Slashdot Mirror

If you want a good laugh, these 2 sites offer a run down on their beliefs:

http://www.xenu.net/
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/fishman/index2.html

Apparently not everything is available: http://www.xenu.net/censored/ I got that a couple of time.

• Protest signs should have BIG BOLD filled-in lettering that is bold enough (>1cm thick) to be visible from a great distance. I saw many signs which were impossible to read from a distance becuase they seemed to have pencil-thin letters rather than thick, high-contrast lettering.
• Thick letters probably means you'll have to make the message very short (or use a very big sign). If the message is so long that it requires smaller text to fit on your sign, then shorten it rather than write it smaller. Put your longer messages on pamphlets.
• If your message is meant for the Scientologists, try to include some Scientologese in your message to show you're informed, not just some heckler. For example:
  
  • RTC = squirrels
  • No RPF or KRs in Free Zone
  • Why does the tech change?
  • Cost to clear? Over $50,000!
  • Cost to OTVIII? Over $300,000!
  • RTC is milking you
• Make sure your message is directed at the evils of the *organization*, not the beliefs.
• Avoid very negative messages like 'hate' in "Honk if you hate Scientology". Instead try something like "CoS IS\n A CULT!\n *HONK*". Drivers only need to see the word "HONK" to know what to do.
• Chant phrases in unison. It will be loud enough to be heard inside, and very hard for them to ignore.
• Adapt what works best and evolve: Watch videos from the other cities, figure out what ideas worked best, and focus on those in the next round.
• Try to get through to as many scinos as possible, even if it's just the guy watching the security camera -- hold up a sign to the camera! Talk to the scinos taking pictures/video. Break through to them! We need to break the brainwash, clear the fog, and instill doubt. They'll either leave or keep standing there (in which case you can keep planting doubt memes).
  
  • Tell them about Free Zone.
  • Tell them they can reconnect with their family and still practice LRH tech
  • Let them know people will help them escape.
  • Tell them to convince their friends to escape too.
  • Keep talking to them until they leave.
  • Keep it positive! You're trying to rescue them.
• If you can't get to a protest site, copy some fliers and hand them out, post them on bulletin boards, slip them into apartment door creases, mail drop, leave in shopping baskets, by ATMs, with a tip, on cars, or whatever it takes to spread the message.
• Call news to make sure they show, Fax your gov reps, etc.
• BRING MORE ANONS!

http://www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/xenuleaf.htm

Once upon a time (75 million years ago to be more precise) there was an alien galactic ruler named Xenu. Xenu was in charge of all the planets in this part of the galaxy including our own planet Earth, except in those days it was called Teegeeack.

Xenu the alien ruler Now Xenu had a problem. All of the 76 planets he controlled were overpopulated. Each planet had on average 178 billion people. He wanted to get rid of all the overpopulation so he had a plan.

Xenu took over complete control with the help of renegades to defeat the good people and the Loyal Officers. Then with the help of psychiatrists he called in billions of people for income tax inspections where they were instead given injections of alcohol and glycol mixed to paralyse them. Then they were put into space planes that looked exactly like DC8s (except they had rocket motors instead of propellers).

These DC8 space planes then flew to planet Earth where the paralysed people were stacked around the bases of volcanoes in their hundreds of billions. When they had finished stacking them around then H-bombs were lowered into the volcanoes. Xenu then detonated all the H-bombs at the same time and everyone was killed.

The story doesn't end there though. Since everyone has a soul (called a "thetan" in this story) then you have to trick souls into not coming back again. So while the hundreds of billions of souls were being blown around by the nuclear winds he had special electronic traps that caught all the souls in electronic beams (the electronic beams were sticky like fly-paper).

After he had captured all these souls he had them packed into boxes and taken to a few huge cinemas. There all the souls had to spend days watching special 3D motion pictures that told them what life should be like and many confusing things. In this film they were shown false pictures and told they were God, The Devil and Christ. In the story this process is called "implanting".

When the films ended and the souls left the cinema these souls started to stick together because since they had all seen the same film they thought they were the same people. They clustered in groups of a few thousand. Now because there were only a few living bodies left they stayed as clusters and inhabited these bodies.

