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Surprise Arrest For Online Scientology Critic
destinyland writes "An online critic of Scientology was confronted at a routine hearing Tuesday with surprise arrest warrants and thrown into jail. Six years as a fugitive ended in February. (After picketing a Scientology complex in 2000 over the unexplained death of a woman there, he'd been arrested for 'threatening a religion' over a Usenet joke about 'Tom Cruise Missiles.') But 64-year-old Keith Henson had been out on bail, and was even scheduled to address the European Space Agency conference on Space Elevators. He's a co-founder of the Space Colony movement, and one of the original researchers at Texas Instruments. In this interview he discusses both space-based solar energy and his war with the Scientologists — just a few days before he was arrested."
when you mess with dark lord Xenu!
Hail xenu!
Why is this news?
...can you be arrested for 'threatening a religion' ?!
Threatening a person, yeah, but a religion? If I express a wish that Christianity or Islam die out can I be arrested? What happened to America's much touted freedom of speech?
If you all insist on voting for people because of their religious affiliations (and indeed, expressly WOULDN'T vote for atheists) then what did you expect? Vote for religious people, and they protect religious ideas. No matter how perverse they are. To allow you to deride Scientology would risk allowing you to deride born again christians or catholics.
beware the tom cruise missle
Why is it okay for a religion to threaten me with hell, but not okay for me to openly state that I'm trying to bring down a religion? Isn't it my state-given right to work to destroy unfavorable institutions so long as I work within the confines of the law?
A law against "threatening" a religion is a violation of my right to freedom of speech.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And I hereby officially threaten their deities with bodily harm.
Can I be arrested now?
As a Christian, I don't like seeing people criticize my religion, but I certainly don't want them arrested for it! WTF makes scientology so damn important? The same could be said for Islam. Why is throwing a koran in the toilet a hate crime, but dumping a cross in a jar of urine not?
I don't want to see people arrested for criticizing Christianity and I sure as hell don't want to see people jailed for criticizing other religions either! Why is the free speech of non-Christians important than that of Christians??
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
No one expects the Scientology Inquisition!
Life needs more saving throws.
Not knowing all the particulars of the supposed threat he was posing to the religion, it strikes me as odd that this can cause him so much trouble with the law. If he had been criticizing Catholicism as vocally for instance, would the same have happened? So remind me which elements of free speech we're not supposed to exercise anymore? We're not allowed to criticize Scientology, certain liberal agendas, certain conservative agendas, what else?
u-bend
If you say something that is deemed politically incorrect, you can be hauled in front of the Human "Rights" Tribunal and sent to jail for offending other groups of people.
This makes me sick.
After reading that I'm surprised anyone dared to post anything in case they ended up in jail. Crazy, just crazy. Land of the free. Umm yeah.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Is Henson the only person to ever have this happen to them? Has anyone had the same treatment for speaking out against christianity, islam, judaism, buddhism, etc?
If so, who was it and what happened to them? If not, why?
How long until people wake up and realize that scientology is not a religion but a dangerous, money-grubbing, control-freak cult/business?
Name one other religion that refuses to open its documents so someone can look at them WITHOUT you having to pay to see them.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The Scientology issue aside, since even the submission can't get the actual charge correct -- why is the European Space Agency requesting guidance from an enthusiast/crackpot with no relevant technical expertise?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The more and more I read about how they push people around, the more and more I think I should join up with the winning team. These guys seem to be acquiring the kind of power the Catholic church had before the Reformation.
The only thing stopping me is I always thought L. Ron Hubbard was a terrible writer, and I can't imagine having to read all that crap as part of my 'religion'.
What was the joke about Tom Cruise Missiles?
- Aetheral Research -
These are the laws of political correctness that liberals want to expand.
Thankfully, they're a bit more tame in Pittsburgh. I don't even think the people working the store are in a high enough level to understand my "Xenu Built My Hotrod" tshirt. Or on Halloween when I went as Tom Cruise covered in thetans (condoms). I just got some weird looks that day.
Uh ... My religion is: Apple-foeboyism. Don't interfere! Or else!
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Thats why they pursue legal action so strongly against all detractors, it protects their interests. Just like any company that gets slandered.. hurm.. i should have posted this through tor
Since when criticizing a sect, recognized as being dangerous in various european countries, has become illegal in the country of freedom ?
If you want to "ruin Scientology," don't approach it like that. Don't align yourself with anyone that might make you an easier target for their lawyers. Ask questions. Investigate yourself. Don't do anything mildly against the law. Present your findings to newspapers or publish them online, but do not turn to violent attitudes. If you expect to be taken seriously about it, don't joke about it and don't joke about things that people might take the wrong way.
These people have a lot of money and a lot of lawyers, you have to be smart and careful and cautious if you want to expose them for what you believe they are.
My work here is dung.
You must be new here.
or, alternativly
Welcome to Soviet America.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Holy crap... I'm just surprised that we (Canada) have a Swat Team.
Can this be true?
I think this is a bad joke, maybe some kind of aprils fool from some lost island in Papua New Ginea or some place lost in the world.
Because its hard to belive that someone in a country that claims to be defending "humans right" all over the world could allow something like this to happend in his own soil.
I hope its a joke... really
People,
You have to dig down below the surface of this incident and look at the history of what has been happening between Scientology and Keith Henson. Keep in mind that 1. Scientology has a special relationship with the U.S. government through the Internal Revenue Service (hint: Scientologist's tax deductions are huge and not available to any other citizens) and 2. Scientology has a religious practice called 'Fair Game' which allows them to trick, lie to, or destroy people.
You have been warned!
AC and proud of it
Since when does the fact that people believe in something make that something true, and, in this case, sacred? I am sick and tired for people justifying all sorts of preposterous (and quite frequently murderous - viz. the Muslim internecine war in Iraq) on the basis of religious beliefs.
saying that firebombing a church was a good thing. I think you can agree that this would be a really bad thing.
And since some geeks can be real jerks at times, and since scientology is a favorite religion to dump on, I can see the guy getting all OCD about it, being a jerk, saying something really stupid. and then afterwards "Who? Me? I'm so innocent"
Of course, this could never happen. Didn't Imus just get fired for something that was taken as offensive to some? Of course, he said ity on the air, and was taped....
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Ahem, to address the "new kids on the religious block" who worship under the flag of Scientology, a hearty FUCK YOU to those who think for some reason your religion holds any more weight than any other religion. As obscene as this may sound, I make this statement as neutral as possible, to prove my point that Freedom of Speech should be the only thing prevailing here. Regardless of your religious beliefs, don't fuck with my rights. Period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Henson
you beat enemies of free speech: religious fundamentalists, retarded ip laws, oppressive governments, etc. with more free speech
the only reason anyone would oppose free speech is if what they have to say would suffer if it had more scrutiny
scientologists have legions of zombie lawyers attacking anyone who infringes on their "intellectual property" and "religious principles" simply because if that crap got out in more general circulation, they would be revealed as the fascist ufo wackjobs they are
same with oppressive governments, same with ip lawyer whores
and so, in the spirit of the recent dmca take down notice on digg for a stupid numer, i would like to serve and support keith and attack the immoral, yet somehow, incredibly, legal basis for arresting him by serving his cause: posting stuff the church of scientology does not want posted
the digg number fiasco prompted wordwide press coverage. this should to:
it is the exact same issue
expand the digg number revolution folks. use everything that was used in the digg number fiasco and make it used again. weidl it as a weapon agains tthose who wish to censor in the name of fascist religious fundamentalism and corporate greed. let this revolution continue! let them fear us, not us fear them!
i will respond to this comment with another comment with text the church of scientology does not want known
slashdot may get attacked by me doing this, slashdot has been forced to remove comments before. i may be attacked too. i don't care, because i know i am in the right, and i know this is important, and i know i have support
the proper response to my post of the sensitive scientology information? post it some more yourself. post it and post it some more.
post it more, post it more, post it more. post it everywhere. post it a million times
scientology has legions of aggressive fanatical laywers, but we, who love free speech are yet legion more
i support free speech, do you? did the recent imbroglio over that stupid number on digg stoke your righteous indignation at censorship in the name of corporate idiocy? well this man was just arrested in the name of religious fundamentalism. you should be stoked at this too. it is the exact same thing. let's make the revolution over the digg number a permanent fixture on the internet. let's band together and in the same of social justice fight these censoring fascist assholes
the proper response to keith being arrested is bomb post every and all sensitive church of scientology material any of us can find. the more the material makes those fascist assholes squeal, the more it should be disseminated. digg, slashdot, fark, every and all sites you can find. bomb post away, bomb away, bomb away
this is important folks. if a man can be arrested for making a dumb joke on a newsgroup, any of us can. so all of us should band together and prove the futility of what scientology thinks they are doing: when someone is arrested for simply criticizing their stupid church then us on the internet will respond by hurting them where they hurt the most: the mass public airing of that which they deem so personal and sensitive
dear church of scientology and your legal whores: fuck you you fascist censoring pricks
this is war
fire away
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
So the guy speaks out against a religion, which falls under hate crime laws in the liberal bastion of California (tolerance is apparently enforced by law there). He flees to Canada...where he's promptly arrested after (probably) false tips are called in by the group he's picketing. Call my cynical, but I'm betting California, which seems to have a lot of rich Scientologists that also are politically active, isn't going to be the best place to go to trial. Especially over a law that doesn't exist (at least to that degree) in most other states.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
incompetent or bought/blackmailed off??
Only in United States you would get arrested for criticizing church of Scientology. In Europe at least many governments have understood that Scientology is not a religion but a business: i.e. Wikipedia article about them states that "Germany classes Scientology as a business, rather than a religious organization, and Belgium, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Spain and the United Kingdom, remain unconvinced that Scientology is a religion"
I also remember an incident from the beginning of 90's where a Finnish anonymous email re-mailer service was accused in US, actually in California if I remember correctly, on being a nest of pedophiles and Johan Helsingius the maintainer of service being a pedophile too. Actually if my member serves me good some California states legislator in public speach demanded that US uses to it's power to pressure Finnish government to crack down on service. Later it was found at that the church of Scientology was behind this campaign as a pressuring way and as a retribution Johan for not cooperating with them and disclosing information about on the users of service. Wikipedia has a small article about this in their section about Johan Helsingius.
Just have to wonder how on earth US government hasn't cracked on Scientology and hard.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
I wonder if the IRS requires strict book-keeping from faith-based non-profits. I sure hope they do.
