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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!
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.
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
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.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Religion (n) A large, popular cult...
-- Fuck Beta
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
To be honest, that's a tiny percentage of Muslims doing that. EVERY Scientologist leaving gets shit for leaving.