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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.
We're Watching.
Here's an article in which it's argued that Scientology is not a cult: http://www.slate.com/id/2171416/
It doesn't so much make Scientology look better, as make other religions look bad...
Geeks have long memories.
Plus, add in the "Scientology uses Technology" angle (debatable, at best...outright laughable more realizstically), and yeah, there's some geek.interest.to.be.had.
Sue the Pope? Good luck with that. 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.
That said, Scientology's accused of: "extortion, fraud, unfair trading, violation of privacy laws, and unlawfully practicing medicine." I'm not sure that you can accuse Roman Catholicism (as a whole, discounting fringe groups that aren't practicing core doctrine) of most of those.
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
The US government does not officially recognize any organization as a religion. There is the definition of church under section 501(c)(3) of the US tax code as a simplified tax exempt body. But religious organizations themselves are not regarded as tax exempt, just the complicated definition of church as a non profit body. But there are no officially recognized religions in the US.
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.
I was raised in an extremely Christian environment and when I grew up I stopped going to church and rejected their belief system. However, I never once received death threats from the church and for the most part, I believe their intentions were good however misguided I believe them to be. To put it simply, the church I was forced to attend in my childhood never scared me. These people do.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
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 implants.
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 I knew 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.
I'm a Catholic but I deeply dislike the Opus Dei. I happened to be in a school where most staff had unofficial connections with them, and it was hardly bearable, mostly due to their overzealous and fanatical views on religious and related matters.
A CC-licensed illustrated horror novel
No you want a REAL religion, you should be subscribing to Sciencolonogy.
It's the hottest new religion and all the big name Hollywood stars are taking part!
You see, 1,000,000 Jillion years ago, the evil alien overlord Xanus ruled the galaxy and a horrible plague of dysentery broke out among all of the populated planets. To eradicate the plague, he rounded up all sufferers of the plague and piled them into huge toilet bowl shaped vessels (see the Ori from Stargate, they stole the design from us and we will sue in internet court!!) and then dumped them into a huge septic tank he dug here on Earth. They died a horrible death in that pit and their souls came out and now cling to everyone elses souls on earth are all backed up leaving our spirits all gassy and bloated.
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With our cutting edge soul plunging tech we can easily measure the brain to bowel flow of the bodies energies. By reading the life changing book Diarrhetics, written by our esteemed founder Elron Chubbard, you will learn how we can help you plunge your soul clear of these obstructive souls and allow your energies to flow freely. For a small fee of course. Your initiation will come with the first five pages of the book free and a free half roll of our patented toilet paper. If you run out, the free pages of the book should tide you over until you can get to one of our study centers to buy some more. Our study centers are fully stocked with everything you need, including newpapers, magazines and books, all for a nominal fee. Act now because we are having a special deal! You can get one hour in a stall with a door for the price of the ones that come without! Hurry, this offer won't last!
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
You might just want to know what all the noise is about.
Scientology is the 20th Century production of pseudo-religious scientificism in America - much as the LDS church was it's 19th century production. I expect Scientology to be at least as virulent - and ultimately compromised into the mainstream - as its Mormon predecessor. It will even gain them "martyrs" as LDS fallaciously claim for Joseph Smith - beaten to death by a mob he defrauded.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I don't know who made this particular definition "official" but I'd reject any such definition that classifies EVERY non-christian religion as a "cult". Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. ALL meet your #1 criteria; they reject Jesus Christ.
Why is "cult" in quotes? Only because you use it in the vulgar (common) sense. Follow this link for a better understanding.
For future reference: Double-check anything else your church/pastor tells you. SEE Matthew 24:11, 2 Peter 2:1, Isaiah 9:16, 1 John 4:1
Required reading for internet skeptics
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
And at any rate, what does it matter? If one accepts that knowing the truth is a good thing, belief in an absurd mythology is bad no matter where it came from.
I'm going to hell for these postings, aren't I?
Of course, it is very un-PC to point this out. Watch the replies to this comment for gratuitous attacks.
Scientology is a racket, but they have a ways to go before they catch up to "mainstream" religion.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
If the tale of Jonah isn't literally true, what else in the Bible isn't true? Perhaps someone could go through with a yellow highlighter and mark off those parts I should believe, and those parts I can dismiss as mythology. Given that the world's largest religion is based on it, I think knowing which bits are true would be rather important.
My point being that if the Bible is the infallible word of God then there is no room to pick and choose. If the tale of Jonah is a myth then the gospels are suspect as well.
I have no such problem with The Iliad because no one is basing a religion on it. It's just a rip-roaring action adventure and the truth of it matters little.
It is actually a lot simpler than going through the book with a highlighter. As you have pointed out, there are a number of writing styles in use by the various authors of the Old and New Testaments, sometimes the same author may use different writing styles for different books. In general, however, each book is self-consistent.
For instance, the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Old Testament, are written in a number of styles. Genesis and Exodus are largely prose narrative with many figures of speech. Leviticus is largely a book of law. Numbers is intended as a historical account of the beginnings of the Jewish civilisation in Israel. The emphasis in Deuteronomy is of a more spiritual nature, outlining the love relationship of the Lord with his people.
Likewise, in the New Testament, we have the Gospel according to Luke, a doctor, which begins:
"Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophillus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught."
and we have the Gospel according to John, which focuses on signs of Jesus' identity and mission, presenting the facts as he saw them, and explaining further the meanings behind what occurred. Also by John (generally accepted as the same John, but potentially John the Presbyter), we have the book of Revelation, which is the only book in the Christian bible to be composed of entirely apocalyptic literature.
What I am trying to show is that there are sound reasons for not taking every word of the Bible literally. The authors did not intend each book to be taken literally and the writing styles show this. For more information, many recent publications of the Bible include introductions to each book, and some "study" Bibles offer commentaries from biblical scholars. Zondervan publishing usually include such introductions at the beginning of each book, especially in the New International Version (NIV) translation.