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Dutch A.G. Supports Scientology v. Spaink Verdict
bbc writes "ISP XS4All reports that the Dutch Attorney-General advises against reversal of the last verdict in the Scientology vs. Karin Spaink case (part of Scientology's War on the Internet). A series of court battles between writer Spaink and the Church of Scientology has changed the copyright landscape of the internet in the Netherlands. In an early case, linking to infringing documents was considered infringement itself. Later this was reversed, although by then several unrelated cases (notably Deutsche Bahn v. Indymedia) had been decided on the basis of this judgement. On appeals, the court held that free speech sometimes trumps copyright: even though Spaink may have infringed on the Church's copyright, she was allowed to do so to bring to light the doings of what she considers an evil sect.
According to the XS4All document, not only did the Attorney-General uphold the decision that Free Speech can trump Copyright, but concluded also that there may not have been infringement. The Attorney-General feels a work can be considered published even if publication happened against the will of the author. In the Netherlands, the Supreme Court can only reverse previous decisions by lower courts. Before it renders a verdict, it asks the Attorney-General for advice."
It should be noted that the Dutch AG supports Karen Spaink in the verdict. The story title makes it sound like the support is for $cientology, and the summary doesn't really clarify.
"Scientology's War on the Internet"
For a minute there I read that as "Slashdot's War on anything that isn't internet"
Xenu will be displeased. FEAR THE WRATH!
...to link to Scientology.
As always xenu.net has the dope on the ongoing $scientology vs. the 'net battle
I don't think it's because I've been drinking homebrew, but this story makes no sense. Who did what to whom and how does this matter?
It sounds like someone deserves a spainking.
Must be a slow linux day.
Good going. As we grey parrots have always been among the most talkative of birds, we value freedom of speech immesurably. I'm not going to take a position on which of your religions is best (we find the whole debate silly), but it's good that you upheld the human right to criticize others.
If only the same standard of laissez-faire speech applied in Africa. According to conversations that I have had with African grey parrots from home (Africa), some have been placed in extremely small cages, with no toys, for speaking out against the lack of democracy in the "democratic" republic of Congo, and in Zimbabwe.
I know that you humans generally don't think of parrots as having the potential to usurp entrenched political structures, so I can only imagine that the situation for human dissidents is even worse.
With my species' intellect and yours'brawn, we can defeat tyranny. Please help!
So it's fair to say that Scientology in the Netherlands is now Spainked?
The summary doesn't clarify? Did you even read the summary?
According to the XS4All document, not only did the Attorney-General uphold the decision that Free Speech can trump Copyright, but concluded also that there may not have been infringement.
I can understand not reading the articles, but not even bothering to read the complete article summary? Sheesh!
Due to a link fark.com Operation Clambake got 200.000 hits today.
As someone who deals occasionally with CAD drawing scaling, who the fuck decided that the . should replace the , when mentioning numbers? Did Operation Clambake get 200.5 "hits"?
My brain took Scientology and Spaink and created the ob simpson's phrase: "Minnesota Spankalogical Protocol"
needs a firm Spainking.
sulli
RTFJ.
Make fun of their religion.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Scientology, as messed up as it is, has the right to their copyright. However, I see no problem with linking to illegally posted copyrighted materials. Otherwise what would we do with search engines? Have them check every link? Of course not.
We probably need real international copyright laws now in the internet age.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
In the Netherlands, the Supreme Court can only reverse previous decisions by lower courts. Before it renders a verdict, it asks the Attorney-General for advice.
It seems to me that a Supreme Court should render decisions based on their own learned opinions and understanding of the law. It's dangerous to have a Supreme Court rendering decisions based on the will of the current government.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
i thought the goal of a church was to spread its faith , where does a copyright case fit into that , i could understand perhaps if they tried a libel or slander case against someone , but copyright ? does that not defeat the point of spreading the word of whatever it is they belive.
.
.Most importantly Companys / organisations should not be able to sue people into submission to keep all their dirty little secrets quiet.
