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UK Teen Cited For Calling Scientology a "Cult"
An anonymous reader writes "A 15-year-old in the UK is facing prosecution for using the word 'cult' to describe the Church of Scientology at an anti-Scientology demonstration in London earlier this month. According to the City of London police at the scene, the teen was violating the Public Order Act, which 'prohibits signs which have representations or words which are threatening, abusive or insulting.' There's a video of the teen receiving the summons from the City of London police at the demonstration (starting about 1 minute in), and now he's asking for advice on how to handle the court case."
naming an act the "Public Order Act."
The next thing London will do is put up posters saying that you are secure beneath the watchful eyes.
Perhaps they thought Orwell was writing an instruction manual?
Once again, what would seem a basic 'right' is being brutally oppressed by an organization under the cloak of 'religion'. I wonder just how much longer this will continue? Until we are all 'clears' or cleared out of our money from the lawsuits?
Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
Whats the difference between religions and cults? As far as I can tell they really are the same thing.
Scientology is a cult created by a second-rate sci-fi author on a bet. El-Ron can suck my sweaty ballsack.
The kid should move to Germany, they recognize $cientology as the dangerous cult it is.
Why hasn't someone crossed Marijuana with Kudzu yet?
... right now!
Come together
"All governments are liars and murderers" - Bill Hicks
Just spread the word that Scientologists believe Allah is a pig-fucker.
Obviously they are headed entirely too much in the wrong direction. I wish I could say you should move to the U.S., but I am not sure we are not headed down that path as well...at least here you can call Christians anything you want with impunity. We just cant say bad about Muslims or the "Church of Global Warming" or Environmentalism. Not sure about the Scientologists, they may not be a protected class yet.
Exhibit A:
...?
Why the heck is this tagged censorship?
Exhibit B:
There's a law against insulting signs.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I'd also say that cults tend to have more bizarre / possibly insane aspects to them. Am I the only one who remembers Tom Cruise saying he was going to eat the placenta after Suri was born?
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Last time when someone critical of Scientology turned up dead, police was happy to believe he committed suicide, even though he had given no prior signs (nor had any reason to) kill himself.
You know that Scientology has infiltrated the police in the US in some cities?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Much like Christianity has dominated the police in nearly all US cities?
Because a law against "insulting" signs IS censorship, just as a law against "insulting" books or "insulting" speech would be.
Yes. Of course it would. It saddens me that you have to even ask this.
You have the right to stand on the corner with a sign saying "X is Y!" for any values of X and Y. Any values at all. (Dictatorial governments may, of course, not recognize that right; it exists nonetheless.)
"Scientology is a cult". "The Conservative Party is a cult." "The City of London police are a bunch of mindless jerks." "The Flying Spaghetti Monster is better than Jesus." "Tom Swiss is a dweeb."
Anyone who attempts to forcibly stop you from saying any of these things is engaging in censorship.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
My understanding is most of these kinds of laws exist because of the Nazis. The thought process goes: "The Nazis said bad things about a group of people, so if we make it illegal to say bad things we won't have Nazis again." That's for the old laws, the newer ones that are made are usually done under the cloak of encouraging multi-multiculturalism.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
Scientology is a Criminal nut-cult.
Although all cults are nuts, not all cults are criminal.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Not weird at all, actually. That's actually what a democracy is supposed to be.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
I want to add to what cynicsreport said earlier in this topic. The word "cult" has commonly accepted definitions, and if Scientology fits that definition, then the sign was a statement of fact.
In particular, part of my liberal arts studies at Westmont college included multiple classes on cults (it is/was a religious school, so knowing about many flavors of cults was mandatory). We had a lengthy course on the difference between cults & religion. The main difference was secrecy, not legitimacy. A religion -- whether you believed it to be true or fake -- was an institution that had open processes. You could gain access to the teachings freely, and likely audit the finances, too. This means the institutions of Catholics, Christians, Jews, and a handful of others were "religions." Then there were other institutions like Scientology, Moonies, and lots of others that had closed processes. You couldn't audit the finances, you couldn't freely gain access to the teachings, etc. Those were cults.
It's entirely possible that you could feel a particular cult held the truth while all religions of the world were shams. The word "cult" was not intended to imply who was right. If calling something a cult was an insult, it wasn't because the cult was crappy or false; it was because of secrecy, potential for deception regarding finances, and so on. And not surprisingly, when you fall back on the dispassionate definition, it gets really hard to refute it even if you DO take it as an insult. If someone says you're holding documents in secrecy and you say "That's an insult" well... ARE you holding documents in secrecy? If so, you're feeling insulted by the truth. In such a case, I don't really feel that a state should compel people to lie.
