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Church of Scientology On Trial In France
An anonymous reader sends word that a trial has opened in Paris that could shut down Scientology in France. The organization stands accused of targeting vulnerable people for commercial gain. Scientology does not have the status of a religion there, as it does in the US, and anti-cult groups have pursued it vigorously over more than 30 years. The current case is based on complaints filed by two women in December 1998 and July 1999. Three other former members who had initially joined the complaint have withdrawn after "reaching a financial arrangement with church officials." If convicted, the seven top Scientologists in France face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of €1M. The Church of Scientology-Celebrity Centre and its Scientology Freedom Space bookshop not only face a much larger fine but also run the risk of being shut down completely.
I guess the whole "child slavery" thing hasn't been working out so well lately.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
This evil can't come to an end soon enough.
My experience of the Scientology center in Los Angeles, California, was that it was run entirely for financial gain.
Xenu's gonna be pissed!
Well, let's see. Germany declared Scientology unconstitutional in '07... are we seeing a domino effect starting?
Those bastards!
I hope the 3 members who "reached a financial arrangement with church officials" can un-withdraw and help testify. And if they get to keep the money - sweet!
I mean, scientologists are a bunch of loons, but take a look at the first set of Google search entries when you look up "catholic priests"
Deleted
The wacky shit that Scientologists are taught to believe is no more wacky than the shit Christians are taught to believe in.
In regards to fraud, the only difference is that the Christians have been around longer, so the only lies they tell are the ones that are not verifiably false.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Ironically, there's a Google Ad for Scientology on this very page.
I'm not sure how this qualifies as "Your Rights Online." Unless you think people have a 'right' to run a criminal organization.
damn you anonymous!!!
I don't have a problem with acting against individuals who break the law but if we start banning groups because of their beliefs it might be hard to know where to stop.
How about World of Warcraft. Isn't that sort of a cult?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
While America left itself be bribed into accepting a scam has a religion, France maintained its integrity. Its a shame the scientology achieved the buyout of most the plaintiffs
Three other former members who had initially joined the complaint have withdrawn after "reaching a financial arrangement with church officials."
This sounds a lot like a settlement, much like a company would do in this situation.
Does anyone else LOVE the fact that an ANONYMOUS reader posted this article!!!
Oh, Zenu's knocking on my door. b
After reading about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R2-45 in wikipedia, I can't think how can this be part of the modern, civilized world if that turns out to be a true fact.
FYI: R2-45 is a Scientology auditing process created by L. Ron Hubbard. The process of R2-45 specifically pertains to shooting the target with a Colt .45 pistol, causing the victim's "thetan" to leave the body (exteriorization). In 1952 during a meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, Hubbard demonstrated the process of R2-45 by firing a shot at the floor.[1][2] In a lecture of 1958, Hubbard comments that "Death is not the same as clearing but there is, remember, R2-45. It's a very valid technique. A lot of people have used it before now." [3]
Not quite sure if this is a troll or not, but Scientology is infamous for their brainwashing techniques. You only need to be "dumb enough" to take a few early courses "just to see if it'll work" to get well and truly shanghaied.
If you're dumb enough to spend thousands of dollars on something called a 'Thetin meter' then it's your fault.. not the seller's, then again it's France :P..
So there should be no laws against fraud? Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, Madoff ... all that should be completely legal, because it's the victim's fault?
Breakfast served all day!
If you're dumb enough to spend thousands of dollars on something called a 'Thetin meter' then it's your fault.. not the seller's.
In many places, there are laws regarding the safety of a product and its fitness to perform the function for which it was purchased. They had better be able to demonstrate that a Thetin meter definitely measures whatever it measures properly.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
but I wouldn't want to have to defend it in court against the E.T. worshipers.
EVERY religion prays on the weak and ignorant. The entire basis of religion is "we tell you how to think because we know better". Sometimes this results in good rewarding behavior, but do the ends justify the means?
Inconceivable. Who will they sue then? Financial analysts, all the other religions, Coca Cola, Microsoft, or Britney Spears?
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
R2-45 may go a long way to allow others to conclude Hubbard thought his religion was a joke. I do wonder if you invest your entire life saving in religion, whether you actually meant a self R2-45 but were just too squeamish.
After reading about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R2-45 in wikipedia, I can't think how can this be part of the modern, civilized world if that turns out to be a true fact.
Try it out on a Scientologist and find out!
...does it run Xenu?
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
since Thetans are completely made up, about the only thing that device could possibly measure is your body's resistivity to electricity, your body fat percentage, and/or your heart rate.
But if L. Ron said it... then it must be true. ;)
Send your spendthrift head of state this
The 4chan fucktards will be all over the place soon...
"America let itself be bribed into accepting a scam has a religion" Why are you bring Fundamentalist Christians and Televangelists into this discussion? "France maintained its integrity." Do you mean France's integrity with the Catholic Church?
more cowbell
To be fair, the issue is specifically fraud, which requires them to charge money for it.
But yes, I have noticed that the media, including the Slashdot summary, have been repeating how France doesn't consider them a religion. Is this simply being mentioned in passing, or is it an important part of the case? I fair to see how it matters - surely any "official" religions committing fraud should also be charged?
That goes for psychics, homeopaths and so on too, if they charge money for something they can't deliver (this was being planned in the UK recently - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7351199.stm - although I don't know what the outcome was, nor if they exempted "religions").
I don't see why we need an "official" definition of religion anyway, it just leads to discrimination against the non-religious, by allowing exemptions for some beliefs, but not others.
The organization stands accused of targeting vulnerable people for commercial gain.
Other religious groups might want to render an opinion to the courts defending Scientology. How many religions can't be accused of targeting vulnerable people?
This could be a case of blatant false advertising, do Scientology products come with a disclaimer? May not perform upto expectations..
Yes, false advertising, also known as fraud. Which if you actually RTFA is what they are being charged with.
The summary imples that the US has given scientology religious status. The US does not recognise or give religions status. This is prohibited by the Constitution. Furthermore, being a religion does not exempt one from laws, so the law would apply the same no matter if it was a religion or not. Being a religion does not allow an organisation to do things that would be illegal for another religion to do. Furthermore, an organisation being a religion should not single it out for more intense persecution.
As far as the charges against scientology, scientology does use sleazy methods to extract methods from the followers of this cult. However, these persons handed over this money willingly, in cases this is not illegal as long as Scientology did not attempt to coerce them or prohibit them from leaving.
But if L. Ron said it... then it must be true. ;)
Well, if he said it, certainly he R2-45'ed his cult in the foot with that one.
Every religion PRAYS on the weak and ignorant.
I see what you did there.
It's pretty clear that he considered it a joke at the beginning, and then he went bat-shit insane.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
R2-45 may go a long way to allow others to conclude Hubbard thought his religion was a joke.
Actually it appears that he thought it was a great way to make money.
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/scientology/start.a.religion.html
If these people have contacted Larry Wollersheim yet? If not, they should.
Only it's not a "thetan meter" at first. At first it's to measure your mental clarity (supposedly). It's much more plausible, especially when it's demonstrated to you and it does provide a sort of reaction which is reframed by the auditor. Only when you hit OTV are you using it to clear yourself of "body thetans" (bits of dead alien stuck to your body).
>no-one was forced to buy anything ...
>If you're dumb enough
Everybody's vulnerable to something. You can't protect yourself against every lie in the world short of clinical paranoia, and even then you'll get taken by somebody selling tinfoil hats.
Talk to a professional penetration tester. You may hear that they always succeed at using con games to compromise an organization's security.
We need anti-fraud laws. At least they can scare away potential fraudsters who are afraid of getting caught.
The wacky shit that Scientologists are taught to believe is no more wacky than the shit Christians are taught to believe in.
I would like to agree with you - Scientologists can believe in the evil galactic overlord Xenu as they see fit. Except that one of the basic tenets of religion is that it exists for the betterment of mankind, not personal profit. And it's pretty clear that Scientology is a business cloaked in Religious cloth. Here's a quote from the illustrious L. Ron Hubbard:
"MAKE MONEY. MAKE MORE MONEY. MAKE OTHER PEOPLE PRODUCE SO AS TO MAKE MORE MONEY."
- L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 9 March 1972
To see for yourself, google "Scientology make money"
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Say what you will, but you've got to love the genius of scientology. They take things that are generally considered serious crimes and make them "religious rituals". I can imagine someone coming to Ron in the early years..
Scientologist: Ron, I've got a problem. I just got angry with my girlfriend and shot her in the chest with my .45.
Ron: Hmm.. let me think..
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Lost a couple employees to them. They became involved based on promises of becoming "Auditors", but when they couldn't pay for the lessons (training, etc), they were dumped faster than a hot pan handle.
Interesting thing is I later made the plastic parts for the e machine auditing. (2 plastic parts, 2 resistors, 2 connector pins and wires). Later ran into the molder who makes the training case for their dvds and printed materials. Once the box was filled with $20 worth of materials, the loser had to pay near $2000 for it as I recall (It has been 5 years or so).
It is so hokey it is hard to believe people fall for it.
The process of R2-45 specifically pertains to shooting the target with a Colt .45 pistol, causing the victim's "thetan" to leave the body (exteriorization)
Will that work with my Kimber 1911 or do I have to find an original Colt Government Model to destroy my thetan with? ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It measures resistivity, which makes it very similar to your basic lie-detector - really a "feeling of guilt detector". I suspect that the similarity is not accidental - if you were in charge of a cult, being able to detect wavering followers or unbelievers who were trying to infiltrate would have definite advantages. Ask the right questions, subtly, during testing, and you can also find out who can "donate" more.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
> The organization stands accused of targeting vulnerable people...
I'm looking forward to the Irish government shutting down the Catholic church.
The process of R2-45 specifically pertains to shooting the target with a Colt .45 pistol, causing the victim's "thetan" to leave the body (exteriorization)
Will that work with my Kimber 1911 or do I have to find an original Colt Government Model to destroy my thetan with? ;)
Knowing Scientology, you need a very particular custom Kimber that can only be purchased from the CoS for a cost about five times that of the fanciest race gun you've ever seen.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I can't just borrow one from Tom Cruise?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
while $cieno milks them.
I have no sympathy for religion, organized or not, but $cieno is a special kind of evil.
... how can people take money not to testify in a criminal trial? I'm not a French lawyer, but if the penalty could include jail time, this sounds like a criminal charge. It's one thing to settle a civil suit out of court in exchange for some compensation. But refusing to testify if you have evidence of criminal activity is a crime itself.
Now, if the COS is stupid enough to enter into a contract that requires someone to violate the law and they renege on their part of the bargain, a civil court might find that agreement to be unenforceable. Since it requires someone to violate the law, the courts might refuse to find for the COS if they try to get the money back.
Have gnu, will travel.
They're gonna anger Him and have His wrath cast upon us all! Praise Xenu! We love you Xenu!
Why does any "religion" have the status of a religion at all?
It's like saying: Ok, so many people have this disease, that we just declare it as the new "healthy", and be done with it. ^^
I think I just have problems with abandoning my beloved *LOGIC*. ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
It's pretty clear that he considered it a joke at the beginning, and then he went bat-shit insane.
Note to self: never make another joke.
I think you'll find that France like most of Western Europe upholds the right to freedom of religion. Scientology isn't on trial as a religion. It's (rightly IMHO) not a registered religion in France and its on trial for fraud. I somehow don't think any of the other organized religions there will be rushing to the defense of Scientology.
See it as a good thing. It's a way of natural selection. If you think you've got "thetans", you die. Sounds about right to me, to make future people not believe they got "thetans" ^^
Of course, it would be better to offer them a therapy. But as that would cost emotional investment and money, nobody cares. :(
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I can't just borrow one from Tom Cruise?