Blar.
I'm not sure if this is the posting, but it is posted by Keith Henson in 2001 and has "Tom Cruise missile" in it.
Here is more information on Scientology.
Anyone read the interview? This guy seems pretty whacked out himself.
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
wow. I've posted a lot of crap on usenet (alt.jokes.tasteless anyone?), but I never thought people took usenet all that seriously...I mean, most ordinary people don't even know what newsgroups are.
just the other day, I asked some coworkers if they've ever posted/downloaded anything from newsgroups, and they were like..."is that anything like limewire?"
I was like, wtf? *EVERY* tech-savvy person (who is my age or older) should be well aware of newsgroups...hell, even the "King of the Hill" TV show made a reference to alt.conspiracy.black.helicopters !!!
BUT, all these young kids nowadays don't know anything about the struggling beginnings of the 'net. I told them that before I had a browser (NCSA Mosaic running from a VAX VMS), I used gopher...and before that, it was newgroups...and before that, it was BBS...
I'm only 30 and I've become the cranky old man who, back in his day, walked barefoot fifty miles to school - and they liked it!
(you get fifty points if you can name the reference for that old man joke)
semper ubi sub ubi
Darth Xenu
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The more aggressively the Scientologists go after their critics, the more people hate them. And the more people hate the scientologists, the more they will criticize them.
Scientologists should maybe think this through.
The guy jumped bail in 2001 and "split for Canada"... How is this a "surprise arrest"? And while there's no denying that scientology is creepy and just plain silly, this guy seems to have a few screws loose himself.
At least that's what they said on South Park.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
The #1 identifier of religion is that it is forbidden to laugh at certain things. And if it is forbidden to laugh at something, "unenlightened" empirical inquiry will also be forbidden.
Religion means that some hairless monkeys take themselves seriously, puff themselves up, and. above all else, stifle themselves so as not to burst out laughing at themselves.
From what I've read about Scientology, those people take themselves seriously. Consequently, Scientologists want to forbid all Scientology-related laughter. Therefore, Scientology is a religion.
... the Flying Spaghetti Monster to protect us from the Scientologists.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
Look, I am sorry, but if you are charged with a crime, you show up in court, and plead your case. Any judge with half his brain tied behind his back would have recognized this guys actions as free speech, and tossed his arrest. Then, he would have had a great civil rights suit against the police officers and the city for violation of his rights. But no...what this guy does is he flees the USA, because he thinks the scientologists are out to get him: "I couldn't be employed while I was trying to hide out from them. They have agents inside the IRS, so when you use your social security number, they just pull it and come and get you." I mean, come on, this guy is a complete nut job...give me a break. IHMO, he should be punished for not subjecting himself to the lawful authority of the court...but not punished for telling it like it is about the cult of Xenu.
He could have been accused of terrorism.. These days, pretty much anything can fall in that category. See: http://www.leg.state.or.us/03reg/measures/sb0700.d ir/sb0742.intro.html
Note that merely conspiring about "disrupting commerce," or even the "free and orderly assembly of inhabitants" could get you a life sentence, if some people get their way. So, I am surprised the mention of "missiles" doesn't qualify...
PGP public key at: http://keskydee.com/gil.asc
You should examine the history of the Catholic Church sometime. They had lots of interesting ways to raise money that equated their holiness with the amount of money donated.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
the post page has simply hung (it's a lot of text)
9 71502
1
so i'll try to submit in pieces
but here are the sources:
post it EVERYWHERE
find more and POST THAT
BOMB POST, BOMB POST, BOMB POST
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=154684&cid=12
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/7/4/111118/252
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Scientology just follows in a long tradition:
* Believe us or we'll set the spanish inquisition on you - Christianity
* Believe us or when you die you'll be in perpetual torment - Islam
* Believe us or we'll sue you to hell - Scientology
How the hell, indeed, it is really sad that in 2007 a cult can put someone in prison. I personally cannot do much about it, but I can link to his site ( http://www.operatingthetan.com/ ), so I made a button:
e nson.png
http://commandline.org.uk/images/icons/freekeithh
Pretty rubbish I know, is there anyone out there with photoshop/gimp skills that can do better?
My little Linux and tech blog
RIAA, MPAA, NSA, CIA, FBI, IRS, Lawyers, Rich Scientologist perverts, corrupt, sold out congressmen/senators, AT&T, Verizon and countless more.
just reading slashdot is enough to chill one from head to toe.
Read radical news here
Martin Luther and thousands of others for criticizing the 'one true church' a few hundred years ago in Europe.
I was raised as a member of that 'one true church', and must shoulder the sins of my predecessors with shame. In the long run heavy handed tacticts won't work for religions, but it might do the job for Scientology.
I am starting to believe the Apocolypse will take place when the Scientologists and the Objectivists try to wipe each other out.
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
and the judge didn't allow him to introduce the bulk of his evidence ... he fled and claimed political asylum in Canada before sentencing ....I suspect you're wrong about the amount of the judge's brain tied behind his back.
Keith may be a bid odd, but he's not crazy - he realized he'd been railroaded by political pressure on the local DA - it's a small town in the desert dominated by a Scientology compound - the locals hate them and if Keith had been allowed to put the fact that it was Scientology he was picketing (rather than making it sound like a real church) the jury would have acquitted him
Threatening involves, at least according to our law books, the ability to actually realize what you suggest to do, usually to the disadvantage of another. When I threaten to kill you, I suggest that I will put what's in my power behind bringing you from life to death, which is, usually, within my powers.
... Well, then how much faith do you have in your own religion?
How do you "threaten" an idea? How do you "kill" an idea? That's impossible.
I can see, though, that people who try to wage a war against ideas (like terrorism, or like drugs) do actually believe they can kill an idea. But a religion?
To kill a religion, you'd either have to kill every single person whose faith is in this religion, or you have to convince everyone who believes that his religion is wrong. Now, the former is by its very definition impossible. Ya know, there was a nation about 60 years ago whose plan was exactly that. It costed millions of lives, but it did certainly not destroy the religion.
And for the latter, it would require your faithful followers to shrug off their faith. And if you're threatend by THAT
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
to fight censorship in the name of religious fundamentalism when the religious fundamentalist's lawyers weild the legal system against guys who make stupid jokes on a newsgroup?
what is the right way to fight corporate greed when the legal system is weilded against you in the name of censoring a stupid number?
this is the right way
it's called giving attention to a cause, and destroying the rationale of the religious fundamentalists/ greedy corporations in the first place by making their efforts pointless
thet are resisting the diseemination of information
and they will intimidate, with the legal system, anyone who who tries to disseminate information they don't want disseminated
well, when the legal system is on the wrong side of morality, then morality does what it can. i'm not proposing violence or jihad. i'm just proposing the posting of words! it's just words, right? well, to the enemies of free speech, it apparently isn't
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
incompetent or bought/blackmailed off?? since her life, apparently, has been miserable since then, having resigned in disgrace, probably not bought. And if she was a dedicated critic, she would have made headlines out of any blackmail attempt. So it looks like incompetent.
and Scientology gets brownie points for wanting all of the evidence looked at, not just a slice favorable to them.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
OT III
[Operating Thetan Level 3]
BODY THETANS
by L. Ron Hubbard
The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet - 178 billion on average) by mass implanting..
He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos (incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken - in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged".
His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc was placed in the unplants. When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone. The place (Confederation) has since been a desert.
The length and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been dispensed with by my tech development. One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-running on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one dies. So be careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.
In December 1967 1 know someone had to take the plunge. I did and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but only that given here is needful.
One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.
One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I. It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing.
You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some large, some small.
Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error.
Good luck.
* * *
For the purpose of clarity, by BODY THETAN is meant a thetan who is stuck to another thetan or body but is not in control.
A THETAN is, of course, a Scientology word using the Greek theta which was the Greek symbol for thought or life. An individual being such as a man is a thetan, he is not a body and he does not think because he has a brain.
A CLUSTER is a group of body thetans crushed or hold together by some mutual bad experience.
----------
Character of Body Thetans
Body Thetans are just Thetans. When you get rid of one he goes off and possibly squares around, picks up a body or admires daisies. He is in fact a sort of cleared Being. He cannot fail to eventually, if not at once, regain many abilities. Many have been asleep for the last 75,000,000 years. A body Thetan responds to any process any Thetan responds to.
Some body Thetans are suppressive. A suppressive is out of valence in R6. He is in valence in Incident I almost always.
One can't run a human being on these two incidents since human beings are composites and would not be able to run the lot. Aside from that, non-clears are way below awareness required to even find these Incidents.
Huge amounts of charge have already been removed from the case and the body thetans by Clearing and OT I and OT II to say nothing of engrams and lower grades.
Awareness is proportional to the charge removed from the case.
Although a human is a composite being there is only one I (that is you) who runs things.
Body thetans just hold one back.
You will continue to be you. You, inside, can of course separate out body thetans and so solo auditing is the answer. How good do you have to be to run body thetans off? Well, if you didn't skip your grades, Clearing and OT II particularly, you. should be able to'command body thetans easily.
* * *
Incident II is over 36 days long. Capture on other planets was weeks or months before the implant. Tho
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No. That is force. That is the basis of political power. The government is the police / military.
What about families? What about the loyalty there? Their force extends beyond the individual. Yet there is nothing forcing them to act so.
The same with religion. The priest has influence beyond his personal use of force.
And there is also economic power. Paying people to perform actions for you.
Rights exist as concepts. The same with Love and Hate.
OT III Errors
.II and Incident I. They can also occur at 1 quadrillion, which is the Clearing course materials. They also occur at random dates for different reasons.
Amongst OT III errors are "a BT run on Incident I fails to blow". There are three reasons:
1. Auditor is trying to run a cluster with an Incident I. The right thing to do is date and get the character of the incident that made it a cluster and then run Incident Its on those left when it breaks up. Or get Dianetic auditing.
2. There is an earlier Incident I on the same BT. Find it and run it. The BT has a chain of them all by himself.
3. Another BT is copying the Incident I just run so it looks like it didn't blow. Failure to ever run Incident I can also cause a bog. Routine Dianetic auditing by a Dianetic HDC who is also on or above OT III using triple flows and LDN OT III also handles bogged OT III pre- OT's.
