What does that have to do with anything? Funny how you, a guest were able to find a thread from three months ago or whenever it was.
As for name-calling, as you said, this is the Pit. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
Honestly, I felt as though you hadn’t noticed or seen my post when you made that comment. I’m not surprised that other people felt the same way. It’s very frustrating to have the whole niacin debate still happening when the cites have been there for a fair bit of time. Niacin is, in fact, dangerous in large doses, which Hubbard does recommend.
As far as the legality of the niacin supplements, this has a bit of an overview about FDA regulations on vitamins and “nutritional supplements.” Basically, the rules are that there are no rules. And unfortunately, Scientology isn’t the only group that wants this to stay that way. Vitamins and herbal supplements are a huge huge huge industry. And most people think that vitamins are cure-all pills, and they don’t understand that they can be dangerous. It becomes a “the government is trying to take your vitamins away!” argument. That causes a freakout, and the regulations get even more neutered. It’s one thing to say that the FDA should control it. It’s another thing for them to actually do it in the face of a huge public outcry.
Health claims are a complicated thing. Lots of people like to make them, and lots of people like to believe them. It’s very difficult to regulate. Snake oil is as popular as it ever was.
My personal observation is that this conversation appears to have degraded to a point where is is nigh unto useless as a tool for reaching a conclusion that the overall level of evil in the world is increased by the continued existence and unimpeded operation of the CoS. It’s also useless, by this time, as a tool for directing ridicule and scorn upon the clams and their dupes.
IMHO, those are pretty much the only valid reasons for having a conversation regarding the CoS. But here, with the minute parsing of posts; the harping upon details that are not germane to the goals of exposing evil or pointing and laughing; the insistence upon ironclad, courtroom-ready, grand jury-quality reports complete with sealed indictments (why yes, I do indulge in hyperbole, why do you ask?); and the pouncing upon the tiniest of procedural mis-steps to impugn the intellectual integrity of those arguing in favor of pillorying, the signal-to-noise ratio is just too low for anything to be accomplished, Enter the Flagon’s hopes notwithstanding.
Yes, procedure is an important attribute of any successful intellectual undertaking. But fighting the CoS isn’t always required to be an intellectual undertaking. This thread appears to have begun with a perfectly valid methodology of appeals to emotional considerations (it is a Pit thread, after all). Constipated Mathematician, with the aid of Frylock, seems to have decided to shove it out of the realm of catharsis, and into the realm of cold, analytical one-step-at-a-time calculation. And by appealing to the emotional commitment good Dopers have to the motto cum mission statement here (fighting ignorance, for those of you following along at home), he has succeeded in convincing everyone that this thread can only be valid if it is carried out as an intellectual undertaking.
Probably the result that a director of the CoS would like to see from a conversation such as this. Kind of sad (again, IMHO) that he didn’t even need to send one of his own minions here to accomplish it.
Let’s be clear: What’s been going on between CM, Waverly, myself and others hasn’t been a debate about niacin, but rather, a debate about the debate about niacin. 
I should be clear: In fact, for much of that time, I wasn’t aware of your post. But I wasn’t trying to say “no one has yet provided any good cites” but rather “CM was claiming in that post a couple pages back that no one had yet provided any good cites” and also “Guinestasia, you have not helped the case against niacin with your particular series of posts.”
I consider it to have been well established for a while now that Niacin is dangerous at doses far lower than those LRonHubbard recommended.
-FrL-
I liked your post til the last sentence.
So are you saying it is better to keep things at the emotional level, and to avoid attempting to improve one’s methods of persuasion?
I don’t think you think that, since it’s in tension with most of your post. But I’m having trouble making sense of your last sentence without thinking you mean to imply it.
Why would a CoS person be happy to see people trying to come up with really good ways to prove his church is evil, and unhappy to see people allowing themselves to be overcome by emotional exclamations and irrational appeals?
I really thought some progress was being made on this thread! I really did!
-FrL-
Nothing quite so sweeping. I am saying that sometimes a perfectly useful conversation can occur that never leaves the emotional level, and some conversations are more useful if they don’t get intellectualism shoehorned in.
