Slashdot Mirror
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 Three other former members who had initially joined the complaint have withdrawn after "reaching a financial arrangement with church officials."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?
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
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
Nope.
The other difference is that you arent CHARGED for reading the bible: try and get an "advanced" scientology text (pure bull, BTW), without forking some serious cash.
NO SIG
Does anyone else LOVE the fact that an ANONYMOUS reader posted this article!!!
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]
Try attending church regularly and never donating a cent. Watch how the other people treat you.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Read Margaret Singer, Richard Ofshe, or many others if you want a good comparison of religion and cults. The key thing is that cults deceive people into joining so there is no real informed consent. People join under false pretenses and are conned out of their money (basically by false advertising / fradulent misrepresentation). No cults are ever upfront about all their beliefs because nobody would ever join if they knew about the wacky shit higher up the ladder. You have to be good and brainwashed before you even find out about the space alien stuff. Christians are at least up front about what they believe (often annoyingly so). People have a right to believe what they want, sure... but fraud is another story.
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.
[...] so the only lies they tell are the ones that are not verifiably false.
That's an interesting definition of a lie. If it's not verifiably false, that would mean it could be true. So what you're saying is that the the beliefs that Christians lie about are the ones you think are false?
Are you ignorant about how Google Ads work or about the meaning of "ironic"?
Try dealing with his point honestly. You know he's more right than you are.
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.
The big difference is: Other religions don't charge you that much money. Their beliefs are not founded on ancient human suffering or a quest for answers, even the basics of their faith are entirely invented by an entrepreneur.
(Yes, Dan Brown learned us a lot of the Roman Catholic traditions are made up as well but only after 3 centuries and they didn't do this for immediate personal gain)
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.
Umm.. I agree with him, Scientology is a bunch of nutjobs. What he doesn't seem to have expressed an opinion on is the nutjobness of Christians. So who is not dealing with whom honestly?
How we know is more important than what we know.
I know it's trendy and hip to bash Christianity on Slashdot (before you ask, I'm agnostic), there are significant differences.
1.) The Bible is pretty easy to access. In fact, you can often get it for free because its believers want you to read it.
2.) I submit that believing some creator of the universe manifested its power in the form of a sacrificial holy man long ago is far less wacky then believing an intergalactic overlord imprisoned in a volcano who attached alien ghosts to primitive humans, causing all their problems.
3.) In spite of all the shit they get, the Christians I've met in life have generally been very friendly and nice to me. Just good folks who believe what they believe. You have your bad apples, but that's true for every group in the world. Scientologists, on the other hand, will ask you if you rape babies and are trained to believe that anyone critical of the religion is a criminal who is hiding dark secrets.
So, yeah, very little like Christianity, to be perfectly honest. You were just going for a cheap +5 Insightful by bashing the easy target.
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
One thing I've noted is that you don't actually have to pay large sums of money to be a Christian. In fact, I don't know of any mainstream churches that will toss you out or suspend you if you don't put any money in the collection plate.
So, while the claims of both can be pretty stupid, Christianity actually is a religion, while $cientology is just a scam.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"try and get an "advanced" scientology text (pure bull, BTW), without forking some serious cash." Done https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/Scientology
Yeah, that whole indoctrination of the young thing is irrelevant, right?
Christianity is just as wacky and weird.. it's just that we all know that stuff.. if Scientology lasts 100 years we'll all be able to recite their theology too.
In the mean time, save me zombie Jesus!
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
It's not like people are required to give regularly. (many people pay monthly or quarterly) People give under the pretense that God has blessed them and they want to give part of that back out of gratitude. Whether you choose to give or not is up to you, and you give what you feel you should give. It's not like you should feel like you're paying dues or have a mentality where you expect to get something back. Most churches only keep track of how much you give if you pay through check (and that's more of a service to you so you know what to declare on your taxes) You always have the option of donating cash if you want to give anonymously.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
But if L. Ron said it... then it must be true. ;)
Send your spendthrift head of state this
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.
Dan Brown's writing is best consumed with an ocean.
I'm not qualified to judge it directly, but there are enough people out there calling bullshit to make the above pretty clear. I guess it is fair to mention that they don't claim it is pure bullshit, just that there are lots and lots of mistakes and overstated conclusions.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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?
I don't think it's necessary for anyone to get into a dick-measuring contest with $cientologists. I don't find Christianity's claims any more credible, per se. But you do hit on one key difference. $cientology is basically a shell game where the believer has to keep paying more and more money to get all those deep secrets. For better or for worse, one can go to a Catholic priest or a Protestant minister and get lessons on their branch of Christianity for free. These guys mass produce for free or for very little cost their holy books, and they even let people into their houses of worship for free. Yes, most churches send around the collection plate, but I don't know of any churches that would deprive someone of the Sacraments because they didn't give their church money.
It's not about qualitative aspects of either religion, it is really about the fact that one is a religion, and one is simply a cult/marketing scam that uses the size of one's pocket book as the only real determinant of salvation.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The wacky shit that Scientologists are taught to believe is no more wacky than the shit Christians are taught to believe in.
It's a shame that the Pastors and Ministers of Christianity no longer hold firm to the Bible. If they did, it would remove the wacky shit.
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.
Ya.. that's the definition of fraud.
You have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the accused willfully lied. I can't really imagine how they're going to do that in this case.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Cults and religions have equivalent dogmas, but the business models and tactics are different. The cult isn't on trial because told someone a tall tale. They're on trial because they ripped someone off. If you think that what the popular religions do is just as bad as Scientology, then you haven't looked at Scientology.
They did stand their ground against the US when Bush tried to sell the BS that became the Iraqi war. That's gotta count for something.
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
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."
It's not about nutjobness. By pointing out how ridiculous some story about Xenu (or Jesus) is, you distract people from the crimes that Scientologists are committing. Lying to people by saying they're inhabited by thetans, or that they're going to spend eternity in the lake of fire if they don't accept Jesus, is not the crime we're talking about here. This isn't what Scientology has been accused of.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
But you have an informed choice to believe in Zombie Jesus or not to. In Scientology, by the time you find out what it's really about, you've spent hundreds of thousands, all your friends and contacts are Scientology, and leaving means cutting off contact with all of them (starting an entire new life). Generally, Christians won't shun you if you leave (but they might try and convert you back, which is just persuasion).
There is also the fact that scientology practices thought reform (brainwashing) and ericsonian hypnosis, something that does not happen in legitimate religions. The difference, again, is that there is a lack of informed consent. They modify your thinking in ways you do not realize.
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
I don't know what religion you've been going to: in a lot of them donations are done in secret. If people look at you dirty for not donating, you're in the wrong place.
In a related note, I once went to church in a cathedral in York England. They had a great organ and the choir resonated beautifully through the arched ceilings. You should seriously do it if you never have.
But at one point, they passed around a collection plate. I wasn't expecting it and took a while to find, pull out of my pocket, and place a single pound on the plate. The priest gave me an extremely dirty look, and I expect he was A) annoyed that I was delaying things and B) annoyed because 1 pound is essentially nothing and they have no need for such paltry donations. So, in some congregations you will get a dirty look if you DO pay.
Qxe4
Christian school of thought is based on stories described in Bible but it's not reducible to this set of facts as can be inferred from what you've said. Over the ages there were philosophical disputes on every little passage of Bible, it's grown up to a consistent system of views on physical world, ethics etc. What you describe as "wacky shit" was in part embraced by regulators creating secular legislature and writers making poems. It rooted deeply into consciousness of a man of western world. Moreover, if someones is embracing Christianity, it's an act of that one's free will. It's not the case with Scientology. This Church has little if any (well, there is that actor ...) impact on our culture. But that's not illegal. The bad thing is that Church of Scientology is trying to control free will of it's participants in order to make financial profit.
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.
BTW the phrase "other religions" implicitly concedes that Scientology is a religion as they claim
And your definition of a religion is?
No, of course not! The Church has never been aboutmoney or power ever.
It's always been about saving the little ones from a lake of fire and doom.
I'm not standing up for Scientology, but regardless of the saintliness you hold your own beliefs, Christianity (as most organized religions have) has had a very checked past when it comes to what those with power and influence in it have done.
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.
Yeah, agreed. The problem is the article is so scant on details that as far as I can tell the woman is complaining that she bought a bunch of stuff that didn't work. Does she have any of these claims that they do work in writing? The last complaint is that she bought something from the Scientologists for 5 times what she could have bought it for... no-where is that fraud.
Without details, I can only make general statements about the general stupidity of people everywhere.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
But you have an informed choice to believe in Zombie Jesus or not to.
What part of indoctrination of the young don't you understand?
Generally, Christians won't shun you if you leave
Have you never heard of ex-communication?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Ya know there's plenty to despise about christianity without making shit up.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
After the scandals with the clergy, I stopped giving money to the church and started giving it all directly to charities. Nobody mistreated me. Maybe you're just making this up?
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Um, no. Most will request a tithe (after all without any donations the church goes bankrupt) but they don't require it. Effectively Scientology requires an "admission" fee and even more money for their equivalent for salvation. On the other hand Christianity clearly states "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23) And also "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Any protestant branch that demands money (other than for something that would require money such as going on a trip, buying expensive things, etc) especially for salvation contradicts biblical teaching. I can't say for Mormons but I don't think they have the "admission" fee mentality that Scientology has.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
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)
>1.) The Bible is pretty easy to access. In fact, you can often get it for free because its believers want you to read it.
Currently.
There was a time when translation of the Bible out of Latin and into a language people could read got you burnt at the stake.
But with that said, I think Scientology fails the laugh test much more clearly than Christianity.
However, with THAT said, the Scientologists I've known well were nicer to me than most Christians. Of course, that's because they were girlfriends...
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
> 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.
At one time, Catholic rites were always performed in Latin, a language even most Europeans no longer spoke. Translation of the bible into native languages was considered heresy. Why? To force people to support a priest caste who had a monopoly on reading and interpreting scripture. So yes, effectively people WERE charged for reading the bible, as well as charged for indulgences. The Protestant Reformation was a reaction to the monetization of religion. Sounds like CofS could use a little reformation as well.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It'd be the rare christian sect that tolerates or promotes practices as harmful as scientology. Scientology's harm to society, unlike any Christian sect that I can think of apart from "Christian Science", merits strong societal sanction.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
while $cieno milks them.
I have no sympathy for religion, organized or not, but $cieno is a special kind of evil.
"Yeah, that whole indoctrination of the young thing is irrelevant, right?"
