving into modern times (as opposed to holy doctrine) bombing clinics and gay bars and murdering non-believers.

I mean really, this is God's actual order? 1Sa 15.2: "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

Infants?!? Toddlers?!? Wow! I guess those babies sure had that coming! God condones slaughtering babies depending on the circumstances. So yeah, I guess depending on your definition of evil, there's plenty of that to go around in the scriptures for all to be inspired by. Changing the rules later doesn't erase the fact that believers can still claim "under the right circumstances..." to push their hate.

Let's face it: Fringes exist in Islam, Christianity, Judaism who can and will find plenty of scriptual justification for their bloodthirsty hate, and all three groups have that fringe actively promoting mindless violence and murder.

When one group labels the others as "evil" based on the fringe maniacs, they may as well be pointing in a mirror.

Hey, don't mock those guys. After all, they brought down the Berlin Wall!!

Feel free to go google DMCA abuse. There's about 100,000 hits, and you might find one or two in there that might lead you to understand WHY it's reasonable to think that a corporation might go after this, using the DMCA as a weapon, because they've done it before.

The FatWallet one is particularly educational. I invite you to go read it. It's even less applicable to the DMCA than card-stripe reading, and it happened anyway.

Do you mean the psychic beign?

or the pagan beign?

Wow, thanks for posting the ICR oath. It really gives an idea of the way these people operate.

Can you even conceive of a serious/mainstream scientific institute having an unchangeable statement of doctrine which must be sworn by all new hires? A medical school which asks students to swear that influenza is caused by unfortunate conjunctions of stars, and not to think of proposing any alternative?

The very idea of swearing a list of assertions of fact which cannot be altered is by definition antiscientific.

No, it's to saw the question "Was everything designed - by God?" in half, so that each half can be dealt with separately and sensibly.

Once you saw off the God section and park it to one side, you are free to discuss more kinds of design possibilities than would otherwise be acceptable, and also to ask the "everything is an accident" team to bisect their own question, "Did everything happen at random - because there is no God?"


This doesn't really happen. Pretty much everybody pushing ID has a political-religious cause they are pushing. Making casualties of the life sciences, earth sciences, physics, and cosmology would be among these (only in those nations foolish enough to permit it). Most of them are capital 'C' Christians.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Most scientists aren't evil God-hating materialists out to corrupt your children's impressionable minds. Most of them even have a faith of some kind although that doesn't mean they will sign something like this. I believe you brought the subject of oaths up?

I have a brother who wanted the Discovery channel blocked at his house because it was "against God". He's smart enough to know young-earth creationism is completely hopeless but by golly he can have arguments with ID! This is the sort of politically motivated person who has a use for it.

The plain fact of matter is that injecting God into a problem (for or against) is pretty much no help at all when trying to model parts of the universe. You can instead inject a Designer instead of God but it is a difference without any real distinction. If anything, it will hose up the model you're trying to build. The only way I could see it being helpful is if you had a really outre problem like a super advanced civilization destroying or creating astronomical objects. It is rightful that anybody who proposes such a thing has to run the peer-review gauntlet. It is right and proper that something like that would have to take years to be accepted. Proclaiming "Scientists are faithless closed-minded materialists!!" will do nothing to advance such an argument, even if it happened to be correct. For specific problems Design would be an extraordinary claim to swallow. As I posted earlier, I.D.ers will have to do their homework and play by the rules (the Method really). This means evidence, falsifiable hypotheses, and predictive models among other things. Since they are making extraordinary claims they will have to provide extraordinary evidence. Even scientists can have faith in God but no good one would attempt to prove it with half-baked work.

To be sure, there is no particular reason not to posit a Designer to solve a problem. But there is also nothing in particular that makes a Designer a first or even a third choice when modeling nature. Historically, the hypothesis bats zeros. At best, it is the scientific equivalent of deus-ex-machina. If you have puzzler that can't be solved any other way then invoke the Gods! It's usually pretty lame as a literary device and more often than not bad science as well.

I am for freedom of speach. I am not for a level field discourse with the ID proponents because they lie. Their most insidious lie is that they follow the scientific principle.

You just lied to, you said I am against freedom of speech and I said no such thing. I said that it is dangerous for a scientific community to engage in discourse with the ID proponents. How is refusing to discuss something with liers and crackpots against freedom of speech I don't know.