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You know, I first heard about our anti-hate crime laws (I'm Canadian), in my last year of University. I was arguing with a professor about why neo-nazi games should be allowed to exist (the topic was a game that had you manage a concentration camp I believe)
I of course argued that speech should be free, and it would be a violation of those moron's right to free speech.
His response was rather simple, and silenced me. To this day, I'm still not sure if I agree or not. In some cases, infringing upon one person's right to free speech is creating freedom to enjoy life for another, which is another freedom granted by our bill of rights. (I think the exact terminology is something akin to the right to enjoy your property)... but the point was well taken.
I would agree that someone has the right to not be constantly harassed. And that is what the law strives to protect. And I have to agree that giving up a small part of one freedom in exchange for a much bigger freedom, might not be such a bad idea.
At the risk of being wildly un-PC
More like "wildly inaccurate." At least on the Mormon front.
a short list of religions that fit this description would include not only Scientology, but Mormonism and Islam. All three of these fundamentally disallow their members from choosing not to be members, up to and including outright murder.
The Mormon church not only allows people to leave, there is an established process for removing your name from the records. You *will* be hassled about this if you opt to try it -- most leaders will make you ask a few times, they'll ask you if you're sure, they'll try to talk you out of it -- but in the end, they will drop you.
There's also the easier option, which consists of simply not going anymore and avoiding the people who periodically come by to try to reactivate you. I've heard a few outlandish tales of machinations in member's lives, but for the most part, the only tool the Mormon church has is outright preaching and a bit of peer pressure. It is remarkably easy to do whatever the hell you want, especially if you have even the smallest idea of when to keep your mouth shut.
an ex-Mormon in Salt Lake City is going to have a very hard time buying anything, anywhere.
I'd be interested to hear how you came by this the idea that everyday purchases are affected by religious affiliation with any real frequency in Utah, because it's complete bullshit.
There are a variety of problems I think someone who publicly leaves/denounces the Mormon church in Utah is likely to encounter, but with a few exceptions, they're pretty much all going to be directly related to coloring of social interactions with former peers inside of the church. But not only is there a significant enough non-Mormon presence inside of Utah that this wouldn't matter from an economic perspective, I don't believe I've met the Mormon that would actually refuse to sell to an ex-member.
Tweet, tweet.
He was charged for carrying a sign saying "Scientology is not a religion, it's a dangerous cult".
Specifically he was charged for carrying a sign likely to cause alarm, distress or harassment. Use of the word "Cult" is largely irrelevant.
It's still a trumped up charge, but saying it's for calling Scientology a cult is completely misrepresenting it. Misleading stories are counter productive when you already have a fragrant abuse of the law.
They realized which police to bribe and infiltrate in order to get those results. And they did. That shift is no accident.
I'm not a native English speaker; in Romanian, my mother tongue, we call all religions, including ours, a "religious cult". I really cannot grasp the offensive term in "cult". Does it sound that offensive in English ?
Here in the US, at least, the word "cult" implies a large group of followers and a shaggy-haired leader, usually having sex with all the followers. He takes all their money, they live on a commune, and at his word they'll all happily commit suicide in order to transfer their souls to a passing comet. They also stockpile weapons and molest children.
Yes, this is all stereotypical and there are plenty of cults that are simply communes, but there have been a decent enough number of the bad cases that it's not exactly a stretch to not want your cult to be called as such.
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that state unequivocally that COS is a cult. Members were or are even banned from emigration into the UK. It is not recognized legally there as a religion.
Operation Clambake has a just a few of them here; http://www.xenu.net/archive/judge_quotes.html
This should be more than enough fodder to fight the matter on if CPS even decides to press it to test.
is, by logical and moral extension, intolerance itself
meanwhile, intolerance of intolerance, is, by logical and moral extension, tolerance
now you can say that intolerance is a loosey goosey term that can be applied to anyone's actions. but, no, intolerance is not a random pejorative. it can be concretely and precisely defined in all situations: "i fight against xyz" "what is xyz?" "xyz stands against abc" "what is abc?" etc... your terms can be iteratively reduced to find at the root of any instinct fundamentally intolerant or tolerant impulses
example: at face value, fighting scientology can be called intolerant. but we must iteratively examine what your terms are. here the next object before us is scientology, which most definitely does intolerant things. going further then, can the objects of scientology's intolerance be defined as intolerant as well? no. scientology stands against liberal notions of freedom of expression. so here the iteration ends: scientology fights against tolerant principles. therefore, to be intolerant of that which is intolerant of tolerant principles is, by logical extension, tolerance
so the actions of the teenager in this situation is intolerance of intolerance, which, by logical and moral extension, is a form of tolerance
or rather, its a good definition of tolerance in a better world, a world where those who take real world action against intolerant organizations and governments in this world are supported by liberalism. well, according to a classical definition of liberalism, such freedom fighters are supported
but such fighters are not supported by the inert fungus that has infected the academia and cliquish so-called intellects of western liberalism. these so-called liberals embrace indifference or outright acceptance of real liberalism's enemies: virulent forces of religious fundamentalism and authoritarianism that hold sway over vast parts of the globe. and they do this, with the highest of ironies, in the name of tolerance, of all concepts
i await the awakening of true classical liberalism in the childish naive confused west. virulent religious fundamentalism and authoritarian regimes must make more victories and inroads against the dying west before the old spirit is shocked and awakened, and the current fashionable "tolerance" of vile ideologies is dethroned. you spread tolerance by fighting that which destroys tolerance in this world. do not make any mistake about that
religious fundamentalism and authoritarianism are not going away on their own. on the contrary, they are growing, and they are your enemy if you embrace the ideals that rose in the enlightenment. these enemies must be fought, in the name of tolerance, in the name of liberalism. understand that, or understand nothing about your world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Pretty hard to pull off though. How can you accurately represent EVERYONE?