I’m signing out and shutting down for the evening. Thanks for your response.
I think you’re right, and I thank you for the reminder.
-FrL-
Correct. That is my point. It’s not the number, it’s the quality. People pump out links and cites, but if you actually take the time to read them, there is very little in the way of verifiable “evidence”. The cites seemed weak to me. They must also seem weak to the authorities, because as I’ve mentioned before, if they were accurate, we wouldn’t be having any discussion about the CoS. They would be shut down.
What would satisfy me? A successful charge and conviction of the CoS, putting its leaders/members behind bars and dismantling the “church” for its illegal activities. Until then, it just seems like it’s angry speculation.
I’m not trying to disprove anything. I think that’s where the confusion is. We aren’t in a court of law. I don’t **need ** to disprove anything. You may think this is a “trick”, but it is an honest attempt to force those of you that want to rail on the CoS to sit back and ask yourselves the same question I’ve been asking myself since beginning this thread: If the CoS is a cult, and is guilty of the crimes charged by those in this thread, then it shouldn’t be too hard to prove it in court. My only assertation (which your own cites have backed up) is that the CoS was not found guilty of Ms. McPherson’s death. I’m not discounting the claim. I’m simply stating that I don’t know if it’s true or not. By you (or anyone else) telling me that it’s true doesn’t make it so. By the same token, because law enforcement hasn’t proved that they **did ** kill her, doesn’t mean that they didn’t. If you aren’t following this, then you are right. We are in an endless loop.
First, let me say that I don’t have a clue as to what happened to Lisa McPherson. Maybe everything that’s been said is true. Again, I have to ask, if it is true, and all of this information is out in cyberspace, why is it so damn hard to bring a case against the CoS? Do you see why I’m pushing for more concrete evidence?
How can I classify “the dropping of prescription medications and replacing them with very high (at levels not tested for safety) doses of vitamins?” I could classify it as bad judgement. I could also classify it as strange. But you are suggesting murder. That shouldn’t be that hard to prove if what you say is true. Replacing psychiatric drugs with Flintstone chewables may not be the most prudent thing to do, but is it criminal? Apparently not yet.
Although I would find it a bit conflicting (from a CoS POV) if LRH died with psychiatric drugs in his system while the CoS denies them to their members, that’s not a crime per se. Hypocritical yes, but not criminal.
Is it not correct that Christian Scientists also do not believe in medicine? If a child dies in the care of two CS parents, are they brought to justice? Or is it covered under the first amendment? I don’t know the answers, but if the answer is yes to the first two questions, then why is it so hard to bring the CoS to justice?
When you say that Lisa McPherson was “being forcibly kept by CoS”, is that not the definition of kidnapping (or some other legal term?) That sounds like a way to go after church officials, or at the very least, go after the church members that locked this poor woman away. But as far as I can tell, nothing has happened to anyone connected to the church. This is part of the reason why I’m confused.
Crime after crime has been listed, and yet no criminal convictions. These people can’t be this untouchable. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
Well, let’s see. I can *assert * very little. But I can give you my opinions. I have admitted that I know very little about the actual workings of the CoS. What I do think I know, I’ve read or heard, either in the mainstream media, or from links provided in this thread. The xenu.net website seems to have thousands of links, stories, evidence, etc. I’m not positive, (and I’m a bit tired so please forgive me), but if memory serves, xenu.net is operated by something called “Operation Clambake”, an anti-CoS website/organization/whatever. There are different “levels” in the CoS. I’m still not exactly sure what/who Xenu is or the story behind it. There is a strong suspicion that LRH made this whole thing up. Possibly as a joke to himself, or to prove a point on human gullibility. But I don’t *know * any of this for sure.
What evidence do I need to back up these claims? Since I’m not making any claims (just relaying my observations) this is my opinion, and you can take it or leave it. That’s the sum total of my cards. I have mentioned before that I’m not interested in defending the CoS. I’m interested in understanding why our legal system can’t seem to shut down a murderous cult. So there must be a hole somewhere. The contention in this thread is that the CoS is everywhere, and can control the legal system, the courts, and the legislature. And it will ruin your life if you stand in its way. Does that sound credible, or a bit paranoid to you?
