Slashdot Mirror
Scientologists In Row With BBC
CmdrGravy writes "The Church Of Scientology is currently engaged in a row with the BBC, a result of an investigation by reporter John Sweeney. Sweeney is investigating the Church Of Scientology, trying to judge changes in the organization over the last few years; He's trying to discover if they've moved away from the questionable practices and secrecy they have employed in the past. The conflict centers around a YouTube video posted by the scientologists. It shows Mr. Sweeney losing his temper with a scientology spokesman. Mr. Sweeney's outburst came at the end of a tour of a scientology exhibition which attempts to portray psychiatrists as evil nazi type torturers entitled 'Psychiatry: Industry of Death' which is both gruesome and utterly unconvincing. The BBC appears willing to stand behind its reporter, in spite of the pressure brought to bear by the scientologist organization."
Why are wasting our time with a bunch of delusional cultists?
Their material calls that there's not a shred of "scientific" evidence that mental illnesses exist, instead it's all about the alien ghosts lord Xenu imprisoned.
I mean, for Christ's sake, people. Is there a limit to how ridiculous you can get?
It's pretty simple. The Scientologists want to rule the world with their wacky ideas and the BBC want to rule the world with their dialect of the English language. With both of them in a hissy fit with each other, they can do neither. So you can relax, throw popcorn and laugh at them.
Karma police, arrest this man. He talks in math. He buzzes like a fridge. He's like a detuned radio.
The Church of Scientology has made it difficult to criticize them, because they tend to send the lawyers after anyone who does (generally on grounds of copyright infringement). Most people here would consider it a right to criticize, as a subset of the right to freedom of expression.
I guess this is sort of peripheral to that, but still...
And being attacked for criticizing Scientology is something that could have happened to you. For, let's say, talking bad about those Sons-of-a-Bitch here on Slashdot.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxqR5NPhtLI There ya go!
If there were ever devil-worshipping human slime, with a penchant for pederasty, it was L. Ron Hubbard.
Oh, yeah. Charles Manson was a Scientologist.
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2006/02/why
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
You're obviously new here. Slashdot and the Co$ are old buddies.
3 49237d =99
http://slashdot.org/yro/01/03/16/1256226.shtml
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/10/1
http://slashdot.org/yro/02/03/21/0453200.shtml?ti
They've attempted to force comments off slashdot. They've forced xenu.net to be delisted from google. They're going after people who publish the OTIII "documents". They're abusing the DMCA.
That's why this is on slashdot.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion." - L Ron Hubbard
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
To be precise, you'd spend about half a million to get to the point where they spring the space opera story on you. Once you've been suckered that far, there's a very strong psychological incentive to keep believing them, rather like the suckers who've fallen for the 419 scams.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
How about having to pay to be a member? Scientology is a manipulative business, and that is put mildly.
Brainwashing and "disconnecting" people from your family doesn't float your boat, eh? Being swallowed by a cult is devastating for the families involved. So as long as these crazy people aren't hurting you you don't give a fuck, eh?
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Yes, Scientology is nutty, but that's about normal for a religion. Could be worse. They don't have a big pedophile problem, suicide bombers, or televangelists, like some of their competitors.
Nutty? So, Scientology is in fact a mental illness, which doesn't acknowledge mental illnesses.
What a cosmic irony.
I suppose in this case you're right, we gotta be more PC to Scientologists and their "special condition".
Sam: Dude, we're tainted by the souls of aliens blown with nukes by alien space invador from a galaxy far far away!
Jim: Man, you're a f***ing idiot or something? STFU!
Sam: No, I'm a scientologist...
Jim: OH! Oh... oh buddy, sorry I had no idea. I really had no idea.. but you'll be fine, yea.. you'll be just fine.
Here's why:
A key belief and practice of the Church involved "auditing" via the "E-Meter". The "E-Meter" is a bargain-basement lie detector. It works on galvanic skin response; it can measure (crudely) fluctuations in your emotional state. It can't measure much past that. So one person holds these two "tin cans" while somebody else tries to make them respond enough to flinch the needle.
