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Scientology On Trial In Belgium
dgharmon sends this news from the Atlantic Wire:
"After a years-long legal battle, federal prosecutors in Belgium now believe their investigation is complete enough to charge the Church of Scientology and its leaders as a criminal organization on charges of extortion, fraud, privacy breaches, and the illegal practice of medicine. ... Multiple reports and the group's legal history point to one key factor here: The Belgian government won't charge Scientology for being a cult — authorities are focusing on prosecuting it as a criminal organization. Which is a new twist, as most of the group's many court battles over the years have focused on establishing its legitimacy as a religion. ... The Church of Scientology houses its European headquarters in Brussels, so a ban in Belgium could be crippling to the group — and authorities there seem to know it."
Queue Zenu jokes in 3... 2... 1...
But seriously, is there all that much difference between Scientology and the Mormon Church?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
May Justice prevail.
about time this happened. It should be banned EU-wide.
Seriously. All religions practice abuse of one sort or another.
Catholics: the child molester's club.
Muslims: the cult of the pedophile warlord.
Jews: faith of the would-be child murderer (that would be Abraham...)
Need I go on?
I think that the Belgian authorities should also try to organise this in a European context (L'union fait la force!).
Another idea I had: how should crowdsourcing be organised to damage scientology (I refuse them a capital)?
I don't know of very many similarities between scientology, a con game started by a science fiction writer, and the Church of Latter Day Saints, a significant religious denomination whose members perform millions of hours of community service and give generously to communities around the globe. That's like asking "what's the diference between the Red Cross and the mafia?"
Operation Snow White was the Church of Scientology's name for a conspiracy during the 1970s to purge unfavorable records about Scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard. This project included a series of infiltrations and thefts from 136 government agencies, foreign embassies and consulates, as well as private organizations critical of Scientology, carried out by Church members, in more than 30 countries;[1] the single largest infiltration of the United States government in history with up to 5,000 covert agents. This was also the operation that exposed 'Operation Freakout', because this was the case that initiated the US government investigation of the Church.
Under this program, Scientology operatives committed infiltration, wiretapping, and theft of documents in government offices, most notably those of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Eleven highly-placed Church executives, including Mary Sue Hubbard (wife of founder L. Ron Hubbard and second-in-command of the organization), pleaded guilty or were convicted in federal court of obstructing justice, burglary of government offices, and theft of documents and government property. The case was United States v. Mary Sue Hubbard et al., 493 F.Supp. 209 (D.D.C. 1979).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White
Sent from my ENIAC
Why(except perhaps for tax purposes) would a group being recognized as a religion or not so recognized be relevant? Both religious and secular organizations are capable of being criminal organizations, or not, and both are capable of using the sort of ethically problematic coercive tactics most commonly associated with cults.
Certainly, being a well established and respected religion can be very convenient indeed(see also, decades-if-not-more of kiddie rape with near-total impunity); but if you have to fight for recognition as "Well, I guess you technically meet the standards of a 'religion', so we can't legally deny you." you don't automatically acquire the establishment and respect, which are what really count.
France has already convicted several senior officials a few years back for crimes such as embezzlement, and contribution to suicide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_in_France
Sure. Maybe you should include the Taoists, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains. Unless you only mean Abrahamic religions, in which case you should say so and not ALL.
...and bring the same charges against the Catholic Church?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
why not the rest of religions?
But few make it an organized part of the dogma. They'll look the other way, or even cover up the actions of what they believe to be an otherwise honorable member, but Scientology is the only one that appears to systematically institutionalize these acts as a 'good thing', that much/most of the church should support and participate in.
I know many would disagree, but look at the rape situation. We have substituted accusions and sometimes admission of rape of children, rape of nuns, in an institutional environment. The fact of the matter is that these are crimes against humanity. That these were not codified as crimes against humanity until this century is irrelevant. Trail were held after WW1 using codes that were not developed until after, and these codes were continually developed and applied as new atrocities were dealt with.
