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."
Good luck mate (Score:5, Interesting)
Australia is probably the absolute worst place for them to push this. 30% to 40% of the population is non-religious, and our mindset is one of "suck it up" with respect to shit like this. This reeks of bully boy tactics and that doesn't sit well with Aussies.
Anyway I doubt it'd pass the Senate for other reasons. Between the Greens, Family First, Liberal, and Labour, 3 of those are strong Christian parties, and the other is strongly secular and radically opposed to censorship.
Re:How does this affect them? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, now. Scientology isn't a pyramid scheme. Even though they share a few traits like the ones on the top getting rich while the ones at the bottom pay for it.
Their marketing scheme has more in common with what in German speaking countries is known as a "Kaffeefahrt". The business scheme works like this: You get some snail spam where you're told you won some nice prize (a new TV or something) and a bus trip to some godforsaken place. If you're gullible (and usually, old) enough to fall for it, you're loaded on a bus and shipped off to some inn there, where you will endure a sales presentation lasting no less than 4-5 hours, with the unspoken (or often spoken) threat that we're not going home 'til enough people bought the junk offered. Your big prize is usually some piece of junk as well, there are some (more or less serious) lists circulating the internet what those grand prizes really are. Example: A "candlelight dinner"? Right. 2 candles, 2 noodle cups.
Re:So.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hrmm, what needs to happen, is Anonymous needs to declare itself a religion, then this horrid battle by the Co$ to suppress and vilify them could be stopped!
Re:Dangerous reading. (Score:2, Interesting)
Well... no.
The ideas and principles that most religions are based on are sound and sane. 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.
I do agree that they outlived their original function, i.e. working as the means to keep people in check with the "all seeing eye of God" or whatever, where he (she, they, it's all good) see everything and will rip you a new one after death even if you escape judgement here. We replaced that with surveillance cams in this time and age. Still, I think it would be in general better for the whole of society if people got more "moral" and we somehow found a way to instill in them the idea that stealing/killing/etc is just not ok.
They also failed due to their local "users", the people who wield power due to being religious leaders. Invariably, you will find few cult/religion leaders that don't abuse their position to gain wealth and power, even working diametrally against their own religion's teachings. This isn't what religion was created for. But I ramble.
In general, religons should not be needed anymore. We got other means today that work better when it comes to keeping people in check. Still, a general code of moral would be nice. I wouldn't want to watch my back all the time to avoid getting a knife stuck where the sun doesn't shine because I got something someone else wants.
Re:Coincidence (Score:3, Interesting)
I say pass it... (Score:5, Interesting)
And then immediately pass a law that says Scientology is not a religion.
Re:Midnight Oil (Score:3, Interesting)
A form of uranium mining that is illegal in the US and Russia. After everything he said - Unbe-fucking-leivable
Re:Coincidence (Score:2, Interesting)
You can legally obtain the Operating Thetan [spaink.net] documents, too
Might need an interpreter, though, to make sense of it all - and that's where the brainwashing will begin...
Re:Dangerous reading. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Scientology is a dangerous cult (Score:3, Interesting)
It's banned in some European countries, too. In the rest, it's not a religion.
I can't help but feel that it's a matter of time. But really I don't see the difference between diluted Christians/Jews/Muslims/Buddhists/Hinduists and Scientologists. It is truly egocentric to think that Aliens planting life on earth is more absurd than an invisible man in the sky. And by egocentric I mean that the invisble man theory is so permeated into the western culture that people tend to ignore how crazy it actually sounds.
Re:Dangerous reading. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ehhh, I strongly take issue with your "stop being a hater" comment.
Have you ever considered that people may have very ethical reasons for strongly disliking religion? I for one strongly reject the concept that religions teach you that it doesn't matter how good or how ethical of a person you are: if you don't follow that religion, you will be punished in one way or another for eternity.