Instead of discussing this non-issue with the ID people, the scientific community should work together on all levels in the politics arena, and possibly even bring out law suits if necessary against the ID people for libel. (if that's what it takes to get the religious fanatics out of the public education system.) I don't believe most people want the public system to start educating on religion any time soon. I sure as hell don't want to pay taxes to teach people a religious point of view, whatever it is.

I think ID is violating the first amendment of your constitution (I am not american.)

Many organizations give to United Way. I don't know if it's still true, but at one time, United Way gave to Planned Parenthood. If you're not familiar with the latter organization, Planned Parenthood offers abortion as an option over adoption. Even if you specify a specific charity when giving through United Way, that will just redirect somebody else's "general fund" money to Planned Parenthood. However, United Way claims that Planned Parenthood money from United Way doesn't go directly toward abortion, but the general fund redistribution principle may apply there as well.

Getting off track from the original topic, but basically it's a matter of them supporting groups I don't agree with such as Planned Parenthood. I know it's virtually impossible to maintain a boycott of all organizations that support such groups, but I do the best I can.

they want to replace secularism with a system where everyone is forced to obey one brand of Islam
Extremism is always bad regardless of what it refers to, hence the word EXTREMISM. I'm sure John Ashcroft (who spent $7000 of tax-payer money to cover up the breast of a naked statue of Lady Liberty, because it offended his religious beliefs) and George Bush (who supports public schools teaching Creationism - one of the most ridiculous fairy tales ever written - as well as school prayer) would have no problem supporting a constitutional amendment making Christianity the state sanctioned religion.

do not worship the Muslim god

Same god, different prophet.

It may frustrate you, but it is quite true.

Not so fast, buster. Sure, they don't like the fact that we're technically open to other religions, despite printing "In God We Trust" on our currency and making witnesses swear on the Bible in courts of law, and we change a pledge to include the words "under God".
But guess what! Turns out former President George H. W. Bush is so full of religious tolerance, he states that Atheists are not citizens and not patriots.
And he's not even the religious one in the family!

Here's a very simplified list of why they hate us:
1. US Foreign policy has always been: "what's in it for us?" and we make many deals and decisions that affect the middle east negatively.
2. We claim to love democracy, but we help overthrow democratic governments if we think the replacement will be more benefitial to us, even when the replacement is a dictator deals with terrorists in order to get our oil fix.
4. We don't want to seem soft, so when we're hit by an ally, we strike back at a former ally who's now an enemy with a debilitated military which made him an easy target. In the words of Chris Rock: "If they were such a threat to us, how come it only took us two weeks to take over the whole f**king country?!"

Recommended reading: Why do they hate us?

So although this tool is pretty freaking sweet, you might want to use it in moderation if you feel pretty strongly about this issue.

For fucks sake! your president talks about god all the time and half his voters and party think hes gods gift, do you not think this slightly more of an issue? Do you not think he might have a slight vested interest or biased opinion leading to violation of the bill of rights? Does this mean that if the court decides that 'under god' shouldnt be there then Bush should go? well i can
kill the suspense now and tell you that the mostly-friends-of-bush supreme court will be deciding in favour of god.

George Bush states that atheists are not citizens or patriots

Bush puts God on his side

George Bush Invites God to School

America Attacked Iraq, Because God Told George Bush To

President George "W" Bush: God's Man for This Hour

Is George W. Bush God?s President?

Bush announces war with plea for God's blessing

Here is a better link with more details. http://www.holysmoke.org/sdhok/aa011.htm

The oracle of the Internet (i.e., Google) indicates that Haag used illegal employment methods in Germany and has been involved in setting up front groups for Scientology. Gee, I wonder if the parking is done not by robots at all but by body thetans.

And it's destruction article confirm's the use of Bart Simpsons voice at the launch...

You sound like one of those damn atheists. Real Americans wouldn't question the War on Liberty^WTerror.

I hope they watch out... Given their recent problems with Scientology, they should stay away from $cientology's "Gold Base" in Hemet, California. People have a tendency to die in and around it.

I hope they watch out... Given their recent problems with Scientology, they should stay away from $cientology's "Gold Base" in Hemet, California. People have a tendency to die in and around it.

The Wayback Machine thing sucks, as do so many other Scientology actions against the net, but frankly I'm a little more concerned about how Scientology's actions affect people's rights out in the non-virtual world.

