Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia Bans Church of Scientology
El Reg writes "Showing a new-found resolve to crack down on self-serving edits, Wikipedia has banned contributions from all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology. According to Wikipedia administrators, this marks the first time such a high-profile organization has been banished for allegedly pushing its own agenda on the 'free encyclopedia anyone can edit.'"
Does this mean that Scientology now has to do their edits Anonymously?
I'm just not sure which is which.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
but better watch out for those Thetans
It still is the "free encyclopedia anyone can edit," nothing has changed. You miss the point of "free" and "open" it doesnt mean that everything one puts will stay there. People make mistakes, people distort the truth, and people Lie. Others, have to correct these errors. If one person "cries wolf" a lot, you're simply not going to listen to them. This is all that it is. If someone had a history of not telling the truth, why would you trust them?
It's about time a certain group of miscreants had a success in their fight against the Church of Scientology. Good on them I say! AC, for obvious reasons.
The Church of Scientology has a long history of censorship and general Internet fuckery.
http://www.factnet.org/Scientology/censorware.html
Two things:
1. Wikipedia should never lift the ban.
2. Jimbo should watch his back; Scientology *DOES NOT* play nice when it doesn't get what it wants.
Hmmm... but according to my research, it's just a harmless religion based on love and understanding of others. Why would Wikipedia ban such a group?
I heard they are experts at getting members to let them use their home machines as proxies.
-Anonymous Coward
CoS has abused Wikipedia since almost its inception and have been a thorn in the side of the moderators for dozens of articles, but this is not going to stop them until you get a coourt to prohibit them from using the site. CoS specializes in umbrella fpr tax shelters and all sort of even more nefarious things and I bet right now they have a fresh batch of IP address just waiting for this story to die down so they can continue to suppress knowledge by outright censorship and the promulgation from the top to continue their intelligence operations based on their own special brand of disnfo, w extra crazy sauce, threats of lawsuits and calls to physical violence.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Jimbo just put himself on the top of the list for a good old fashioned dead agenting.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Jimmy Wales in an SP and in dire need of auditing while holding on to tuna cans and a voltmeter. Or has too many thetans, or needs a spaceflight in a DC-8. Or something.
Brett
Fighting determined organizations like CO$ is like squeezing a balloon.
If your goal is to make them react, you win. If your goal is to stop them from doing something they are determined to do, good luck with that.
I predict within 3 months the CO$ will have found ways around this ban. The most obvious and probably the most obvious is for each editor to start using dialup internet for CO$ edits, and change IPs or even dial-up area- or city- codes if you have national free long distance. Oops I think I said too much already.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
watch your back jimbo, interplanitary DC9's coming your way
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Now the Scientologists will just edit it from their homes.
Richard Stallman and Mel Gibson combine powers to save Jimmy Wales from R2-45
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for all people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." -- Noam Chomsky
Their Thetans made them do it. :-)
no criminal organization should be allowed to hide under the thin veil of religion
if they offer therapy to people for a fee they need to adhere to state guidelines and laws concerning licencing.
"1 Scientology has attempted to operate its Narconon drug
"therapy" program outside of required State licensing or
inspection on a leased "independently sovereign" Indian
reservation outside of Newkirk Oaklahoma. Just this month, after
extensive and costly litigation the state goverment of Oaklahoma
ordered this facility closed."
http://skull.piratehaven.org/~atman/factnet/scnbond2.txt
Its amazing how many people have ended up 6-feet under after becoming a member of scientology:
http://www.badcult.info/watd/
zosxavius photography
They were just way too pushy. OMG and I don't even know how they call themselves a church. I'm Catholic and we just go about our own business and don't try to convert anyone or make people believe what we believe.
Carrie -The Christmas Angel
This will only cause them to start using something like Tor or any other method of obscuring their IP. I don't see how an IP ban will be that effective. It only serves to make it much more difficult to prevent them from doing this in the future since the Wikipedia folks could at least know when it was them before due to the originating IP block. Now it will just be random IPs and much more difficult to keep a handle on. It's forcing them to be smarter. Just what we need, knowledgeable religious wingnuts who worship aliens.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." --Mark Twain
Didn't the Church of Scientology own (a big stake in) earthlink.net some years ago? Is this still the case? If so, does this mean that this ISP's users will be banned from editing Wikipedia?