Yet not a single Catholic official has been put on trial in international court. The Vatican is a sovereign city-state. I do not expect the pope to have the morale courage to take the responsibility for these crimes against humanity, but I would this he would choose one or two top officials to throw under the bus and reach some moral compensation. But the catholic church, like more religions, live outside the sphere of civil and normal discourse, so is not subject to the noms and laws most fo the secular world lives by. Whichis why picking on scientology is not really going to change anything.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Not to offend anyone (or, sorry that I WILL) basically every organized religion is wacky. Since they're all based on things that have to be taken on faith, the only difference is how much disbelief the adherents are willing to suspend. Granted, to THIS observer, Scientology (and Mormonism, close behind) are at the far end of the spectrum, but it's a quantitative rather than qualitative difference. Now, practically, the Scientologists appear to present an ongoing danger to society; the Mormons no longer appear harmful.
Steven Fishman attested in court that he was assigned by the Church of Scientology to to murder his psychologist, Dr. Uwe Geertz, and then commit suicide.
The Fishman Affidavit is a set of court documents submitted Steven in 1993 in the federal case, Church of Scientology International v. Fishman and Geertz (Case No. CV 91-6426 (HLH (Tx) U.S. District Court for the Central District of California).
The Affidavit contained criticisms of the Church of Scientology and substantial portions of the Operating Thetan course materials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishman_Affidavit
Sent from my ENIAC
I'd just love see them bite the dust.
WOW, looks like there are a LOT of Mormons on Slashdot! Maybe that's why it sucks so hard these days...
Actually, the European headquarters of Scientology is in Copenhagen (according to this US report), while the Brussels office is merely a lobbying firm for Scientology to the EU.
Clicked pie.
Scientology is not a cult nor a religion but a big money scam. Their #1 priority is to drain their members bank accounts just like so many mega churches here in the u.s do. Religion like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam started as a personal belief systems but turned into political tool to control people. Even our u.s constitutional laws are being used against us by the oligarchy. Regardless of religion or government common laws the power hungry will always find ways to control the masses.
If even half of this book is true, every government should be going after them.
You can always, and I mean always, count on some idiot out there ready to insult all religions by saying that Scientology is no worse than anything else. You'll see it in comments of any Scientology post. It's that uneducated (and blinded atheist in some cases) attitude which allows them to continue staying in business.
So...what are the approximate odds that they'll be able to get the US to extradite basically every scientology employee (yes, I said employee) to Belgium to get locked up forever? lol.
For a start, religions don't demand you pay up to read the texts and consider them trade secrets.
Sure. Maybe you should include the Taoists, Buddhists
Those two (and Confucianism) are responsible for scientific apathy that encompassed Asia and made them stagnant for thousands of years. You might be familiar with many anecdotes about X being invented in China first, problem was religion was against advancement. Science was just a way to amuse oneself. You werent supposed to innovate, you were supposed to resist the change and live in peace with your surroundings. Stability over progress.
Christianity was responsible for Dark Ages in a rather violent fashion in the west, at the same time Asian religions made them peacefully stagnant.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
They are former members suing to get their "on account" money back for unused "services". The "registrar" is always getting people to pre-pay well in advance for the percentage commission. The staff members that recruited that member using the free "stress test" or "personality test" also get a commission.
Buddhism isn't really a religion as I understand it[1]. For example, it perfectly fine for a Buddhist to be an atheist as I understand it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism#Is_Buddhism_a_religion.3F
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R2-45
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You appear to be confusing an exhaustive list (which he never claimed to be supplying) with a set of examples (which he strongly hinted that he was supplying).
This is a common mistake among the ignorant, so don't beat yourself up too much.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The myths of Scientology aren't any more ridiculous than the myths of Christianity, Catholicism, Judiasm, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam or any other religion.
Scientologists have a bad reputation for sketchy things they have done to people, but look at the record of any of the religions listed above.
