Slashdot Mirror
"Anonymous" Takes Scientology Protest to the Streets
This past Sunday members of the group "Anonymous" that has been running an attack on the church of Scientology took their battle from the tubes of the internet to the pavement of real life, staging a protest outside the central Phoenix Church of Scientology. "The protesters said they gathered Sunday in lieu of the birthday of Lisa McPherson, a Scientologist once cared for by church staffers. Her 1995 death sparked media attention and a civil wrongful death suit against a branch of the Church of Scientology. A wrongful death suit by her family was a public-relations nightmare for the church for years until it was settled in 2004. The Church of Scientology declined to comment on the Phoenix protests. It did provide a news release calling members of Anonymous cyber-terrorists."
This was happening all over the world. According to wikinews (last time I checked), there were 9200 participants worldwide (although sadly, only 40 here in Nashville).
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No obvious fairy tales?
The video that they forced off of YouTube can, thanks to Gawker, be found here.
... I get a little frightened that people around me think like that. You may be able to argue that it's little different than Christianity or Islam but what I really fear are the people who are part of Sea Org or offshore from the states and may have given up their rights as a civilian & American to have some sort of special standing in this group.
... why are there so few publications attacking Scientology? There is definitely something scary about a very powerful organization and if they have people dumping money into them, I do not doubt they are capable of silencing anyone (unfortunately, even Slashdot).
As a non-scientologist, this is scary. Possibly the most scary part of it is the editing. I have no problem with people having convictions but when he talks about "fightin' the fight" and "people needing them" and "people depending on them"
Whatever the case, I will not ever affiliate myself with a Scientologist and after reading Have You Lived Before This Life, I will do everything in my power to convince those that I know and love to avoid Scientology.
The thing that concerns me about Scientology is that after reading some books by Hubbard about it, I have found very little criticism of it. A book & some articles with the most notable one being Time Magazine. It seems like such an easy target. It takes seconds to find books criticizing Catholics or Muslims
My work here is dung.
Anon doesnt have an issue with the religious views of the church. They have an issue with the church itself which is why in one of there recent videos they talk about the "Free Zone" (People who follow the beliefs of the religion but are not affiliated with Scientology) which they have no issues with.
IANAL, but I'm fairly certain they would need to reveal their identities in order to do that, which would really the defeat the whole purpose. Besides, think of the hassle it would cause for them to have to come up with a new name with the same degree of awesome!
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
Here you go sir. http://www.flickr.com/photos/23637168@N05/sets/72157603887577097/
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Interestingly, it's not the beliefs of Scientology that were being protested--if you read through some of the more recent Anonymous releases, you'll note that they emphasize that it's the organization that calls itself the Church of Scientology that's being protested, on account of its practices.
Anonymous has explicitly noted that the "Free Zone"--that is, the Scientologists outside the organization--are just fine and dandy.
O'course, the "Free Zone" doesn't charge for its teaching...
But I don't think the antagonism against psychiatry is what you think it is--I think it's more a control structure (given that the auditing, in essence, imparts a codependent relationship between the auditee and the auditor (and by extension, the CoS)). Also worth noting is that the founder, Mr. Hubbard, had a very distinct antipathy towards the profession, and which created certain aspects of Scientology specifically to counter standard psychiatric practice.
I would note that, while not a member per se of Anonymous, I do think that their efforts against Scientology are a good thing, and were carried out remarkably peacefully and with remarkably good organization.
(I've also heard there's more planned for 3/15--beware the Ides of March!)
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Xenu.net is a good place to learn about all of this.
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Yep, L. Ron Hubbard, to be precise; sci-fi author: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard
Requiem for the American Dream
As has been stated on the Raid Wiki, Anonymous is not protesting against the religion of Scientology itself, Anonymous is protesting against the organisations behind it, primarily the Church of Scientology, RTC and OSA.
I believe you mean DC-8's -- but without the propellers...
Oops! The DC-8 was and is a pure jet aircraft. No propellers.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Easy. You talk to the people who've left it.
Voiceless
Thats one. There are hundreds, if not thousands, more. Including the niece of David Miscavish (the current leader of scientology).
Come on people, the information is out there. You can easily take a balanced view by READING the accounts of the hundreds of people who've been victimized. Look up Paulette Cooper. Shes still alive today to tell her story of being harassed and sued for 15 straight years.
.
They wouldn't win. You can only win libel damages if you can prove harm to your reputation. Anonymous aren't saying who they are. Therefore there is no reputation to be harmed.