I;m unaware of any mass Christian movement to edit Wikipedia. Heck Christians can't even agree within themselves, how will they push an agenda.
that they're ready for the wrath of Tom Cruise.
how long before they sue wikipedia because they say what they"re doing is unfair :)
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
I predict a few outcomes:
*CO$ will find a way around it by rapidly changing their IP addresses
*If this gets to be a major headache, Wikipedia will either semi-protect all related articles, which they are generally loathe to do, and/or start treating entire ISPs as if they were open proxies
*Here's where it gets interesting: CO$ will discover they can manipulate Wikipedia into blocking entire ISPs, and will use that information to hurt ISPs they don't like. This will only work on relatively small ISPs that don't depend on location, e.g. non-major dialup ISPs.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
How ironic, I see a Google ad "Truth About Scientology" instead of the original slashdot article.
TOR exit nodes are already notoriously difficult to edit from:
*You can't edit anonymously.
*If you have a new-ish account that is barely old enough to let you edit semi-protected articles, your account is treated as if it was new when you are connected via TOR.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It's been that way for days. The work-around is to click on the number next to "read more" instead of "read more."
That won't work for articles like book reviews where there really is more to read.
Oh, I'm having the problem in multiple browsers.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I;m unaware of any mass Christian movement to edit Wikipedia.
Well SOMEONE keeps trying to get the Virgin Killer album cover removed.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
OH YEAH! I forgot about them :)
OK, my PARISH doesn't go around preaching to non-Catholics and trying to convert people.
Carrie -The Christmas Angel
that is.
Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia many people can edit!
#DeleteChrome
Scientology is to science what Al Qaeda is to Islam, total fucktards having hijacked a noble precept.
For more really really fun and interesting info, go to Operation Clambake. Before you freak about the URL, the URL is real, and so is the guy (Andreas Heldal-Lund, who runs this out of Norway, which is why Scientology has not gotten any legal traction against him yet). I recommend a read, for what little that's worth.
http://www.xenu.net/
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Slashdot follows the Wikipedia example: irony?
Mother used to said If you want you find a way But mother never danced through fire shower
Scientologists have enough money to get advertised in /.
We are the Church of Scientology. We are the New Anonymous.
A cult is a small, unpopular religion.
A religion is a large, popular cult.
YMMV
I;m unaware of any mass Christian movement to edit Wikipedia. Heck Christians can't even agree within themselves, how will they push an agenda.
Same way any group you define too broadly will: Divide into lots of subgroups each of which pushes its own agenda.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The number of followers, their wealth, and the number of politicians in the flock.
I've wondered if it would be feasible to have a dedicated Wikipedia server that is dedicated to 'banned' accounts. Instead of marking the accounts banned, you just mark them to go to this private dedicated server. That way they continue to make edits not realizing that no one else is seeing them. Even allow them to police themselves.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
it is just me or slashdot crew joined this "religion"... and it has nothing to with that huge scientology banner :P
Now that Wikipedia has been the Church of Scientology from editing church-related materials, does this mean Jesus will come back?
I don't belong to an organized religion. I'm a Catholic.
"The ... encyclopedia anyone can edit" is a misnomer and has been since the first block was imposed. It's an ideal that most editors wish could be true but given human behavior cannot be true any time soon.
For many years Wikipedia has a rule that you don't make substantial edits to articles that you have a conflict of interest in. It's almost always done on the honor system: Most editors realize that this rule is good for the project.
Contentious topics like political and religious topics frequently require outside policing.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Talk about irony!
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
Not defending Scientology, but does Wikipedia not champion free speech?
Free speech is neither good nor evil, it simply is in its simplest form an opinion that someone voices.
Whether that opinion is cast in a positive or negative light is up to the listener.
Perhaps Wikipedia can find a way to create a balance - (Postive/Negative/Neutral Articles? Karma System?) for controversial topics.
Facts that are Facts can come from both outside and within an organization.
--
"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." GW.
There's a page that lists famous Boy Scouts and Eagle Scouts. I always add, with CITATIONS FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES and other sources, Charles Manson and Dennis Rader ("BTK Serial Killer) and the terrorist group known as the BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA promptly removes it.
Well, in my case the principle of "if you're not with us then you're against us" is exactly right. And I would happily extend it to all organised religions.
IP addresses don't identify people. They tell routers where to forward packets.
Can we please move beyond this 1980s idea that IP addresses identify people?