The person being "audited" is practicing how to be emotionally non-responsive to whatever is thrown at them - and that can involve verbal abuse, shouting, whatever.
This isn't controversial or something the "church" denies.
What most people don't think about is the flip side: what is being learned by the person NOT holding the tin cans? The one trying to trigger a response in the other?
Yup. You guessed it. They become masters (eventually) at "pressing people's buttons".
So anybody not used to this sort of thing or who isn't expecting it can be made to "blow up", sometimes spectacularly. And I'd bet good money that's exactly what they did to Sweeney and for exactly the reason they've used this incident: to portray any opponent as an out of control loose cannon, nutcase, etc.
Don't go up against these guys unless your self control is rock solid AND you understand this technique. Be ready to say something like "much as you might prefer otherwise, I'm not being "audited", I'm not standing here with tin cans in my hand looking like an idiot, you're not going to get me to blow up". Turn it back on 'em, they'll start foaming at the mouth. If a Rondroid is trying to get you pissed, ASSUME there's a camera pointing your way.
I don't critique the Church of Scientology because they are over the top. I use the almighty buck (which I feel too few consumers do these days.) I refuse to watch, buy, or do anything with folks that go over the top with Scientology. For example Tom Cruise. Ever since his over the top outbursts I decided to stop buying, watching or doing anything with his movies.
Of course me as a single consumer will probably not make much of dent, but I wish more consumers would do the same. Though I am thinking more in general about this and not specifically Scientology. People complain, etc, yet few do anything like stop buying products. If people realized that the buck has more power and sway than a single vote maybe there would be some real change.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I think it's kind of ironic that if you want to look at the downside of Scientology, you only need to look at their celebrity converts. E.g. Tom Cruise going increasingly off the rails now he's not allowed to see his shrink or take prescription drugs, or John Travolta forced to deny his homosexuality. If they weren't Scientologists, you get the impression they'd be happier. Richer too probably.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8hpHY9zDQ It doesn't seem so harsh at this angle and the scientologist is the one who starts with the voice raising. Sweeney just takes it to the next level. Obviously out of hand for a journalist, but quite satisfying to see.
The one characteristic that I've noticed is consistent across scientologist interviews I've seen is that they all have a creepy boneheadedness when it comes to answering any question, no matter how innocuous it may be. It's as if every moment in life has to be a confirmation of their beliefs.
But they do have Tom Cruise, and that more than makes up for the rest.
I don't therefore I'm not.
As Sweeney pointed out, Scientologists' comparison of psychology to Nazism is disgusting. That's why I wish Godwin's Law could be extended to the beyond the [forum|usenet|chat] world. Abusive display at a conference? You loose!
"it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Scientology _Moscow_versus_Russia
This is a recent development - in April the European court of human rights decided that it was against EU law for Russia to deny Scientology religeon status - a judgement that applies to all EU member states including the UK and Germany (who have previously been quite outspoken against it).
May I draw people's attention to http://www.xenu.net/
Scientology - the cult pyramid scheme
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
Has Slashdot ever had a run in with Islam? Seems like people here are a lot more skeptical of the idea that Islam is a murderous cult than Scientology.
Whereas to me, as soon as the whole Satanic Verses controversy errupted, it was pretty clear that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with a modern liberal democracy, just like Scientology is. Hell, Christianity is incompatible if it's still based on the old testament, it's just that mainstream Christians seem to have deprecated those bits of the Bible since the Enlightenment.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
When I was just out of high school, there was a Scientology office in my town. They always had a sign out front offering a 'Free Personality Test'. On a lark, a pal and me went in and had our personalities 'tested' just to see what they were hawking. When I was done, they compared the multiple choice questionare to their chart, and drew some lines through it. They explained to me that I was doing fine, and that I was already highly Dyanetic, or whatever they called it. They then thanked me for coming in, and told me to have a nice day.
I have never been quite sure how to take that. Maybe I should have sang them the leader song...Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Leader! Leader! Batman!
It's most likely here because scientology nutjobs have sent Slashdot a cease and desist in the past, and made them pull down posts with copyrighted material (I'm fine with that) and links to copyrighted material (I'm not fine with that).
