Slashdot Mirror
Belgium May Prosecute the Church of Scientology
sheean.nl writes "A Belgian prosecutor recommended after a 10-year investigation that the government prosecute the church of Scientology. The church is accused of being a criminal organization involved in extortion, fraud, unfair trading, violation of privacy laws, and unlawfully practicing medicine. Both the Belgian and the European branches of the church should be brought to court, according to the authorities. The investigation was started in 1997 after former Scientologists complained about intimidation and extortion by the church. Other European countries such as Germany have problems with Scientology, but in the US it is officially recognized as a religion. Scientology has 10 million members including high-profile followers such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta." Scientology has long used heavy-handed legal and other tactics to suppress opposition on the Net.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand... No so very hard at all
I happen to think that talking unsubstantiated nonsence and practising extortion and fraud is a hallmark of all religion...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I have absolutely no problem with these guys believing what they want, or even doing as they please within the confines of the law. However, once they start over stepping the bounds of their local laws, individuals should be prosecuted. I stress individuals.
A religion doesn't become legitimate until the people are persecuted for a little while (see the Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, etc)
Why don't we all just ignore the cult and let it die on it's own? Apparently the 10 million figure is highly exaggerated, which makes people think they are more of a threat than they really are. High up, Scientology WANTS to be persecuted so they can energize their followers and gain the sympathy of others.
It might be something to do with this. Scientologists issued a DCMA takedown notice against /. after part of OT III was posted on here by a random user.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
In 1998 or so they where already being cataloged as a sect, not a church, which is important here (state money and benefits I suppose). It is estimated that Belgium has 8000 Scientologists, which is pretty lousy on 10 million, but still, with the headquarters, it could be painful for them.
The biggest difference is how different religions react to critique.
Most mainstream churches in the judeo-christian family tend to bitch and moan about being misrepresented but usually leave it at that.
We'll ignore the Spanish Inquisition because that was centuries ago.
Islam will try to have you killed.
We'll also ignore how much more personable Islam was compared to the crusaders because that was also centuries ago.
Scientology will try to kill you without actually pulling a trigger by bombarding you with lawsuits and dirty tricks.
You can't sue the Pope. As the Bush administration rightly pointed out (and you have no idea how rare it is for me to agree with that administration), in the U.S. the Pope is considered a foreign head-of-state, with all of the legal protections that that entails. We could invade the Vatican and bomb the Pope, but we could not sue him in a U.S. court of law any more than we could the Prime Minister of the U.K.
Tell that to Manuel Noriega
There are certain arguments that no one ever wins. Examples of such arguments are: Religion, Politics, Sexuality and the Infallibility of Cowboy Neal.
If you have a religious zealot who thinks what he is doing is "God's work", I doubt anyone would be successful convincing him otherwise.
Apply that same logic to the Church of Scientology. Here we have nutjobs who believe that space aliens are the cause of all the problems in the world today. If people are believing such nonsense, what else are they capable of believing?
This coming down on Scientology thing for doing business as usual won't stop their practices. It will just drive it underground in Belgium or spur international outrage over those "poor Belgian Scientologists".
The game.
Scientology is so bizarre that I can't tell if you're being facetious or not.
What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Here's a full list of religious groups considered "cults" by the Belgian government. It includes Quakers (I am one), the Amish, 7th Day Adventists, Hasidic Jews, and others. Before you cheer their attitude to the Scientologists, consider the collateral damage.
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Religion (n) A large, popular cult...
-- Fuck Beta
Well, unless you count the phrase "In God We Trust" on the US dollar bill. Or the fact that, throughout government, people take oaths on the Christian bible. Or the fact that the phrase "On Nation, Under God" exists in the Pledge of Allegiance (though, thankfully, for the most part, people are no longer being *forced* to recite it). Or...
But yeah, you're right, there's no officially recognized religion(s) in the US. None at all.
Scientology is the creation of a science fiction writer's imagination. When he had a best seller with "Dianetics", he decided he could make some money (and keep the money) if he made a religion out of his dreams.
As a teenager in the late 1960s I investigated Scientology as I did many other things. They sent me literature which I read. It quickly became apparent to me (a teenager) that money was the real object of L. Ron's religion. And I (a teenager) wanted no part of it.
If a teenager can understand that Scientology is hogwash, bullshit and the work of Satan, what does that tell you about adults who believe it? I've lived a successful life without Scientology. And I got to keep my money (except for that portion that the government steals from me.)
