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Scientology's Fraud Conviction Upheld In France
schwit1 writes "France's top appeals court has upheld a fraud conviction and fines totaling hundreds of thousands of euros against the Church of Scientology, for taking advantage of vulnerable followers. France regards Scientology as a cult, not a religion, and had prosecuted individual Scientologists before, but the 2009 trial marked the first time the organization as a whole had been convicted. 'The head of a parliamentary group on religious cults in France, lawmaker Georges Fenech, hailed the ruling. 'Far from being a violation of freedom of religion, as this American organization contends, this decision lifts the veil on the illegal and highly detrimental practices' of the group, said Fenech. The court case followed a complaint by two women, one of whom said she was manipulated into handing over 20,000 euros in 1998 for Scientology products including an "electrometer" to measure mental energy. A second woman claimed she was forced by her Scientologist employer to undergo testing and enrol in courses, also in 1998. When she refused she was fired.'"
i wonder if there are any high level Scientologists in the NSA?
Scientology is the truth! Both Tom Cruise _and_ John Travolta are scientologists. Do you believe me now?
those cult freaks swarm through the streets here, scuttling between the many local 'church' buildings... used to be that they would station young kids (many teenagers) at local flea markets to offer free massages and 'stress tests' to do recruiting...
lately, that approach has switched to the cult using immigrant and non-English speakers to entice other adherents...
CoS is a sickening, freakish cult that obfuscates real-estate and business ownerships, such as drug-rehab centers...
"one of whom said she was manipulated into handing over 20,000 euros in 1998 for Scientology products including an "electrometer" to measure mental energy"
she obviously wanted a refund because the meter reading was zero.
To be rid of these silly cults once and for all
But they don't behead unbelievers or crash airliners into buildings. Of course, that's probably why the French feel it's safe to fine Scientology.
"Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost." ~ V.I. Lenin
can't be wrong
Proof that freedom of Religion isn't always a good thing...
Damn Frenchies have more sense.
And a few thousand more religions to go.
Why is Snark Required?
20k €? Not that much, considering the sums they manage to snatch off the (albeit more gullible) american cultists.
The difference between a cult and a religion is that in a cult the founder is still alive. Since LRH is definitely dead er, has abandoned his meat body, that puts Scientology pretty much on par with the other groups that believe in sky wizards.
Scientology is a cult, it's entire story is based off a science fiction novel written by man who wanted to make a religion! All of that would be fine but then to charge your members fees to read from books is kind of messed up, that would be like the library charging you based on every book you took out. I don't see how any logical adult can honestly see Scientology as anything but a joke, it's only slightly more a joke then the Mormon based religion, both of which have near 0 evidence for what they take as fact.
is the number of followers...
Nothing about regarding, it is a fact. Scientology IS a cult.
How could anyone possible think otherwise considering what the founder said?
"You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion."
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard
4th paragraph:
As if being convicted in a court of law for organised fraud is just an opinion of an unspecified number of critics...
How about this get added in the 2nd paragraph:
but I ran out of money.
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
The Venn Diagram of Irrational Nonsense
Regardless of the truth of your statement, stating that religion A is better than religion B on this site is normally considered trolling.
But as I understand, L. Ron was bastard son of Old Mother Hubbard.
He was raised in a shoe.
Oh, piss off. If you're too stupid to differentiate between the religion and the extremist interpretation of the religion, then I really pity you. I'm also shocked that this has been modded *UP* rather than down as "troll" or "flamebait".
Scientology is, as has already been pointed out, a cult started by a Sci-Fi author who wanted to make a lot of money. Islam is a religion, and there are millions of truly faithful Muslims out there who are every bit as peaceful in their daily life as the millions of truly faithful Christians (or Hindus, or Buddhists, or Sikhs, or followers of x y or z other faiths).
Just in the same way most Irish weren't involved in blowing up each other / the British during the height of the Troubles (note this was a war about the difference between the two main groups of Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism) and about occupation/independence, and *nobody* was saying shit back then about "all Christians are terrorists".
