Belgium May Prosecute the Church of Scientology 755
sheean.nl writes "A Belgian prosecutor recommended after a 10-year investigation that the government prosecute the church of Scientology. The church is accused of being a criminal organization involved in extortion, fraud, unfair trading, violation of privacy laws, and unlawfully practicing medicine. Both the Belgian and the European branches of the church should be brought to court, according to the authorities. The investigation was started in 1997 after former Scientologists complained about intimidation and extortion by the church. Other European countries such as Germany have problems with Scientology, but in the US it is officially recognized as a religion. Scientology has 10 million members including high-profile followers such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta." Scientology has long used heavy-handed legal and other tactics to suppress opposition on the Net.
Scientology not a Cult? (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't so much make Scientology look better, as make other religions look bad...
Re:Go On Post, Say all you want (Score:1, Interesting)
a few more followers (Score:5, Interesting)
Scientology has 10 million members including high-profile followers such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
Don't forget
Beck [wikipedia.org]
Jenna Elfman [wikipedia.org]
Leah Remini [cnn.com] (King of Queens, Old School)
Jason Lee [wikipedia.org]
Juliette Lewis [contactmusic.com]
and a bunch of others... [scientology-kills.org]
Seth
Re:All churches are guilty of that (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:belgium and freedom of religion (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Who is next? (Score:3, Interesting)
While I'm willing to grant the status of "religionist" to the membership of the Church of Scientology, the organization itself is a money-making scam that uses the courts to intimidate anyone who dares speak up against it. I'm content to let the average moron who buys in Hubbard's pile of shit go his own way, but the actual organization needs to be taken down a few notches.
Gonna have a Clam Bake! (Score:5, Interesting)
Scientology is the 20th Century production of pseudo-religious scientificism in America - much as the LDS church was it's 19th century production. I expect Scientology to be at least as virulent - and ultimately compromised into the mainstream - as its Mormon predecessor. It will even gain them "martyrs" as LDS fallaciously claim for Joseph Smith - beaten to death by a mob he defrauded.
Re:nitpicking (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Fucking Scientologists. (Score:3, Interesting)
People do tend to have a fallacious idea that their personality is unitary. Unity is something that one can aspire to (possibly unwisely), but it's not something that is normally present. This is usually masked by "state specific memories", in which each sub-component of the self finds it easier to remember the things that it has experienced than those experienced by other states of mind (i.e., mini-personalities). An extreme example of this is intoxication. It can be difficult to remember what you did once you become sober, but easier if you again become intoxicated. The same effect happens with emotional states. When you are angry it's easier to remember the experiences of other times when you were angry. Etc.
All this is very standard. As such, much of what you have said (ignoring the SF component) seems to be orthodox psychology stated in unfamiliar terms. (N.B.: Untestable hypotheses are assumed to have null truth value. E.g., the existence of Xenu is untestable as stated. etc. Also, any hypothesis which when shown to be false is patched with an untestable hypothesis is presumed to have null truth value. This would presumably include the atomic bombs on the volcanoes, etc. If something has null truth value it is considered neither true nor false, but probably meaningless.)
The reprehensible part of Scientology is not the stories that it tells, but the illegal methods that it uses. (I do not consider e-meters to be reprehensible, even though the US at one time ruled them illegal. I consider that unconstitutional governmental intrusion into private affairs. I'm talking about threats, extortion, barratry, etc.)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Clarification on Unitarians (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Mathematics as a cult (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Fucking Scientologists. (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem here is as always the definition of criminal group or terror group. It would be relatively easy to justify the actions and existence of some of Islamic groups that operate in the middle east, in the same way it would have been easy to justify the actions of catholic and protestant terror groups in the UK or Europe.
Somehow even given all that I cannot see any justification or explanation that makes sense when I am looking at the actions, activities or scriptures of the church of Scientology as described in this forum and others.
