Church of Scientology Proposes Net Censorship In Australia 464
An anonymous reader writes "Submitted by the Australian branch of Scientology to the local Human Rights Commission is a proposal to eliminate anonymity on the net and the removal of critical websites (MS Word document).
The submission is listed as #1931 at this page at the Australian Human Rights Commission." (Read on below for some of the details of what the Scientologists propose.)
"SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS: Recommendation 1: The implementation of Criminal and Civil Restrictions on Religious Vilification. Recommendation 2: Restriction on Anonymity on acts of Religious Vilification: 2.1 Websites created with primary purpose of inciting religious vilification shall be removed or their access to the Australian public restricted. 2.2 Creators of websites whose primary purpose is the incitement of religious vilification shall be prevented from concealing their identity. Recommendation 3: Restriction on Religious Misinformation and
Misrepresentation known or reasonably known to be untruthful in the Media
Recommendation 4: Include a form of Bill or Charter of Rights into the Australian Constitution, which prevents the Commonwealth from making any law, which 'directly, indirectly or incidentally' prohibits the free exercise of religion to the extent of such prohibition."
As an Australian (Score:2, Informative)
The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger
stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 years ago, very
space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet,
178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to
be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the
principal volcanos (Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones
were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to
Las Palmas and there "packaged".
His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading
data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants.
When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people)
captured him after six years of battle and put him in an
electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone.
The place (Confederation) has since been a desert. The length
and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never
recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc)
anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been
dispensed with by my tech development.
One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is
approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-running
on and on) lasts too long, becomes a nigger then dies. So be
careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow
around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.
In December 1967 I knew someone had to take the plunge. I did
and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one
ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but
only that given here is needful.
One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or
to the body.
One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I.
It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing.
You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some
large, some small.
Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error.
Good luck.
Re:Scientology is a dangerous cult (Score:5, Informative)
It's banned in some European countries, too. In the rest, it's not a religion.
Re:As an Australian (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As an Australian (Score:3, Informative)
It's the first page of the documents of Scientrollogy's supar-sekrit Operating Thetan 3 doctrine.
-uso.
So sayeth the shepherd... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How does this affect them? (Score:5, Informative)
In the eyes of the law, and therefore the taxman, they are indeed a religion.
Only in some countries, several countries are sensible enough to refuse the scientologists recognition as an official religion. Have a look at this article [wikipedia.org], and the linked documents. As far as us Brits are concerned, note the findings of the Charity Comission in refusing charitable status to the scientologists; "Scientology is not a religion for the purposes of English charity law."
Re:How does this affect them? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Also important to know: (Score:3, Informative)
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/dm-yscohb/
Uninformative "typo" (Score:5, Informative)
Mods, you've just blown a point on some GNAA flamebait.
For the real version of "Understanding Scientology" by Margery Wakefield, see http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/wakefield/us-07.html [cmu.edu]
Re:How does this affect them? (Score:5, Informative)
In Germany, this could be prosecuted as coercion. However, the organizers figure that if you're gullible enough to go to such a trip in the first place, it's not very likely that you'll press charges.
Wo kein KlÃger, da kein Richter.
Re:As an Australian (Score:5, Informative)
Um, that's the core of the scientology "religion". You should know this.
And yes, it is indeed the fevered mumblings of a burnt-out science fiction author who has indulged in too much alcohol and too many prescription painkillers.
Somebody's sarcasm meter is broken.
Time to finish the job (Score:2, Informative)
Remember all those people from /b/ who went on massive protest raids early last year? A few of them are still at it. Head over to www.whyweprotest.net and see about joining in if this upsets you. If a bunch of teenage channers can pull off 10K people protesting worldwide, surely we slashdotters can give them a hand a few times a year and swell their numbers again to the point where Scientology will crumble. They have done massive damage to Scientology, but some greater numbers never hurt. Time to show Scientology you don't fuck around with the web. So grab a plastic mask and find your local protests and try to make the next one. Let's show these scum that enough is enough.
Re:Scientology is a dangerous cult (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Dangerous reading. (Score:5, Informative)
The ideas and principles that most religions are based on are sound and sane.
No they aren't. The ideas are pretty much all in fantasy land - dead people coming to back life, all-knowing, all-seeing mega-beings demanding we worship them, miracles being performed, etc., etc. etc. No sound or sane ideas there.
And principles...
When you look at the ideals of a few world religions (christianity, islam, judaism, buddhism, hinduism...), you'll notice that they all somehow focus on an attempt to get society to work well together. They all follow a more or less common moral standard: Don't steal. Don't kill. Don't lie. Try to live a "good" life and do "good" things. They promise rewards in the afterlife for this, which might be a bit too mystical for the secular mind of this time, but in general the intention behind it isn't so bad.