----------
Cluster Formation - Cumulative
In doing a cluster one is likely to find it is made up of other earlier clusters. This looks like this. 1898 impact horse accident. When engram 1898 run on R3R, that part blows. No F/N occurs, TA remains up. Remainder will grind after the blow. Earlier portion dates as 93,000,000 years ago, electric shock. When run on R3R, that part blows, no FIN. TA remains up, will grind if run further. Earliest portion dares as 72 trillion implant. When run on R3R, all blow, FIN.
A cluster or engram which is a cluster can repeatedly FIN as BT's blow. Dates as 778 million explosion. After run once or twice an FIN occurs as one BT blows. Run again to second FIN as two more BT's blow. Remainder blow with a wider FIN. The cluster has gone. This happens (repeating FIN) when picture persists and noter check reveals it is not a copy. It will be more BT's in same cluster. So above repeating FIN occurs when pre-OT is moved through it. Clusters are found by meter dating, listing for type of incident and run as an engram. Clusters can occur at Incident
* * *
I have lately been C/Sing a number of failed OT cases and have found them all running well on solo now. The errors are made as follows:
1. The solo auditor cannot audit, needs more training.
2. Cases are not well prepared with Dianetics.
The remedy for all of these is to:
1. Run the PC for at least a score or two of Dianetic items by R3R, done of course by a good HDC,
2. then do a GF 40.
And then repeat it until necessary auditing is complete. These two actions take care of the majority of difficult cases on OT
The real End Phenomena of OT III and OT IV is exterior with full perception. You can and should accomplish full stable exteriorization on doing the materials of III.
----------
Further III remedies:
3. High TA. This comes from not completing the Incidents I and II on body thetans.
4. The solo auditor puts too wide an intention on the BT and runs two or three when he is intending to run only one.
5. A cluster just won't break up. The remedy is a Dianetic session listing for impacts or incidents that would cause a cluster and doing R3R. The principle of earlier similar holds good. When this is completed, the solo auditor is sent back to solo to clean up the BT's shaken loose and to continue with OT III.
6. Rudiments go out on BT's. The remedy of course is to locate BT's who have out-ruds, put in the ruds and run Incident 1, at which the ST should leave.
7. A theta-bopping meter sometimes puzzles a solo auditor -on OT Ill. This means a BT is trying to exteriorize and can't. The remedy is to complete the partially run Incident 11 or Incident I or in extreme cages put the ruds in on the hung up BT.
8. One-hand electrode giving wrong TA read baffling the solo auditor with floating needles with a high TA. The remedy is to have two-hand electrodes handy and trim the trim knob so the one-hand electrode reads the same as two-hand electrodes.
9. A suppressive body thetan sometimes isn't auditable. The remedy is to run Grades IV
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Or someone said,s crew this up or we kill a loved one.
Funny, her testomony reads like testmonies of people testifing against the mob.
I'm not saying that's what happened, but it is another explaination.
Considering the type of death, Scientology could spin a coroners report.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I find it quite strange that the continued stories on 10zenmonkeys....etc can not be viewed anymore.
I was just reading the first article and went to go to the second hyperlink and now neither of them work.
Gah! the men in black suits just pulled up *runs too the hills*
My last two pastors were both stockbrokers who quit their jobs to preach full-time. They are both making far less money now than they did (One is even below the poverty line now). It's clear to me that they believe in what they are doing (which doesn't mean they are correct, it just means they think they are).
Of course, it's obvious that some people are using Christianity as a tool to help themselves. Ted Haggard is a loser and a hypocrite, but he pales in comparison to some 'Christian' pastors who embezzeled, molested children, or ran lynch mobs. But there are people who can latch on to any cause (good or bad) and abuse that power for their own ends. Whether it's embezzeling money from the United Way or trolling on slashdot, some people are just bastards, and the larger the group you're looking at is the more of them you will find.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Scientology = "Religious" Mafia Nuff said.....
we believe when you die your soul gets thrown up on the roof and can't get down.
it's the space aliens that do it.
"Surprise arrest warrant"? That's sciency for "miracle". Hubbard really is god!
--
make install -not war
Flag Burning, "Fuck the Draft", First admendment law is not based off of inoffensive actions.
Speech that is not "thretening" generally needs no protection.
This is an idenfifyable group, but it not a small one so I doubt the exception for threating speech would apply.
The thing is, unconstitional laws happen, that is what courts are for, to make them go away.
This is not how I would choose to do battle with an orgnization I opposed, but it is not illegamitate.
Saying "be nice" undermines the key issue, that sometimes it will be nessacry to not be nice. That is why we protect people who aren't. It is hard to tell, contempriously, who is right.
The Church of Scientology and its followers want you to believe that Keith Henson stated he would "have them bombed and the buildings exploded": This is utter fabrication, Keith Henson never expressed such threat, jokingly or not. He merely corrected someone who answered to a post in which someone else was joking about a "Tom Cruise Missile."
Here is his post in Google archives: http://tinyurl.com/3dgn4y
Keith Henson was picketing and trying to bring awareness to what he calls "depraved indifference" in the death of two young women in and around the Scientology compound. He was trying to bring awareness because he cared. This is directly from the doctrine of the Church of Scientology: "[People critical of Scientology] may be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed," from L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. This is the precise doctrine they followed to try and silence Keith Henson.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the Church of Scientology, David Miscavige included, have been promoting the murdering of other human beings. This is beyond irony that it is now Keith Henson in jail, just because he cared enough, while David Miscavige is free to go despite his graphical depictions of deadly violence against psychiatrists -- with thundering applauses from followers... (ref.: Evening Standard (London, Oct. 2006): "Tom's aliens target City's 'planetary rulers'" by David Cohen, Michael Leonard Tilse: "False Purpose Rundown") (http://tinyurl.com/24xfta)
From an article by Glen McGregor, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Wednesday, October 26, 2005
"Scientology is also the only religious group ever to be criminally convicted in Canada. It was found guilty on two counts of breach of the public trust related to a 1982 conspiracy to break into government offices. The criminal charges lead to a precedent-setting defamation case, known as Hill vs. Church of Scientology of Toronto, brought by a Crown prosecutor whom the church's lawyer had accused of criminal contempt. The Supreme Court in 1995 upheld the finding against the church, which became the largest libel award in Canadian history."
DMCA take down? So is this a religion or a business?
If its a religion i say they forfit their IP rights. If they are a business, they need to forfit any benefits they get claiming as such.
Shouldnt be able to have it both ways, regardless of how silly they are ultimately, this 'dual protection' really should stop.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"I have to say that there is also the Freedom of Religion in the US. People have the right to worship as they choose without being harassed."
Somebody peacefully expressing ideas you disagree with is not "harrassment", although you may "feel harrassed". Get over it.
Do you really want to have the feelings of group X given the force of law and enforced against you, someday soon? (If you're conservative, let X === liberals, and vice-versa...)
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The right not to have Congress pass laws establishing or prohibititing religion has got nothing to do with how you feel about picketers outside your church. The first amendment constrains *Congress*, not the people.
Further, it seems to me that if I have the right to picket BoomBoomGenocide Corp, I have the right to picket even the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, let alone Scientology. Wouldn't ruling otherwise constitute an "establishment" of religion?
IANAL, and if that matters, let's get us some torches and pitchforks...
--
phunctor
Have *you* been touched by His Noodly Appendage?
come for me fuckers
i'd rather go out broke or jailed under false premises knowing i fought for something right than old rich comfortable and utterly pointless
there are more important things in life than money, namely principles
so bring it on you fucking fascist lawyer whores. bring it the fuck on you assholes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Cardinal Fang, bring in the comfy chair!
beware the missile tom cruise
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
Boy, Buddhists are really screwed then. "If you see the Buddha along the road, do not look him in the eye and start dialing your lawyer" just doesn't have the same impact.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The problem is that the US is trying to be far too "multiculrtural" and liberally-minded. The thinking goes that if Scientology can be criticised openly and insulted, then the Muslims can be as well. So can the Moonies and every other fringe group that considers itself a religion. Wicca, for example.
Well, we have seen how amazingly tolerant the Muslim faith is towards any sort of criticism. They respond with riots and killings, not court actions. So you can consider it a small price to pay that for this law to be on the books that people are sent to jail for criticising a religion. Think of the alternative!
Freedom of speach doesn't include the rights to criticise, inflame, insult or anything else that someone else finds personally offensive, especially in the US where the idea of "hate crimes" has latched on fully.
well at least they get to watch movies
9 71502
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=154684&cid=12
"These are followed by 36 days worth of motion pictures - God, Devil, space opera, trains, cars, helicopters, crashes, stage etc. This R6 is 75,000,000 years ago and this planet and Confederation."
Atheists range from the "Everyone who believes something different than me is an idiot" crowd to the "People who believe something different are probably wrong, but most of them are nice people I respect" crowd. Unsurprisingly, the same came be said of Christians...
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
(For non-UK readers, Panorama is the BBC's flagship investigative journalism programme)
Panorama
Monday 14 May
8:30pm - 9:00pm
BBC1
Scientology and Me
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
Where has the common sense we once cherished for survival in the wilderness disappeared to? Is it some kind of evolutionary feature? Was stolen by aliens to make cakes out of?
Has anybody ever considered reductio ad absurdum? Step back, look at it. Xenu, ruler of the galaxy, blows up aliens, then brainwashes their souls, which enter humans, so you have to pay lots of money to get rid of them. Strip away the layers of 'making you a better person', and that's what you're left with. Of course, you can say "It's a religion if people believe in it", but never has anyone gone to jail for saying that murdering each other would be a really bad thing to do, even if people do believe that might somehow benefit society, or for saying that no, the sky is actually blue, not tartan. It's this obsession with not offending anyone even if it means allowing them to be driven insane or manipulated that allows the Church of Scientology to do what it does, under the banner of religion, at the discredit of real religions which teach real values.
Yes, I feel so threatened. You cannot even afford a gun. Not to mention the transportation to my island where my family and I live in our fortress surrounded by my paid body guards.
Your entire premise is based upon your belief that no other sources of power exist. That we are all equal and that you'd have some chance to stand toe-to-toe with me.
Excuse me. I'm writing a check to have someone beat you up.
It's called "family" and human beings usually form bonds to it. It's part of the herd mentality. Family members will work to protect other family members.
Just because it contradicts your position does not mean that it does not exist.
While in others there is not. And in neither case is the force ever applied. No one has ever been sent to Hell for a week because they didn't obey the priest. No one gets Heaven for a week when they do really good.