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Got the same impression. Poor guy. I mean, you should in that case simply turn of the camera and explain it during editing (after all, when cutting your tape you have full control of what goes on screen and what doesn't)... But I know that religious types (let's define religion broadly) can really pull the blood away from under your nails. Any exchange between a religous person and a sane person is inherently unfair. The religious person believes in things that are made up, in fairytales that are easily shown to be fiction. By nonetheless believing those they show that their mind is like ROM. It's litterally like talking to a brick wall. There is this part of them that parses enough of your sentences to generate an inadequate answer, but no information actually gets past their mental firewall.
John Sweeney, I support you 100% on this one. This whole incident probably says more about Scientology than about you.
I wouldn't bother to speculate on the sexuality of those unknownst to me, but I can assure you that I see 'scientology' as one sinister (expletive) organisation. By what I see, it takes the basic principle of every 'addictive' in most every religion - namely, the prize of being 'chosen' over others, our reluctance to actually think, and our weakness to calls to authority (most will obey the orders of a cell phone for lord's sake) - and use it as a means to the common goal of most all, save the most primitive, religions - your money.
Remember: If they want to succeed in engendering an 'elite appeal', they depend on you to see them as the elite.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
Yes, I'm sure. I'm also sure that I was the one that first discovered it, reported it to kuro5hin, to alt.religion.scientology, and attempted to report it to slashdot (but someone got their article accepted instead of mine ).
4 53200&tid=991 41250
Here are the links:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/21/0
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/22/0
So, they did force xenu.net to be delisted by google. Google luckily changed hearts, probably due to the enourmous amounts of attention that was generated here, on kuro5hin, and all over the internet. In addition to hating the idea of letting themselves be censored in such a way. It was also one of the first time google linked that some searches were excluded - linking to chillingeffects.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
The difference is that most nutty Protestant sects do not become as large and rich as the Church of Scientology, and they also have to keep some sort of attachment to a nominally Christian approach. They also have the problem that their followers do tend to be socially mobile - the fact of going to Church shows they want to "better" themselves - and with social mobility comes exposure to more educated people who may guide them towards mainstream Christianity. Scientology, on the other hand, is not a bizarre offshoot of a mainstream religion and there is no central tendency for its followers to gravitate back to.
There is too with cults an interesting anti-intellectual tendency. If you want to make authoritative pronouncements in, say, the Catholic or Episcopalian churches, you are probably fluent in NT Greek and can read the NT in the original. Cults contain less educated people, so they will do things like take a particular English translation of the Bible as being authoritative and solve the problem that way. Extreme cults can get a following from rich people who do not want to invest the time and effort needed to become familiar with, say, the Bible or the Pali texts. You can join something like - oh, say Kabbalah - and say pretty well anything in public without looking ridiculous, while a Hollywood actor who tries to sound knowledgeable about the Bible had better know his or her stuff because there are so many well informed people listening. A religion that does not let its sacred texts get out too much is at an advantage in this respect.
As a part time student of religious sociology, it's a pity I won't be around in 50 years to see if Scientology, like Mormonism before it, is evolving into a mainstream religion and gradually losing its bizarre baggage.
Pining for the fjords
...in NYC Times Sq. Metro. "Free personality test" they called it. Being in a generally good mood at the time (first day in the US no less), I though "why not" - the girl looked pretty hot, and it was an excuse to talk to someone. So I hold the tin cans, and the questions start coming; "how are you doing", and then "no really, how ARE you doing?", and then more like "I think you're insecure" and "This book can help with that" - despite my protests that I was actually OK. This pissed me me somewhat, as my good mood turned quite sour quite quickly and in fact, I left rather pissed off.
Anyway, the next day, I saw them again, and this time I was ready for them. I did the whole "Oh, I wonder what this is" type gaze, and sure enough they invite me over for another free personality test, and sure enough the same questions start. The needle was going no-where this time, and in fact the more the guy tried to convince me i was a mental train-wreck the more my confidence grew and the needle fell. Eventually I actually start laughing at the guy interviewing me, and he can't take it any more so hands me over to another fine looking female who tries a similar technique. At this point I'm chuckling even louder at their constant mental batterings, and people are starting to take interest in the commotion, at which point they try and sell me their book once last time.
