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You may not realize it, but you and I are siblings :). I was feeling *exactly* like you two years ago. I had the same problem with drug companies and found a better solution. Drugs are nothing more than poison, which is why it's very easy to become depressed and homicidal while taking them. There is help available if YOU want to reach out. DONT give up on yourself. YOUR mind can overcome more adversity than you can imagine! XOXOXO

However Scientology's blatant and public attack on psychology and psychiatry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S..., purely done because both profession target the preferred victim of the non-believing professional scientologists and deny them potential victims by curing them, before they can be ruthlessly exploited, to the extent of stripping them of assets and psychological (sometimes even physically) enslaving them. So far from being a region, unless you want to try to count the psychopathic insanity at the top of Scientology to be a religion. We are talking some seriously sick stuff going on here and it has nothing at all to do with those who choose to believe in Scientology but those who exploit them.

By the way guys and gals, filling the thread with lame off topic posting, pretty silly but it does reflect your inherent authoritarian and autocratic nature, no dissenting opinions allowed and all 'suppresive people' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... must be silenced one way or another. As for this shite http://www.scientology.org/faq..., "There are certain characteristics and mental attitudes that cause a percentage of the population to violently oppose any betterment activity or group. This small percentage of society (roughly 2 percent) cannot tolerate that Scientology is successfully improving conditions around the world. This same 2 percent is opposed to any effective self-betterment activity. The reason they so rabidly oppose Scientology is because it is doing so much to help society. Those who are upset that people are improving are few in number compared to the millions who have embraced Scientology and applaud its effort to build a better world.". Now that is hate speech fellows (GFY) and slander as it claims you are a terrorist if you oppose Scientology, as well as being so stupidly contradictory ie 'This small percentage of society (roughly 2 percent)', 'are few in number compared to the millions' (erm, yeah, right). You know like 2% of 7 billion, is like a whole lot of people 140 million. Now who looks 'rabid' that 2% of society or the asthmatic dwarf ;D.

You have some core principles which make sense in a specific context. You have a book based on these principles but with a good dose of word salad to make it look more powerful. You have preachers hammering it into your head. And you have common people getting brainwashed by something that originally was a good idea, but has been perverted into something that hopefully doesn't damage more than it does good.

Oh, and then there's the Enterprise.

Hmm, i knew they refuse psych help, but didn't know they refused normal medical help like the Christian Scientists do. Their website suggests their beliefs vs medical treatment are more mainstream http://www.scientology.org/faq/scientology-attitudes-and-practices/scientology-view-on-medical-care.html than Christian Scientists, while the CH tend to just let kids die http://www.masskids.org/index.php?option=com_content&id=161&Itemid=165

That said, the person i was replying to was suggesting that France felt safer conflicting with Scientology than with those Muslims because Muslims are murderous radicals, while my position is, radicals are radicals (and dangerous) regardless of religious affiliation.

You can sue anyone you like, but they'll only remove a comment if it's about Scientology.

Fuck Scientology. Clambake frauds...

Elron is watching you he sees your slashdot number and knows how to extract your user data. As all in So Cal are now aware of your existence let it be known that your lack of foresight in defaming the great lord will not go unpunished! Every time you log on to slashdot your comments will henceforth be monitored for the sake of the great truth of the one true church of So Cal. We are legion, all knowing, watching, in defense of the mighty Elron, (praise be to him who showered us with the great truth of our time)

Let it be know that all who would take the name Elron in vain are cursed in the eyes of the true believers of So Cal.
Sing with me in praise!

Old Elron Hubbard
He went to the cupboard
to found a religion quite new
But when published here there was quite a hubbub
so many made up Scientology just for you!

courtesy the rich nut cases in Southern California with more money than brains including some stupid drugged up American movie stars

So what's this "or dangerous" bit? Ammunition? Websites promoting cults? Websites attacking cults? Websites selling material that promotes anything that senators don't like, like free thought, opposing political positions, naked bodies that they can't grope for themselves?

This ain't about piracy, people.

scientology videos

Anybody noticed? They are sooo for human rights, still their videos don't all have subtitles or include sign-translations for the deaf...

