Slashdot Mirror
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."
Are there any laws protecting this type of "speech" in Germany?
Germany doesn't know yet what Scientology is, a business, a religion or a cult. This may make up the courts' mind.
From Wikipedia/Church of Scientology:
In Germany, official views of Scientology are particularly skeptical. In Germany it is seen as a totalitarian anti-democratic organization and is under observation by national security organizations due, among other reasons, to suspicion of violating the human rights of its members granted by the German Constitution, including Hubbard's pessimistic views on democracy vis-à-vis psychiatry and other such features. In December 2007, Germany's interior ministers said that they considered the goals of Church of Scientology to be in conflict with the principles of the nation's constitution and would seek to ban the organization. The plans were quickly criticised as ill-advised. The plans to ban Scientology were finally dropped in November 2008, after preliminary investigations failed to unearth evidence of illegal or unconstitutional activity.
The legal status of the Church of Scientology in Germany is still awaiting resolution; some courts have ruled that it is a business, others have affirmed its religious nature. The German government has affirmed that it does not consider the Church of Scientology to be a religious community.
If any fellow Anonymous in Germany feel like telling the German government why they should not consider Scientology a religion, then please be my guest. Be clear, make yourself heard. "Ich bin Anonymous!"
Now I am interested in that film...
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/krasel/germany/stat.html
Go Germany. Atleast someone gets the right idea here
Now that Scientology has spoken up and tried to ban this film, I guarantee you, there will be a much larger crowd turning up to see it than would otherwise have been the case. A direct consequence of this will be a greater interest in the issues surrounding Scientology, and therefore - one hopes - a greater upswell against the cult.
Thank you, Scientology. You have helped to sow some of the seeds of your destruction. (I hope, anyway ... it's one of the things that gives me warm fuzzy feelings of hope.)
... "Streisandeffect". Please.
You can't for now, but maybe XenuTV will be able to help when a digital copy is released.
Dilbert RSS feed
I would like to see a graph of the distribution of postings by "Anonymous Coward" in the comments for Scientology-related versus non-Scientology-related stories.
Is it a business, a scam, a religion, or a paedophile network?
I'd say all of the above...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Why would they need to deny that? It's a documentary, that's the point.
Fuck Scientology. I've never seen a larger collection of assholes ever.
..or just ask mods to add the torrent to the post.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Scientology is allowed to operate and exist in Germany, but it is considered a for-profit organisation. That means it doesn't even enjoy charity status, much less the much-coveted tax exemption.
So yes, they could attempt to get a temporary restraining order, but I doubt that this will go well for them. It's too close to the broadcast date, and the editors and producers have most likely done their homework.
What ever happened to "live and let live"?
"Live and let live" went out the window when the religious right took over US politics, systematically intimidated (and even murdered) doctors for providing reproductive healthcare to women, and organized to force their toxic agenda down the rest of our throats, whether or not we believe in their sky fairy.
You are no longer entitled to "live and let live" from the rest of us. If you ever want it back, you'll have to learn to behave yourselves, and prove your benign intentions toward the rest of society, probably over a span of time at least equal to the last several decades of your sustained attack on that society, as you've systematically dismantled separation of church and state, not to mention most of our other fundamental rights.
Athiests aren't the only ones angry. There are plenty of angry Buddhists, Daoists, Hindus, Muslims, Wiccans, Agnostics, and non-right-wing Christians who are fed up with this, and if the christian right doesn't like it, they need to take a good hard look in the mirror, because they have only themselves and their own excesses to blame.
As for anger and vitriol in general, Athiests may be fed up, and enjoy using their intellects to rhetorically debunk and expose stupid beliefs, which no doubt makes the religious feel foolish and persecuted (but then, the religious often feel persecuted if someone nearby doesn't share their exact belief system), but that is nothing compared to the hatred and bigotry the rest of us experience from the religious right. Compared to them, Athiests are positively touchy-feely mother-earth all-is-good accepting.
Indeed, to hear christians accuse Athiests of "being angry" brings to mind pots, kettles, and the color black (except that the rest of us more resemble a tupperware container than a kettle, in that we're more transparent, and less angry, than the extreme right. Though why that's so, after so many decades of abuse from that quarter, is beyond me. Perhaps because those of us with a secular bent have proven to be far more longsuffering than our religiously frenzied co-citizens).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The scientologists know whereof they speak when it comes to intolerance. Just ask Paulette Cooper.
Oh this one. Geez, never heard about it, never would have, except now they sue so the entire world hears about it.
Streisand Effect anyone?
When we shipped the religious nutters to the colonies, the understanding was that they were supposed to stay there. Not come back!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You should be tolerant of the Scientology Religion. You should read the OT manuscripts, especially OTIII and fully understand Xenu's agenda against Earth.