I tell them quite clearly and loudly enough for the onlookers to hear that "when I'm as insecure as you lot, I'll buy your stinking book then and burn it". To which my awaiting friends added "Scientology is for losers".
That showed them.
throw new NoSignatureException();
photo of L Ron Hubbard "auditing" a tomato.j pg
http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/bfm/tomato.
I'd say it still has a few thetans to go before it makes clear.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Ahh, wishful thinking. How quaint.
It really saddens me to rain on your utopian dream, but "it would work if we _all_ did X" _never_ worked. Never worked, doesn't work, never will.
By the same token, yeah, it would stop spam if we _all_ didn't buy that stuff, but there'll always be some idiots who do. Yeah, it would stop stock scams dead if we all didn't rush to buy hyped-through-spam stocks, but there'll always be some "smart" guys who think they can beat the system and do their own buying and selling just before it crashes. (It has been already proved to never work, but, hey, there's one born every minute anyway.) Yeah, it would stop unethical business practices dead if we all stopped buying from and investing in unethical companies, but, let's face it, you're a minority there; the majority just buys from whoever sells the cheapest, invests in whoever promises the most gain, and would even deal with the mafia perfectly happily. Etc.
And so it is with this kind of fucked-up cults too. Wishful "if we all started boycotting them" thinking won't work, because there'll always be a minority, no matter how small, who are fucked-up in the head and need some exotic, non-mainstream religion to give meaning to their fucked-up lives. And a cult doesn't really need billions of members to be profitable. If only as few as those who buy from spam links are also gullible enough to join your cult, you're already a rich guy. It's that simple.
So you'd literally need to get _everyone_ to join in your boycott for it to work. Not just "more", but literally "all".
In other words, the "allmighty buck" isn't that allmighty at all when it comes to righteous causes. And it tends to work against you every time.
What you need isn't self-righteous boycotts, what you need is laws and courts of law. You already have laws saying that (A) small excerpts _do_ fall under fair use, even if scientology doesn't like it, and (B) once they've made themselves a public figure, they can't really stop other people from talking about them, or even ridiculling them, and (C) they aren't supposed to use lawsuits just to silence their critics. See that those laws are applied. That's really the only realistic, working solution.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Sweeney didn't lose it. He tried a different response after a solid week of total frustration and non-answered questions and attempts to exchange understandings of how outsiders view CoS and how CoS members view their detractors. I would have lasted an hour before the same. Interestingly the BBC have received legal papers from lawyers in Hollywood asking that their famous clients (i.e. Kirstie Alley) are removed from the report as I guess they don't want to be linked with the CoS. This of course is the CoS removing balance from the debate.... and I wonder why people them think they're barking.
Say, that's a nice defrag utility on your Windows box there. Is it by any chance Diskkeeper?
The end of the BBC...
You are aware that it is effectively part of the British state apparatus, aren't you? It isn't just a British CNN, NBC or whatever, it was established and is maintained by Royal Charter.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/policies/charter/
I think it highly likely that any action launched against the BBC in this respect would fall flat at the first hurdle. And if they do actually get sued in the US then in every other place the BBC operates, the plaintiff can expect a huge campaign of negative publicity for the rest of time; they won't back down when they believe that they are right - for any reason.
This has, in fact, happened. As far as I am aware this is the only time in history that a Slashdot comment has been edited.
qntm.org
Wow. The "spokesman" is pretty much a master of getting people extremely pissed off. You can tell in the tone, in the VERY precise words used. It puts you off at first by speaking down on you like a child, and then keeps attacking until you feel you have no choice but to raise your voice so you cannot hear them while refuting them.
...actually quite impressive, were it not coming from a religion.
This is a bit off-topic, but I just want people to know that you don't have to look hard to find scientologists pushing their beliefs on people. The Wikipedia article on scientology seems to regularly be edited by CoS shills who try and turn the article into a PR brochure. Just look at the talk and history pages for the culprits.