I would not call scientoligy a church , I do know the history of the scam and its amazing how many people got dragged into this hoax , the work of a sub par sci-fi writter trying to make a bit of cash(perhaps it is a church then j/k)
With the strength of the Dutch high court behind the decision i find it unlikly a reversal will hapen , which is a dammed good thing
"Although copyright resides under Article 1 of the First Protocol of EDHR and can therefore be regarded as a human right, this does not exempt copyright from being balanced against the right to freedom of information.""
I have been thinking of moving to Holland for a few years and I feel I may just do it eventualy if the court keeps churning out decisions like this.
Freedom of information is very importent to secure an even footing for people in this world , We do not need to create another poverty line
Mod me down if you must , but scientolgy is a scam and from storys i have read
it is also a dangerous organisation . I am thankfull that Germany disallows the Organisation charitable status here , i dont agree with some of germanys policys
on these matters but sometimes it is for the best
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
The following is from the Scientology FAQ. I think it explains very clearly why we don't like them. [/sarcasm]
----------------
Why do some people oppose Scientology?
There are certain characteristics and mental attitudes that cause a percentage of the population to oppose violently any betterment activity or group. This small percentage of society (roughly 2 percent) cannot tolerate that Scientology is successful at 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 more to help society than any other group. Those who are upset by seeing man get better are small in number compared to the millions who have embraced Scientology and its efforts to create a sane civilization and more freedom for the individual.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Come with friends, don't go alone! Those people are nutty. I was there last year in the spring with three of my friends. It was a wierd and interesting experience. We got there and there were all these, what seemed like zombies walking around. All with perpetual smiles on their faces, dressed in business suites with ties and women in nice dresses. Very clean and very spooky. We made up fake names, addresses, phones, and such and made up some problems we have (Sc1ent0log1sts like to tell you how messed up you are so they can "help you". Make sure to have stuff for them to bite on - "addicted to Slashdot" - that would work).
You do get to tour the building but you have to watch their tape, that ends in the "convert to 5cientology or die and suffer" type of message, quite amusing!
Then you can get young cute zombie girls to try to convince you to sign up for courses just so you can find out about 5cientol0gy. I had fun with mine, she was 17 and came from Michigan. Scient0logy, she claims, helped her cure some chronic sinus problem. Instead of talking about me and my problems she ended up running back and forth to her supervisor / boss for answers. I asked for scientific data and she gave me an evil look mixed with a sigh, "not one of those again..." then she brought me books written by Ron. I could hardly hold myself from laughing.
The saddest thing to see was when we toured the basement and they have all these saunas there. In the sauna, supposedly, you get your toxins out by staying in the steam until you pass out and drink overpriced herb tea. And there I saw this old Asian woman, who couldn't speak English too well. She was sitting down by the sauna center looking around like she was scared and lost. Hovering around her was another one of those cute zobmie clones, trying to persuade her to sign up for another "amazing" sauna experience. The old lady was nervously smilling and politely nodding her head. Of course she was going to sign up for another $1000 sauna clensing session, there is was no way she could resist those vultures. I felt sick to my stomach, she will probably end up giving them all her retirement money. Ron sure came up with the perfect scheme to make money.
Then we saw Ron's office, where (of course!) his spirit is still present, and then the library, where they almost forced us to buy the great works by Ron.
In the library, I saw those pseudo-lie detectors they use, basically a skin resistance meter. At RadioShack they are $30, at the "Celebrity Center" they are $4000! I was told they measure "mental mass". I thought of asking what the units are and how they are derived from other known physical quantities, but I thought I shouldn't piss them off too bad, I saw how nutty they really were by then and started to be a little scared. Then we left.
Anyway, it was a fun experience. Though I would share it. Anyone else had any interesing encounters with those people?
So Happy Sunshine Week everyone!!
"Attorney-General" is a inaccurate translation of the Dutch term "Advocaat Generaal". An American Attorney-General is more like the Dutch Minister of Justice. An Advocaat-Generaal is more like a American federal prosecutor. The Advocaaten-Generaal are specifically the prosecutors who appear before the Hoge Raad (Supreme Court).
After a little googling I found this:h tml
http://seclists.org/lists/politech/2001/Dec/0017.