The following link will provide it for you; use eMule to get it:
ed2k://|file|Scientology%2520-%2520OT3%2520Hubbard%2520notes.rar|15057528|78E963FA4134822640527F4B74184D83|h=LCN5G5OZUE7N47SY23SEPUAAQJ45X5UW|/
(Be warned: reading these documents may inflict you with pneumonia.)
I feel most sorry for the mislead idiots doing the dirty work for Scientology higher ups. They dont know they are following a Scifi novel, a pretty lame one sadly. Written by an utter bastard that once said, "If you want to make a little money, write a book. If you want to make a lot of money, create a religion."
He did...
HTTP/1.1 400
I will now list everyone surprised by this move:
As for China, they don't really care about your religion that much as it is made to seem, as long as your religion does not get political. It's a kind of easy to follow rule. Falun gong is more a cult with clearly defined political intentions than a religion, anything else is just a plain lie.
Who really benefits from the Streisand effect here? Sure, you'll want to see this documentary because of legal rangling and its publicity, but you're in no danger of joining Scientology, and you've no love of such things. Even the most critical attack pieces on a topic, often end up generating sympathy for the target. It's entirely possible that the sort of folks who join an organization like scientology will only be emboldened by this particular situation. It looks to me like Scientology will protest its way into "Cha-ching!" every home.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
So I'd say that since recently, these right are not only limited by the general laws for protection of the youth and protection of the personal honor, but also by the Mafiaa's desire to turn a handsome profit.
Anything that annoys scientology is automatically a plus in my book.
-Xen
Wouldn't that kinda defeat the purpose of being a Buddhist?
Kinda like a nihilist having a purpose in life?
Or like an angry Jedi?
Or mushy chips?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It is not a documentary.
Once again, the error in the summary has managed to misinform and confuse thousands of Slashdotters.
From TFA:
A new German TV movie tells the story of a man whose family life was destroyed after joining the Church of Scientology.
The drama, which is based on a true story, was filmed in secret to prevent the organization taking legal action against the project.
.
.
The drama will air on March 31 under the title "Until Nothing Is Left."
This will be the first German feature film about Scientology, the first drama to use the controversial belief system as evening entertainment.
So, they are not EXACTLY "just being candid".
On the other hand, just because something is a documentary, that does not mean that it is true.
See Operation Lune (Dark Side of the Moon) for an excellent example of how to twist actual events and interviews out of a contest in order to present "your version of the truth".
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
First thing I did when opening this article was search the page for "torrent"...no luck yet.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I fail to see the need for shutting down critics.
out of a contest
Out of context. The above mentioned "documentary" is not about any kind of competition.
Well... except the "space race"... but that would be stretching it a bit.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The problem is Scientology doesn't work the way other religions work, with respect to fanaticism. With Christianity (or Islam, or Judaism, or most traditional religions), you get a fair amount of fanatical individuals. You get the people that shoot doctors providing abortions and you get the suicide bombers.
As far as I've seen, the fanatics in Scientology are all high up in the organization and are smart enough to at least try and be circumspect about what they do. They're better organized than individuals or small groups. They're slicker and know how to sell their product.
That's the real problem here. Other religions may inspire some fanatics, but Scientology is run by fanatics.
My understanding is: Scientology wanted to be considered a religion so they would not have to pay taxes. To get that status, Scientologists actually blackmailed the IRS.
Its about scientology isn't it?
Can someone who knows about legal stuff explain me this?
How come Scientology can shut everyone that tries to talk about them and we don't see any corporation doing that too? I mean, what gives Scientology the right to do it while denying it to everyone else? Or is it that the corps just choose not to use that right? I don't think that would be the case.
Think of all the articles talking sh1t about MS, Apple, you name it. If they had the same rights, they would be able to silence every news article talking bad about them.
With trying to block it, in the end it will be seen by more people than in first place. For example, I will definitely try to get it when it's released.
If they would be really that innocent they would just shrug off accusations, released their own version in press release and be done with.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
The linked article says that this is a drama 'based on real life events'. I'm not really sure this can be classified as a documentary. I'm sure we've all seen films supposedly based on real life events and know how believable they tend to be...
R
I have no sig yet I must scream.
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.
I hope someone gets a digital copy, "fansubs" it, and sends BT links to everyone on the planet.
What is the body count for Scientology?. Ok.
Now, what is the body count for christianity, islam, and judaism?. Aha ...
Also, if you are talking about censorship, the scientologists have only been around for 80 years, and the best they can do to censor someone is send you a lawyer. And judging by the fact that you can find anything you want about them on the internet, and that Xenu isn't being taught in schools, I can say they have failed spectacularly.