So what is the difference between Scientology and those other religions. Time. Scientology was recently made. There are adults who were alive when L Ron Hubbard was alive and wrote Scientology.
The other religions were written in the murky past, hiding their shaky, man-made foundations. The other religions have generations childhood & family traditions/inculcation. Scientology does not.
To me, the two sets of things are about the same. I don't think Scientology can be put on trial without a mighty helping of hypcroisy.
Given the exponential pace of technology, in a century or two we may have evolved ourselves into beings that would be considered gods by today's standards, merged with machines, we will likely be immortal and linked into a global consciousness. Beings like that would see religion as naive, pointless and very outdated. It already is that, but we would clearly see it for what it is.
You need only watch the news to see that Christianity is just as criminal as Scientology. But anyone looking to prosecute Christian leaders, Protestant, or Catholic are looking at civil war.
I'm not clear on just how a religion that teaches that God doesn't really desire you to sacrefice your first born, is a bad thing. Yes, saying that you should be willing to do things you find morally abhorent, if your God requires them of you, is a rather primative moral code, a bad thing, and all that. However if you take the account as factual, God stopped Abraham before he went through with it. Abraham was living in a place where other religions did practice infant sacrefice (if that part of the OT is also factual - and note that most modern archaeologists and historians don't dispute that part regardless of their own religious affiliations). If it wasn't Yahway telling him to do it, Abraham would have had the example of other religions suggesting it was the right thing to do - and if Abraham or others had been inspired just by those examples, the various Bels and Marduks and such of the region, what would have stopped them from following it all the way through? The old testament version of God at least says, in effect "Yeah, I'm expecting obedience just like every other single god you've even remotely heard of, but now I'm gonna show you I'm more worthy of that obedience than those gods, because there are things I won't ever ask you to do, because I care about you and yours too much to ask them of you". The parable of Abraham is about a supposed deity saying He's not just expecting BLIND obedience, He's willing to give some sign of why He should actually deserve obedience. Yes, (some) more modern versions of religions have gotten to a lot better moral theory than that, but it was still a small step in the right direction.
While were at it, criticising Islam or at least its founder, sort of depends on the situation. There's a certain difference if the prophet created teachings to justify his taking a child bride, or if that was the way things still worked in the region, at that time, and he just didn't behave to a higher standard than the secular society immediately pre-islam. Most of the people throwing out the pedo-prophet charge have no idea if the actions of Mohammed were any worse than typical for the parent culture, or about average, or even a bit better, and it may be that the worst claim to be leveled against Islam is it didn't make the people who joined behave to a higher standard than they would have otherwise.
The modern Roman Catholic church has failed dramatically, becoming one of the safest places for child molesters to hide. Unlike the 9th century, the current church is operating against a background of secular cultures who overwhelmingly have clear laws specifying a minimum age of consent, and just about all of those cultures
set that age at at least 14 for any sexually related activity and 16 or higher for some forms. It's actually less explicable than the ancient examples.
Who is John Cabal?
The Catholic Church is responsible for the greatest genocide in human history - that of wiping out an estimated 120 million people in Central and South America, destroying countless cultures and plundering all of their wealth. The residential schools that decimated the cultural heritage of North American First Nations peoples were also run by Catholics. Even if you ignore the millions of acts of rape and pedophelia carried out by clergy in the modern era, the Catholic Church has been engaged in the most depraved, genocidal, racist, sexist evil deeds that humanity has ever committed for over 1,000 years.
I hope some day that 'freedom of religion' is replaced with 'freedom from religion' as a fundamental human right.
Have you read what they say about black ?
Scientology in Belgium is interesting to say the least
* A lot of extreme right wing politicians has something to do with Scientology.
- Johan Demol - ex-member of a extreme right wing organisation "Front de la Jeunesse" , also ex-cop and ex-politician.
- When there is something in the news about Scientology in most cases you will see Hugo coveliers being interviewed as their laywer (who also have made some appearances in Scientology videos) spouting the same "religion prosecution" bullshit.