Yes. That's what happens when you're young, whether your "indoctrination" is about being christian, vegetarian, not dropping litter in streets, not stealing, learning to write, learning maths... you can be brought up christian, yet drop the religion when you grow up enough to think for yourself. I, many in my family, and many of my friends, are living proof of that. If people believe in their religion, of course they're going to share it with their kids, it's not "evil conspiracy against children", that's a stupid argument, it's just the way things are going to happen. Like people are going to believe their religion is 'The True Way' yet hide it from their children. That's ridiculous. And the religion's ridiculous to begin with... so that's like... ridiculous squared!
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
The problem with your argument is that you treat all denominations as the same.
If you want to talk about indulgences, that's more of a Catholic issue. Protestants do not believe in that doctrine; rather, they believe that once you accept Christ, all sins are forgiven (past present, and future) and no further payment is required.
Also, don't make the mistake of thinking that all evangelicals are like the ones that have been discredited. It's just that the press thrives on scandal and you very seldom hear about the good ones.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
... 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.
So the Mormons.. they're not a mainstream church eh?
Do you just define your terms to make your arguments true or what?
How we know is more important than what we know.
I wish I had mod points today. The parent post deserves an insightful or two.
I do attend a church regularly, and more than half of the people who attend regularly with me never contribute a cent. They are loved just the same as others who do contribute. The only person who knows how much is actually donated is the treasurer. I'm the council president and former treasurer, so I know of what I speak.
On the other hand, I have had friends that attend churches where the whole sermon is about giving money to the church. It was disheartening to them. However, just because it is this way in one, some, many or most, does not mean that it is universal. It is important to note that sacrifice is a part of most religions, in some way or another. The Christian New Testament has a parable about the widow and her two mites, and the rich man an his wealth. This is about sacrifice and not about volume. If you belief in something but are not willing to sacrifice for it, do you truly believe? Or are you there for some side benefit. You don't have to frame this solely in religion. Patriotism (whose concept was abused by our previous president), science, public safety and other noble pursuits are often characterized by sacrifice.
I my church there are many things required of us to be members. Only one of them has to do with money, and all of them have to do with helping humanity (note: not just those of my religion).
It is dangerous to be right on a subject on which the established authorities are wrong. - Voltaire
Come on mods, how can this be Insightful?
The basic difference between those belief systems is what values they promote. Adherents of Christianity do not secretly assasinate former Christians, steal judicial documentation, make criminal threats toward their critics or demand money for discussing their faith.
The phrase "lies that are not verifiably false" is just stupid. If they are not verifiably false, you can't call them lies (e.g. things that by definition are verifiably false), but at most nonsense.
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
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.
And your definition of a religion is?
Any system of belief that requires you put faith in a knowingly non-disprovable dogma before you can label yourself a follower?
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.
Christianity doesn't tear people away from their families. It doesn't steal its followers money or follow and intimidate anyone trying to investigate it.
Perhaps if you knew something about christianity you might be able to post something vaguely truthful about it but you haven't so let me inform you.
Christianity is an open religion, not a mysterious and closed cult.
Christians believe that Jesus died so that we don't have to get punished for all the shit we've done, and if you ask to be forgiven you can go to heaven when you die.
Scientologists believe that: "Xenu (sometimes Xemu), introduced as an alien ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy." According to this story, 75 million years ago Xenu brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and detonated hydrogen bombs in the volcanoes. The thetans then clustered together, stuck to the bodies of the living, and continue to do this today." - Wikipedia (otherwise known as fact)
Scientology is not only full of crazy beliefs and ideas but it is dangerous. It is run by an incredibly charismatic conman who splits up families, takes children from their parents and cons as much money as it can out of its followers. If you read about all the damage this cult has done you'll realize why it is NOTHING like christianity.
And if you find out the truth about christianity rather than relying on what you think you know or what you've heard then you'll realize that scientology is nothing like the love and forgiveness you can find there.
In other words, you're wrong on the internet. So very, very wrong.
The Da Vinci Code is a novel and therefore a work of fiction.
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.
including dan brown himself. I love when people quote him as an authority it shows how ignorant they are.
That mostly goes without saying, I'm sure most people on here do, if they actually stopped and thought about it, know that there's a big difference between what a religion preaches, and how. As far as the 'what's concerned, they're both silly enough to make "which one's sillier" not be all too relevant. The how, however, is a completely different story. Ignoring the murderous christians of old (past is past, people alive today aren't responsible for what people in the past did), christians are just wrong... scientologists aren't just wrong, they go about it all wrong as well, even maliciously.
My brother after getting caught up with them tried persistently to get them to leave him alone. He eventually pretended to be his dad when they tried contacting him, and told them he'd died. They still won't leave him alone, stuff still comes thru the post from them addressed to him fairly regularly. They just don't care. There're plenty of evil christians, but scientology itself is evil.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Mormons are Christians. You wanna rethink what you said now?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Honestly, there are Christian sects that do all of those things. There are support groups for ex-Mormons and ex-Watchtower the same way that there are for ex-Scientologists. If you go to their sites you will see people telling similar stories. The tactics are the same, both in making converts and in retaining them.
The main difference as I see it as that there is much more of a variety of Christian denominations. AFAIK there is only one branch of Scientology.
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.
One thing I've noted is that you don't actually have to pay large sums of money to be a Christian. In fact, I don't know of any mainstream churches that will toss you out or suspend you if you don't put any money in the collection plate.
So, while the claims of both can be pretty stupid, Christianity actually is a religion, while $cientology is just a scam.
careful which christian churches the new wave christian groups are often nothing more than money collection agencies requesting and demanding 10% of your pay
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Christianity is just as wacky and weird.. it's just that we all know that stuff.. if Scientology lasts 100 years we'll all be able to recite their theology too.
The amount of ignorance to be found amongst supposed nerds is astounding. What is so weird and whacky about the fundamental tenet of "love thy neighbour as you love yourself"? This is what Christianity is about to me. I don't deny there are a whole bunch of whack jobs (especially amongst the evangelical types), but by and large, for most Christians, it is about the virtues of compassion and sacrifice.
Scientology isn't about a mysterious god. It isn't about trying to put the unknown in a spiritual context. It is all about weird and whacky space stories and defrauding vulnerable people of wads of cash.
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
What has WWII got to do with christianity? Even the most loving person will act in self defense, love's no carte blanche ya know. And what's this about Japan? If the rest of the world was "proper christian", Japan would be the last loveless waring society left?
What is it with the alignment of slashdot and christianity, that whether you're for or against, put the two together and the resulting arguments are even more ridiculous than the sum of the pair.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
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?
What is so weird and whacky about the fundamental tenet of "love thy neighbour as you love yourself"?
Hehehe.. it's the whole zombie Jesus raising from the dead and did we mention that he's actually God in human form, after impregnating his own mother, oh, and God invented the universe in 6 days too. Ya can't just pick and choose the bits that make sense to you and then get surprised when people paint you with the same brush as your insane fellow cultists.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Nothing he actually wrote was original, anyway. He took some retarded conspiracy theory bunk from Holy Blood, Holy Grail . We know it's bunk because: (1) like most conspiracy theories, the points are made by post hoc fallacies rather than evidence, and (2) they actually had the balls to sue him for plagiarism, and lost because the judge said, well, if it's "history" then I don't see how he could have plagiarized it, eh boys?
The rest of it is crappy cliffhangers every 3 pages (a la Goosebumps) and a complete lack of anything resembling fleshed-out characters or enjoyable prose.
I hadn't expected someone to bring it up on Slashdot as fact. It's dissapointing.
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.
Not to take away from what you're saying, but I've always wondered what it is about religion that makes people talk like Yoda.
"I know that every word that man just said is true, because it's EXACTLY what I wanted to hear." -- Space Ghost
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)
That's a fine generalization, and may or may not be generally true, but my folks and I attended a presbyterian church for 4 years. We stopped when we were told not to return until we wanted to tithe appropriately.
It's a tax, enforced by social ostracism and in our case at least, direct pronouncements from the pastor. Calling it anything else is disingenuous.
That being said, the Xenu guys are way more obvious about it.
Looking for a Rails developer in Chapel Hill?
That's it, really. While there are a lot of people who I wouldn't trust with a legitimate religious question, your average Catholic priest or Protestant minster will most likely do their best to answer your question up-front, even without any sort of attempt to convert you.
While there are areas of Christianity that are extremely evangelical, and (I know I risk offending some here but oh well) Church of LDS has a similar thing going on with secrecy surrounding certain rituals (though they are trying to modernize), mainstream Christianity is an open book at this point.
Yes but this is not an organised religeon. It's more of an organised gang.
For better or for worse, one can go to a Catholic priest or a Protestant minister and get lessons on their branch of Christianity for free.
Hell, for that matter, one can often go to a Catholic priest or a Protestant minister -- or a Jewish rabbi for that matter -- and get a free meal and a place to sleep along with the lessons. As others have said before me, you ever seen a Scientology soup kitchen?
A friend of mine recently had a pair of Mormons come to his front door and ask to talk to him about the Bible. He, a confirmed nonbeliever, told them he was willing to talk to them ... for fifty bucks. Completely calmly, they replied that they couldn't give him money, but if he needed some help with something -- say, the garbage taken out, or the dishes cleaned up, or some furniture moved, or something -- then they would happy to help him with that first, and one of them could make coffee to drink during the talk, too. He still declined, but I suggest this to you: Next time you meet a Scientologist and they ask you to take their stupid little "personality test," tell them you'll do it ... for one dollar. See what you get.
Breakfast served all day!
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.
I stopped going to church after I was confirmed (Catholic). Nobody called, nobody showed up at my door. Nobody sued me, nobody harassed me. That's a religion.
I agree, it's a blurry line between a religion and a cult, and as an atheist I find it all equally silly, but at least we can say that there is a spectrum, and mainstream Christianity is on a different side of that spectrum from Scientology. You can knock the Catholics, they won't make death threats against you and your family.
Have you ever read half the stories on Xenu.net? It's pretty disturbing what goes on in Scientology. Better to just be informed than to over generalize.
I think the specific fraud issue here is that they are making those sort of tv psychic hotline claims...we'll make your life better, eliminate sadness, just give us some money...but they're not saying "entertainment only" in the legal copy. Which is not to say that you couldn't accuse all faiths of doing something similar.
They both seem equally wacky to me. If you grew up in Western society, you were immersed from birth in a culture that historically had Christianity as one of its foundations. That's likely to make its wacky myths seem more plausible to you.