As for Xenu, the Loyal Officers finally overthrew him and they locked him away in a mountain on one of the planets. He is kept in by a force-field powered by an eternal battery and Xenu is still alive today.

http://www.xenu.net/

The Truth Behind Scientology: http://www.xenu.net/

http://www.xenu.net/

To the leaders, it's about power and money. To the suckers, it's about "improving your life", and being lied to. New members are absolutely *not* exposed to http://www.xenu.net/, the successful lawsuits against Scientology by Larry Wollersheim at FACTNet, or the death of Lisa McPherson by starvation and dehydration in a Scientology run imprisonment in Clearwater, Florida.

Like most cult members, those new members come seeking guidance, and acceptance. Unfortunately, the defenders of the cult have previously been caught inventing threats of harassment, especially by Cult Awareness Network and by Paulette Cooper. Despite the convictions of senior Scientologists such as Mary Sue Hubbard for their harassment, they succeeded in blocking Paulett's book about the cult from publication.

It seems quite reasonable to oppose Scientology on legal and ethical grounds. However, there seems no need to spew random threats over on YouTube. It's easier, safer, and more effective to simply keep communications open with the members and let them reach out when they've eventually caught the cult lying to them too often.

If you'd click the second link in the summary you'd see how Slashdot "gave in".

The story posted after the comment was removed had a full disclosure, included the text of that comment and had _lots_ of anti-Scientology links, including Operation Clambake. That was the best Slashdot could do, considering the threat of legal action.

I had dealings with them about 10 years ago. I ended up paying GBP30 for a course just to get out of the hard sell and even though I never did the course the often phoned and wrote letters of about 5 years after.

See the Operation Clambake pages for more details to their activities. http://www.xenu.net/

1. It doesn't explain anything. If you respond to any question you can't answer by saying "God did it", all you are doing is using the word "God" instead of admitting you don't know the answer.
2. It's not supported by any evidence. From DNA to the fossil record to disease outbreaks, there is overwhelming evidence everywhere that natural selection is happening all the time, and that over time it leads to speciation and evolution. You can walk into any hospital and watch new species of bacteria evolve every week. You can compare DNA of various creatures over time and actually see where and when the changes occurred. The only evidence for creationism, on the other hand, is what? A book? If that's the only criteria, then there is equally "valid" evidence that humans are haunted by the ghosts of ancient deceased aliens. So clearly relying solely on ancient books and "because some guy said so" is an insufficient standard of evidence.

We do? The only "flaws" I'm aware of is that evolution isn't an intuitive concept to people who aren't used to thinking on geological timescales, and that it contradicts the fairy stories that their religious traditions tell them, which angers those who still think those stories should be taken literally.

Not believing in evolution doesn't mean believing in creationism.

True. Are you now arguing that Huckabee is not a creationist? If you are, say so... if not, the point is irrelevant.

You won't be able to learn anything if you refuse to admit Darwin might be wrong too.

Certainly, it's conceivable that the entire basis of modern biology is wrong. It's conceivable that the framework that led to the discovery of many of the vaccines and medicines that keep you and I alive from day to day is completely off-base, and that the resulting medicines and vaccines only work because of an incredible coincidence. I certainly can't prove otherwise. But then it's also conceivable that the entire world was created 5 seconds ago out of whole cloth, complete with fake implanted memories of my childhood and what I ate for breakfast this morning. I can't rule that out either.

But I can make a considered judgement about which is more likely, and my judgement is that the consensus scientific view is overwhelmingly likely to be the correct one, and the people who reject evolution are doing so mainly because they feel it contradicts their intuition and/or religious superstitions, and not on any rational grounds. People can quibble about the details, but to anyone with an open mind, the facts are plain.

Don't know, I'd like a bloody footprint icon instead... =)

I think you underestimate the firepower an aircraft carrier has. Modern conflicts have not really demonstrated it.

A current U.S. aircraft carrier carries approximately 65 aircraft, thousands of crew, and a huge pile of missiles.

In a combat situation, long-range bombers take too long to get into position, particularly over an extended period of time, and with varying intensities of combat. An aircraft carrier can supplement these bombers with craft that are a good deal cheaper, and a good deal quicker to respond.