* Scientology tries to infiltrate into our government and organisations
- The secret service suddenly stopped working with the communication firm Nextel because of the fact that is has close ties with Scientology. What incident happened is a mystery.
- In the Flemish parlement there was a partner company (Ideas) of Hewlett Packerd that provided certain services that was a Scientology company. There was a lot of uproar because it came out that Scientology companies provided services to the Ministry of Defense, Local affairs and Social Services. Those departments that have very sensitive data... . Also because there are documented cases where in the nineties they also tried to infiltrate the French and German government departments.
* They over-flooded Belgian libraries with free (propaganda) material and books written by hubert.
Scientology is an extremely dangerous organisation. If it was me I would already put out International Arrest Warrant for the leaders of this dangerous cult.
Christianity was responsible for Dark Ages in a rather violent fashion in the west...
Swing and a miss. The Western Roman Empire debasing its own currency was the cause of the Dark Ages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_currency
If religion is taxed then some religious organizations will continue and some will stop existing. The ones that fail obviously do not have divine connections. All religions claim to have access to some "higher power". If this is true then that power will insure that they remain in business. If they can't then their higher power is dysfunctional in the material world, so in a practical sense it does pass a basic requirement of religion.
Note that this test is no different then a popularity contest. All it takes is enough people to support the religion and it will be considered legitimate. It is perfectly acceptable for divine interventions to take the form of support from individuals. It is also the case that the tax criteria neither proves or disproves the existence of any religious belief.
Any religion or religious individual who opposes this tax change is explicitly doubting the divinity of their religious organization. If they are true believers they will assume that their organization will succeed. If tax status is all that stands between them and failure, then it's not much of a religion.
Why is Snark Required?
like this with a 10-foot pole. Proving fraud has the highest level of evidence requirement of any criminal charge in most courts around the world. Numerous churches have beaten the FDA on the practicing medicine charges and have stared down many attempts by the IRS and others at charging them with fraud while sustaining minimal damage over the years. This will probably be another huge waste of time and of some government's taxpayer dollars spurred on by some locals. It's nothing new. However, higher courts almost always take the "freedom of religious expression" clauses in their constitutions very seriously and very literally, and it's almost impossible to meet the fraud pleading requirements in a case like this.
Slashdot religious whack jobs are, sadly, on the lookout to mod comments such as this down. Sigh...
Another religious debate on /.
Not one view will be changed as a result.
If you're living in a predominately Mormon area, and you're not one of them, you're a lot less likely to be part of their circle, do business with them, marry their children and so forth.
This as told to me by various Mormon and non-Mormon friends from SLC.
I suppose this isn't a lot different from other religious groups. But it's worth pointing out.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
This is an area of open debate among competent historians. I've read many explanations, and the general cultural rot encompasses debasing the currency. Christianity shares the blame.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
One complaint I have on the Mormon religion is that when people are introduced to the church through it's missionaries they are told that everything they need to know is in the Book of Mormon.
Any missionary teaching that everything is in the Book of Mormon is in error. That is not in any of the standard discussions. If it was true, none of the rest would be necessary.
Believing the Book of Mormon to be scripture is, however, a core doctrine and a requirement for baptism.
Then later on you find out that fundamental doctrines are not contained in there, but spread out among the Pearl of Great Price, the Book of Abraham, Doctrines and Covenants as well as 26 volumes of the Journal of Discourses.
The Book of Abraham is part of the Pearl of Great Price.
The D&C and PoGP are both referenced in the standard discussions, though not as heavily as the BoM.
The Journal of Discourses is not canon.
Short form: any sermon or teaching by an authorized priest is 'scripture', but is not doctrine unless it is formally canonized. This concept is not generally taught by modern Protestants, as they have had closed canon since Martin Luther, so it can lead to some confusion.
That many central beliefs are not taught to members before baptism is troubling to me.