Christianity, on the other hand, have been silencing people for 2000 years, and their methodology is murder and torture. They were able to hold back science completely for 600 years just so a few theories wouldn't disprove a few 'facts' on the bible. And Creationism is being taught in schools in more places everyday (Well, at least in undeveloped and illiterate countries like the US).
Also, if you are a kid, and you go to school and tell your teacher that you can feel the thetans in her blood stream, and that Xenu is a bad guy (or whatever bullshit they believe), you'll get counseling, and she'll call your parents to tell them you are delusional.
But, if another kid goes to school and tells the teacher that he telepathically communicates with a dead jew carpenter that died 2000 years ago, and carries a little doll of the dead guy nailed to a cross hanging around his neck, the teacher will think he's adorable, and tell him praying is great.
Many adults believe in an invisible man in the sky. They are all equally delusional, and equally dangerous, and the organization behind them wants money, and will torture or kill for it if required. The scientologists are just like the rest, but they are the new kid on the block, so people say "come on .. really?" to their guy in the sky more often than about other invisible skyman. And their mafia practices are not as well accepted as other more established criminal practices, like bombing people because they have a different invisible man in the sky.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
If you take a close look at the first image from the documentary you'll notice at the far left end of the row HRG is being trained.
Since Scientology trains one to hone their intellect and seemingly gives non-mutants amazing abilities... this could explain how Claire's father is able to fight so effectively against those with abilities far beyond his own.
Mental OWNAGE. No wonder he's so awesome.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
i don't think scientology is run by fanatics any more than, say, barnes&noble, or microsoft, or any other business, for that matter. the only difference is that scientology's leaders are criminals.
weinersmith
I think it's the duty of every government to encourage people to not be religious, because a government is suppose to represent rationality and push the advancement of the people, and to achieve such they should do things like encourage education and encourage people to think for themselves. Unfortunately such governments do not exists so far, and as far as I know there are no movements towards achieving such a state of affairs, and it makes me pretty sad, to think millions of people are being led (or should I say supposedly led?) by people who believe in imaginary superbeings and such things, it is really astounding and depressing.
That's the real problem here. Other religions may inspire some fanatics, but Scientology is run by fanatics.
Funny, I would've characterized it as an organization run by savvy business people who don't want the Church's revenue stream interrupted, and realize that stirring up fanaticism among the middle ranks, who then keep the lower ranked folks in line, is the best way to protect their profit margin.
Okay, then let's separate this, much like Anonymous did during Project Chanology:
1. Scientology, the BELIEF SYSTEM, is no more or less wrong, absurd, true, or immoral than any other religious belief.
2. The CHURCH of Scientology is run as an organization that uses immoral, illegal, or abusive methods in its desire for money and power.
In fact, I believe that CoS considers non-member believers to be as big a threat as ex-members and outspoken critics.
There is nothing more amusing in life then watching two sides of intolerant try to explain to one another how intolerant each is. Thank you slashdot for another amusing idealogical flame war.
First: Correlation doesn't imply causation.
Any organization: religion or otherwise can be taken as the mean of actions. To try and blame religion for the crusades, torture, etc at the time is statistically irrelivant. Those tactics were used with the same impunity by non-religious organizations at the time. The Dutch trading companies, merchant leagues, feudal lords, etc.
The capacity for evil is universal in humans. The very fact people can throw out secular versus non-secular violence simply states a fact that violence has little to do with and one particular idealogy. People kill in the name of XYZ because it is a source of justification. No different the killing in the name of greed, pride, honor, land, food, etc.
Crusades religious? That is nonsense. The holy roman empire was just that an empire. No different then Rome. When Ole' Rome invaded and took out the Goths was that a Holy War by Zeus or Jupiter? It's a war over land the "backing" is irrelivant. France's revolution was a secular vs religious blood bath. Athiests, Agnostics, Religious, and other idealogical classifications are statistically insignificant regressors when it comes to the analysis of violence.
Islam is statistically no more violent then Christianity or Aethiests. The lead indicators in violence is education and poverty levels. After that comes access to fresh water and crop land.
The crusades was a land grab. No different with the Moorish invasion. The "decorations" of war no different. Any organization\idealogy will attempt to grow it's power and supress dissent. It's human nature. Democrats, Republicans, Masons, Boy Scouts, your local Sigbap, Eve Corp, or WoW guild all have the same basic behaviors. Violence, war, indoctrination, etc are common behaviors.
It's just a statistical echo that religious organizations were successful enough organizations to escalate to that level of control. e.g. It's not the fact they are religions but rather the fact they were successsful control structures (Which mind you most governement models are based from.) President = Pope, Congress of Cardinals = Senate, etc.