Nope. They're custom-tuned to the body thetans of the particular individual. That's what makes them so expensive.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Scientology does not have the status of a religion there, as it does in the US,
This seems to me to imply that if it were a religion, then a different set of standards for its behaviors would apply. I'm sorry, but why does religion get a pass when it comes to promulgating crazy ideas that suck money out of the unwary? It's just bad policy to go on protecting religions like that. IMHO
Currently hooked on AMP
Supporting those who seek the abolition of Scientology is one thing, and I support such an end goal myself.
Calling for the end of theism in all forms, however, is something else entirely. I realise that atheism (or at least fashionable agnosticism) is part of the established groupthink here on Slashdot, but as difficult as this may be to comprehend, for some of us, theistic belief is nothing but positive, and it doesn't inspire us to go out and rape, murder, or rob anybody either.
Most people here support the concept of entirely customisable cognitive environments in terms of shells, window managers, and so on; from the perspective of mechanistic atheism, a form of theistic belief doesn't need to be perceived much differently.
If you choose to go without one, for whatever reason, that's fine; I'm not evangelical in the slightest, and I endorse the right of anyone to be totally atheistic who wants to be. All I want is recognition of the same right of freedom of belief myself. If people aren't using theism as an excuse to commit crimes, (and I don't) there is no reason why theism should not be permissible.
If you're dumb enough to spend thousands of dollars on something called a 'Thetin meter' then it's your fault.. not the seller's, then again it's France :P..
So there should be no laws against fraud? Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, Madoff ... all that should be completely legal, because it's the victim's fault?
I sometimes wonder if there wouldn't be less of those schemes if they were legal. I think people often assume they must be legit just because they'd be shut down if they were illegal, right? Heck, in Madoff's case, there was a whole government bureaucracy set up specifically to assure people that he was playing straight.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
The Google add playing is from Scientology.org
Of course the Catholic church also sold indulgences so you could sin and have it wiped out later. I believe that this was fraud at the time as well.
Why bother
Disclaimer: I am an ordained Baptist minister, and have pastored churches on a part-time basis. So, on the one hand, I speak from experience. On the other hand, if you follow the usual Slashdot assumptions about ministers, I'm a liar and a cheat. (I'm neither.)
I can't speak to how other denominations manage it, but in most traditional Baptist churches around here (Virginia) a LOT of effort is taken to prevent this. At the low end, only 2 people count the offering each week, and these people are NOT the pastor. At the high end, many churches outsource the counting of the offering entirely (banks will do this for you, for a fee.) The one constant, in my experience, is that the pastor never has access to the offering figures and that information is always closely held. I've served 4 separate churches, and have never had any idea who gave how much. Nor did I want to know.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
How many religions can't be accused of targeting vulnerable people?
This seems to me to imply that if it were a religion, then a different set of standards for its behaviors would apply. I'm sorry, but why does religion get a pass when it comes to promulgating crazy ideas that suck money out of the unwary? It's just bad policy to go on protecting religions like that. IMHO
Very true, however, that's what all western countries seem to do about religions (and all religions do what you said).
...that the Catholic church doesn't?
Other than lack political clout in France, that is.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Religion itself is benign.
It's when a PERSON decides they are going to leverage it in order to force a behavior that the shit gets all fucked up. Usually this person is working under the delusion that they have a more substantial grasp on the concept than others. They misinterpret their certainty as a hard fact that is the fulcrum of the leverage they employ on others who lack their degree of "faith" (read certainty) or wish that they too could have that degree of certainty in their lives.
"Turn the other cheek" does not prey on the weak, "pay me money or the guy who said turn the other cheek won't think you did enough" is. The difference is what a person does with it.
Religion "gets a pass" because of a little something called the First Amendment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_amendment
Don't get me wrong, I think religion is evil, but even I think that a lot of the "crazy ideas" of one religion over another is what we're accustomed to. (In other words, I think they ALL have crazy ideas, but I too am probably less biased against some than others... though I think we'd be a lot better off if we got rid of all of them. Though once again, South Park has humorously hypothesized that even if everyone became atheist, we'd find something else to fight about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_God_Go)
Yes but this is not an organised religeon. It's more of an organised gang.
I have never seen a Scientology soup line. Nor have I seen a Scientology homeless shelter. When was the last time they sent a mission to feed the poor in Africa or South America. Exactly what do they do to help society... Scientologists that is, not soup lines.
Damn. I'm guessing I'll need to pay for some audit counseling to go with the gun so they'll have the information they need to tune it properly, huh?
Better start saving up some money. I never knew that I was totally depressed until I met those nice folks at the mall. Sure am glad they are gonna be able to help me.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The summary imples that the US has given scientology religious status. The US does not recognise or give religions status. This is prohibited by the Constitution.
Not true. Your constitution prevents your government from passing laws which restrict the practicing of religion. Therefore the US courts must judge what constitutes a religion in order to determine whether a law is constitutional. There might not be an official list of recognized religions written in a book somewhere but, in practice, there must be one built up via legal precedent. Since the article only says "Scientology does not have the status of a religion there, as it does in the US" this is an accurate statement since Scientology cannot be shut down in the US because, as far as the courts are concerned, it is a religion and therefore protected from any law restricting its practice. In France the courts do not recognize it a religion so it has no protection.
As a seminary graduate with a Doctorate in New Testament from the University of Virginia... and I never had to blow a single goat. Amazing!
All the source documents for Christian theology are publicly available, and well out of copyright. What are copyrighted is modern translations of documents... which I sort of hate, but then again theology professors have to eat too. If you're willing to take the time and effort to learn Greek and Latin, you can read them more-or-less for free. And if even if you're not, the modern translations are pretty much available from any well-stocked library (sadly, public libraries ignore religion, so public libraries don't help.)
Shoot... Union Theological Seminary of Virginia in Richmond--which has one of the best theological libraries in the country--will give you a card just for the asking. And they're not alone... many seminary libraries are open to the public.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Well... technically, there is some truth in that. Quite often people will just hand over chunks of money in moves of pure idiocy ("Hi, I am a Nigerian Prince...") and yeah, damn, how much protection should people have from being stupid, and how much should they just get that question - "and what did you learn?"? I don't think it should be the role of the law to step in in such situations, however, I think there are situations where I think it becomes less clear, where the ruse is more elaborate, or circumstances more dangerous, where the law should protect people. As with any line drawn, there will always be people who push it as far as they can, so it is probably best to draw the line lower (lower being the stupider end rather than the elaborate end) so that pushing the boundaries of the law doesn't result in as serious acts.
So, no I don't think it should be, but I think it's better that it is... which doesn't sound like it should make sense, but hopefully I've explained well enough :-)
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Just like homeopathy, acupuncture, chiropracty, those "get rich quick" schemes, and all those crappy kitchen gadgets they sell on late night TV? Those things don't constitute fraud because people know what they're getting into. In the same essence, these people actually do get their "thetan meter" in the mail. In free societies people are allowed to believe what they want, and are allowed to spend their money on whatever they want. But, this IS France after all...(and Germany)...
That's not true, it could also be picking up on your chakras.
*lol*
sorry, couldn't resist.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Go learn something about the world wars. Seriously, you're so way off it's... I can't even think of a word for what it is without resorting to pejoratives which if you were just being stupid I would do, but you've obviously just got the wrong end of the stick from somewhere which is much better corrected.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
France already imprisoned and killed a pope or two, but they never defeated the catholic church itself. You just can't get the mafia or the church out of Italy without first dealing with the other.
An easier target might be Islamists in France or Islamic groups who don't integrate into French society.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
In the US, we can't go after whacky religions due to the First Amendment's guarantees - that whole "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" thing is pretty hard to get around.
France doesn't have anything like that.
The FLDS Church teaches the doctrine of plural marriage, which states that a man having multiple wives is ordained by God; the doctrine requires it in order for a man to receive the highest form of salvation. It is generally believed in the church that a man should have a minimum of three wives to fulfill this requirement.[43] Connected with this doctrine is patriarchal doctrine, the belief that wives are required to be subordinate to their husbands.
The church currently practices placement marriage, whereby a young woman of marriageable age is assigned a husband by revelation from God to the leader of the church, who is regarded as a prophet.[44] The prophet elects to take and give wives to and from men according to their worthiness. This is also called the law of placing.
[...]
On November 7, 2007, the Washington County Attorney's Office released video of jailhouse conversations between Nephi and Warren Jeffs. In the videos Warren renounces his prophethood, claiming that God had told him that if he revealed that he was not the rightful prophet, and was a "wicked man", he would still gain a place in the telestial kingdom.[19] Jeffs also admits to what he calls, "immoral actions with a sister and a daughter" when he was 20 years old.[20] Other records show that while incarcerated, Jeffs tried to commit suicide by banging his head against the walls and trying to hang himself.
As you can see, these communities with entirely different value systems still exist. Why else would he feel the need to put out such an idiotic video, in which he claims that "because he had sex with family he can't be the Rightful Prophet, so y'all should follow this other guy now, because he is"?
So sure you can leave, if your denomination is accepting enough.
However, if you're part of some sort of logging community living in Alberta, or part of that sick group ruled by Warren Jeffs, you'll probably be raised in such a way that you either won't know/dare to doubt "your community's" rules, or, if you're male, you'll be so happy with the kickbacks (the fact that women are raised to think they only exist to serve males, and how they're forced to marry some 35-65yo when they reach age 14) that you won't want to leave. And consider here that the cult that Jeffs ruled consisted of more than a thousand males, and had some 10.000 members (men/women/children) total. This is not small sect we're talking about, and the authorities have known about them for years, but nobody can do anything about it (or will). It's just ignored, and these fuckers are left to do whatever they want to whoever they can get their hands on.
The only reason you were able to leave yours, and/or realise that "this life wasn't for you", is because there aren't enough places in the West left that are remote enough for these systems of indoctrination to succeed at what they're trying to accomplish. We should consider ourselves lucky that this is the case.
However, the "evil conspiracy against children" is something very real (and is part of the reason why religious expression should be kept from the schooling system, so that parents cannot try to raise their children in such a way that they start believing that "religion is the only way"), so I don't think it's being quite fair to yourself to say that "all indoctrination is equal" as you argue here. Raising your daughters in such a way that all they know is that they've been created in order to serve whoever you decide to wed them to when they reach puberty (yes, this kind of thing still happens, and is almost impossible to prevent in some states) is whole fucking worlds apart from "indoctrinating" your kids to believe that rabbits shouldn't be eaten, and arguing that that's a "fair" equation is callous (as well as inaccurate) in the extreme.
Yes, "everything is indoctrination", but no, not everything is equally bad.
Religion "gets a pass" because of a little something called the First Amendment.
What makes you think that amendments to the US Constitution apply in France?
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
I grew up in Clearwater Florida, one of their, uhmm, headquarters. This is one whaked out group of folks!
This is just another reason why seperation of church and state is important. Its funny how Christians want to control the government but they fail to see the other side of it. But then again these stupid organizations such as Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Scientology etc are just fairytales being driven by stupid monkey like creatures we call "humans" :)
I hate all fanboy's of god :) They just look silly as they argue their stupid rituals and fantasy stories as if they mean anything.
Do you think any 1 of you stupid monkeys has the answer to the world? Do you really think the "creator" has time to talk to you? What makes you so damn important?
Religion is organized insanity and should be burned out of the homes and lives of all those that are stupid to follow one.
Nothing makes me think that. Upon rereading the message I replied to, I realize there is nothing that directly states that they were talking about the US. Since most slashdot readers are based in the US [citation needed], and the *quoted text* in the message I replied to referred to the US, I presumed they were talking about why religions 'get a pass' in the US. I now realize that they could be talking about different legal treatment of religions in France too.
If it was a religion thye could jail convicted criminal from that religion but could not ban it. As a dangerous cult, they can simply ban and jail anyone that represent it.
The process of R2-45 specifically pertains to shooting the target with a Colt .45 pistol, causing the victim's "thetan" to leave the body (exteriorization)
Will that work with my Kimber 1911 or do I have to find an original Colt Government Model to destroy my thetan with? ;)
Knowing Scientology, you need a very particular custom Kimber that can only be purchased from the CoS for a cost about five times that of the fanciest race gun you've ever seen.