I don't think it's valid to judge the validity of a belief system by whether its believers seem nice to you. For example, in 1209 an army of crusaders led by the Cistercian abbot Arnaud invaded the French city of Béziers, where some of the population were heretical Cathars. When the abbot was asked how to tell the orthodox Christians from the heretics, he said, "Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own." They killed all 20,000 inhabitants: men, women, children, and babies. If I were judging by Abbot Arnaud, I'd judge Christianity to be a pretty scary religion.
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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.
Try attending church regularly and never donating a cent. Watch how the other people treat you.
I did it for 10 years into my adulthood. No one batted an eye. When I started giving (tithing actually), no one changed their behavior then either. Seems money's not the point of church (unless you're going to a fake church).
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
I'm pretty sure the dog shit eating cancer thing can be disproved.
not only TV evangelists and the Spanish Inquisition
It's funny, as bad as the Inquisition was, compared to rest of Europe at the time, the worst you could say about it is that people were being put on trial (as opposed to just put to a gruesome death without warning or chance of defense).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Legend
TV evangelists...now THOSE guys I don't trust.
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
Sure there are christian cults (more commonly referred to as bible based cults). There are political, self help, recovery, new age, and many other cults. The list goes on. A cult does not have to be religious to be a cult. It's just a system to control people. When I say "cult", i'm referring to the system a group uses to control people and it in no way implies any connection to religion at all. Strictly speaking, Scientology is a nonprofessional therapy cult that masquerades as a religion for tax exempt status. There was a time when they didn't even bother masquerading as a church. It was a series of self help courses. Essentially, that's what Scientology remains to this day. The system, however, is cultic because of the origin of the group, the leadership structure, the practice of thought reform, the secret teachings, dual purposes, etc...
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)...
Apparently you have never read the Bible.
(Note: "The Old Testament doesn't really count anymore!!!" is a copout)
Le français vous intéresse?
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
There was an excellent "Secrets of the Dead" episode (though I think most are excellent) about the people who made an English translation of the Bible.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previous_seasons/case_bible/index.html
Or, to put it another way, a checkered past is at least 50 percent better than a black past.
Breakfast served all day!
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.
and God invented the universe in 6 days too.
FWIW, official Catholic Church doctrine is not Genesis-style creationism. Also, most Catholics I know take "official doctrine" to mean "food for thought".
Ya can't just pick and choose the bits that make sense to you and then get surprised when people paint you with the same brush as your insane fellow cultists.
You should know better than to make such broad generalisations to such a large number of people. You just called me an insane cultist. I'm offended to say the least. I am neither insane, nor a cultist.
I'm sure you're quick to point out prejudice in other people, but in this matter you fail to see your own.
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.
Like the Slashdot cult. :)
How we know is more important than what we know.
The local catholic church used to publish the amount everyone gave in the weekly newsletter. Nothing like a little community shame to entice someone to give more. Gotta love a religious experience that includes pre-made envelopes for giving money. No idea if they still do this practice.
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'm not the GP, but I'd like you to explain what you mean.
If you search Google for "Mormon cult," you will find many, many pages that insist that the LDS Church is a cult. If you dig into those pages, however, you will find that most of them are written by evangelicals and Christian fundamentalist sects.
One very common practice on many of these sites is to begin with the dictionary definition of "cult" and use that as "proof" that Mormonism is a cult. There exist, however, very sophisticated definitions and many, many well-reasoned and elaborate essays and explanations of cult beliefs that offer much more proof than the dictionary. It is these definitions that are used when Scientology is described as a cult. The same guidelines don't apply so readily to Mormonism, however.
In fact, the usual objections to Mormonism used to label them as a cult are that they are not true Christians, so-called, and therefore must be a cult. Christian fundamentalists claim that Mormons don't accept the Bible as the undisputed word of God, that they don't believe in the Trinity, that they have different traditions not set out in the Bible, and so on. All of that may be true, but it just makes them bad Christians (in somebody's eyes). It doesn't make them a cult.
Now, I'm not a Mormon and I can't really speak for the wisdom of their beliefs, or lack thereof. But your flip comment seems to be suggesting that Mormons do the things that Scientologists do, such as "splitting up families and taking children from their parents" -- that's just crazy talk, when in modern times Mormons typically have even bigger families than Catholics.
I'm sure Mormons believe many things that you don't believe. But just because you call them a cult doesn't make it so -- it just makes you a religious zealot. So what are you talking about?
Breakfast served all day!
So the guy in charge of the money the church gets tells us about how the church practices getting its money. This is sort of like trusting Dick Cheney to tell us what we need to know about Guantanamo or trusting Bill Gates to tell you all the many ways that Windows sucks. (Not to intentionally compare you with two evil characters. I'm an atheist but I still don't think accounting-for-Jesus is quite up there with torture or releasing Vista.)
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.
Actually, many Catholics do still believe in indulgences. It's the selling of indulgences that was a historical abuse, one that has long since been abolished. (And by historical, we're talking about before the Council of Trent, not the 1970s.)
Basically, if confession and participating in the other Catholic sacraments is like washing your hands, being granted a plenary indulgence is like getting a full antimicrobial scrubdown before surgery at a hospital. In and of itself, it has absolutely nothing to do with money.
Breakfast served all day!
Try attending church regularly and never donating a cent. Watch how the other people treat you.
Try another church I did that for years and never had issues.
At this point you're wilfully conflating Catholicism with Christianity in order to "prove" your point. I've seen several others point out to you that they are two different things. You've constructed a strawman by taking an implementation of an idea, showing its faults, and then claiming that the idea itself is bad. Doubly so because you're wilfully ignoring an entire swath of Christianity under the Protestant umbrella, and which never had most of the problems you're talking about.
The fact is that yes, the Catholic organisation has had problems over the years. They've abused the trust that people put in them, they've used it as a racket to fleece people of their money, and they've done bad things to little boys. However, NONE of that speaks to the idea of Christianity. It speaks to the disgusting people who have used it as a vehicle for their own personal agendas -- always IN SPITE of what Christianity teaches.
Christianity is, and always has been, based on the idea of free will. This was borne out several times in the story of Jesus, who is looked to as the model of behavior for Christians. That Christians many times come nowhere close to living up to that standard is a sad commentary on the Christians, but not of the standard.
Consider that the early Christians and Jews at the time expected that he would lead an armed revolution against Rome. Instead, he told them to love their neighbors and their enemies, to pay their taxes ("Render unto Caesar..."), and to dedicate their souls to God. The only force involved there would be that of the Romans toward people who don't pay their taxes.
Consider the story Jesus told about the rich man. Jesus told him to sell what he valued and follow him. The guy walked away, and Jesus let him.
Consider the very act of "getting saved." You need to ask Jesus to save you. You need to make the request -- no force involved. You agree to try to follow a certain set of rules to govern your life, but the only consequence of refusing to do so is whatever your actions directly lead to (jail time, bad health, etc.)
Nowhere in the story of Jesus is force involved, except when it is used against him. The one time someone picks up a sword to defend Jesus (in the garden when Judas betrays him to the Romans), Jesus tells him to knock it off.
So I ask you again, where is the fault in that model of behavior? Or is it the people in certain positions using their influence to advance their own interests? Yes, they may be "representatives" of Christianity, but they're acting in direct opposition to it -- the same as crooked cops don't prove that the rule of law is bad. And, like cops, there are a lot more good pastors and priests out there than bad ones, but you only hear about the bad ones.
Now, I know you'll bring up the idea of Hell being the unspoken threat. There are a couple problems with that though. First, Jesus didn't invent the idea of Hell, nor did the Jews. It's been around in one form or another at least since the early Egyptians had Hades (different, but analogous), possibly before. Second, Jesus was not threatening to send people to Hell. The idea is that you're going there by default, but if you ask him to, he'll save you from it. It was an offer of salvation, not a threat of damnation. It's only natural that an offer like that should come with strings attached. After all, he's asking people to live in his house for eternity, and I doubt you'd invite just anyone to your house for that long either -- especially the unrepentant scum of humanity.
Another point is that you don't need to believe the supernatural aspects of Christianity to find it a useful model of behavior. Don't steal, don't murder, be infinitely forgiving, even if it costs your life, never coerce people, and lots of other ideas most liberals should identify with rather than rail against.
The effects on society without such a standard of behavior are much worse than the paltry things that Slashdotters complain about. Cr
"I know that every word that man just said is true, because it's EXACTLY what I wanted to hear." -- Space Ghost
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
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.
But you have an informed choice to believe in Zombie Jesus or not to.
Generally, Christians won't shun you if you leave
Have you never heard of ex-communication?
Nope never heard of it, must be a Catholic thing.
Is it anything like yelling at your ex-wife over the phone?
If so I think we can do without it.
Cult: A small, unpopular religion.
Religion: A large, popular cult.
rj
Indoctrination is not the same as thought reform. See Margaret Singer's Continuum of Influence and Persuasion which explains this (figure 3.2 has a nice chart). Also, only catholics excommunicate, it's very hard to do, adn once you are excommunicated, all it means is that you are not served communon. They don't cut you off from your famil and friends and don't shun you. If you make a confession you can get un-excommunicated also. If you don't like that, you can go to a protestant church (catholics believe they are saved too).
"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."
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
And your definition of a religion is?
Any system of belief that requires you put faith in a knowingly non-disprovable dogma before you can label yourself a follower?
So your including string theorists?
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
The Catholic Church only came to (at least somewhat) support Evolution by Natural Selection post Vatican II. And in fact only finally in 1992 did JPII vindicate Galileo and his crazy Heliocentric theories. (Though not until after then Cardinal Ratzi stated in 1990 of the RCC that "Her verdict against Galileo was rational and just".)
Seriously. I ain't making that shit up.
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
Easy, its the power of the farce. Beware the dark side!
What does Scientology do ... that the Catholic church doesn't?
Many things. Many, many things. DISCLAIMER: I am not a Catholic, and my interpretation of their beliefs is meant only as a guideline and can probably be waved away as fatally inept by any real Catholic. Furthermore I think recent stories about Catholic abuse of children are abhorrent and are probably the greatest crisis the Church has faced since Martin Luther.
That said... here's just one example.
The Catholic church requires believers to confess their sins. Similarly, the so-called Church of Scientology requires believers to undergo a process that it calls "auditing," in which the believer talks frankly about past events. What's the difference?