Fata viam invenient.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Speaking from personal accounts, those who take on the $ciclos must be greatly prepared. My good friend Keith Henson is still serving his sentence for "Interfering with a religion" in Riverside, CA. He's a good example of what the $ciclos can and *will* do to keep those who would oppose them in check.
I personally disagree with the fundamentals of scientology, I'm Wiccan.
Thomas A. Knight
Author of The Time Weaver
Atheists are not a singular group with a common theological stance. In fact, our common world view amounts to "We don't accept the existence of gods". Beyond that, atheists can diverge pretty heavily. his is unlike Scientologists, Catholics, Muslims and the like.
It is unlike them in the content of what is agreed upon - not the divergence. How many different sects of Christianity and Islam are there? Some of them are extremely different from one another and many of them have some really brilliant people in their midst. Just because you can find a few daft theists hardly makes all theists, or even the majority, daft.
Your reaction to the criticism in the gp is a great opportunity to learn how this argument looks from both sides.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
There, fixed that for you. Please don't quote people and modify the quotation.
I did not, in fact, mean to use the word "cult", as that word is rarely used by any two people to mean the same thing. It can refer to any small religion (which is arguably the correct usage in the modern sense). It can refer to any body of religious practices (this is an archaic usage). It can refer to organizations that use religion purely as cover to perform illegal or immoral acts (Jonestown comes to mind) or otherwise separate membership from the rest of society (e.g. the Unification Church). It can refer to religions which are not considered "acceptable alternatives" by the mainstream (e.g. Christians in the U.S. referring to Paganism). It can refer to any religion that is not the speaker's (I've heard many U.S. Baptists refer to Roman Catholicism this way). It's just not a useful word.
Doesn't sound any more bizarre than Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Deleted
It doesn't matter whether it's a 'cult' or not.
It matters that they use extortion to silence critics. Repeatedly. They accuse them of child porn, they have them arrested on bogus charges, they break into their houses and harass them at work. They've even kidnapped 'errant members' before, and at least such one person has actually disappeared while in their custody.
It has nothing to do with the rather surreal beliefs of their religion.
Incidentally, whether not something is a cult also has nothing to with the beliefs. It is simply a list of things like 'requires members to cut off contact with family' and 'uses sleep/food deprivation as a form of mind control' and stuff like. Scientology uses some of the cult tricks, and not others, so whether or not it actually is a cult is debatable, but that is not why they run into legal trouble, they run into legal trouble because parts of their organization operate illegally in attacking critics.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Why? Hubbard was widely accused of similar stuff when he was alive. The whole Scientology/Dianetics thing has attracted the attention of The Law from day one. The only difference is that Hubbard would claim that he was being persecuted by the mental health community (who hated him for "curing" mental illness, depriving them of their livelihood), whereas Scientology is a "church" and thus can claim religious persecution.
Plenty rich. However, the Church's wealth was accrued with somewhat more complexity than $cientologies, as anyone with even the vaguest understanding of the lengthy (and sometimes horrific) history of the Church would know.
The Church most certainly was not founded as a money-making scheme, but rather was the scion of some semi-legendary 1st Century holy man's ramblings. It's wealth was gained, by and large, not by forcing its members to pay big bucks (let's remember, for most of its history, the vast majority of Catholics did not possess anything approaching a disposable income), but rather because it became politically intertwined with the various European principalities, for which it (and the principalities) managed to accrue rather large fortunes in money, treasure and art (in some cases by pillaging other people, notably those poor Eastern Orthodox bastards).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
OK. I visited your links. Now I have to wonder if he's a fifth-columnist, in which case I'd have to say, "Nicely done!"
But see posts later in the discussion, regarding a Slate post that CoS isn't any weirder than others, just newer.
http://www.slate.com/id/2171416/
At some level, religion of any stripe disturbs me, as I see it all as both irrational and irrelevant. That said, at least some religions seem able to at least maintain a bit of dignity in their celebrations, and not *completely* insult the intelligence of their followers. I thought lost tribes of Israel present in central America (contrary to genetic evidence, but then we're not speaking of people who would believe in genetics), and wearing underwear that seems to serve the function of a wearable Post It note was a bit odd.
Now I'm trying to quantify the limits of weird, thinking of how reincarnation would rate, etc. At some point, my head will explode. Have you seen Tim Burton's _Mars Attacks_? Yeah, like that.
What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.