Cult? Cult! I take offense to that, you insensitive clod!
Prepare for your court summons!
$> man woman $> Segmentation fault. (Core dumped)
Actually there's a good chance the Human Rights Act will provide much the same defence (although it may not even be necessary to cite the HRA as the Public Order Act itself has a defence of "reasonableness" which I'd expect to apply to most political speech).
Hopefully the guy involved will stop asking for advice on bulletin boards and find himself a decent human rights lawyer (many of which I am confident would take this on for free).
But Scientology is a cult by the dictionary definition, so why are they suing him? It at least fits 1, 4 and 6 (at least the extreme part) and perhaps others from the dictionary.com definition.
From Dictionary.com:
cult
1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.
3. the object of such devotion.
4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.
5. Sociology. a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.
6. a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.
7. the members of such a religion or sect.
8. any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific.
-adjective
9. of or pertaining to a cult.
10. of, for, or attracting a small group of devotees: a cult movie.
I agree. Every religion in the world can be considered a cult by other religions because their beliefs are not mainstream in the other society.
Even within a religion you can have cult references. American Christian Fundamentalists are certainly considered a cult by most Catholics and Anglicans that I know.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
I don't honestly know that I want the people to decide how the people are governed in a broad sort of way. In general, people as groups tend to panic. Things like the Constitution and UK Common Law may be fragile protection, but they are protection. If you'd actually asked them, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that a majority of Americans would have favored an even more knee jerk reaction to 9/11 than actually occurred.
Besides, I'm not sure how it would help in this case. Even if "the people" were making the laws there would still be a need for enforcement therefore still something resembling police. This, so far, is not a case of "government overreaching", but rather "police overreaching". The police are part of the government, but ultimately they are individuals. It becomes a case of "government overreaching" if and only if the young man is prosecuted and found guilty. I wouldn't be half surprised if the the Crown Prosecutors drop this like a hot potato.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Which therefore means the song is actually extremely ironic, and she is a genius.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies. Wait, so why was this kid cited? Some kind of "fact-based slandering" laws no one knows about or something?
Your ad here.
In today's world? +1, Insightful.
It's ironic to prosecute a kid for using the word "cult" when in the U.S. the government freely uses the label "cult" to denigrate a group of people in the public's eye. Refer to citizens as "cultists", get the media to refer to citizens as "cultists". Do this enough, and people who don't see the propaganda for what it is will come to view them, not as citizens anymore, but as dangerous Threats to Society.
"Citizens" are good. "Cultists" are bad. Not entitled to the same protections as the rest of us. Then it's not only easy, but proper to violate their Constitutional rights and even kill them without due process, with the public's blessing.
Words are powerful. If, during the months of the Waco siege, the media had referred to the victims there as "Citizens" instead of "Cultists", do you think people would have been so accepting of the government's actions? Hell no! In my opinion, Waco was a test, and the government learned that if it can sufficiently demonize and marginalize people in the public's eye, it can do pretty much whatever it wants to them and people will accept it. So now we have the Mormon raid in Texas, and everybody applauded. Child abuse sucks, but government agents tearing children away from their families without due process is downright scary!
I despise religions that wield their beliefs as weapons to control their followers in destructive ways. But I'm wary when words like "cult" are used to label citizens who live differently from the norm. Next time it could be you or me and and our families, and people will have been conditioned to accept it when we're killed or hauled off to the camps.
For the record, I also despise laws that infringe upon freedom of speech and action. And governments that try too hard to protect everybody from everything. Big Brother is far worse than any ills it tries to protect us from. "Utopia is not an option."