True, but there is one major difference between the confessional and an auditing session:
The regulations of the Catholic church are very strict that what is said in the confessional -stays- in the confessional under all circumstances (except for a -very- restricted few).
The Church of Scientology -says- that what is said stays confidential, but routinely uses any information obtained during an audit as either a method of coercing the auditee to take more auditing sessions, to refrain from leaving the Church of Scientology, or to attack the ex-Scientologist when they have left with blackmail, or ruining their reputation in the community.
This has been documented by nearly every ex-scientologist--sometimes, all three instances.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
To me, "vigilante justice" means "hanging".
I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing people exercising their LEGAL right to protest.
You can claim it is "hate", but that's just your claim.
Do the research and see the instances of abuse by Scientologists. Including brainwashing.
Well, someone did empty the database of religiousfreedomwatch.org (the Scientology organization's libel-spewing rag page)... someone almost certainly associated with Anonymous. But the difference between Anonymous and the Scientology organization is that the Scientology organization consists of legally incorporated entities, while Anonymous is just a name applied to a bunch of individuals acting alone. No one gave the order for religiousfreedomwatch.org to be injected and emptied, but Hubbard and Miscavige give all kinds of orders, and the law recognizes their hierarchy. The Scientology organization can absolutely be sued and dismantled. Anonymous can only be chipped away one member at a time.
(and no, it was not me)
Those of the Hindu faith read the Sruti and the Smriti.
Ran into a guy once who was in debt to Scientology. Apparently for a massive amount of money. It was very important to him to pay this off and to give them even more to "advance" within Scientology. I did not ask him but from everything I have read the story changes as you advance. These factors, in addition to what was mentioned above combine to separate Scientology from any major religion (in their current forms).
It should be trivial to separate Scientology from real religions. Whether or not you give genuine religions a tax break on property based on this is another story and one I don't particularly care about.
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
In Hinduism there isn't a text that is a must for its' followers. One can get to Eternal Bliss(tm) without reading the sacred texts. The Vedas are arguably the oldest sacred texts that are still used.
The Scientology organization is not a religion. It is a deceptive, dangerous cult worthy of as much hate as anyone could possibly throw at it. The Scientology organization defrauds people -- not even for a 10% or 20% tithe, but for hundreds of thousands of dollars, for as much money as it can take. The Scientology organization actively prevents people from receiving life-saving medical and psychiatric care. It tells people that their money is better spent on more e-meter auditing than on chemotherapy. When people try to leave, it harasses them, follows them, libels them, and not infrequently murders them. When people leave the organization and try to find others to practice their beliefs, the Scientology organization sues and attacks them.
Yes, there have been other religious organizations that have done things like this. And we stop them whenever we can.
You dismiss the objections to Scientology only because you have either not read them carefully, or you are being paid by the Scientology organization to dismiss them.
Your words are quite obviously not those of someone who has tried to leave Scientology, and you are deeply wrong.
Oh, I got the anonymous coward reference. It's just that these guys are taking on one of the most vicious modern cults.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Because this "bullshit religion" causes real, physical harm to the citizens of the country. It's not just people believing what they want, they actively enforce punishments against people in their "religion" for not following dogma, and against people outside of the religion for ever saying anything bad about it. Live and let live is a fine idea, but Scientology isn't doing the "let live" part of that bargain.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
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
The Xenu story is revealed only when the scientologist has paid enough to get to OT III level (OT stands for operating thetan). It's not until you get to OT VIII (which very few ever do) that you learn:
For tons of fun and some incredibly bad science-fiction, you can read all the top-secret Scientology documents here. They were released as part of a court case.
They were outside of Seattle's Scientology building also. http://forums.enturbulation.org/viewtopic.php?t=1806&highlight=seattle
Well, yeah, you're right (and I knew this, growing up Catholic). The Church interprets the Bible as requiring faith and good works in order to achieve salvation. If you're not following the Church's interpretation and related doctrine, sorry, no salvation for you (although not necessarily an automatic ticket on the bullet-train to heck, either, unlike some flavours of Protestantism).
For the politicians to do anything, they need to think it will get them votes (i.e have popular support) or alternatively be of benefit to them (shares in industries, backhanders etc). Scientology is very unprofitable for anyone to deal with.