Well, when the Scientologists do it, I am told, the subject is asked a series of questions, called a "process." The answers to your questions are written down in the form of notes, which are then compiled and permanently retained in a "preclear folder." You can only move on to a new process -- a new set of questions -- when the objective of the previous set of questions has been achieved (to the interviewer's satisfaction). No other guidance or evaluation of the subject is supposedly given, and the auditing process as a whole takes as long as is necessary, i.e. the subject may have to go home, come back later, and continue the same specific process until the interviewer (with the help of a religious object called an "E-meter") says it's time to move on to the next stage. The goal of auditing is said to be to identify memories of the subject's "thetan," both from the present and past lives, which are inhibiting the subject's full abilities (in other words, those things that make the subject a bad and ineffective person). The subject is told that only ongoing and successful practice of Scientology can free them from those bad qualities which oppress them. And furthermore, practicing costs money.
Compare now to how the Catholics do it. You go into a Catholic church and you sit down in a space nearby to the priest. Generally, the priest is partially concealed from you so you do not have to look him in the eye. He might ask you a couple of simple questions about whether you've been practicing Catholic ritual, and then he tells you to begin. That is, he asks you nothing specific -- you just say what you personally feel you need to say. He might ask you to clarify. But generally, the process should take five minutes or less, if you've been doing it regularly. Then he may give you some advice about penance -- something realistic that you can do to make up for your sins, which might just be observance of some ritual -- and then he says, essentially: "If you do these things I have said, and you've been honest about your confession, then God is going to pretty much forget about everything you've said here for the rest of your life and all of eternity. There may be some Purgatory stuff to deal with, but it could have been a lot worse. Do those things and your burden is lifted, effective today; now go home to your family." Total monetary charges incurred: Zero.
Kinda different, don't you think? Can you see the difference in psychological impact, the subtle manipulation that the Scientologist undergoes? People talk about "Catholic guilt," but that's nothing compared to what the Scientologists put you through.
That's what's so insidious about Scientology -- the way they can manipulate nonbelievers as well as believers. Superficially, all ritual looks the same to a nonbeliever -- that is, it just seems ridiculous -- which is why Scientologists get away with their brainwashing and other manipulative practices. People look at them and say "they're a bunch of kooks, just like all the others." And the Scientologists smile and say, "That's right. See? We're just like all the others." But it ain't true. Diss Catholics if you must, but don't make the mistake of using Catholicism as an excuse to turn a blind eye to the abuses of Scientology.
Breakfast served all day!
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.
1.) The Bible is pretty easy to access. In fact, you can often get it for free because its believers want you to read it.
Granted, but unless you're a college graduate (and even that assumes a lot), you'll probably have trouble understanding the text without intermediaries and Bible study sessions. Most believers barely touch the Bible, and they're content with a fairy-tale-like understanding of the Bible: everyone knows David and Goliath, Jonah and the Whale/BigFish, Passion of the Christ, etc. However, once the faithful start babbling about the nature of the Trinity or whether the 6 days in Genesis were literal 24-hour days or metaphorical epochs, they're in counting-the-number-of-angels-that-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin land, which is just as theologically insane as anything Scientology has come up with.
2.) I submit that believing some creator of the universe manifested its power in the form of a sacrificial holy man long ago is far less wacky then believing an intergalactic overlord imprisoned in a volcano who attached alien ghosts to primitive humans, causing all their problems.
Scientology is based on science fiction ideas from the 1950s.
Christianity is based on science fiction ideas ("prophecies") from the Old Testament.
I think our culture is simply accustomed to souls, the afterlife, and other Judeo-Christian ideas (so you're saying there's this invisible ghost that lives inside me, but when I die it flies away to some other dimension and lives with other ghosts? OMG U CRAAAZY). It's hard to know what's crazy until we take a huge step back and re-examine our own beliefs.
Seriously, we'd be raising our eyebrows at angels and cupids too (half-bird men?), if we didn't have them immortalized in the form of cartoons, greeting cards, and famous paintings. And who is to say that a fiery underworld filled with red, pitchfork-wielding evil ex-birdmen is any stranger than throwing intergalactic prisoners into volcanos and blowing them to smithereens?
3.) In spite of all the shit they get, the Christians I've met in life have generally been very friendly and nice to me. Just good folks who believe what they believe. You have your bad apples, but that's true for every group in the world. Scientologists, on the other hand, will ask you if you rape babies and are trained to believe that anyone critical of the religion is a criminal who is hiding dark secrets.
That is a wild generalization of both groups. There are some Christians who believe using birth control is tantamount to child murder, and others believe that critics of religion aren't simply anti-religious--they're downright anti-American, or even just plain evil! As for Scientology, I don't know how many "casual Scientologists" exist, but it IS a new religion, after all. They don't have the history and resources of a larger religion, and they're seriously threatened by their much more established competitors. Christians also went through some serious growing pains (with a hefty dose of conspiracy, murder, brainwashing...), but now they more or less own the joint, so they can afford to have a lax membership.
So, yeah, very little like Christianity, to be perfectly honest. You were just going for a cheap +5 Insightful by bashing the easy target.
Scientology IS the easy target. Even Christians I know make fun of Scientologists for the EXACT same reasons that I critize Christians. Drawing comparisons between Scientology and Christianity is what will get you ostracized by the majority. It seems exceedingly difficult for people to turn the mirror on themselves. How do those verses go: "Judge not, lest ye be judged" and "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"?
I stand corrected, mod parent up!
I'm sorry for getting on the hate wagon, but what 'good' is there in a church in the middle of the poorest neighborhoods looking like the playboy mansion? It's obscene how much money the church collects. If they were good organizations, they would put that money to good purpose like the neighborhoods they take from.
Instead it's more the rule to see churches fitted to the hilt with palatial facades. IMO, this whole religion thing is obscene, regardless of which religion it is. Perhaps small town churches still show some sort of modesty, but any mid to large city will be filled with huge mega-churches designed for strictly one purpose; to separate the needful from their hard earned money.
I just can't help but think of the whole Jesus and the Money Changers incident.
Sounds eerily familiar, no?
Amen! Oh wait. Shit. Sorry. ;)
Okay, you've made this same post in response to at least three different people that I've seen, and each time you just make this blanket statement, provide no further information, and walk away. If you've got something to say, quit dancing around it.
(I have no informed opinion on the Latter-Day Saints, positive or negative. All I'm saying is you sound like a douche.)
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
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!
... 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.
He may not be, but I sure do.
And then there's Frank Tipler, who may be the first physicist wackier than Newton. Hard not to classify Anthropic Cosmic Principle as religious, and his Physics of Immortality abandons any pretext. If only it had abandonded the actual text as well.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"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.
oh no they want more than a dollar.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
First of all, you're talking about a controversy that's six hundred years old, so it seems a pretty weak example. Secondly, indulgences were not required for salvation (otherwise the vast majority of Christendom was doomed to Limbo). I'm not defending the practice (I'm not a Christian), but you're example is weak and doesn't exactly tell the whole story. If the Church had required that everyone buy indulgences, you might have point, but as they didn't, you don't have a point.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Mormons are, at best, on the outskirts of Christianity, and yes, they do require you tithe a percentage of your income, but they are not a majority of Christians, and their practices certainly don't represent how most Christian churches function. Just what percentage of Christianity do you suppose Mormons make up?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
i'd mod you informative if I had any modpoints left.
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?"
See this post.
You're an AC, so it's pointless replying to you, but maybe someone will read this and get some clarity.
We were talking about fraud.. to claim that someone has committed that crime you have to prove they misrepresented something.. i.e., they lied, and you can prove that they did. All I was saying that all the lies of Christianity are not disprovable. That is, I say they're lies, but I can't prove it. Therefore it isn't fraud.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Boy, you must have paid the LRonites a lot of money to be this miserable. What a pity you hadn't spent that money on some schooling, so you didn't come off as a complete fucking retard.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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
Not to take away from what you're saying, but I've always wondered what it is about religion that makes people talk like Yoda.
I'd say it's not so much religion, but more likely the English rule (or suggestion, depending on whom you ask) that you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition.
Acceptance of Christ doesn't absolve future sins. Blasphemy of the holy spirit is unforgivable, and an instant ticket to Satan's backyard barbecue, without exception.
Learn something new.
It's not like you should feel like you're paying dues or have a mentality where you expect to get something back.
I guess you could at least say that most Jewish synagogues are more up front about it (whether or not it's a "better" way is certainly debatable). In all the synagogues I'm familiar with, you get a letter every year with how much dues are for the next year. The money goes primarily to pay both the office and religious staff (being a rabbi is definitely a full-time job) and for upkeep of the building, all of which can get fairly expensive. I don't know exactly how much anyone gets paid, but as a paying member at my synagogue, I could probably ask someone on the executive board. I'm sure that nobody working there is becoming what I would consider wealthy. Of course, if you aren't able to pay the normal dues, you just talk to someone about it and pay what you can.
My understanding is that string theorists are TRYING to come up with disprovable tests. That kinda gives them an edge.
For full disclosure, I use the terms god and physics interchangeably.
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.
You make a compelling argument if this was 1000 years ago.
Thing is, it's today, and if any religion tried that shit today they would get the shit stomped out of them by the civilized world in half a heart beat. If you disagree, go talk to Mr. Milosovec or Mr. Hussein (of Iraq). Religious wars aren't tolerated today.
Keep in mind we're not attacking the benefits or detrements of christianity here -- this is about the evils of the CoS. Evils that one branch of Christian faith perpetuated hundreds and hundreds of years ago are completely irrelevant to whether or not we should allow evils to continue today.
If you want to hold the church responsible for those horrors.. well, be my guest, but just because one faith did bad things back in a time and age when those bad things were not considered bad does not mean that another 'faith' can do bad things in a time and age when those things ARE considered bad.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
Ya can't just pick and choose the bits that make sense to you and then get surprised when people paint you with the same brush as your insane fellow cultists.
You sure can. Plenty of people have been doing it for hundreds or, in some cases, thousands of years. The Torah has plenty of laws about animal sacrifices, but those haven't been done for almost two thousand years, and even some of the Prophets were concerned that the sacrificial system would become something that people did just because they felt that they should do it without thinking about why it was done, or even become a way to show off wealth or shame the poor.
Not Christianity, of course, but the Temple that I belong to charges large annual membership fees. Those fees give you access not so much to the religious services (no one would turn you away because you're not a paid member), but to the Temple's other features like Hebrew School and various events/social activities. We can't afford the full membership fees, so they give us a reduced membership fee. They're willing to cut their fees drastically to keep us as members. The Church of Scientology definitely wouldn't reduce their various fees in order to help an impoverished member climb the Scientology ladder.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Remember, Christians are tax exempt in many countries. The own huge amounts of land. Have huge political influence. Are responsible for more death and destruction than any other group in history. The other major monotheistic religions aren't any better (Judaism and Muslim).