The home-school Christians took their football and went to play at Conservapedia, which is JUST AS FUN and as important as Wikipedia.
Through the medium of movies? I mean, call me crazy, but imagine a modern day yarn based on religious history, but with a Hollywood twist!
I bet it would take in at least $104 million internationally opening week.
Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac, you can always take something for it.
...hilarious and scarily on the money...
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
Can I get an "Amen"! Grab those cans and sing "Hallelujah"! The lords [of the internet] work in mysterious ways!
I'll stab.
Using HUMANS to filter rather than code.
We at the Science of Churchology speak nothing but the truth!
We preach the attainment of happiness through the understanding
of the evolution of religion.
We will not be SILENCED!
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
This means that Anonymous from Project chantology now has majority of Wiki admins.
Er, no. They have an excellent family culture as long as you adhere to 'Leave it to Beaver' cultural norms.
Kid misbehavin'? Send 'em for some re-edukashun.
Fags next door creeping you out by getting married and adopting unwanted children? Make sure their relationship is prevented from legal recognition and that their kids don't have the legal protections of married parents.
Pro family my ass. If they were truly pro-family then my family would present no threat to them. However as an organization they spent millions last year fighting against the right for myself and my husband's marriage to be recognized. That money could have been spent subsidizing all the kids in CA who will lose their health insurance now that our state budget is circling the drain. Instead of those millions being spent for something good like treating a kids asthma, diabetes, or leukemia, they spent it on divisive PR campaign to keep me a second class citizen. And don't even get me started on how 'pro-family' they are when their kids turn out to be gay.
[...] such a high-profile organization [...]
Anyone else see something wrong with that statement? I mean, c'mon, "High profile"... What the fuck guys? This is a fucking cult here.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
I can sympathize with the Boy Scouts of America - Manson and Rader are terrible, horrible examples. If they had been just that little bit more prepared, they wouldn't be in jail, would they?
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
I don't see this as "decisive action" or "for the good of us" or (etc.), it's just a publicity stunt.
Simple target, low maintenance (because few are going to bother to check if they indeed do) and doing this actively would mean having to deal with other things as well which I deem unlikely.
Are there maybe any funds going somewhere?
Insert
Yes, because there's never been anyone like Martin Luther or anything like the Great Schisms that could have negatively affected PR for Christianity. Nope, they've been completely and totally uniform in only letting good things come into public view.
All CoS editors will do is edit the article from anonymous locations, such as net cafes.
Wikipedia being something that anyone can edit is also complete garbage. You can edit a page, sure, but if you're not a) a pseudo-empiricist (and I emphasise "pseudo," there) or b) a member of the elitist university student cabal, your edits get reverted immediately and without question. They usually don't even bother to quote the BS policy as an excuse, these days.
I gave up trying to make regular edits probably close to a year ago now. The policy is a continually moving target, and they have monthly fads ("weasel words," anyone?) about things they don't like. I've had stuff reverted for, "sounding too much like a magazine article," whatever the fuck that means.
It's useless.
eNom, a Redmond domain registrar hired a PR person to whitewash their Wikipedia entry. They probably wouldn't have gotten away with it but they had Wikipedia editors as friends help them maintain the cleanup and ban any user that attempted to maintain a neutral point-of-view (NPOV). Look at the history and see the edits for yourself, you can see the addition of all sorts of corporate marketing speak such as a "Accreditations and Awards" section and a rewrite of studies performed by the University of Oregon on spam support by domain registrars.
It pisses me off because eNom / Demand Media are one of the most-abused domain registrars by spammers and eNom, no doubt, can probably attribute a lot of their income to the support of abuse. I was *attempting* to document their company's spam support services. A lot of the reverted edits focused on whether particular articles were proper as a source for news such as circleID or op-ed type articles with proper citations but when pro-eNom material fit them, whether it was a proper citation or not it was allowed. Just burns me.
Scientologists don't follow Xenu. Xenu is more like their Satan.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What, do you believe they believe it's going to stop all abuse from $cieno? Yeah, they're so technologically clueless at Wikipedia! You so smart!
Fact is it will stop, even if only temporarily, a good proportion of the unwanted edits, while not preventing any legitimate edits.
I'm as anti-religious as you can get, and that kind of attitude doesn't help anyone. Even the most intolerant retarded backwards major religious groups (such as Southern Baptists or Wahhabis) try to feed the poor (at least as long as they're of the right ethnic group), not milk them.