Did you miss the point? It seems that you did.
Economic power means that I can reach beyond my physical reach. I can PAY someone to beat you up. All you can do is try to reach me yourself. I can pay 10 people to beat up 10 other people AT THE SAME TIME.
But my 10 victims would have no problem beating you up with 10 to 1 odds.
I have more POWER than you do. Because ECONOMICAL POWER does exist (despite your claims otherwise).
No. It does not. Go ahead and show me how you (an outsider) can beat the family loyalty out of someone in my family.
A quick example, you show up at my door with 4 people who don't like you. You start hitting someone in my family (5 people total).
5 people from my family will start beating on you.
None of the 4 people who don't like you will start beating on us.
Family is a source of power. Whether you want to accept it or not.
So your position is that I don't have a Right to life
Yeah, you might want to work on that a bit.
Ummmm, Rights are NOT provided by the government.
Your Right to life means that no one has the Right to take your life. Not that the government makes you immortal.
And why hate crime laws are wrong. You get people arrested solely for saying things others think are wrong. It's called thought control and religions like scientology are all for that! It's how they make their money.
It's galling that they have been an effective impediment to raising awareness about a Space Elevator's benefit to mankind, and potentially delaying investment from the European community, but maybe that was their plan all along. Maybe they are too scared to go back into space after what happened to our ethereal souls the last time we were there in alien form.
Frankly they give me the creeps. I can understand, for example, that Islamic doctrine finds images of mohhammed offensive, but quasi-religious attacks on free speech are equally offensive, and no sense of humour means double plus extra creepy.
Scientology, as a religion, demonstrates it is not credible enough to stand up to ridicule, if it could, it would have some credibilty.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
is this any less plausible than talking serpents, men walking on water, water turning to wine, immaculate conception, talking bushfires, resurrection or giants that live 800 years but leave no bones?
Yeah, but the Christers aren't out to charge you a cool $1.5M or whatever to hear their ridiculous story. In fact, they'll pretty much tell it to anyone who'll listen, for free. They also tend not to sue people for reprinting their texts (which, again, they will send you, for free).
Doesn't make it any less ridiculous, but it's a lot cheaper.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Since Scientology and the Universal Life Church are actually what happened when Hubbard and Heinlein got into a competition to see who could invent the more popular religion. Hubbard won, but only because RAH's peaked first and he got freaked out by hippies making pilgrimages to his home.
Personally I prefer Heinlein's, but to each his own. Grok?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Thought these would be good to add http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elw9e9LJIwQ - Scientology's Military http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW8ZqGSkXjI - Scientology and Children's RPF http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZjNFZFxU6c - Ex-Scientologist talks about criminal methods http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvfW2RpGtaI - About Xenu and finances http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkpnYR_Sz9Y - Formation of Sea Org http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZHZIdwY3nk - Recruitment and Blackmail http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou82SuPR03o - Scientology and cameras http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocw90W44Boc - "What are your crimes?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EYS7SpFTEI- Scientology harrassing a German critic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOsg7D7HyCQ - Investigation into Scientology's Narconon, Fox 13 part b http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVviXHJTr_Q - Investigation into Scientology's Narconon, Fox 13 part b http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27tOJJ1S8ZI - Expose into Scientology's ties to Narconon part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOu-Yg-Wtww - Expose into Scientology's ties to Narconon part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27tOJJ1S8ZI - Expose into Scientology's ties to Narconon part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEDwq7EC4HQ- Undercover audio from Scientology's Volunteer Ministers bragging about keeping psychiatrists away Yep, Scientology is fucked up
This is what happens when well meaning, feel good measures meant to protect groups from hate speech (not to mention various isms and tions) meet the real world. They just become yet another instrument the powers that be can use to persecute individuals. Yes, that means YOU, and me. Just remember this next time you think there ought to be a law to protect class X: if a system can be gamed, it will be gamed. By groups you probably dislike. And we have yet to find omniscient lawyers capable of writing laws impervious to gaming. I doubt we ever will.
Giving the government more power is dangerous because that power almost always serves the monied and entrenched interests. These people are not your friends. They only serve your interests as long as it serves them. As soon as it doesn't, watch out. The very power you championed will be turned against you. Restricting government coercion is the better way to go, because it gives you room to end discrimination, racism, bigotry and various "thought crimes" through direct, private action. </EndRant>
at least Christianity is free, as in you can point out all its silliness and implausibility without fear of being sued, sent to jail, or forced to take info off your website.
damaged by dogma
if Keith had been allowed to put the fact that it was Scientology he was picketing (rather than making it sound like a real church) the jury would have acquitted him
This implies that its acceptable to picket Scientogoly(a fake church) while it is wrong to picket a "real" church, ie real as in christian? Just what kind of bigoted ridiculousness is this, no matter what church it is, it is acceptable(ie constitutionaly protected) to picket and protest its presence.
Darth Xenu (Warrior Princess) has got nothin' on good ol' Archangel Foster. Fosterites don't need no stinkin' California Law to protect them - the "Spirit In Action League" is ready to come to town and bust some heads...
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
For non-UK readers, Panorama programmes are available online at the BBC website for a long while after transmission.
"John Sweeney investigates the Church of Scientology, endorsed by some major Hollywood celebrities, but which continues to face the criticism that it is less of a religion and more of a cult. Some former members claim the Church uses a mind control technique to put opponents at a psychological disadvantage. During the course of his investigation, Sweeney is shouted at, spied on, visited in his hotel at midnight and chased around the streets of LA by strangers in hire cars."
but not presumably by Tom Cruise.
The best way to fight scientology is a war of resources.
Scientology will inundate you with junk mail if you simply express any modicum of interest. So, sign up at every Scientology church in your state or area for more information. Do so under several names, And then... do nothing.
Each magazine you get costs them several dollars.
If enough people do this, Scientology will implode under its own promotional expense. Yes, I'm posting anonymously - Scientology scares the bajeezus out of me. But I enjoy throwing away several pounds of their junk mail every week!
Now, there *is* something to be said about venue restriction not covered in that entry.
My own feeling however, is that even though I am descended from Jews and likely lost family members in the Holocaust, I would be inclined to defend the right of such a person to speak, even outside a synogogue.
The proper response is not to arrest the person but rather to act in such a way as to demonstrate to the world what sort of individual is saying such crap. Killing the messanger is easy, but killing the message is a bit harder.
Note this is not a hypothetical question for me. I belong to a spiritual organization which is interested in Old Norse/Germanic/Indo-European pagan ideas. We do not recognize race issues as an organization but due to the subject matter occasionally neonazis an Aryan Nation types show up (I usually point out that the only "Aryan Nation" is India, though perhaps Iran and Pakistan qualify, and suggest they emigrate).
Rather than work to get such individuals expelled (which is my right due to the position I hold), I take a softer position: I start restrict and challenge such individuals on objective facts so as to expose their ignorance. Over time I am confident that I can either convince them of their errors or make them sufficiently uncomfortable as to leave. One who seeks truth should fear not falsehood.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
author. He created scientology based on a bet that if he created a relegion that people will follow!
All based on a bet!
I don't get it either. We are Constitutionally guaranteed the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to protest has long been protected. No individual or organization has the right to not be offended. Shouldn't his action have been protected under the First Amendment? I would personally have looked into having my accuser prosecuted for violation of my civil rights.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Uh, they're gonna round up all the Islamists on this charge?? Then again, Oprah Winfrey was sued for $35 million by Texas ranchers for "defaming food" on her TV show when she hosted a vegetarian advocate :-)
Keep spewing your pseudo-intellectualisms, it's quite entertaining...
"Why complicate the issue when you can just look it up in the dictionary?"
Ah, yes, the halmark of any good thesis.
Boy, this is sounding more and more like a 3rd grade report on dinosaurs.
"No such principles are observed by animals other than humans."
Rights reflect the truth of how society operates (or wants to).
Pack animals have a concept of what is beneficial to the pack, disruptive members are dealt with accordingly. That is the truth.
"Nature puts forth only physics. There is no right or wrong."
a) Then how do you have a concept of right or wrong in the first place? If not by nature, then how?
b) Then your position can neither be right nor wrong, so what are you wasting your breath for?
"There are only those laws upon which we have agreed to guide us."
Based upon what? Why have we agreed to them?
"But there is no natural principle that guarantees you freedom of speech"
The natural principle that states you as a human have a mouth and the ability to speak?
"And I would resist any claim that humans are somehow more correct than other animals."
Then your opinion is worth nothing more than my dog's on this matter.
"The sooner you realize that, the sooner you will realize that the entire concept of innate rights is simply mental masturbation, and if you want to have rights, you have to fight for them. That's how it works. Most people don't fight for them (I don't do much but educate, personally, but at least I do that much) and as a result we're losing them."
And what do you care if we don't have "rights" in the first place?
Can't have it both ways, you're contradicting yourself.
In fact, some would say your entire chain of posts is pure "mental masturbation", and honestly, you are quite poor at it.
You have to seperate the belief from the organization. From the religion point of view, they are exactly the same. Bibles and the gospel weren't always free.
* Believe us or we'll set the spanish inquisition on you - Roman Catholicism
* Believe us or when you die you'll be in perpetual torment - Roman Catholicism
* Believe us or we'll sue you to hell - Roman Catholicism
Born and raised a R.C., so I AM allowed this critique even if I don't currently follow.
The Inquisition was instituded through the Holy See (the papacy.)
Perpetual Torment? Yeah, R.C. has that in abundance. The guilt alone is hell.
Sue you? Less evidence for me to present... however, the Inquisitors had law education. That's who came up with Canon Law!
I googled and googled, but I couldn't find what your signature is related to--and that HAS to be some kind of great story.
considering the news coverage if she the coroner went public with the threat, it would have been dangerous to make that ploy. given the quality of the news coverage, it is not likely that she would have had problems getting people to believe her.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
L. Ron Hubbard was mostly likely insane, I'm not a psychologist, but I have spent much time helping mentally ill people recover, I think he was Schitzophrenic. Paranoid delusions, delusions of power, fear of psych meds... Why would he hate Psychatry so very much, unless he had contact with them? One disturbing thing I've seen is that Scientology activly recruits from mental hospitals!
