Church of Scientology?

[The Last Conformist]

Okay. New definition:
Scientology - Founded by a sci-fi writer to make money.

Christianity - Founded by Jesus, who made zip and died for his beliefs.

Jesus invented zip files?

 

[FredLC]

Read up on what their victims have gone through. Scientology has a body count, and not for the sake of anything but making sure their member/victims don't get medical help from anyone but them.

What do they do, FL2? Deny the validity of blood transfusion? They lobby against research of stem cells, by any chance? Perhaps they attest to people with cancer, or aids, that they have been cured and need treatment no further?

As I said, they aren't crazier than the average religionist. They just are a minority brand. And if there is people which is impressionable enough to willingly give their money away, well, the money is their's, and they can burn it for all I care.

Quite simply, I will council peole away from scientology, just like I would about any so-called religion or so-called cult; but if they want to go, it's their freaking right, and i find it amazing that anyone who demands respect for their own religious ideas can ever feel confortable of bashing that of others.

I guess humans are paradoxes, simply put.

 

[Pasi Nurminen]

What do they do, FL2? Deny the validity of blood transfusion? They lobby against research of stem cells, by any chance? Perhaps they attest to people with cancer, or aids, that they have been cured and need treatment no further?

As I said, they aren't crazier than the average religionist. They just are a minority brand. And if there is people which is impressionable enough to willingly give their money away, well, the money is their's, and they can burn it for all I care.

Quite simply, I will council peole away from scientology, just like I would about any so-called religion or so-called cult; but if they want to go, it's their freaking right, and i find it amazing that anyone who demands respect for their own religious ideas can ever feel confortable of bashing that of others.

I guess humans are paradoxes, simply put.

Except that scientology isn't a religion; it's nothing more than a pyramid scheme, where the few at the top get rich while the many at the bottom get poor.

 

[FredLC]

Except that scientology isn't a religion; it's nothing more than a pyramid scheme, where the few at the top get rich while the many at the bottom get poor.

Sorry, Pasi, I have to disagree. And not with the fact that they exploit their members - but with the fact that they aren't a religion - as, unffortunately or not, these aren't mutually excluded.

Fact is that, as no religious really has bases except for their subjective teachings, one simply cannot tell apart charlatans from well intentioned preachers of whatever brand. It's an impossibility to attest that their teachings aren't the correct path for a higher true, just like we can't do it with Christianity, Islamism, whatever.

Scientology may even be as harmful as you guys think, but society is now getting what it called for, when it decided that unproven and unsubstanciated claims have special treatment in the bases of people "feeling" with candor about them. Once we have set that stage so we could accomodate the traditional brands, hack, what did we expected would happen? It's naive beyond believe to think that marginal movements wouldn't appear, and claim legitimacy on the same bases.

And lets also drop that line of arguing about how the founder of scientology was a greedy bastard unlike Jesus or Muhammed; you guys can see that the living conditions, the relation man/capital, the possibility of accumulation of wealthy and the relation between dissedent cults and official government have all changed substancially enough, in the course of the last 2000 years, to render such kind of comparison as rather useless.

Regards .

 

[Halcyon]

...one simply cannot tell apart charlatans from well intentioned preachers of whatever brand.

Not usually, no. In this case, though, it's not too difficult.

Do we afford 'religious freedom' protection to anything which calls itself a religion, no matter how obvious the scam? If, for example, the Thuggee cult were present today and called itself a religion, would the Thugs be protected by law? Clearly not, because their 'religion' is centered entirely around malicious actions, and that particular bunch of murderers would be labelled a criminal society and would rightly find itself on the wrong side of the law. Why then should Scientology, an institute which exists only make money through confidence tricks, scams and bullying of the vulnerable, be treated any differently? In most places the answer is simple and obvious - it isn't.

 

[FredLC]

Ah, then we evoke the law as a form of demonstrating the evils of scientology? Than we should evoke ALL of it - including a cozy litle principle called inocent until proven guilty.

See, religious freedom is something tricky, and to some extent it kinda allows/excuses actions, opinions and behaviors that otherwise would be considered odious. However, even with the politics of it making some area gray, still, if religionists break the literacy of the law, they will pay the consequences - like, for example, the cases of catholic priests child abuse, and also in the case of you hypothetical "thuggee cult".

So here we have it. Either people prove that they are breaking criminal law, or accept them as a perfectly acceptable, even if despicable, sect or cult. And in here, notice that even if they recieve extorting values from their folowers, harrasing them with threats of hell, or whatever spiritual/subjective punishment they believe in, this does not constitue ilegal behavior, for this would require a threat that is credible in a secular perspective.

What I find odious in this thread is that, even though I agree these people are parasites, many here have taken for granted that they are criminals. It's not that simple, though. Being mean and deprived of moral and sincerity does not make anyone an outlaw - and this, without even entering the realm of the fact that the falsehood of their intentions is not something we can prove, so, we have to accept that they are sincere, at least in our public discourse, until we have more reason to do otherwise than the dislike for their methodology of financial healthy.

Regards .

 

[smalltalk]

Christianity - Founded by Peter and Paul, two Christians not making a dime.

Just a little reminder - the Bible, Acts, 5:

But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.

But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? ... thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.

And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.

And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.

Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.

And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.

 

[Halcyon]

Not hypothetical, Fred - Indian.

In your lawyerly way you are correct in that taking action against these guys would require legally recognisable proof. Trouble is, there is quite a lot of evidence regarding Scientology's dodgy dealings, assuming that anti-Scientological websites and organisations aren't just making it all up in a conspiratorial offensive against a legitimate belief structure. I consider that a relatively safe assumption, though one would naturally check the sources in a court of law, just to make sure. I can't see it being too hard to convice a jury that Scientology exists only to make money from exploiting the gulliable when the founder itself is on record as saying as such. That's even before you add in the rest..

So, if this hypothetical court case finds the Church of Scientology guilty of fraud and whatever else, what would you then do?

 

[FredLC]

If it was legally recognized as a scheme, than I would not mind people here bashing the hell out of them. But, as I said, it needs to be cross-examined by a impartial court of law, weighting the limits of religious freedom versus individual rights, before they can be pointed at like this.

As for info on web, well, there are sites that "proove" that the man never step in the moon, sites that "proove" that Andy Kauffman is alive, and hell - I once found a site that stated that Brazil was involved in a conspiracy to provide orange juice with the purpose of ruining Florida's economy, to than use the the profits to create mind-control devices to threat the free world.

So I look at them with a grain of salt.

Thanks for the info on the thuggee, BTW.

Regards .