That's the thing isn't it? Scientology is bizarre and ridiculous, and yet how can one criticize it without casting doubt on all religions? How can one say that stories about volcanoes, space ships, and H bombs are silly, but being swallowed by a fish and then regurgitated after 3 days is not?
Scientology serves as the "Reductio ad absurdum" for all religion. This may explain why so many feel so uncomfortable about it.
The Jews, Christians, and Muslims don't charge $360,000 for it, nor do they sue people who hand out copies of their scriptures.
It's not the doctrines, it's the ensuing lawsuits, that mark the difference between a religion and a racketeering operation. Why does God need a starship? Same reason he needs a team of copyright lawyers: he doesn't, and anyone claiming he does is a fraud.
But... things on the religion front are getting better. For example a typical Catholic can marry a Protestent without causing much grief, and it's no longer unusual for them to be buried in the same cemetery. This is a huge change over a short period of time.
A good way to judge a religion or social group is how they react to those who don't follow the exact same set of beliefs. Ostracizing friends and family for this reason is not something I find to be acceptable. Also, an open door policy is something I enjoy in any religious group. Outside oversight helps to prevent abuses of power.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
There is something profoundly wrong with societies where somebody like Keith who has lived a productive, generous, pioneering life can have their liberty curtailed because they piss off somebody with greater access to The Law's capacity to pursue single dubious issues against anybody who has really lived.
But we should place more blame on the personal empire builders who are ensuring untrammeled expansion of The Law-Politics-Mass Media axis of evil^Hauthoritarianism than even the criminally motivated cult which has become so good at exploiting our excessive 'authorities'.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
Unless you can come back with a solid argument, I'm going to have to conclude that any resemblance between Scientology and mainstream psychology is either coincidental or contrived for the purpose of borrowing credibility from a real science. Also, considering that "Dianetics is the secular predecessor of Hubbard's 'applied religious philosophy,' Scientology, and [is] still employed and disseminated by the Church of Scientology,"(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianet
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
While Belgium's treatment of Opus Dei and other 'cults' may be hard, I don't see how this is relevent to Scientology. This action doesn't look to be about the religion. It seems to be about the church itself. If I started a buddhist sect that killed people, conducted violent "mediation" sessions, threatened anyone who left, broke up families and drained peoples bank accounts and did all for profit, I would expect to be prosecuted in any country where the rule of law is respected. And the prosecution wouldn't be a persecution of religion, buddhism would still be perfectly acceptable but the church would be prosecuted.
Bringing freedom of religion into this discussion is bullshit, because the CoS is not the religion, it is the church. If the CoS renounced persecution and violence and not required payment for instruction, they wouldn't be charged with being a criminal organisation.
You may not be able to separate church and state, but at least try to separate church and religion.
I don't therefore I'm not.
... most other religions understand that their old stories are mythology, meant to explain truths about the world and human nature on a non-literal level.
And they're usually OK with it if you "expose" these beliefs.
And they're usually fine with it if you want to walk away and no longer believe what they believe.
Scientologists actually believe this Xenu shit.
And if you try and walk away, you're toast.
If you reveal their secrets, you're toast.
All over a religion that was probably started on a dare to see how much money could be made.
Now we get to see if they can take on an entire government.
Game on!
Hm. The Catholic church is one of the richest and most powerful organizations in the world. They used to (and other churches still do) skim off a percentage of their members' wages. That tithe used to be law in many places.
I don't think the Catholic church was ever as sue happy as the Scientologists though. They just imprisoned or burned the people they didn't like.
Yes, actually, it does. When dealing with religion in terms of how ridiculous they are, it is impossible and illogical to be entirely objective in your analysis, and it just so happens that, at least by the standards of a great majority of people, scientology is far more outlandish than Abrahamic religions for many reasons.
I am Spartacus
Though an argument could be made otherwise (crusades, inquisition, etc.), for the most part (IMO) religion has benefited mankind as a whole.
The main points (in major summation) to most religions are: Be nice, and worship X deity. Only the former really matters.
I like the way Douglas Adams puts it: And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything. Though I don't agree with any given religion's beliefs, I do agree that being nice to yourself and others is a good thing. If a religion says that it does such and practices doing so, I'm cool with that religion.
Because one of the tenets of this cult is to infiltrate federal governments throughout the world to increase the power and influence of the cult. They also do a host of personal intimidation tactics to critics and former members of the cult.
I'm not saying they should get the attention of law enforcement groups because they're a cult. But I am saying that when a cult acts like a criminal organization, they should not be ignored just because they are a cult.