Nah - they wouldn't use Kimbers - that would show on the bottom line. I'm thinking Hi-Point.
That's also the predominate difference between Scientology and real religions - Scientology is better with the financial side of the operation. :)
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
you mean like the televangelists ?
In the US at least, religion == church == tax except status. One might wonder "why?", I believe it's because of "No taxation without representation". The idea is that a secular country prefers churches not be represented in government, but therefore they cannot be taxed.
The Vatican secret archives wouldn't really be source documents for theology. More like a presidential library. But hey, who knows, maybe how many Ducats Pope Innocent XIV spent on hookers really IS relevant for YOUR theology. It's sure not very important to mine. And in any case, everything prior to 1922 is open to non-clerical scholars anyway--and archives from 1939 and before from the department of state are available as well.
Now, when I refer to "source documents of Christian theology", I'm referring to:
Since you're looking for "hidden sources", I assume you've read all that?
Oh... you haven't? Why not?
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Um... Like that dude Benedict... the one who looks like Emperor Palpatine? He believes in them apparently.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7131088.stm
Though admittedly I haven't actually talked to the man about it as you asked. But I am guessing if he digs it, at least a few other Catholics do.
"Actually it appears that he thought it was a great way to make money."
I agree with Hubbard that people willfully stupid enough to believe in superstition deserve to be callously exploited, but not to where they cause problems for the rest of us intelligent enough to be without spirituality.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Yes, by all means, let's get rid of all them but you think the chosen ones will agree with you?
Were wasting billions if not trillions fighting a war based on someone taking this BS to literally.
Hell, our whole mideast policy is based on our support for one of these idiotic groups.
That wasn't the point at all.
mattack2 was simply saying the reason they are able to prosecute The Church of Scientology in France but not in the United States is because the First Amendment of the US Constitution apparently prohibits their Congress from passing any laws either respecting the establishment, or prohibiting the free exercise, of religion.
We have a similar situation where I live, where a polygamist community avoids prosecution (to some extent) because the local government is afraid a case would not withstand a Charter challenge. They don't want to end up enshrining polygamy in law.
I'm not sure how you got the idea anyone was suggesting that the First Amendment of the US Constitution would apply in France.
I don't care why you're posting AC
Hubbard also used it in apparently non-humorous contexts. On March 6, 1968, Hubbard issued an internal memo titled "RACKET EXPOSED," in which he denounced twelve people as "Enemies of mankind, the planet and all life," and ordered that "Any Sea Org member contacting any of them is to use Auditing Process R2-45."
Former Scientologist http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/mom/Messiah_or_Madman.txt >Bent Corydon wrote that in late 1967 at Saint Hill, he personally received a copy of an order naming four former Scientologists as enemies and "fair game" and ordering any Sea Org member who encountered them to use R2-45.
-wikipedia
This seems to me to imply that if it were a religion, then a different set of standards for its behaviors would apply. I'm sorry, but why does religion get a pass when it comes to promulgating crazy ideas that suck money out of the unwary?
Europeans tend not to be in awe of religions that haven't been around for at least a millennia. A religious sect will have to put in at least a few centuries of work to generate any sparks of awe in many parts of Europe. Americans on the other hand seem to be willing to tolerate almost any insanity as long as it is packaged as a religion. Just take a look at your last president. According to recent news reports Bush seems to have been willing to sign off on almost anything as long as Rumsfeld, Rowe and the rest of them packaged it a s the will of god. Mind you the Polish government decided to investigate whether one of the Teletubbies is gay, and then there is theocracies like Iran... well Iran is a chapter onto it self... so you guys in the states aren't completely alone out there when it comes to the suffering under the stultifying effects of fervent religion. At least the attempt by you country's fundamentalist christian movements to turn the USA into a theocracy has failed... for now.
But if you are short on funds you can always bring them a sword to get the process done for free.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/homicidereport/2009/02/hollywood-man-4.html
IIRC, when the Church of Scientology Internationallost a major lawsuit by Steve Fishman, the church executives turned the CSI into a shell, transferring virtually all capital and IP to the Religious Technology Center(which licensed "its" IP back to the CSI), theoretically leaving the plaintiff with nothing from which he could collect.
I wouldn't be surprised to find that although the Paris center is incorporated independently of the mother church, and that it'll turn out that, like every Hollywood production, they've been "broke" all along.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Wow, that's not even close to correct. No taxation without representation was English law, not US law. In the US, we eliminated the need for such a clause by eliminating the kingship and building the entire system around representation. We also did not put taxation in the hands of the executive (not sure if the English did or not, honestly), and territories of the US get non-voting representation in Congress. The clause is not required because it is built into the system.
Churches are tax-exempt because they have charity status. I'm not sure precisely how it is built into the law, but it does not apply to everything the church does, and the assumption is that the church is a net benefit for society.
The reasons religions don't get persecuted, and are in fact very difficult to prosecute for wrongdoing is because of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. In a nutshell, it says Congress can't make a law that prohibits or even negatively influences the free exercise of any religion. Cults in the US are on shaky ground, but once you achieve Religion status - i.e. have your own church and can be considered tax exempt - you are on very solid ground legally.
In theory, even cults are heavily protected by the first amendment, in practice they don't fare as well as those belief systems that are considered full blown religions.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
France can start outlawing other religions... except Islam, because they won't want to offend Muslims.
Scientologists are big Second Amendment supporters, apparently.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Note to L.Ron Hubbard: The joke wasn't that funny.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I stand corrected, mod parent up!
Amen! Oh wait. Shit. Sorry. ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdumReductio ad absurdum
I mean, come on. God knows I'm not defending Scientology, but "How was I to know the nice man in the mall kiosk wasn't sincere about wanting to protect my mind from the aliens?" isn't exactly the start of a stellar legal argument.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
I'm left wondering what kind of country France is. Even if Scientology isn't a religion, are there only official approved religions in France? Odd for such a secular country. Or do they have register their services? Oh, right, you're socialist, nevermind, everything has to be government approved. What exactly was the expectation when money was exchanged? Aren't the women just admitting their freaking idiots and sheep to the world?
In the US, the rules for religion are quite similar to those for non-profits and charities. So I'm not sure what people like you are whining about. If people give their money away, that's their decision.
So besides your bias against religion, what exactly do you have proof of that the people giving the money away are unwary? What constitutes giving one organization, even a religious one, a pass? Most churches I know are pretty straight up clear about where the money goes that gets placed in the donation jar or basket--pay the preacher, pay the mortgage, expansion, services. Even if Scientology isn't a religion, if somoene willingly gives money up to the organization, a later are disbelievers, they want their money back?
What next, people complaining /. should pay people for lost time and energy plus punative damages for crappy stories and dupes?
... about the French if they'll send Tom Cruise to Devil's Island permanently as part of this action. He can work on his OT LXI level there.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
"It's pretty clear that he considered it a joke at the beginning, and then he went bat-shit insane."
No, and then he realised that there really was a load of money to be made.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Hubbard realized that there was money to be made some time before he started his nut-cult.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It gets better: they've got classes and retreats that cost $$$$, and they've even got a bodycount, though nothing compared to Scientology.
Please help metamoderate.
Hitler and company had some really wacky religious beliefs based on Christianity with all kinds of other things like Arthurian Legend, Norse, Indian and various other mythologies along with some stuff they just made up. He made heavy use of the Christian beliefs of the typical German to persecute the Jews (a religious and cultural group), Gypsies (a religious and cultural group, communists (godless commie bastards) and homosexuals (traditional religious punching bag). Is it really that hard to forget that Hitler rose to power on a religion-based ethnic cleansing platform and that his power in his own party was based in part on prophecies by Christian mystics?
Here's an interesting thread that discusses some of Scientology's favorite psychological methods and related famous experiments. Former Scientologists even chime in.
http://forums.whyweprotest.net/291-scientology-discussion/brainwashing-long-14420/
I like this quote:
An important note: the human brain is a pattern-recognizing machine that evolved over billions of years. It was not engineered to be flawless, and the studies I listed essentially 'reverse-engineer' the system and identify 'exploits.'
Gah. Shoulda been "How Does Anyone Fall For It?"
That wasn't the point at all.
OP having observed from TFA the Cos "have the status of a religion there, as it does in the US," then proceded to ask "This seems to me to imply that if it were a religion ..." ie. in France since it is in the US, "... then a different set of standards for its behaviors would apply. I'm sorry, but why does religion get a pass ..." What was the point again?
mattack2 was simply saying the reason they are able to prosecute The Church of Scientology in France but not in the United States is because the First Amendment
Which would be a rather stunning non sequitur in response to the question of whether a "different set of standards ... would apply" if it were a regligion in France.
I'm not sure how you got the idea anyone was suggesting that the First Amendment of the US Constitution would apply in France.
If to the question why would CoS be treated differently in France if it were a religion you give the answer "[B]ecause of a little something called the First Amendment" you are suggesting that the 1st Amendment applies in France. Can you not see that?
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Sorry: OP having observed from TFA the CoS don't "have the status of a religion there, as it does in the US,"
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
It's the same as protecting holocaust deniers- keep fringe people around and you'll never worry about stepping on the toes of legitimate people. Given opinions on religion here, "legitimate" simply means people are actually acting out of faith of some sort (be it faith in god or karma or what have you). Scientology steps far enough into the territory of "people simply taking advantage of other people" that you can safely remove it from the religion category.
My webcomic
this is actually the thing I've never gotten about tax exempt. I know they are classified as a charity, but as a child who had to go to church, I noticed very little went to "charity". Most (about 1/2) went to the building & maint fund. About 1/4 went to the pastor salaries and other salaries. I think about 10% actually got given away. Call me crazy, but can you imagine a charity (secular) giving away only 10c on the dollar and not being hassled for it? I've often thought the IRS should require like a minimum of 60c on the dollar to go to helping people outside the organization for the organiation to be a charity. The numbers should be audited every other year and if you fall below the threshold, your taxable.
That was my point. If you feel I am wrong on the facts, I will gladly discuss them.
...and then I pull OUT MY GUN!
It's pretty clear that he considered it a joke at the beginning, and then realized he could make a fortune off of it.
-jcr
Fixed that for you.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
"Oh, Zenu's knocking on my door. b"
I so want to throw in a priest joke, but you know, no, not today.
I can't just borrow one from Tom Cruise?
Nope. They're custom-tuned to the body thetans of the particular individual. That's what makes them so expensive.
So, I get Cruise to shoot me first, since he's paid enough to clear all his thetans, and now, being thetanless, I can use his gun to perform a R2-45 too. Awesome. Hey Tom, I'm coming over to borrow your gun. If you're reading this, act all surprised and shoot me when I get there.
In many places, there are laws regarding the safety of a product and its fitness to perform the function for which it was purchased
One could make very much the same sort of generalization about sin, with the difference that the payment one makes to avoid it doesn't have to be in monetary terms, but can still be just as damaging.
Sorry, but I'm one of those compleat heretics who thinks that any form of religion is silly, primitive superstition. I use the term atheist for myself only because it's the closest terminology in the common language I've found for what I don't believe in ;)
(There's something to be said for having a bent sense of humor, as well. It's a modern survival mechanism...)
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
So as "a child who had to go to church" you had full access to the detailed accounting of the church you attended, and remember the actual figures to this day? I think it's far more likely you're just full of crap.
The constitution's 1st amendment however does not give the right to religions for them to infringe upon the rights of others.
Thus it is illegal for some parts of Sharia law to be practiced in the US. A Muslim woman(or man for that matter) could choose of her own free will to abide by a fairly strict interpretation but she could not legally be held subject to some of the punishments there-of for breaking the law.
This gets into difficult territory when you start talking about things like zoning laws. For example: does a church's interests in having say a parking lot where none is zoned outweigh the rights of its neighbors to have some say in how their community is developed?