So go ahead and butt intolerant heads but I hate to break it to both sides, is because human behavior, not a particular belief structure. God didn't invent the atom bomb, scientists, people, humans did. The only thing I see is a world in which people love to blame "the other side" for the problems rather then realize the reasons for our darkest side is universal. Evil is universal, it's just easier to try and subscribe a demographic to it rather then deal with the real root causes.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
You seem to think that thousands of years of accumulated bullshit is somehow more palatable than a few decades of bullshit. I have news for you: it's all bullshit, and it stinks just the same.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
Actually he believed that religion needed to be removed to achieve pure communism.
In short, he used his ideology (communism) as an excuse to remove other ideologies.
Also, he followed Lenin, who said religion is the opiate of the masses.
Religious people was just one of the groups effected by trying to achieve pure Communism. Rather, their view of pure communism.
Saying Stalin was killing people to support atheism is as simple minded as saying he killed revolutionaries because he was anti-intellectual.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But I've seen their eyes light up at 10's and 20's.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Christianity, on the other hand, have been silencing people for 2000 years, and their methodology is murder and torture. They were able to hold back science completely for 600 years just so a few theories wouldn't disprove a few 'facts' on the bible. And Creationism is being taught in schools in more places everyday (Well, at least in undeveloped and illiterate countries like the US).
I'm not a religious person but I still say: "Let's take this down a couple of notches". While it is true that the Catholic church stood in the way of science during the renaissance it is also true that a huge volume of ancient Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, etc... writings on science, literature, history and technology were preserved by the religious organizations of Europe and the Middle East and the Far East throughout the various 'dark ages' of the last couple of thousand years. This knowledge would otherwise have been lost to us if it hadn't been for those priests, monks and nuns whom it is hard to accuse of having some sort of anti-knowledge complex. It may be true that today a bunch of Christian and Islamic fundamentalists are making a name for them selves by advertising their ignorance in a very visible way and I'm not even going to try to defend Scientology but we should not dump all reglious organizations into one drawer and label it 'Bastions of ignorance'. In fact we owe Christian monks, as well as Islamic scholars (much material saved in among other places the libraries of islamic mosques) as well as Buddhist monasteries in the Far East and other religious organizations a huge debt for the vast amount of scientific and other knowledge they prevented from begin lost.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Nobody said anything about being "angry at God". The GP just said athiests are angry, as are many other non-Christian groups and some non-extreme Christians.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
I find this ironic (but unsurprising). As a former CofS member, I note that their creed states:
"That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others;"
Naturally, the practice is different.
"I've met really nasty, mean Jehovah's witnesses which demonstrated all of the points made in TFA. They go after people who try to leave, using incredible guilt trips, calls and visits to their family, etc, and destroy family ties through threats and ostracism. But I've yet to see a publicized abduction for deprogramming of JW tenets."
I was raised in a JW family, and became an atheist in my teens. I regard all religious believers as delusional.
However I have never seen the kind of behaviour you describe by JW's and frankly IF it occoured it most certainly happened due to the actions of individuals NOT the JW's standard policy, as is the case with Scientology.
They do ostracise those who break their rules and "Disfellowship" them-but there is specific exemption of family members, so they do not press for family mebers to ignore their relatives.
NO pressure has ever been applied to my family to break contact with me in the 35 years since I left.
There is a big difference between a few individuals over stepping, and a delibertae policy such as scientologies 'Fair Game" Policy.
Nothing transcends Natural Law. The right to watch television, as with the right to watch anything within one's domain, is reserved to the watcher as per his Liberty.
You, like the poster below, are confusing Liberty with Entitlement. The television watcher is not entitled to a signal. If the signal exists within his domain however, he is at his Liberty to decode and view it.
Anyone who comes to persuade him otherwise may appeal to his senses, but if they persist despite his refusal, they are in fact coercing him. As such, no reasonable person should afford them any moral authority.
So, Mr. Brooke, if you wish to tell people they are not entitled to television, you would be correct. But if you wish to tell them that they are not at liberty to watch television, you would be quite mistaken.
When we talk about innate Rights, we are talking about the Right for someone to live. We are talking about the Right to exercise that life to the full scope of one's domain. We call this Liberty. And to ensure one's Life and Liberty, one must be secure in their Property. This means that they are not coerced into relinquishing their possessions or the land which they have acquired by moral, natural means and upon which they are subsequently dependent for life.
Think otherwise? Coerce a man from his home and take from him his clothing in the dead of winter. You will have deprived him of his life, his liberty, and his property. This is not immoral because the Law says so. It is not immoral because we've agreed upon it. It is immoral because it violates his Natural Rights. All three of them.
-Hope