Are they something like intergalactic pubic lice?
Intelligent Design.
Care to explain why we waste our time with that kind of delusion? Because the head honchos just happen to follow a religion that supports it?
It might seem unrelated, but I see a parallel. One claims that there's no mental illness and it's all some deity (or, if I remember right, its enemies) messing with your inner alien. The other one claims that, since you can't prove every single step taken from the beginning of the universe to the world as we know it now, it's all a bunch of fabrications and we should instead rely on magic detailed in some old book. Both call science bollocks and we should instead rely on some magical fabrication of some kinda god.
Could you point out the difference to me?
Religion is something wonderful, and if people need it for their inner peace and 'cause they got nothing better to do, ok, have fun. But don't mess with my life, and most of all, don't mess with science, dammit! Religion has no room in science. Science is about disproving things, not blind faith in them!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's most likely here because scientology nutjobs have sent Slashdot a cease and desist in the past, and made them pull down posts with copyrighted material (I'm fine with that)
I'm not fine with that. If Scientology-copyrighted material has been posted at Slashdot, it is:
* Noncommercial in nature. Posters at slashdot are not generally rewarded financially for their posts.
* Likely to have been a small excerpt. Seriously, you're not going to post the entirity of whatever you're quoting from, and you're likely to only have a summary anyway, as Scientology guards their original documents pretty well.
* For the purposes of criticism, and therefore protected speech.
* Unlikely to affect the commercial value of the copyrighted material (at least via the mechanisms US courts seem to recognise as performing this function).
It would therefore, in my (non-lawyery) opinion, be fair use.
The BBC has twenty regional United Kingdom stations broadcasting TV and Radio programs in each of the regional accent. The main BBC news show on Radio Four http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/ has John Humphries (Welsh - that's the country on the left hand side of the bottom part of the island) and James McNaughtie (Scottish- that's the country at the top of the island). So how the BBC will implement its plan to rule the world with "their dialect of the English language" will be worth observing. Will the subjugated peoples sound like the cast of Upstairs & Downstairs on Nembutal or perhaps they will all talk in Gordonstoun, that funny version of the Scots dialect that the Royal Family (HRH Prince Charles, HRH his mom The Queen and their various relatives) uses? I watch Fox News and I still can't get that Bill O'Reilly accent down pat. Weird.
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
>well, you best remove teh windows degraf
Friend, you seem unable to get your letters in the right order. We at the CoS can help and would very much like you to come over one day for a FREE personality test. We can then help you unravel those chaotic thoughts, purify your mind and assist in the distribution of your dollars. Call 800-I-AM-A-MUG.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
* Slashdot earns money from traffic (via ad clicks). Admittedly, the poster was not receiving financial reward.
* It was the whole of OT III, which at the time was not very easy to find.
* I don't think the original post had any criticism, just the text.
* Why is it unlikely to affect its commercial value? If people were able to read OT III when they were just joining then Scientology would practically collapse.
I'll thank you to refer to Our Betty as Her Majesty. (She's also HRH the Duchess of Edinburgh, but when you're referring to her queenship, it's HM.)
The real problem with Tom Cruise movies is that they all seem to have Tom Cruise in them.
Blizzard, take heed and adjust your price plans accordingly.
Wrong. The difference between a cult and a religion is that you can leave a religion. The Church of Scientology disconnects its members from their families so they have nowhere to go when they leave, and brainwashes them under hypnosis to keep them from wanting to. The Church of Scientology is also the only "religion" to keep its core beliefs secret, to be run for profit, and to have its own paramilitary[1] and counter-intelligence[2] operations.
There may be a Scientology religion, but that is NOT the same as the Church of Scientology. Separate the religion from the organization which practices it, and you will see that the organization is so thoroughly corrupt that it cannot be allowed to continue to exist in its present form.
(Posted anonymously for my own protection, as everyone else who casually criticizes Scientology should.)
