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Scientology Tries To Block German Documentary
eldavojohn writes "The Guardian is reporting on the strained relationship that Scientology is having with the German government and the airing of a pesky documentary on Southwest Broadcasting. Until Nothing Remains, a $2.3 million documentary, is slotted to air on German television at the end of this month. It recounts the true story of Heiner von Rönn and his family's suffering when he tried to leave the Church of Scientology. A Scientology spokesperson called the film false and intolerant and also said they are investigating legal means to stop the film from being aired. More details on the film can be gleaned here."
Regardless, Scientology is prohibited in Germany; So I doubt they will have much of a case for the german courts.
This is like the Streisand effect - it will only generate publicity. So thank you Scientology for making me aware of this documentary.
An organization as dangerous as Scientology must not be given a chance to prevent education. The are banned for a reason. I hope the courts will just laugh at them and send their lawyers home. And now i'd really like to see that movie.
Nope, I think you mistook me for someone else.
In Germany it is seen as a totalitarian anti-democratic organization
If only somebody in Germany had the guts to say the same thing about Catholicism, or for that matter Islam.
They did, 500 years ago, and it led to the Reformation.
What ever happened to "live and let live"?
No atheist is stopping religious people from living. Check the history of all major religions and you will find out that religious people quite often did stop atheists from living, and in quite imaginative ways too. I am just giving my opinion, feel free to give yours and stop playing the "hurt feelings" card you big baby.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Correction, millions were killed in his attempt to build a Communist society. Religion was an incidental thing in Communist ideology that barely gets a mention in the Communist Manifesto, except as one of the many things to get rid of as the new society is built. Orthodox Church in Russia was diminished by Stalin and many priests killed as part of a struggle for power between rival totalitarian ideologies. In other words, Stalin may have been an atheist but that doesn't mean he killed in the name of atheism. Big difference.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Germany doesn't know yet what Scientology is, a business, a religion or a cult.
Same thing!! A cult is a business that makes money and gains power from people with a small schizophrenic delusion that partially detaches their inner model from reality. And a church is just a cult that’s officially accepted by the powers that be (e.g. Government). Which happens, as soon as they catch themselves enough politicians.
Organizations like these are by definition immoral, since they exploit people who need help. And control their lives with nasty social engineering. There is no good about it...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Communism and its variant Juche are 100% religions in everything but name. They have their rituals, clergy, scripture. They fight infidels and are highly proselytic. You have portraits of the Prophets everywhere. There are holy sites, and sometimes pilgrimages (like to Lenin's corpse). And I really can't notice a modicum of difference between 1st May processions we used to have in Poland and catholic Corpus Christi ones we have now.
It's quite strange that Juche tends to be quite often named a religion, yet the Soviet and Chinese versions are not.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Well you start by confiscating children of believers, in the name of preventing "brainwashing", move on to imprisoning believers for "anti-revolutionary activities", and then start killing millions. You might also set up state approved alternatives that gradually remove spiritual elements. You also mandate "atheism lessons" for all school children.
It's what the USSR, PRC, and DPRK did.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
You could well be right. My point wasn't to suggest that somehow atheism was bound to result in mass murder, it was to say that a simplistic reading of history that condemns religion for the past, can also condemn...well, just about any group, including atheists.
There seems to be little consideration that the religious abuses of the past were more political than anything else. Though they do emphasize why mixing religion and politics is such a terrible idea: politics corrupts religion ;-)
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
My great-grand father was a pastor, my grand-mother and mother are protestants, but after going to sunday school and such I've become an atheist when I was a teen (for the reason you cite), and no one pressured me into reconsidering it. IMO the problem is the bigotry of the families you speak of, not that particular religion. BTW, there's "going through hell with your parents" and then there's "being harassed constantly and having your private life thoroughly investigated for dirty secrets to try and get you fired, jailed or institutionalized".
Speaking of my great-grand father, he was the kindest, most selfless man I've ever known (hid jews during WW2, helped develop a small pacific island, ...). He most certainly never pressured his parishioners into giving him or his church money.
Anyway, my point was that despite all the crooked priests and bigot followers, mainstream religions are much less greedy and evil than cults like scientology. For example, you can get the bible for free or at a very moderate cost, and without giving out any personal information. Same with the Qur'an. Try acquiring scientology "courses" for free or anonymously...
Every time there is any Internet forum discussion critical of Scientology this same meme pops up. It's not true. Elevating Scientology to the same status as established religions with thousands of years of history is an attempt BY SCIENTOLOGY to legitimize itself. Just look at how a discussion about Scientology and a "docudrama" about it spawned this sub-thread plus discussions of Atheism vs. Theism, Christianity's historical abuses of believers and non-believers, political power struggles of one dogma vs another, the current state of Islam, etc.
Any other org is fair game so long as negative attention is diverted from Scientology.
Keep your eye on the ball, folks.
This is only because Scientology was invented relatively recently. The level of critical thinking on new things is significantly better now than it was in the past (although it may not seem like it...). We also have much better record keeping practises, so it's easy to identify where Scientology came from, how it started, etc. That's why Scientology is having such a rough time of it. It's a heck of a lot harder to start a religion now than it was centuries ago. As a result, it has to be more aggressive as well, although that's (finally) starting to backfire on them.
If It had been started a couple thousand years ago like all the other major religions when ignorance was the norm, then we would all be praying about Xenu.
You'll notice that all major religions were created a long time ago, when superstition was rampant and science as we know it didn't exist. It's very difficult to eliminate something that's been so firmly entwined in cultural memory. Combine that with the human tendency to resist change, especially regarding beliefs taught to you since childhood (when, incidentally, you are genetically programmed to suck up any and all knowledge fed to you, hook line and sinker), you can see how something so nonsensical can somehow manage to keep going for so long.