How do you keep him from editing? Surely he can use whatever IP address he wants?
There's an interesting documentary shot by the BBC's Panorama show about Scientology. The head journalist goes to the US to talk to Scientologists, ex-Scientologists and CoS-bashers, and ends up being the object of the CoS's rather in-your-face investigation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_Me
A link to the episode is easily found on mininova.
Now the police report does indicate that they were both probably drinking.. but one wonders if perhaps his meeting with this lady was not entirely happenstance.
She does bear a passing resemblance to Jenna Elfman.
Wikipedia was once the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit", and all was good. Then it got too big for its britches. Now its "the encyclopedia that everyone wants to edit". Oh well.
That may once have been the case, but how it's far from it.
RIP wikipedia, we miss you.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
called "Scientology and me". A guy from the investigative reporting show "Panorama" went to the US to interview members of the cult, its former members and current opponents. He ends up being spied on and hassled in a very in-your-face fashion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_Me And here's the episode: http://bit.ly/snNZ4
Hey, you use that all the time when it comes to a corporation throwing someone in court, restricting free speech...
And if someone is holding a rally outside his house for a week at 2 am each night yelling, will he scream "SHUT THE FUCK UP! I'M TRYING TO SLEEP HERE!"?
I think he would.
Or do you think he'd merely leave home?
PS Aren't Wikimedia allowed their own free speech which would be "remove that crap"? It's a valid form of expression. Or did he never redo a passage written and throw away the bad copy?
They'll have to be a bit more devious.
While I realise you probably live in the USA, where everything can be defended as "free speech", in the "real world" of forum and wiki administration there are some behaviors that need to be banned for, such as repeated trolling, spamming porn links, etc, that otherwise can make a forum/open community unbearable to work in.
If you show repeatedly (for years now, I imagine) that you have no interest whatever in making positive contributions, but you still keep coming back to troll or vandalize other people's work, banning seems like a very good punishment. Let the childish fucks that are apparently unable to discourse civilly because of their religion stew in their own little world.
Having to time and time again revert edits tires out even the biggest community (especially considering the amount of people who are watching articles like that are probably not all that common), as it is no more than a waste of time. Also, given the Hive mentality of Co$, I doubt if it matters much if you screen out the dumb fucks who are kept in compouds; the ones that are allowed to roam free (Tom cruise) are the dangerous ones.
CIA and Vatican edit Wikipedia entries - and the CIA certainly is a mass Christian movement... ;-)
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Well for those like wondering what scientology has edited (lwhy it has led to such massive ban). I finally found those modifications through wikiscanner. http://katrina.cs.caltech.edu/erenrich_rnd345/scanner_final/ The result: http://katrina.cs.caltech.edu/erenrich_rnd345/scanner_final/company_selection.php?company_name=scientology You see 182 editors (I don't know how they found them) You can see all their modifications .
What is the command for removing Wikipedia from the Internet ?
They almost succeded with that years ago on Usenet by issuing the "RMGROUP alt.religion.scientology" command.
And what about "Church"?
I avoid involving the word Church when referring to Scientology since that will defame other churches unrelated to Scientology.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
This is so not a troll! Can someone really not just read what a poster says without being so blinded by being an emotional reactionary that the message has no hope of getting through? Maybe I'll get a flamebait for this but the marking of this post as troll is a blatant act of idiocy, is completely unfair, and should be fixed.
Am not saying mod up, but definitely cancel out the down mod. Anyone?
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Is it just me, or does the article read like something that might be posted on Something Awful?
But I still think either anyone must have the right to edit, or that whole Wikipedia experiment has failed.
First we got site lockdowns for non-logged-ins. Then for logged ins. Then blocking of IPs. Then admins enforcing their agenda. Then they planning their agenda together on a mailing list.
That's just wrong on so many levels.
I've thought a bit, about how you can merge the freedom to edit with the ability to filter out nutjobs. And in the process, I found that view are just relative. You can usually not prove that someone is 100% right or wrong, because 1. no single person can track the reasoning down to quantum physics, and 2. there still is the missing base of the world formula. So we pretty much always rely on some sensible paradigms and long chains of reasoning. The nutjobs usually are those, that either A) fail in their logic, or B) do not follow the groupthink of what everyone assumes to be correct, but never gets tested.