The mainstream media for the most part give them a wide berth, leading to a lack of public awareness. Out of interest I asked some older people I know what they thought the CoS was; a lot thought it was a Christian spin-off with a scientific tilt. The BBC have not yet even noted the fact 500 protestors gathered in London (let alone the fact ~8000 mobilised simulatenously around the world). Sure there were more important stories, but the fact is they managed to find far less notable filler stories to tell the world. My guess is it's a taboo subject they don't want to go near after the CoS's attack on informative Panorama investigation. Same applied with many other major media outlets who dodged it or downplayed it.
Still at least here in the UK the London Police supported the Anons, I distinctly heard one officer (after being harassed to do something by a Cultist) walk off to another and say 'fucking freaks'.
Hopefully the media will have no choice but to approach the subject as more people get involved in the movement against the crazy cult. Once they get onboard you can guarantee the Politicians will begin to notice.
>>It's a religion; therefore, I guarantee it isn't accurate.
>Until you can answer the question of what was there before the big bang, and what was there before that, and what was there before that, ad infinitum, that is a debatable statement.
Not really. Every 'religion' I'm aware of makes claims that are factually inaccurate. The god-of-the-gaps is most certainly not the god in the bible, to koran, the torah, or the secret tomes of Lron. Nor is Spinoza's god. It's really just the last retreat of reluctant pseudo-agnostics.
The article here left out a few salient details. Like the death threats. I'd say these retards are pretty much the epitome of forum trash.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
That is completely wrong, and likely an attempt to Karma whore with a quick uninformed search.
That is just a classification, 'Sruti' essentially means those scriptures that have been passed down directly from God to man, while 'Smriti' would be collected ancient wisdom.
There are a number of books holy to Hindu faith, primarily the Gita, the Vedas, and the Upanishads.
~IAA Hindu
Get a free bible: http://www.freebibles.net/
Or Read or download one online with thousands of actually very useful footnotes and references: http://www.bible.org/
Get a free Koran: http://www.freekoran.com/
Get a free Book of Morman: http://www.mormon.org/bookofmormon
Estimated cost to get to read all the Scientology "holy" documents: $350,000.
That was a name that was given to them by Fox News about (18?) months ago to describe the people on anonymous image boards and/or *chans, IRC nets, and such that were griefing people IRL and online (Tom Green, Hal Turner, MySpace and LJ hacks, and so forth).
This name had been taken on in pride by its adherents as a banner of unification among these Internet communities. This war with Co$ is their latest and most ambitious project. It has also drawn in people from the sidelines who might have not agreed with their earlier tactics but would like to participate now that target is deemed worthy, one can suppose.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=3445882&page=2
Quote: After 9/11, the church received a commendation from the New York Fire Department for its relief efforts, but critics accused it of applying therapies such as rhythmic massages that some mental health professionals considered medically dubious.
"The public needs to understand that the Scientologists are using this tragedy to recruit new members," Michael M. Faenza, the president of the National Mental Health Association said in 2001. "They are not providing mental health assistance."
In Minneapolis, the group said it's working with the Red Cross. Yet members of the Red Cross working at the disaster zone questioned by ABC News weren't aware of the Church's assistance.
They show up, use the fact that they show up to make themselves look good, and proceed to basically get in the way and hand out Dianetics, pamphlets, and generally intercept you before you think about going to a mental health practitioner to handle the shell shock. It's really slimy, like ambulance chasers.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
But how many upper level college science classes have you actually participated in?
10-20, I should guess, mostly biology and biochemistry. I've worked for a couple of years in labs, too.
I've taken a few especially in astronomy and it's mostly made up malarkey.
Yeah, I suppose that's why it's commonly understood that your computer runs on phlogiston - science just confirms the same old theories regardless of the evidence, like you said.
I suspect if you had paid better attention in your science classes, instead of writing the whole thing off as "malarkey", you'd be better informed. As it is you're an astounding example of the kind of ignorance so closely associated with your ideology.
We have white dwarf stars, but the universe isn't old enough for them to exist.
This is nonsense, since it's by the age of white dwarf stars that we measure the age of the universe (and it's by the amount that they've cooled that we measure the age of white dwarfs.)
It doesn't take all that long for a star to reach white dwarf, so there's no inconsistency with the existence of white dwarf stars and a 14 billion year old universe. There are no black dwarf stars, and that is a function of the youth of our universe; that's probably where you got confused.
There are multiple examples of a such occurrences to disprove almost all science.
Funny, then, that you could only give one false example. I suspect all your other examples would be the same - things you've misunderstood or been misinformed about, not actual problems with the science. My guess is that you're simply not well-informed enough to actually understand what it is that science doesn't know, currently.
And yes there is a mathematical formula to prove the existence of God.
No, there's not.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!