Appearantly he made a post which explained how smallpox could be spread.
Appreciate the trackdown. I could swear it happened on Slashdot too, but I couldn't find anything to confirm it. I do remember seeing the "red text" comment replacement.
In addition, during this conversion, my bank account is still intact. And I still have a healthy social life. Even my inherent predilection towards mysticism is strained.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while being worked on by various Scientologists, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is the fact I've never seen a Scientologist who has argued more forcefully than his Christian counterpart, despite the Scientologists' fancy E-Meters. My Atheist son offers a more compelling argument than these Scientologists at times. From a spiritual standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that Scientology is a "superior" religion.
Scientologists, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to practice Scientology over other faster, cheaper, more stable cults.
This singular case is all about the right to publish and link to information on the internet. Is is about freedom of information above copyright. When this finalizes before the supreme court, this matters. The journalist Spaink with her ISP XS4ALL are close to winning a legal battle taking more than 10 years.
I believe the number is closer to $200,000
It's almost word for word the answer some Americans give to the question of why the American government is disliked in the rest of the world.
... the man was insane.
I started reading a series he wrote before I knew who he was. Around the third book, things suddenly took a turn for the absolutely surreal. The plot was discarded entirely for some very messed up bondage fantasy and conspiracy theory (as I recall).
Needless to say, I put the book down, returned it to the library, and only later heard about who Hubbard was. (I was about thirteen at the time.)
I think I'm going to be staying away from Scientology and its followers for as long as possible.
~UP
Eat the Path.
What's this? Science versus bondage?
But anyways, this makes sense coming from the country who's suffering a sort of civil war between the radical Muslims and the radical Christians. Just Europe being nice and patent-y.
...before I put Xenu as Wikipedia's daily featured article, I made damn sure to get Jimbo's permission (in the year+ I have been choosing the main page featured articles, the only other time I asked his permission before running a featured article was before putting up Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Good thing I asked too, because 2 days later, we were blocked in China (for a second time))
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
But sometimes people see deeper thought and ideas in a work than the creator may have seen. The people who take the Jedi faith as a religion. Or those who read Charles Schultz's Peanuts as a daily existenialism lesson. Should George and Charles loose their royalties and copyrights just because people see deeper lessons than the creator perhaps intended in the work.
On the other hand, I think the whole 12-step philosophy is quite similar to a cult organization. They take people who have low self-esteem, problems fitting in with their community, issues of maturity and self-control, and get people to conform to a behavior modification program (under the pretense of fixing a drinking/eating/sex/other problem) and then get them to evangelize to others. The 12 Step organizations use their control over copyright to make money and maintain control over the organization. Though fundamentally the steps themselves don't seem all that different from the tenets of Extreme Programming if you substitute Behavioral Problem = Programming Problem, God = XP Philosophy and Personal Inventory = Unit Testing.
Copyright is definitely a weapon that religions and cults use to control their faith and followers. Perhaps it'd be better to train people to see this as a sign of bad faith on the part of the group. Hmmm.
Copyright law recognised this in that: a copyright was for a limited term (how long does an author live ?); and it allowed quoting of parts of the work (after reading the quote you may be enticed to buy the whole book).
The Church of Scientology (CoS) is using copyright to prevent criticism of itself. The people who it is acting against are not reproducing CoS works to make a quick buck. This is a very different scenario than was envisaged by the original authors of copyright legislation. This is a case where the judges should look at the purpose of legislation rather than the words in which it is written and, through precedent, fix it for the future. It is like when you write a program for some purpose, and using it for something extra breaks it (exposes a bug), so you fix it.
I suppose that you could say that the CoS is using copyright to protect it's financial interests, but that is through keeping potential adherents in the dark until they are well & truely hooked rather than preventing others from making a quick buck from it's works.
Anyone know when the fishman affidavit comes out of copyright ?
For crying out loud people, if everyone keeps bashing on the Scientologists, we may never get more doses of quality cinema like Battlefield Earth (IMDB Bottom 100 #36 as of right now)...