This is an organization that has framed critics, including journalist Paulette Cooper, who was indicted for sending bomb threats which, in reality, Scientology had sent to themselves. Scientology also attempted to frame Clearwater mayor Gabriel Cazares (for hit-and-run), U.S. District Judge Ben Krentzman (for solicitation and drug use), attorney Michael Flynn (for cashing a forged check), BBS operator Tom Klemesrud (for battery), attorney Graham Berry (for child molestation and battery), author Russell Miller (for murder), and former Scientologists Martin Hunt (for Internet posts; his report of the police officer's visit didn't mention what was being alleged about the posts) and Gene Allard (for grand theft - Allard won a 1974 malicious prosecution suit against Scientology).
Numerous instances of making false reports to police have been reported.

This is an organization that has seen 11 top-ranking executives go to jail in the U.S. for infiltrating government offices to steal and plant documents. In the similar Canadian trial, three Scientology executives and the Toronto church organization itself were found guilty of similar crimes.

The FBI raids in the late 70s turned up evidence of the frame-ups of Cooper and Cazares, along with evidence that Scientology had infiltrated numerous other government offices, such as the California Attorney General's office, as well as newspapers like the Clearwater Sun, law offices like Sidley & Austin, and other organizations, such as the Clark County Mental Health Agency. A Scientologist on the San Diego police force was fired for passing police information to Scientology.

A typical response from Scientology spokepeople is "that was years ago." (We never did that, and besides, we don't do it anymore.)

Well, there were five frame-up attempts that I can count in the past 3-4 years (Keith Henson, successfully framed and now a fugitive in Canada; Mark Bunker, acquitted; Bob Minton, acquitted twice but now apparently extorted into testifying for Scientology; Jesse Prince, hung jury).

There are also disturbing signs that Scientology is continuing to infiltrate government offices and businesses. A motion was filed just a couple of weeks ago alleging religious discrimination in the case of a woman who was fired from the Greenwich Housing Authority after Scientology management systems were introduced and employees were required to attend Scientology courses, paid for with thousands of dollars in public money, and the EEOC recently took action in a Texas case in which employees at a dental office were fired after refusing to attend Scientology classes. The Sacramento News & Review did a story not long ago about a publishing house that uses Scientology management techniques, run by Scientologists Dennis McKenna (who, as a Scientology spokesman, defended what Scientology did to Paulette Cooper) and Don Pearson (who gave extensive Scientology training to Allstate employees until management finally stopped it); the company, eRepublic, publishes a magazine on the use of technology in government (and another on the use of technology in education) and consults to governments on technology issues. The magazine includes ads for business training - never mentioning that it teaches Scientology principles - offered by people like Arte Maren - long-time Scientologist, co-conspirator in the 70s government infiltration case, and trainer in the Greenwich Housing Authority case.

I'm concerned that people confronted by Scientology training in the workplace don't know their rights. I hope the EEOC will vigorously defend people who are being illegally subjected to Scientology training at work - and I hope journalists will keep a closer eye on Scientology's continuing infiltration in government and business.

Kristi
Scientology Lies

The Wayback Machine thing sucks, as do so many other Scientology actions against the net, but frankly I'm a little more concerned about how Scientology's actions affect people's rights out in the non-virtual world.

This is an organization that has framed critics, including journalist Paulette Cooper, who was indicted for sending bomb threats which, in reality, Scientology had sent to themselves. Scientology also attempted to frame Clearwater mayor Gabriel Cazares (for hit-and-run), U.S. District Judge Ben Krentzman (for solicitation and drug use), attorney Michael Flynn (for cashing a forged check), BBS operator Tom Klemesrud (for battery), attorney Graham Berry (for child molestation and battery), author Russell Miller (for murder), and former Scientologists Martin Hunt (for Internet posts; his report of the police officer's visit didn't mention what was being alleged about the posts) and Gene Allard (for grand theft - Allard won a 1974 malicious prosecution suit against Scientology).
Numerous instances of making false reports to police have been reported.

This is an organization that has seen 11 top-ranking executives go to jail in the U.S. for infiltrating government offices to steal and plant documents. In the similar Canadian trial, three Scientology executives and the Toronto church organization itself were found guilty of similar crimes.

The FBI raids in the late 70s turned up evidence of the frame-ups of Cooper and Cazares, along with evidence that Scientology had infiltrated numerous other government offices, such as the California Attorney General's office, as well as newspapers like the Clearwater Sun, law offices like Sidley & Austin, and other organizations, such as the Clark County Mental Health Agency. A Scientologist on the San Diego police force was fired for passing police information to Scientology.

A typical response from Scientology spokepeople is "that was years ago." (We never did that, and besides, we don't do it anymore.)