The nature of God, Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Resurrection, Salvation, Priesthood, Temples, are all covered. What central beliefs are missing?
People should learn about those things and have a clear understanding of exactly what the church teaches before they are baptized.
Agreed. People do need to understand what they are getting in to, and the primary role of missionaries is to help them gain that.
Peace
Well these all have far fewer abuses but fewer ain't zero:
Hindu's: caste system
Buddhist: Myanmar muslim persecution
Taoists: Emperor Wuzong persecutions (though admittedly they have a great record)
Re: In some cases, the takeover of state by religion was accomplished so long ago that the religion is even considered a state itself. [bold emphasis mine]
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_City
.
Whilst the Popesters and catholics may want you to think and believe that Vatican City always is and always has been considered a state, it was not considered at state unto itself until 1929 by the Lateran Treaty .
:>)
Religions, being mythology, likes to build even more grandiose mythologies about their own origin along with their standard domain of mythologies about the origin of this world.
Then again... they did in France; and they won. And so will they in Belgium if they got their case and evidence right.
France got a small fine against the bookstore after years of prosecution at huge public cost. There's no way a professional fraud examiner would pursue such a case without regard for the public treasury. To give you an example - in America, the typical Medicare fraud investigation returns $10 dollars or more to the public treasury for every $1 dollar of taxpayer money spent on the investigation.
Scientology is very big on making bomb threats. Mind you, they make the bomb threats in other people's names. They made bomb threats on behalf of Paulette Cooper (see Operation Freakout) where they got her finger prints on a piece of paper, added the threat then mailed it. It continues to this day, where they put up a YouTube video claiming to be from Anonymous and making bomb threats. (They really goofed on that one. They made a DVD on black PR on Anonymous. On the DVD, they had a copy of the fake video, but it was in higher resolution than the one upload to YouTube. Gee, where could they have gotten that hi-res copy?)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I believe this approach to dealing with the organization is exactly appropriate. The practice of any religion can be run by an organization that turns out into a cult. The attacks that we see on "Scientology" should not really be directed at the subject of Scientology nor used to label the subject as a cult. It is the corrupt management by David Miscavige that really is to blame. And, yes, he IS criminal. He abuses staff, torments former members who try to practice outside his control, harasses members for donations relentlessly and, of course, he trashes freedom of speech to keep people from knowing of his crimes. Mark Rathbun is the former number 2 in charge of the Co$. He's out and posting on a blog on WordPress everything he knows. Check out his blog for a viewpoint you won't hear from anyone else.
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
in America, the typical Medicare fraud investigation returns $10 dollars or more to the public treasury for every $1 dollar of taxpayer money spent on the investigation.
Can we make that statistic more public? I'd love to see part of the Fiscal Cliff resolved by us spending another $500K or $500M on these sorts of things. And I don't know any Congressman who has gone on the record as publicly desiring "more waste, fraud, and abuse." Some folks love to create new laws and programs; I like to see the existing ones actually implemented and fully funded before evaluating next steps. That ROI for fraud investigation is wonderful.
When that happened, the USA threw its toys out of the pram and decided that the ONLY reason possible for telling the USA off and saying "no" to it was if it was a communist liberal USA-hater.
That the USA is ever wrong is completely unpossible.
"That ROI for fraud investigation is wonderful". I've worked on several healthcare fraud cases that returned over $1 billion dollars to the US treasury (I'm not claiming credit - these things have huge teams of prosecutors and investigators working on them). Anti-fraud efforts are the most effective means of controlling rampant waste of government dollars. You are absolutely right - if we simply enforced the laws on the books, expenditures would be a fraction of what they actually are. And this applies to most countries in the world. In fact, in many countries, nepotism and bribery are much more the rule of the day than we see in the US, and the massive cost of corruption is actually built directly into the government's annual budgets.