I'd be curious to see what large-scale death and destruction Judaism has caused, especially since it hasn't ever been a significant military power for any large period of time. My Muslim history is much weaker, but I think a lot of what is now considered problems with militaristic Muslim nations is relatively recent.
...and then I pull OUT MY GUN!
Which boils down to: Humans are, for the most part, pretty gullible. Even after they reach the age of reason ;)
Well put, tho.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Granted, but unless you're a college graduate (and even that assumes a lot), you'll probably have trouble understanding the text without intermediaries and Bible study sessions. Most believers barely touch the Bible, and they're content with a fairy-tale-like understanding of the Bible: everyone knows David and Goliath, Jonah and the Whale/BigFish, Passion of the Christ, etc. However, once the faithful start babbling about the nature of the Trinity or whether the 6 days in Genesis were literal 24-hour days or metaphorical epochs, they're in counting-the-number-of-angels-that-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin land, which is just as theologically insane as anything Scientology has come up with.
Have you ever looked at a modern Chumash (book form of the Torah, from the Hebrew word for five [books of the Torah])? A good number of the pages have more commentary and explanation than Torah text.
A friend of mine recently had a pair of Mormons come to his front door and ask to talk to him about the Bible. He, a confirmed nonbeliever, told them he was willing to talk to them ... for fifty bucks. Completely calmly, they replied that they couldn't give him money, but if he needed some help with something -- say, the garbage taken out, or the dishes cleaned up, or some furniture moved, or something -- then they would happy to help him with that first, and one of them could make coffee to drink during the talk, too.
While I do agree with you that many people who are christians - perhaps most - do really believe in what they say, and act accordingly, I also have to put forth a modern adage in response to this, to wit:
The first hit is always free.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
I wouldn't make the claim that Christianity has been nothing but helpful to society, but I wouldn't claim that they're responsible for more death and destruction than ANY other group in history. The Christians certainly have a fair share.
And by the way, when somebody is a Muslim, they practice Islam, and when somebody is a Jew, they practice Judaism. Judaism is a religion, and Muslim is a person. If you're going to mock these moron religions, at least show that you understand what kind of bullshit they're peddling.
Learn something new.
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.
My understanding is that string theorists are TRYING to come up with disprovable tests. That kinda gives them an edge.
For full disclosure, I use the terms god and physics interchangeably.
Would Christianity get an edge if I started "trying" to come up with a disprovable test.
They also helped us wacky Americans with this little fight we had with the British in the second half of the 18th century... hmmm.
Learn something new.
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.
"Oh that ye would altogether hold your peace! And it would be your wisdom." - Job 13:5
Exception Duck - may or may not contain chicken.
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.
I'm going to agree with you on point one. No doubt. I have several copies of the Bible in my house, none of which I have paid for. (I would probably be considered an Atheist but I do remain open to other possibilities.) No, they are not stolen either.
Point 2......I personally believe that the stories in the Bible are more easily digested because they are "Ancient" and people seem to accept a little more mysticism from things that are very old. This may come half from the fact that "Hey, people have believed this for 2000 years...sounds reasonable" and half from the fact that it can not really be completely dis proven. If I came down a mountain with stone tablets with ten rules and said that God told me to write them down I would be mocked relentlessly
Point three mostly holds true for me too. There are a few people who have treated me with suspicion, pity, and condescention when they discovered that I do not believe in the Christian God. In their defense it is entirely possible they derided by other Atheist or Agnostic types in the past. Unfortunately, our combined experience is simply anecdotal compared to the experiences of victims of the inquisition and other religious persecution at the hands of Christians.
I do appreciate that you stuck up for Christianity even though you are an Agnostic. I'll make a stand for Science when the lunatic fringe of the Christian Community tries to impede education and progress, but I think making fun of someone's deeply held personal beliefs is pretty darn low. I've met many Atheists that somehow believe making fun of Religion makes them intelligent and cool. It really doesn't. Science provides some answers and provides more and more each day. When it comes down to it, it is still a leap of faith to say that science will give us all the answers some day. That is MY belief and I really would prefer not to be mocked because of it so I will not mock the beliefs of others.
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.
Sacrifice, aka altruism, holds that you have no right to exist for your own sake. The justification for your existence is as a sacrificial animal for the sake of others.
.
This is incompatible with freedom and individualism, which sanction your right to live and pursue your own happiness, which is inherently a self-interested idea.
.
Note that most people believe in an ethical dichotomy: either cut your neighbors throat for your sake, or cut your own throat for your neighbors sake. But there is a better alternative: to be against throat cutting. Respect each others' equal right to be free, and deal with one another voluntarily, as traders.
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It is not a surprise to me that you advocate human sacrifice, since are obviously mystical (as per your religion). People who reject this world in favor of a mystical dimension, who reject reason in the name of faith - also usually gravitate toward rejecting joy, comfort, and self in favor of suffering and self-sacrifice.
Mine is Good
And so begins the "you must be a Scientologist because you don't think they should be burned at the stake" bullshit. I'm not fan of Scientologists ok? I'm just also not a fan of you crazy fuckin' Christians - or Muslims, or Jews, or Hindus, or New Age Hippies, or any of you other fucktards who believe shit that is not only physically impossible but logically ridiculous. But if you wanna be a retard, don't pick on the other retards. And don't go suggesting that any of the crazy shit you believe is sane because so many other people buy into it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've been in churches all my life and that's the first time I've ever heard such a thing. But then, maybe Presbyterians are just weird.
All comments are properties and trademarks of the voices in my head. Not like I'm gonna claim them.
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.
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.
If you didn't RTFA, it's not about theology, but a specific case of fraud (as it's specifically defined under French law, to be determined in trial, obviously).
"Lawyers for Aude-Claire Malton claim Scientologists preyed upon her at a time when she was "very psychologically fragile", pressuring her into spending â21,000 (£18,000) â" her life savings â" on products including "purification packs" and vitamins."
If the evidence shows that what took place was illegal, then there will be criminal punishment. The church issue only comes in as the prosecution will try to show that the allegedly illegal behaviour is Scientology procedure, and so if the court rules against them, the leaders of the now criminal organisation will subject to punishment.
IANAFL, of course, but I believe this situation to be different from religious claims made by a religion, or specific use of an established religion by a specific individual.
I found out years after the fact that we'd stopped attending church because of tithing. We'd run into financial difficulties and when my mother talked to our minister about how much to give she was told the church was a "business" and she needed to keep tithing at the same level.
I'm no friend to Scientology, but it's bizarre theology and penchant for control and money seems no different than any other religion. It's just newer, smaller, and easier to pick on. Give it a thousand years and volcanoes and H-bombs will seem as natural as talking snakes and virgin births.
Crazy. You might want to check this out.
"I think you are saying that a person can't like /. and be a Christian?"
No, I said "whether you're for or against", that bit was relating to christianity, meaning that peoples arguments on here, whether they're arguments for or against christianity (as there are plenty of both) are completely whacky.
"Germany and Italy were 95%+ 'Christian' Those didn't act in self defense"
Are you sure? Remember that in WW1 countries across Europe were dragged into the war due to legal obligations, because of the complex web of mutual defense treaties signed between countries, and that includes Germany. Notice the important word there, right after 'mutual'. It was a defense treaty that got Germany pulled in. And did Germany suffer for it. Long after the war was over, massive war reparations were levied against Germany, sanctions forbidding them to build an army, keeping their population down trodden so they couldn't become a threat again. Of course you cannot just do that to an entire population for 50 years and not expect them to become bitter; they fought back. Hitler used this platform to rise, promising people that he would get back for them that which they were being denied, that which was rightly theres. By this time, a new generation of people were out there, held down by war reparations from an event that happened before they were even born, how was this justified? They obviously didn't feel it was... and so they fought their "evil oppressors"... this is defensive. Of course it didn't stay that simple, and other factors came into play, but once there's a momentum, it's hard to stop.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
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.
In Islam, apostasy is punishable by death.
Is Islam a cult?
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
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
As a non-believer, I agree that cults use brainwashing techniques against teens and adults.
However- as some others have pointed out, as a child of christians, you don't have much of a chance- before your brain forms you are taught certain things are reality. It takes a lot to break free of that brainwashing. If churches used cult techniques then most likely a lot less people would break free.
Religions do not use these techniques tho they do use ostracism. In older times, this was very effective since it would cut you away from your entire life with no support. However as cities formed, and we needed communal support less, that has lost it's power.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
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.
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.
Generally, Christians won't shun you if you leave
Have you never heard of ex-communication?
Ha. You have to do more than simply leave to be excommunicated!
Pirate Party UK
For better or for worse, one can go to a Catholic priest or a Protestant minister and get lessons on their branch of Christianity for free.
Why bother going anywhere? You can get a copy of all of the Church's teachings in the form of the Cathechism, which is availble on the Vatican's website.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
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.
>Christians have been around longer, so the only lies they tell are the ones that are not verifiably false.
Plus they've had time to bed down into the human psyche as givens so even considering querying them is almost taboo in many circles. I read an interesting piece on how children below a certain age pretty much believe anything you tell them and continue to believe these things even as adults (although new 'wierd' things need evidence to be believed by then). As such, religious families find passing on their religion to the kids to be fairly easy. That said, kids these days are far more street smart earlier so maybe that is starting to change.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
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
>you arent CHARGED for reading the bible
Oh be quiet! You'll have the RIAA hanging around churches if they spot that one. 'Excuse me Sir, did you pay for todays sermon, we noted several lines from the Bible were read out in public'.
(before anyone jumps in about copyright running out, I do know. Duh).
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Seems Ron Hubbard found a good way too maximize royalties on his sf. The music industry should be very interested in his business model.
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!
That's a fine generalization, and may or may not be generally true, but my folks and I attended a presbyterian church for 4 years. We stopped when we were told not to return until we wanted to tithe appropriately.
Did the pastor also say that your soul shall be forever damned, that you will burn in Hell, etc?..
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
I gather they don't do it anymore.
They merely don't pronounce it anymore, but plenty of acts result in an automatic excommunication. From theological point of view, they could never truly excommunicate you anyway, since excomunication is separation of the individual from God; as such, it can only be done by yourself, out of free will. They merely state the fact when it happens - and nowadays, they don't even do that, but they can say that "he excommunicated himself" if anyone asks.
Nope never heard of it, must be a Catholic thing.