Those who blow themselves and other people up while claiming they're doing it in the name of Islam are idiots, and are delusional. The average suicide bomber has been brainwashed into it by the sorts of horrific people (i.e. Osama Bin Laden / Al Qaeda and other like-minded organizations) who recognize the power of religious belief and exploit that to their own ends - i.e. money and power. That's what it comes down to, not religion. If they can recruit young and impressionable enough people, and present themselves to these people as priests and clerics, and preach to them that God will reward them if they commit these acts, then it's far more likely to succeed then just placing a wanted ad for soldiers.
TL:DR version - I think you're an idiot - "terrorist" and "muslim" are not interchangeable terms.
He's Jesus, for Christ's sake.
for really morbid laugh search up buddhist deathsquads.
wackos are in every religion or rather wackos use every religion to further their agenda. that doesn't make every religion totally harmful.
scientology on the other hand is just about taking your money and selling you bullshit.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Considering Scientology is not a religion but a scam to steal money, this is the first step. Next it would be great if the power of real religions could be broken, cause they are just as harmful. Finally people should use some common sense and realize that all that religous fantasy has nothing to do with reality, but that will never happen...
A Dutch oven opens: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2013/10/scientology_wins_dutch_tax_exe.php
"I have just as much authority as the Pope, but fewer people believe it."
George Carlin
> is the number of followers...
Indeed.
A cult is a religion with few followers.
A religion is a cult with many followers.
I HOPE this is a slippery slope that exposes all religions as cults. Scientology is just one or the more ridiculous and exploitive ones. Any organization that uses unprovable assertions without any reasonable scientific framework to exploit its gullible members should be shut down.
comment not available.
I think that's just shorthand for "we can see what the guy is up to and it's most definitely a scam". That doesn't stop just because the initial perpetrator is dead.
France regards Scientology as a cult, not a religion
A second woman claimed she was forced by her Scientologist employer to undergo testing and enroll in courses, also in 1998. When she refused she was fired.
It shouldn't matter whether it's a cult or a religion; if someone got fired for not undergoing religious courses and testing, that should be treated the same way by the law.
"one of whom said she was manipulated into handing over 20,000 euros in 1998 for Scientology products including an "electrometer" to measure mental energy"
Is it any different than manipulating christians in to buying magic water at a 99.99% profit margin?
And I should know, I've followed a few.
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
John Lennon...
The Voice of Reason
You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.
There will be no state mandated religion. That is all.
Your acts must still obey the law.
That's an error of use-and-mention.
Does that mean that CoS should not be fined after proven guilty as charged in a court of law because they're jusst a small religion?
No.
Though large religions are getting away with child porn rings, when it is foiund out by the state, it IS prosecuted. Even though they have a shitload of followers.
CoS said "You can't do that, we're a religion". If religion == cult and cult == religion, then France are right to call them a cult and say "Nope, we CAN do that because you're a cult". Since cult == religion == cult.
There are people in the Netherlands, who sink old fishing nets with attached bits to the bottom of the Oosterschelde estuary (it's a natural reserve, so it doesn't bother boats). Then they wait a few year, put on their diving suits, and go looking at those old fishing nets underwater.
You may wonder why people have this as a hobby.
They do it, because they fully expect that the extremely elusive and rare (in NL) Sepia squids have found those fishing nets as a useful habitat, and found a mate in those murky waters, and have begun a family.
In a similar vein, your question seems really stupid and weird.
But I wonder what you get, if you create a habitat for extremely paranoid people, who like to sit in Captain Picard's chair, swim the murky waters of the Internet all day, unobserved by anyone else, give them the opportunity to meet and work with like-minded individuals, and take pride in manufacturing lies targetted for effect in the broader population. What would happen if you left such a habitat abandoned to the ebb & flow of the normal HR process of a large and rich organization for, say, 20 years. What kind of fascinating creatures would come floating to the top of the food chain?
Who knows. You're not allowed to find out. You'll never find out.
What do the french say about Mormonism?