Still, I cannot stop looking at them... over and over again...

all i did was read the first sentence of text in the first video that automatically displays...

scientology.org... see for yourself.

they also welcome vistors defensively and suggest the vistors have heard negative things... they are probably right.

scientology videos

What was the Guardian’s Office and does it still exist?

The Guardian’s Office, known as the GO, was initially created in 1966 as a unit to deal with the Church’s legal and external affairs. It no longer exists. It was permanently disbanded in the early 1980s by current Church management.

The GO had been infiltrated and set up to fail in its mission to protect the Church. It was influenced to abandon its original mandate and established itself as an independent, autonomous unit, answerable to nobody. It was isolated not only from the mainstream activity and management of the Church, but even from the Founder of the religion. Some GO executives actually tried to gain exclusive control over Church corporate and financial affairs.

The first warning that all was not well with the Guardian’s Office came in the late 1970s. Representatives of Church management realized that the GO no longer had the best interests of the Church and its Founder at heart. The GO’s management of the Church’s external affairs was notably deficient and many parishioners and staff began to suspect that matters for which the GO was responsible were not being dealt with in accordance with the teachings of Mr. Hubbard. In fact, by this time, the Guardian’s Office had abandoned any pretense of following the principles described in Mr. Hubbard’s writings.

It subsequently came to light that a handful of GO staff members had been influenced to adopt an “anything goes” approach in dealing with government discrimination against the Church. These dupes infiltrated and burglarized several U.S. government offices to obtain copies of files maintained and circulated about the Church. Obviously such activity was illegal and directly violated Mr. Hubbard’s policies.

However, while such illegal conduct was afoot, the GO managed to keep its operations secret from Church management, staff and membership. Its autonomy shielded it from accountability. Most Scientologists were altogether unaware of GO clandestine activities.

Even the government prosecutor in the later criminal case that arose from this illegal conduct testified that only a handful of people in the GO had engaged in or even knew about these illegal acts. The rest, including thousands of staff and millions of parishioners, had no involvement or knowledge of such unlawful activities.

When the GO’s criminal activities were discovered by those who today form the core of the Church’s leadership, the GO was disbanded, no small feat since it was the GO officials who held corporate control. Its functions were completely reorganized and brought under the control of the Church’s ecclesiastical management officers. Many of the GO staff were not involved in any of the unlawful activities and, wanting to conduct their affairs in accordance with the Founder’s teachings, abandoned their former GO leaders. They then gave their full support to Church management in the clean out and disbanding of the GO. Those who participated in or knew of the GO’s illegal conduct in any way were removed from Church staff and forever banned from future Church employment.

Sadly, there were also some people in the Church, but outside of the GO itself, who sympathized with the GO because of their own agendas to achieve autonomy and gain control of the Church’s finances. In some cases, it was the Scriptures themselves they wanted to pervert for their own ends. Given these people had proven themselves to be avowed enemies of L. Ron Hubbard and the religion, they were excommunicated.

Today, some of these same people, no longer part of the Church, are loudly and bitterly critical of the Church’s current management. It is these few apostates who are most often the ones who spread vitriol in the media about Scientology and Church leaders. When they make allegations of wrongdoing, they are referring to th

This is not true.

The Church of Scientology International Provides Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Scientology

Do Scientologists use medical doctors?

Of course. The Church of Scientology has always had the firm policy of not treating the sick. Medical doctors are trained to deal with the physical aspects of illness and injury. A Scientologist with a physical condition is always advised to seek and obtain needed examination and treatment by a qualified medical professional. Once under medical treatment, a Scientologist then addresses his illness or injury with auditing to handle any spiritual trauma or other factors connected with the physical condition which may have predisposed him to illness or injury.

This is not true.

The Church of Scientology International Provides Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Scientology

Do Scientologists use medical doctors?

Of course. The Church of Scientology has always had the firm policy of not treating the sick. Medical doctors are trained to deal with the physical aspects of illness and injury. A Scientologist with a physical condition is always advised to seek and obtain needed examination and treatment by a qualified medical professional. Once under medical treatment, a Scientologist then addresses his illness or injury with auditing to handle any spiritual trauma or other factors connected with the physical condition which may have predisposed him to illness or injury.

Solutions For A Troubled Word

FWIW, I'm a Christian and I've never felt "pressured" by my local church body to spend money on something I didn't want.

