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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."
Another victory for Xenu!
A spokeswoman for the church, Agnès Bron, called the verdict "an Inquisition for modern times."
Help me out here, which Inquisition are you trying to draw a parallel to?
... which sound more like extortion through coercion to me than anything else.
In all of the most popular ones I think it was the several hundreds (possibly thousands) of individuals being persecuted for not believing Roman Catholicism (the popular religion). Crazy Catholic tribunals prosecuting people on arcane doctrine! Usually resulting in the end of their life or excommunication. Now the current situation is the government of France in a single instance finding the Church of Scientology guilty of fraud. Was there anything to do with religious doctrine in this case? Because I thought fraud was fraud whether you're the pope or Richard Dawkins! And the result is a paltry sum of $900,000 that is -- what? -- 1/7th of what it cost Tom Cruise to get to his last level of clairvoyance?
To reiterate, you're not being persecuted for your beliefs but instead your finances
Go ahead and use this to try to appeal to people with a persecution complex. If they have one, they won't find more persecution anywhere else than your ranks. I'm glad that sane people -- when hassled by you -- can now be informed that your accounting practices in France have been legally decried as fraud!
My work here is dung.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/french-branch-of-scientology-is-convicted-of-fraud/ or http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/27/scientology-church-fraud-france
https://www.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom
Comment removed based on user account deletion
See discussion on their numbers at adherents.com, a site whose main purpose is to track # of adherents to specific religions world wide, where they discuss why scientology isn't on their default charts. The discussion mentions "8 million", which at the time was the number often found in the media, that number is now apparently often 12 million. But the source of this number is the Church of Scientology itself. From this analysis, they conclude the # of Scientologists claimed by the CoS is "the total number of people who have participated in Church of Scientology activities since the inception of the church."
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
> > > > > > > Scilon Troll: "Hey, it's no sillier than $mainstreamReligion"
> > > > > > Fundamentalist Religious Dupe #1: "No it's not, our $mainstreamReligion is holy, space aliens are weird."
> > > > > Fundamentalist Atheist Dupe #1: "You silly $mainstreamReligionist! Both your belief systems are bogus!"
> > > > Moderate Atheist Dupe #2: "Yeah, all religions are the same."
> > Trolly Atheist Dupe #3: "Yeah, we should tax 'em all!"
> Paranoid Religious Dupe #3: "No way, I'd rather just let the Scilons keep on doing what they're doing... Relijus Freedumb!!!"
And then the Scilon troll reports back to the mothership: "False equivalence has been established. Everyone's bickering about whose religion is weirder, and all the moderates have agreed that our beliefs are as legitimate a religion as everyone else. Now we can claim religious persecution when speaking to religious audiences, and that we're being attacked by fanatics when we speak to non-religious audiences. Mission Accomplished!"
This isn't about whether Jesus or Xenu or the Flying Spaghetti Monster is weirder. Or about the relative atrocities of Crusades, the RPF, or not serving meatballs with spaghetti.
It's about one specific organization, and its track record of using litigation as a tool to silence dissent. Sonny Bono, Scientologist and Senator, not only supported the Mickey Mouse Protection Act which extended copyright terms to 75 years plus the life of the creator, he got the damn bill named after itself. When the DMCA was passed in 1998, guess was among the first first lawsuit under its provisions just a few months later? Hint: It's the same organization that attacked Slashdot itself in 2001 and Google in 2002.
It's not about space aliens, UFOs shaped like DC-8s, or volcanoes. It's about one organization's multi-decade track record of attacks on the Internet. That - and nothing else - is why it's News For Nerds, and Stuff That Matters.
Of course, by the time I've typed this, we'll have already gone through 100 posts of "No, your religion is weirder!" "No, all religions are silly", and Scilon trolls sitting back and smiling gleefully as they watch yet another message board thread fall for the distraction tactic, and this post all pointless.
(Yep, the Cult has already compared it to the Spanish Inquisition. For something nobody's supposed to expect, I'm not at all surprised the cult spokesperson has already started to draw comparisons to the Spanish Inquisition, especially in a historically-Catholic country, and right on time, two attempts to distract us by advocating taxation of the Catholic Church shows up here...)
But it felt good to rant for a bit.
Major differences with Scientology:
1. It does not have a thousands-year history of people believing it
2. It is a single centralized organization instead of a widespread population with sects and branches
3. The individuals controlling that single centralized organization today have a long history of criminal activity, as did just about everyone who ever had a position of power in that organization
The significant difference is that we know that the Co$ was started with express intention of fleecing money from its drones. With the others, we just have to use common sense to infer it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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
Don't discriminate. Revoke the tax-exempt status of ALL churches. The tax exemption was part of a Faustian bargain between church and state; the church was supposed to take care of social services for the poor, and in return tithes weren't taxed. The churches long ago abrogated that responsibility and turned responsibility for the social "safety net" over to the state -- and yet they still retain their tax-exempt status?!? WTF?!? Here in Beaverton, the Catholic Church owns hundreds of acres of prime real estate, and yet they have the gall to insist that people suing them get nothing because they declared bankruptcy and their church rules state that church property cannot be taken away in a lawsuit -- as if their church laws trump the government laws?!? WTF?!? Make non-profits pay the same real estate taxes as everyone else, so that the free market can actually work to put underused properties to their best use.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
You really don't really adhere to "atheism". You simply don't believe what others have told you because it doesn't make any sense. Like leprechauns and unicorns.