**Frylock ** went out and supplied a better cite on the danger of niacin. So did others. But that was only after the first few fell flat. I wonder why the author of the article I noted couldn’t get that same sort of hard documentation to make his article more credible? Perhaps he knew the audience he was writing for wouldn’t require it.
I think a cite should pass the smell test. That’s all, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask.
Those involved in “Operation Snow White” did indeed go to jail-it’s the largest ever infiltration of the US government in history. As for dismantling the church, they have to be EXTREMELY careful, because that could be UnConstitutional.
Am I the only one who thinks Constipated Mathematician seems pretty reasonable?
No.
So the Physicians Desk Reference is a weak cite, and further, the only real evidence which would satisfy you is not a cite at all, but the conviction of CoS leader? And of course this continues the inane fallacy that if there hasn’t been criminal charges, the practice must be safe. Because that’s how we tell if a practice is safe or not… we wait for the government to notice and take action. :dubious:
I can’t argue with that. I mean I could – in fact I’ve already given the reasons why it’s illogical – but it’s a waste of time. You will revert back to the clam script, and your shill Frylock will continue to gush about how well formed your arguments are. Like the one above… it’s masterful. Really.
No. I can only point out that you are a drooling idiot.
You know, some of us who’ve been answering your questions have done their damnedest to find either neutral or PRO Scientology cites to prove their points. You’re kind of making a giant, sweeping generalization here that you don’t need to be making.
The Branch Davidians weren’t “shut down” until they got caught stockpiling weapons. Heaven’s Gate shut itself down. Same with the People’s Church. None of these groups ever really ran around shouting “We’re breaking the law! Arrest us, please!” Nor were they really a threat to the public welfare. That doesn’t mean that they were benign organizations.
So when is a crime not a crime? Faith-based groups promise faith-based healing all the time. It isn’t illegal. Naturopathic healers promise to cure your every ailment with fish oil and Vitamine E. That’s not illegal either. People can go off any medication at any time that they want to. It’s all perfectly legal. Is it safe? No. Is it smart? No. Should you think long and hard about these things if you look to join the Church of Scientology? Absolutely. That doesn’t make it illegal.
Honestly, I think that most of us aren’t arguing that Scientology should be stopped by any means necessary. I certainly am not, which may be why you have so far never acknowledged anything I’ve said. I do, however, believe that Scientology is harmful. Note that harmful and illegal are not the same thing. Drinking a case of beer every day is very very harmful. It is, however, not illegal. Other associated acts may be illegal, but the beer itself is not. People should be informed of the harm associated with Scientology so they can make their own choices. That’s it. That’s all I’m asking for.
Honestly, I’ve been giving you the benefit of the doubt so far. I’m trying to engage you on a respectful level. You don’t seem to want to engage me back, and instead are characterizing the anti-Scientology posters on this thread as being unable to argue their way out of a paper bag. It’s beginning to look a little like a straw man, son. Some people have lost their cool, and a lot of people aren’t huge fans of your style. That doesn’t mean we’re all frothing at the mouth with our religious hatred.
Interesting paragraph, really. Full of… odd sentences that almost go together, but don’t, when you look at them a bit closer. There’s a sense of logical structure, but the words themselves don’t follow from previous statments.
A: You can assert very little. Not true, as you assert quite a bit. But it sounds good.
B:You know very little about the inner workings of the CoS. Okay, fine. So?
C: What you think you know, you got from mainstream media, or from links in this thread. Okay. Good. Can’t argue with that.
D: The xenu.net has much information about the CoS.
E: But it’s operated by ‘Operation Clambake’, which is anti-CoS.
… See, this is where the argument breaks. So, they’re anti-CoS. Well… something can be pro-CoS, anti-CoS, or neutral with respect to CoS. If they were neutral with respect to CoS, it doesn’t seem likely someone would have spent all this time digging up documentation on it. In fact, the CoS is a very polarizing organization. Any discussion on these poor people is going to be either pro or against, generally, as emotions tend to be involved. So, if it was pro-CoS, and with the reputation the CoS has for falsifying documentation, it couldn’t be trusted.
