Scientology

[David Bean]

I first heard about the 'Project Chanology' phenomenon here on the Sinner, through a link in a post I responded to on the Facebook thread. And I have to say, the more I've read about the aims of this - movement? I'm not sure what you'd call it, really - the more I agree with it. I've long been saying that the 'Church' of Scientology is nothing more than a dangerous, money-making cult whose aim seems to be to defraud its adherents in much the same way as a complex pyramid scheme, with apparently no concern whatsoever to the lives wrecked in the process.

Can I ask what other Sinners think about this whole thing - Scientology, for one, and Project Chanology for another? It it all just a passing fad, or can (and indeed should) we as a global community take a stand and really make a difference against an organisation like this? And is anyone else, as I am, thinking seriously about attending one of the worldwide protests scheduled for next Sunday?

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Psalm 91:7

[Frank]

On one hand: I quite agree with you, David. It's either a swindle, a joke or a serious case of dangerous idiocy.

On the otherhand: One of my friends illustrated it to me well. He said "Yeah, scientology's pretty ridiculous. But when it comes to it: people are free to make their own choices, and it's not particularly more ridiculous than any other religion or cult out there."

Protests: I heartily support protests. Even if I don't agree with them, the point is the freedom to do so, and that's important.

Chanology: It's an intriguing little thing. But, I suspect it is far to easy to get caught up in 'the ward on scientology' and lose sight of the point: protesting against scientology. For someone like me to join in, I'd likely become the a ridiculously dangerous anti-scientologist idiot. Fanatisicism, wars against a religion, fighting the good fight. I think it's probably a good idea for me to steer clear of all that. For everyone else? It's their choice. I really don't like scientology so someone might as well orchestrate its demise.

A passing fad: I'd like to believe that scientology, like global warming and asteroids, is but a passing fad. These problems will largely be solved without my input. Call it a residual bit of faith in humanity...

By any means necessary: I've read/watched enough fiction to see how badly that phrase turns out.

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"There is only ever one truth. Things are always black or white, there's no such thing as a shade of grey. If you think that something is a shade of grey it simply means that you don't fully understand the situation. The truth is narrow and the path of the pursuit of truth is similarly narrow."
Also, some years later:
"here we are arguing about a few uppity troublemakers with a bee in their bonnet and a conspiracy theory."

[Bonnie]

do a google search on scientology and prison program. They're doing weird stuff, pretending to be experts in prison rehabilitation and really they're just pumping inmates full of untested levels of certain vitamins.

[Freaker]

The whole religion and freedom of religion argument is interesting - because as I understand it, the point of many outspoken scientology opponents is to counter scientology's very claim to being a religion, as opposed to an organisation of some (primarily non-spiritual) focus. Instead, they want to prove that the religious aspects are just a cover for a system in which people are systematically exploited. Then the main problem is whether this information that would enable citizens to make an informed decision is freely accessible, and for the moment, it seems as if scientology is making it as hard as they possibly can for interested people to see this second side (allegedly also using lies, which would be illegal and objectionable.) The argument would then be that destroying scientology would be destroying its protective layer, so that it no longer conceals its motivations and intentions. Whether it will continue to exist as a religion afterwards is up to its members once they have been able to make an informed decision.

Taken all that together, there exists a very fine line between trying to raise awareness of the issues with scientology through demonstrating, and by trying to break down their network so the information is more easily available. Yet of the two, only the first one can be officially supported, and whether it is acceptable to ever claim another being could not have made a free decision when oneself could have in the same situation is controversial.

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I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.

[sejanus]

Well, I'm no fan of Scientology, especially after that abomination of a "film" with John Travolta. I've read about Anonymous' attacks on Scientology websites - DDoS attacks, that kind of thing, and their intention is to take misleading material from L. Ron's earthly minions off the web.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/25 ... ntroversy/

Sounds all well and good. But, as the adage goes, internet vigilantism is all fun and games until someone becomes a seventh level Thetan:

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/0 ... hac-1.html

(Anonymous' connection with Project Chanology can be read about here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanology )

Bonus:
http://hijinksensue.com/2008/01/24/tom- ... ly-insane/
(comics 2 and 3 in the series are also jolly good!)

[David Bean]

Well, Scientology has been around for fifty years now, and whilst I don't see it standing the test of time as the world's great, legitimate faiths have, if it's to fall something will have to happen to change the status quo.

I believe in religious freedom - I don't think anybody could legitimately disagree with it - but an organisation founded, as Freaker has noted, upon the systematic exploitation of its followers, often weak and vulnerable people recruited through deception and held there through a kind of enforced isolation from wider society, no more becomes legitimate by declaring itself to be a religion than a Christian or Islamic fundamentalist terrorist group becomes legitimate through its claimed associations with those faiths.

Scientology is nothing more than a confidence trick, the largest, most complex and dangerous pyramid scam in history. The vast majority of its adherents - its innocent victims - deserve our charity as well as our ridicule, but those who lead the organisation and perpetuate its influence are, quite simply, a gang of criminals. And I don't like the fact that it's come down to a disparate group of reuptationally dubious internet hackers using illegal tactics, plus those like myself who happen to have found out about their cause in time, to bring them down, but this is the situation we're faced with.

So I say, Godspeed to Project Chanology - and may the 'Church' of Scientology be wiped from the face of the earth.

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Psalm 91:7

[Haunted]

By "legitimate faiths" do you mean those that have just been around longer?
when you think you about it, the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree....
then Scientology doesn't sound so uniquely batshit crazy.

Anyway, the deeper point there was, what is a legitimate faith and how does one tell the difference?

Or should scientology be taken down because of its' practices of exploitation and intimidation as opposed to its 'beliefs'?