With regard to these religious cases, keep in mind that most governments in the world won't commit to prosecuting a fraud case without being virtually assured of several million dollars in return. This is because of the enormous work required to overcome the heightened evidence pleading requirements for fraud cases in most court systems. If you think that the prosecutors of the world are going to unite and "strike down" some religion that you personally oppose, you are probably greatly mistaken.
That isn't that far from Mormonism either: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodemocracy
Scientology is just as legitimate a church as any other. It doesn't matter how you claim your religion started, all that really matters is that you NEVER deliver or prove any aspect of your faith. All modern organized faiths share the same aspects which are, empty words, vague expressions and no answers. Before anyone flies off the handle at me, show me one example of an organized church where the members actually get to see and interact with a real god. Not a god who you just pray to and believe in, not a god who is based off aliens, a god you can walk up to and shake the hand of.
Sure. Maybe you should include the Taoists, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains. Unless you only mean Abrahamic religions, in which case you should say so and not ALL.
Buddhism isn't as rosy as people make it out to be. Much like Hinduism, Buddhism has been used to enforce caste systems and lower the status of women. Even today women are considered to be less clean because they are objects of desire (often monks wont talk to women, most will refuse to directly take an object from a woman, the woman will need to place the object in a cloth and pass it to the monk). Most religions on their own, including Islam, Judaism and Christianity are not bad. It's people misusing these religions for their own aim. Look at the Islamic state of Iran, it's not Islam that is doing evil, it's the leaders of Iran, Islam is a convenient excuse and tool for oppressing the people. Same with paedophile priests, Christianity isn't forcing them to have sex with little boys, but it sure does make a convenient excuse after the fact.
Religion in general has two problems, it's used by people in power to restrict thinking (Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism do this very well, they just preach that people do it in a non-violent way) and make people more pliable and secondly, people who believe in religion too deeply, unwilling to question the religion or their actions in the name of religion.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
the Mountain Meadows Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre
Whilst the Popesters and catholics may want you to think and believe that Vatican City always is and always has been considered a state, it was not considered at state unto itself until 1929 by the Lateran Treaty [wikipedia.org].
True, but it always did go out of its way to act like one, even when it wasn't one. The TV show "The Borgias" show an example of it. Then there's the Holy Roman Empire.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
With Mormons it's just an allegation that it's all a scam, but with Scientologists we can call up a huge pile of living witnesses and track the scam back to the beginning. The camoflage as a form of worship is just part of the con, and you've fallen into their trap by comparing them with established forms of worship.
Early Mormon history may be very interesting but a better comparison would probably be with the gangs of New York or Chicago mobsters. Scientology is a racket IMHO.
I actually found this series to be a fairly informative bit of background on Scientology. It seems the Xenu stuff is only presented to a very small portion of top level Scientologists (and lower level folks are generally shielded from the info). The bulk of the religion tends to be built around 'auditing', which is basically therapy sessions where people are hooked into an e-meter (essentially a lie detector) which helps them identify stressful topics so they can address them. If nothing else it helps explain Hubbard's hatred for psychologists (as his religion was based around his own brand of therapy).
I stole this Sig
Bullshit. Read a book. In fact, read the article you posted. The Vatican is the successor to the Papal States that were annexed by the Kingdom of Italy in the 1860s and 1870s. Since the Kingdom of Italy didn't actually physically assault the Pope's palace, it's sovereignty was in a state of limbo until the Lateran Treaty.
The Papal states themselves filled a power vacuum left by the collapse of various governments in Italy following the fall of the Western Roman Empire. They didn't take over the state because there wasn't a state to take over!
And for the record, I'm an atheist and not some papist apologist.
The camouflage as a form of worship is just part of the con, and you've fallen into their trap by comparing them with established forms of worship.
Only if you don't think that all other religions are a con, too...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Islam, however, is welcomed.
In America, the typical Medicare fraud investigation returns $10 dollars or more to the public treasury for every $1 dollar of taxpayer money spent on the investigation.
That's good. I believe in the UK, most of the benefits investigations have a rather net positive outcome.
