!!!
Never heard of that before . . .
Hmmmmmm . . .
If those psychotic creeps can do all that and almost get away with it, then . . . .
[shaft of light shines down from the heavens, choir of angels sings alleluia]
I’m probably one of the very few here who read L. Ron Hubbard’s article Dianetics when it was published in Astounding. At the time I thought how sad to see a pretty good science fiction writer jump the tracks.
Since then it’s become more scary than sad.
I have no sympathy for those people who didn’t properly diversify their portofolio and had ‘all their life savings’ in Enron or any other single place. Diversify mutherfuckers!
Constipated Mathematician - Frankly, I see a huge problem with any organization, church or otherwise, that defends their beliefs by claiming that their critics are all liars, murders, rapists, etc. Furthermore, it is Scientology doctrine to engage in those kinds of ad hominem attacks. They don’t quote their religious texts, they don’t fall back on doctrines of faith, they don’t explain anything. They just bring up everything they can about their critics to discredit them, and they do it in public. If you want, I’ll try to find the website where they go into lengthy detail about a critic’s criminal record - traffic tickets and DUIs. You can engage pretty much any other member of another religion in some sort of debate about their beliefs. If you try to engage a Scientologist in debate, they’ll sputter “Oh yeah? Well… you … you jaywalked! CRIMINAL!”
Also, most other religions don’t have Danny Masterson doing an interview in Spin magazine where he claims that whatever issues he’s having will be cleared up with a simple Scientology course. (again, I’ll dig for it and try to find the date and issue number if you want; I know I have it here somewhere) They’ll grab up any celebrity they can and turn them into a Scientology mouthpiece, and as much as I’d like to think that everyone knows that Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley, and John Travolta are crackpots… I can’t really believe it. It is a powerful, persuasive thing.
As far as deaths due to lack of medication and medical treatment go - you could say, I suppose, that Christianity is responsible for many more than Scientology would eer be. However, most of those instances occurred before we had any rudimentary understanding of illness, whether mental or physical. Scientology came into being in the 1950s. The science was much more advanced. Hubbard ignored all of it and touted Dianetics and Scientology as a cure-all. It’s quackery.
Put it all together, and you have a very large, very influential group of people saying that medical science is a joke, auditing will cure your cancer, and if you don’t believe them, you’re insane and evil and don’t deserve human rights. To my way of thinking, that’s a hell of a lot more dangerous than Heaven’s Gate.
That’s why I care about Scientology. It might get some people through the day today, but it’s going to wreck a lot of lives in the long run.
And, on a personal note in the interests of full disclosure, I know a lot of people who work in psychiatric medicine, in one field or another. And it bothers the shit out of me when they’re accused of murdering people, raping women, and castrating men. They’re decent folks who try to help people to the best of their knowledge, skill, and ability. Anyone who claims that they’re evil and that I’m brainwashed is not someone I’m going to take very seriously, particularly when they refuse to pony up the proof.
Great. And the point of all this is what, exactly? No, we can’t catch every single person who violates the law or behaves unethically. So what? We can catch some of them, and we should do whatever we can to catch more of them. There’s been some pretty damning evidence brought up in this thread implicating the leadership of Scientology with everything from illegal harrassment, to espionage, to murder. I think it’s a good thing to disseminate this information. Maybe the people who join the cult do deserve to lose their money. But let’s at least try to prevent a gang of traitorous, murdering assholes from profiting from it.
Who cares? If you’re not trying to argue that Scientology isn’t a cult, what the fuck difference does it make how you define a cult?
Again, who cares? People believe all sorts of stupid shit. Yeah, “some people” think Catholicism is a cult. You know who those people are? Rabidly xenophobic protestant extremists. Who gives a fuck what those people think? How does that have any bearing on this discussion?
Thank you for that deeply valuable insight.
What the fuck are you even talking about? “A bit much?” It’s fucking murder, you asshole! If you’re trying to argue that Lisa McPherson wasn’t murdered, fucking argue it. But don’t come over like it’s in poor taste to point out that someone deliberately snuffed out the life of another human being.
I don’t even want to know what sort of lunatic parrallel you’re trying to draw between that and Passion of the Christ.
No, you aren’t. You aren’t discussing the topic, you’re babbling like a half-wit.
No. As an atheist, I would not agree with you in the slightest. In fact, I’d say that you’d have to be remarkably stupid to not be able to tell the difference between the local Anglican church and Jonestown.
Shut up, you idiot.