Wikipedia’s entry generally has a neutral point of view. If, of course, you can trust it. Still, the most likely place to find information about the harm Scientology does is from an anti-CoS website. The question is, how much can you trust that information?
Operation Clambake Presents: The Scientology SECRET Library
Well, you can trust that pretty well… it was the subject of several court cases, and the CoS has claimed it was copyright protected by them. If you want, you can try to look up the cases.
F: There are different ‘levels’ in the CoS. Why is this relevant? Are you a low level member or something? If you’re not a member, then why do the levels matter?
G: You’re not sure what Xenu is. Fine, link above, read and find out for yourself. If you don’t want to read, watch the South Park episode. It’s accurate. Because if they’d lied, it would have gotten them in trouble.
H: There are strong suspicions LRH made it up. Yes. Different levels, don’t know what Xenu is, maybe LRH made it up. But you don’t know any of it for sure.
So find out. Their own documents are right there.
See, this sounds reasonable, but it isn’t. You’re not making claims. Yes, you are. You’re not relaying observations, you’re ignoring what people give you, deciding that no source is credible, and you are, effectively, defending the CoS. And attacking Guin for some odd reason. And you’re dragging in odd statements like ‘the CoS is everywhere, and can control the legal system’. Who said that? They certainly can control small towns, through intimidation. But smaller groups have done that. The Phelps clan essentially was immune to being arrested in Topeka, as the police chief refused to arrest them, thanks to their litigious nature. Scientology acts in much the same manner, only they have more resources to attack through slander, litigation, and defamation of character.
Now, you’re asking, at the end, if the charge that the CoS will attempt to ruin your life if you stand in its way sounds credible or a bit paranoid.
You clearly want people to think it is paranoid.
http://www.xenu.net/archive/go/ops/ops.htm
The memos on this page are, in their own words, plans of action to defame, litigate, ruin, and otherwise harm people who went againt the CoS. They’re scans of physical documents that came from the CoS. Read 'em and decide.
I like that one.
Yes, they’re all from the 70s. More recently, of course, there was the South Park episode which the CoS used their weight to throw off the air.
As far as more recently, there was 9/11, and any number of minor incidents. I think you’re employing a very interesting broad brush, where you make a wide statement covering many events, and then say, ‘But it’s not reasonable.’
When someone brings up a specific event, you claim the evidence isn’t persuasive.
So. Generally. Yeah, I’m being an ass here, but you’re being a disingenuous little twit.
You want specifics, we’ll give 'em to you. But if you wander all over like a pirate with ADD, it becomes a little difficult to keep up with your demands.
So pick a topic and stick with it.
Oh, and you want to know why the CoS hasn’t been disbanded? Hate to tell you this, chum, but this is America, and the Government can’t really do that. They couldn’t even close down the American Communist Party during the 50s. All they can do is prosecute people for prosecutable offenses, not randomly destroy social organizations.
Almost forgot.
Neutral Point of View, such as it is.
A cite that Tom Cruise has no idea what he’s talking about.
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/40/15/7
Ah, here we go.
A nice neutral examination of the various issues surrounding the CoS.
Some really fascinating stuff there… the Canada issue, the France issue… Hey, there’s a trial supposedly starting this year in Belgium.
I like this quote, from Australia.
Nope. Between the horse-beating of Waverly and the two-sentence post-padding of Guinistasia, he seems to be a beacon of rational thought.
I guess that’s what you get for bringing discussion into the Pit. A lot of McSorley-types who just want to take a poke for no good reason.
-My apologies if McSorley isn’t a hockey goon…hockey’s not my strongest subject.
-Cem
To be fair, right from the very first point CM expressed even the mildest scepticism he was branded a “fucking $cieno”, so I think accusations that he’s ill-treating others in this thread are somewhat strained. He’s even been stalked in other threads and had people “warned” that he might be a Scientologist (which is rather a lot like the behaviour Scientologists are accused of, come to that; attack the attacker, even if he’s only expressing mild disagreement). I think quite a lot of the anti-Scientology posters in this thread (not you, I hasten to add) have come across as boorish, immature conspiracy peddlers. I say that, and I can’t stand Scientology. So I think CM can be given a little slack.