Also you get into the questions of brain washing, or just good old fashioned abuse and threats it is often difficult to tell if a church/religious group is on the up and up or if they are breaking the law.
Furthermore it is debated weather or not the freedom of religion allows for an individual to choose no religion or for them to remain silent in their choice of religion. Also tests for minimum requirements for religion are sometime difficult.
With a religion, not everyone involved is a charlatan, or at least it's hard to prove. Scientology is a demonstrable fraud thinly disguised as a knock-off of gnosticism with some 1950s technology buzzwords.
Am I the only one getting this :)
http://bayimg.com/FAaoiAAcC
Exception Duck - may or may not contain chicken.
We also did not put taxation in the hands of the executive (not sure if the English did or not, honestly),
Actually that was the main power of Parliament, the power of taxation. With that power they wrestled all their other powers from the executive. Basically when the King asked Parliament for more funds, Parliament could turn around and say OK, if you do this.
Even the French were similar, the French revolution started when the King needed funds and had to convene the estates general to OK some taxes.
Even today the main power of Congress over the President of the USA is the purse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Is it fair to blame a prostitute for being the victim of a rape?
What about a scantily clad woman?
Sure, that sounds like an unfair comparison, however, the people who dupe others into these schemes are VERY VERY good at convincing people to buy into their bullshit. People can be stupid, but they may also be pot committed. When you've invested several thousands of dollars into a con artist like L. Ron Hubbard, or Ponzi, or even somebody like Peter Popoff, even though part of your brain screams at you to walk away while you still have a home, you're totally committed to the idea. You KNOW the other poker player can beat your three jacks, but you've just gotta see what he's holding.
Learn something new.
What I don't understand is why the Catholic Church hasn't been busted under Rico. I mean, here you have a group that is paying off families to keep them from filing criminal sexual assault charges involving children (which I'm pretty sure payoffs like that are illegal, especially when minors are involved) and then spiriting the criminal out of the area and placing him in the EXACT SAME POSITION knowing he is going to rape again. And of course not even warning the area of what they have done. And from what we have seen in past cases this is well known SOP from at least the cardinal level.
So why haven't they been busted under Rico? Churches shouldn't get a free pass when it comes to organized crime. And the way they had the SOP down seems pretty damned organized to me. Just as I think the CoS should have been shut down long ago using Rico for tactics like Operation Snow White. While I believe you are free to believe what ever you wish, when you start performing criminal acts as a group then all bets should be off.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
They're actually classified as non-profit under 501c3. Thus it doesn't really matter how much money they give away, as long as they're not making money for owners/shareholders, and avoid supporting specific candidates and parties (supporting issues is allowed.) A student-run space advocacy group that i've been involved with is classified the same way as far as the IRS is concerned, and we're in no way a charity, and hardly have enough money for that to mean anything anyway.
Also, I don't think any honest church would claim to be a direct charity. The standard collections are known to support the ministries of the church, which while good for the community (at least in the eyes of the church members), are not given directly to the poor and needy. In fact, I know at my mother's church they have certain collections where they specifically state that it will go to a particular charity instead of the general church fund.
Finally, I'd point out that even though most church funding isn't directly charitable, it is indirectly. Clergy provide support and counseling for their congregation, regardless of their economic status or amount paid in. Church buildings are used for external groups like AA and the Boy/Girl Scouts, as well as church-run programs that are again not dependent on amount paid to the church. Church members will often volunteer en-masse to help out in the community and in the world, often while avoiding direct proselytizing (rules are that you don't bring it up, but you're free to if those you're helping ask). It seems to me that churches are for the most part good for their community and indirectly charitable, as long as their not trying to force an agenda (ahem... Prop. 8).
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It's probably worth pointing out that in many (most?) European countries, tithes are treated like a tax that is extracted by force by the government and passed along to the churches as the politicians deem appropriate.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Crazy. You might want to check this out.
I know they are classified as a charity
What y'all are missing is that there isn't really a "charity" status where taxation is concerned in the US. Most churches are "not for profit" status, it has nothing to do with charity.
Churches are tax exempt, and donations made to them are tax deductible, but the same can be said for NPR member stations, various clubs and organizations, etc. etc.
(N.B. There *are* special provisions for churches in the whole 501c3 stuff, as I understand it mostly pertaining to the application process, but I'm no lawyer nor tax professional.)
Call me crazy, but can you imagine a charity (secular) giving away only 10c on the dollar and not being hassled for it?
Yes. Yes I can. Charity Navigator is your friend.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
It wasn't in the name of God; the wars were in the name of power and the people. They weren't holy wars, they were countries at war. Even oil, even back in WW1, played a large role. With the British Royal Navy switching from coal to oil, Germany wished to follow suit, but Germany had no oil producing collonies, and the British controlled the Suez canal, which made getting oil into Germany difficult, and so the construction of the Berlin-Baghdad railroad, via former Constantinople. The first British troops deployed in WW1 were deployed in Basrah, protecting our oil interests out there (yes, we've been back there again quite recently). Commercial and military interests in Britain and France didn't want Germany to get their hands on the black gold. In WW1 came the chance to stop them. This was nothing to do with God. These were emerging economic powers clammering for dominance and a place at the world table.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
France has a small statue of liberty. Small. But they are going after the scientology cult in their small way (as shown). In the US there is a large statue of liberty. Oh for the day when they go after the cult that is scientology and shut it down in so much larger a way. Its a cult based on a science fiction novel. L. Ron Hubbard wrote it as SciFi. ITS A JOKE! Excpet old Ron got rich off it after he found that some rubes are getting sucked into it. He liked the cash, so he wouldn't let them tumble. He would have died a so/so well off writer, but because he got no-minders and rubes to send cash, he died off rich. These are people who keep the people in Nigeria in business. I could claim I'm the reincarnation of old Ron, (and I'd be happy to keep that lie going, so long as a whole bunch of scientologists send me money, lots and lots of money, for the muther ship to blast us all off to the far reaches where we will once again meet up with the first spirit of Ron, and where we can all chug beer and eat pretzels. Scientology needs to be shut down.
I hope the trial covers all of Scientology's scam - the impossible claims, the hard sell tactics, the cult attention, the brainwashing, addiction, their ruthless behaviour toward their enemies, the blackmail and infiltration ... this is an evil organisation.
Fortunately I am completely invisible to them because all they see on their screens is "elron****".
If you lose your money because a Christian church, promising happiness and afterlife, convinces you to donate... not only is it legal, it's encouraged (tax-deductible).
I think ponzi schemes, like gambling, are illegal because they provide competition against the government-run version (social security).
I think Tom Cruise and John Travolta may have introduced the Church to Hollywood accounting...
Mormons, pentecostals, Christian Scientists. Religions weren't built on attrition rates.
Those churches don't sell salvation though. They claim they have it, but you're free to come and take it. You don't have to pay for it in cash, on the spot.
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You could argue that if there was no illusion of protection, that people would have to be more responsible for their decisions and do some real research into their investments. Madoff was a big deal because people thought it couldn't happen.
In the broadest view, any restrictive state definitions of marriage would be discriminatory. In the narrowest it would limit the rights of homosexuals to enjoy monogomous marriages.
I personally can't think they would uphold a bigamy conviction under the charter. The argument that all bigamy is a defacto case of abuse is absurd, there shouldn't be absolutist moral judgements against lifestyle choices codified in our legal system.
"the assumption is that the church is a net benefit for society"
While I think it is delusional, I cannot but agree. Good Christians tend to be very well behaved people, even if for the wrong reasons. So, the argument is there and essentially sound.
However, the benefits of religions are only short-term. In the long run, the weak but detrimental effect inevitably show its hideous face; the history is full of examples.
Yeah, they are sneaky pricks. I got handed a "Free Relaxation Technique Session" at some show, thought well might as well take a look, as the ticket was pretty blank with nothing ominous on it, I rocked up, saw the Dianetics book and the logos, ripped up the ticket and sprinkled the paper on the table and walked away... Hang on that was actually relaxing, so maybe I did get my free Relaxation Session!
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
There's a thin line between what is acceptable religious behaviour, and what is organized crime (because the two are very similar by design). Scientology is definitely on the "organized crime" side of things. But they're not the only ones.
Silly suppressive, you can't destroy a thetan, even by stuffing it into a volcano, nuking it, and forcing it to watch Xenuist propaganda films. You can merely kick it out. Anything which leaves a hole in your skull should suffice. Mind you, it's a delicate procedure, so you might wish to ask a scientology leader to assist; they're glad to, that's why they're in trial.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I suppose the link to the Red Cross is meant to be a bad example, i.e. you imply that the red cross gives away 10c on the dollar, but charity navigator says something different:
Program Expenses 89.2%
Administrative Expenses 6.5%
Fundraising Expenses 4.1%
So there's only about 10% overhead, which I suppose isn't too great, but not too bad either.
In the broadest view, any restrictive state definitions of marriage would be discriminatory.
Aren't they? Assuming the marriages take place between consenting adults, that is. Even then, this is still discrimination, but discrimination against people who take child brides (or grooms) is condoned by our ethical system.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
If you let predators prey on the weak, they grow stronger and bolder and eventually turn on you too. At that point they have plenty of followers who'll back them up. Scientology is a great example of just that happening. Other historical examples would include the Nazis, most communist movements, and in fact every example ever of someone whipping a mob into a frenzy and making themselves a king.
On this basis, your sentence was not only callous, but also arrogant and stupid; how very efficient of you.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Can't see why on Earth this deserves a -1 mod. I'd say it's fairly much on the button.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
as "a child who had to go to church", parent has a good chance of having being filled with something else...
"Get off the cross - we need the wood" - Tori Amos
Because religion has been doing that for thousands of years.
the Catholics have not been busted, because that would mean busting Mormons, Protestants and Jews too. How prevalent is child abuse in other churches? .... I thought so.
I take my children to see Madonna(..), but I never for once ever thought I was in the same business.Chris Rea.
There are a lot of charities that don't "give money away". Paying salaries to people to carry out the charitable work is perfectly OK, and that's what a lot of charities do.
no, it has to be a Cult .45
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
This depends on your definition of charity. If a 'charity' that, say, employed deaf-blind people spent most of its donations on maintaining its building and paying the deaf-blind staff, I doubt you'd complain.
Not so fast cowboy, I too remember the church I attended spent very little directly on charitable causes. How do I know this ? Because they published a breakdown of the income/expenses during the previous week in each Sunday newsletter. Mostly it was for the priests and the building.
Sorry to sidetrack the discussion, but how the hell does that work? You have your representative - but he doesn't get to do any actual representing? Is that really any better than the position of the colonies under the British?
I am trolling
Note from the UK: taxation is in the hands of the legislature (Parliament). But it's not really as clear cut as it is in the US, because the executive (Prime Minister/cabinet) is part of the legislature. Separation of powers sort of evolved here.
"No taxation without representation was English law". I don't think so. Rightly or wrongly, there were a lot of people who were taxed without the right of representation at the time. "No taxation without representation" was a radical concept at the time, and deserves to be recognised as such, but it wasn't English law.
I may be wrong on this, writing from memory, but I believe that the most successful King of Israel - Omri - and his descendants were ignored in the Bible because, under his stable prosperous government, Judaism declined.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Note to self: never go insane.
There's a difference though.
Let's say, for sake of argument, that you convert to Catholic Christianity. While there are classes to bring you up to speed on your new religion's dogma and so forth, they're either free or relatively cheap. You also (and here's the important part) DO NOT NEED TO TAKE THEM. You can go to a Catholic Church and participate in the Sunday Services (sing hymns, take communion, etc.) without having to pay a dime.
The Church of Scientology, on the other hand, has courses and auditing sessions that are required. They cost money. It requires spending many thousands of dollars to take all the OT classes. And it's only after you've spent those many thousands of dollars and been brainwashed for months (if not years), that you find out about Xenu and Teeagaack and all the cheesy sci-fi elements of this so-called religion.