"When they discovered, from the admissions of some of them, that there were Catholics mingled with the heretics they said to the abbot “Sir, what shall we do, for we cannot distinguish between the faithful and the heretics.” The abbot, like the others, was afraid that many, in fear of death, would pretend to be Catholics, and after their departure, would return to their heresy, and is said to have replied “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius - Kill them all for the Lord knoweth them that are His” (2 Tim. ii. 19) and so countless number in that town were slain"
"While discussions were still going on with the barons about the release of those in the city who were deemed to be Catholics, the servants and other persons of low rank and unarmed attacked the city without waiting for orders from their leaders. To our amazement, crying "to arms, to arms!", within the space of two or three hours they crossed the ditches and the walls and Béziers was taken. Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people. After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt.."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_Béziers
That sounds like terrorism at a large scale, and even worse committed against people of their exact own faith. And you can't claim they were extremists, because they were following the law as it was written:
Deuteronomy 13:12-18:
13:12 If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying,
13:13 Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known;
13:14 Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you;
13:15 Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. (13:15) "Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword."
What the Bible says about Genocide
13:16 And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again.
13:17 And there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers; (13:17) "That the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger."
13:18 When thou shalt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the LORD thy God
So yes, is a direct command from God and they followed it. All Abrahamic religions are just bronze age barbarism disguised as mysticism, their modern versions have survived only because most of their followers learned to pick and chose what they want to believe (and more importantly what to ignore) and most societies have evolved past that point.
They were killed because the army is told who to kill by those in power and those in power didn't use religion to say that they were RIGHT to be in charge and therefore did not have to share power with them.
Other countries whose leaders use religion to show how they are RIGHT to be in charge do not want to share power with the religion, but cannot remove it without removing their reason for saying you must obey them.
So, no, they were not killed by atheists. You can damn well be certain that many of those doing the shooting were religious. They were told what to do and faced death themselves (or thought that they weren't the TRUE religion, just heretics, and therefore a valid target).
Then again, the Alerginian Heresies were not stamped out because they were the wrong christians, they were stamped out because the christians in power did not want them to remove the power by saying "Hey, you don't have to tithe the Holy Roman Empire any more", moreover those following heard "You don't have to tithe" and thought "Brilliant! I can keep my money!".
HOWEVER, the justification for the killings was religion.
The purges of stalinist russia was not justified by atheism.
The only difference between a cult and religion is a religion has survived the death of its founders and their immediate successors.
Mormon's are considered a religion. If Scientology survives David Miscavage (yea my spelling sucks!), maybe they will be considered a religion.
Can anyone give me an explanation of how the beliefs of Scientology are any less credible than those of Mormons or Catholics for that matter?
Fleecing morons. If I could do it, I probably would.
In the Netherlands, they just have been given a tax exemption, for being a religious non-profit organisation, for the common good.
Another fine example of European politics.
Religion is bad but scientology is even worse.
no more, to say, i have been there, i tested.. and when they tried on me, the use of their electrometer, saying electrometer cost tenth of thousand of euros, hence the price you have to pay for an hour, with such "tool". the word "SCAM" blew up in my mind. Looking at the device, i just noted, i could take a voltmeter for less then 10 bucks, and do the same thing.
They also tried they prostitute like trap, wanted one of their colleague be very friend with me. Happily i was not looking nice enough for her, to do such a thing, and she started to say, she started to be fed up to do it for sci.
The only to take benefits of this, is high ranking people and those like Cruise, and Travolta, whom are used like advertisers, and have hardly ever faced the bad side of sci. Nonetheless to say, everybody like to be treated like kings. The sad thing, is they very much appreciate being treated like that, but don't bother, living conditions of the slaves working for them.
Scientology is a SCAM, plain and simple, and i've been there and tested it, as a french citizen, in the 80's. By the time, i didn't expect that organization to last that long. But been folder robbery and more, to destroy evidence of their fellony, that may explain why it has lasted that much in my country.
france did something right. i guess there's some hope left after all.
I don't see much difference between Islam and Christianity.
That being said, terrorist organizations have moderate widespread support in the muslim communities, particularly during the Iraq war: http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2013/09/EXTREM15.png
I can see how the woman bilked out of money could file a case against the church but how in the hell does the lady who was fired have a case? Shouldn't that be a suit between her and her former employer?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
between a legitimate religion and a tax shelter? We can't use the old "They interfere in politics" because pastors of all the major churches do all the time...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The first time I drove down Franklin Avenue in Los Angeles and saw the sign in front of their building that says "Church Of Scientology Celebrity Centre International" I was pretty sure this wasn't really a religion.