CM seems to have happily acknowledged your reasonable cite re: niacin; he’s making a broader point about the PEOPLE HAVE DIED crowd. He’s challenging people to produce more credible evidence for their claims, and you appear to have; others just keep citing the same sites and screaming “HOW CAN YOU NOT BELIEVE US!?!?” It’s rather reminiscent of that Fonz guy currently stinking up GD, tbh.
Is it just me, or does this sound exactly like CM’s argument against some of the claims against Scientology?
Apart from which, CM’s point doesn’t seem to be that Scientology isn’t a load of cock; his point is that there’s nothing intrinsically harmful in believing in stupid Sci-Fi rubbish, and he’s right. I imagine there are people who’ve spent more on Star Wars crap than some have on L Ron “Tech” (God, that name irritates me). It doesn’t matter if Scientologists believe in Xenu, or Xena, or cosmic space hoovers or whatever the fuck; that’s between a man and his own gullibility. What matters is whether it’s genuinely harmful in the PEOPLE HAVE DIED kind of way that is being alleged, and it’s this assertion that CM is asking for a higher standard of proof on.
Reading that back I see I’ve done an awful lot of speaking for our intestinally challenged mathematician, so I should put in a disclaimer that this only appears to me to be what he’s saying, and any misinterpretations should be attributed to me, and not him.
Well, what’s the argument?
We’ve said what we think Xenu is.
Xenu was the ruler of the “Galactic Confederacy” who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of aliens to earth, put them in volcanos, and then used hydrogen bombs to destroy them. The resulting disembodied souls, or thetans, are what prevent humans from being clear, and are responsible for much of the problems in the world today.
He said he wasn’t sure what Xenu was. I said, if you don’t believe what we said about it earlier, look at their own darn documents. They’re secret documents, though, so you either have to become a scientologist to look at them, and pay a large sum of money to progress through the levels, or you can look at their documents.
You need to look at the Operating Thetan level III documents, looking for The Wall of Fire or the R6 implant, or Incident II.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/OTIII/index.html
Here is the specific document telling the story of Xenu. In LRH’s handwriting.
Now. Why is the CoS evil?
The CoS has done many evil things over the years.
One of them is the Snow White incident, where they infiltrated the US Government to do eeeevil things. They wiretapped federal officials, burgled their offices, and generally obstructed justice. This went all the way to the top of the CoS, including LRH’s wife.
One of them was the Lisa McPherson incident, which is not the only incident of the sort, but a fairly famous one. Thanks to the belief system of the cult, harmful things may happen to members.
http://www.whyaretheydead.net/
http://www.whyaretheydead.net/room771.html (Warning:NSFW picture) is another interesting one with a man found dead in a tub with his skin burnt off.
These seem to be caused by Scientology practices that are designed to get members ‘thinking rightly’.
Their organization promotes attacking those who disagree with them, on personal and professional levels, including such things as making up fake sex offender posters, calling neighbors and family and spreading lies, and framing them for plots to bomb people. These activities are all sanctioned by the highest levels of the church, and are not rogue agents. That’s pretty evil.
As above, I have shown legal cases and government documentation on these events, as well as the church’s own founder’s handwritten notes endorsing certain things.
Can you really get any higher proof than that over the internet?
Exactly no one has seriously addressed:
-the reputable sources produced for the toxicity of niacin at high doses
-the fallacious argument that if there hasn’t been an arrest for a given activity, it must be safe
-the fallacious argument against the fact that even if there were no data on niacin toxicity, the burden of proof for safety and efficacy would still on lie with the proponents of high dose treatments, and not critics
-the erroneous assignment for the burden of proof on critics of Tom Cruise’s extraordinary claims, instead of on Tom himself
So I’ll give the horse another whack and point it out again. If restating the same logical objections to the same fallacies as they are rephrased and reiterated over and over is beating a dead horse, so be it. I consider that preferable to letting the asinine comments stand.