In terms of surface superiority, an aircraft carrier outranges any other form of surface ship. It's an effective response to any sort of surface fleet. It is not, nor ever was, a response to missiles, bombs, mine fields, or aircraft. There are other naval craft for that (hence the battlegroup). In that sense, however, an aircraft carrier is no different than other form of military base. Missiles, and long-range bombers can attach anywhere on the globe, and penetration of enemy facilities on land by special operative is practically an art form, and much harder to defend against than submarines.

That being said, the art of weaponry is a continued point/counterpoint. We don't have all the data avaliable to us regarding anti-ship weapons, however, there's a good deal of evidence suggesting that our anti-missile programs are quite successful against the latest and greatest anti-ship missiles. In a hostile situation, surrounding a carrier group, our subs would play the same roll, and given proper ASW-air support, our subs would simply win. On the other hand, if we screwed up tactically (as in the way the article describes), or if technology is vastly inferior (which it isn't, yet), we would loose.

In my mind, the aircraft carrier is still king in the world of national warfare. However, as time goes on, it is growing clearer that we are in the age of economic and subversive warfare (meaning, terrorist). Currently, the bulk of this sort of economic/terrorist activity is occurring in the Middle East, however, there's nothing to suggest that it will not spread if conflicts spread.

I'd also like to ad that we (the U.S.) are no stranger to this sort of warfare. Neither is Russia, China, or Europe. Of course, these days MNCs (Blackwater) and political groups (Al-Qaeda, Islamic Front of Chechnya, hell, even Scientologists). Is this a worse form of warfare? I think so. Certainly, there's a great deal of collateral damage. But I believe that this sort of low level violence, present in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Gaza, Chechnya, Tibet, Sudan, Eritria, even Colombia, will dominate this century, leaving the days of open warfare in the past, and with them, expensive weaponry. There are very few places in the world where you can draw a clean line like the DMZ (N/S Korea). There is plenty of openwarfare, but it is all a mess.

Wow! that's the first time you can be an hero even fighting for the Nazi.
For those not aware of what Scientology really is, take a look here

How does the U.S. "officially recognize" Scientology as a religion when the First Amendment begins, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ..."?

Just because the IRS chooses not to contest their tax return (after fighting them for decades) does NOT mean they are officially recognized. That's like saying I'm officially recognized as drug free just because the cops could never convict me of drug possession and gave up trying.

The Church of Scientology would certainly want this. The Church already has the Scieno Sitter, "a content-control software package created by the Church of Scientology, which, when installed on a computer, blocks certain Web sites critical of Scientology from being viewed." Perhaps, as in the case of the Scieno Sitter, subscribers of MS COS television wouldn't even have to be told about the censorship program. After all, we wouldn't want people finding out about Xenu.

The Church of Scientology would certainly want this. The Church already has the Scieno Sitter, "a content-control software package created by the Church of Scientology, which, when installed on a computer, blocks certain Web sites critical of Scientology from being viewed." Perhaps, as in the case of the Scieno Sitter, subscribers of MS COS television wouldn't even have to be told about the censorship program. After all, we wouldn't want people finding out about Xenu.

Back in the BBS heyday, some doofus got mad at me for ending a post with NO CARRIER; his crappy PC terminal emulator software caught that and thought the line had been dropped, so it hung up on him.

You can have the same fun in the web age by posting the name of the secret scientology dark lord: xenu. This cuts of the tcp/ip connection for Scientologists, who are required to install a firewall-like software to protect them from evil words such as xenu.

It sounds unreal but it's true - look it up on google or http://www.xenu.net/archive/events/censorship/word list.html.

Not really fair, as Scientology is really the corporate pinnacle of religions, where profit at the top is the sole motivation. So yeah, the leaders sharing the belief rather than just a flagrant exploitation of naive and vulnerable element of society does make a difference.

No contest. The Roman Catholic Church wins, consider 15 billion in assets vs about $400 million. Those numbers are drawn almost entirely out of thin air but are likely to be order-of-magnitude correct.

Nothing like being around for two centuries and plundering various continents for getting the old bank account stuffed. In this game, the Scientologists are just posers.