How can any thinking person accept that possibilities exist for violent criminals to go to Heaven, while the door is shut to completely harmless people who happened to either not be religious or follow the wrong religion.
And how can any one not be troubled by "gods" who go out of their way to be completely undetectable by any other means than our imagination?
I also reject the way religion is being taught in churches: it's one-way communication with endless repetition of a very small set of events that supposedly took place and that would NOT pass scrutiny in this day and age. Immaculate conception, uh-huh. How about a DNA test first? :-)
While I respect the right of people to follow nonsense, there is really no other word than "nonsense" to accurately describe death-denialism tripe.
That being said, Scientology is not like a regular religion at all. Simply put, it's the most expensive sci-fi book in the world, and not even a very good one at that.
Who wrote the document? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Dangerous reading. (Score:2, Interesting)
That's one of the single most important points Dawkins makes in The God Delusion: modern morals cannot be derived from a holy book. Those who do fall in two categories: a minority of the believers will follow each law (which is probably not even possible because of contradictions within the book). Most believers cherry pick the laws that actually make sense and reject those (burning of homosexual shellfish on their periods) that are down right crazy. But based on which moral code did they discriminate between the sound laws and the crazy ones ?
Re:Dangerous reading. (Score:2, Interesting)
There is a difference between the Church of Scientology, and the major world religions: the major religions will never try to separate you from your friends or your family, while the CoS will have this as their main goal, in order to control and manipulate you better.
Dear scifitologists (Score:3, Interesting)
You are free to be morons. Just like I am free to say you are morons.
Thank you.
Re:Dangerous reading. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Dangerous reading. (Score:3, Interesting)
MrKaos, it looks like you have a chip on your shoulder. I will respond to a number of your points that stood out.
When I see the Scientologists doing this *then* they can call themselves a religion,
Is google.com really so hard to find? Here, just took 10 seconds:
http://www.1888pressrelease.com/kelly-preston-hosts-scientology-charity-concert-in-uk-pr-81907.html [1888pressrelease.com]
Even if your assertion were true, it would still be a strange argument: there is no definition of religion that says it has to engage in charity work. Rather, it is a human value that is most definitely not unique to religions. Religions just try to gobble up universal human values and pass them off as their own.
So, my dear apathetic atheist, what have you done to confront systemic evil?
The "apathetic atheist" has confronted all religious beliefs. You only have "the balls" to stand up to a minority religion that is almost universally hated, the atheist has the balls to stand up against *all* religions and all supernatural beliefs. Religion is one of the oldest evils there is and it needs to be confronted.
Now it is good that you have somehow given it a positive turn, but what you consider as your religion has very little to do with the bible. Human rights, particularly freedom of religion, directly conflicts with what religions want (e.g. see Ten Commandments). You can't read a bible and take anything literally, no, you have to use interpretations, symbolism and context. It rests entirely on your own interpretation, where anything you can think of is The Truth.
I do believe the term "atheist" is a misnomer, however. The term "naturalist" or "materialist" is much more fitting, since an atheist will usually reject *all* supernatural claims including astrology, numerology, etc. Anything that's nonsense and cannot be verified, basically.
If we look at what *all* religions have in common, it is that at their core, they deny the reality of death. Therefore, religious people should be called "athanatists" :-)
Re:How does this affect them? (Score:3, Interesting)
Which is why the US has "in God We Trust" on its currency I guess?
Seperation, whats that?
Re:Scientology is a dangerous cult (Score:3, Interesting)
Technically, the only difference between a religion and a cult is the legitimization of the cult by a majority of non-believers or recognition by government. All religions began as cults, Christianity especially. But the FBI defines a cult differently in terms of the groups activities, particularly the role of a cult leader. As you mentioned, cults tend to cut their members off from mainstream society. That is one of the litmus tests the FBI has for deciding whether a group is a cult. Also, not all cults are theological; they just need be ideological. For example, the FBI has in the past considered Amway a cult because of cult-like behavior despite the group being commercial rather than religious.