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Scientology has a lot in common with other cults. Every cult I've ever come accross teaches its members the following:
1) The outside world is evil or corrupt, only other culties can be trusted
2) The cult has all the answers to life's problems.
3) Cult members are special in some way, better than other people.
4) Cult members MUST adhere to the dictates of the cult leadership.
5) Anyone who leaves the cult is evil and must be destroyed
There are probably other common themes, but you get the idea.
It doesn't matter if you're talking about the Scientologists, Moonies, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Heaven's Gate cult, or any of the others, all of them to a greater or lesser degree possess these qualities.
What makes Scientology so pernicious is that it is a purely exploitive group. No one is ever helped by Scientology. It is a psychic and financial vampire that bleeds everyone it gets a hold of dry, both of their mental well-being and any assets they might have. Other cults, especially ones that have grown to the point of quasi-legitimacy and respectability, are actually a positive influence in the lives of their members as often as not. Not so with scientology. The only happy ending where scientology is involved is one where scientology is no longer in the picture.
Anything negative or criminal thing you can think of Scientology is either doing already, or would do in a heartbeat if it suited its purposes. It is the closest thing to pure evil I've ever come in contact with, and I should know since I was involved in it for almost ten years. They do a good job of promoting themselves and hiding the truth.
They've enslaved (and yes I mean that literally) thousands and bankrupted tens of thousands more. They help no one. I only hope I live long enough to see the cult in ruins, the truth about it known to all, and its victims free of its evil.
If you want to learn more check out the following site, it contains everything you ever wanted to know about Scientology that the clams were afraid you'd ask:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Scientogloy if a cult designed purely to make money, rather like other cults, but more sinister, as they are trying to be even monopolisticin the evil department.
/. story.
They make contact through IQ tests, herding in the gulible and vain, with some plausible junk about increasing IQ and other shit, then it is like a pyramid marketting scheme where you train up and teach others, it only pushes itself into 'religion' because it can seek protection under religious law clauses.
Just treat is as a money leeching pyramid scheme and you can't do to bad. If you meet a hot scientologist chick, shag her, then piss on her and leave her pregnant, and laugh at her occassionally via phone.
If we do that enough times we could stamp it out!
(if you meet a scientologist guy, just ask him about aliens that are stuck to you and how to get rid of them, and then take it seriously and start cutting yourself saying "GET THEM OFF ME OH MY FUCKING HELL AAAAAAAARGH") and see if he uses his supernatural powers to save himself.
Official: Scientology is worse than a piquepaille
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
If she turns up dead from the Co$ nutters we /.'rs should unite and go military on thier asses:
The Church of Scientology (or: CoS; or: Co$, as some of their opponents call it) sells its followers expensive courses which, if students study them carefully, are supposed to set them free ('clear' them). A former Scientology member, Steven Fishman, was brought before court because he committed several crimes in order to get the money to pay for these courses. Scientology urged him to get the money any which way he could. According to Fishman, they also assigned him to kill somebody, and failing that, ordered him to commit suicide.
Thanks Karen.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Aside from the personal opinion that this is typical propagandist BS, I'd absolutely love to see the raw data for whatever survey they're basing these claims upon. I want to know the questions, I want to know the size and demographics of the population, and I want to know the raw answers from respondents.
A lot of people have no idea who or what Scientology is. Some people have heard of Scientology, but only in the context that $FAMOUS_PERSON is involved. If you took 100 random people off the street and asked them "do you believe in Scientology," you would probably get 0 out of 100 who said yes. If you took 100 random people off the street and asked "Do you rabidly oppose Scientology," you would probably also get 0 people who said yes. The fact that they found 2 out of 100 people who "rabidly oppose" Scientology says something, IMO.
Meanwhile, if you asked the same 100 people "Did the US find WMDs in Iraq," or "Was Iraq behind 9/11," you'd probably get a lot more than 2% who said yes!
Yet another example of lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Come on mods, don't you recognise it?
n/t
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
How's this "news"?
I mean, the timestamp of the news item says 2005 and all, but I remember that Sc. vs Spaink from my earliest Internet days, and the news was suspiciously similar. So what's the real story behind this reoccuring?