Xenu made it all happen! Now, give me $15,000 and I'll clear your thetans.

Perhaps they should use Carl Sagan's Bologna Detection Kit. I was searching for the segment from Cosmos episode 2 where he talks about Tunguska and I was surprised to find that he had a ready-made kit specifically for this claim!

I'm a $cientologi$t and it wouldn't bother me either way.
Suprise! :)

Well what did you think of that story?

What? You thought it was a stupid story?

Well so do we. However, this story is the core belief in the religion known as Scientology.* If people knew about this story then most people would never get involved in it. This story is told to you when you reach one of their secret levels called OT III. After that you are supposed to telepathically communicate with these body thetans to make them go away. You have to pay a lot of money to get to this level and do this (or you have to work very hard for the organisation on extremely low pay for many years).

We are telling you this story as a warning. If you become involved with Scientology then we would like you to do so with your eyes open and fully aware of the sort of material it contains.

The founder - Hubbard - was a SF writer,

who worked in US Govenment mind control programs,

performed Enochian and Crowleyan magickal evocations -

and bet his editor $1 Million he'd start a successful religion

Oh, yeah. Charles Manson was a Scientologist.

It is very easy to hear about the Church of Scientology and write it off as a cult but I feel it's as valid a religion as any other, and it deserves as much protection (or as little protection) as any other. People who publicly write off Scientology as a "cult" are dangerously misleading the public and using Scientology as a scapegoat for problems that should be pinned on religion in general.

Wrong. The difference between a cult and a religion is that you can leave a religion. The Church of Scientology disconnects its members from their families so they have nowhere to go when they leave, and brainwashes them under hypnosis to keep them from wanting to. The Church of Scientology is also the only "religion" to keep its core beliefs secret, to be run for profit, and to have its own paramilitary[1] and counter-intelligence[2] operations.

There may be a Scientology religion, but that is NOT the same as the Church of Scientology. Separate the religion from the organization which practices it, and you will see that the organization is so thoroughly corrupt that it cannot be allowed to continue to exist in its present form.

(Posted anonymously for my own protection, as everyone else who casually criticizes Scientology should.)

It is very easy to hear about the Church of Scientology and write it off as a cult but I feel it's as valid a religion as any other, and it deserves as much protection (or as little protection) as any other. People who publicly write off Scientology as a "cult" are dangerously misleading the public and using Scientology as a scapegoat for problems that should be pinned on religion in general.

Wrong. The difference between a cult and a religion is that you can leave a religion. The Church of Scientology disconnects its members from their families so they have nowhere to go when they leave, and brainwashes them under hypnosis to keep them from wanting to. The Church of Scientology is also the only "religion" to keep its core beliefs secret, to be run for profit, and to have its own paramilitary[1] and counter-intelligence[2] operations.

There may be a Scientology religion, but that is NOT the same as the Church of Scientology. Separate the religion from the organization which practices it, and you will see that the organization is so thoroughly corrupt that it cannot be allowed to continue to exist in its present form.

(Posted anonymously for my own protection, as everyone else who casually criticizes Scientology should.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Scientology _Moscow_versus_Russia

This is a recent development - in April the European court of human rights decided that it was against EU law for Russia to deny Scientology religeon status - a judgement that applies to all EU member states including the UK and Germany (who have previously been quite outspoken against it).

May I draw people's attention to http://www.xenu.net/

Scientology - the cult pyramid scheme

as one progresses through a series of auditing "levels," one can eventually be restored to native state and can attain the status of "operating thetan," wherein one is free of attachments to the body and, even while "exterior" to (outside) the body, one can consciously control matter, energy, space, time, thought, and life. Hubbard's writings and lectures include many tantalizing details of the god-like abilities that may be gained through auditing.

For most individual Scientologists, recovering these god-like abilities (and encouraging and assisting others to do so as well) is the primary goal of participation in Scientology. The "levels" through which a participant progresses make up what is called "The Bridge to Total Freedom." Progress through all the levels of the "Bridge" often takes many years of dedicated study and practice, and the cost in fees for services for the Bridge is currently estimated at approximately $300,000 - $500,000 in US dollars.

http://www.xenu.net/archive/infopack/6.htm

Here is more information on Scientology.