If you feel you've been missing something, you can probably join online !

Wow. Do you believe everything you read?

Less scrupulous companies (especially toward the bottom end of the market) have been absolutely lying about audio products since... well, since we've had audio products for them to lie about. Open your ears, and you'll understand.

Meanwhile, I've got a bridge I think you might be just the right person for. And a there's a few books that you might be interested in reading, full of truth and other factual stuff -- I mean, it's in print for fuck's sake, so it must be true.

Caveat emptor.

It would be better to give scientology itself a page about themselves that only they can edit, that is labeled as such.

That's what a real democraticized encyclopedia would do.

The "real democratized encyclopedia" people know that Scientology already has http://www.scientology.org/ and doesn't need their own page on Wikipedia.

It seems not a single person here has even a basic understanding of the fundamentals of Dianetics and Scientology and are trying to compare these to other prior practicies which they are not.

Scientology is a cult. Scientology will empty your bank account. Scientologists don't run soup kitchens. Scientology creates perfect bodies. Scientology costs money to do ANYTHING. Scientology is this. Scientology is that.

Really?

If one wants to understand and know what Dianetics and Scientology are about all they need to do is read the actual materials written by L. Ron Hubbard about the subject.

Go to the source

Have you ever read an entry level book about Dianetics or Scientology written by L. Ron Hubbard?

If not, then how can one seriously think they know anything about the subject?

Get a book that interests you and read it. Get it from the library if you want. Most likely a Scientologist paid for the book and gave it to the library so you could.

Note that all the basic books were recently updated. So ensure you have a recent edition.

Decide for yourself without external bias.

Something can be done about it.

Materials: www.bridgepub.com

Main sites: www.scientology.org, www.whatisscientology.org and www.dianetics.org.

Well, it seems that Stephen Colbert has a bit of a fancy with Scientology and their uber-seekrit Xenu. See, many would say that Scientology is a dangerous cult. There are many, many stories of personal ruin at the hand of Scientology. If even a small percentage of what is alleged is true, Scientology deserves international attention.

Whether or not you agree with 4chan/Anonymous's global protesting of Scientology, the truth is that it's worked. Celebrities like Stephen Colbert now bring attention to Scientology. The issues surrounding Scientology are common knowledge, and Scientology will have to either come to terms with its now-public secrecy, or continue to suffer in the public view. Xenu is now almost a house-hold name, and I have no doubt that it was 4chan/Anonymous who was behind the Xenu write-in in the first place.

It's been interesting to watch, from the first global protest onward. Go Anonymous!

That's how cults get started. Just take away the good story telling.

watching the videos over and over and over from many different internet connections...

link

for more info, check these out http://www.lisamcpherson.org/ - she was murdered by scientologists in 1995 http://www.scientology.org/ - they try to look so innocent http://www.churchofmyconology.com/ - hilarious parody or scientology.org (posted anonymously so they don't try to sue me)

oops, i'm dumb. it is

http://www.churchofmyconology.com/

i must have been thinking of

http://www.scientology.org/

The Internet has declared war on the cult of Scientology. You can help! Just try visiting their website and hitting refresh a heap of times (or ideally make a script to do so for you). OR ring their free hotline, 1-800-367-8788, and waste their time.

The War Against Scientology has begin. And with your help, we will succeed.

• Scientology specifically asserts the IRS has determined 'scientology' to be a bona fide religion.

• Scientology promotes religious recognition on it's official website

The Bona Fides of the Scientology Religion

Scientology is recognized around the world as a bona fide religion. As the religion moves into its fifth decade, it continues to enjoy substantial growth with thousands of churches and missions and related organizations and millions of members on six continents in more than 100 countries.

The religion's bona fides have been unequivocally and unambiguously recognized in a host of judicial and administrative decisions throughout the world. Hundreds upon hundreds of such decisions have been rendered over the past 40 years and a few of these have been highlighted on the following pages.

Tax Exemption

Wherever the issue of tax exemption has been examined closely, the conclusion has routinely been that Scientology is a bona fide religion, that its activities are exclusively charitable and that its churches are exempt from taxes.