Re:Fucking Scientologists. (Score:3, Interesting)
But forget about Battlefield Earth, for which Hubbard obviously supplied nothing but his name. I mean, the guy basically retired from writing SF after Dianetics got going. (Running a cult is less work and better paid than churning out pulp fiction.) Then, almost 30 years later, in his 70s, with no need for the extra income, rumored to be senile, or even dead, he starts churning out almost a thousand pages a year? (Much more if you count the stuff that came out after he died. In fact his "late work" by page count is maybe twice what he wrote during his pre-Dianetics days.) It seems more likely that Battlefield Earth and the ten novels that came after it were ghost written, probably by somebody who hoped to use popular fiction to spread Scientological ideas — or what passes for them.
Re:Reductio ad absurdum (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect most religions appeared pretty ludicrous early on. Only with the patina of age did they gain respectability.
Re:Reductio ad absurdum (Score:5, Interesting)
For instance, the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Old Testament, are written in a number of styles. Genesis and Exodus are largely prose narrative with many figures of speech. Leviticus is largely a book of law. Numbers is intended as a historical account of the beginnings of the Jewish civilisation in Israel. The emphasis in Deuteronomy is of a more spiritual nature, outlining the love relationship of the Lord with his people.
Likewise, in the New Testament, we have the Gospel according to Luke, a doctor, which begins:
"Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophillus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught."
and we have the Gospel according to John, which focuses on signs of Jesus' identity and mission, presenting the facts as he saw them, and explaining further the meanings behind what occurred. Also by John (generally accepted as the same John, but potentially John the Presbyter), we have the book of Revelation, which is the only book in the Christian bible to be composed of entirely apocalyptic literature.
What I am trying to show is that there are sound reasons for not taking every word of the Bible literally. The authors did not intend each book to be taken literally and the writing styles show this. For more information, many recent publications of the Bible include introductions to each book, and some "study" Bibles offer commentaries from biblical scholars. Zondervan publishing usually include such introductions at the beginning of each book, especially in the New International Version (NIV) translation.
Re:The difference is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Romans v. Christian converts
Catholic v. Protestant
Sunni v. Shi'a
Shi'a v. Baha'i
Hundu v. Sikh
Christian v. Mormon
Jew v. (please select one from Column B)
Southern Baptist v. Fossils
Zoroastrians v. (too lazy to Wikipedia it)
Communist v. Other Communist (cults of personality are no different than religions except where their god lives)
Just to point out, I'm not defending Scientology, just making sure that the playing field is level. Makes it easier to set the goddam field on fire and bury it.
Re:Fucking Scientologists. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure if Scientologists can do something similar.
As for Judaism and the Torah saying it's OK to kill others, you'd see that:
1) There are bits dealing the Israelites killing others were the Israelites taking the promised land from the Canaanites. There's no expansionist take over the world thing- Israel was God's judgement on the Canaanites.
2) The other bits are laws regulating behaviour and punishments (which include the death penalty) which Israel voluntarily _agreed_ to in their "contract" with God. Israel was to be set apart as special. Even today Israel "sticks out" in the world
3) And then there's parts dealing with war in general. War sucks.
It would be good to know which bits of the Koran/Quran say that Muslims are not supposed to kill nonmuslims, might come in handy one day.
Re:Reductio ad absurdum (Score:3, Interesting)
Good point. However, the Bible is NOT the infallible word of God; it is a collection of texts that were extracted from a larger tradition of Jewish and early Christian texts by a group of Christian leaders some time in the early middle ages; or something like that. In other words - this is a highly edited work and certainly anything but a text written or inspired directly by an almighty god. So you can indeed pick and choose - it makes no sense to insist that it must all be perfectly true. At best it can serve as an inspiration, an indication that if you go looking for God, it may not be all wasted.
That said, though - I think the Bible is mostly a collection of insipid nonsense and trivialities, but that is just my opinion.
Re:Seems stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
Scientology is not benign. It's insidious, dangerous, and relentless.
Re:more on Belgian religious intolerance (Score:3, Interesting)