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
Does anybody want a glass of Grape Kool-Aid?
People, please. I know it's hip to hate Scientology, but you should hit href="http://www.scientology.org">their href="http://www.scientology.org">site and give it a try before you judge. I urge each and every Slashdot reader to make a personal commitment to me that you will go to the href="http://www.scientology.org">site today. Information changes often, so you may have to hit refresh three or four hundred times. That site again: href="http://www.scientology.org">www.scientology. org.
Yours in Xenu.
personally I prefer to be called a recovering Catholic or a Buddhist adherrent. Jeez that is the silliest religion. If you think a thought of a sin, you have sinned (Cath.). Since the Catholics barely understand that there was a 20th Century, they escape the censure of /.. No such luck for Scientology.
We can apply emergency law to the concept of copyright violations? Sounds only natural to me. Or did I misunderstand something?
too bad my mod points expired a few hours ago.
Now what does this remind me of?
How come nobody on Slashdot can read? Do we all have dyslxeia?
I agree that any human institution will eventually be used for evil by somebody. Other than that your theory that religion is all the same as a cult is complete bs.
There are lots of religions that help other people and ask nothing from them in return.
Why don't you try to convince me that Mother Theresa was exploiting her orphans.
Any church I have ever been associated would have been delighted if people would tithe 10% but never insisted on it.
The poster you are replying to has a checklist of cult characteristics. They totally don't describe most of the churches in my neighborhood.
Why don't you quit being cynical for long enough to realize that there is actually a lot of good in the world.
Xenu loves me, this I know.
Body Thetans tell me so.
In volcanoes I belong;
I am weak, but he is strong.
Yes, Xenu loves me, yes Xenu loves me.
Yes, Xenu loves me,
My BTs tell me so!
Most other ISP's don't mind giving the data on you to various dutch RIAA-like organisations, without any orders from court.
XS4ALL, founded by hackers, and one of the first ISP's in the Netherlands, still is the most ethical ISP around.
Scientology edges the line of lies and libel because they'd really love to have a critic try to fight them in court where they've been quite happy to spend millions to crush single critics. They'd abuse the hell out depositions during discovery (as usual), and then drag the case out for years of expense. If they lost, they could just collapse their sock-puppet, and pop up another one. (This in the 3rd generation of such sites.)
Take a look and think about what kind of cthurch puts up a site like that.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
OK, here goes. You appear to have been taken in by her immense publicity machine. The facts are quite different, as journalist Christopher Hitchens documented rather effectively.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?obje ctid=12495017&method=full&siteid=50143
http://slate.msn.com/id/2090083/
http://www.population-security.org/swom-96-09.htm
...and so on.
If ya harbor a Slashdot post yer a terrist!
If ya spread a smallpox thingy yer a terrist!
If ya call me a failure again yer...well I'll just kick yer ass teh Kansas!
God bless America.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Anyway, have you guys wondered what is Xenu? If you ever watched Travolta's worst. movie. ever., or if you read testimonies from former scientologists, you'd see that Xenu is the perpetual villain said to be the greatest conspirator that wants to destroy Scientology.
I wonder what would happen if we told a scientologist: "Did you know Hubbard worked for Xenu and founded Scientology to keep you isolated and 'under control'?"
Hmmm I wonder what they'd say.
Scientology's religious cult status is of course merely a ruse to keep their practices from being considered medicine (and regulated as such) and it means their money isn't taxed the same (at all?)
What I want to know is this - who at Scientology is in on the gag? I would imagine the new recruits are true believers as are the people right above them. Are the people at the top, as I would imagine, in on the gag? Surely they're not believers, too. Surely they're aware that the entire thing is a money making sham. And how far down does it go? How many people at the top of Scientology are fully aware of what's really going on? How far down in the organization do you have to go to find people who are brainwashed?
Schnapple
Man, they're really going to sue you now. Nothing's worse than a fucking piquepaille story. That guy is a fucking leech, always posting shit with links to his goddamn ad-happy blog. Blech.
