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French Branch of Scientology Is Convicted of Fraud
The trial we discussed this spring has come to a verdict, and
reader lugannerd was one of several to note a milestone in the fight against the Church of Scientology. "The French branch of the Church of Scientology was convicted of fraud and fined nearly $900,000 on Tuesday by a Paris court. But the judges did not ban the church entirely, as the prosecution had demanded, saying that a change in the law prevented such an action for fraud. The church said it would appeal. The verdict was among the most important in several years to involve the controversial group, which is registered as a religion in the United States but has no similar legal protection in France. It is considered a sect here, and says it has some 45,000 adherents, out of some 12 million worldwide. It was the first time here that the church itself had been tried and convicted, as opposed to individual members."
You have a point there actually. 2 things seem to be at the forefront of the news these days:
(1) The rise of radical fundmentalist religious groups. Scientologists are the worst of the worst here (kinda - they're greedy rather than crazy in that I don't believe for a second that most people involved at top believe what they're saying), but the crazy fundamentalists of Christianity, Islam, and other off-shoot cults (Lord Our Righteousness Church anyone?) are equally scary. These people are on a dead-end path to nowhere. If they take control of the global mindset then technological progress will halt and we'll plunge back into another dark age.
(2) Rise of China and it's power.
#2 is a scary though, but truthfully, it has SOME comfort because thought a totalitarian regime is the anti-thesis of what I as an American believe in, I also know that regarding situation #1, China won't put up with that shit. If Scientology had started in China this problem would have been solved and over with DECADES ago.
Basically I HOPE that our system works and prevails against this growing issue, but if we fail I'd prefer a secular Communist Dictatorship over an equally oppressive Theocracy.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I am an atheist. I have many friends and family (including my wife) who subscribe to one of the many Christian variants. Also friends and colleagues who are Hindu, Sikh, Islam etc etc.
Once upon a time I had lots of close friends who are now Scientologists. They actively, passionately, and publicly hate me and consider me to be a deeply immoral person. A SP in their own language.
The gulf between your 'typical' Scientologist and how they view the world and other mainstream faiths is in my own very direct experience, is an extra-ordinary gulf.
You can trot out the religious atrocities of the past, but your typical theist today is as likely as a non theist to be a decent, social, community minded person. Scientology followers, by virtue of their extremist and uncompromising doctrine, are very much an anti social vector, and the only community they respect is their own Scientology community. As for your uninformed comments about only 'retards' being attracted to Scientology - cults like Scientology are actually quite nuanced and sophisticated in their recruitment - and attracting educated white collar folk is their bread and butter. Read this book if you have the inclination. A piece of blue sky
I didn't read such a thing. The court merely declined to dissolve the cult altogether (what the prosecution requested), which would have been legally difficult considering that a scumbag lawmaker from scumbag Sarkozy's scumbag party passed an amendment that removed the penalty of dissolution for entities convicted of fraud a few months ago.
You guys completely miss the point.
In France, there has been an incredible 'mistake', where a law was about to be passed allowing to ban the Scientology.
However, it appears that there have been an error, where all the text expressing the ban of dangerous cults disappeared !
There is a huge debate in France because of this incredible mistake, and a lot of high public officials pretend that this is a computer error (eventually, it was the fact of a human editor).
It has been widely published that the french president Sarkozy welcomed Tom Cruise as a president, and Sarkozy has his own personal guru, who sends him positive waves every day (yes, this has been published too !).
Also, Sarkozy use the Scientology methods, especially in a current lawsuit, involving a previous Prime Minister: Dominique de Villepin.
The idea is to never try to defend, but to concentrate on harassing.
So now, we are in a sad state in France, where the Scientology has been condamned to a symbolic fine, and with a lot of indices that Sarkozy is involved with Scientology.
And the worst thing is that the opposition does not seem eager to attack Sarkozy on this subject.
As usual, the political omerta will cover all these dirty schemes, and the large audience will remain unaware of the real stakes.
BTW, in the last month, in France we had:
1) an ex-prime minister attacked by Sarkozy in the Clearstream affair, but I'm pretty sure he is innocent because it was the president Chirac who tried to trap Sarkozy
2) our minister of Culture who wrote in a book that he is a pedophile (and he just adopted a 18 years guy, as a way to provide inheritance in same sex couples). Funnily, he tried to protest against Polanski's arrest.
3) Jean, the son of Sarkozy, was about to be elected as the director of the EPAD, which is the organism that decides where to install buildings in the new french eldorado (La Défense)
I'm stopping here, I'm just too upset...
In all honesty, I would LOVE to have a good, thorough talk with a fully-believing, intelligent scientologist. No flaming, no yelling, hell, I won't even insult him or his beliefs. I would just like to see if I can understand WHY he follows that religion as opposed to others.
What are your crimes? Did you club a baby seal?
Yeah, that sounds odd but there is a fairly well documented instance where a celebrity Scientologist asked that of a critic whom, to be fair, was wearing a t-shirt that directly attacked their "religion". Most people would call him an idiot and move on, or just walk past, but they began insinuating that he was a criminal and had committed some truly heinous crimes.
I'm not saying you can't have the conversation you wish, but if some idiotic t-shirt can cause that response I can't imagine that there is much hope. Though it isn't something I've seen advertised, it appears that there is a trained response to critics where the practitioners accuse the critic of committing crimes as evidenced by their criticism of Scientology.