Yeah, that's right. All the stuff that we /.ers generally know about the CoS? It's not public knowledge. (Okay, it's a little more public after that one South Park episode), but the point is still there. There's not some super-secret version of the Bible that you only get to look at after 15 years of faithful service and huge stacks of cash donations to the Vatican. There's no super-secret version of the Qu'ran or the Talmud.
And how many other religions do you know of that have trade secrets? Yeah, the Church of Scientology protects the OT coursework under the laws governing trade secrets. Funny thing, that.... I don't recall the Communion class I took as a wee nipper requiring a non-disclosure agreement.
The CoS is a business and a scam masquerading as a religion.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
where is this tag when you need it?
I love it. They get to say their messiah was only joking. But when Jesus said that if your eye offends you, you must remove it, we can't say "He was only kidding." Or can we?
Yes, it's not as simple as suggesting religion causes fighting and so on.
Most wars are over resources, sometimes lack of resources, sometimes simply human greed for more resources. Religion however tends to create the dividing line, helping determine who is on which side, but also race has many a time played an important factor here.
What religion does do however is it breeds ignorance, it allows people to take it too far. Whilst resources are an issue, this certainly seems the case in the middle east - Iran has no resource argument with Israel, yet it hates it to the point it's willing to sponsor terrorism against it based purely on religious grounds.
It's worth noting that World War II was largely a non-religious war and it had a much cleaner ending to it than most religious wars. When religion is used as a tool for hate, it's viral, it's passed down through generations - "We have to hate Christians because our fathers told us to".
So you're right, religion certainly isn't generally the trigger for violence and hatred amongst humans, but it's nearly always guilty of prolonging hate, often for hundreds of years. Again, where religion wasn't used as an excuse for war - i.e. in World War II the war in Europe and the war between the US and Japan the resolution was much more clean - the nations comprising Europe are amazingly strong together now as are Japan and the US.
If everyone became atheist yes, we'd still certainly fight, but we wouldn't end up with the decades, sometimes centuries long hatred we see in the Middle East and parts of Asia. Only a religion can teach that, why? Because as soon as you start teaching people that your set of ideas and everyone elses is wrong regardless of lack of proof or reason for your ideas, then effectively you're just creating religion - diety or not.
You can always tell a religion from a cult. A cult is a set of rules designed to get certain men laid.
I think we can extend this a bit... if instead of getting them laid, it gets them rich, it's still a cult...
In theory, even cults are heavily protected by the first amendment, in practice they don't fare as well as those belief systems that are considered full blown religions.
Yeah, it's easy to laugh at a small group of crazy people. But when they become a large group, they for some reason are meant to be respected.
As someone who recently realised what a crock religion is, I find it sad that people are not taught about brainwashing in school, not to mention natural selection and evolution. If I'd studied biology then I'd have been taught more on evolution (though being religious actually made me want to avoid the subject because it was seen as heretical by most people I knew), but it should be taught to *everyone*, fairly early on - if you see that humans are in essence the same as animals, then you can at least discard the religions that think humans were created as special beings. It is perhaps possible (but to me it doesn't seem very likely) that some magical consciousness pervades all things, but IMO anyone who believes that only humans have souls while all other forms of life do not, is not looking at things logically. Especially if they believe we were made in the "image of God", unless their God did in fact evolve from a giant space-monkey.
( Cue mostly crazy responses. *sigh* )
which is totally what she said
OH SNAP!!
Where's your beloved logic NOW?
Depends on what you consider to be the 'executive'. Originally, the king could in principle do whatever he liked. One of the major steps towards what we now call democracy was the establishment of the principle that only Parliament could levy taxes. So if the king wanted to declare war, that was up to him, but he had to go and ask Parliament for the money to pay for it. That's the kind of separation of powers that informed the thinking of the Americans when they established their republic.
Things have changed since then, however. While everything is done in the name of the Queen, she has no real power any more, except in the case of an indecisive election resulting in a hung Parliament. The Queen's prerogatives are exercised on her behalf by her Prime Minister - who is, in practice, the leader of whichever party commands a majority in Parliament, and so controls both sets of powers.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
There's not some super-secret version of the Bible that you only get to look at after 15 years of faithful service and huge stacks of cash donations to the Vatican.
How do you know that?
It's known, for instance, that the Church suppressed the Gospel of Thomas. The only remaining full copy that we know of was found at Nag Hammadi in the 20th century. It escaped the purge by virtue of being hidden for 1800 years or so.
If the Scientologists are ultimately successful in suppressing Operation Clambake and similar efforts, it's conceivable that the full text of LRH's teachings will similarly disappear from history, to be replaced in the public consciousness with a less controversial, Church-sanitized version.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
They don't tell you about the aliens at the mall. Of course not: you'd laugh and walk away. They tell you that you're sick and that they can help you. And they've got your test results to prove it, and they've got a machine that goes 'ping'.
It's only much later, once you've spent $lots on courses and treatments, that they mention the aliens. Oh, they've long since cured your original 'problem', but you see there's this guy named Xenu and these things called thetans... And if you carry on signing the cheques and doing yet more auditing then you too can become a Super Saiyan OT-VIII Ultra Scientologist with incredible powers.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
In Germany, you have to tell your city council which religion you are, and then the state subtracts a 50 euro/month tax from your salary, depending on your religion. If you want to stop paying, you have to get a written confirmation from a church pastor that you are out of the church. Separation of church and state? Not here.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
I'm sorry, but why does religion get a pass when it comes to promulgating crazy ideas that suck money out of the unwary?
Because there's a cultural taboo in criticising religion. Oh, you can point out all the flaws of a specific demonination, they've been fighting with each other for centuries anyways, people are used to that. But question the idea of religion per se, and you're a lunatic.
Religion gets special breaks practically anywhere. If any of us here goes on a killing spree at a shopping mall, people will be quick to accuse education, computer games, the Internet at large or your taste in music as responsible. After five school shootings with kids who played computer games (which kid doesn't?), the consensus that there's a link is universal. Yet even when hundreds of priests, child care workers and other church employees are known to be child molesters, everything but their religion is blamed. Yes, the truly daring ask if the church might be responsible, but they usually move off to safer terrain soon, when they outline that it's the patriarchial history, the strict hierarchy, or the amount of power the church gives its priests over children. I've not yet seen one mainstream article about priestly child abuse that even dares to ask if, you know, the one thing that links them all together - that they were religious people - just might play a part.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
What I don't understand is why the Catholic Church hasn't been busted under Rico.
Because it is so well connected, the mafia would be green with envy. In Germany, for example, one of the two major parties was founded with the support of, financed in large parts by, and - sometimes openly, sometimes less so - influenced by the catholic church.
When someone high up in the catholic church decides it's time to call in favours, I'm pretty sure that he's got a very long list to choose from.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Try to be understanding. Think of things in this way:
If someone cannot walk -- they have no legs -- you don't make fun of them.
If someone cannot think -- they're in a coma -- you don't make fun of them.
If someone cannot walk well -- they have cerebral palsy -- you don't make fun of them.
If someone cannot think well -- they have a learning disability -- you don't make fun of them.
I guess it's all about magnitudes. Personally, I think I think pretty well. This is no reason to make fun of other people, or to exploit them. Another example: beauty. Some people are born beautiful. Others are born ugly. Only in certain circumstances can one transition from ugliness to beauty. No one "willfully" chose to be ugly. Now change the appropriate words with "erudite" and "stupid", and what do you see?
Perhaps if you want me to help you a little more to understand, I'm definitely willing.
Thanks,
Sam.
Official Site for BlownForGood - Stories of people who have left Scientology
The English did put taxation in the hands of the executive, in that taxes were levied by the King.
There's not some super-secret version of the Bible that you only get to look at after 15 years of faithful service and huge stacks of cash donations to the Vatican.
How do you know that?
It's known, for instance, that the Church suppressed the Gospel of Thomas. The only remaining full copy that we know of was found at Nag Hammadi in the 20th century. It escaped the purge by virtue of being hidden for 1800 years or so.
If the Scientologists are ultimately successful in suppressing Operation Clambake and similar efforts, it's conceivable that the full text of LRH's teachings will similarly disappear from history, to be replaced in the public consciousness with a less controversial, Church-sanitized version.
Back in the year 325, you could get away with burning scrolls to censor heretical texts.
But nowadays we have something called the Internet. Good luck erasing *anything* that's remotely interesting about a controversial multi-national religious cult.
So there should be no laws against fraud? Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, Madoff ... all that should be completely legal, because it's the victim's fault?
Interestingly, France does *not* have laws against Ponzi/pyramid schemes. Neither does the UK.
I sometimes wonder if there wouldn't be less of those schemes if they were legal. I think people often assume they must be legit just because they'd be shut down if they were illegal, right?
In the UK, these schemes are legal. There are no specific laws against ponzi/pyramid schemes.
My sister and a close friend have both lost a fair chunk of cash to pyramid schemes. I tried and tried to convince them that they would lose their money to no avail. They both told me that they weren't going to 'invest' but then went ahead anyway.
My sister lost some close friends that she recruited so it was a personal tragedy as well as financial one.
The simple fact is that people are gullible and greedy, and they need laws to protect them.
I'm sorry, but why does religion get a pass when it comes to promulgating crazy ideas that suck money out of the unwary?
It's called "tradition".
Those churches don't sell salvation though.
Really? You should read up on the catholic church in the middle ages.
Cared about reading e searching?
Not one gospel was suppressed, but a handful of them. It's documented. Although some copies may still exist in the library of vatican, they're not open to the public, but only to approved researchers. It may seem bad, but in fact it is necessary. Have you imagined what would be of those 2000 year old texts if open to the public? They would be ruined either by misuse or by religious nuts that would destroy them. Much of the contents are available through books of bible researchers.
Citation please? Show me a pattern of crimes by any of those religions where they are paying off sexually abused kids while spiriting the abuser out of the area to avoid prosecution? With the full blessing and financial support of those above them? Thought so. I'm afraid that the Catholic church is in a league by itself when it comes to criminal child sexual abuse and systemwide support for the abusers.
The ONLY cases where I have seen anything that could even remotely be considered similar are the Jim Jones style "family" cults where they believe their chosen "leader" has the right to have sex with anyone in the cult, including children. But even they can not top the Catholics when it comes to bribery and facilitating flight to avoid prosecution. So I'm sorry, but unless you can provide a citation showing even 1/5th the criminal acts that have been performed by the Catholics as an organization in the past 20 years I have to call BS. No other organized religion even comes close, and their behavior after finding out about an abusive priest is classic Rico.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Religion "gets a pass" in France because of the First Amendment to the US Constitution?
What do you have against bat shit? At that stuff can be useful.
> It's known, for instance, that the Church suppressed the Gospel of Thomas. The only remaining full copy that we know of was found at Nag Hammadi in the 20th century. It escaped the purge by virtue of being hidden for 1800 years or so.
The church suppressed the Gospel of Thomas because it is freakin' stupid. Go Read it. http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html It's about as incoherent and bizarre as the teachings of Scientology.
Here's some choice readings:
114. Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."
My Comment: So much for the 'sacred feminine' of the DaVinci Code
4. Jesus said, "The person old in days won't hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place of life, and that person will live. For many of the first will be last, and will become a single one."
13. ...When Thomas came back to his friends they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?" Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up rocks and stone me, and fire will come from the rocks and devour you."
22. ...Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."
WTF?
There's not some super-secret version of the Bible that you only get to look at after 15 years of faithful service and huge stacks of cash donations to the Vatican. There's no super-secret version of the Qu'ran or the Talmud.
How do you know? Maybe all these religions are sitting on unexpurgated texts that make the whole thing make a lot more sense in each case. :)
The CoS is a business and a scam masquerading as a religion.
They're all a business and a scam. The difference is in their tactics. Arguably though, Christianity should have been wiped out when people started using it as an excuse to kill people.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Given the nature of religion why all the fuss? Fleecing money seems trivial compared with torture, murder, and pedophilia.