Excommunication is practiced by all mainstream Christian denominations, including Protestants. It's just that the frequency of its use varies widely in practice, and so does the perceived severity of the punishment. It's definitely much easier to get excommunicated in Orthodoxy or Catholicism, especially since in many cases you enter that state by simply doing or not something (e.g. in Orthodoxy at least, by not confessing).
Oh yeah, you mean like indulgences and such.
Indulgences were never advertised as the only way of salvation - even during the time of the worst abuses, when they were openly traded with almost no strings attached, it was merely a "shortcut". Of course, it was also a long time ago, and isn't practiced anymore - ask a local Catholic priest if he can sell you an indulgence for money (in fact, ask him if he can even obtain one for you by any means), and see for yourself.
"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."
Any system of belief that requires you put faith in a knowingly non-disprovable dogma before you can label yourself a follower?
Like, say:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
What religion would this dogma belong to?
Ditto for UDHR.
I'm sorry for getting on the hate wagon, but what 'good' is there in a church in the middle of the poorest neighborhoods looking like the playboy mansion? It's obscene how much money the church collects. If they were good organizations, they would put that money to good purpose like the neighborhoods they take from.
As a Christian, I completely agree. Its the responsibility of a church in a poor neighbourhood to care for and help the community.
Unfortunately, Christians aren't perfect, no matter how much they or others expect them to be.
Yes. Very much so actually. A large part of its doctrine is based not on the writing in its holy book (The Quran) but on interpretations made by clerics over the centuries. Most of these directly contradicts the writing in the holy book but it still considered both valid and sacred. One of the most obvious are the women headscarves (or more extreme coverings) and the male beards. These are almost considered a pillar of the faith but are not in any way founded on the holy writings; they are based on what the people around Muhammad did and said, plus later adaptions and interpretations. Another is the antisemitic rantings we hear from almost all the Islamic sects today; the Quran actually states quite clearly in several places that Christian and Jews worship the same God and thus are the brothers of all muslims and must be respected and treated as such. But modern Islam is a cesspool of antisemitism and blind hate towards jews that makes the nazi philosophy look tame in comparison. This very negative attitude towards 'enemies of the faith' to the point of megalomania and outright warfare is very typical of a cult - just look at the Branch Davidians and their 'war' against the US authorities.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
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?
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
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.
my folks and I attended a presbyterian church for 4 years. We stopped when we were told not to return until we wanted to tithe appropriately.
I'm sorry - that's terrible
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.
Two words: Opus Dei
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
One thing I've noted is that you don't actually have to pay large sums of money to be a Christian. In fact, I don't know of any mainstream churches that will toss you out or suspend you if you don't put any money in the collection plate.
Yeah, but if you ride on that difference so much, let's not forget the other one: The christian churches are established institutions who have other income channels (many of which are tax money) and simply don't have to use the direct approach anymore. I'm pretty certain that if Scientology were the de-facto state religion, their methods of money collection would change dramatically, too.
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
Generally, Christians won't shun you if you leave
Actually, that's not entirely true. There are various methods of strong "discouragement", including attacks on your social network and even permanent records like notes on the birth certificates of your children.
My mother left the catholic church when she married my father. So I'm talking 2nd hand, but reliable 2nd hand experience here.
There is also the fact that scientology practices thought reform [rickross.com] (brainwashing) and ericsonian hypnosis, something that does not happen in legitimate religions.
If I were you, I wouldn't bet on that. Again, not immediate, but a friend of mine studies theology, and another friend has good connections to a couple soon-to-be priests.
These people get years of training in persuasion techniques, mostly the ones that are considered harmless like rhetorics and dialectics, but some of the stuff definitely enters the brainwashing territory.
There are also sects within all the major churches that actively practice strong brainwashing techniques. They call them "exorcisms" or the like. Had a girlfriend that got lost in one of these sects once, and as I know my stuff (I've been trained in ericsonian hypnosis, NLP and a couple other things), I recognize it when someone else uses them.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I'd say it's not so much religion, but more likely the English rule (or suggestion, depending on whom you ask) that you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition.
It appeared as a recommendation in an English grammar book perhaps 200 years ago. I think it was described as "the most elegant formulation" or some such. Winston Churchill had a nice line on it, "This is the sort of nonsense up with which I shall not put."
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
If people believe in their religion, of course they're going to share it with their kids, it's not "evil conspiracy against children", that's a stupid argument, it's just the way things are going to happen.
Yes. But in addition to that, the churches also target children specifically. There are reasons why there are so many "jesus camps" and other church-run spare time activities for children. And the reasons aren't all selfless.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
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 an atheist as well, but imo, you can't compare Scientology with other religions. While other religions may ultimately have less-than-noble agendas as well, especially the lower-ranking priests often do a lot of good things. It's mainly the higher ups who misuse the church for their own personal desires, be it gaining power or gaining wealth or just keeping the people quiet.
Scientology, in contrary, lacks these "good people in a inherently bad organization". Scientology "priests" just lure people in to generate more profit, nothing else.
Also, the Bible, while essentially being a load of fiction, still contains some teachings which have value to them. Not everything is about being the "opiate of the people", although much indeed is (one of the few points I agree on with the commies).
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
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".
As usual, Dawkins says it best:
Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival: the analogue of steering by the moon for a moth. But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility. The inevitable by-product is vulnerability to infection by mind viruses.
-- The God Delusion. pp. 406
Religion "gets a pass" in France because of the First Amendment to the US Constitution?
> 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?
1.) The Bible is pretty easy to access. In fact, you can often get it for free because its believers want you to read it.
Not always the case. The Roman Catholic church was outraged at the idea of the common people being able to access the bible for themselves and strongly resisted attempts to translate it. They even burned the bones of the guy who translated it into English and made further translation into a heretical act.
2.) I submit that believing some creator of the universe manifested its power in the form of a sacrificial holy man long ago is far less wacky then believing an intergalactic overlord imprisoned in a volcano who attached alien ghosts to primitive humans, causing all their problems.
Not really. The Xenu-overlord thing is consistent with 50s sci-fi culture when LRH formulated the 'religion', just like the zombie-rises-after-death-to-save-us was consistent with the agrarian pagan religious myths that were common at the time of christ. It's only wacky if its unfamiliar.
3.) In spite of all the shit they get, the Christians I've met in life have generally been very friendly and nice to me. Just good folks who believe what they believe. You have your bad apples, but that's true for every group in the world. Scientologists, on the other hand, will ask you if you rape babies and are trained to believe that anyone critical of the religion is a criminal who is hiding dark secrets.
What about the inquisition? Or witch hunts?
You have a point about most modern christians being very different, but in fact, Scientology follows the classic pattern of an early religion and given 400-500 years, may well end up looking a lot like middle America does today. Surely if we oppose one, we should oppose both.
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.'"
Where you go to church and where I go both leave it a personal and anonymous matter, but plate-passing is a well known custom in many churches/religions. If people think everywhere is like that, we know it's because of "the few" (we can hope it's few). Perhaps it's our own fault for rushing to claim the title "Christian" which in many ways has been tainted.
It's just a marketing label now, everyone calls themselves Christian and you won't find an acceptable definition for it. Saying it means "to follow Christ" would mean that a majority don't qualify, if you say "believes in Christ" then most who claim it could qualify. Personally I think the former definition is the one to go by but that just offends people.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
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.
What is the matter, you fucking death cultists? Can't stand to have your history and present thrown in your face?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I've been a Presbyterian for 10 years, and I've never seen this. Flat out, I don't believe the GP.
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.
Those church events cater to children that are already Christian. The real reason that "isn't all selfless" is mostly that churches cater to families, and "getaways" are fun for kids. A good church engages children in a community of their peers, which promotes sociability and good self-esteem. There's no conspiracy.
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.
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.
In spite of all the shit they get, the Christians I've met in life have generally been very friendly and nice to me. Just good folks who believe what they believe.
They seem nice, right? But did you know if you give them 15 minutes they will try to convince you that you are evil? That you will spend eternity in eternal suffering? They will not meet this fate, because their belief is correct. But your's is wrong and you will get yours one day.
Just because they wait until death to tar and feather you doesn't make them any better than a group that does it the day they meet you. Weaker minds will not know how to refute the crap they spew, and will give in to the fear. Christians are a great example of taming your religion once you have a good number and using social pressure and fear to accomplish goals. They use force to spread their believe; it is just a refined version of force.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
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
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.
For an atheist (well agnostic in fact) like me Mysticism and faith in general are a necessary evil. Your own death is scary and most people needs hope whatever it can be (a father figure, a flying monster spaghetti, whatever)
The real thing is that we needed +/- 1900 years to manage Christianity to a point that it won't mess with the secular state anymore. They know their place (in most european countries at least), they provide hopes for those who need it and that's it, it works and you aren't forced by anyone to follow them. Islam is already knocking at our doors but well it is also an old religion and you can still control them easily. They also had their peak and they are currently experiencing the kind of debate between liberal and conservators that Christians had during the renaissance. It won't a mainstream religion in Europe anyway, there are too many problems with the local liberal culture (pork, beers, credits, boobs, etc.)
I wouldn't certainly appreciate to see a new power hungry sect rising like those christians were under the Emperor Constantin.
Scientologists are dangerous, they real aimed is to control the society, that's why they primarily target politicians, businessmen and famous artists. It is more simple to crush them right now than waiting until they become a real threat. Today it is Scientology, tomorrow something else, this is a necessary cleaning that you have to do periodically.
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,
I admittedly don't know as much about Opus Dei as I might (although I had heard of them before the link), but as creepy as they seem they still look to be less harmful to their members than either Christian Science or Scientology.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
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
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!
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.
Ex-communication is not levied for leaving the community as there would be no point. 'You're leaving, well you aren't welcome here anymore anyway.'
Ex-communication is for somebody who has committed a serious offense against Church Law (abortion) and has not stopped receiving communion. The prohibition from receiving of communion is intended to force the person to own up to what they've done, but they are not supposed to remove themselves from attending the Church service, since they presumably have an even greater need for forgiveness and instruction now that they've made a grave error. It's possible that individuals would react badly to the person being excommunicated, but it is intended to be an opportunity for those individuals to grow by learning to forgive and love the person who has been excommunicated, not for them to look down on the person and think they are better than the one who has incurred the punishment.
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
Those church events cater to children that are already Christian.
I'm sorry, I can not parse that sentence.
Attributing a faith to people too young to consciously make such a decision is just wrong. We don't grant them the ability to think clearly about fucking, but we think they can weigh the matters of eternal damnation?