People who don’t have a usable definition of the term cult think mainstream Catholicism is a cult.
A cult is defined by its actions. A cult is to religious groups in general what an abusive spouse is to spouses in general: A pathological example of a general case marked by an extreme need for control over the other people involved in the relationship and the use of coercive behaviors to maintain that control. It has nothing to do with belief systems, number of members, age, origin, or whether most adherents have blonde hair or red. No faith is immune to having a cult created in terms of it, just as no kind of relationship is proof against abusive people using it to their own ends.
This is another difference between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Scientology. (Note well that I am contrasting organizations, not religions. A religion is separable from the organization that promotes it.) The RCC did employ pedophiles it knew were pedophiles and did act to keep them from being brought to justice. However, it did not orchestrate the molestations, it did not use the molestations as part of a larger strategy, and it did not work to increase the number of molestations. There is plenty of evidence that the Church of Scientology did all of those things relative to the illegal actions of its membership.
Just to make it painfully clear: Only a specific organization can be a cult, just like only a specific person can be abusive. Saying a belief system is a cult is meaningless: A belief system cannot behave in any fashion whatsoever.
This is usually how it goes. An anti-Scientology thread will always attract an anonymous clam or two. These guests will avoid chewing on the meat of the thread, and not unlike an attorney without a solid case, begin nibbling at the fringes in order to distract and divert.
When we see airbubbles in the damp sand, can’t we all just silently agree, “yup, that’s a clam,” and either ignore it or toss it on the grill?
Waverly: Meh. I replied to him because his post was a convenient jumping-off point for saying what needs to be said on this topic. Whether he’s a Scientologist (FTR, I doubt it) or a troll (likely) or both is irrelevant.
If the CoS is guilty of all of the acts as is alleged in the links I’ve read (and believe it or not, I’ve read a few now), then let the legal system take action. Put them out of business. Throw the leaders in jail and shut the doors.
Why has this been so hard? Money from Hollywood?
The Catholic Church had a major scandal in Boston a while ago (no cite, not going to dig one up). It was in all the papers. The law was brought in. The legal system took action.
In this thread, many have accused the CoS of murder. It’s not my job to argue that Lisa McPherson wasn’t murdered. It’s your job to prove that she was. And if she was, I agree wholeheartedly that her killers should be brought to justice. But how are you going to accomplish this on a message board?
Print your fliers, pass them out, do what you can to keep the sad, lost souls from the CoS. But until they are put out of business, they have a right to exist. It doesn’t matter if you, I, or a thousand people out here *think * anything about the CoS. If they are behaving in an illegal fashion, prove it, and take them out. After all, they were able to receive a church exemption from the IRS, correct? How exactly did that happen? Do cults usually get that exemption?
I can understand your anger, but it’s misplaced. The CoS exists because the law permits it.
I understand your difference between religion and organization. But to state “There is plenty of evidence that the Church of Scientology did all of those things relative to the illegal actions of its membership” and to know they still exist doesn’t make much sense, does it? Why have these crimes been so hard to prove? If the evidence is there, why can’t the government shut them down?
Are we all to believe that these people are *that * clever?
Look, I’m not interested in getting into a debate about the CoS. From what I’ve read, I wouldn’t want my sister in there. But if she decided to enter, and the law considers it a legal church (which to some extent validates it as a religion, doesn’t it?) that would be her right. Or, isn’t it a church by legal standards?
Miller, I really don’t know how to respond to your words. Your anger blinds your “logic”. I’m not trying to prove you wrong. What are your views on Amway? (just kidding. No need to respond)
Derleth, I didn’t mean to derail your pit thread. My apologies. But your OP raises the real question, doesn’t it? i.e.
Until the courts put an end to the practices that are being used (allegedly, of course), this will continue. If the courts are powerless to put murderers behind bars, then we do have a problem.
Please carry on.
Not at all. If the result of this thread is that even one person is dissuaded from joining this cult, then this thread might well be considered a storming success by an apparent majority of participants. Would you deny these people so much as a voice, or would you rather they be silenced for taking a position you disagree with?
Likewise, a more modest goal might simply be to help educate people generally about the dangers of a religion that enourages people with treatable mental illness to shun psychiatry; it can be reasonably hoped that this thread might accomplish that mission.
What’s not to like about that?