There are a lot of churches out there that will basically kick you out of the church if you don't tithe or donation regularly. The distinction between this and "selling slavation" is pretty thin.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
with all the nonsense that the french government does its nice to know that sometimes they do something good. WTG France, you got something right.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
Yes there are abusers everywhere. But recent revelations have shown a pattern in the Catholic Church that you don't find just anywhere. The fact that so many priests have been busted is bad enough, but the REAL tragedy (and where the Church REALLY failed) was in their clear and deliberate attempt to actively cover up that abuse and protect those who engaged in it. I have nothing against Catholic dogma or the religion itself (it's no more stupid than any other religion, IMHO), but that sort of behavior is shameful no matter how you cut it. At the VERY LEAST they should have shipped those priests off to some monastery in Siberia (far aways from kids), if not kick them out of the priesthood altogether.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Wow, apparently Christians moderate based on their religious beliefs rather than the validity of the comment. Shocker from the same folks who brought you "creation science".
You said something bad about my magical sky fairy or good about someone else's magical sky fairy. Mod -1 troll!
I can't think how can this be part of the modern, civilized world if that turns out to be a true fact.
I am an ex Scientologist (details are at http://www.exscientologykids.com/storiesindex.html - I won't say which, it's not important) and having heard a lot of Hubbard's "lectures" I can confirm that the R2-45 was something he did say and mean.
YES. This would aid in the advancement of those who are relatively gifted with the intellectual prowess to further society while weeding out those who contribute nothing.
Science damn you all for shutting them down!! :)
You Just DID make another joke! What if the next one is deadly? You'll kill us all!
Do scientologists even believe in Christ ?? They only believe in science, right ? So, why do they even call it the Church of Scientology. It's so not a church.
Church is a place to give thanks and praise to God and only God.
One God
Jesus, His only begotten Son
The Holy Spirit
The holy Catholic Church
The communion of saints
Baptism
Life everlasting!
NOT SCIENCE
Carrie -The Christmas Angel
It's not necessary that there be a specific law prohibiting something for it to be illegal. At the very least a Ponzi scheme would constitute an offence of fraud by false representation under the Fraud Act 2006, and I would be surprised if it didn't also contravene earlier law. (I recall it being mentioned as illegal in a university lecture about 8 years ago but I don't think I still have the notes).
You can feel free to pull your head out of your backside. The Catholic Church is NON-biblical organization that forbids priests from marrying (again, a non-biblical principal) and then the clergy ends up molesting innocent children and then hiding the evidence so they don't have to pay out. The Catholic Church is about money and masquerades as a religion. You have to pay to have a mass for someone, pay to light a candle, pay to get a marriage annulled, etc. The reason they don't come clean on the molestation stuff is they have no interest in being morally right, it's about the money. Admitting they did wrong amounts to a huge financial settlement so they'll always engage in some form of subterfuge to avoid that payout.
What y'all are missing is that there isn't really a "charity" status where taxation is concerned in the US. Most churches are "not for profit" status, it has nothing to do with charity.
Actually, there is. 501c(3) organizations are divided into "private foundations" and "public charities." Churches fall into the latter group. I believe there are some subtle differences in how the two categories are treated in law, but I'm not an attorney nor an accountant. I only know about this since I once worked for a nonprofit that had obtained "public charity" status which apparently had some additional benefits compared to private foundations.
That's just what we want you to think. Pay up and find out the real truth!
Mwua-ha-ha-ha.
Seriously, though, access to power in Scientology is the same as with any organization -- the more value you bring to the org, the more power you get. Sure, they've got well-defined thresholds and dollar amounts for the seeds of power, but do you REALLY think that most churches are not the same? The ability to massage patrons for donations is as important to most churches as it is to Scientology... the moral issue with Scientology is the methods used to "encourage" continued donations (or fees for auditing trainings or whatever).
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Mormons, pentecostals, Christian Scientists. Religions weren't built on attrition rates.
Those churches don't sell salvation though. They claim they have it, but you're free to come and take it. You don't have to pay for it in cash, on the spot.
It depends on what you consider a "cost". One can make a fairly solid argument (as I think that Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris would agree) that the societal cost of all organized religion far out-weighs any monetary expense.
[Insert pithy line of moxie here.]
IIRC, when the Church of Scientology Internationallost a major lawsuit by Steve Fishman, the church executives turned the CSI into a shell, transferring virtually all capital and IP to the Religious Technology Center(which licensed "its" IP back to the CSI), theoretically leaving the plaintiff with nothing from which he could collect.
They'll have to be very careful about doing that. If they transfer the ownership after the court case starts (and they lose) it's quite possible that the court will declare the transfer illegal and let the seizure of assets go ahead anyway. This is what stops normal corporations and people from doing things just as shady when they get into trouble (which isn't to say that the more stupid among them don't try; trying isn't the same thing as succeeding...)
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Yes. All the time.
As someone who has reviewed financials of charitable organizations, it's pretty amazing how much donated money is used to support "community outreach" or "public education" efforts that are really just marketing & fundraising.
The PBA? Less than 3% goes to the supposed purpose of the organization (I suspect the true purpose is simply to provide employment to the spouses and relatives of police officers, plus officers who are retired, are out of work for any reason, etc). Come to think of it, the PBA is probably a bad example, as they are one of the worst "charities" around.
Even in the case of a church, when you get down to it, some portion of donated money is eventually exchanged for either goods or labor used to do charitable work. If it's labor (IOW, salaries of the staff), does that make it an overhead expense, or actual charity spending? That's a big question. If a priest spends 20% of his time membership building, 40% of his time administering to his flock, 30% of his time massaging members for donations, and 10% of his time managing the charitable works of the church, how much of that is actual charity? All of it serves the purpose of increasing the ability of the church to provide charity to some extent.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
That's not even funny!! I think Catholics are the most peaceful people. We don't start trouble with anyone. Just cause you heard something on the news about a couple bad priests, you're making jokes about the whole Catholic community. Most people who commit crimes like that aren't even Catholic. Everyone at my church is so friendly and our pastor most certainly would not ever do anything to a child.
Carrie -The Christmas Angel
There's a pretty fair chance that there are some apocryphal scrolls and books whose only remaining copies are locked in a safe in Rome.
However, what we do know is that these scrolls aren't the secret foundation to the faith - seminary isn't particularly secretive, and there are plenty of retired priests who would have spilled the beans long ago if there was some great catholic version of OT7.
Look, it's getting a bit ridiculous looking at past Church issues to say "oh, they're ok." Two wrongs don't make a right. If the Catholic Church was close to as bad in the past does not REMOTELY justify this predatory scam to be able to operate under the guise of 'religion.' Bravo to places like France and Germany who stand up to these destructive forces in society.
You don't think France has amendments?
Try attending church regularly and never donating a cent. Watch how the other people treat you.
What you insinuate is far from reality.
I've attended very regularly (3-4 Sundays of each month) for years without donating, or even becoming a formalized member and the people there treat me exactly the same as a formal member. The pastor even knows me by first name, and this is a very large Southern Baptist church in Texas with over 9,000 formal members, and at least a couple thousand more non-member "regular attenders" like myself. Everyone is welcome here.
Being a charity doesn't mean you give your money away to other people - it just means you accept donations for a specified purpose. In the case of a church, that purpose is to pay for the infrastructure of the organisation.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Religion itself is benign.
It's when a PERSON decides they are going to leverage it in order to force a behavior that the shit gets all fucked up.
You're missing the point...PEOPLE create religion. Before issuing religion a free pass as being "benign", you should first ask why people chose to create religion.
Further, to your point of "leverage...to force behavior, the entire goal of religion is to elicit a defined behavior. Are you trying to say that as long as you agree with the elicited behavior than the religion is ok?
[Insert pithy line of moxie here.]
The ad right below this article is an ad for Scientology. WTF /.?
[Ego]out
Cult (n): A small, unpopular religion.
Religion (n): A large, popular cult.
Trolling is a art,
Well if scientology gets a first ammendment ticket, why then doesn't Subgenius enjoy a tax free status ?
Subgenius is obviously a real religion and the only way to avoid annihilation on X-day, while scientology has proved itself a scam wearing sheeps leotards over and over. Still we tolerate what everyone not in scientology sees as a swindle while Subgenius doesn't offer any less, just openly without disguise. I guess the scientlologists have to hide their ways because they are criminals. This of course fits in with the political powers that grant them the status.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
They're all a business and a scam. The difference is in their tactics.
Um, and pedophilia. Don't forget the pedophilia, since keeping it in mind helps to bring this entire sorry aspect of the human condition into better focus. Religion is one thing, but religious institutions of any kind have demonstrated that they can be rife with the worst types of depraved behavior, and enablers of depravity. They all need to be treated under the law as any other institution.
Never was the phrase 'Won't somebody think of the children?' more appropriate than in these woeful times.
Will
Mormons, pentecostals, Christian Scientists. Religions weren't built on attrition rates.
Those churches don't sell salvation though. They claim they have it, but you're free to come and take it. You don't have to pay for it in cash, on the spot.
That all depends on which point in history your speaking of...
I'm an atheist and find religion to be abhorrent. However, I love the form of government I live in that allows people to believe in whatever magical, invisible, made-up things they want. Xenu, Jesus, Budda, who/whatever. This is why I hated living in Germany, France and the UK, and that's why I love living in the US.
Why is it ok to believe in Jesus, or Allah, but believing in Joseph Smith or Xenu is illegal? They are all akin to my invisible friend I had when I was four--he made me feel better about my personal shortcomings, and he didn't really exist. The right of an individual to be stupid shall not be infringed!
They're all a business and a scam. The difference is in their tactics. Arguably though, Christianity should have been wiped out when people started using it as an excuse to kill people.
If your going to do this, then almost every religion is on the chopping block. For almost every religion has killed people in the name of said religion.
The amendments to the US Constitution apply to citizens of France as well, because the amendments say what our Government can't do, not what citizens can do.
I actually prefer the bald therapists at airports wearing the sheets.
They jam, man.
Scientologists don't jam, they're off-beat and out of key.
Seems their thetans are tuned and they are not.
Either way L.Ron was a lousy author and should've just condensed a book like the Krisnas did.
Whadda you expect from a nobody from Wichita? It's a hard life to convince anyone you can write, start a religion, save the world or even get laid when you're just a homely pulp fiction writer from Wichita.
If I were him , I woulda used up that luck buying a lottery ticket and foregoing all the toil.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
There is no difference in this regard when one compares Scientology to Mormonism, though. While latter-day saints are able to participate in Sunday services and basic salvation (baptism, confirmation, priesthood) -- they are NOT able to participate in the higher ordinances of the church without taking out their endowments at the temple. Guess what one of the qualifications for attending temple is.
Being a full tithe payer!
So, it's not so different from Scientology, and yet it has the status of a religion. I don't understand why France tries to "protect" people from one group but not the other. It seems a slippery slope to discern which organizations are "real" religions and which ones are "fake". I would posit that the task is futile, because, by definition, religions cannot be disproven with reason; they are entirely based on faith and personal experience.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Punishment or persecution is the precisely wrong way to discourage a religion.
It has not worked a single time in all of history!
People will believe what they want, and punishing them for it will drive them underground at best and make them feel persecuted (and often rightly so) or validated.
If you really wanted to put a stop to it you'd educate the followers as politely and as positively as you can, and show them it's a bunch of bullshit. The same applies to all religions really, since there's no difference between a religion and a cult besides follower count.
This is a pretty boneheaded move that will accomplish nothing good.
Question everything
I've yet to hear about a christian who lost (significant) money to his church (and don't point me to a WP article about a guy from centuries ago).
An ex-scientologist just released a book in France. The parts where he describes how they used violent verbal intimidations and manipulated his wife in order to get him to pay, even though he was already broke and indebted, are really chilling.
