Ah yes, OSW. Where CoS got one of their members employed as a file clerk at the IRS. To steal documents in order to prove they were be discriminated against in their efforts to get a tax-exemption. This is criminal behavior, sure enough. But it is a far, far cry from the ominous insinuation of “Scientology agents are infiltrating the federal government!”
This isn’t insurrection. This is a Coen Brothers farce.
Lastly, you say, “No, actually, it has no similarity at all. Stealing documents from the IRS is rather a far cry from controlling the international monetary system.” I find this to be a very interesting remark. Because on the one hand, we’re told: you should about the nefarious practices of Scientology and their dastardly plots to run wide-reaching criminal enterprises.
But when I say, " Hey, this seems similar to a lot of those febrile fantasias of Jews running the government and the banks and the media," I get in reply, “Oh no, they’re not the same at all, we’re not making crazy allegations of attempts at world domination.”
So which is it? Is Scientology a dangerous fifth column with a sophisticated phalanx of lawyers and spies in the government? (God Almighty, how does that not sound insane?)
Or are they a group of people who complain, not entirely without justice, of unfair treatment and who, in an effort to overcome it, have engaged in some rather buffoonish misdemeanors?
That’s almost impossible. I don’t know that there is a perfect definition, but I do think there are some necessary elements, and one of those would be a shared belief system or doctrine. Low level Scientology victims have no idea what their own doctrine is supposed to be. Most of the rank and file doesn’t actually know about Xenu.They’re intentionally keep in the dark about it. I don’t think you can really be said to be practicing a religion if you aren’t allowed to know what the doctrines are.
I also think that in a genuine religion, those at the top of the hierarchy actually believe it themselves. Hubbard was a pulp science fiction writer who invented everything out of whole cloth to make money. Haran Ellison tells a story about being present when Hubbard declared that he was going to invent a new religion to get rich, loaded paper into his typwriter and started inventing.
What the COS really does is sell contrived “religious” literature. Everything else is just a ruse – a created illusion designed to convince their marks that Hubbard’s nonsense has any kind of legitimacy or sincerity. They’re scamming people the way psychics and mediums scam people, they’re just doing it on a much larger scale, and without any compunctions about using intimidation, harrassment, coercion, theft or violence to protect the scam.
How many times does it have to be said that just because most people who say these sort of things have no justification does not mean that they are false in this case, depending on the definition of “dangerous”, “fifth column”, “with”, and “phalanx”.
Adherents of every major world religion have used the same tactics whenever they were in power (with the possible exception of Hindus and Buddhists). I’ve never seen anyone burned at the stake by Scientologists.
The argument against Scientology seems to be that L. Ron Hubbard made it up. Well, where do you think other religions came from? What’s the difference between Abraham, Mohammed, Siddhartha Gautama and Joseph Smith on the one hand and Hubbard on the other?
Read up on “Operation PC Freakout” – considering that this took place only a few years ago, when Christianity had given up burning at the stake, it’s pretty scary.
The documentary about Scientology that is being referenced is, I think, the BBC Panorama Documentary- Scientology and Me. It’s broken up into parts online, but it can easily be found on Google Video or Youtube. An interesting watch.
None of those other religions charge people money to find out what the teachings are. The violence is not what makes COS a bogus religion, it’s the selling of the alleged teachings.
That does not follow. What does follow is that what one is able to be convicted of due to the exigencies of criminal justice is not always the total of one’s misdeeds. Perhaps you’ve heard of OJ Simpson.
I think you are drastically overstating the shrillness of people pointing to actual crimes here. This is criminal behavior, has been practiced and documented several times, and was sanctioned by the highest levels of the organization. This is by definition infiltration. Is our society at risk? No. Are the Scientologists going to bring about the downfall of the Aryan race? No. Could you replace Jews with Scientologists in Triumph of the Will and see if people notice? Sure. People will notice.
To individuals without your flavor of ideological axe, the differences are in the degrees and in the documentation. First, Scientologists are committing these crimes. There is no substantive basis whatsoever for the Elder Treatises. Second, although these activities are criminal, central, sanctioned, and appear to be somewhat widespread, no one is arguing that they are going to cause the downfall of civilization and that their adherents should be rooted out and exterminated. They are just a smidgen worse than a Ponzi scheme and should be treated as such.
I can put words in my own mouth, thanks. It is neither of your characterizations. It is a clever marketing organization that is systematically involved in relatively low-grade criminal activities, mostly extortion and fraud, whose members occasionally go bonkers. It is not unreasonable to conclude that an organization that systematically commits crimes should be broken up. It is unreasonable to presume further that individual members who believe in Xenu should be thus persecuted for their beliefs.
Are you a Scientologist perchance? I ask only because up till now I’d only seen one non-COS defend them before – and that was in this very thread no less. Really, what are the odds of that happening?
Not that it matters much, but my take is that Hubbard was so drugged-up by the end that he believed what he was writing. This helps explain the incoherence and flat-out bizarre elements on the Xenu story, for example.
One wonders what the justifications were for banning TM and Satanism in France, because I don’t think those groups have a history of infiltrating the IRS or kidnapping anybody. Because really, that doesn’t speak well to the idea of banning Scientology. It makes it sound like some arbitrator is ruling on whether or not Oddball Faith X or Y is a “real religion” or not, and governments should not do that. Perhaps the French would have some justification in banning the Scientology organization and allowing the creation of an unconnected group to oversee any Scientology business in the country.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, stop being such a paranoid. Kimmy_Gibbler is new around here, but Really Not All That Bright is not. Why the fuck would the CoS have started planting people around here six years ago just in case somebody ever opened one thread? :rolleyes:
Really, just because South Park made fun of Scientology does not mean everybody in the world needs to think the CoS is evil. It’s a disgusting organization, but so are a lot of religions. The world would have lost nothing (except a parody target) if Scientology never existed. And the people who kidnap or harm members deserve to be prosecuted. But as far as the teachings of Scientology - not to be callous about it - “a fool and his Euros…”
The problem is that all the relatively low-grade criminal activities–we agree that is what OSW is and Operation Freakout was never implemented–all happened in the early-to-mid 70’s. That’s more than 30 years ago. Doesn’t it bother you even a little bit, after the perpetrators were apprehended and imprisoned decades ago, these are still being used as a rationale to impose further restrictions on the group? Do you think this is completely unrelated to the fact that there is an element of fashionability to Scientology-bashing (I’m not saying you are engaging in this, but surely you’ve noticed it in other quarters)?
Yay, Scientology will finally get the last thing they need to be a legitimate religion, government persecution! Woohoo, Scientology is entering the big time baby!
Actually no, Kimmy Gibbler is not a fool, the rest of you are fools. Kimmy Gibbler is sane and rational. He’s making a very solid argument about how religion should be treated by law and not accepting things based on hearsay. His posts are the most intelligent in this thread.