I remember a while back however a big stink about a division which was spending millions and recovering very little. Terrible, right?
Well, I don't think so. The division pursued all the most difficult cases. Its purpose was not to recover money so much as to prevent much much wider benefit fraud by showing that it wasn't worth cheating the system. People complained about the particular division in isolation but failed to take into account the much wider impact.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Yes, it's hard to get political support for government fraud investigations that don't pay for themselves in America. Over here, budgeting is an open political process, so every dollar spent is argued over at great length.
France got a small fine against the bookstore after years of prosecution at huge public cost. There's no way a professional fraud examiner would pursue such a case without regard for the public treasury. To give you an example - in America, the typical Medicare fraud investigation returns $10 dollars or more to the public treasury for every $1 dollar of taxpayer money spent on the investigation.
In other words, you're saying the professional fraud examiner has no interest whatsoever in potential future losses or in the victims of the fraud, and only goes after big fish?
I find this hard to believe. I can imagine this being the rational thing to do when the primary victim is the State itself, even in light of that not chasing small or mid-sized fish ultimately encourages more fraud in complete impunity. If so, it's no wonder that Wall Street is so screwed up.
When the victims are private citizens that go through the trouble of filing complaints, however, I cannot fathom this being the case. Especially considering how these victims' lives are typically shattered -- depression, etc.
Picture: "Sorry Sir, eat your loss and go cry a river. You're too small for us to go after whoever defrauded you."
No - your example is incorrect - any Wall Street fraud would be a multi-million dollar case. But religion cases have normally resulted in far less money in fines, and ultimately consist of late tax penalties or immigration fines in most cases. Since there are already government structures in place in nearly all developed countries to deal with tax and immigration issues, it would be an unecessary (and large) expense to go through with fraud litigation. Keep in mind my original point - when you litigate fraud, you are almost always held to the highest evidence pleading requirement - much higher than even for a typical violent crime, such as murder. Fraud must be pled with "particularity", which is a huge and expensive hurdle to overcome. You basically have to know and state the "particulars" of the fraud before you get a chance at discovery or deposing witnesses or proving anything in trial. If you can't do that, your case gets thrown out, regardless of how much money has been spent building the case. Preparing a fraud case can be many times more expensive than bringing a typical medical malpractice case to court.
In the past the same Belgian legal system had great difficulty with persistent individual offenders, having hard proof in its hands. This time it is fighting against an organised group, with good funding, myself I do not recall of any success in similar situations. Most likely numerous appeals, postponements and procedure battles will follow. My personal guestimate is that the European court of human rights is minimum 5 years away from today. Lets pray the Belgian courts have got some pride and boy-scouts left, as this did sometimes work in the past.
With this kind of argument you can justify anything. Justifying or explaining something doesn't make it right.
Mohamet was a child molester, it doesn't matter whether all arabs in the area were also child molesters. He got the whole sex thing wrong. Now, how can anybody be sure that he got his other teachings right? What value does a religion spewing out of the mouth of such a man have? He didn't come up with revolutionary ideas that weren't thought of before, why are the words of this child molester more valuable than any other's? At the time maybe islam was a pretty good religion. It might have saved more damage to the society of that time. But now, how is it relevant? Lock up your wife? Get four or more wives? Kill all infidels? How do these teachings benefit the modern man, who knows so much more about sociology and politics than the desert arabs of two thousand years ago?
Note that people criticising islam are not arguing that it wasn't a fit religion for desert arabs of the time. We are saying that such a religion is no longer applicable in our modern society. We just use the arguments against its prophet to point out that it was a religion meant for an evil time, when people were ignorant and couldn't think of what else was possible.
"The Belgian government won't charge Scientology for being a cult" Of course ! In Belgium also, religions are legal. The only way to get rid of Tom Cruise is to accuse them for crimes.
The practice of any religion can be run by an organization that turns out into a cult. The attacks that we see on "Scientology" should not really be directed at the subject of Scientology nor used to label the subject as a cult.