That's not the quote. The quote is more along the lines of "the lowest animals in god's sight are unbelievers" (ie: those that do not believe in God). Not much different than, say,
"In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:" (2 Th.1:8)
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible has a pretty nice laundry list of all the horrible things in the Bible (and the Quran and the book of Mormon too, by the way). The bottom line is that these books were all written by a bunch of angry people living in the desert (christ, if I lived in the Middle East I'd be pissed too), and people should pick and choose the bits of them that don't suck.
The real problem is that the Muslims actually believe all the crap in the Quran, while most Christians these days only pay lip service to the crap in the Bible.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
At least Belgium is looking to treat it for what it is a money making corporation and not a religion or even a cult. The cynicism of that corporation is beyond normal reason, they abhor psychiatrists and psychologists because apparently those professions directly threaten their main revenue source, by curing those individuals suffering from mental diseases, the preferred target of the scientology corporation.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
At least Belgium is looking to treat it for what it is a money making corporation and not a religion or even a cult.
I have no idea why the difference even matters, illegal acts should remain illegal acts whether you're a religion or not.
Also that story sounds so stupid it could have been a combination of an anime plotline and George Lucas.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
So have Christians, not all that long ago. The United States of America were more of less founded by people who were persucted because they dared to disagree with the established churches in their home countries, weren't they?
...' The truth, however, is that Muslims, just like Christians are simply people, and just like with Christians, most are tolerant, kind and open-minded, unlike you.
And apart from that - the way you say this makes it sound as if this is what all Muslims do: 'The Muslims have
And don't start quoting the Qur`an at me either - the Bible contains some hair-raising crap all of its own, even in what Jesus is alleged to have said. The morale of all this is that it is not what your religious book says that counts, it is what you choose to do in your life. Jesus never said that all you had to do was go and have water splashed on your head, and then you would go free from the eternal punishment, no matter WTF you did afterwards.
To be honest, that's a tiny percentage of Muslims doing that. EVERY Scientologist leaving gets shit for leaving.
"The official definition of a cult is an organization that rejects Jesus Christ, uses their own "scriptures" as superior to the King James Bible, discourages their members from reading the Bible, and then poses as a religion. The Co$ fits that definition to the tee, and they are also a criminal organization in many peoples' eyes, despite the celebrity attachments. Good to see the Belgium is brave enough to prosecute Co$ as such." Bullshit. That's not a definition of cult in ANY dictionary, legal or layman's. Grow up.
The only source of the number leads straight back to the cthurch of Scientology which can provide no meaningful data to support that. It's highly suspect that they claim they can't, because the whole organization is obsessed with "stats" thanks to Hubbard, and every Thurdays at 2pm a report goes uplines of how many people on course, how much money, how many new people signed up, how many Stress Tests, how much money, etc.
Even one of their apologists, Dr. J. Gordon Melton said: Ref: Elaine, Jarvik, Scientology: Church now claims more than 8 million members, 2004-09-18.One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
ISNT THE ONES THEY STOLE GOT THEM AS NON-PROFIT TAX-FREE BULLSHIT?
Yes indead it does seem fishy that they broke into the IRS and the IRS still declared them a non-profit, and I'm sure that many of the IRS agents as people hated doing that but if they met the legal requirements than their hands were tied
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
My people have been persecuted since the great purge known as Order 66. I have been pursued halfway across the galaxy by a sinister former Jedi named Darth Vader. Please purchase my manifesto and join the Jedi order, all for the low introductory price of $19.95. As you evolve as a Jedi Knight, I will continue to educate you. This crucial second course is a bargain at $599.99 and the third may require you to get a home equity loan, but you NEED it!) Together, we will defeat Lord Vader and the evil mastermind Darth Sidious, and we shall bring harmony in the Force and peace to the galaxy.
That's my religion. You got something to say? I have an army of lawyers waiting to sue you left and right. And I require tax exempt status. Thank you.
With a strong-arm over the town he ran like a fiefdom.
Except that Hubbard lived in exile, isolated aboard a yacht and not killed, there are many parralells of someone defrauding the gullible with a false religion to personal advantage.
Smith's followers have tried for more than 150 years to cover up his origin in the New England Spiritualist/Seance movement.
Real religion I have no quibble with. "False gold exists, only because real gold can be found".
CoS and LDS are pseudo-religions, who's origins are related more closely to the material gold of coins, than the spiritual gold of inner experience and vision.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Yeah, but Scientology is more of a pyramid scheme than a religion.