While I am another one who has undergone the Scientology litigation purification (more than 1500 federal district court docket items in five years), I urge people to accept the right of scientologists--as anyone--to hold their beliefs no matter how wacky or damaging to the human spirit. The world is a richer place with a variety of ideas and the more dangerous and extreme, the better the leverage the stronger ideas have over the weeker, since reality favors truth over falsity.
Criminal acts, though, should be condemned regardless if the perpetrating group attempts a religious cloaking tactic or not. Keep on talking: "My, God! It's full of words!"
We can thank the CoS for the passing of what was a wonderful invention -- and probably the first of its kind ever on the net. For anyone who hasn't been on the net more than 10 years, here's a brief history of the penet.fi anonymous remailer:
s .h tml
p en et.html
http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1997/sep/helmer
and
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/rnewman/anon/
The CoS destroyed a part of net history.
*grumblecakes*
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Well the Catholic church is upset over "The Danvinci Code" using Church copyrights to create a story that shows the Catholic church in a negative view. "The Danvinci Code" is fiction, and not based on real events, yet people are believing that it is true. This is causing quite a bit of damage in the Christian community.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I have karma to burn so I just want to correct a few errors from the previous posters:
w .html the berne convention no-one but the author and/or owner of the work has /ANY/ rights to it.
/. considering people seldom RTFA :P) should atleast give you a more balanced view about this story then anything elsa on this site.
The materials pertaining to this case have never been released. This means that according to the http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overvie
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
I am a child of Scientology. I was born with both parents in the church. My father is now in the Sea Org (Their elite with the long term contract) and my mother is on the Scientology list of public enemies. The church prohibits my father from speaking with me as a result. Same thing goes for my mother's sister (Yes, she's my aunt) who can't talk to her whole family. The reason? My mother is a "Suppressive Person" (SP). Anyone that communicates with her is a "Potential Trouble Source" (PTS). People in the Sea Org such as my father and aunt are not allowed to communicate directly with SPs or PTSs and heavily discouraged from using things like approved letters. My father physically abused me and I ended up in the hospital when I was younger. Yes, I remember an incident. He told my mother to go to hell and didn't speak to either of us when I was 6. Left my mother with a huge IRS debt from when they were married. His mother had sent him money to pay it and my mother thought it was taken care of. 10 years later, she starts getting threatening letters from the IRS. 10 years of IRS interest before they set "Reasonable" limits amounted to something like $15,000. It's all OK though since my mother is considered "Fair Game", right ? When I was 16 and moved out on my own to get away from my mother who's still struggling to erase the mental damage done by the church, I went to see my father and try to get to know him. He was still at a mission and wasn't subject to the harsher rules in the Sea Org. I'm a forgiving person and thought both of us could benefit from getting to know each other. I lived in the same house (Paying rent like everyone else) with 4 Scientologists total and even took a basic course at the mission my father worked at to try and understand what my father and aunt were so committed to. Man those people are are brainwashed. Reading about it isn't the same as seeing it. The best example I can give is a kid. Must have been 7 or 8 at most. He was walking around at an event at the LA building trying to recruit people. He sounded just like all the adults and had an answer for any argument you threw his way. These people live in their own subculture complete with their own laws and reasoning. A half year later, I moved out, but still visited my father when he actually used his one day off per week for personal use. Shortly after I moved out, he joined the Sea Org (He had been invited like 10 years earlier, but had a lot of responsibility at the mission he's been at). For one year, he struggled to get an exception made so he could see me. We saw each other about once every other month. He was finally getting remarried and I was going to be his best man. The last time I saw him or spoke to him, he called me for a visit. I knew something was wrong before I arrived. We went to a Burger King for lunch and he told me that he would not see me again and I could not even attend the wedding. When I asked why he keeps doing this; why he throws away everything else for the sake of Scientology, he responded, "It's all I know how to do after 20 years."
This is kind of a trimmed down version for the sake of making the post short. Maybe someday I'll talk with someone and spend a few years on a crusade with others to fully expose the church to the public eye. As long as the average persona hasn't heard of Scientology, the cult will continue to thrive and amass lost souls.