On October 1, 1993, the United States Internal Revenue Service recognized the Mother Church of Scientology, the Church of Scientology International, and all of its subordinate churches and related charitable and educational institutions located in the United States as tax-exempt organizations.

The IRS determined that:

The religion of Scientology is a bona fide religion;

These churches of Scientology and their related organizations are operated exclusively for recognized religious purposes;

These churches and their related institutions benefit the public, not private interests.

No part of the net earnings of these churches inures for the benefit of any individual or noncharitable entity.

Maybe if he had played violent videogames, maybe he wouldn't have shot students. Perhaps he would've rather gone after terrorists, demons, or evil mind-controlling aliens.

Jack Thompson is just another idiot on Murdock's payroll who talks out of the part of his body that most people poop from. If he wants to start blaming video games, then he needs to be blaming the media (i.e. himself) as well.

While I do think that violent games desensitize us to some extent, I don't think they are at all the cause of the problem. Seung Hui Cho was just another angry kid, as were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. They felt cast aside, rejected, and victimized because they didn't fit in with their peers. So took their anger out on the world around them...

Honestly, I'd think being involved in an online gaming community, no matter how violent the game, would've probably helped. Many people (likely the Jim Thompson type) percieve those addicted online games as being anti-social. Yet from what I've seen, most gamers seem have an elaborate network of online friends. This could've given Cho, Harris, and others a sense of community and a place to "fit in" or at the very least, escape from the world around them.

What I do think is a very real and disturbing issue is that they decided to carry out their anger with automatic weapons and how easily they could obtain them. The reasons behind this have very little to do with video games...

It just felt similar

Check out the flash animation on the Scientology website: its hilarious. http://www.scientology.org/

"A Civilization without insanity.
Without Criminals
And Without War
Where the able
Can prosper
And Honest Beings
Can Have Rights
And Where Man
Is Free
To Rise to Greater Heights
Are the Aims of Scientology (by L. Ron Hubbard)."

So much of that is ironic, due to current circumstances. Mostly the part about "Without Criminals" when they threaten to kill a man in jail, and "Honest Beings Can Have Rights" when they are specifically trying to prevent the right of freedom of speech.

By far the best part though is the end, with the little "By L. Ron Hubbard" text, like Scientology is some book that Hubbard wrote. Oh, wait . . .

C'mon, Linux is like the Scientology of tech. The list of things that you aren't allowed to discuss is nearly endless.

Misconceptions about Scientology...

http://www.scientology.org/en_US/news-media/faq/pg 042.html

http://www.scientology.org/en_US/news-media/faq/pg 049.html#court

To find out the truth about Scientology, don't believe the vile and pernicious garbage from the 'hate-sites'.

Misconceptions about Scientology...

http://www.scientology.org/en_US/news-media/faq/pg 042.html

http://www.scientology.org/en_US/news-media/faq/pg 049.html#court

To find out the truth about Scientology, don't believe the vile and pernicious garbage from the 'hate-sites'.

Truth and a lie.

The issues are the same. The supposed point of an XXX domain would be certain people can be prevented from visiting porn sites. Everyone assumes that would just mean kids, but it would include a lot of adults actually -- adults with credit cards. Examples include men in churches that place web filters on followers' computers, pussy-whipped husbands who agree to place filters on their computers (or who have them on there because of their kids and couldn't get their wife to agree to make an exception for them), or anyone using some sort of public internet connection that might be filtered. In these cases, there would be a huge "underground" market to circumvent the .xxx (or if you prefer) filter because the money, most certainly, would be there.

A very easy, dangerous, thought, is that Scientology works ...

Many religious beliefs would be decimated

Or multiplied... who knows?

But frankly, I doubt organized religions will change a bit. i.e. the Catholic Church hasn't said anything about extraterrestrial life existing or not...

But i'm certainly more interested on the KIND of genetic structure these microorganisms would have. Will it be DNA? Or something else?

True or not, I'm believing whatever a nerd with a computer tells me to believe because I want to be a cool nonconformist just like all the other cool nonconformists.

cool .. here's something you might like to nonconform with ...

+1 Funny, use of word "Muslimism"

Also: there's been a religion based on sci-fi books for decades.

Some Scientologists might disagree with you on this one... from the Scientology website: "And if you were to ask any Scientologist they would tell you it is a practical religion, with practical answers -- tools that can be applied to achieve greater awareness and purpose in the here and now."(Emphasis added)

...but this one goes to 11!