Nope, don't see that at all. For a start you're picking only them more moderate philosophies from the religious books and ignoring all the other, more extreme items - killing witches, killing adulterers, killing homosexuals, killing non-believers, etc. etc. ... and those are just the teachings of the bible. Religions are there to concentrate power in the hands of a few individuals and keep the masses in their place whether they be cults or major religions. They'll sell them to you as way to live your life better but that's not what they were created for...
Re:Scientology and the Credit Crunch (Score:5, Informative)
A very long time ago, a friend in our share house was given one of their "personality test" questionaires. I asked for a copy too, and got it. Said friend agonised over his questionnaire, and his answers were all over the page. It was a simple mark-sense sheet - remember those? Anyway, I said "watch this..." and I took a ruler and marked every question right down the middle. One to five, I marked three for all of them. I used the right home address, but a false name (my scam-o-meter being active even as a teenager in the late 60's).
I bet my friend my share of the utilities for that month that the "analysis" response would be identical.
The written response we got some days later and indeed, they were identical. I had won. And apparently, we were both "quite unique". And I had the joy of writing "not at this address" on all the mail sent to the false name I gave at that address. Unless they've razed that house, they're probably still getting letter spam.
Biggest damn con on the planet until Nigerian 419 arrived, in my opinion.
If the document mentioned is truthfull (Score:3, Informative)
What do you mean "IF", they are obviously making it up. Oh the fucking irony [apologeticsindex.org] of the "church" of CODology complaining about harassment.
Re:How does this affect them? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:As an Australian (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Dangerous reading. (Score:4, Informative)
History is replete with examples of people converted to Christianity simply by reading the Bible on their own without outside influence.
Without outside influence ?!? I call bullshit on that. There HAS to be peer pressure involved in order for somebody to believe that a burning bush can talk, a horse can fly or similar ridiculous inventions. Not having somebody watching over your shoulder with a stick is not necessary if the reward is joining a group that eats better, or knowing they won't kill you when the next wave of pogroms will start.
There are far more people who convert the other way, they force-read their bible all their childhood, sick from some of its content, and as soon as they are adults they feel free to give it up. Otherwise there wouldn't be any atheist around, now would they ?
To those who quit or never protested... (Score:2, Informative)
Not so fevered or alcoholized (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Scientology is a dangerous cult (Score:4, Informative)
Scientology is a cult because not merely because they're "in the early stages of religion" but because they actively seek out new members with misleading tactics ("free stress test" outside the subway station downtown), to materially and forcefully disconnect those who join from the wider world around them (we approve where you can live, where you can work, and don't talk to anyone who is remotely antagonistic just shun them totally), psychoanalyze them for blackmail material and neuroses they can exploit ("auditing"), and harass and intimidate critics and those who leave the religion. They're a dangerous cult because they employ lawyers - often lots of lawyers - to attack these critics.
With regards to Christianity, the early years of the Christian church didn't really present the option for "to live by the Bible" for a few decades (it had to be written and collated), nor were Christians noted for any amount of raping/killing/enslaving until some decent-sized kingdoms decided to be Christian in their off-hours (and continued to wage war on their fellow man from time to time).
As for the sanity of Christianity -- do note that the Orthodox/Catholic/certain-Anglicans believe it's not "symbolically" eating his flesh, it's really eating his flesh (just presented as bread so that people don't totally gross out). Of course, these same groups largely don't regard the Bible as tantamount to their religion: their religion is a tradition, one which happens to maintain a certain reasonably-important book (the Bible), and therefore they are capable of being more rational about things without being "hypocrites".
And finally, who here really doubts that there is some impulse to evil present in the souls (or hearts/minds if you prefer) of all men?
Re:As an Australian (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, there are numerous books that go into thorough detail, although not with the (questionably copyighted) inner documents fully quoted. "A Piece of Blue Sky" is amusing, and if you can find a copy, "The Scandal of Scientology", and there was an old Time Magazine article that got it basically right in less than 0 pages. You can also find much of the material through websites like www.xenu.net and www.factnet.org, although the documents are fragemented. It's hard to know what is complete or not, but it's enough of the inner material that the cult has been going off their rocker for decades about the general availability of these.
Look up what happened to Susan Meister for writing "The Scandal of Scientology", by the way. Mary Sue Hubbard's minions forged bomb threats to try and discredit Susan, and the related craziness got Mary Sue convicted along with some of the most devoted leadership of the cult, but the cult _still_ managed to wind up with the copyrights on the book to halt further publication.
Jesus was NOT a hippie (Score:5, Informative)
"I normally don't respond to flamebait, but someone modded you insightful."
What a coincidence. It's the same reason I'm responding to you.