Schitzophrenia has two sides, sometimes you feel terrible, like the entire world hates you; sometimes you feel like a god, immortal and wonderful. and when you are in each state, you can't even conceive the other one. I've seen people off their meds go from laughing giddy, to believing that they have never been happy in the space of 15 seconds.
If you take your meds, you lose the Highs, but also the Lows. because you lose the Highs, and are having paranoid delusions, it's common to think that the medications are bad, and the doctors are trying to poison you. (a belief of L. Ron's) Because of the auditory hallucinations, you may think your body is occupied by multiple entities (a belief of L. Ron's), and come up with a bizzarre world-view that attempts to explain the world that you are perceiving (Scientology or TimeCube)
One possible trait of Schitzophrenia is a difficulty producing 'normal' emotional responses, aka 'Flat Affect'. people with this symptom may appear emotionless, and disinterested (like the VT shooter, as he was decribed before the shootings). My personal thought is that someone with this symptom, if they are very smart, may be forced to 'fake' emotions in order to interact with others. this self-training from a young age could make someone a VERY good actor, as they have essentially acted their entire life. I suspect that Tom Cruise and possibly John Travola may be in this situation. Unfortunetly as they aged they may have started showing other signs of Schizophreneia, were urged to take medication, rebelled, and then joined a cult that supported their decision... Think about Tom on Oprah and a 'giddy high'. I think Tom Cruise is intelligent, and a great actor, but without meds he may get progressivly less sane.
No matter how smart you are, with a mental disorder warping your perceptions and emotions, eventually something bad may occur by doing something that seems entirely appropriate at the time. If your 'Angel' is telling you that someone is trying to kill you, and your angel is never wrong, shouldn't you attack them in self defense first? If your uncle has lung cancer, and you can 'see' where it is, shouldn't you take a kitchen knife and cut it out? A good friend of mine came to these conclusions, fortunetly nothing seriously wrong happened, and he's now on medications instead of prison for attempted murder, or worse. (like the VT shootings, where my conclusion is the guy went insane, and detached from society... without support of others he rereated into paranoid delusions that ended in a pre-emptive attack, which in his mind was fully justified)
Unfortunetly, it's difficult to seperate 'Mental Illness', from 'Religion'. So some mentally ill states have gained some protections under the law; I've read that in the Soviet Union, when they were being critisized for imprisioning to many people for disagreeing with the Party, they redefined mental illness so that disagreeing with the Party could result in your being declared mentally ill, and being locked up in a hospital; because any 'sane' person agrees with the Party. As much as the idea amuses me, I don't think voting republican should be grounds for be declared legally insane.
Scientology, However, is not just using the law as a Shield, they are using it as a Weapon, and abusing the process. This is entirely wrong, and needs to be stopped. Like false rape accusations damage the chances of real justice for real victims; if Scientology keeps abusing their position as a 'religion' it will harm other genuine religions.
would you support it if the Catholic Church censored parts of the Bible from you? did you support it when fundamentalist radicals called for death because of cartoons of Muhammad?
that's comparable to this scientology imbroglio with keith henson
meanwhile, comparing the secret documents of a religion (now there's an oxymoron), or the secret documents of a cult (now that makes sense: command and control requires secrets), with the priavte documents of an individual does not hold water logically
or rather
individual != organization
understand?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And their various legal minions and lackeys.
Have gnu, will travel.
Our chief weapon is surprise! And Tom Cruise Missiles!
....
Our TWO chief weapons
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I love watching your little reflexes get triggered.
By the way, I'm on a mission from God. Give me a dollar. Look, I have a fancy building and a cool outfit!
This guy gets the book thrown at him by the paramilitary mafia cult of Scientology for picketing outside of their compound, but Reverend Phelps is untouched for what he does.
It doesn't really matter - it turns out that if you don't like what the IRS decides, you can get your way. All you have to do is mount a campaign of terror against the IRS until they give in.
They just kept at it, year after year. 26 years, actually. They identified and targeted individual civil servants. They sued and blackmailed and swarmed them with PIs. They harassed their friends, families and associates. They spent uncounted millions. They ruined countless lives. Eventually, in '93, it worked. Read more here.
I'm no fan of tax free religion period, but nothing should make you sicker about it than watching these wackadoos sponging off of hard working Americans.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
The cult has a long, long history of illegally harassing critics, to the point of planting fake bomb threats (Operation Snow White), and using the confessional records of its members to blackmail them into silence (documented at www.xenu.net and the books by former members). They also succeeded in suing Cult Awareness Network into bankruptcy with approximately 1500 distinct lawsuits: these are *not* safe people to fight.
All of those responses and not one of them begins to scratch the surface of the questions asked.
You are still hung up by your own bias and not able to look at the fundamental questions.
"Then how do you have a concept of right or wrong in the first place? If not by nature, then how?"
"There are basically two ways; the concept of providing freedom, and the concept of restricting it."
Still no answer. Dig deeper. How do you have a concept of right and wrong (irregardless of the implementation)? Is the concept of right and wrong innate or not? Prove to me it isn't. You haven't done so because what you use is a cyclical argument.
"But of course, since we can't, they're simple thought exercises and people have made far too much of them."
What a joke! Just because someone cannot add, that does not deny the fact that 2+2=4. Just because someone cannot visually see the earth is round from the ground does not mean it is not a sphere.
Implementation does not drive truth or deny existence, assuming so is faulty logic.
"I have a hand that I can make into a fist, and I can use it to hit you in the mouth. Does that mean that I have the right to do so?"
You say there are no rights, so the question is moot.
"But if you looked those two words up in the dictionary, and applied simple logic, you would know that it is true."
Life and complex topics never boil down to looking up words in the dictionary.
Assuming so boils your argument down to a 3rd grade level.
Also, where do those definitions come from? *Gasp*, vague human interpretation, not truth.
Language is a construct designed to represent interpretation of truth (not truth itself), being a human construct it is not perfect.
Relying on such makes an even bigger joke of your line of reasoning.
This implies that its acceptable to picket Scientogoly(a fake church) while it is wrong to picket a "real" church, ie real as in christian? Just what kind of bigoted ridiculousness is this, no matter what church it is, it is acceptable(ie constitutionaly protected) to picket and protest its presence.
Just because you call something a religion doesn't mean it is. Scientology is a money-making scam, nothing more. That is not to say that there aren't any believers, but every scam has its believers.
But, yes, fake religions, real religions, real presidents, it doesn't matter, you should be allowed to protest it unless you are being a danger to the public safety (which this guy wasn't). For a nation that protects freedom of faith to such a degree the US is pretty poor at protecting freedom of protesting/speech.
So when is this church making their offer. I'd invest
I talked to Keith on IRC, shortly after he'd fled to Canada. His wit and diverse expertise are incredible. You rarely find someone that well studied (and traveled) in the obscure byways of aerospace and military technology with his honesty and candor. Not to mention humor.
He's one of the unsung geek heroes, and should be thought of as a national treasure. I suspect the warrants were issued for a number of political reasons, of which the Scientology movite is but one.
When you see warrants that are spurious prima facie being vigorously pursued, it's a good indication that something else is going on. T.A.N.J.
Quotes from L. Ron Hubbard
.] Thus the
...
...
"The South African native is probably the one impossible person to train in the entire world-- he is probably impossible by any human standard." - Professional Auditor's Bulletin #119 9/1/1957
"have you ever noticed how a Negro, in particular down south, where they're pretty close to the soil, personifies MEST? Anything around there -- a hat. They talk to them, you know. ``What'sa mattuh wi' you hat?'' They imbue them with personality." - "Route to Infinity" 5/21/1952
"Unlike yellow and brown people, the white does not usually believe he can get attention from matter or objects. [. .
yellow and brown races are not very progressive, but, by and large, saner." - SCIENTOLOGY: THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THOUGHT
"There's India. Wonderful place -- except for its people." - "The Control of Hysteria" lecture, 4/15/1957
"Japanese is a baby talk" - NEW SLANT ON LIFE
"You can put these things into the hands of some Chinese and send him to Hong Kong & we'll have cleared chinks." - "Secrets of the MEST Universe" lecture #1
"Have you ever slept with a member of a race of another color?" - HCOPL 5/21/1961, 'The Only Valid Security
Check'
"The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks" - Excerpted from Hubbard's journal
HCO PL 4 Jan 1966, "LRH Relationships to Orgs" - "Somebody some day will say 'this is illegal'. By then be sure the orgs say what is legal or not."
"Science of Survival" - "The only answers would seem to be the permanent quarantine of such ['1.1, or covertly hostile, low-toned'] persons from society to avoid the contagion of their insanities and the general turbulence which they bring into any order, thus forcing it lower on the scale, or processing such person until they have attained a level on the tone scale which gives them value. In any event, any person from 2.0 down on the tone scale should not have, in any thinking society, any civil rights of any kind, because by abusing those rights he brings into being arduous and strenuous laws which are oppressive to those who need no such restraints."
"There are only two answers for the handling of people from 2.0 down on the tone scale, neither one of which has anything to do with reasoning with them or listening to their justification of their acts. The first is to raise them on the tone scale by un-enturbulating some of their theta by any one of the three valid processes. The other is to dispose of them quietly and without sorrow."
"The sudden and abrupt deletion of all individuals occupying the lower bands of the tone scale from the social order would result in an almost instant rise in the cultural tone and would interrupt the dwindling spiral into which any society may have entered. It is not necessary to produce a world of clears in order to have a reasonable and worthwhile social order; it is only necessary to delete those individuals who range from 2.0 down, either by processing them enough to get their tone level above the 2.0 line - a task which, indeed, is not very great, since the amount of processing in many cases might be under fifty hours, although it might also in others be in excess of two hundred - or simply quarantining them from the society.
A Venezuelan dictator once decided to stop leprosy. He saw that most lepers in his country were also beggars. By the simple expedient of collecting and destroying all the beggars in Venezuela an end was put to leprosy in that country."
Nah, Atheists are just those people who don't believe the nonsense.
There are actual groups of Christian-haters; many in fact, from various backgrounds.
As a Christian, you're a hell of a lot safer in an Atheist's house than in most of the rest of the world. Even in the houses of other Christians with a slightly different pedigree than oneself. Let alone crusading religions like some conservative Muslim sects, etc.
Um, Scientology, by US law, is a "real" church. Not only that, but any law that says you can't protest something conflicts with your first amendment rights. The fact that this guy ran away to plead asylum rather than face the courts and fight for his Constitutional rights makes him worse than just a fugitive (IMO). Running away as he did just gave the courts valid reasons to imprison him as well as the trumped up bs that Scientology is trying to push on him. It also weakens any appeal or counter suit that he might try to file against Scientology.
