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AU Senator Calls Scientology a "Criminal Organization"
An anonymous reader passes along news that an Australian senator, Nick Xenophon, has denounced the Church of Scientology as "a criminal organization" from the floor of Parliament. "Senator Xenophon used a speech in Parliament last night to raise allegations of widespread criminal conduct within the church, saying he had received letters from former followers detailing claims of abuse, false imprisonment, and forced abortion. He says he has passed on the letters to the police and is calling for a Senate inquiry into the religion and its tax-exempt status." It wasn't that long ago that the CoS was calling for Net censorship in Australia; a month later the organization was convicted of fraud in France.
Nick Xenophon is the only independenr of the Australian Senate. I wonder if that is related, as he doesnt have to please his party?
You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion. - L. Ron Hubbard, 1948
.....and I can tell you from personal experience that it really is pure concentrated evil.
Scientology has gotten away with innumerable crimes over the years in part because the average person is incapable of imagining that anything can be so completely malign in its goals. The organization is completely sociopathic.
They kicked me out because I wouldn't drink the koolaide.
If you want to know more, I recommend you check out operation clambake (www.xenu.net)
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
It should have been dissolved in France but what happened instead is really shameful. The judge was probably going to order the dissolution of the scientology, considered culprit of being a criminal organization of fraudulent aim (that means that money was considered their driving motivation). But two weeks before the verdict (a perfect synchronization). Our parliament made a "mistake". Inside a huge corpus of law modification (aimed at simplifying the laws regarding buisnesses and companies), someone "inadvertently" put a law removing the dissolution as a possible verdict for fraud. Nobody was able to point out the person who put this amendment (how comes !?) and everybody said it was a mistake and they would correct it with a new law. Unfortunately, the verdict was due two weeks later and instead of dissolution, the scientology got a record fine.
They are loosing adepts, but they still have people in the higher spheres...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I'm not GP, but this really bugs me:
So, you've basically said
Really, this kind of black-and-white "not A therefore B" extremism (which is really a large family of bad arguments) is perhaps the biggest generator of problems in our democratic/capitalistic (ie, the masses decide) society. To wit:
Tax is not a "punishment". (In theory) tax should be "We (the government) need money for services that are (arguably) untenable in or unsuited to private enterprise, how are we going to get it?". It's not "Hey, I don't like that guy, let's rob him! *cackle maniacally*". You are again making the "NOT A THEREFORE B" mistake by conflating "tax" with "punishment", because they both fit into the broader category "authorised arbitrated unpleasantness based on behaviour". But just as a motorbike is not an automobile (despite their many similarities), TAX IS NOT A PUNISHMENT, IT IS AN UNFORTUNATE NECESSITY.
Not every poor person is a lazy bum, and not every rich person is a hard worker. Now whilst I have no specific moral objections to tax in and of itself (I don't like it, but don't find it immoral), you regard it as a "punishment", and therefore imagine that you're "punishing" people simply for being poor - and conversely, rewarding people for being rich. Which would be fine if everyone who was poor deserved it - but for the third time, NOTHING IS THAT BLACK AND WHITE (even you admit there's not 100% correlation). Is it that you have no ethical quarrel with "punishing" people for probably being lazy (in which case, you are a frighteningly heartless person), or do you simply ignore corner cases (ie, another incarnation of the black-and-white mistake)?
As for the actual point you were trying to make about tax reform, I'm not going to enter into that. I'm merely going to point out that
means a MUCH smaller tax revenue (unless you plan to simply make the figures your tax proposal extremely high, which will probably create a black market and public outcry). Although many here might support reducing tax and reducing services (and this is an argument I *DEFINITELY* don't want to enter into), no government would never agree to it, in the same way that no employee would ever agree to take a massive pay cut just to make a moral stand (especially when morals are highly subjective - an argument I don't want to enter into because anyone who argues for universal morality is a damned moron, and I have better things to do than argue with morons).
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
Here in the UK there is a fascinating point of law - religions only get tax-exempt status if they are monotheistic. Richard Dawkins has a big thing about trying to persuade a Hindu temple to go to court for charity status, since they are legally a polytheistic, and thus heathen, religion, but actually all the gods are avatars of the one God, or something. Anyway, profit should be taxed, whether you dance around chicken innards or sell chocolate.
Be smart, help people!
There are religions that don't accept members (through baptism) until they reach adulthood. They are called Anabaptists (many sects began during the Reformation because they believed that Martin Luther didn't address all their grievances with the Catholic Church).
One of the more widespread of the Anabaptist sects are the Mennonites (of which I am one). I was baptized at the age of 26, because prior to then I didn't have a reason or desire to attend church. But, things happen, and I found a reason and a need in my life to be part of the church. It hasn't changed my belief structure (I still am agnostic/athiest) but that does not preclude the need for the belonging and philosophy of church. I may not believe there is a god, but a small hope that it might be true can give strength in trying times.
This is not a sig.