Now the problem is, that on Wikipedia, not only (A) gets blocked (which nobody can or wants to check down to the physical base anyway), but (B) too (aka "spin"/"agenda").
Don't think that an "agenda" or "spin" is entirely bad. Because unfortunately, pure objectivity is a physically impossible fantasy. People just have to make their logic work for them, with the input they got. And some just got some really weird or different combinations of input.
So there would be two ways to solve this:
1. Rigorously enforce logic reasoning, most likely with a special language, with defined semantics. You would then find the reasoning behind everything, down to the most basic paradigms. This would be very great... if it were realistic. ^^
Because unfortunately, you would notice, that for some things, you would still, even with rigorous logic, end up with more than one basic paradigm. Because we simply don't know this yet.
2. Because of the problems with (1), we have to make it possible to create more than one view of a subject. I know this sounds like the argument for creationism (which I strongly oppose). That's why there has to be a second element. Maybe you know how cascading stylesheets (CSS) work. For every element, the interpreter goes trough all the rules, and applies them, by overlaying each rule with the next one, so that it changes in the points of the second rule.
Imagine this, but with the rules being people, and the interpreter being you (with software assistance), and the element being the article.
So people could put together a "view" on Wikipedia. From collecting specific versions of the articles into a group, and giving it a name. Then others can define their view from using the first view as a basis, and adding some modifications. And so on.
The enduser can then choose from the views. He could for example, choose the view of some association of scientists or university, add some "Jon Steward" on top of it for the political things, and season it with some changes that a trusted friend or editor chose. He could also publish that as another "view".
This would make it possible, to create a completely "clean" (in your eyes) Wikipedia (trough choosing the right "view"), and still allow everything and anything to be said. Even some weirdo's 4chan Wiki view. ^^
Of course it would be nicer to be able to enforce logic. But until we found a realistic way, and have a world formula, I think this is our best shot.
I rather sacrifice that, than to sacrifice freedom.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The home-school Christians took their football and went to play at Conservapedia, which is JUST AS FUN and as important as Wikipedia.
I seriously think that Conervapedia is just satire. Some of the bullshit on there is just too unreal to be serious...
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
No ban need mention a party by name, rather simply enumerate policy violations that merit said ban. Done.
No, seriously this is awesome, I think it is about time that wiki at least take their posting scheme a little more seriously then let any one post about anything! Finally we can hear the real story about why the alien came down to our planet, and when we are all supposed to really go back to Zork!!!!
The home-school Christians took their football and went to play at Conservapedia, which is JUST AS FUN and as important as Wikipedia.
I seriously think that Conervapedia is just satire. Some of the bullshit on there is just too unreal to be serious...
You don't hang out with too many conservatives, do you?
The evangelicals already took their ball away and now nobody plays with them, however if there was a cult of Christians as dedicated to spreading misinformation, they too should be banned (as should a cult of atheists with a similar goal)
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
I must admit that I don't know how ads in such large size sites are administrated but it really bugs me that Scientology does excessive advertising on Slashdot, especially front page.
It can be also the scientific terms they picked to trigger ads or plain "lets do propaganda to these nerds".
Does /. (or the parent in fact) have right to reject certain advertisements? It has reached a point that I saw couple of people accused /. to be sponsored by them. Ads of any religion (or anti-religion) in a technical site doesn't really make sense to me at all.
With such money in hand, they can hire people to do edits. There is a web 2.0 abuse market which hits badly setup and popular sites without karma etc.
Or they can hire that Media Defender like company having large pools of IP addresses and can do anything for money.
No.
You will be receiving a bill from me shortly. Let me know if I can help you out with any more painfully obvious legal advice.
To certain slashdot posters: if you think you can define religion in terms other than arbitrary recognition by the state then you are an idiot, I don't even need to read your definition to know that it is wrong.
Oh and as a bonus, if you think there is any such thing as an unbiased article, news report or any other form of the spoken word then you are a fucking idiot.
I should perhaps cut you some slack if you have not lived for many revolutions of the earth round the sun, because the young are always idiots - sometimes wonderful idiots, but idiots just the same. Argue against this if you will but if you are wise enough you will come to realize that we are creatures of self-interest to the very last blood vessel.
Banning the Scientologists is based entirely on the Whois database, which is so easily fooled it's silly.