This was my first thought when I heard this story. Their de facto ownership of the Clearwater PD seems to have worked well enough that the program is being expanded globally. I assume, true to style, that most/all of the Co$' "private" security for this demonstration were off duty constables? Lovely legal way to buy the hearts and minds of the cops. If the cops are recruited to the cult they can even count on getting their money back from them.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Because that is how Scientology works - say something they don't like, and they will harass you with everything they can, quasi-legally. It is their entire strategy for defending themselves - attack their attackers.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Just wanted to get it out there in case the U.K. wants to bring me up on charges. Come on you authoritarian assholes, I dare you. Scientology is a cult. Mormonism is a cult. Christianity is a cult. Islam is a cult. (and by leaving them out, my intent is that followers of Judaism feel insulted for being excluded (chosen at random) (and yes, they too are a cult))
Aside from the heinous idea that a person feeling insulted should be sufficient to inhibit free speech, how about the anthropological (as opposed to bullshit media bigotted "big means good, small means bad") definition of cult:
cult
In anthropology, an organization for the conduct of ritual, magical, or other religious observances. Many so-called primitive tribes, for example, have ancestor cults, in which dead ancestors are considered divine and activities are organized to respect their memory and invoke their aid. A cult is also a religious group held together by a dominant, often charismatic individual, or by the worship of a divinity, an idol, or some other object. (See animism, fetish, and totemism.)
Thank you, Houghton Mifflin Science Dictionary. Here's a quick note: they're all cults. They all engage in brainwashing too. Look up the definition, then tell me what those repetitive chants and rituals are. If you can come up with a consistent definition of brainwashing that does not include the ritual repetitive chanting at Sunday morning services, I will concede the point. Feeling insulted by the truth is all real sad and everything, but, um, tough shit. Stop being a cult and I'll stop calling you a cult.
And blow me, England. Hey, there's an idea! What say The Queen blows me? She's got a purty mouth. No, I'm not talking about Charles. I would never use queen as a derogatory term for a poofter - being a poofter like Prince Charles is a personal choice and I fully support his lifestyle (though I am not sure I support his closeting of it).
And with that, a little bow. Thank you for playing, England.
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it is interesting to me how adept the Scientologists are at all of this. Despite the number of critics and the widespread information about the strange beliefs of the religion, not to mention that it was started by a Sci-Fi author, and a whole laundry list of questionable practices, the church has a large following and tons of money at its disposal.
It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out over the course of the next 100 years... Would be a shame to see it emerge as a new world wide religion.
And do you really want to? Is mob rule really something you want?
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The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I think you are all missing the point. Protests are only a useful tool of public disobedience if it garners media coverage. Protests of 10 or 20 people are gigantic wastes of time. In this case, I think we should look at this as a HUGE victory. I've read about this story on just about every major media related Web site. The majority of them mention the police received gifts from the church, and the basic violation of human rights. Regardless of whether this person is fined or not, big victory in the court of public opinion.
Sects within the major religions certainly practice brainwashing and mind-control. Just look at an area where fundamentalists live. Either fundie Christians or Muslims. Children are raised in a secluded environment, only able to make friends with children whose parents are members of the same sort of cult.
The difference is that there are moderate Christians and moderate Muslims, but there aren't any moderate Scientologists, either you're a nut, or you left the church after you found out how crazy it really was.
You seriously want the people to vote on every single bill that is signed into law? Nothing would ever get done. The entire budget would be spent on elections. And no one has time to read through every bill that goes before congress and understand it. That is why congressmen have huge staffs -- to help them wade through the legislation that they have to deal with. I'm sorry, but your system is completely impractical.
Rhapsody in Numbers
Do what now? So this berk's list of tests for whether or not you're in a cult uses the bible as some sort of yardstick?
Anyone else uncomfortable with that please raise your hands!
Here's my take on the whole religion affair:
There are multiple religions and they mostly don't like other religions, each saying they are the true religion and the others are false. From this I can conclude that the chances that your religion is the correct one (if indeed there is a correct one) is small, therefore it is tantamount to child abuse to brainwash^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hteach your religion to children, your own or anyone elses.
Let's not enforce any religion on children. Let's wait until they are old enough to decide for themselves. Anything else is religious grooming and should be frowned upon by a modern society.
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
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I think it is strange that his list don't even touch two very significant cult behaviours:
1. What they do to attract new members from the surrounding society.
2. What they do to isolate those new members from the influence from the surrounding society.
I basically agree with your (Martin's?) definition of "cult". However, (1), (2), and (4) are just the definition of "religion" (with the addition of the word "charismatic").(3) is really "objective", there, christ-boy :P
(5) I like. It makes a great deal of sense and rings true, although it happens far too often in mainstream religions as well (although it might still make sense to call them cults when this happens).
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."