Right or not about the pervasive power of Scientology, he only makes himself sound like a tin foil hatter.
Clones are people two.
I hate all religions, especially those nutty ass scientologists. They have too much pull. We need more atheists in this country!
I wasn't talking about dissenting views, I was talking about direct threats, there is a big difference -- sorry if I didn't make it clear.
This is where the Scientologist use of the CA law is abuse of that law.
Are you familiar with the CA law and the climate under which it was passed?When the state knowingly allows people to threaten others with physical harm for their religious views, then the state is condoning that action, thus tacitly approving the action, thus tacitly denying the freedom of religion guaranteed by the CA Constitution.
Just a note wrt CA law in general -- it tends to be progressive, meaning that the state acts in order to promote well-being, rather than just react to things that harm well-being. The validity of this is outside of the context of this discussion, but it influences the existence of the law in question.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Merely having to watch sacrilege is torture, but having it in all the media AND being taxed for sacrilege is art?
... I'm not entirely convinced that was coincidental). Of course, I should've seen this coming. The only worthwhile shows they ever had were imports, their original series are absolute dreck, and they recently announced that they won't be importing anything, only putting out something like four new series, not even one of which sounds the tiniest bit promising.
Lovely.
Even so, I still don't want to arrest the person who made that, though I wish they'd repent of it. I'm also not going to claim to be "tortured" by that act. And FWIW, in Gitmo, there have been _plenty_ of things that do qualify as torture, just not that.
As for Bible Fight, given that it's made by CN, I'll have to go with "juvenile" although I can't play it right now (broken internet at home, filters at work). They've had good shows, but now they're replacing all of those with "hey look, I can draw gross things!" and puerile fart jokes as their best attempt at humor. They can't possibly be amusing unless you're stoned while watching them (and I note, although no connection was drawn, that one large pot smuggling ring that was recently busted was called the "Cartoon Network"
Fridays will be ours, they say? Not on my TV. You made me download everything I actually wanted to watch, so I sure as hell won't be tuning in again any time soon. Wake me when you get some decent programming that doesn't involve monkeys, landfills, or live action. It's almost as painful to look at as the Power Rangers.
Anonymous Cowards are usually trolls. Trolls are an unnatural abomination. Any unnatural abomination must be the work of Satan. Therefore anyone who posts as an Anonymous Coward on the subject of religion is really working for Satan.
Go ahead, prove me wrong...
Blank until
...but as to some great flood, it's the one thing almost all ancient cultures recorded as happening. I find that just a bit beyond normal coincidence. Some details vary culture to culture obviously, but not the raw basic idea. Some time in the past there was a shedload more water in a fast time period, and flooded most everything important to humans out, especially all the folks who lived near coasts and river mouths-where the effects would have been much greater, and where a lot of ancient civilization was created and flourished. Even today, some huge part of humanity lives within short distances -say 200 miles or less- of an ocean or large river system, and a lot of very important large cities are on coasts and large rivers. What could have caused such a flood, I don't know, massive underwater vulcanism or quakes leading to huge tsunamis then some altered weather as so much more water vapor got dumped into the sky causing serious long term heavy rains-maybe something like that, but these flood stories are in our collective human records. Just recently they came up with evidence showing that the north sea used to be dry plains and was inhabited by humans, now it is all underwater. So who knows. All these cultures went to a lot of trouble to try and make sure that story got preserved, it must have made a pretty large impact on the survivors.
"As a human, you have rights. The constitution was created to guarantee your rights are not trampled on. The constitution does not grant anything, it protects right you alredy had from being violated by a government."
Well, that's close, but not quite right. It would be more accurate to say this:
As a human being, you are born with freedoms. These freedoms can be protected by the state, or taken away, or ignored. When a freedom is protected, it becomes a right. When a freedom is taken away, it becomes a crime. So, for example, my freedom to speak my mind is protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (I'm a Canadian), but my freedom to murder the people around me has been taken away by the state (hence the criminal code).
So, the US Constitution protects certain freedoms you already had by turning them into rights. And, that semantics lesson concluded, we now return you to your regularly scheduled Slashdot discussion.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
Our constitutional protections don't help much when the court is subverted by a criminal organization with a lot of money to spend on subverting the process. Read about the case, and brace yourself for what you'll find out about how a court can be corrupted in a small town.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Learn it.
Just because you call something a religion doesn't mean it is
OK, so what does make something a religon? What's the definition? I'm not disagreeing with you that Scientology is at best rather absurd, but I don't see any clear way of distinguishing it from other more conventional religions other than by number of belivers or age - neither of which seem fair ways to judge legitimacy to me.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
RIAA, MPAA, NSA, CIA, FBI, IRS, Lawyers, Rich Scientologist perverts, corrupt, sold out congressmen/senators, AT&T, Verizon and countless more. just reading slashdot is enough to chill one from head to toe.
On the bright side, the EFF and ACLU haven't given up yet. For that matter, the NRA is still pretty healthy if it gets that far.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Scientology is a money-making scam, nothing more
In that case, what do you call christianity (you do know they still collect taxes, don't you).
Why, yes! I AM new here.
1. "Masses in the ...latin...of its time?"
Of it's time? Huh? The reason I left the RC Church when I was 8 years old (our parents decided we could have some choice about religion at that age) was because the latin of it's time in Midwest USA was PIG LATIN- not even close to what that dude in the robes and funny hat was rattling off. I don't remember exactly when mass was performed in English (sometime in the 70's maybe?) but in the late 60's it was stiil done in a 'foreign' language that the biggest majority of USA population did not understand.
2. "Not letting the illiterate peasants paw through a hand copied book, probably the only one that priest would ever get to make or have made?"
a. I'll agree that this started this way, but even after Gutenberg's printing press was developed in 1450, that should have ended that. But instead, the theme seems to be 'keep the peasants ignorant so we can keep them under control'. The nobility and especially the crowns of that time were also part of the church hierarchy. (hint: this is one of the main reasons for seperation of Church and State in the USA)
b. Keeping the 'unwashed masses' ignorant of just what was in the bible enabled the Church/State to 'fine tune' and 'tweak' the messages to further their powerbase and financial base.
3. "Church leaders chosen by the church from its educated and learned?"
Church leaders chosen by the Church/State from it's educated supporters? Tere, fixed that for you.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Just because you call something a religion doesn't mean it is. Scientology is a money-making scam, nothing more. That is not to say that there aren't any believers, but every scam has its believers.
It's a religion - no mistaking it. A cult too is considered religion. I like this discussion of what a religion is.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
If you want to work as a civil servant, you must sign a declaration stating that you are NOT a scientologist.
> RIAA, MPAA, NSA, CIA, FBI, IRS, Lawyers, Rich Scientologist perverts, corrupt, sold out
...
> congressmen/senators, AT&T, Verizon and countless more.
That's only part of the problem. The *real* problem is why South Koreans (and too many others) *still* think that country is a great place to raise their children
In Herod's case there is at least a tomb so we can be reasonably sure that he existed and was alive around the time of Jesus' birth (~5BC). Also many of the "background" events in the bible are known to be historically accurate e.g. the Romans really did require everyone to return to the town of their birth to be taxed around 5 B.C. So while there is certainly not proof of all the events in the Bible the historical setting at least has evidence to support it.
Where are the remains of the interplanetary craft? Where are the isotopes left over from the H bombs? The Hawaiian volcanoes were not even around 75 million years ago: the are only 11 million years old. If you don't even get the verifiable facts correct then what hope is there for the ones you cannot verify?
I have some familiarity with it but even considering the "church" I'm surprised it's this bad. Still, I would think that if the case gets appealed high enough it'll wind up in a larger venue/jurisdiction, whatever the term is, at some point; and cases in which jail is a possible consequence do result in an attorney provided at no charge to the defendant, so it's not quite the same as a civil case in which one has to pay for one's own lawyer.
This needs to get publicized far more than it is and whoever is behind this needs to be forced to back down via public shaming. Seems to me like some prosecutor thought he/she could make a reputation out of this. (And they're right, if "violating civil rights" is something they want on their record, which I doubt).
Appeal, appeal, appeal.
i am a soviet space shuttle
yep, hubbard started out as a fiction writer ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard
yet it is a hell people around the world are trying to join. Go figure.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com/
What criteria do you use, o wise one?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
The film version of Battlefield Earth is a travesty. While not a great masterpiece, the original book is significantly better than its film counterpart. I recommend it. And no, I'm not a Scientologist.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
...and posting it twice doesn't make your made-up definition any more valid, or you any less of an idiot. But thanks for playing.
Even with regard to threats, there should be wide latitude (in my opinion) before the state intervenes. The Supreme Court has a well-established and reasonable (in my opinion) set of criteria that determines whether threatening speech isn't protected. In order for a threat to be banned, it must be a serious, clear, specific threat that is made in an environment in which it's likely to be carried out. For example, if you were a mafia boss and said "I order my henchmen to execute John Doe on October 13" then it wouldn't be protected speech, because it would have been a clear, imminent threat that was intended seriously and was made in an environment in which it would likely have been carried out.
In this case, the defendant was arrested for making obviously humorous remarks about cruise missiles, which apparently was a pun on Tom Cruise's name. The threat was neither clear nor specific, and obviously would not be carried out. In other words, he was prosecuted for making a joke at the expense of Scientology, and for picketing. Although I agree that people who seriously threaten religious people are not engaging in protected speech, this case seems to be quite different from that.
"these are *not* safe people to fight."
Which is why anybody who takes them on by picketing is an idiot. Henson gets no sympathy from me because he should have known better, given their known history. If you want to fuck Scientology up, there are more effective ways than picketing. Illegal ways, maybe - but you either want results or you don't.
As Magneto put it, "From here it doesn't look like they're playing by your rules. Maybe it's time to play by theirs." You don't play by the rules when the other side doesn't. There are no rules in SpecWar, as Dick Marcinko puts it.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Scientology is dangerous, a few links for you copied from my web site: here, here, here, here, here, and here.
You've posted your pulled from your ass, completely self-invented (and completely bogus) redfinition twice and linked to it twice. We get it already. You're a fucking idiot with an obsessive-compulsive need to be noticed. Enough.