Skin resistance from what I've heard. Pretty sure they are just galvanometers.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Well, isn't the idea that you want to leave the church, anyway? If you don't think it's worth your money, why would you think it's worth your time?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
As a side note, the two incomplete copies of Thomas (one Coptic, one Greek I believe) that we have not only conflict, but both date very late as do the believed date of their sources, which is estimated to be in the second century. This is later than all of Paul's writings, Hebrews, the synoptic Gospels, and perhaps even John.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Loss is loss, petty or otherwise. $10 of fraud is still fraud. I will point you to a Wikipedia article, but a relevant one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe#Modern-day_teachings
I'd imagine most people don't do this, but if there really are people giving 10% of their gross income to a church... that is not an insignificant sum of money.
Dan Brown? Is that you?
snig
Wasn't the point liberating the Thetan from the 'bad' body/prison? Like the Thetan is the real you your soul or something?
Well it is there, where your statement that "Logic is imperfect, so we must abandon it completely!" is faulty logic itself. :P
And about the imperfection: It all comes down to the ultimate "why", that can't be removed. Religion "solves" it trough "god". Healthy people "solve" it with there being no "before" the big bang. Yet still, of course, you can ask where those phenomena came from. And so on.
We will most likely never be able to answer that question. (But we will keep trying.)
Meanwhile, this then comes down to what helps us get to our target in the most efficient and fast way.
I say in that field nothing beats science and logic. It fosters thinking.
While religion stifles it.
And I take, whatever gives me spaceships, bionic systems, artificial intelligence, computer games, and the most tasty food ever. ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
There are so many things out there that you could sue for sucking money from you. Psychiatrists, Chiropractors, Evangelists and so on. The list is endless ....
Buyer Beware in all cases...
Gotta love debunking this one. A quick glance to this link should clear this one up ( Warning: Religious text, might cause disagreement, hatred, and nausea, proceed cautiously ) http://bible.cc/mark/9-43.htm
I don't know if you were posting in a honest attempt to troll Christianity, or simply "I'm posting this using my so-so memory of a verse in some religious texts and remove its context" kind of joke? Hell you don't even have to think of any context, the text after that should explain the simple logic.
I'd rather to remove or fix offending lines of code from my multi-million dollars worth software if it causes bug rather than to keep it and bring the whole system down. This one sounds logical to me, joke or not; but you might be just too freaked out by the "plucking" and "removing" especially when it comes to body parts didn't ya?
Of course if you want to take it as it is, we'll see more literally blind, one-legged, disabled Christians. I'm pretty sure the text can be 'translated' into something that's acceptable in today's "crowd", something like do not commit sin if you value yourself, or your body is a holy temple therefore according to this text if you commit sin then.. yada.. yada...
1) FRANCE is not in the USA.
2) The 1st ONLY prevents special treatment, it does not stop equal regulation or even banning all religion. No, not anything can be a religion-- but if you did equally ban all religions then word games would become popular. A better argument can be made for not taxing the press than not taxing religions.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Really? You should read up on the catholic church in the middle ages.
Check out your calendar. We aren't discussing the Middle Ages now, we're discussing present day. Christians used to burn heretics alive, as well - you might also remember that. It has about as much relevance.
What I've been taught about tithe is that it was yet another tax that serfs had to pay, only this one was for their clergymen (instead of their lord). It's been years since I went to church but I've been to a few, and my great-grandfather was a pastor (so his side of the family is pretty religious), and I never heard about tithe in a modern context.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is :
Not saying that Christianity is perfect or anything, just that, even with all its (current) flaws, it's not fair comparing it to Scientology. They really are not playing in the same league when it comes to malevolence and damage done.
Addendum to note to self: Stop leaving notes to myself.
To be fair, not all or even most of the suppression of the Apocrypha was active and intentional. Most of it was simply that they'd been judged to not fit in with the religion the council was building, for whatever reason (probable forgery, ill-regarded author, or simple lack of a discernible moral lesson), and that most of the preservation of literature was done by the church. There wasn't so much an organized hunting down of the things (though occasionally a pope or bishop or something would take it upon themselves to go a zealot on us) as a general apathy among the people maintaining the libraries. If you were a monk, would you spend a year of your time copying a decaying tome whose contents your society had deemed worthless, when there were thousands of competing volumes of actual worth that needed copying to avoid being lost to the ages? Me neither. I mean, copying a single book was sometimes a monk's entire life's work, that's a big investment.
So lighten up, it wasn't ill-intentioned. And most of the apocrypha are either crazy or pointless (in my own estimation as well as the church's), so meh anyway. Hell, I dunno how most of revelations didn't get thrown out as well, it's pretty whack too.
(Side note: would have been nice if more monks had thought books of math and engineering were worth the effort, all we got was the half-assed job the muslim translators did of preservation. Better than the complete absence of the technical books in europe, but still. Anyhow, if you're going to be mad at the church for losing books, be mad at them for those, not the useless apocrypha bullshit.)
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
No Zealot Like a Convert, eh?
Evolution is a fairly advanced concept - it really doesn't make sense to teach it to 4th graders. Teach it too early, and they'll get Lamarkian ideas in their head, and it will color their future thinking, but we do teach taxonomy to grade schoolers, and we do tell them that humans are a member of the animal kingdom and closely related to primates. Same story on brainwashing. You can't understand brainwashing until you're old enough to study psychology - again a fairly advanced topic. Nevermind that the entire process of raising a child is essentially an exercise in brainwashing (or rather brain shaping since they start out as blank slates). But hey, both were taught in my catholic high school. Ok, so we do away with the idea that humans were created as special beings, but it'll be replaced by the idea that we evolved into special beings as soon as one studies philosophy. The idea of consciousness and free-will is pretty analogous to a soul.
And I say all this as someone who has serious problems with organized religion in general.
No, ity was a money making scheme from the beginning.
That's why when the IRS actually began checking into them suddenly there was a lot more tradition religous items and phrases added to the pitch.
I'm related to an investigator that investigate Scientology in the 60's.
Yeah, money making scam that is killing people.
I will say it started getting screwier as Hubbard lost control.
Yes I am posting AC out of fear of retaliation.
No, it gets a pass becasue it has leveraged it's members to give them special privileges.
Nothing in the US constitution says Religion is tax exempt. or has any special powers. In fact it's not the right to practice religion, it's the right to be free OF religion.
It's meaning has been twisted my selfish, ignorant, mean religious assholes who thinkg there belief trumpets our rights.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Call me crazy, but can you imagine a charity (secular) giving away only 10c on the dollar and not being hassled for it?
Yes, it's called the United Way.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
There's a difference between suppressing and discrediting stuff that doesn't match up with what the Church believes, and charging people for extra stuff.
The first is just 'that is not part of this religion, although it claims to be', and all religions do that.
And, thanks to the limited power that religion has in modern society, they can't do the whole 'Destroy the stuff' that were able to do at the height of their power. But, even then, it was stuff that they insist aren't church teachings that you didn't get to see.
The CoS, OTOH, has stuff it insists are church teachings, and you eventually have to see...and you have to pay money for it.
Look, the grandparent is right. Say what you want about modern Christian churches, but you can go in and learn every single thing for free. You can walk in and go to services for free, you can go to classes for free (Heck, the church will usually pay for your materials for free, which you keep.), you can read the bible there for free, if you head over to the church offices and ask for a Bible you'll probably be given one for free. You can go to the Catholic church or any Protestant denomination's website and learn all their beliefs for free.
Someone's going to say 'What about tithing?', but that's not the same thing at all. Churches don't keep track of that. Well, they do if you want them to, for your taxes, but you can even be a member them of without tithing. (And you don't have to be an actual member to learn all the 'secrets'. In fact, you're not allowed to be a member until you've demonstrated you understand stuff, which, again, the church will teach you for free.)
And it's not just Christian churches. Show up at any religion's place of worship and you can read, and probably take home for free, their sacred text, a bunch of pamphlets, etc. You can probably even wrangle a meeting with a religion leader who will sit down with you for free and explain what their religion believes.
CoS, OTOH, sits there and charges you for everything. Services, mandatory 'sessions' to clear you, to read their books (You can't buy some of them, you essentially buy access to them.)
This is because CoS is a psychoanalysis scam pretending to be a religion so they don't have to actually, you know, help people or be licensed, and can use pseudo-science like their 'readers' thingies.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
"With a religion, not everyone involved is a charlatan"
umm, they all are.
"A charlatan (also called swindler or mountebank) is a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, fame or other advantages via some form of pretence or deception."
Sounds like every religion, ever.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I don't think you understand, he's going to shoot Tom Cruise. Preferable non fatal, in the face but with extensive medical needs.
Lets see if he has the fortitude to not take modern medicine then.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Scientology is definitely not Gnosticism, and I resent the implication that it is. I'll grant some similarities, but then it's got more similarities to Freudian Psychology.
Gnosticism isn't authoritarian. It's true that most leaders of Gnostic groups have been...unreliable. That was usually intentional. Usually a part of the point was "Think for yourself, Schmuck!"
Actually, if a main point of the teaching isn't "Think for yourself!", then I deny that it can rightly be called Gnosticism. That is the central core of Gnosticism, and is why direct experience of the divine is so important. Scientology appears to be nearly the exact opposite. (And, of course, because of that it will have a certain symmetric relationship.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
To some extent, yes.
However the problem is that when Madoff does what he does, we (the victims) can't do anything to him, laws have been made that prevent us from killing him and making it known that pulling this sort of shit will result in harsh punishment.
Fast forward to modern day reality. What Madoff did IS illegal, and still nothing will happen to him because he made far far more than we will punish him.
So back to my original point, there should be no laws against fraud, but that needs to be re enforced by making legal loopholes for those of us who beat, torture, and eventually murder someone who has hurt thousands of people.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I find it sad that people are not taught about brainwashing in school
Wouldn't teaching kids to recognize brainwashing kind of defeat the purpose of public school?
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
it's conceivable that the full text of LRH's teachings will similarly disappear from history
Not with torrents (as well as other sharing mechanisms) they won't.
So... you're complaining that you can't get to the "secret archives" of the Horrible, Evil Vatican--by which you mean details of the Vaticans business operations since 1922--when you have by your own admission only skimmed the surface of the wealth of information publicly available? Think about this for a second... the secret archives are restricted to scholars of the Catholic Church--they aren't even available to most priests!--so how much influence could they really have on Christian theology? The answer, simply put, is Not Much. Your whole point in this thread, your whole contention, which has been that the Vatican Secret Archives constitute a secret source of Christian theology, is silly.
Now, if you want to reject Christianity on the basis of its public theology, which is what you do in this latest post, that's fine. In fact, that's your privilege--I would argue (and have argued) that the one natural right of man, given by God, is the privilege of rejecting God. But don't accuse us of having a secret theology, because we don't. Neither Roman Catholicism, nor orthodox Christianity more broadly have unpublished theology that differs markedly from their public theology. Quite the opposite: we hand out our beliefs for free to all who will listen, every Sunday morning at 11AM.
Disagree if you want, but don't slander us. And may I suggest you seek therapy for your very evident issues with your parents?
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
I agree, they'll have to be careful. In the CSI/Fishman case, I believe they just backdated documents. This worked for the CoS senior staff because they were (and are) a tightly knit group, with a number of incentives not to break ranks. Since those days, I suspect the CoS has put the needed asset protection paper trail in place (or a plan to do so) for all of the public-facing subsidiaries.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Amendment to addendum to note to self: Are you me? I don't remember ever using the account "An ominous Cow art"
I mean, copying a single book was sometimes a monk's entire life's work, that's a big investment.
An important point that a lot of people (including myself) forget in this modern age where copying things is trivial, and even the printing press is centuries old technology. Copying books used to be very hard work!
All you had to do to "suppress" knowledge was to not make it an extremely high priority to preserve.
Hell, I dunno how most of revelations didn't get thrown out as well, it's pretty whack too.