From Operation Clambake: http://www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/ ------------ Who is Xenu? I'm going to tell you a story. Are you sitting comfortably? Right, then I'll begin. Once upon a time (75 million years ago to be more precise) there was an alien galactic ruler named Xenu. Xenu was in charge of all the planets in this part of the galaxy including our own planet Earth, except in those days it was called Teegeeack. Now Xenu had a problem. All of the 76 planets he controlled were over-populated. Each planet had on average 178 billion people. He wanted to get rid of all the overpopulation so he had a plan. Xenu took over complete control with the help of renegades to defeat the good people and the Loyal Officers. Then with the help of psychiatrists he called in billions of people for income tax inspections where they were instead given injections of alcohol and glycol mixed to paralyse them. Then they were put into space planes that looked exactly like DC8s (except they had rocket motors instead of propellers). These DC8 space planes then flew to planet Earth where the paralysed people were stacked around the bases of volcanoes in their hundreds of billions. When they had finished stacking them around then H-bombs were lowered into the volcanoes. Xenu then detonated all the H-bombs at the same time and everyone was killed. The story doesn't end there though. Since everyone has a soul (called a "thetan" in this story) then you have to trick souls into not coming back again. So while the hundreds of billions of souls were being blown around by the nuclear winds he had special electronic traps that caught all the souls in electronic beams (the electronic beams were sticky like fly-paper). After he had captured all these souls he had them packed into boxes and taken to a few huge cinemas. There all the souls had to spend days watching special 3D motion pictures that told them what life should be like and many confusing things. In this film they were shown false pictures and told they were God, The Devil and Christ. In the story this process is called "implanting". When the films ended and the souls left the cinema these souls started to stick together because since they had all seen the same film they thought they were the same people. They clustered in groups of a few thousand. Now because there were only a few living bodies left they stayed as clusters and inhabited these bodies. As for Xenu, the Loyal Officers finally overthrew him and they locked him away in a mountain on one of the planets. He is kept in by a force-field powered by an eternal battery and Xenu is still alive today. That is the end of the story. And so today everyone is full of these clusters of souls called "body thetans". And if we are to be a free soul then we have to remove all these "body thetans" and pay lots of money to do so. And the only reason people believe in God and Christ was because it was in the film their body thetans saw 75 million years ago. Well what did you think of that story? What? You thought it was a stupid story? Well so do we. Unfortunately this stupid story is the core belief in the religion known as Scientology.* If people knew about this story then most people would never get involved in it. This story is told to you when you reach one of their secret levels called OT III. After that you are supposed to telepathically communicate with these body thetans to make them go away. You have to pay a lot of money to get to this level and do this (or you have to work very hard for the organisation on extremely low pay for many years). We are telling you this story as a warning. If you become involved with Scientology then we would like you to do so with your eyes open and fully aware of the sort of material it contains. Most of the Scientologists that work in their Dianetics* centres and so called "Churches" of Scientology do not know this story since they are not allowed to hear it until they reach the secret "upper" levels of Scientology. It may take them many years be

The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly

Scientology (technically, the RTC, one of the many official Scientology corporations) used a DMCA Takedown notice to force Slashdot to remove some copies of their OT ("Operating Thetan") materials. I believe it might have been OT3. Fortunately, they're widely available online if you really want to read that crap.

In my biased opinion, they're a rather insidious bunch. From what I've read of them online, it appears that they slowly isolate and condition people psychologically (which is why they hate psychologists--such people would recognize what they're doing). Once they get people to the point where they have pretty much everything they own invested in the organization, only then do they let them see the space opera stuff so they can complete their self-delusion. That is, unless they're the cynical type who was only pretending the whole time, who is willing to lie about having psychic powers and... Well, let's just say they might become someone rather like L. Ron Hubbard :-)

Information about
scientology

Don't know much about Scientology? Then you should start here.

continue to fail to see how they are acting differently

Read Clambake. Unless, of course, your computer has software which stops you from reading it.
For example http://www.xenu.net/cb-faq.html#faq18.