"CmdrTaco was essentially forced"
Nobody forced him to do shit, essentially or otherwise. He decided that rather than go to court and protect his rights, he'd cave like a bitch.
If I sound harsh, it's because I have no respect for people who allow others to abuse their rights, and that's exactly what CmdrPushover did. Thanks for making it harder for the rest of us douche.
"I'm just trying to get a clear distinction between cults and religion. As far as I can tell there's not one."
We have a winner, ladies and gentlemen.
I totally agree with you, which is why I believe the incident in question to be abuse of the law; the remark failed to meet the 'clear and present danger' qualification for suppression. However, I still think the law protecting against real threats is necessary.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
As you can see, it's incredibly vague. The law was passed in the 1990s, when 'hate crime' laws were in vogue in the US. The lawmakers' intention was not to protect Scientology or any other religion. In fact, it was intended to prevent violence (and threats of violence) against gays. Nice idea, but that doesn't excuse a bad law!
Opponents of the law claimed it would be abused to restrict legitimate freedom of speech. Supporters accused opponents of being homophobic or even being actively in favor of violence against gays.
Well, the opponents were right. The concept of a "hate crime" i.e. threatening by force to abridge someone's civil rights, is incredibly vague and can easily be perverted to cover almost any strong criticism, as happened in this case. The intentions behind the law were good, but the law itself is awful and can easily be abused.
That has to be the most stupid post I ever seen in slashdot.
Please go back to the wild wild west and leave civilization to the civilized.
I just envisioned myriad tax auditors, small-town lawyers and sundry cult members reading this, pulling their hair and saying "They're presenting it all wrong!!! Something must be done!"
Scientology is at best rather absurd, but I don't see any clear way of distinguishing it from other more conventional religions
Two words: FOR PROFIT
Misa no botha with yousa.
> every scam has its believers...But, yes, fake religions, real religions
"Real" religions?
In the quite unlikely event that you were to discover any omissions or inaccuracies on this page, please follow the instructions at the link.
Thank you and good day.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
http://digg.com/space/High_Level_Space_Scientist_S cientology_Critic_in_Prison_Again
You may have noticed that Magneto eventually *lost* his campaign?
The world needs heroes. Mr. Henson seems to be one of them. I admire his courage, and those of people who speak out and act against fraud, corruption, theft, abuse, or murder. I also admire, respect, and support those who do so gracefully and within the rule of law: such people make better neighbors and colleagues for the long term. Mr. Henson's arrest for peaceful protest is, frankly, the result of lawyers who spend too much time being paid too much money to game the system and wear other people out.
The fight of Scientology on the Internet is particularly instructive: their attempts to censor traffic, and the spam with which they tried to flood traffic, have helped make ISP's think about how to avoid both censorship and denial of service attacks in ways that protect against other abusers. Like a really nasty case of chickenpox, the experience in the childhood of the net helped strengthen our defenses against a far more dangerous infection later.
Can someone explain why he is in jail now? If the case were in 2001... And it's a misdemeanor?
/. seems to be the biggest news outlet this has hit. So he's probably screwed.
I called the Attorney General's office, they said there were ways to protest against judges and whatnot. I'm not sure what a really useful thing to tell them is, but presumably more public exposure would help.
So far
To contact the California Attorney General's office, there is
http://ag.ca.gov/contact/index.php
(916) 322-3360
But what do you say? Are we already overtaken?
Are you ACs Scientologists by any chance...?
Yes! It's just like my favourite example. I had to listen to a "moderate" Christian friend claiming how ridiculous it was that Islamic fundamentalists believed that a martyr would be rewarded in heaven by a thousand virgins. But on a scale of ridiculousness, I would rank "heaven exists" at about 1000000 units and "heaven exists and is full of virgins waiting for martyrs" at 1000001.
The IRS. The charitable organization certificate is known as a "501c3", and it's a big fiscal deal for a lot of charities and churches, because it eliminates taxes on a lot of your fiscal affairs. It also buys you a lot of First Amendment protection in US courts.
theirs comes with a warranty! Eternal salvation or double your money back! Such a deal!
Two words for you "Oral Roberts".
I think you'll find that the CoS is not officially for-profit (I may be wrong, but I'd be surprised if I was) - all the money they take as donations is "officially" used to fund the activities of the religon itself. Much like the millions televangelists all over the US take from their congregations. None of that's spent on their own cars or mansions, no sir.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
sorry - I didn't mean to make that distinction personally - more I was more trying to point out that the rural jury might make that distinction and that Keith was denied the ability to talk about Scientology and their dirty tricks (which was the bulk of his case)
which i do not resemble in my beliefs at all
stephen hawking is a god among men
there is absolutely nothing wrong with islam. there is something wrong with fundamentalist islam. there is also something wrong with fundamentalist christianity. in other words, there is something wrong with fundamentalism
now that i have nuetralized your prejudice of me, i would like to inform you that going through life with a small set of simpleminded stereotypes about the people around you only makes you out to be the dumb one. life is not a cartoon, so try to treat the people you meet in it as not the cartoon stereotypes that exist only in your head
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
> Shouldn't his action have been protected under the First Amendment?
Eh? What's that? Sounds like some antiquated 19th Century notion. Now we have Hate Crimes laws, Campaign Finace laws, attempts to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, etc. Congress shall make no law..... just a fairy story, was never really there ya know. Anybody who says otherwise is just a dirty doubleplus ungood traitor.
Seriously, this crap is the end product of political correctness. Once we crossed the threshold into "Crime Think" it was only a matter of time before everybody could point to a situation where their ox was getting gored. Yea you might think it is just grand when you are wielding the sword to shut up somebody YOU don't want to listen to or some obnoxious protester who is really pissing you off, but sooner or later it gets wielded by somebody ya don't like and THEN you get all pissy. Sorry citizen, the time to have fought this war was when it was first getting started. Congress shall make NO law was a defensible line in the sand, Congress shall make no law that I don't like is a fight you will never win.
Democrat delenda est
Let's just be clear about one thing: Scientology (the "applied religious philosophy") is indeed a 100% valid religion. The question is whether or not the Church of Scientology (the transnational corporation) is a religious organisation or not.
The main thing that distinguishes CoS from just about every other religious organisation that I can think of is that you have to pay them money to find out what they actually believe.
The overwhelming majority of mainstream religions will be happy to tell you. You ask a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu or a Buddhist what they believe, and (assuming they're not busy right at that moment) they'll be happy to fill you in or tell you who can. Or you can go to any bookstore and buy books describing their beliefs and practises in some detail.
There also still exist, in the world, "mystery religions". Mystery religions have an arcanum, some body of secret wisdom that is only revealed to initiates. I'm a bit dubious about these, personally, but still, the main differentiating factor between traditional mystery religions and the CoS is that in the CoS, the revealing of the arcanum is directly tied to the handing over of money.
The other thing that distinguishes the CoS is its aggressive behaviour in attacking critics and splinter groups. It clearly doesn't act as if it believes in freedom of religion. Therefore it's not a religious organisation.
The idea of copyrighting their Secrets seems just bizarre.
It's like some physicist copyrighting String Theory. If it's the way the Universe is constructed, then how can you claim ownership of the fact?
Xenu exists, then he exists. He's not some some designed commercial property. (Which, of course, he is)
When a [...] sheriff showing up with a search warrant [is a] member[] of the cult. [...] When the warrant specifies "documents" but the sheriff leaves with computers including screens, printers and even phones.
And when the sheriff runs the jail where you will cool your heels while waiting for your appeal to be heard...
And when part of the reason you were picketing them in the first place is that you know they declare people "enemies" and attack them extra-legally, and that you have reason to believe they have killed a number of their declared "enemies"...
In such a situation, with such evidence that you believed to be true, would YOU believe you might have a "fatal accident" if you allowed yourself to be taken into custody?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
From grandparent:
But, yes, fake religions, real religions, real presidents, it doesn't matter
Grandparent is not stating that Scientology is fake, thus you can protest it. It making two seperate statements, one being that Scientology is fake. The other is that you should be allowed to protest anything you like, no matter how fake or real it is. There is no conflict or any need to define a "religion".
I lost my sig.
I don't quite understand why religious organization shall get special treatment on tax. All these organized religions run like businesses, and they all use their money and power to influence politics then gain long term benefits from it.
I wouldn't agree to ban all organized religions, not even to ban those anti-social or anti-government ones like China does. But at least tax them, tax them heavily like alcohol and tobacco. In the end they are all just opium of the people, aren't they?
As to whether that law restricts your free speech, the claim is that "hate speech" is not protected by the Constitution, particularly when it interferes with the right of others to worship freely. The logic is that allowing people to threaten religions is implicit State approval of those threats.
"Hate speech" and "hate crimes" are attempts to do an end-run around the constitutional guarantees. I suspect that they will eventually be struck down wherever they're raised up.
"Hate {foo}" is "{foo}" directed against some particular "suspect (of being discriminated against) category" - such as people of particular skin colors, religions, etc.
By creating enhanced punishments for perpetrators who victimize them, compared to perpetrators who victimize ordinary people for more ordinary reasons, "hate %ltfoo%gt" legislation creates privileged classes of people who are more protected by legal sanctions on their attackers. This violates the equal protection clause.
Why should it be a more-penalized crime to bash a black than to bash a white? To bash a gay than to bash a straight? (And please don't say "It's also a hate crime to bash a straight BECAUSE he's straight." because you KNOW it won't be enforced that way.) Why should it be a more-penalized crime to beat and rob an Oriental because he's Oriental than to beat and rob a landlord because he's a landlord? And so on.
Further, by making "religion" one of these categories - especially by making "interfering with a religion" a specific crime - the legislators have violated the First Amendment's "Establishment" clause: They've made organizations that are religious more protected than organizations with similar characteristics that are not.
Why should it be a more-penalized act to interfere with a Catholic group than to interfere with Bhddhists? With Agnostics? With Objectivists?
Finally, "Hate {foo}" crimes are "thought crimes": The same act is punished more or less depending on the ideology of the actor. It's appropriate to punish more for executing a pre-planned attack than for attacking in a temporary burst of outrage, and still less for damage caused by accident due to negligence. But beyond that the motivation is immaterial. Why should killing or maming somebody because "I didn't like his looks." be punished more because the aspect of "his looks" is the color of his skin than it is the twist of his lips? Maiming is maiming. Killing is killing. Robbing is robbing. The courts' time need not be wasted trying to divine the internal state of the perpetrator - or the police departments' time trying to beat it out of him - just to punish some people who "think wrongly" more than others who do the same harm.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I recall RAH referring to it as the universal life church, not to be confused with the one you mentioned, or any other with the same name. I'll agree also that CAW is a better reference. In his writing the church was renamed several times.