Correct would be: Those church events cater to children whose parents are already christians. And one of the explicit purposes of these events is to make sure that the kids grow up to become nice little christians, too. Wouldn't want any deviants in the family, would we?
A good church engages children in a community of their peers, which promotes sociability and good self-esteem.
I'm sure they do. I'm also sure they set it all up in the proper christian context. Which is my point, exactly. You lure the kids in with the fun factor, and put stuff into their brain that they're not yet able to judge properly. To me, that's psychological child abuse.
There's no conspiracy.
Not in the sense that there's a central secret group coordinating everything. The meme theory certainly fits the facts better than the conspiracy theory.
However, there are individual organized parts within the "no conspiracy". Some parts highly organized indeed.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Well that doesnt happen in other derivations of christianity. Im not sure if I should be pointing out this: i come from a very catholic country and even if im not a catholic, im expected to participate socially in several rites (i was one of my sister's wedding godfather, for example) so I do attend church at some point or another.
Never, ever, in my whole life, have I been directly compelled to fork any kind of obligatory cash.
NO SIG
(Note: "The Old Testament doesn't really count anymore!!!" is a copout)
I have. Old and new. However, AC has a point, one man's wacky shit is another man's bread and butter. My understanding of Christianity's wacky shit is pretty broad, but starts with preachers raping childen, and includes the Morman's concept of "test-driving" the bride. However, that's just the obvious stuff.
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.
And furthermore, Mormons will not 'toss you out' or 'suspend you' if you don't pay a tithe. Sorry to disrupt your beliefs!
.
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
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.
I disagree. I don't see how children are unthinking automatons, or how they display a lack of having an opinion about something. We can argue about how informed their opinions may be, but informativeness has little to do with the nature of faith.
I take it, then, that when you have children, you will refrain from subjecting them to your anti-religious screed so you don't inadvertently "brainwash" them? Hardly.
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...
And I submit that it's equally as crazy. The invisible man in the sky? Please!
I'm afraid it's a bit more serious than a 'few bad apples' in the case of the Catholic Church. The Ryan Report was just part of one country's journey to confronting the reality of what its priests have done, I wonder how many more cases of pedophile priests there are around the world. We know that there have been cases like this in other countries. The Ryan Report could be the start of a global tsunami of truth that topples the CC from its position of prominence. How many more people have harrowing experiences like this poor fella?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
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. ~
Actually, I'm an atheist, but I detest oversimplified and inaccurate statements about someone else's beliefs. This "zombie Jesus" nonsense does not actually represent the theological underpinnings of the Resurrection. Jesus was God, not some guy who just came back to life. If you were talking about Lazarus, you might have a point.
It's not that I find the Resurrection compelling. I don't accept that Jesus was a God, I don't believe humans can come back to life after being dead three days, but if I'm going to critique someone's religious beliefs, I'm going to try to be accurate in just what those beliefs are, rather than simply erecting inaccurate strawmen and patting myself on the back for knocking those down.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
Nope never heard of it, must be a Catholic thing.
Excommunication is practiced by all mainstream Christian denominations, including Protestants. It's just that the frequency of its use varies widely in practice, and so does the perceived severity of the punishment. It's definitely much easier to get excommunicated in Orthodoxy or Catholicism, especially since in many cases you enter that state by simply doing or not something (e.g. in Orthodoxy at least, by not confessing).
Sorry my denomination believes in eternal security guess we're not "mainstream".
Sorry my denomination believes in eternal security guess we're not "mainstream".
Does your denomination believe in eternal security even for those who willfully denounce God? How about those who don't, but who do not fulfill any of the Commandments?
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
Well, the real problem is that, essentially, you're probably lying.
Churches don't even have ways know who's tithing in general.
In fact, most churches have deliberate practices that keep as few people as possible from knowing the amounts of tithes, and that's only if you tithe via check or in an envelope for you. (So you can put it on your taxes.) If you donate in cash, they can't tell that from not donating ...and a lot of people donate in cash.
The only way this could possible work is if you were in a very small church, setup in such a way that people could actually see your lack of donation, and it would require the pastor, in violation of explicit Presbyterian doctrine, to call you out on it.
If you happen, though some near impossible convergences of factors, have what you have laid out actually happened to you, you should have taken it up with the governing authority for your church.
I don't want to call you a liar, but, really, I think I have to.
I'm a member of a Baptist church where I do not tithe (I am not a fan of how they spend my money, I donate to charity in other ways.), I have never been made to feel uncomfortable in the slightest, or had the slightest indication that anyone even knows I don't tithe.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
What's sort of interesting is that what the e-meter measures, in actual real terms, is skin conductivity. When you lie or are nervous or distressed, your autonomous nervous system usually does various things that cause your skin conductivity to drop - causing a higher reading on the e-meter. Thus, when the auditor goes over painful or difficult times in your life, your reading on the e-meter spikes.
What's insidious about this is that in order to get through the audit, you must keep the e-meter from spiking. This teaches you to control your autonomous nervous system (it's basic feedback training, like putting cayenne on the nails of a child who chews their fingernails). Thus, the Church of Scientology trains people to be able to lie with their body language. You can see this sometimes in CoS representatives, when they're recorded showing emotions in public. They can just turn the anger on and off. It's creepy. There was a good example of it on YouTube; it was a video of a guy getting yelled at for trying to film a CoS exhibit in LA, but unfortunately I can't find the clip right now.
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.
But that doesn't quite make sense. Can you actually prove to me that, I don't know, that a force called gravity actually exists? I know I can see the effects of it. I know, old horse that's been beaten to death.
So, let's just take the basic claim "God exists." Can you prove to me (1) He doesn't? No... for that matter, it's extremely hard to prove any negative statement, scientifically, unless it can be mathematically proven.
Next question. (2) If I claim He does exist and give you some forms of evidence, why is it you would call me a liar? (or is that not one of the lies?) Now, I'm not saying you can try to convince me it "doesn't make sense" or that there are, I don't know, contradictions or something like that. But saying that it is a lie is implying two things. (1) Your position (in this hypothetical case, "God does not exist") is true, and (2) My position ("God does exist") is false and I know it is false.
My proposal for this hypothetical situation: by calling me a liar and implying those two things seems to more point to you being a liar than me being a liar. (1) Your position is just as improvable as mine, if not more so (easier to show something to exist than show it not to exist); (2) Presuming that you know what I am thinking is generally a dangerous assumption (that I know its false, thus that I am lying.. presuming "lying" implies a willful lie, and not a lie out of ignorance - which would better be termed a "mistake" I suppose?).
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
Didn't say they offered to drink the coffee. And sure, they could have been Witnesses. I wasn't there.
Breakfast served all day!
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 disagree. I don't see how children are unthinking automatons, or how they display a lack of having an opinion about something. We can argue about how informed their opinions may be, but informativeness has little to do with the nature of faith.
Oh, really? So what has to do with the nature of faith? Ignorance?
No, children are not "unthinking", but they are until a certain age programmed to believe what their parents tell them, because that's evolutionary advantageous. If father says "don't eat those berries, they're bad for you", it makes sense for the kid to not try to falsify that claim, but simply believe it. Unfortunately, this also translated to an unreflected belief if father says "there's an old man in the sky watching your every move, and he'll burn you for all eternity if you make a picture of him".
Knowledge has everything to do with faith. All the monotheistic faiths share one attribute: A desire for monopoly. They all claim to be the one and only truth, and their god the only god. Knowing that, and having a tiny bit of common sense makes you realize it is impossible that they're all right. In fact, at most one of them could be right. However, it is very possible that they can all be wrong. In either of those cases, you'd have to ask yourself one critical question before you join any of these faiths: "How do I know I'm not in one of the wrong ones? The chance I'm right is 1/3 at best. How can I find out?"
Heck, and that's ignoring church differences, sects and minor religions.
I take it, then, that when you have children, you will refrain from subjecting them to your anti-religious screed so you don't inadvertently "brainwash" them? Hardly.
If I had children, I would make sure that they know about all the major world religions. I'd also tell them the truth about sex as soon as they're old enough to ask. I don't believe in "shielding" anyone from knowledge, especially not children.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
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
If you could come up with a definition of Islam that every Muslim would agree to, then you could determine whether it was a cult or not.
Crazy is non-denominational. Catholics are pretty famous for not going to church after they're confirmed, and yet there are also a few orders which self-flagellate.
Fundamentalism makes a mess of things no matter where it pops up. That doesn't mean that the other billion are in a cult.
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.
Sorry my denomination believes in eternal security guess we're not "mainstream".
Does your denomination believe in eternal security even for those who willfully denounce God? How about those who don't, but who do not fulfill any of the Commandments?
You can chooose not to seek God in the first place but once a Christian always a Christian.
Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Yes, deliberate fraud like that is often used as reason to Pierce the corporate veil...
You can chooose not to seek God in the first place but once a Christian always a Christian.
What about free will, then? Surely, when God gave such to man, part of it was the ability to renounce God (even after first accepting him)?
Note also that even your Romans citation essentially lists external reasons as those that "shall not be able to separate". It doesn't say anything about a man himself willfully rejecting God out of his free will alone.
Or are you of a denomination that believes that salvation (or lack of it) is predetermined for all, and their very actions are already guided by that predetermination?
The difference between science, religion and morality.
Science: can be demonstrated to be true, at least within the limits of the human condition.
Morality: Demonstrated way of getting along with others in society.
Religion: Fairy stories that are not verifiable and lead to twisting of both morality and science.
Only a religious or dillusional person can justify killing innocent people suicide bomb style, or literally believe the world is 6000 years old, and honestly believe themselves to be correct.
They aren't the same thing at all. Teaching nonsense alongside truth and telling your kids both are equal is harmful.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
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.
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
I'm not saying that faith is based on ignorance. I'm saying that the ignorant man (or child) can have as much faith as the knowledgeable man. The nature of faith is belief in things not seen (something children do readily), not deductive reasoning. That is not to say I think deductive reasoning has no place in religion (systematic theology, for example).
I agree.
I'm not saying that faith is based on ignorance. I'm saying that the ignorant man (or child) can have as much faith as the knowledgeable man.
As a matter of fact, what studies there are show that it isn't like that. Knowledge and intelligence appear to correlate with agnosticism or atheism. Not very strongly, but statistically significant.
The nature of faith is belief in things not seen (something children do readily), not deductive reasoning
Uh, no? Belief in things not seen is not a good definition of faith. I believe in the existence of my parents, even though I don't see them right now. In fact, I believe in the existence of your parents, even though I've never seen neither them nor you. But if I take it for granted that you are a human being, then you have parents.