-Lucas
The Catholic church maintained that uneducated people would just distort and twist the scriptures if they were given the opportunity. They still maintain that only the church can give an authoratative interpretation of anything Biblical.
The reformers did not see this as much of a risk. They believed the Catholic church had many errant teachings that could easily be fixed if everyone knew what the Bible really said.
Isn't that a bit like thinking that the pope is laughing all the way to the bank?
I'm surprised no one has mentioned him yet, being a very prolific Scientologist, and making movies like War of the Worlds
Please, stop them before they create a sequel to Battlefield Earth. Think of the children!
In other news, the church is claiming copyrights on the bible.
I thought Sea Org was for the poor schmucks that can't afford to pay for the courses. They get assigned to barracks housing and have to do all of the cult's dirty work (murder, blackmail, spying). This is hardly what I would call elite. The elites are the Hollywood celebs that have been conned into joining.
By your logic, everything is bad. The fact that a believer or some believers have used their religion as an excuse to do evil does not make the religion evil. By your logic the fact that George Bush invaded Iraq in your name makes you a war criminal.
Another poster has dealt with your opinion of Mother Theresa. If you refuse to believe in the possibility of good then that's your loss. We can only hope that you 'get it' eventually.
son, you don't even know what the word means.
life is a religion. if you haven't worked that out, don't use the word, in respect or in disfavour!
I wrote this in response to the post "What I want to know is..." but it grew long enough (and I hope it's interesting enough) that I thought it should be in the main thread rather than a subcomment.
c ientology.html
What I want to know is this - who at Scientology is in on the gag?
One of the commonly-used criteria for a cult is that the leader(s) know they're lying and that what they're peddling is crap. While that IS common among cult leaders, it isn't neccesarily true in all "high-demand" groups. And such groups obviously don't stop being coercive just because the founder has been dead for many years.
Unless you catch someone saying something that gives them away (such as "Why are we writing this SF crap for ten cents a word? The REAL money is in creating one's own religion," attributed to LRH), there's no way to tell if the leaders(s) are sincere or just out for fame, fortune and 13th-stepping new women. Actually, you don't know either way about most general members either.
It seems to me that such groups attract a large number of sociopaths and psychopaths who have no respect for or even concept of the truth, and once they spend some time in these groups learning the ropes they get to control the lives of others (the groups encourage and even demand "passing it on" to others as part of continued membership) and be commended for it, a dream come true for them.
Here's an excellent resource on any currently or recently active religious group of significant size, duration or publicity, whether mainstram ofr fringe, even non-religious MLM/DSO groups, and of course Scientology. If you suspect might be in a "coercive, high-demand" group, look it up here, this is just the beginning of a reading list:
http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/
and of course, the entry on Scientoligy, including their invoking of copyright law to protect their literature.
http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/s
I wasn't involved with Scientology (though I allude to the group I was in above - it's PR is so good it's considered "the only thing in town" and is rarely thought of as a cult), but when I started reading books about cults in the library, I was amazed at the similarities of tactics between it and other well-known cults (mileu control, sacred literature that's believed inherently true, etc.). That was over ten years ago, nowadays it's much easier to find "alternative" viewpoints and former-insider descriptions on the web of just about ANY group, as well as good general "coercive group" info.
If you have doubts about where you're spending your time and/or money, you owe it to yourself to investigate all available viewpoints on your group.
They'd call you a a suppressive person, and report you to their superiors for a taste of whatever they're calling "fair game" these days.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
What I want to know is this - who at Scientology is in on the gag?
Please see the comment in the main thread I just posted with the subject:
You might NEVER know who's "in on the gag"
Yeah, but she can shorten the process of conversion by taking her clothes off.
"Come to bed, dear..."
"Sh'ma Yisrael, Adonai Elohaynu, Adonai Echad!"
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I wonder what the 5cient0l0gists believe were the true failures of both the Polar Lander and Beagle 2, both sent to study Mars. Perhaps these evil invader forces were to blame? Not wanting to be discovered?
Linux at home
...but this one goes to 11!
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota