Wikileaks Airs Scientology Black Ops

An anonymous reader alerts us to new material up on Wikileaks: 208 scanned pages (in one PDF) relating to the Church of Scientology and its former "Office of Special Affairs" employee (and subsequent apostate) Frank Oliver. "The documents are dated between 1986 and 1992 inclusive, when, according to the file, Frank Oliver was declared a 'suppressive person' and excommunicated. Frank Oliver should be able to verify the material and has appeared in the media before on subjects relating to the church. Starting on page 107, the document shows that at the time of writing the Church of Scientology was still actively engaged in black propaganda (especially concerning psychiatry), 'fair game' and infiltration."

Comments

Get 'em while they're hot

[Carnildo]

Make sure you get your copy before the Scientologists take the site down.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[aarggh]

The official course of action for COS in cases like these is set down by elron himself, basically sue, sue, harass, and then sue some more regardless of winning or losing. And unfortunately they have so much sway that sending multiple C&D's to sites/ISP's will cause most sites to drop any links or references anyway as they are too intimidated by the COS. Note that by "COS" I am of course referring to the "Cult of Scientology", as no-one could ever confuse this group with any modern day religion!

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[junglee_iitk]

Some one summaries the controversial lines please, so that we can continue hot Sceintology bashing...

Ugh... I hate PDF... it makes me look like someone interested in actually reading TFA...

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if they'll care if they do. They're set up in many different countries with mirrors across the world for a reason - because they *expect* every organization they mention to try to shut them down. Won't work. The cult might bring down a server or two, but they'll just pop back up as quickly as they can and in the mean time alternate servers will take the burden.

I know the cult is sue-happy and has successes under its belt, but wikileaks is set up *specifically* for this. The documents are out, they're on servers worldwide already, and a dozen bit torrents as well. There is no way to suppress this even if they were to somehow take down all of wikileaks.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[dwater]

> as no-one could ever confuse this group with any modern day religion!

I'm curious; why wouldn't you confuse it with a religion? What is a 'modern day' religion?

I ask these questions as a Christian myself, and a regular old boring protestant one at that.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[dwater]

...so that we can continue hot Sceintology bashing... I was thinking something along those lines. There seems to be a lot of 'bashing' happening on /. lately. I wonder if such articles get more posts and therefore more advertising revenue, or something.

All we need is for there to be a Chinese-Scientology link and we'll have the most commented-on story ever.

Hrm. I wonder if there are any stats on /. stories - ie which story received the most comments, the most highly rated comments, the most 'funny', the most 'flame bate'/etc/etc. That'd be interesting, don't you think? So, interesting, there's probably already a page somewhere on it that I haven't seen yet (I'm rarely the first to think of these things).

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[The One and Only]

Note that by "COS" I am of course referring to the "Cult of Scientology", as no-one could ever confuse this group with any modern day religion!

Indeed: whatever other tactics they use, Scientology doesn't use hangings or suicide bombings to silence their critics and apostates.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[complete loony]

If I asked you what you believe, you would point me to materials I can read, tell me yourself, or point me to someone else who can explain it better.

Scientology forces you to pay lots of money and undergo questionable interrogations before they will trust you to with their secrets. By which point you have made a huge emotional and financial investment. So it's unlikely you would question what you are being told anyway.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Marful]

Probably because it is classed as a "Cult" and not a "Religion" due to the secretive nature of the core teachings, ceremonies, inner workings, etc, etc.

Oh and the fact that the "founder" pretty much straight up acknowledges that he made up the fictitious "religion" *cough*Cult*cough* to sell books and make money.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[aarggh]

Without starting a flame war on who has the best imaginary friend, and while there are many valid points raised as to the validity of reilgion with regards to suicide bombings, hangings, etc, I should have generalized more along the lines of "modern day, somewhat civilized" religions. In other words religions that over the millennium have evolved from the original (somewhat fairly hideous and violent) sect beginnings to what most western based religions are now, which for all their faults generally try to be a positive source of strength and support in todays society. Unlike specifically the money making machine that is the COS built on a Sci-Fi story as part of a bet, that routinely victimises and harasses any form of opposition, sometimes to their deaths. Thanks to living in democracies, people can voice their opinion that the COS is being picked on, or question how is it different to any modern day religion, and so on, but I would not expect that the vast majority of people in the western world would even remotely consider suicide bombings, hangings, persecution, etc, to be the norm in religion. And for that same reason, I don't think it unreasonable to consider the "documented and recorded" behaviour and practices of the COS falls most certainly more into the organised cult area than a western based church. Especially given that people have no excuse to not know more about COS with the release of large amounts of information legally and illegaly. Sometimes people confuse playing Devil's Advocate with being pedantic.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[ArcherB]

Scientology doesn't use hangings or suicide bombings to silence their critics and apostates. Are you sure?

Follow this link (http://youtube.com/watch?v=LYnu5Q6ONbo#) to see ex-members speak about their experiences with Scientology. Included among the commentors are the author who was framed for bomb threats and attempted to have put in a mental institution, and a former Scientologist Internal Security officer who spent 4 years spying on, intimidating, threatening, and attempting to ruin the lives of those who would criticize the "Church". In this video, ex-members accuse the organization of mind control techniques, totalitarianism, manipulation, and various forms of terrorism

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[aarggh]

If they've been proven to be lairs, wouldn't that then fall into the realm of common sense?

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[ArcherB]

All we need is for there to be a Chinese-Scientology link and we'll have the most commented-on story ever. Actually, it would have to be Evolution denying Chinese illegally tapping the phone lines of Scientologists causes Global Warming.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[jonaskoelker]

All we need is for there to be a Chinese-Scientology link and we'll have the most commented-on story ever. I for one (captcha: wisely) welcome our new Chinese DRM-loving Scientologist lawyer-wielding terrorism-inclined Vista-running meme-loving robot overlords. Netcraft says they're not eligible for being confirmed dead, as no robot was ever alive.

Now that's what I call a good story.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[inviolet]

Probably because it is classed as a "Cult" and not a "Religion" due to the secretive nature of the core teachings, ceremonies, inner workings, etc, etc.

As far as I can see of how people actually use the terms 'cult' and 'religion'...

• It's a cult if its founder is still alive, or is recently dead.
• It's a religion if the founder has been dead so long that his adherents have had time to rewrite his character.
• (In no case is any of it rational, practical, or efficient. Religion is for those who are insufficiently honest to build their own philosophy.)

A cult, in other words, has elements of personality-worship in it. Religions are old enough to claim that the founder's personality could not have unduly influenced their membership.

This is why Mormonism, whose founder Joseph Smith is now dead ~140 years, is finally shedding its cult status.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Captain Sarcastic]

To paraphrase Senator Leia Organa, "The more they tighten their grip, the more servers will slip through their fingers."

One of the things I have seen about the Church of Scientology, from postings on alt.religion.scientology and other areas, is that, no matter how things turn out, they cannot believe that their "tech" won't work. (Part of that is because changing any of the "tech" is considered a crime against the church, called "squirreling".) Therefore, members will be assigned to keep either churning out "cease-and-desist" letters to any ISP that might be hosting a Wikileaks server, or will be posting information to try to drown out the information there.

But even if it doesn't work, they keep doing the same old things, in the same old way - because their religion tells them that it must work.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Frosty Piss]

There is no way to suppress this even if they were to somehow take down all of wikileaks.

They can't take it down completely, Wikileaks will always be availuble by IP address, but like the bank people, they will go after the domain. Wikileaks really needs to transfer the domain to a "safe" registrar.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[budgenator]

Modern day religions typically have a single benevolent deity the is normally credited with creation that extols it's followers to behave in a moral and kindly manner. Scientologist on the other hand behave as others are either prey (even their own) or minions, and they have no deity.
Modern religions have a theology or a philosophy and they actively share that with their peers and others, while a particular translation of a religions holy book may be copyrighted, the original is not, a person can typically obtain the holy book of any modern religion simply by asking; scientology text are copyrighted and the copyrights, trademarks and servicemarks are vigorously defended, the only way to legally obtain scientology texts are to purchase them and not even the CoS members in good standing have access to the totality of the "religion" Scientology is secretive rather than open like modern religions. Scientology just doesn't fit any definition of religion that applies to modern religions, it's a form of shammanism or which doctor-ism where only the annoited have the secret knowledge reveled to them who then shake their beads and rattles for the unwashed masses.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[FooAtWFU]

• It's a cult if its founder is still alive, or is recently dead.
• It's a religion if the founder has been dead so long that his adherents have had time to rewrite his character.
• (In no case is any of it rational, practical, or efficient. Religion is for those who are insufficiently honest to build their own philosophy.)

A cult, in other words, has elements of personality-worship in it. Religions are old enough to claim that the founder's personality could not have unduly influenced their membership.

The Cult Information Centre describes it as such:

• It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members
• It forms an elitist totalitarian society.
• Its founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has charisma.
• It believes 'the end justifies the means' in order to solicit funds recruit people.
• Its wealth does not benefit its members or society.

(Project Clambake, likewise, quotes this list.)

In my opinion, a lot of it is a matter of a qualitative differences in what they do. There's a number of things. Some people in certain religions will try to bring you back if you leave. Cults, on the other hand, may blackmail, harass or threaten people who try to depart. Many religions ask for money; Scientology asks for money, and spends it on lawsuits against its critics. Many religions have people who approach you on the street and tell you that you need to convert or $badstuff (with varying degrees of pushiness). Scientology sets up a table with a "Free Stress Test" (presumably designed to be rather Scientific-looking) first to attract passerbys, then when you test positive for stress they try to sell you various courses, then ease into the dogma later.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Detritus]

L. Ron Hoover, founder of the First Church of Appliantology.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Count Fenring]

Religion is for those who are insufficiently honest to build their own philosophy.

Really? I think it's a bit of a stretch to declare anyone following an established religion (or philosophy, by extension) dishonest. Besides, in "building a philosophy," you have to use preexisting ideas, many of which come, directly or indirectly, from established religions.

Nothing comes from nothing. Any philosophy or religion someone has is developed based on known predicates. While all known predicates are not equal (Oppressive beliefs, while still genuine, can be less valid by overall consensus standards {A.K.A. If you practice female circumcision, stop. It's not ok, regardless of cultural imperatives.}), all known ideas have predicates. And I, personally, am not arrogant enough to say that all religious ideas are stupid or invalid, just because I don't share them.

Also, philosophy and religion are, in fact, different things. They are often closely linked, but a religion by definition deals with metaphysical concepts that a philosophy doesn't have to. And, emotionally, the need for God/god/gods/~ to worship is a different need than that for a philosophy to follow.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Opportunist]

Well, a religion is something someone came up with that enables people to cooperate with their peers and give them a moral code to abide by. That's what the original religions had in mind.

Take any religion that has some more or less major impact, be it monotheistic or polytheistic, from Christianity to Hinduism, it creates a moral code that enables people to cooperate as a collective without jumping at each other's throats. Whether you agree with the morals is another matter, but generally religions served what we try to solve technically through surveillance, now that people aren't afraid of some sort of divine boogeyman anymore: That people "behave". The religious approach is that some all seeing big brother in the guise of some god or gods notice all your crimes and will punish you in some sort of afterlife.

I can't think of a religion now that requires you to be very efficient in making money for the church. I also don't know a single "normal" religion that requires you to disclose every single weakness or shortcoming you have so it has blackmail material against you. I also can't think of any religion that promises you anything for this life, they usually put a lot of emphasis on your afterlife, your next life or some other divine/enlightened/elevated state you will attain if you "behave" right.

So, I'd say yes, there are a few differences between religion and a cult 'round some (rather bad) SciFi writer. In another way, I'd rather be a Jedi than a Thetan. It's also just SciFi, but at least the story is better.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[modecx]

I'm curious; why wouldn't you confuse it with a religion?

1) All real religions will gladly tell you what they're about before hand. 2) No real religion will brainwash you into mortgaging your house. 3) No real religion protects their materials by copyright, so they can do #2, and use the law to squelch leaks and critics. 4) No real religion will make you disconnect from your friends and family, so you will have nobody to instill some sense into you--and stop you from doing #2. 5) All real religions on this planet are inclusive, instead of exclusive.

I could go on and on (and on and on), but I really don't want fingertip blisters pointing out stuff that's obvious to the un-brainwashed masses after they've completed about 10 minutes of research (2 of which might be clicking on google links).

What is a 'modern day' religion?

I'm guessing he means any religion that is widely practiced, and has evolved enough to be generally accepted as (at least) "mostly not evil" by most people (especially by most who don't practice that particular religion). For instance, there's plenty of passages from the old testament, and all of the Abrahamic traditions, which are not generally acknowledged as being things which apply to the modern world; and extremists who believe these things are generally shunned from the mainstream of their own religion. Islam is probably the one exception to the last part, because Islamic extremists are often heroes within their communities. So, whatever.

That scientology eventually teaches the idea that some Xenu character planted frosty dead people and hydrogen bombs in the Worlds' volcanoes, and that they have these ghosts stuck to them doesn't particularly enrage most of the scientology critics I know; it's their abuses and covertly hostile nature that disturbs them, and me. Fact is, that part isn't all that much different from other equally silly stories religions teach.

Still, the fact that it was dreamed up by some twice divorced sea-faring, drugged up satanic NAMBLA perv, is a lot less noble than the supposed origins of the other religions... And scientology makes it out that LRH was a 7' tall descendant of European nobility, who shot rainbows and unicorns out of his ass. So, because of that, add this to my list: 6) It's easily demonstrable that a) the people who run scientology are either purely malevolent because of the lies and contradictions in their teachings, or b) they're incredibly incompetent nincompoops who couldn't find their asses with both hands.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Zaphod-AVA]

Evolution denying Chinese illegally tapping the phone lines of Scientologists causes Global Warming... and it's effect on the iPhone.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Nefarious Wheel]

What is a 'modern day' religion?

Well, according to Aus. Bureau of Statistics, "Jedi" is one. That is, it's resurgence is modern; it's origins were long ago, in a galaxy far far away...

Oh and I'm a strict constructionist Pastafarian myself, I guess that one's fairly new. Arrrr.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[renoX]

>The Cult Information Centre describes it as such:
>It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members

Religions don't need to do that: they teach to children: it's much more easy to influence children than adults, but I don't think that it is better..

>It forms an elitist totalitarian society.

Well the vatican looks to me as fitting this description.

>Its founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has charisma.

A good definition of the pope job, he's not the founder but he has the same role.

The people who thinks that modern religions aren't very dangerous should try to think as if they were gay, what would you think about religions?

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[geekboy642]

Anybody that shoots up a school is a person who has severe mental issues.

People with severe mental issues are frequently prescribed drugs to try to alleviate those issues.

Correlation DOES NOT EQUAL causation. In fact the most recent school shooting I can remember occurred when the shooter stopped taking his drugs and regressed to a much worse state. Clearly the drugs were at least holding his psychosis in check while he was taking them. To put your statement in a clearer light, "the 9-11 hijackers took aspirin when they had head-aches! Ban aspirin, it causes hijackers!"

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Antique Geekmeister]

Please do. I'll recommmend the South Park episode on Scientology as both funny and educational on the issue. Sadly, that's the one over which Isaac Hays, thee voice of "Chef", resigned from the show, because of his membership in Scinetology.

If you build a Radio Shack lie-detector kit, you can also experiment with the results of their "e-meter", which is nothing but a very expensive and not very sophisticated resistance-meter based lie-detector.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[richlv]

Well, a religion is something someone came up with that enables people to cooperate with their peers and give them a moral code to abide by. That's what the original religions had in mind.

i'd say control over people was the primary goal.
financial gains and other benefits just resulted from that, and were gladly accepted.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Mathinker]

> Besides, in "building a philosophy," you have to use preexisting ideas, many of which
> come, directly or indirectly, from established religions.

After reviewing the available data on Scientology, it seems to me that Scientology's ideas seem to be intentionally remote from those of established religions. This optimizes its ability to socially isolate its members from the rest of society. Additionally, it gives it a more distinctive "brand identity" versus its competition.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[MoriaOrc]

Consider this difference:

When Bin Laden calls for a Jihad against the US, we can say that it isn't Islam that's at fault, because the religion of Islam itself grants no inherent authority to Bin Laden, he simply twists some of its teachings.

However, if the Pope were to call for a Crusade and start up a new Inquisition, and Catholics (or at least enough of them) were to go along with him, we would be more justified holding Catholicism at fault. It teaches obedience to the Pope and its core leadership would have initiated the action.

You can certainly separate the religion from its followers. However, with Scientology you have a situation where the leadership of the church practices abusive actions against individuals, the majority of its followers go along with the abusive practices of the leadership (or are unaware of them), and the teachings of the church often call for those abusive practices. It's because of this that many people lay the blame on the church as a whole.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[roguetrick]

Right on the money! What we should do is screen all people who have headaches from boarding a plane!

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[aarggh]

As I stated in my previous post, all thoughts of COS simply being a harmless bunch of nutters doesn't go anywhere near describing the way the world would change if they had their way. In a COS world the doctor and psychiatrist who prescribed the medication keeping the persons psychotic behaviour under control, along with the company manufacturing the drugs, WOULD ALL BE THROWN IN JAIL! This is the scary reality of the view that COS is the only organisation in the UNIVERSE that can save and run this planet, these are their own words by the way.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[X3J11]

I agree, it should be confused with modern day religions, since all are groups of adults believing in fictional stories and allowing them to control their lives.

As my wonderful Grandmother (she'd beat me for calling her that, she's my Nan) has always said when questioned about her unwavering belief in the Christ God, she would rather believe and be wrong, than not believe and be wrong.

Or, to quote some lyrics from a Strapping Young Lad song, "Believe what you want to believe... just believe.".

You must be young though. It seems most people of my generation and younger go through a phase where they think they're so clever believing (any) God does not exist, and that anyone who believes in such a higher power is an idiot. I went through it. Then I look at my children and think there's no way they came about without some touch of divinity.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[VorpalRodent]

Offensive and non-PC comment:
I'd think that if they perhaps add some color to those robes they would be more fabulous!

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[The Only Druid]

Your grandmother referred to what is known as "Pascal's Wager": if you believe in God and are wrong, you pay no price, whereas if you do not believe in God and are wrong, you pay the price of Eternal Damnation.

The wager is uniformly understood by anyone with a passing understanding of logic to be facially invalid and incorrect.

The reason is simple: the wager makes the blatantly false assumption that believing in God while alive has no cost. Moreover, it fails to account for the fact that the 'value' of a cost paid over time is intrinsically linked to the duration of your existence (i.e. your 'life' plus any 'afterlife' you may have). If God doesn't exist, and you believe in God while alive, you pay the maximal price of wasting all that time and energy (along with all the missed opportunities this entails) during the entirety of your existence. It is difficult, if not impossible, to believe that this cost is not greater than living an actual life of happiness without a deity followed by an afterlife of 'hell'.

Moreover, belief out of fear of the results of being wrong is no belief at all: it is a shallow, deceitful pretense of belief. It is an insult to the very God you would claim to believe in, by virtue of saying that the only reason you believe is that you think it would be too costly not to believe. This is like a person who abstains from murder not out of respect for life, but rather out of avoidance of the prison-sentence. That person is a monstrous imitation of morality, not a moral man.

Belief, if you value it at all, must spring from an honest embrace of some purported truth. It cannot spring from a callow desire to avoid consequences.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Atzanteol]

You must be young though. It seems most people of my generation and younger go through a phase where they think they're so clever believing (any) God does not exist, and that anyone who believes in such a higher power is an idiot. I went through it. Then I look at my children and think there's no way they came about without some touch of divinity.

You misunderstand what 'belief' means... Not believing in a god != believing there is no god.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

If you are a good person, and you do good things, but you don't believe in the "right" God, what kind of God would punish you? Not the kind of God I'd want to spend eternity with, that's for sure. So I'm going to continue to help people and do the right thing and believing in no God.

And if your God is real, do you think he won't know that all the good YOU did was because you were afraid of burning in hell for all eternity?

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[The Only Druid]

As a disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the Mormon church.

I would definitely say that if we call LDS a cult, we must continue to call the Catholic Church a cult. The principle is the same: a religious group built around a cult of personality, where the original leader is subsequently replaced by a series of leaders chosen according to the originator's alleged principles.

The only difference - and I mean this honestly and without irony or sarcasm - between the cult/religion status of the Mormon and Catholic churches is time. That doesn't mean they aren't perceived differently, but it does mean that many people aren't being fair to LDS.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Cro Magnon]

3. As for "I see god in my children": hey, nice for you. That doesn't even rise to the level of an argument (which one would have hoped you could recognize, since you're all old and mature and wise and stuff). There's no difference between this magical thinking and the "I don't understand it so it must be magic" that children engage in when they observe magicians. (Apologies, of course, if you merely meant that the sex was so good that you "saw god"--you know, like Cheech and Chong did when they got high and played Sabbath on 78.)

I don't know about about the OP's children, but my GF's nieces made me a believer. After all, if God exists, so does Satan.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[steveo777]

Belief, if you value it at all, must spring from an honest embrace of some purported truth. It cannot spring from a callow desire to avoid consequences.

Don't know what you believe, but being a Christian myself, I've felt the same way for a long time. So Amen.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Maxo-Texas]

Today's cult... tomorrow's mainstream religion.

Oft repeated story-- but don't see it here yet.

Bob Heinlein and Elron Hubbard were discussing how to make money at the 195(3?) World SF con and decided religion was much more effective. They made a bar bet as to who could found a religion. Heinlein's book was "Stranger in a Strange Land"... Hubbard's book was "Dienetics".

The rest... is history.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Dr Caleb]

"The reason is simple: the wager makes the blatantly false assumption that believing in God while alive has no cost. Moreover, it fails to account for the fact that the 'value' of a cost paid over time is intrinsically linked to the duration of your existence (i.e. your 'life' plus any 'afterlife' you may have). If God doesn't exist, and you believe in God while alive, you pay the maximal price of wasting all that time and energy (along with all the missed opportunities this entails) during the entirety of your existence. It is difficult, if not impossible, to believe that this cost is not greater than living an actual life of happiness without a deity followed by an afterlife of 'hell'."

Perhaps you think we are all bible-thumping uber Christians. Not all Christians are the fire-and-brimstone type, and not all of us believe the Bible is some tome written by the hand of God. Or the Torah. Or the Qu'ran.

Take a deeper look at all religion, and what they have in common. Jew, Hindu, Buddist - the thing that binds them all together in all religion is 'Do no intentional harm to others'. A pretty simple moral code.

Now, if God does not exist, what the worst that can happen? People are nicer to each other? And that is a waste of time? Think of the benefits if everyone adopted this simple moral code - 'Do not intentional harm to others.' Beyond that, it just differences in rituals, rites and traditions. No one would waste their corporeal existence on earth by being nicer to each other.

Believing in God has no 'cost', believing the church is infallible and that religious texts are infallible is what 'Pascals Wager' exposes. There is no downside and no cost to 'believing'. This is also the mistake the CoS has made. They don't believe in doing no harm, and they don't see their religious texts as flawed creations of man.

Re:Get 'em while they're hot

[Dr Caleb]

See! There you go! Because something is based on faith, does not mean it is irrational. If 'God' exists, he could have created the universe from the big bang to heat death/big crunch ether knowing what would happen in it's entirety or interested in seeing what happened in between.

Belief in a higher power does not preclude what we see with our own eyes.

"My personal problem with a major aspect of religion, belief in God, is that it rests on blind faith."

So does quantum physics. So? God still believes in quantum physicists, and many QP's believe in God. The double slit experiment may mean there is no difference between the two, other than 'why' the universe was created.

"Our society needs more reason, not less."

Agreed, but our society also needs kindness, and the two are not exclusive.

One word

[Anonymous Coward]

PWNED.

Remember what happened last time

[sgtron]

Do a google search for slashdot deleted posts scientology, and see what comes up.

Re:Remember what happened last time

[pete-classic]

Would it kill you to provide a link?

-Peter

Re:Remember what happened last time

[Abeydoun]

Maybe...

My condolences to your family, good sir.

slashdotted

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I bet this is a Scientology plot to overload wikileaks.

Re:slashdotted

[Brian Gordon]

Wikileaks is wayy beyond scientology's grasp. I mean, the CoS would easily bomb a data center if they could find one, but wikileaks is worldwide and hidden.

Re:slashdotted

[renegadesx]

It worked! Damn that Xenu! sneaky little bigger.

Re:slashdotted

[Foobar of Borg]

I mean, the CoS would easily bomb a data center if they could find one

You mean, with a Tom Cruise Missile?

Re:slashdotted

[IconBasedIdea]

as are these fellows: http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4059049/New_scientology_dox__The_Computer_Frank_Oliver_Dox

Re:slashdotted

[mOdQuArK!]

It jumps up and down on the server until the server crashes from embarrassment.

Re:slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are easily picked up on gaydar.

Re:slashdotted

[fishbowl]

>I mean, the CoS would easily bomb a data center

Being linked to a literal act of terrorism would be the end of Scientology in the US.

Re:slashdotted

[Detritus]

They survived the aftermath of Operation "Snow White" with no long-term consequences.

Re:slashdotted

[fishbowl]

>They survived the aftermath of Operation "Snow White" with no long-term consequences.

Several people were tried, convicted, and served lengthy prison sentences, putting the church in
the public eye and simultaneously making it a laughingstock. One long-term consequence was that
the media exposure about the church reached the attention of one Ivan Stang, inspiring him to start
a competing scam religious cult company.

Re:slashdotted

[mpe]

There'd likely be a lot more public outrage over it. I mean, just think about it: Bombs, explosions, violence! The media would have a field day with it, and the public would know about it, and politicians and law enforcement would be pressured to do something about it.

Media (at least outside of "web only") together with politicians and law enforcement would have to deal with the fact that they have been treating terrorism as exclusivly something to do with Islam for most of this decade. Even to the point of downplaying ignoring Jewish and Christian terrorists, who are likely to have a lot more in common with Islamic ones than anyone connected with Scientology. By choosing to misrepresent terrorist these people have painted themselves into a corner.

Re:slashdotted

[Detritus]

Considering what they were doing, I think they got off very lightly. 5 years is not a lengthy sentence for espionage and subversion, not to mention the huge conspiracy.

Re:slashdotted

[dkleinsc]

For those like me who didn't know off the top of their head Ivan Stang created, he founded the Church of the SubGenius.

Re:slashdotted

[Oktober Sunset]

Espionage and subversion against your own government used to be called treason, if a islamic or a socialist organisation had done the same thing they probably would still be in jail now and their organisation banned.

Re:slashdotted

[Captain Sarcastic]

Also, I'm always getting Amway confused with Scientology ...

Can't say I blame you. Until November of 2005, Amway was outlawed as a cult group in the People's Republic of China.

Re:slashdotted

[beoba]

The Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing already did that for us.

Unless, of course, everyone's already forgotten about that.

Here come da judge!

[Black Parrot]

Bet that won't result in any legal harassment.

Re:PDF Link Broke

[kiwi_jackal]

get it by torrent - http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4059049/New_scientology_dox__The_Computer_Frank_Oliver_Dox

Re:PDF Link Broke

[ecavalli]

Fasten the tinfoil hats boys and girls. This one is gonna get messy.

Would anyone like to wager how long it will be before we see a headline announcing the mysterious disappearance of Wikileaks' founders, their families and pets and anyone they've ever spoken to?

So,

[Warll]

First they had troubles with some foreign bank now there posting Scientology documents. Next step the MAFIAA?

Re:So,

[Cctoide]

And then the Illuminati!

Hold on, there's someone at my do--

Re:So,

[Assassin bug]

I'm sorry but whenever someone says, "Illuminati", I think of pizza. You see, when I was first dating my wife their family ordered a pizza from Lou Malnati's and I thought they said, "Illuminati's pizza". I thought, how does that work for a business philosophy for pizza? It was all very funny (and it is very good pizza).

Anonymous marches March 15.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous marches on March 15, the "March of Ides".

Are you going to be there? Find the closest church and be there!

It is your civic duty. I hope to march alongside you.

Prepare for the migration...

[tubapro12]

...as thousands of CoS members migrate to Sweden to physically destroy the server...

Re:PDF Link Broke

[Ron_Fitzgerald]

dl'd @ 400k in 30 secs from a torrent. Who said BitTorrent was for nothing but bad.

On a completely unrelated note...

[Anonymous Coward]

My friends and I walked into the London scientology building while drunk and demanded a stress test. We were turned away. Truly the lowpoint in my life when not even Scientology wants me :

Passed the test, going for the brass ring

[JavaRob]

Maybe they figure that now they've cut their teeth on a big player (and they came out on top, eventually) they can tackle the big guys. I won't be fun, though... Scientology doesn't play by the same rules as normal corporations with rational customers. They fight as dirty as possible; tactics that would easily sink a normal business if they got out are business as usual, and they don't pretend otherwise to their members; they just made it part of their belief system that it's morally okay to use any means necessary to stop their detractors.

This is probably the best time to do it, though, while WikiLeaks still has quite a lot of active attention because of the Julius Baer legal business.

I just hope they didn't waste some of that capital calling for the eNom boycott. Not exactly the same level of "evil"....

But I guess we'll see, either way. Stay tuned -- same bat-time, same bat-channel!

Re:Should make a torrent

[psychodelicacy]

I think this is it. (Originally mentioned in another comment above.)

This is hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out how the contract begins:

I FRANK OLIVER DO HEREBY AGREE to enter into employment with the SEA ORGANIZATION and, being of sound mind, do fully realize and agree to abide by its purpose which is to get ETHICS IN on this PLANET AND THE UNIVERSE and, fully and without reservation, subscribe to the discipline, mores and conditions of this group and pledge to abide by them.

THEREFORE, I CONTRACT MYSELF TO THE SEA ORGANIZATION FOR THE NEXT BILLION YEARS.

being of sound mind...CONTRACT MYSELF FOR THE NEXT NEXT BILLION YEARS... :)

Re:PDF Link Broke

[ecavalli]

Xenu, I believe.

Re:PDF Link Broke

[cdrdude]

People like you are why need an additional rating (Score:5, Awesome)
Thank you for your quick thinking good sir; I am seeding it now.

Re:Should make a torrent

[Threni]

> If its made into a .torrent, it will live happily ever after, or before it becomes stale.

Well, that or anyone trading it will have their IP address trivially captured.

Re:Should make a torrent

[von_rick]

Thats what I get for not having my mind wired to the Internets :)

Be careful...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't put it past them to try and track anyone downloading that over something like a torrent; I'd stick to Wikileaks itself if possible. I've researched some of the abuses they did in the past, and I really don't like Scientology :/

Didn't they have ties to a major ISP (Earthlink?) at one time, too? That said, I remember reading that their internal sites are (were?) entirely self-made because they don't trust us "wogs". And by self-made I mean they're supposed to be utter crap.

Re:PDF Link Broke

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to this Chuck Beatty, who was a member of the Sea Org for 27 years has a toll free number, 866-XSEAORG for any current Scientology staff members to call if you need someone to talk to . He can also be reached at 412-260-1170 and by email at chuckbeatty77@aol.com You know, i hate living in a world where i see something like this and the first thing i think is "i wonder if the scientologists are actually creating anti-scientology fronts to discover who is leaking information or considering defecting with proofs."

Oh wow

[TurinPT]

Take a look at page 75: A list of what they consider hostility towards scientology.

Thats some scary shit.

As the original submitter...

[Anonymous Coward]

As the original submitter of the article, I'd like to mention that it is the now the second Wikileaks held set of documents for Scientology. Though I must apologize for the badly written rushed body of the firehose article, it's the linked content that is important :

Citizens Commission on Human Rights" (CCHR) exposed as an illegal Scientology front. exposes their LEAF (Letter to the Editor ATTACK Force) campaign, and illegal govt lobbying.

Many apologize to the Wikileaks admins for the /. effect, but this news HAD to be made public.

To the $clilos - Disclaimer - I did not personally leak these documents, nor did Slashdot, I'm merely posting legal links.

The peaceful protests of Anonymous against the CoS are also legal. Anonymous is ONLY protesting the CoS organization, no other religion and not religious beliefs themselves. There is a campaign of fabricating/doctoring Anonymous protest images and footage to try to frame Anonymous for anti-religious protests (they started by attempting to attack the Vatican): take a guess at who might want to be doing that!

Rather worrying, a similar anti Anonymous "ad hominem" attack force is trying to re-define the cake meme from the game Portal into one about underage pornography.

PS. Everything I post is posted via strings of proxies and most importantly Tor !
(wish it was faster, and didn't have so many problems with slashdot, lol)

Send them to Venus

[SlashWombat]

Easily fixed. First we modify all the old DC3's we can get our hands on by adding shuttle solid fuel boosters. Then we dress up as Aliens ...
We then encourage all the COS members to migrate to Venus to separate them from the unclean non-believers.
IMHO, COS members are all "B Ark" material anyway!

Re:Slashdot vs. Scientology?

[Anonymous Coward]

When they stop murdering people and destroying lives. Deal.

Re:Page 117

[TurinPT]

I'm just speed reading, but this file is filled with little gems.

LRH on Data Mining - pg 117:

By all standards modern governments are not sane.

Thus, somewhere at the bottom of the pile is some hidden intention.

In collecting government files and the various false reports in them, through the use of Freedom of Information Act, it is not enough to simply see they are false and DA them. This of course is a necessary action but is NOT _the_ basic action.

One needs to construct a data bank of all documents and cross-index to get _all_ documents in their possession - using one file to find things that will detect the existence of unrevealed additional documents.

Interesting read...

Screw civic duty

[__aailob1448]

the real reason to go is for the lulz. Any good that comes out of it is just a bonus!

Re:Screw civic duty

[RLiegh]

The cake is a lie.

And that's terrible.

Re:Slashdot vs. Scientology?

[dbIII]

I'm wondering why it is that Slashdot continues to post so many negative stories about Scientology

Because Scientology took legal action against Slashdot on what appeared to be a trivial matter. I do not think any other group has taken legal action against Slashdot in it's ten years of operation.

Re:organizations that prohibit criticism

[icegreentea]

Why are you specifically stating Islam, and then forgetting all about those wonderful little people at the Discovery Institute. I understand that 'like religions' really does encompass all possible religions, singling out Islam by name is a bit unfair. They are no better, and no worse than any other major religion with extremist/fundamentalist groups.

I wonder why...

[deesine]

your very first comment on /. is to ask why /. hates CoS?

-

Black propaganda passage

[cpricejones]

For those of you who didn't make it this far into the 208 pages ...

"Our propaganda is dirty but it is not black because it is true. Black propaganda is essentially false. ... We just run propaganda campaigns."

Pretty goofy but it gets far goofier.

"Vicious and lying gossip by old women was the earlier form of this tactic and was so bad that some areas put them in public stocks (neck yokes) to drive them out of town. ... The world is full of madmen."

Hmm.

Re:Slashdot vs. Scientology?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Hello, Article submitter here again)

users first post , check (not always the case but very common)
'witch hunt' comment, check
'bigotry' comment, check

*CoS countermeasures 101 detected.*

'cyber terrorists' comment expected soon
'ad hominem' attacks, coming 'real soon now'.

Slashdot posts what people submit, it gets front paged if enough people care about the story and vote it up.

With Scientology stories it takes a hell of a lot more people voting it up than normal as OSA and the LEAF campaign try to force such things down.

So the story only makes it if people REALLY care, are interested, and strongly think the story has merit.

Don't you wonder MAYBE such stories might at least have SOME truth in them if THAT many people are so interested in them even OSA can't keep them down?

Now you've pondered that for a pico-second enjoy your invasive security 'sec check'.

After reading this PDF...

[Patchw0rk F0g]

I'm asking: Has anyone else realized that these people are FUCKING NUTS?!

I was around for the Toronto trials, but this shit...? Holy cripes.

I may not be the most stable person, when discussing evolution vs. whatever-the-hell-the-trolls-from-the-evangelical-campuses-are-calling-it-this-week, but this takes the cake, in a SPECTRE/Mission Impossible/I Can't Believe This Is Under The Radar type of way.

Does this mean I need to watch for people on street corners, watching me covertly from behind newspapers? So be it! Bring it on, Tom! I'll kick your ass, Johnny boy!

Re:After reading this PDF...

[zakeria]

Start by boycotting Tom's films! support him in anyway supports the Church.

Re:organizations that prohibit criticism

[MrNaz]

I am a Muslim and I will not tolerate you criticising me for not tolerating criticism!

Wait...

Dammit!

This is quite scary

[Monsuco]

In the case of a bad article which is signed, use the following procedures

1. Tell them by letter to restract the statement at once.

2. Hire a private investigator of the national type to investigate the writer not the magazine and get any criminal or communist background the man has. ...

3. Have your lawyers or solicitors write the magazines threatening suit. (Hardly ever permit a real suit - there more of a nuisance than their worth.)

4. Use the data you got off the detective at long last to write the author a very tantalizing letter. Don't give him your data on him. Just tell him we know something very interesting about him and wouldn't he like to come in and talk about it. (If he comes ask him to sign a confession of collusion and slander - people at that level often will just to commit suicide - and publish it as a paid ad in the paper if you get it.) Chances are he won't arrive but he's sure to shudder in silence.

5. Give the data you got from your detective to your lawyers to use against the magazine.

6. Don't let the matter upset you, take much time, or disrupt the central organization.

This is on page 100. Page 101 talks about "punishment". Pg. 116 explains a conspiracy theory about why government attacks religion.It appears there is a long list of conspiracies that Scientology has about the government. They talk about the constant need to deal with enemies, they seem more paranoid than Nixon, and with a longer enemies list. Pg. 148 has information about the need to attack. Pg. 149 rants about how Scientology is victimized by a conspiracy of public opinion, government, and media. I mentioned an enemy list, pg 165-206 is just that. Pg. 208 discusses Oliver's "crimes".

This is scarier than any horror film ever could be. Thank god Wikileaks. Kudos to Frank Oliver.

Re:This is quite scary

[kestasjk]

Page 99:

None of us like to judge or punish. Yet we may be the only people on Earth with a right to punish

Guilt is established by a person's actions and statements, by witnesses and written evidence and by an expertly run E-meter Page 100:

If he comes, ask him to sign a confession of collusion and slander - people at that level often will, just to commit suicide - and publish it in a paid ad in a paper if you get it

Tell the detective "We don't care if they know you're investigating them for us. In fact, the louder the better."

When to Sue
Never if you can help it. It consumes time, means little but trouble for you. Suits are basically best as threats. Page 101:

At this instance there are men hiding in terror on Earth because they found out what they were attacking. There are men dead because they attacked us - for instance Dr. Joe Winter. He simply realized what he did and died. There are men bankrupt because they attacked us

But if you do put the wrong head on a pike, be sure to put it back on the body again as soon as the need for its being on a pike is over Page 102:

It is mercy to put the padlock on such a person's activities. Every word he says or writes against us, every plot he enters into, alike punish him further and further down
How bad can it get? We have evidence in a book Dr. Winder wrote. He knew it consisted of stolen ideas and enthete lies. Every code it sold killed him a little more. And one day he died Page 103:

It's a relief for a bad case to be punished. Sometimes they choose us for their executioners - worse luck Page 107:

2. By having high-toned investigators who have no possibility of being blackmailed, we can make up in effectiveness what we at this time lack in numbers.

L. Ron Hubbard Wow.. I started out by cherry picking the juicy parts, but once Hubbard's memos start appearing it's pretty much all juicy.. Black propaganda--Hubbard, The genus of insane governments--Hubbard, Why governments attack religion--Hubbard

Look at the situation. Every time the enemy offers an attack, you defend against it and that is all you do. Any castle, to hold out, has got to sortie. The proper strategy for any battle is to find a weak point in the enemy lines and attack it.

The reason the United States is losing against communism is simply on these same mathematics. That they are losing is patent. All they are doing is defending the points attacked. We are lucky Hubbard was a sci-fi writer and didn't go on to become a politician.. I would have like to see his handling of the Cuba missile crisis going by the above logic..

I can see the parallels of religion to CoS, but I have to say this goes way beyond any religion. Nothing other than a cult would write such aggressive, practical advice on silencing critics as this. With Immams declaring fatwahs at least that's not actually an officially sanctioned part of Islam, with Scientology it is.

I think all the media attention will eventually kill scientology. Hearing about "Xenu" has been worse for Scientology than hearing about even the worst silencing of critics, blackmail, and manslaughter.

Best parts start on page 100

[Scareduck]

I got a copy of the PDF from the Bittorrent posted upthread, and the best part is on page 100 (so far), talking about dealing with lawsuits ("Never if you can help it"), what to do when being investigated ("don't co-operate"), and how to deal with "entheta press":

1. Tell them by letter to retract at once in the next issue.
2. Hire a private detective to investigate the writer ...
3. Have your lawyers or solicitors write the magazine threatening suit ...
4. Use the data you got from the detective (!!) at long last to write the author of the article a very tantalizing letter. Don't give him your data on him. Just tell him we know something very interesting about him and wouldn't he like to come in and talk about it. (If he comes, ask him to sign a confession of collusion and slander -- people at that level often will, just to commit suicide -- and publish it in a paid ad in a paper if you get it.) Chances are he won't arrive. But he'll sure shudder into silence.

Analysis threads & more leaked docs

[Anonymous Coward]

Analysis of the released docs is occurring on this thread:
http://forums.enturbulation.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6291

Also there are two threads on released e-mail dumps on CCHR ("Citizen's Commission on Human Rights" - a Scientology front group) being discussed here:
http://forums.enturbulation.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6059
and here:
http://forums.enturbulation.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6159

The website also reports that protests are being held at all CO$ center's world wide on March 15th 11am local time. Visit http://forums.enturbulation.org for details.

Daughters of Scientology's top brass speaking out

[Anonymous Coward]

Three girls who are ex-scientology kids have come forward and started a website about the issues with Scientology. (Not bad looking either). One is Jenna Miscavige Hill (niece of David Miscavige, the current head of Scientology). Another is Kendra Wiseman, who is the daughter of the current head of CCHR (Scilon front group).

http://www.exscientologykids.com/admins.html

The stories of all three are quite fascinating in terms of getting a look on the inside.

This just in...

[etherlad]

All we need is for there to be a Chinese-Scientology link and we'll have the most commented-on story ever. ... thousands of Chinese eMeters have been recalled due to high lead content! Film at eleven!

Re:Slashdot vs. Scientology?

[arete]

In just the last few days there was an article about someone who previously sued a group of defendants including /., and later dropped /. from the suit. It was in the /. summary; I didn't read TFA.

Anonymous: "Project Blockbuster" - DVD download

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous a full 4+ hour DVD with vids of the protests & information on Scientology.

Torrent is here: http://www.mininova.org/tor/1234202

Details on what's on it here: http://forums.enturbulation.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6172

Contents include:
1. Road to February 10th 2. An Anonymous Message to The World -- Human Rites in the RPF
3. Message To Scientology
4. Call To Action
5. Code of Conduct
6. Anonymous Lobby Against Scientology
7. Anonymous vs. Church of Scientology - The Ides of March
8. Ides of March - Why We Fight
9. ExSciKids: Kendra, Jenna & Astra Speak
10. Sou7h Park - Traped 1n The Closet
11. Missing In Happy Valley
12. The Bridge
13. OT 2007 Summit Testimonials 14. Un-Cut Tom Cruise Testimonial
15. XENUTV: Comparing Myths

Re:organizations that prohibit criticism

[ArcherB]

Why are you specifically stating Islam, and then forgetting all about those wonderful little people at the Discovery Institute. I understand that 'like religions' really does encompass all possible religions, singling out Islam by name is a bit unfair. They are no better, and no worse than any other major religion with extremist/fundamentalist groups. Actually, Islam is the only major religion who has flown planes into buildings, posted videos of beheadings, preaches that the penalty for leaving the religion is death and is responsible for really REALLY close to 100% of terrorist attacks around the world (Not just the US, but all over the world). So, yeah. I think they deserve an honorary mention on this one.

So, when you say, They are no better, and no worse than any other major religion with extremist/fundamentalist groups., I'm afraid I have to say that you are extraordinarily naive and just plain wrong And to compare Islam to the Discovery Institute... I'm sorry, how many people have been killed by people from the Discovery Institute? How many civilian markets and embassies have been bombed? How many children and mentally retarded people have they used to blow up innocent civilians? Did you say Zero? If you did, then you are correct. Any other answer is just plain ignorant.

The story from the beginning

[symbolset]

At the dining room table, two couples playing bridge:

LRH: My books aren't selling. Who makes the most popular books?

RAH: The Boy Scouts. After that the Q'uran and the Bible.

LRH: Religion sure sells a lot of books.

RAH: Yeah, I thought about writing out some book for that a while back. I turned it into a short story "Gulf".

LRH: I don't think you could do it with a short story. All the big religions have high word counts. I would think a trilogy at least.

RAH: I could do it in one book.

LRH: I bet a dollar I could do it better than you.

RAH: Done and done. Now shuffle the cards.

... Three years later ...

LRH: Can you believe it? I've got groupies! They worship me!

RAH: You can have mine too if you want them. They're camped on the lawn. They're scaring Ginny. Here's your buck. The bet's over.

LRH: Win!

RAH: Whatever. Shuffle the cards.

Re:The story from the beginning

[Opportunist]

Reminds me of the old joke: "Hey Jesus, get this: The fishing club you started when you went down there? Guess what, it still exists!".

Re:The story from the beginning

[DoctorFrog]

I liked the bit in 'Soap' where Bert got kidnapped by aliens and met a 6000-year-old Jewish author...

Bert: "You mean to tell me you wrote Genesis?"

Sol: "You mean to tell me you've read it?"

Re:PDF Link Broke

[RealGrouchy]

i wonder if the scientologists are actually creating anti-scientology fronts I read that as "anti-scientology fonts," and thought "Wow, that is some damn subtle manipulation!"

- RG>

dotted?

[AutoTheme]

Our servers are overloaded by extreme popularity. Try again in a minute by pressing "return" on the website address in your browser address bar (do not press reload -- this will take longer). In the mean time, please consider throwing your support behind us, so Wikileaks can upgrade its servers, fight censorship, expose injustice and with your help, continue to change the world for the better.

Re:organizations that prohibit criticism

[stony3k]

Islam is a much more decentralized religion that most of us are used to. This means that any two-bit priest can issue a Fatwa or invoke. This also means that just because a few Muslims blew up innocents, the whole religion is flawed.

Islam does have many issues to work out with how they fit into the modern society and the sooner they do this the better for all of us.

You've given me an idea for a wicked prank

[Weaselmancer]

An eMeter is really just a wheatstone bridge, right? All they're really doing is just measuring your resistance by inducing a tiny current through you.

Go into one of these centers and have them hook you up. Lick your other palm and every so often jam a 9v battery against it. Screw with the guy's mind. Keep twitching the needle at just the right time and see if you can convince them you're L. Ron reincarnated or something like that.

If you're really good, make some sort of a Van de Graff generator and use it to build up a gigantic static charge on you before you get hooked up. See if you can actually bust the thing.

Re:You've given me an idea for a wicked prank

[smellsofbikes]

You're joking, but this is perfectly easy to do. You just barely listen to what the questioner is saying, while simultaneously thinking hard -- the way actors do, method acting, trying to *live* your thoughts -- about calming or embarrassing things from your past. You can teach yourself to drive e-meters. They're a little more complicated than just a Wheatstone, but that's basically what they are. When I was a kid I made one as a science project and taught myself to push the needle from the bottom to the top and back again while talking to people (I grew up without a TV and had a lot of time on my hands, okay?) and later ended up dating a Scientologist (she was hot and I *still* didn't have a TV, okay?) and she and her family did *not* appreciate my ability to push an e-meter around.
I don't think carrying a charge could break one: the ones I've gotten to look at didn't have much vulnerable electronics. They used a transistor to drive the meter itself, based on the differential voltage across the bridge.

This shows Germany was 100% right to ban them

[golodh]

I have heard a lot of (fairly uninformed) criticism of Germany's decision to outlaw the Scientology sect.

However, with the Fishman affidavit, the whole case concerning Karin Spaink (see http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/fishman/home.html), and now this I feel strengthened in my support for the decision of the German government to outlaw this sect.

Regrettably it doesn't work like that in the US. We gave them the tax-exempt status of "church" instead.

Re:This shows Germany was 100% right to ban them

[Kierthos]

Actually, they have the status of "tax exempt non-profit organization", not church, according to the IRS. The CoS proclaims that this means the U.S. Government considers them a church, but that doesn't make it so.

What's amazing is that they got this status AFTER their acts of infiltrating the IRS and other government agencies (Operation Snow White), although they didn't get the tax exempt non-profit bit until years after the sentencing of LRH's wife and several others for that little bit of espionage.

Re:This shows Germany was 100% right to ban them

[neuromanc3r]

They are not outlawed in Germany, they are just not considered a religion.

Re:organizations that prohibit criticism

[Version6]

Islam is the only major religion...[which]...preaches that the penalty for leaving the religion is death

Islam is about six hundred years younger than christianism. Much more recently than six hundred years ago Roman Catholics were killing "heretics" who tried to practice a related form of christianism. In England, the reverse was happening, though on a smaller scale. And of course all the christianists were happily killing Jews, followers of a closely related religion. I think it's easy to imagine what would have happened to anyone trying to become a muslim in that environment. Let's just hope it doesn't take several hundred years for muslims to become as relatively civilized as the christianists seem to be today.

Re:organizations that prohibit criticism

[TapeCutter]

You do realise that Christians, Jews, and Muslims all belive in the SAME God, don't you? Hindus won't argue with any of them, they just add Abraham's God to their vast collection of gods.

Islam does not have a monopoly on evil shit anymore or less than Christianity does. To belive otherwise is to fall for the religious propoganda that encourages said evil shit.

Re:PDF Link Broke

[ClickOnThis]

(Interestingly, enux was a microkernel OS. That didn't fit will with RMS's idealistic agenda of monolithic kernels, hence emacs.) Okay, maybe a joke just flew over my head, but for the record, Gnu HURD is based on a microkernel, and surely has the support of Richard Stallman. Whereas the [Gnu/]Linux kernel is monolithic.

An experience with aggressive recruiting...

[Anonymous Coward]

I had three of these guys show up at my apartment looking for my friend... God damn it was a freaky experience. Two stood on lookout at the front door while the third fast-talked his way past me upstairs. Apparently my friend had only made acquaintances so they were just "following up" on a possible new member, and they left quietly after he rebuffed them.

I felt bad for a while for not having turned them away immediately, but you don't always know what you're friends are up to... and it's hard to be ready for something like that. When you are a naive college kid confronted by three overbearing, slick guys inviting themselves hurriedly through your front door, it really throws you for a loop.

Scientology is basically ritualized emotional abuse. It separates its victims from everything they know -- in fact it aligns them against their parents, family and friends, and everything that might come to their rescue -- and it turns them into abusers themselves. Elron was a sick, abusive, evil freak.

Scientology is...

[Kaenneth]

Scientology is what happens when the mentally ill don't take their medicine.

The human psyche is made up of a collection of personalities?
Against taking psych mediciations?
Thinking that psychiatrists are evil?

Hubbard probably developed schizophrenia, with paranoia, delusions, voices in his head, etc.

So he developed a way other think to justify his decisions after the fact, calling it Scientology. That is, the "Science of Science", or like one fellow I met in a psych ward said "You have to read between the lines between the lines"; layers upon layers of conspiracy seem to be common in delusional thinking.

So his organization is a draw to others who don't want to take their meds, including the large 'anti-drug' campaign they claim to have. Cruise on Oprah?, looked pretty 'Manic' to me.

Unfortunetly, the only consistant way to tell the differences between Religion, Cults and Insanity is how many people share the same set of delusions, kinda democratic really.

Simple Solution

[CaptainZapp]

Scientology sets up a table with a "Free Stress Test" (presumably designed to be rather Scientific-looking) first to attract passerbys

When they pester you with their stupid personality test (which only points out what a screwed up person you really are, no matter what) I found a simple and reliable method:

Explain to the friendly Scientologist[TM] that he probably is not allowed to talk to you, since you get Ritalin prescribed by your psych (Scieno-talk for psychiatrist / psychologists) then watch and wonder.

Works like a charm.

Get popcorn and watch the fight for freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

When WikiLeaks got popular, I knew it would be a matter of time before they ran up against the most prolific extra-national censorship institution on Earth. I'm eager to see if in WikiLeaks the CoS finally meet their match - the BJB case was nothing against this.

There's a chance, depending on how extensive these documents are, that CoS will merely try to "distance" themselves from "rogue members" - but if the fight turns dirty, WikiLeaks will have their hands full. Besides lawsuits, they can expect stalkers, death threats, sabotage, major network "failures" (see Blue Security Inc. vs the spammers) and other things that not even the shadiest bank would consider. I hope that free information will win the day.

Brilliant

[giorgist]

To sue, $cientology will have to claim copywrite and claim it as their own. Well go ahead, just like claiming suing for copywrite about that the fruity Xenu story made them claim it as their own. come on punk ... do you feel lucky ? G

In Church of Scientology, God is You!

[Cheesey]

(Sorry.) But that's part of the teaching. You've got all these godlike powers, telekinesis for example, and your thetans are the only thing stopping you from using them. You can get rid of your thetans by giving the CoS all of your money for the rest of your life, and if you are sufficiently committed to the church, maybe one day you will be as magical as LRH. And then you'll never really die. Your entire life is a small price to pay for the chance of being a God.

This is pretty similar to other religious claims, I think. It covers all the basic tickboxes: "you are more important than non-believers", "you get everlasting life" and "you get to be like God". I think it is specifically tuned for extremely arrogant people, though, because there is no notion of God as something better than you, that you can at best only aspire to be like. I think this is a deliberate choice by LRH, who liked hanging around with film stars and seems to have figured out what they wanted to hear:

LRH: You're the most important guy in the Universe!

Tom Cruise: I already knew that, L. Ron. Have some more of my money!

Re:Scientologists deserve a medal

[Grimbleton]

Scientologist spotted.

Re:Slashdot vs. Scientology?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

Tom Cruise, is that you? You had me at "Xenu."

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Ouch ... you are right.

[golodh]

... and I was wrong.

The scientology cult isn't outlawed in Germany but just not tax exeampt and not recognised as a religion, just as you say. I found this link: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/krasel/germany/government.html

An important and informative website on the matter

[blind biker]

I wonder how come I have not seen this site mentioned in the higher modded posts. It's the most informative website about scientology.

Re:This is hilarious - odd mention of "BLOGS" p77

[Malevolent Tester]

Joe Bloggs/Blogs is Joe Sixpack's British cousin.

Re:Daughters of Scientology's top brass speaking o

[sherriw]

Oh my god, it sounds like something out of Orwell's 1984. Complete with made up words for things, invasion of privacy and 'big brother' constantly watching. This site was an eye-opener for sure!

Re:are you serious?

[mfrank]

If someone tells me I'm going to hell, I can chuckle a bit and go on with my life. Try doing that with a subpeona.