France has only had it intermitterantly and has not developed a strong culture of tolerance. The drawback of this freedom is you have put up with a fiar number of marginal kooks. Once you start drawing lines, who knows when they'll draw one around you.
Apparently, in France the government has the authority to distinguish between a cult and a religion. The U.S. government (and its states) would be expressly prohibited from having this authority by the 1st amendment to the U.S. constitution. I think the U.S. Constitution is correct in this regard. Government shouldn't have the authority to declare whether any religion is legitimate or not.
In France, the difference between a cult and a religion is whether they preach being open to the rest of society, versus hiding what you're doing from others.
From a society standpoint, this is the only important criteria.
By that definition, CoS is a cult.
Please explain to me why your particular skyfairy is more credible than the next guy's, without resorting to authority, antiquity, or cultural predominance, which are all invalid forms of evidence. I've yet to see anyone pull this off. That's why nearly every modern religion has a "There is no god but [X]" rule. Those universalists which don't do so generally claim something like "All gods are effectively the same, we just know better than the guy down the street what He wants". Go on, pile it deeper.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
Big difference: Christianity has pretty much grown up. The number of recent incidents of people killing in the name of Christianity are rather few, and of small scale.
Islam is where Christianity was several hundred years ago, with a rather large amount of religious violence associated, and a shockingly large percentage of adherents agreeing with intolerance towards other religions. A majority of Muslims in many Muslim countries still call for the death penalty for apostates, and in Britain that's still one third among younger Muslims. Further statistics involving implementation of Sharia (and enforcing it on the non-Muslim population) and others are scary.
What's worse is Muslims lying to themselves. Take Pakistan, where three quarters of Muslims think those of other religions are very free to practice their faith, but Pakistan is one of the worst countries for non-Muslim religious freedom. They don't see their own oppression. They don't even see the death penalty for leaving Islam as being a violation of religious freedom.
... we could prosecute the fraudsters raking in big bucks in America posing as faith healers and mediums.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Who said I had a skyfairy at all?
I get fed up of all the idiots crawling out of the woodwork and talking crap. I strongly suspect the troll I replied to has never been out of his/her home country, to anywhere there is a different culture, meeting people, or seeing how anyone else but them lives. I've been through the Middle East (can't claim to have visited the UAE or Kuwait, but have been through the airports in both countries) and have spent a combined period of several months visiting Indonesia, not the tourist areas, or staying in hotels, but living in normal folks' houses as a guest and spending time with them.
Anyone is entitled to believe in any God (or pantheon of Gods) they want. They can believe their religion is the only true religion if they want; religion is about faith, after all. I'm just sick of people who put down other people based on their ill-informed, prejudiced view of things. You want to write about someone's culture/religion in a critical manner, you'd better actually see how those people live or practise their religions first.
He's Jesus, for Christ's sake.
The government has complete power over corporations like an OS over apps. Our problem is the root kits and privilege escalation... and our "I.T. people" are morons or corrupt.
Scientology exploits corporate powers AND religious powers together; both which go too far. The government HAD the power to define corporations and all their limitations. A religion which incorporates (non-profit or for-profit) has no special rights; if they want religious freedom, they can have it-- WITHOUT incorporating. Just as they can have schools that teach the world is flat and receive 0 tax dollars.
You can fix the problem without touching religious freedom (unless your religion is corporatism... arguably, a major religion in the USA today.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
"I have just as much authority as the Pope, but fewer people believe it." -- dltaylor
"I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it." -- George Carlin
It's not a quote if you paraphrase it.
Now when do we start this with Christianity and Islam?
Mormon's
I'm considered a religion?
Hint: Using unnecessary apostrophes causes you to say things you did not mean to say - and as a bonus, makes you look dumb.
The absence of condemnation of the Muslim community may have you believing otherwise. When the Muslim community shuns the extremists, I'll change my view - but not before. ... Scientology is a cult.
And
The CoS is concerned with a profit not the Prophet.
that once he was in hospital the psychs would get him.
commit fraud.
all splinter groups, which they label as Squirrel groups, trying to preach Scientologist beliefs from forming and operating. In fact Scientology has gone after these drains on their revenue harder than they have against critics.
The troubles in norn iron are purely sectarian.