Are you kidding me? I love Revelations! How could you turn away a story about insane eyeball creatures singing the Lord's praises for eternity, seven-headed dragons coming from the ocean to conquer the world, a giant demon whore, and the embodiment of aspects of human suffering on horseback*?
Religious fervor + lengthy imprisonment + shrooms = Awesome.
The council was simply recognizing this fact.
Anyhow, if you're going to be mad at the church for losing books, be mad at them for those, not the useless apocrypha bullshit.
You're just saying that to suppress the truth of the Book of Xenu!
* Speaking of suffering on horseback, there was originally a 5th Horseman, Piles.
The enemies of Democracy are
Scientology does not have the status of a religion [in France], as it does in the US
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Postscript to amendment to addendum to note to self: I do a lot of things I don't remember.
Post-postscript to amendment to addendum to note to self: I am persona non grata in the state of Oklahoma.
Yes, deliberate fraud like that is often used as reason to Pierce the corporate veil...
It seems not a single person here has even a basic understanding of the fundamentals of Dianetics and Scientology and are trying to compare these to other prior practicies which they are not.
Scientology is a cult. Scientology will empty your bank account. Scientologists don't run soup kitchens. Scientology creates perfect bodies. Scientology costs money to do ANYTHING. Scientology is this. Scientology is that.
Really?
If one wants to understand and know what Dianetics and Scientology are about all they need to do is read the actual materials written by L. Ron Hubbard about the subject.
Go to the source
Have you ever read an entry level book about Dianetics or Scientology written by L. Ron Hubbard?
If not, then how can one seriously think they know anything about the subject?
Get a book that interests you and read it. Get it from the library if you want. Most likely a Scientologist paid for the book and gave it to the library so you could.
Note that all the basic books were recently updated. So ensure you have a recent edition.
Decide for yourself without external bias.
Something can be done about it.
Materials: www.bridgepub.com
Main sites: www.scientology.org, www.whatisscientology.org and www.dianetics.org.
So lighten up, it wasn't ill-intentioned. And most of the apocrypha are either crazy or pointless (in my own estimation as well as the church's), so meh anyway. Hell, I dunno how most of revelations didn't get thrown out as well, it's pretty whack too.
That's kind of the point, and yes it was absolutely done to consolidate the building power of the early church. They couldn't have things floating around that pointed out how ridiculous the rest of the Bible is, or flat out said that other sections of the Bible were wrong. The church suppressed anything that didn't correspond to what they wanted people to believe. If people could see how crazy and pointless the apocrypha books were they'd start questioning the non-apocrypha books more as well.
If you're dumb enough to spend thousands of dollars on something called a 'Thetin meter' then it's your fault.. not the seller's..
It's not only the case with Thetin meters. I know some people who have given out real money to persons, that walk around their homes and basements with this so called 'Radon meter'.
I mean, how dumb one has to be to believe that in some areas on earth ther would be risk of radioactive gas raising from the ground and (it being heavier than air) getting stuck into basements if those are not ventilated correctly.
First Thetin meter, then Radon meter... What next i ask you? Will some hillbillies spring up from earth that start believing into something called Gravethein or Gravity? Like there could be such thing that makes bigger objects attract or suck in smaller ones... Oh please!
On more serios note. Thetin sounds plausible - as meme i mean. As does Radon or gravity.
Given that some people are not openminded enough to believe that after life vas intelligently designed (or not) it evolved a long way to be what its on Earth today. Could it be that educational systems have failed another subsets of our society the way, that they can not tell differentce between right and wrong or cult and religion or hoax and that other thing.
Should we (as society) not protect those, whom we (as society) have failed to train to be able to protect themselves?
I know that we (as the creme of society) need those that we (as the creme of society) can take advantace of, but when somebody else comes in and takes a bigger advantace of them, then we (as society) should step up for them, so tey wauld remain explotable for our intrests.
To a certain extent perhaps, but I just think it would just help people to be more critical of things. Individual thinking does make it difficult to enforce a disciplinary regime I suppose, which isn't very good in a classroom environment, but at least you learn to read, write and even the scientific method.
I am tempted to say that not all brainwashing is a bad thing, but the word itself tends to hold the connotation of someone being converted into a follower of an evil cult. That is an extreme that does happen, but it happens to a lesser extent on many different levels of society, training people as to what is expected of them (sexual 'norms' being a good example, because they can vary a lot from culture to culture but then people usually think that their own cultures norms are the real 'natural' ones, and everyone else is a bunch of perverts).
I at least find it useful to try to look at things from a more objective point of view where possible, and be aware of situations in which brainwashing tactics are being employed. Generally the most basic element is fear as it overrides your higher mental functions - you can see it being employed a lot by politicians and media outlets with their FUD campaigns.. once you have people blindly accepting your basic bullshit premise, you can then start to build on top of it with ideas that people would otherwise have rejected. A decent example would probably be all the increased security measures that went mostly unchallenged after 9/11 and the subsequent culture of fear that was fostered. I'm of course not suggesting that the US and UK governments planned 9/11 and the occasional mini terrorist attempts since then, but they certainly took advantage of them to grab a nice chunk of extra power.
which is totally what she said
No Zealot Like a Convert, eh?
Something like that, you should have seen me a few months ago though ;)
Yeah the whole process of education could be classified as brainwashing, and 4th grade is a bit early for learning about natural selection considering people still are learning how to write in joined up letters at that point, but by say 8th or 9th grade (or 1st/2nd year of high school as it would be over here in the UK) I think it would make sense to do it. I at least was capable of following logical reasoning by then and was writing my own computer games etc. I suppose it's more of a fault of my upbringing than my education that I regarded evolution as some evil theory, otherwise I would have taken biology and learned more about it. But IMO often kids are treated as a lot more stupid than they are. I hate the "no child left behind" policies of our education system, I'm pretty sure I could have gone through the first couple of years of high school in only a year if there were any mechanisms in place for it, stuff like arithmetic was a cinch to me because I'd already learned about variables from programming computer games at home.
which is totally what she said
I was learning about elementary evolution by 9th grade and basic psychology by 12th (including brainwashing). This was in a catholic school (actually as I recall psych was either immediately before or immediately after religion class...) I can't really speak for public schools, but I'm pretty sure that biology is a requirement some time in high school - and yeah its a tragedy that there are a handful of fundie HS science teachers who butcher their job as educators, and flat out don't teach evolution, but that's very much a minority.
The problem with streamlining education for the "gifted" is that people won't get a well-rounded liberal education. You admitted as much yourself, if you could have fudged your way through a single test to skip an entire "uninteresting" subject, you probably would have - and thus never have been exposed certain concepts that might have challenged your way of thinking.
Here in the US, it's fairly common for particularly religious people to home-school their kids. Yeah, the state mandates a certain curriculum, but when your only teacher (parent) doesn't have any formal training and approaches every subject from a particular ideology, students naturally develop a rather stilted view of the world, and their critical thinking skills tend to suffer. Essentially, if the school system allowed you to skip classes you didn't like, but were smart enough to test out of, you'd be self-selecting your own version of home-schooling by reducing viewpoints that challenge your own, and focusing on advanced coursework that reinforces only your strengths, leaving your weaknesses to further atrophy.
High school is as much about exposing people to different views and social situations, as it is about building a foundation for college. (the success/failure rate of the former is similar to that of the latter.)
you could have fudged your way through a single test to skip an entire "uninteresting" subject, you probably would have
That's not what I meant, I simply meant that they needn't have laboured the point so much - the entire 1st and 2nd year of my high school curriculum to me seemed like they could have been squeezed into a year. We did have basic 'science' classes in those years which were a mix of all the sciences, but I don't recall being taught about natural selection. We definitely didn't have any psychology (though I got interested in that myself from an AI point of viiew, and read the entire section on psychology from a couple of big encyclopaedias that we had at home, which actually covered a lot of stuff that we subsequently were taught about in my two years of Psychology classes at university).
which is totally what she said
Sharing != archival.
Do you have the full text laying around?
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
If you're gonna do it with Scientology for these reasons, you pretty much have to do it with Christianity too. Sorry, acceptable target fools, I don't like either religion much, but let's not pretend it's okay just because Scientology is an acceptable target.
Free exercise can be individualized as well as regulated (or both;) as free speech is to some degree and the free press even more so. The "free" press is taxed and regulated.
More accurately stated: "even banning all religious organizations"
I often confuse religion with the supporting organizations do to personal experience. Scientology is a great example as to why one might think of religion in terms of an organization.
Interpretations:
Individual "free exercise thereof."
Religion is a personal thing. No organization is required (they may form organically but its not a part of legitimate religions. I'm looking at YOU Scientologists.) Any total ban wouldn't stop it, as history shows. Many possible directions one can go once religion becomes personal:
Ban the forming of corporations and provide no other means for official recognition. You could have a church, but it wouldn't have any corporate rights or government recognition as an organization. Donations would then go to people running the church and all the tax rules etc would then apply. Non-profits would likely be the loophole here... so limitations would have to exist on those (They can't be PACs now, this would be along similar lines. Religions can't be PACs either; although this one is poorly enforced.)
Sure, one can argue-- my religion is business! So you can't freely exercise your business religion without being able to incorporate. However, these type of argumentative positions are shot down when it comes to the other rights. (human/animal sacrifice, child abuse, tax avoidance schemes, yelling "Fire!" in a crowd, taxing the Free Press, abortion bans, privacy in what you eat/smoke, etc.)
Oh, don't forget the failed attempts by fan clubs to create stuff like a Jedi religion officially recognized. Doesn't stop them that much, but limits them from being Scientology (sorry, don't mean to insult them with that comparison...uh, I mean I don't want insult the Jedi.)
Then you have the argument that religious absolutism is the root of many of the great evils in history; so organizing a large enough religious organization is worse than yelling "Fire!" in a crowd. I won't argue that point; however, it would become tricky with economic or political based religions.
Then you have games you can play with the limitations of "free." Like we do with speech, press, voting etc. Just try do exercise your nudist belief in public... Recently, a mother and son are on the run from the law because the parents didn't want to put their child on chemo therapy! On the grounds its child abuse! Next thing is they will label you a suicidal for refusing treatment. We've already had high profile cases on the right to death...
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Can't argue with that. Scientology is definitely a much better scam than Christianity.
I pass by it every morning when I take my son to daycare. There's always a group in front, having their morning smoke. They all look pretty unexcited to start their day, probably no more or less than a typical office worker. Makes me wonder how much it's a belief for them, and how much it's just a job.
Nothing too special to add, just wanted to comment. And to say that it'd be nice to have them move out, if that ends up happening.
Yes, the truly daring ask if the church might be responsible, but they usually move off to safer terrain soon, when they outline that it's the patriarchial history, the strict hierarchy, or the amount of power the church gives its priests over children. I've not yet seen one mainstream article about priestly child abuse that even dares to ask if, you know, the one thing that links them all together - that they were religious people - just might play a part.
Now, I'm not saying you're wrong here, but I do wonder just what part of their religiosity it is that you think made/induced/led/whatever them to abuse young children?
Personally, I'm far, far more inclined to believe that
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible that there's something about excessive religion itself that draws people to become child abusers. I'm just saying that, given the evidence we have (which, to my understanding, is that it's way, way disproportionately the Catholic church that this happened in...though I could be wrong about that, too, which would cast serious doubt on #3), there's very little in the Bible which suggests that priests should abuse boys, and there are already links known between suppressing sexual desire and...deviant behaviour.
I know you like to bash religion at every chance you get, Tom, and I'd tend to agree that the Catholic church in particular is not much better than Scientology (sale of indulgences, anyone?), but...don't you think it's more reasonable to actually look at logical cause-and-effect relationships?
(Note: None of this in any way absolves the Catholic church of its responsibility to have addressed these problems the moment they cropped up, a responsibility which it almost totally abandoned in its self-serving effort to project its image of infallibility...)
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.