[1] http://www.xenu.net/archive/so/[2] http://www.xenu.net/archive/go/index.htm
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
Other stuff to read is anything about the sort of tricks that Derren Brown gets up to - he has done a 2 DVD pack with card tricks of which the second one is mostly about psychological manipulation like how to make people think of one particular card in a full 52 deck.
Study, and be amazed as to just how easy it is to put someone on the wrong track. The "church" (bit of an insult to the word) makes full use of this. Start an argument on false premises and then walk away, witter away at one flaw in a story to invalidate the whole story .. hey! Where did I hear that before?
Insert
Are you sure you aren't a Scientologist? I'm surprised at people's willingness to let them off so lightly. Obviously you haven't researched the group's history.
c ult.html
We have people who have been killed by Scientology. We have people who proteest it and end up bankrupted by lawsuits. My lawyer friends tell me they read quite a bit of case law having to do with Scientologists just because they litigate so frequently.
Don't you wonder why they aren't litigating against the Pledge of Allegience or In God We Trust, but instead to protect their "secrets"?
Repeat until it sinks in: NO other religion charges you money to believe. Or to find out just WHAT you are supposed to be believing in.
Scientology is a cult. A cult has a specific meaning in this case. It isn't a smaller (vs. Christians) persecuted (aren't they all?) religious (it might not be) group. It's a brainwashing group which keeps you from leaving. And other things.
With its plethora of lawyers and infiltration into the IRS and other governmental branches, Scientology has gone from being a harmless cult to a "religious" mafia.
Take the recent example: A misdemeanor which wouldn't normally be enforced gets you a year in jail. WTF? I'm worrying.
Random people attempt to define cult:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/sn-
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/c09.html
http://www.ex-cult.org/General/identifying-a-cult
http://www.cultfaq.org/
Disclaimer: I'm Christian, so maybe I'm just offended at being lumped in with these people. I think my rights are more endangered when Scientologists' rights are being protected. At least as they've been protected so far.
You are aware that the BBC, in practice, is independant of government influence? Having said that, if it came to war with scientology everyone would back it. It's a national institution and the only people who have anything bad to say about it are license-dodgers who watch it anyway.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
If you're referring to the "Chef" episode of South Park, and assuming that Hayes did say the things attributed to him (*), then he deserved all the piss-taking he got. No-one likes a hypocrite who's happy to take part in making fun of any religion until it comes to their own.
(*) At the time (he was ill with a stroke) it was unclear if words had been put in his mouth by other figures in the Scientology movement, but I don't see him denying it now.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
>Can you explain the difference for those of us who aren't experts in
>four thousand year old texts?
It's things like:
BAD: Killing someone in a fight or because you wanted to rob them.
GOOD: Killing someone because they wore mixed fibres or smiting your father.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
The big difference between islam and the "church" of scientology is that the latter is an organization, not a belief system. When people talk about scientology, the usually mean the CoS, but in reality, that's conflating two distinct things: there's scientologists who're not part of the CoS (the so-called "free zone").
So comparing the CoS and islam is comparing apples with oranges. What would make sense would be to compare the CoS and, say, al-Quaeda; both of these are murderous cults trying to advance political goals with a "might makes right" approach that completely casts aside any kind of moral or ethical considerations. Same for those who involved in the whole "let's-kill-Rushdie" thing, of course, but those are still distinct from islam as such - they're just a bunch of loonies. Dangerous loonies, yes, but still...
As for scientology as a *belief* system, it's batshit crazy, of course (aliens were brought to Earth millions of years ago in DC-8s, stuffed into volcanoes and blown up with atom bombs, and anyone who tries to remember this will die of pneumonia? wtf?), but not *per se* dangerous than other religious dogma. I personally think it's even crazier than christian, jewish or islamic dogma, for example, although those are pretty crazy as well already, but believing in it does not automatically make you a bad person.
But the belief system doesn't matter, anyway. The CoS is an evil cult because it does evil things, not because of what it believes - or claims to believe, since scientological dogma is just used as a tool of control, anyway. The CoS has never been about anything except power and money, without regard for anyone or anything standing in the way. That's what makes them evil and dangerous.