What motive would CoS have to expend so much energy attacking it's critics??? Consider that prior to the existence of the net it was highly unlikely that an average potential recuit would have had any easily available oportunity to become aware of the ultra wacky secret doctrines of the "church" (most of which are today relativley public knowledge via the net, south park etc.).

It would seem that a key element to the "personal growth and development" strategy of the organization is the psychological effect of having this information revealed at an appropriate point during the indoctrination process. (this notion is supported by accounts from former members: http://www.xenu.net/ )

People who dissemenate these secrets, and other damning information, present a real threat to the continued ability of Scientology to exist and gain new members, through it's normal method of proseletyzing, recruitment and indoctrination along with the obscurity factor that many of their actual teachings are not supposed to be public knowledge.

And now the court cases...

Viewed in this light Scientology is acting very much like the RIAA or MPAA in it's struggle for continued existence based on a (now demonstrated to be failed) business model which is structured upon attempting to restrict the unbridled flow of information.

It seems to me that this is the only rational explanantion for why there is such a rabid animosity coming from this group towards it's critics. They must actually have something to hide.

I'm not in the least contesting the idea that Scientologists aren't loony to their very core; I'm just curious why you seem to think that Scientologists are worse than Christians somehow. Most of the differences I can think of leave the Christians as the worse offenders.

Two points.

1) You're probably unaware of the offenses of Scientologists. They're relatively obscure.
2) There are a LOT more Christians and the religion has had a LOT longer time to have offenses committed in its name.

Combining these two means that you don't really have a good concept of the relative densities of craziness in the two religions. The larger a population is, the greater the violent fringe that can exist. Every major religion in existence has had its share of bloodshed, but that's not the fault of religion per se so much as the natural human tendency to form groups and to think less of people not in your group. Since Christianity is larger and more established, it has a greater capacity to harbor a lunatic fringe. That does not reflect necessarily on the relative merits of the core beliefs of the two faiths.

Don't recall any Scientologists blowing up any abortion clinics, for instance, nor can I think of them trying to tell me, a non-believer - or worse, getting a law put in place that coerces me - such that I can't marry two willing people.

While there isn't any solid evidence of murders committed in the name of Scientology, there is a long history of intimidation, harassment, and property damage in defense of the religion. (There is evidence for negligent death, but no first-degree murder.) The religion is relatively young, so it's hard to say whether that's a matter of time or not.

However, there is a marked difference in the canonical stance on violence towards outsiders between mainstream Christianity and mainstream Scientology. Scientology views those who interfere with Scientology to be fair game. That is to say that there's no moral laws protecting the enemies of Scientology and no sanction of any activities taken to harm them. Christianity, at its core, states that you should love your enemy. Few Christians are capable of holding themselves to that standard, but the difference in what you're supposed to do is marked.

As for attempting to force their morality on others, Scientology simply hasn't had the power to enforce its views on outsiders due to a lack of critical mass. What makes you think they'd be different from any other segment of society bound by a common code of behavior?

They have, however, lobbied for broad government powers to enforce copyright because they protect their inner secrets with copyright law and have been responsible for a number of DMCA takedown notices. They were notable advocates for the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the DMCA itself.

I'm certainly not defending religion in any manner here, but there is a difference. You can belong to a Christian church for 60 years without giving a dime to their cause, and really, I've never witnessed a Catholic, Lutheran, etc. minister/priest in all my years EVER say (paraphrasing) "You can get to heaven if you give us money."

You cannot, as in it's not allowed, belong to the "Church" of Scientology in any manner without paying them money, and lots of it. To obtain the highest level of Scientology requires thousands upon thousands of dollars (to be revealed Hubbard's half baked science fiction as their "revelations.")

If you're REALLY interested in why Scientology is different from a religion visit:

http://www.xenu.net/

and of course:

http://www.caic.org.au/

"We're conducting an investigation of your neighbor Mr. Alex Schoenfeldt (show picture of Schoenfeldt). Do you have any children? What ages? Has Mr. Schoenfeldt ever made any effort to befriend them? Has he ever offered to watch them or asked to be left unattended with them? Has he ever invited them to his home? Has he ever asked to photograph them? Have you ever seen him carrying photographic equipment to or from his home? Does he have an Internet connection? Has he fully informed you about his criminal history?"