They probably already have internet connections at facilities which are not registered under their official name. You have to go to some trouble, frankly, to show up as yourself rather than your ISP. Even still the church may not even realize which connections show up as them, and which don't. They will now.
If they don't feel like relocating some of their online hit squads to some of their vast real-estate holdings which are unaffected, they will effortlessly set up new internet connectivity that is not registered to them, right where they are.
Problem solved - for them. In addition, I suspect this action, in addition to being futile, will activate the vast Church of Scientology attack machine. If the IRS couldn't withstand them, one wonders how Jimmy Wales will do.
Now what they should have done is not said a thing, and written something that allowed the church addresses to see the church edits to the page, and the rest of the world to see the non-church version. This wouldn't work either, but instead of failing immediately, it might fool them for a few weeks. Plus, it would constitute a fun practical joke.
In the end, wikipedia cannot continue to allow anonymous edits - and unlike slashdot, there is no rating system for snippets of text, so there is no way to penalize anonymity in a "soft" way. It's all or nothing.
Scientology may be just the adversary that helps them realize it.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
Why, yes, I'm from The Church of Scientology. How did you know?
On the other hand, fuck Wikipedia.
Who to root for?
Save me Tom Cruise!
fark does that, a lot of newspaper sites do that
it is common knowledge now, this "exile to the echo chamber", and anyone worth their salt knows to login from another ip/ identity and check to see their comment has actually posted
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
also allow freedom of expression
but scientology, as well as many other governments and religions, are openly hostile to free expression. this means the chomsky quote no longer applies
for example: i have no problem with a homophobic racist expressing their views, as long as they don't also attempt to silence nonhomophobic nonracists. as soon as they do, all bets are off
to express it logically: tolerance is not the same as tolerance of intolerance. in fact, if you tolerate intolerance, by proxy you are extending intolerance. logically, if you believe in tolerance, you must be intolerant of intolerance
for example: "i am muslim"
you must tolerate that
"i hate christians"
you must not tolerate that, in the name of tolerance
the concept of tolerance does not extend to intolerant beliefs. out of pure logic
many conservatives talk about the hypocrisy of leftists who are intolerant of conservative viewpoints while leftists demand more tolerance in this world. but this logically incoherent, since many viewpoints of conservatives, such as homophobia and ethnocentrism, are by logical definition intolerant beliefs, and, according to the principle of tolerance, must not be tolerated
its all about logical coherence. and plenty of times, you must, out of simple logical consistency, not tolerate intolerant belief systems
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
According to footage I have seen, all Scientology members are issued an internet cd. It's basically a vpn they install on their computers which routes all traffic through the "chruch's" network. So even in their homes the internet is censored. This should stop even home users from editing Wikipedia pages because the traffic is actually going through the church's proxy servers.
I see tons of posts every day here of how censorship sucks and how information wants to be free. People piss and moan whenever they're delayed 5 seconds at the airport, or aren't able to climb on their soapbox whenever they want and scream to the masses. But these same people who cry foul when silenced actually cheer when a group of (unpopular) people are silenced...
You're all a bunch of hypocrites and engineers of your own doom. Freedom means taking the bad with the good. It's not all unicorn farts and rainbows.
I abhor the "church" of Scientology, but gladly attend my local congregation. We actually help people. I abhor the "church" of Scientology, but gladly attend my local congregation. We actually help people.
Attending church is not required to help people. You are making a false distinction by bringing in irrelevant facts. Scientologists probably contribute to charitable works as well but it still is irrelevant.
Yes, we have an agenda behind it, to tell others of our beliefs, but one is not required to join our faith in order to receive the benefits of our generosity and our desire to help those in need.
So basically your price to receive aid is to harangue some poor fellow who is down on his luck that he should believe in your mythology. Nice.
Our beliefs are out in the open, for all to peruse and attempt to debunk.
I don't believe for a moment that you are the slightest bit interested in a skeptical analysis of your religion or that you or your congregation would react with anything except hostility to such an analysis.
Please do not insult the believers, those in this world who believe it is right to help and provide hope to our fellow human beings who suffer around us and those who wish to better the world in which we all live, by comparing us to the greedy, abusive, and controlling pseudo-religion that calls itself the "church" of Scientology.
There's two problems there. The first is that you are trying to make your beliefs credible by confusing them with charitable works that have nothing to do with your religion. You don't need a church to do charity and frankly I have little respect for anyone who does charity under false pretenses or with ulterior motives. You are trying to recruit people who are down on their luck to your church. I find that distasteful if not outright despicable.