[hijack]I met him once. He was a pretty nice guy. He signed my book.[/hijack]
I suppose that is part of it. Another part is that they have enough indivdual members to harass the critics, legally and not, without being ‘officially’ part of the CoS legal effort that critics get pounded into submission. A DDoS, if you will. A final, large part is that the US Government is very circumspect when it comes to religion. Look how long the Roman Catholic Church was able to keep a lid on things. Proving murder is intentionally very hard in this country, and if the defendant is not only a religious group but very experienced at dirty tricks it becomes even harder.
This news article explains why the Lisa McPherson criminal case was dropped. One person’s erratic behavior caused the state to no longer feel it had enough evidence to prove murder beyond a reasonable doubt. I think it’s reasonable to assume the CoS caused Joan Wood to flake out and throw the case, but it’s possible she was simply flaky to begin with and chose this case to crap out. Point being, the state’s attorneys got seriously spooked by an opponent orders of magnitude tougher than the average street punk or neighborhood gang. They weren’t even afraid of harassing the local police.
Nor do they have much respect for the robes:
The judge deserves a medal. The fact is, taking them to court for those misdeeds would only provoke even more of the same, as the CoS tries to get its opponents so tied up in litigation they can’t live their lives. The only people who would put up with this for the duration of a trial are the crusaders you seem so dismissive of.
Farmer, or Hubbard?
::raising hand::
I don’t hate Tom Cruise. Not even a little bit. The only reason I have dispatched my minions to assassinate him is because his death is a vital cog in my plans for world domination.
Of course, I’m evil.
On a completely unreleated note, any of you who happen to find yourselves standing within sight of Mr. Cruise anytime this coming Wednesday may want to move to about, oh, two miles away. No particular reason.
Asking the government to shut down the CoS is kind of like asking the government to shut down the Mafia-it’s not easy and near impossible.
Scientology. I need do very little more than look at their vile work during September 11th to know what regard I should have for this tumor on the body of humanity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attack_opportunists
http://www.cultnews.com/archives/000619.html
http://wasearch.loc.gov/sep11/20010920002934/http://www.lisamcpherson.org/cos-wtc.htm
Thank you, Scientologists, for sneaking into ground zero, interfering with health professionals, and causing people to miss help they may otherwise need. Thank you for faking identification, taking medical equipment that might otherwise be used, such as oxygen tanks, to promote your own spurious goals.
Thank you for attempting to convert people in the middle of a national tragedy. Oh, yes. Thank you very much, ghouls.
And thank you for your current recruiting efforts. I see them weekly, you know, in Times Square Subway, or on 34th street, giving free E-Meter tests to people in the guise of stress tests. The yellow shirts are quite noticable.
I do ask them if they know what they did, now and again. I ask them if that behavior was beyond acceptable.
They always try to defend it.
Like hell.
Step 1: Wait for annual meeting of scientology’s top leaders.
Step 2: Arm nuclear warhead.
Step 3: Aim at Target.
Step 4: Okay, you’re kidding, right?
Step 5: Go to Disneyland to celebrate.
Thank you E-Sabbath, and Derlith too, for the cites. What’s been posted here is but the tiniest fraction of the nastiness The Cult of $cientology has pulled. You (anyone interested) could start reading and come up gasping for air in a month (eyes bleeding and foam coming out your nose), and you still wouldn’t have made much of a dent in the harrassment campaigns, the dirty dealings (that sweet IRS deal, for instance), the lies, the corruption, the ruining of people’s lives. Just about the only thing they haven’t been accused of is child porn and cannabalism. That I know of, anyway.
Yeah, they pulled that shit with Katrina too. I was furious when that blonde bimbo that comes on after Kieth Olberman on MSNBC went all fawny and kiss-ass to Kirsty Alley and her orange-shirted zombie crew during prime-time.
See, that’s another reason they love celebrities (besides their money and sucking in their fans), the ability to get on air and get publicity. You think Joe Blow $cieno could have gotten an interview?
I love these threads. Constipated Mathematician has performed a valuable service by getting people to respond much better than I’m able. I just get mad. I’ve been an anti-$cieno since the early '70’s, and I still can’t control my temper at these scumbags. Other people give reasonable answers and cites. THANK YOU!
Step 6: Watch $cieno executives smirk at yet another successful attempt to make critics look like dangerous loonballs. You’re kidding? Of course, but they’d have this kind of thing printed out and used in a random court case if they needed it.
(Not that critics haven’t made themselves look like loonballs in the past, which is one reason I distanced myself from alt.relgion.scientology. The end never justifies the means. Ever.)