The nature of faith is belief in things not unly unseen, but non-provable in principle. Or, from the more scientific POV to speak with Kuhn: Not falsifiable.
Children's "belief" in their made-up friends, etc. does have something in common with religion (in fact, I personally think that the whole "god" thing is just that perfectly normal part of human development run out of control, though the theory outlined in "the breakdown of the bicameral mind" is almost as convincing).
But, it is not the same, and most importantly, one does not provide justification for the other. Just because children already belief in silly things doesn't mean it's ok to pour more of that into their heads. And just because ignorant man beliefs in all kind of nonsense it's not ok to turn that nonsense into a major world religion.
That is not to say I think deductive reasoning has no place in religion (systematic theology, for example).
Yeah, the funny thing about that is that it conveniently ignores one of the primary rules of deductive reasoning: If your assumption is false, all your results are worse then false, they're meaningless. I learnt that in logic 101 at my university, but then again I didn't study theology. I doubt it's taught in their logic classes. :-)
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Sharing != archival.
Do you have the full text laying around?
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
This is what I meant by "unseen." I was trying to be brief. In essence, we agree on this point.
But who defines what is silly or not? Suppose I come to believe that your political philosophy is based on false assumptions and faulty logic, and I have the authority to tell you that you can't teach your children that particular philosophy? It's a slippery slope when we begin saying "we can give children these ideas, but we can't expose them to those. In my opinion, it's just a reverse of the fundamentalist "think of the children" argument. I'm equally against it.
Actually, it is. There's a pretty wide diversity of base presuppositions in systematic theology, and each school of thought derives the same conclusions by different models. These basic presuppositions usually deal with philosophical concepts such as "can we agree on what 'existing' means?" and stuff like that. Mostly existential. Useful to a modern thinker, but rubbish to a post-modern thinker. My math logic 101 teacher taught me that systematic theology essentially says, "assume God... now, let us prove God." In my later reading I discovered this claim to be false. While the theological proofs of such figures as Descartes have holes, the holes do not lie with the presuppositions, and modern theologians have greatly improved on them.
Let's see if I can update it for you, "Abortion clinic bombed. 3 killed" How's that.
Why bother
Let's see if you can use your brain.
Your example is the actions of an individual who, due to their own personal beliefs, feel they are just in committing murder.
No Christian church condones abortion clinic bombings. Not even the Catholic church, and they fucking HATE abortions don't you agree?
Their chosen method of action against things they don't agree with is to speak out against them and try to convince people of whatever it is they believe is right.
Meanwhile, the CoS has OFFICIAL DOCTRINES for committing illegal actions and violent crimes and generally terrible things against any individual or group who the church labels as subversive.
Their chosen method of action against things they don't agree with is to sue the hell out of them with completely baseless claims, because even having 1,000 cases thrown out of court is still a nightmare of stress and money for any average person. And if that doesn't work, they'll try and dig up dirt on you to either blackmail you or submit it to the police and have you arrested. And if that doesn't work, there's always R2-45, AMIRITE?
A child could understand the difference. How's that update for you, skippy.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
You can chooose not to seek God in the first place but once a Christian always a Christian.
What about free will, then? Surely, when God gave such to man, part of it was the ability to renounce God (even after first accepting him)?
Note also that even your Romans citation essentially lists external reasons as those that "shall not be able to separate". It doesn't say anything about a man himself willfully rejecting God out of his free will alone.
Or are you of a denomination that believes that salvation (or lack of it) is predetermined for all, and their very actions are already guided by that predetermination?
Free will applies to God as well. He's free to consider a person a Christian even if they disagree. It's not like anyone complains when their let into heaven.
But who defines what is silly or not? Suppose I come to believe that your political philosophy is based on false assumptions and faulty logic, and I have the authority to tell you that you can't teach your children that particular philosophy? It's a slippery slope when we begin saying "we can give children these ideas, but we can't expose them to those. In my opinion, it's just a reverse of the fundamentalist "think of the children" argument. I'm equally against it.
Agreed, it's a non-trivial topic. Personally, I believe education of children is left to amateurs (i.e. parents) when it should be done by professionals (i.e. parents trained for the job). Part of the process must be core abilities of reasoning and understanding, content-free.
I don't mind telling kids about religion. I do mind teaching them religion. See the difference? I think we should make clear, from the earliest possible moment, the difference in all our teachings between "undisputed fact" and "opinion or belief". If you tell the kids "here's an odd idea that a lot of people believe in", that's a huge difference to "there's gravity, and light, and god as described in this holy book".
Basically, teaching children how to think should take priority over teaching them what to think.
Going from there, my definition would be that anything that you are not willing to truthfully answer any and all questions of your kids about, and give them the full sources of both pro and contra, is silly stuff.
Actually, it is.
Interestingly. Yes, thinking about it now it makes sense that one of the most outspoken atheists I know actually studied theology.
While the theological proofs of such figures as Descartes have holes, the holes do not lie with the presuppositions, and modern theologians have greatly improved on them.
I can not imagine how you can even begin to build such an argument without going - more or less obviously - the route that your teacher used. Care to point me somewhere I can read up on this?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Free will applies to God as well. He's free to consider a person a Christian even if they disagree.
This doesn't make sense. Most of the Bible talks about what one has to do to achieve salvation - it is quote explicitly never unconditional. If you reject God, or Jesus' sacrifice, then the sacrifice does not absolve you - and thus you are not saved. Yes, of course God can take any sinner, and change him to be perfect saint - that's what true omnipotence means - but in doing so he would have to override the choices and decisions of that man that made him a sinner in the first place, and thus, ultimately, his free will - something that God never, ever does to a man. Because if he did, then the old question of "why God lets evil exist" would raise its ugly head. The only reasonable reply to that is, "because God gave us free will, and thus we are free to create evil".
It's not like anyone complains when their let into heaven.
Do you believe in physically "letting someone into heaven"? Isn't heaven (and hell) merely a state into which a soul brings itself, by its own actions, and most specifically, the acceptance or rejection of God?
Free will applies to God as well. He's free to consider a person a Christian even if they disagree.
This doesn't make sense. Most of the Bible talks about what one has to do to achieve salvation - it is quote explicitly never unconditional. If you reject God, or Jesus' sacrifice, then the sacrifice does not absolve you - and thus you are not saved. Yes, of course God can take any sinner, and change him to be perfect saint - that's what true omnipotence means - but in doing so he would have to override the choices and decisions of that man that made him a sinner in the first place, and thus, ultimately, his free will - something that God never, ever does to a man. Because if he did, then the old question of "why God lets evil exist" would raise its ugly head. The only reasonable reply to that is, "because God gave us free will, and thus we are free to create evil".
It's not like anyone complains when their let into heaven.
Do you believe in physically "letting someone into heaven"? Isn't heaven (and hell) merely a state into which a soul brings itself, by its own actions, and most specifically, the acceptance or rejection of God?
Man kind has free will. You can reject God even beyond that if you don't actively accept God you won't make it into heaven.
Romans 10:9 9 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
That being said once you've accepted him there's nothing you can do to get kicked out.
Also the Bible always refers to Heaven and Hell as places not states. If it's not a actual place one is left to wonder where the soul actually is located when it's in a "state" of heaven or hell.
Your are mostly correct in saying that it hinges on the acceptance or rejection of God. Though I could nitpick and say that it's God's intervention and not our own action's that saves a soul. We save ourseleves in the same sense that a drowning man save's himself by screaming at a life guard.
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
Even as someone who does plan on indoctrinating my children, I fully agree with this statement. Furthermore, I will go to long lengths not to shield my children from counterarguments. I have been a strong proponent in my church groups of reading up on atheist philosophy, and understanding its arguments. It's the same reason I encouraged all my friends to have their children read "The Golden Compass". If a man thinks he's right, then his belief ought to withstand criticism, no?
It's an enormous monetary investment, but the first volume of Norman Giesler's "Systematic Theology" has a review in the first few chapters of a number of historical proof models. Giesler does the reader a great service by pointing out possible holes in them, and positing alternatives. The first few chapters are probably the most interesting to the casual reader, so I would recommend skimming it in a book store, rather than plopping down the $100+ of the cover price.
Disclaimer: I am not entirely convinced that systematic theology actually constitutes a "proof" of God (by "not entirely", I mean "not at all"), since such proof would contradict the definition of "faith" you posted above (and I agree with). That said, it is a fascinating mental exercise, and I am thankful that at least there are people thinking intelligently about their faith (given that I also know a great many people who do not).
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.
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (commonly known as the Mormons), I thank you for your well reasoned response. Of course, I do not claim to speak for the church, but I think our leaders are also be grateful when they see comments that seek to look at us in a positive light.
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.
If a man thinks he's right, then his belief ought to withstand criticism, no?
He should, and yet you are the exception. I usually find that atheists are more knowledgable in the bible than christians in any of the critical literature. Heck, often more than christians in the bible.
Disclaimer: I am not entirely convinced that systematic theology actually constitutes a "proof" of God (by "not entirely", I mean "not at all"), since such proof would contradict the definition of "faith" you posted above (and I agree with). That said, it is a fascinating mental exercise, and I am thankful that at least there are people thinking intelligently about their faith (given that I also know a great many people who do not).
I'll see if I can find that book in a library. And yes, I'm not opposed to mental exercise in the most remote topics. I've read my share of Crowley, Golden Dawn, etc. stuff and that's just like it in many places. There are elaborate theories about the deep and mysterious meanings of those enochian tablets, for example. All internally consistent and with a solid logic - as long as you accept the base assumptions as given.
Interesting stuff, but not "true" in the sense of strict logic.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
R2-45 - oooh just like what just happened to that abortion doctor that the Fundamentalist Christian terrorist killed the other day.
Why bother
You're a shill, but at least you're a *persistent* shill.
Also, you're dumb.
You see, what that guy did? Nobody told him to do it. It was an idea from his own crazy head.
R2-45? That's an order from the leader of an organization. That's not a lone nut. That's a group that is bent on destroying anything that they do not like.
If the Pope was telling Catholics to bomb abortion clinics you might have a point, but he's not so you're a douche. The Pope says abortions are wrong and shouldn't be done -- but at the same time, killing is wrong. Even killing someone who doesn't agree with you, even someone who argues with you.
Do you see it yet? The difference? CoS ACTUALLY THINKS IT'S OK TO FUCKING KILL PEOPLE WHO GET IN THEIR WAY.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.