My cut and paste got all clammed up. Let's see the replay:
check this out!

Yours in Xenu.

Yes, much better. You must have used the Holy Preview Button this time! And I checked out all three sites. Looks pretty static, but I'm sure somewhere behind the scenes there's a Winston Smith working dilligently at his job!

My cut and paste got all clammed up. Let's see the replay:
check this out!

Yours in Xenu.

Yes, much better. You must have used the Holy Preview Button this time! And I checked out all three sites. Looks pretty static, but I'm sure somewhere behind the scenes there's a Winston Smith working dilligently at his job!

My cut and paste got all clammed up. Let's see the replay:
check this out!

Yours in Xenu.

Yes, much better. You must have used the Holy Preview Button this time! And I checked out all three sites. Looks pretty static, but I'm sure somewhere behind the scenes there's a Winston Smith working dilligently at his job!

I have karma to burn so I just want to correct a few errors from the previous posters:

The materials pertaining to this case have never been released. This means that according to the http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview .html the berne convention no-one but the author and/or owner of the work has /ANY/ rights to it.

In regards to music it goes as far as that no-one but the sing/songwriter is allowed to even listening to the song (of course the sing/songwriter can give you that right if they want).

This means that the only way this material can be posted on the net is if it is illegally obtained (ie stolen and since scanned), which is also the case.

Thus the argument that if you have views against an organization you can then link to illegally obtained materials which the berne convention insists no-one but the owner has any rights to then it is also perfectly legal in the netherlands to link to the stolen source code for windows 2000 (if the argument is valid, and not just because the person saying this has a personal beef against the complaining entity).

Also some people don't understand why Scientology does not want to broadly disseminate this material - their claim is, that no-one would be able to fully understand this material unless they had been spiritually enlightened enough. The same argument that buddhist monks have for keeping certain texts secret. In other words if you don't agree with the scientologists on this you also say that it's fine to steal the sacred and secret texts of buddhist monks and put them on the internet (probably that is a bit of a worse crime since some buddhist texts only exist in 1 copy and thus you would also make the texts unavailable to the owners).

Some people mentioned that L. Ron Hubbard made a lot of money - however all copyrights and trademarks are not owned by any Hubbard:
http://www.rtc.org/

Some people ask if the organization can be deemed terrorist or illegal - well the FDA and IRS tried this and failed:
http://opposing.scientology.org/31-irs.htm
Of course xenu.net and others would have you believe something else, but do they produce links and scans for the legal documents going back from 1952? No, only the IRS agreement between the church, it's organizations and the IRS. In fact this agreement constitutes an acknowledgement of IRS wrongdoings, which in xenu speak is just "if there ever where any" [in other words, the forgot to actively check that...].

If anyone wants to know what Scientology is they should consult CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions, which is an international network of associations of scholars working in the field of new religious movements.

They have the following 3 articles on scientology which could be of interest:
http://www.cesnur.org/2004/waco_davis.htm
http://www.cesnur.org/2004/waco_cowan.htm
http://www.cesnur.org/2004/waco_rigal.htm

Reading this post AND the links (guess thats too much to ask for on /. considering people seldom RTFA :P) should atleast give you a more balanced view about this story then anything elsa on this site.

You answered "YES" to 2147483647 of the 10 questions.

You answered "YES" to -2147483648 of the 10 questions.

You answered "YES" to 2147483647 of the 10 questions.

You answered "YES" to -2147483648 of the 10 questions.

And even if you gave No to everything, they still try to convince you.

Even if you answer yes to fewer than zero or even more than 10 of the 10 questions, you are apparently still toxic. Xenu doesn't seem to like validating inputs on his website.

And even if you gave No to everything, they still try to convince you.

Even if you answer yes to fewer than zero or even more than 10 of the 10 questions, you are apparently still toxic. Xenu doesn't seem to like validating inputs on his website.

Dang, I must be dead!

No, this test's for real!

Just look at my score!

I can't thank sciencetology enough for making me aware of all those spiritual threatening toxins!

Were's Xenu when you need him??!

Yours in Xenu.

Yours in Xenu.