The other problem is that you presume that I as an outsider think your christian/muslim/jewish/whatever beliefs are any less bizzare than those of scientologists. Nor do I think the behavior of your church is necessarily any more honorable. Your religious beliefs are, and should be, just as susceptible to criticism as any others even if you don't like what is said. It is fair to point out that there are more similarities than differences between scientology and christianity. It is fair to point out that neither scientologists nor christians welcome actual logical analysis of their beliefs, texts or doctrines. The stories are different but they both are made up mythologies based not in fact but in irrational belief.
A church is a group of people who welcome you in, and welcome the world to inspect their beliefs, and in fact encourages them to do so.
I have NEVER seen a church that welcomed people to skeptically "inspect inspect their beliefs". Interesting choice of words you used. Frankly if I were to "inspect" your beliefs I suspect you and your congregation would react with hostility when I point out the logical inconsistencies, fallacies, and self-contradictions. Some even react with violence when you point out that their emperor has no clothes. No, I don't accept your premise that churches welcome people in or welcome people to critically inspect their beliefs.
A cult is a group of people with something to hide who refuse to allow just anyone in, and try to keep their power to themselves.
Are you seriously arguing that religions do not constantly war with each other like tribes precisely for power? That the church does not recruit members precisely to grow its power and influence? A cult is nothing more than a religion that hasn't become "successful" yet. A cult is a threat to a religion because it might just take followers away from the religion. All religions were once cults and to my mind they still are cults. It is a distinction without a difference.
You're telling us it's a sham? Wow!
-- thinkyhead software and media
Wikipedia has certain terms of use, notably their conflict of interest policy. The Church of Scientology has consistently violated this policy, and it is only reasonable that it be blocked. This doesn't infringe on the Church's ability to say what it likes; it simply prevents the Church from doing so on Wikipedia.
Mwuahahaha... looks like i pissed on or pissed off somebody...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Vatican == Catholicism != all Christians
There are countless denominations of Christianity (don't even try counting various non-denominational churches). I could have sworn the CIA served only itself not any other group.
It's the point of view that greed is good, and fuck everybody else.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
why my blackberry smartphone browser won't load this page 502 error. I use slashdot all the time and this page has been the first one ever to not work. Also won't load with viigo either
Some of those who are crowing about this decision may have RTFA, but apparently didn't go on to read the actual Wikipedia ArbCom ruling. That decision is not as one-sided as the Register makes it sound. It recognizes that there are editors on both sides that have been abusive, and sanctions some of the hardcore Scientology critics as well.
Some anti-Scientologists will adopt the same "ends justifies the means" tactics that they criticize Scientology for. For instance, on Amazon, I saw that one of the reviewers bashing the book Battlefield Earth was faking it. He described a couple of things that were in the movie, but not the book, like "fighter jet aircraft built 1000 years ago" still being operational. (In the book, the humans use captured alien aircraft.) Apparently this person hated L. Ron Hubbard enough to pretend to have read the book, so he could trash it. Ironically, at the time this totally false review was rated the "most helpful," and it is still "50 of 66" helpful.
Wikipedia ArbCom has made some bone-headed decisions in the past, so I'm glad that they were able to recognize that both Scientologists and anti-Scientologists are part of the problem.
"I;m unaware of any mass Christian movement to edit Wikipedia" - now you are of one. Now all you need to master is the English language. You == stupid != all Christians - I would hope.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Wikis are fine if it in regards to a specific product or service, but an Encyclopedia. I laugh out loud with great fervor (not lol, but LOL). In regards to Scientology, I see no difference than a Fortune 500 company using, dare I say the word 'Wikipedia' argh, as a shill for their product!
I've just never seen a good explanation of the difference of a cult and a religion that doesn't boil down purely to the difference in number of believers.
Is is so surprising that sometimes distinction is by degree?
The Catholic sacrament contains a mild neurotoxin. The sacrament of the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project contained potassium cyanide. I'm not finding it hard to make the cut.
I can't believe all the crazy news that comes out about Scientology. Even this post will probably be noticed by some Scientology analysts and my IP will be logged and before you know it I'll be a convert. I just heard that John Travolta, a member of Scientology, admitted his son was autistic which is a big no-no in Scientology. I wonder what kind of backlash he could expect. source: Scientology gossip