By some estimates, the Church of Scientology has spent over two million dollars litigating against Henson. They've bankrupted him. They call him a bigot. A stalker. A terrorist. On their Keith Henson web page they say "Keith Henson is an explosives expert and a convicted hate criminal." He's an "explosives expert" because he used to put on fireworks shows in the desert. He's a "convicted hate criminal" because Scientology set him up. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he hasn't received a few anonymous e-mails and phone calls, inviting him to speculate on how old men fare in prison.

Please refer to Xenu.net to learn more about what happens to people who speak out against Scientology. Scientologists may be a bunch of sad loonies, but their leadership is very quick to call someone an enemy, and very eager to bring their enemies to ruin.

I am not in the habit of posting anonymously, but I am afraid of them.

Here's all the info you need on Scientology

Absolutely fascinating reading. Check it out here

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you to find that deceptive advertising is going on. I mean it's not like they, as in the ubiquitious they, think people are malleable, easily led astray, brainwashed, etc, etc.

De Beers has the longest running viral marketing campaign in history. It started in the 1880's and is still going strong today.

Earthstink/Mindleak has had cheesy support & email for years. I've provided technical assistance to several lefty friends who were migrated to them after IGC went out of the progressive ISP business. Those folks are still paying $22 monthly for crummy dialup, even when I've told them that there are dozens of better dialup providers that charge less than half of that, in some cases as little as $4 a month. You can even get broadband in my region ~$15 a month.

The experience that ticked me off the most occurred a few years ago when I helped a friend set up his office computer to download his email so he could he could respond to correspondence at work as well as at home. I set up his POP email clients so they didn't remove his email from the server for a month so he'd have a full copy of all his emails at both locations. I got a call a couple of weeks later complaining that he wasn't receiving any email at all. It took me about 45 minutes of playing with voice mail and underpaid support staff to get a hold of someone who could tell me what was happening. Apparently Earthlink only let you store 10 MB of email on their servers before they cut you off. They didn't even send him a courtesy notice telling him what was happening, unlike my FREE email provider Netzero not too long before that. Even back then, 10 MB was about a tenth of a penny's worth of hard drive space. Personally, I blame Xenu, the evil intergalactic overlord for this stinginess.

Hey, the 'Reply' button is back!

Seriously, though, Scientology has a long history of suing people who talk about Scientology for copyright infringement. "You're showing people our secret dogma? How dare you distribute our papers without our consent!" Xenu.net and Wikipedia have lots of information on Scientology now. (Disclaimer- Xenu.net is strictly anti-Scientology. Wikipedia has mostly facts, which, as we know, have a decidedly anti-Scientological basis).

Chritianity is the following of christ works. this by itself is not a cult.

Some relgion have turned there version of christinity into a cult.

For example, If a catholic was to marry a non catholic, the churge could(but wouldn't) disallow you from attending service, but they don't send people to attack your spouse. They also don't tell you not to talk to your family anymore, and you dn't have to pay a dime to attend there service. Yes, they willask for a donation, but you don't ahve to give and you can still learn about the belief.

So becarefull what you call a cult. No I am not catholic.

A good rule of thumb:
1. It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members

2. It forms an elitist totalitarian society

3. Its founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has charisma

4. It believes 'the end justifies the means' in order to solicit funds
          recruit people

5. Its wealth does not benefit its members or society

from http://www.xenu.net/cic/definit.html

Arguments from authority underwhelm me. "The author is ..." is an example of one of those "arguments from authority." Google "carl sagan baloney detector" for more info. Here, I'll save you the trouble: http://www.xenu.net/archive/baloney_detection.html . Don't accept this thesis because its from Sagan, but because it makes sense ...

Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric

* Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.
* Argument from "authority". ...

Really, there both just about as pluasible as each other.

Christianity, at its core, has a single man that came back to life after dying.

Scientology, at its core, has 13 trillion aliens that were shot up with antifreeze, shipped to Earth on DC-8 airplanes, and blown up with nuclear bombs.

And you truly, really think those are equally plausible?

Xenu can NOT be defeated!! What? Oh, okay, never mind.