"Maybe you were reading straight through and didn't finish until you got to the game-changing peace and love hippie stuff?"
If you think Christianity is all hippy peace and love stuff, then I'd suggest you finish reading the Bible, or take a second look. Even in the New Testament, God (and Christ) often got angry and displayed wrath. Jesus wasn't some Ghandi-ish peace and understanding guy. He said that if you didn't believe he was the Messiah, you were in for an eternity of sufferning. He often told people that it was better for them to suffer some horrible Earthly fate than to violate his teachings, because the punishment for that would be worse.
Turn the other cheek? He also said not so nice things.
"He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one." - Luke 22:36
In the book of Matthew, one morning Jesus wakes up and wants some breakfast. He comes to a fig tree, expecting fruit. When he sees the tree has produced none, he becomes angry, and curses the tree, causing it to wither and die, never to produce fruit again.
"And as they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance said unto him, âRabbi, behold, the fig tree which you cursed is withered away." - Mark 11:20
Anyone that thinks Jesus was some hippy "I'm OK, You're OK" kind of guy really has never read the Bible.
Repeat from 1995 (Score:3, Informative)
Remember ARSbomb [faqs.org]?
Scientology flooded USENET to keep their documents from being distributed.
However, as someone who believes in freedom, I think we're going to have to extend it to nutty cults. After all, we extend freedom to secular cults who believe 9-11 was an inside job, or that natural selection doesn't exist among humans.
We need to respect that Scientology is a choice, these people aren't morons, and while we (I, at least) disagree with their choice, it's their right.
People have the right to do things we/I think are insane, in other words.
This isn't funny anymore ... (Score:5, Informative)
With legal chicanery I mean e.g. leveling a barrage of nuisance lawsuits at an opponent with the objective of bankrupting the victim by forcing him to expend ruinous sums on legal counsel, or alternatively by securing unfounded convictions against the victim where he has been unable to mount an adequate legal defense (See e.g. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/Declaration/exhibg.html [cmu.edu]).
An additional form of chicanery is to drop charges against a victim who does mount an adequate defense in order to avoid unfavorable precedents from being set against the sect (see http://www.rechtspraak.nl/Gerechten/HogeRaad/Actualiteiten/Hoge+Raad+verwerpt+het+cassatieberoep+in+de+zaak+Scientology+providers+en+Spaink.htm [rechtspraak.nl] (in Dutch)).
Of course the wave of counter-harassment and even threats (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology [wikipedia.org]) goes too far. But what the Cult now pleads for is to introduce a totally ambiguous definition of "Websites created with primary purpose of inciting religious vilification" (read: "anybody who says something to the effect that the Scientology sect is a nasty, dangerous, for-profit outfit") and strip those of anonymity or even the right to exist at all. In plain text: anyone who writes anything against the Scientology cult will now be exposed to harassment lawsuits, career wrecking, and intimidation (see the Fishman affidavit in one of the links above).
The full text of the "recommendations" I reproduce below:
What part of this looks as if it provides any safeguards against the most appalling abuse? Where are the checks and balances? Who determines what is "misinformation", or "incitement of religious vilification"? Would quoting court documents that state the Scientology sect pr
Re:How does this affect them? (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah they have stalls at little markets around the place and give out free "stress tests". No writing to say what organisation, being intrigued and board found the stand, took one look, promptly voiced my opinion about their scam and went on my merry way.
I do the opposite, they frequent the centre of my city with clipboard and pen asking people to "answer a quick question" I always stop and take their survey then pretend to be interested taking as much of their time as possible. Turns out that they're actually interested in selling me books, so I ask lots of questions about the book. Never once do the mention Scientology. Eventually they refer me to a more senior member who more or less tells me to get lost. So I leave having wasted a good half hour of their time. That's a few lost sales there.
Re:How does this affect them? (Score:3, Informative)
And they have your photograph on file.
Re:Scientology is a dangerous cult (Score:0, Informative)
Re:Scientology is a dangerous cult (Score:1, Informative)
You should really look into this Mother Theresa character that you seem to like. She wasn't this wonderful character who cared for the sick. She loved to watch people suffer and die. She didn't try to treat them, she just wanted them to come die in her facilities. She took money from some very bad people and didn't do a damn thing to help people.
Re:Figures... (Score:2, Informative)
Note that Scientology has been previously prohibited in some States in Australia. And at various times they were forced to discontinue some of their practices due to expert testimony saying how dangerous the techniques where.
Most recently they were in the news here for using te children of members as slave labor, They claimed to run education problems (as a replacement for conventional schooling).
"A Piece of Blue Sky" (Score:2, Informative)
You can download a PDF version of the book here for free. It is out of print.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/atack/ [cmu.edu]