Except that Scientology was intentionally created as a cult masquerading as a religion for commercial purposes.
> They forget that secularists like Hitler and Stalin still hold the record in human atrocities
Secularists believe that everybody can worship, or not worship, as they please; and that there is no official religious belief. That is does not describe Hitler, or Stalin.
To me, when the founder names himself as the ultimate profit, that seems like a cult.
That is not true of Christianity, or Judaism, as far as I know.
However, that is true of LDS, scientology, and Islam.
> The modern Roman Catholic church has failed dramatically, becoming one of the safest places for child molesters to hide
Unlike modern Islam, Catholics do not condon the practice. That is a significant difference.
In Saudi, nine year old girls are still legally married to 50 year old perverts.
However if you take the account as factual, God stopped Abraham before he went through with it.
Isn't that kind of a dick move, though, regardless?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
It's usually noted that L.Ron was living on a yacht the last 10 years of his life, since the UK gov't didn't believe Scienterology was a religion, and wanted him for tax fraud.
mark
As a hater, you can sit on the side lines of any religion and make that same judgement. As someone who was looking for answers, with an unbiased eye, I found that Scientology has allowed me to find my own answers. At least hundreds of thousands of people have found it to work. I'm not going to stand here like some fanatic and insist it is "the one true way" like the "Tom Cruise" idiots of the world. If it works for you, great. If not, fine, keep looking. But smearing it without a real understanding of what it really is has a word for it: FUD.
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
In all fairness, the collapse of various of those governments were caused by the invasion of mercenaries hired by the popes (and anti-popes).
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Hooray!
Battling them is like battling moles in a really big lawn.
Time to shut them down for good.
Except that according to Harlan Ellison, L. Ron Hubbard - a science fiction writer - was told to start a religion as a joke, and was even given ideas, which he later applied, by his fellow writers.
Also, I don't think such a shady organization can be victim of FUD.
In the Gingrich era he managed to saddle the IRS investigations unit with the requirement that the highest priority for investigation was people claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit, while at the same time squeezing their budget. The effect was that a unit that previously returned a large multiple of its budget back to the Treasury ended up at barely a break-even level, and complex investigations became almost impossible to conduct. Not sure it that was ever fixed, considering the subsequent political environment I rather doubt it.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
AC, So you've posted a quote from one person, that is based on hearsay. And you've made an innuendo that because he wrote fiction that anything he does must be suspect. So how does that elevate you from the level of FUD exactly?
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
If successful, that would put an end to all jokes at Belgium's expense. Sorry, Monty P, there would then be nothing BETTER to call someone than Belgian.
Another reason for the IRS losing its effectiveness was the passage of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights in July, 1998 (during the Gingrich/Clinton years of control of Washington). The IRS was accused of conducting abusive investigations, and as a result of the Act, the burden of proof for some IRS enforcement actions shifted from the taxpayer to the IRS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irs#Criticism. However, historically the enforcement of taxes, especially personal income taxes, is a tremendously expensive and energy-draining burden on any government. Modern governments would be wise to look at some of the ideas for alternative tax measures, such as flat or national sales taxes. Digital alternatives to large and expensive bureaucracies, such as the "government as a service" model of governing, have tremendous potential to make future forms of government far more efficient and make tax burdens less burdensome for individual citizens.
Only if you don't think that all other religions are a con, too
In order to be a con, someone has to be after your money or other posessions. That fits both scientology and mormonism, but not most Christian faiths.
A con is simply an attempt to get you to believe something that isn't true. Ergo, every religion that has ever existed.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The idea that catholics "...want you to think and believe that Vatican City always is and always has been considered a state..." is your myth. The Lateran Treaty is no secret. Maybe concern yourself with yourself where making shit up is concerned.
Time to move to Belgium. :-)
SCNR.
Ulli
Disclaimer: planning to move there anyway. ;-)
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.