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.
A long, long time ago Scientology were the first people to force /. to remove a post for content reasons. Still in the FAQ, I think. Suffice it to say the editorial team still put up schadenfreudist stories whenever something bad happens to them.
[FUCK BETA]
No. Non-Christians pretending to be Christians ("wolves in sheep's clothing") used Christianity to perpetrate some of the worst atrocities in history for their own personal, evil ends, usually money and power. That includes George Bush; nothing he did marks him as a Christian, no matter that he does in fact profess to be one.
Such a bullshit argument. Ever heard of the "No true Scotsman" fallacy? Unfortunately, you don't get to disown members of your group/clan/religion because they did something bad. The truth is that many actual Christians were involved in committing terrible atrocities.
All Christianity is, is belief in (a certain interpretation) of God. That's all it takes. You can be criminally insane, a brutal dictator, whatever - you can still be a Christian if you believe. And many perpetrators of crimes against humanity did believe.
... and then they built the supercollider.
So what draws this clear line for you between Scientology and "actual religion"?
It's seems we have to go through this every time, so:
Pick a church. Any church. Catholic, Hindu, Baptist, Muslim, Jehovah's Witness, Buddhist, whatever. Go in some day when people are around and ask them what they believe. Someone will sit down with you and answer questions until you can't think of any more, and will almost certainly offer you a free copy of the appropriate religious texts.
Now repeat the experiment at a Scientology office. See how far you get without whipping out a checkbook or Visa.
That is the difference. "True" religions are interested in your spiritual health and will help you develop it according to their beliefs, even if it costs them. The CoS is interested in your wallet.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
No. But any attempt at colonialism, slavery, pillage, torture, misogyny, class-ism, caste, and rape needs to be stepped upon. More directly, any organization that espouses these ideals needs to be stepped upon.
Of course. No one sane would disagree -- unless it was their own group doing it. (See post-Abu Ghraib acceptance of torture in the US and support for firebombing Cambodia during Vietnam before and after we started doing it.) Humans are frighteningly good at rationalizing away the evil of their own groups.
The flaw in your idea there is that people, white or otherwise, are not the same as religion.
Well, yes and no. Race is but one arbitrary line to draw between people, but it's an extremely important one because tied to the core evolutionary trait that drives most human conflict -- social hierarchies and the instinctual drives needed to facilitate competition between them (i.e. war and genocide).
Modern, evangelical religions are actually a fascinating technological development for humanity because it allowed people of *different* ethnic backgrounds to unite underneath *one* unified set of moral codes with shared dietary, dress, and cultural shibboleths to separate the "good people" from the "dangerous savages." Before evangelical faiths, one had to be *born* into a group to be considered worthy of the protection of the gods and law. Religion gave people a way of judging whether people they had never met before were "safe" members of the same group or people who were different and thus "evil."
However, the rise of modern secularism and religious freedom has not worn away the basic human need to identify with like-minded people and to heap misery on those who are different. Right now, there's little material difference between the views that Western Democracy has of Middle Eastern Theocracy compared to what 19th Century White Christendom thought of African Savagery. "Our way of life is superior and more civilized. These people are wrong-headed for not seeing the superiority of our ways, and their way of life leads to terrible, immortal behavior." It's also no different from what atheist State Communists think of Capitalist Bourgeoisie or for that matter what Muslims think of the West in return. It's fundamentally human.
In any case, it isn't the sins of the ancestors that are the concern here: It is the fact that the religion instructed them to commit those sins, and that the religions have not changed a great deal from those days.
Well, you're ignoring the fact that the vast majority of religions preach very strongly against many of the worst atrocities committed in their name. Christianity is an extremely pacifistic religion with a huge emphasis on generosity, kindness to the downtrodden, and forgiveness. Yet, it's the same force behind the Inquisition, the Crusades, money-hungry televangelists, and a large push in American politics to resist government handouts to the poor.
Why is this? It's because it's not the actual values of a social group that matters -- its the fact that they differentiate "good people" from "bad people." It's that they enable our instincts that allow us to look at some people as less valuable than people like us. The worst genocides in history were committed by Soviet atheists who believed strongly in principles of social equity. Does that mean that atheism or egalitarianism are failed belief systems and are responsible for creating all that death? Of course not! What matters is that people in a position of power were able to scapegoat people who were different from mainstream society and to channel that destructive energy towards ill ends.
Christians murdered heretics, Communists slaughtered the religious, and America spent much of this decade torturing and bombing people in the name of Freedom and Justice for All. No belief system can protect against this wicked men exploiting mob fear and xenophobia so long as people are ignora
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