Well, actually, every Prime Minister since at least Churchhill has disliked the BBC for political reasons, but that's a sign they're doing something right politically. And I doubt the British government wouldn't come kick the shit out of Scientology if it tried to push down the BBC.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom Nevertheless, they don't exist as countries. There is only the United Kingdom. Scotland an England were subsumed as part of the act of union in 1707.
I think if you read Wikipedia more carefully you'll see that the term "constituent country" has no legal basis. Scotland, England and Wales no longer exist as countries and haven't for several hundred years.
Deleted
.. they can not claim it isn't a religion. The church of scientology will fight tooth and nail claiming religious discrimination and they will win.
So rather than claiming that scientology isn't a religion, what can be done to avoid having to give these fraudsters tax benefits and possible government funding?
Simply stipulate that only "open" religions can be given these benefits. That is, only religions in which all the religious texts are freely reproducable and the religious services are open to anyone without payment, will be given full benefits.
This would help against a whole host of other cults it would be easy to argue that only open religions can be considered charities.
The fact of my anonymity doesn't bear on the clear fact of the diminishment of the Scientology organization over the years.
Admittedly, I haven't checked lately, but the last time I saw membership stats they were below 100,000 in the USA.
There is that, but actually I was referring to "Trapped in the Closet," the South Park episode that sends up Scientology directly, including a summary of the Xenu story with the caption "This is what Scientologists Actually Believe".
Which is not to say they don't "deserve" it -- Scientology is quite the heinous creation -- but at this stage it's nothing more than shooting fish in barrels. Scientology was blown wide open by the Time Magazine exposé in the early 90s... after it had already been eviscerated by the IRS and FBI in the 70s and 80s. Dozens of critical documentaries and interviews hit the airwaves in the wake of the FBI raid. Then, the alt.religion.scientology debacle in the mid-90s put several hundred nails in the coffin, as far as Internet exposure goes.
Doing a Scientology-bashing documentary these days is like criticizing Michael Jackson for being weird. It's not thought-provoking, and it isn't really informing anyone, regardless of how fundamentally true it might be.
Thanks for dropping by. Your decision to post anonymously indicates that you are probably a scientologist sent here to astro turf.
I guess this will post will give you a discount during your next dianetics session.
First a few facts:
1. No religion in existence goes after dissenters the way the church of scientology does; yes, it is true that in some third world countries and in the middle east, turning away from islam can get you killed. But in the west and in most westernized nations, there is the rule of law and the law protects people from being targetted by proponents of their religion. But CoS is able to pervert even this system of law in western nations to target even influential dissenters via harassment, and even death.
2. Scientology is perhaps the only religion in the world where the only way to get to its "cures" is by paying a lot of money. Any other religion - Islam, Christianity etc - it is possible to become a muslim or a christian without paying any money.
3. Scientology is also the newest religion on this planet created by Ron Hubbard - a known criminal. LRH's views on using harassment as a way of quelling dissent is well documented.
4. Scientology also copyrights its "scriptures" - the only religion in the world to do that.
In short - you guys are just scamsters trying to pass off what is really a scam as a religion; scientology was created by LRH with the explicit purpose of scamming people.
This amuses me. You're welcome.
"Tu fui, ego eris" - Virgil
In a ten minute TV interview on Sunday morning, the editor of the Panorama series gives some background, including describing some of the techniques the Scientologists used to harass the BBC film crew. Transcript here
www.weird.co.uk/martin
They apparently believe in statistics. I went into a center in Worcester MA in the late 70s to see what they would do. They gave me a not-too-long "Free Personality Test", went and scored it, then came back with the results. They showed me a line graph, with connected points (!) illustrating my score on each of about 9 things. Of course, a first question would be how can you rate 9 distinctly different attributes on one scale? You probably can't, so if you bother to look at the Y axis, you see that it was a Z-scale - or normed values. So it merely shows you where you fall in a group for each of those things, regardless of the actual units. But the really cool trick was that besides being all normed values, the Y-axis was scaled to your results' high and low, not +-3z or full scale. So they circle the lowest point, and tell you they have a course to "fix" that. Only $495 or something like that. Great! I can fix the worst thing in my life for a few hundred bucks! Sounds great! But guess what? In a scaled Y-axis, there's always going to be another "low" that magically appears, and well, shouldn't you just go and fix that one too? Repeat ad nauseum, ad bankruptcy.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
I'm not sure it's fair to say they got fscked by the government.