Well, there were five frame-up attempts that I can count in the past 3-4 years (Keith Henson, successfully framed and now a fugitive in Canada; Mark Bunker, acquitted; Bob Minton, acquitted twice but now apparently extorted into testifying for Scientology; Jesse Prince, hung jury).

There are also disturbing signs that Scientology is continuing to infiltrate government offices and businesses. A motion was filed just a couple of weeks ago alleging religious discrimination in the case of a woman who was fired from the Greenwich Housing Authority after Scientology management systems were introduced and employees were required to attend Scientology courses, paid for with thousands of dollars in public money, and the EEOC recently took action in a Texas case in which employees at a dental office were fired after refusing to attend Scientology classes. The Sacramento News & Review did a story not long ago about a publishing house that uses Scientology management techniques, run by Scientologists Dennis McKenna (who, as a Scientology spokesman, defended what Scientology did to Paulette Cooper) and Don Pearson (who gave extensive Scientology training to Allstate employees until management finally stopped it); the company, eRepublic, publishes a magazine on the use of technology in government (and another on the use of technology in education) and consults to governments on technology issues. The magazine includes ads for business training - never mentioning that it teaches Scientology principles - offered by people like Arte Maren - long-time Scientologist, co-conspirator in the 70s government infiltration case, and trainer in the Greenwich Housing Authority case.

I'm concerned that people confronted by Scientology training in the workplace don't know their rights. I hope the EEOC will vigorously defend people who are being illegally subjected to Scientology training at work - and I hope journalists will keep a closer eye on Scientology's continuing infiltration in government and business.

Kristi
Scientology Lies

2. There IS NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS. The writings of Christian theologians are not acceptable because of the conflict of interest, we need secular evidence as well. However, the only evidence Christians have provided is the writings of the secular historian Josephus -- and the parts of Josephus' writings which directly refer to Jesus or Christianity were discovered to be forgeries committed by theologians. Pick up a modern translation of Josephus from a secular source...it does not contain that passage anymore because scholars agree on its fraudulent nature. Other than that there is nothing.

3. There are all kinds of philosophies that do not depend on God for morality or ethics. Don't believe me? Read from the following authors:

David Hume
Frederich Nietsche
Immanuel Kant
Baruch Spinoza
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
Mark Twain
Ayn Rand
Robert Pirsig

It's pretty clear that the existence of a supernatural entity which rewards or punishes people cannot be the basis for morality, actually. That's just coersion. Morality is when you do good because there's a logical reason for it, not because you've been threatened.

4. There is a terrific website at this location that can address your questions and concerns about freedom from religion. While you're at it, I suggest you check out this one as well. May prove to be informative.

There are a few articles about this practice to inflate sales. Here's one and here's another.

I felt the same way upon reading it. After 15 mintues of frantic Googling I found this which claims he is now anti-scientology, but is afraid to speak out.

In Canada, they've lost all the way to the Supreme Court - One case is Hill v. Church of Scientology of Toronto, 1995. It was a libel case, and the details will look pretty familiar. Holysmokehas an extract and this is the full thing. Umontreal's archive is linked from the official Supreme Court of Canada page.

Great quote: "Every aspect of this case demonstrates the very real and persistent malice of Scientology." - from the Court itself.

I know that there have been many other rulings in Canada against Scientology, but only this one is easily available on-line.

Henry Troup - hwt@igs.net

In Canada, they've lost all the way to the Supreme Court - One case is Hill v. Church of Scientology of Toronto, 1995. It was a libel case, and the details will look pretty familiar. Holysmokehas an extract and this is the full thing. Umontreal's archive is linked from the official Supreme Court of Canada page.

Great quote: "Every aspect of this case demonstrates the very real and persistent malice of Scientology." - from the Court itself.

I know that there have been many other rulings in Canada against Scientology, but only this one is easily available on-line.

Henry Troup - hwt@igs.net

Actually, Shrub's father stated that atheists don't deserve to be citizens:
Click Here
But I don't think that the fruit falls far from the bush...

How presumptuous to think you have any say in how your tuition is spent. You don't wonder aloud what McDonald's does with your cash after you buy a Happy Meal, do you? And if you don't like it, you don't give them the money.

Wait, first you argue we have no right to know how the money we spend with a company is used, then you argue that if we don't like the way the money is used we shouldn't spend it there. The two views are incompatible.

There are places I won't spend my money because of the way it may be used (Domino's Pizza for example). The discussion of how companies use our money is one of the few powers captilism gives the masses; vote with your feet and you can make the company think again. If this were to be disallowed, then there would be nothing to keep corporations in check.