Grrr.. Now some obsessed fan will be compelled to prove me wrong. Where's a good comic book guy quote when you need one?
As for generalizing about members, doctrine or dogma, I try to avoid assessing that unless their plan involves my demise or forcible conversion. People can believe whatever they will because fsm has altered their perception with his noodly appendage.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Posting anon for this.
Someone should infiltrate their society and bring them down from the inside. Play their own game. Shell out the money with faith that it'll be returned (plus more) when the operation is complete.
Work their way up to the highest levels and sink the ship.
They are scum.
Remember part of the confidence trick is getting people to give them the same leeway that is given to people that cut up infant girls or marry the thirteen year old sister of their current wife and use religeon as an excuse. We should never abandon the basic rights of people just because somebody declares their gang a religeon for tax purposes or even if it is a long established religeon.
If you want to help Henson, please consider his request made earlier today.
r izona-docs/from-arel-2007-05-09.txt
Henson asks that people see if any of the reporters who have done stories on California prison overcrowding would be interested in doing a story about how -- despite the overcrowding and consequent release of felons -- the Governator has signed an extradition warrant to bring back a 64-year-old man whose meds the citizens of California will have to pay for.
http://www.operatingthetan.com/extradition-from-a
"Gonna have a clambake!"
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Except that the scientologists really DO infilitrate governments, and DO use their members in positions of power to persecute and torment their critics.
The standard woo is that it was never actually ratified, but the claimed authority is constitutional, not some vaguely-worded statute.
What's wrong with hate crime laws, though? Motives have been considered for the purpose of determining the severity of a crime pretty much forever - if you steal 50 bucks worth of food to feed your hungry children, that's not going to get you the same sentence as stealing a 50 bucks DVD player for your own amusement, for example. Or, as an example that may be more relevant, if you catch your best friend cheating on you with your wife, pull out your gun in rage and shoot him, you're (probably) going to get less than you would if you decided to kill him in cold blood so his wife and you can collect his life insurance. Right?
That's what it's all about - motives. Or, in other words, *hate* is still not outlawed; it's the *crime* part that matters. "Hate crime" does not mean that hate is a crime, it means that existing crimes are worse when they're committed solely out of hatred for any particular group, such as blacks, jews, homosexuals, or whatever.
butter the donkey
OK, so what does make something a religon? What's the definition? I'm not disagreeing with you that Scientology is at best rather absurd, but I don't see any clear way of distinguishing it from other more conventional religions other than by number of belivers or age - neither of which seem fair ways to judge legitimacy to me.
All religions are rather absurd. No need to distinguish them from each other really. Many people inherit religion from their parents, some are drawn to one that pleases them. Religious ideas are not legitimate, the more conventional ones are simply more conventional. It's OK to ritually cannibalize Jesus because many people are accustomed to it - no other reason.
consider myself to be an Ignostic
Aren't all those Mac zealots iGnostics?
I'm Mormon. Yeah let the ridicule begin. Whatever I've heard it before and it won't get me to leave the Church. The LDS Church does not "DEMAND" that you pay 10% or you can't attend. That's a plain lie right there. The 10% is called "tithe" and it's in the Bible (which most people, even "Christians" don't read anymore apparently). I went to Church in multiple wards in two states for over a decade without ever paying tithing or fast offering. I was never barred from participating in Church services, theology classes, activities, etc. It is true that you cannot attend the temple if you are not a full tithe payer. But that's not being denied learning doctrine or being denied attendance or membership in the Church.
How do these comments get modded insightful? Does nobody read the actual articles? He was not being charged for picketing the church. He was being charged for making threats via the internet. The charge was still bogus, since he "threatened" the church with cruise missiles which he does not have access to, the fact remains though that he was not charged for picketing.
A joker once said: "Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby". I've always felt that making fun of stamp collectors could be a hobby in its own right. Similarly, not all atheists are religious, but when you join an atheist club and try to actively convert the heathens, it's hard to distinguish them from a 'real' religion.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
"If all the scientologists were to disappear from the face of the Earth tomorrow, humainity and civilisation would last no more than three months."
Luckily, Run Hubbard (and Einstein) had never heard of Pinoqachole!
Welcome to America, where we have the best justice system money can buy, and where everyone's equal (but whites are more equal than blacks).
The problem with hate crime laws is that a crime should be a crime no matter who is the target. If someone gets beat up, or robbed, or murdered, or raped, whoever responsible should be punished just the same, no matter who is the target.
Also, how is it *not* a hate crime when a white guy beats up another white guy or if it is two homosexuals or whatever?
Hate crime laws don't make any sense because whatever action is taken should in that case be a crime, and punished as severely, anyway.
I dunno. Seems like Tom Cruise "Missiles" makes enough wild comments to the media as to be just as destructive. I thought it was a pretty cool play on words actually.
:-)
Now, if we could only hit Scientology with a few more Tom Cruise Missiles, maybe they would be fully discredited
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The main thing that distinguishes CoS from just about every other religious organisation that I can think of is that you have to pay them money to find out what they actually believe.
ANd those of us involved in more fringe religions read CoS as the Church of Satan (run by Anton LeVey). Note that LeVey's CoS is a for-profit business and never has claimed to be otherwise. LeVey's books teach people how to scam money out of other people (I generally recommend reading them as a way of spotting scams), etc.
Seems the main difference between the Churches of Satan and Scientology is that the Church of Satan is more honest about being about scams and showmanship.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
That sounds just like a MMORPG.
According to the law the theft of the type of item does not really matter. While you would likely get off with stealing the food it would be because the judge, the person stolen from or the jury decided to ignore the law and give some mercy. In the example with the killing yes you would get less time with the cheating because you did not plan before hand to commit the crime. With the insurance plan, that you were thinking to kill him for the money would probably be used as evidence it would not get you an extra time on the murder then if you were planning to kill the next person who knocked on your door, you still have the insurance scam to deal with. Yes there is some thought about it but you actually have to work into planning.
With the thought crimes if you are guilty of the crime and then it is found out that 1 day ago you said "Kill all whites" then you get extra time. You cannot prove that it was the motive it is totally based on what the person what thinking or if you do have evidence then it only comes about because the person was using their 1st amendment rights.
In Scientology, you don't pay money to access "beliefs", you pay money to cover the costs of the services involved in studying the religions materials.
.. it truly is such valuable material to me, personally, and for thousands of others in my experience, directly, as well. Henson wouldn't want you all to know that there are actually happy, productive, sane and healthy Scientologists out there in the 'big world', and it is us that he is attacking with his frothy-mouthed vitriol. Why should we stand for it, when we are the ones who are using Scientology as its supposed to be used, and he is, in fact, attempting to destroy us?
This is a very distinct difference. "Belief" has no place in Scientology - says so all over the place, you can get into trouble even saying you 'believe it' instead of actually using it like you're supposed to.. Scientologists don't "believe", they apply the material, and get the results. Either it works because you're using it as its supposed to be used, or you find out what it is you don't know about it thats preventing you from using it, as its supposed to be used. This takes supervision and it takes an organization dedicated to technical precision.
Its really a fact. Scientology is not a belief system. Period. It is an Applied Religious Philosophy - that means it has a great deal of material of a philosophic nature, which is meant to be applied, and distinct results are expected to be attained. The Xenu material is just the tip of the iceberg, and is actually very definitely mis-quoted and presented by Scientology's detractors, out of context and without the details of all the other aspects of the religion itself, in order to position Scientology as a "UFO cult", which it most definitely is not. For sure, there is no question about it, anyone who calls themselves a former Scientologist and is now attacking the religion on the basis of the OT materials, was definitely not using the technology of Scientology for the purposes of personal enlightenment, and more than likely, had some other intention behind getting involved.
In order to attain the degree of application expected in Scientology to get the stated results: freedom and ability - requires actual real-life demonstrable usage, real application, not panty-waiste 'belief' or worship. A great deal of actual work must be done by the student of Scientology, and by the supervisors of that students progress.
It is the expenses of this application which are being covered by fees paid by the student.
As a student of Scientology for, now, two lifetimes, I would pay 5x what the current student rates are, and even then some
So, as a matter of curiosity, what do you think of the Free Zone?
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
There are professional liars out there, people who can lie that good they got their vast group of followers; even in such a way they do believe in their own lies being casted out of their guts..
...
To my opinion, such church or cult or whatever you call it, based on deception and lies of one single person; requires a quite troubled mind to believe in -such- crap. Those texts could make a great SciFi novel, but to believe in such is a little bit above my head literally;
I guess not only respect and dignity is dissapearing from this world, but also logic(al thinking). Who poisoned the water supplies in making us all believe in shit which is unbelievable because of the lack of any given logic?
I don't say belief needs to be logical; but still; for something to believe in I'd have to either see or feel things before I -can- believe in such; how the freak can so many people believe in a religion which is based on a one-man-written Sci-Fi story without any basis or facts? At least first verify a little bit which you believe in before believing in one-man-tales; because that one-man can be from the most honest man to the biggest liar on earth, this for the sake for them own wallets
Of'course I could extend this statement also from one person to an entire group which can be as honest as heaven but lying as hell; since there are other organisations a/o cults out there doing the exact ludicrous same thing for the sake of their own organisation/cult.
What do I believe in? human knowledge and human evolution; which we create we can use, which we can do best we help others with. I believe mostly that others can make that one change needed to get a better world. We've been in better times before (also in worse times) where most of these times have to do with religion, power and oppression. I do frankly also believe a lot in myself, because I know I can trust and rely on myself. Do not harm (others) and always respect even the worst enemy; which I even don't have because I don't believe in "pure hate"; only in "pure intentions" and "evil intentions" which are mostly based in the mind of an individual and not by one or another god.
Does it require a deity? nope, does it require faith and goodwill? lots...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
A question : Have you ever seen any of the supposed powers (mind bullets etc) that this "tech" is supposed to achieve actually demonstrated? I'm guessing no.
Of course Christianity is a money-making scam too, who said otherwise?
The New Christianity?
damaged by dogma
MOD PARENT UP
I hate Scientology.