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Now with 100% more corn

[somewhere only we know]

You're missing the point, Haunted. Bean has spoken. You heard the man- Jump to it!
Can we also disband any multi-deity religions (or cults), as they don't fit in with his view of the world? I'd do it myself, only I have to purchase a new urinal for the gents' lav in the Elie sailing club.

[ChrisH]

The problem with Scientology as a religion is that you cannot objectively view its beliefs, even the majority of the membership cannot. Technically none of the membership can as they haven't published all of the books yet.

Religions publish their holy books or whatever in an effort to proselytize which also allows for philosophers and non-believers etc to study them. This is good.
Claiming copyright and charging vast fortunes for copies is not.

Again, with religions, whilst it may not happen in some of the bat shit crazy wings, if you are an adherent with doubts it is possible to ask questions and get answers. Given that under Scientology the answers will change based on your level that is a little dodgy IMHO.

Plus even Germany banned it as a religion!

[munchingfoo]

No they haven't. They currently have a motion to ban it under the constitution but it has not been upheld yet. (as far as I can see)

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[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]

[Freaker]

I'm not even sure if there is a motion yet.

In the end, there is such a large difference between church and faith here. I believe few people want to ban the faith that is Scientology - folks can believe in whatever they choose, for better or for worse. But if a church, organised religion/faith, begins to effectively harm people, then in the interest of the safety of its citizens, the state can try to ban that church.

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I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.

[Haunted]

Quoting Freaker from 13:49, 5th Feb 2008
But if a church, organised religion/faith, begins to effectively harm people, then in the interest of the safety of its citizens, the state can try to ban that church.

Could perhaps the persecution of homosexuals by some churches be considered "effective harm"? Or the demonising of condom use by others? Where does scientology become somehow 'different' to any other superstitous religion?

Incidentall, scientology in germany is legal just now, it just isn't recognised as a religion (neither is it in the UK I believe, at the very least it does not have tax exempt status here)

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Now with 100% more corn

[David Bean]

Quoting Haunted from 02:22, 5th Feb 2008

Or should scientology be taken down because of its' practices of exploitation and intimidation as opposed to its 'beliefs'?

Indeed. People are free to believe whatever they want, but they aren't free to use those claimed beliefs (I can't honestly imagine that the people who run the organisation actually believe this rubbish) to swindle people, and that's even before we start to consider their infamous campaigns of harrasment and villification of their opponents, and the damage they've done to so many of their members.

As Chris pointed out, how can we view a religion as 'legitimate' when it hides its tenets of belief even from its own adherents?

[hr]

Psalm 91:7

[Haunted]

Quoting David Bean from 21:04, 5th Feb 2008
People are free to believe whatever they want, but they aren't free to use those claimed beliefs (I can't honestly imagine that the people who run the organisation actually believe this rubbish) to swindle people, and that's even before we start to consider their infamous campaigns of harrasment and villification of their opponents, and the damage they've done to so many of their members.

While we're at it can we apply this reasoning to other harmful churches and shut them down? The ones that suppress science and persecute homosexuals coming to mind.

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Now with 100% more corn

[Steveo]

Quoting munchingfoo from 10:01, 5th Feb 2008
No they haven't. They currently have a motion to ban it under the constitution but it has not been upheld yet. (as far as I can see)

It might not be banned, but like in the UK, it's not a recoginsed religion.

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Get off my internet.

[David Bean]

Quoting Haunted from 12:44, 6th Feb 2008

While we're at it can we apply this reasoning to other harmful churches and shut them down? The ones that suppress science and persecute homosexuals coming to mind.

Name them.

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Psalm 91:7

[UanarchyK]

Quoting David Bean from 20:36, 6th Feb 2008

Quoting Haunted from 12:44, 6th Feb 2008

While we're at it can we apply this reasoning to other harmful churches and shut them down? The ones that suppress science and persecute homosexuals coming to mind.

Name them.

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Psalm 91:7

The Catholic Church is the obvious example. A wide swath of the protestant churches are applicable as well.

[David Bean]

Well, for doctrinal reasons I'm not the world's biggest fan of the Roman Catholic Church, but I'm not aware of it being guilty of either of those things in the modern era. In any case, to try to compare any of the things you or I might disagree with it over with what the Church of Scientology has in documented fact been guilty of, and continues to do, points to a different, but no less insisious, form of bigotry.

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Psalm 91:7

[Haunted]

Quoting David Bean from 20:36, 6th Feb 2008

Quoting Haunted from 12:44, 6th Feb 2008

While we're at it can we apply this reasoning to other harmful churches and shut them down? The ones that suppress science and persecute homosexuals coming to mind.

Name them.

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Psalm 91:7

Certainly the Catholic church is guilty of using beliefs to inflict harm. There are countless baptist churches in the US that are just nut houses (Westboro come to mind). Not to mention every form of islamic worship (as far as I am aware they are unanimous in declaring apostasy to be a capital crime, do correct me however). Wahabism is a particularly nasty form.

All I see separating these from scientology is a handful of centuries and a working knowledge of business management.

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Now with 100% more corn

[Humphrey]

Quoting Haunted from 02:22, 5th Feb 2008

When you think you about it, the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree....

This is all true of course, but you have to admit the scientific explanations are bat-shit crazy too (the infinite self explanatory multi-verse, string theory, the eerie ability of evolution to navigate itself to ingenious solutions, the elusive theory of everything). You could tell me that the universe is sitting on the back of a giant levitating super turtle and to be honest, I wouldn't be that surprised.

"The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be."

Douglas Adams

EDIT - Getting back on topic, I'm a bit disturbed at how off-message our Archbishop seems to be at the moment.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7233335.stm


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