For one thing, if you recall, they were right. The problem was that at the time, they couldn't prove it sufficiently to defend themselves. But history has shown that they made the right call, and it's entirely possible that they knew they were making the right call at the time but didn't back it up to avoid compromising their sources.
For another thing, although the two top guys stepped down — effectively "doing the decent thing" and taking the hit to protect everyone below them — they left with crowds of hundreds of BBC staff cheering them outside the building, and hundreds more sending them personal messages encouraging them not to go. Name me any other organisation in the world, on the same scale, where the staff publicly show that much loyalty to the guys at the top. Can't? That's why the culture at the Beeb is special in a world full of cookie-cutter journalism and commercial advertising.
Oh, and did we mention that almost all of the other staff who were directly responsible for the original reporting in that case are still working at the BBC in the same or similar roles? Just because they cut the head off, doesn't mean the rest of the beast is dead.
It's a shame they are tending toward "celebrity journalists" like Nick Robinson and Evan Davies these days. There's certainly been a lot of Blair worship in recent days, with some very rose-tinted views of the results of his ten years in power. Bring back Andrew Marr, I say!
But that's about the limit of their political compromise, even now. If it ever comes down to Hubbard vs. Paxman, I know which side I'll be betting on.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Morale-boosting what nows? you've got it all wrong mate, they're simply there to bring in american and japanese tourists. they bring in more stupid tourists every year than a disneyland.
Did they turn down your script or something?
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
In some ways, the BBC in the UK operates like scientology.
You have to pay them money for pretty much the rest of your life, and it's almost impossible to leave.
I guess at a stretch you could say the CoS picked a fight with an organised religion 1000 times stronger than it.
Also, as another poster said, power isn't solely dependent on raw numbers. Finally, even if its potential for damage is more limited that it was during the 70s and 80s, it's all relative, and certainly no excuse for letting it off the hook.
Apologies for another trite Slashdot analogy, but if homocides were down from 3 in 100 to 1 in 100 per year should we just shrug and say "it's not as bad as it used to be"?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
The religions you mention don't plant cameras, get you fired, and sue you until you scream with rage and your family leaves you. Don't conflate.
Scientology isn't hated because it's a wacky religion. It's hated because it's a evil corporation masquerading as a religion. And they always make it personal. Hubbard was a paranoid, insecure, vengeful little gamer twit (yes, he was a geek -- SF writer AND wargamer, probably bad at both), and he made Scientology an expression of his ego. When you deal with a Scientology Sea Org navy member, naval uniform and all, you are dealing with the mentally ill.
And their is a difference between the cute girls taking and giving personality tests in the public orgs and the bastards who join the Sea Org, and no comparison at all with the corporate lawyers who moved in from the top and run the thing.
And religions don't keep their beliefs secret from their own members. That's the critical thing, the moral difference, all Hubbard detestation aside. They don't tell their recruits that they REALLY believe that we are infested with spirits from aliens killed by H-bombs inside of volcanoes by the evil galactic dictator Xenu, and that it will cost them either a lifetime of work or tens of thousands of dollars to find this fact out. It's not a health club, it's a UFO cult.
This is definitely the one thing that struck from the videos posted on Youtube. Tommy Davies was ice-cool under all situations. When he blew outside and he told Sweeney how mad he was, he was in total control. Every word he said, you could very clearly understand. There was no foaming at the mouth, no contortion of the face, nothing. There was no emotion in his face, even if the words coming out of his mouth were all about rage and justice and righteous indignation.
If there are only a few people more like him in the upper echelons of Scientology, they're gonna be around for a long time. There's a word for people like these, and it's sociopath. And judging from the success of another group of sociopaths (CEOs), I suspect we're gonna have to deal with Scientology for a long time. I wonder if it's gonna take something like what happened to the Knights Templar to deal with Scientology.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.