Scientology's Fraud Conviction Upheld In France 321
schwit1 writes "France's top appeals court has upheld a fraud conviction and fines totaling hundreds of thousands of euros against the Church of Scientology, for taking advantage of vulnerable followers. France regards Scientology as a cult, not a religion, and had prosecuted individual Scientologists before, but the 2009 trial marked the first time the organization as a whole had been convicted. 'The head of a parliamentary group on religious cults in France, lawmaker Georges Fenech, hailed the ruling. 'Far from being a violation of freedom of religion, as this American organization contends, this decision lifts the veil on the illegal and highly detrimental practices' of the group, said Fenech. The court case followed a complaint by two women, one of whom said she was manipulated into handing over 20,000 euros in 1998 for Scientology products including an "electrometer" to measure mental energy. A second woman claimed she was forced by her Scientologist employer to undergo testing and enrol in courses, also in 1998. When she refused she was fired.'"
..everyone remember to post as AC ! (Score:3, Insightful)
Scientology might be a cult (Score:3, Insightful)
But they don't behead unbelievers or crash airliners into buildings. Of course, that's probably why the French feel it's safe to fine Scientology.
Lol (Score:3, Insightful)
One Down (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientology is a religion (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Scientology is the truth (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientology is the truth! Both Tom Cruise _and_ John Travolta are scientologists. Do you believe me now?
What, that it's been nothing but a sham and a glorified tax shelter for the elitists of society since inception?
A societal metric of ignorance by trying to present a known science fiction writer as a source of absolute truth and fact behind the origins of this "religion"? (as if there were a factual purpose behind the story of Xenu)
Fuck yes I believe you.
Re:Scientology might be a cult (Score:1, Insightful)
yes when are they going to go after Islam and Christianity , Oh and lets not forget the American cult of worshiping the Dollar and the gun.
Re:Scientology: (Score:0, Insightful)
Proof that freedom of Religion isn't always a good thing...
Apparently Freedom of Ignorance is more important. It's the very basis of most religions, as so many call for your faith to come forward, and not your educated mind.
Regarded as a cult? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing about regarding, it is a fact. Scientology IS a cult.
How could anyone possible think otherwise considering what the founder said?
"You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion."
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard [wikiquote.org]
Re:..everyone remember to post as AC ! (Score:5, Insightful)
And the "audit log" is something completely different.
Re:Scientology is the truth (Score:5, Insightful)
It always looked to me like a third-rate science fiction author making up a religion that looks like his third-rate science fiction.
The amazing thing is that people have swallowed it, even people with lots of money, which might be taken as an indicator that they'd know better.
P.T. Barnum was right.
John Doe
(Son, brother, and father to those who wrote the "Closet" South Park episode.)
Re:The only difference between a cult and a religi (Score:5, Insightful)
"I have just as much authority as the Pope, but fewer people believe it."
George Carlin
Re:Good! It's not a religion (Score:5, Insightful)
All of the Abrahamic religions are based on about the same amount of proof and evidence. If you doubt one, you must doubt them all and for the same reasons. Just because Joseph Smith pulled the same stunt more recently and on this continent doesn't invalidate that the basis, principles and mechanics of the religion. So as you point to one aspect which is wrong with the LDS church, there is an analogue of the same problem in the other Abrahamic religions. And to be clear, they are all Abrahamic religions.
To me, that's the most ridiculous aspect of religious people. They are quick to point at others and completely miss that it's a huge matter of all the pots calling each other black. "Oh but my religion is different!" Yeah sure it is. If any of them are different, it's Islam and only because it was founded by a frikken murderous warlord.
My initial reaction to the story was "Good! Now maybe people will begin to see the others as stupid too!" Perhaps not. Religion holds back the potential of the human mind. So long as we can accept two opposing ideas as fact and so long as belief is more powerful than fact, humans will be crippled slaves and will not survive the next mass extinction event. We still can't get beyond our primitive need for monetary exchange because no one does anything "for mankind." Everything requires someone else get paid for something and we will continue to exploit workers until their miserable deaths. Religion is the distraction being used to keep people thinking about something other than reality.
Re:Scientology is the truth (Score:5, Insightful)
What, that it's been nothing but a sham and a glorified tax shelter for the elitists of society since inception?
And this differs from other "legitimate" religions ... how?
Re:Scientology: (Score:2, Insightful)
They're free to believe whatever they want, but what they're not allowed to do is harm others. If they harm people (scam them, physically harm them, cause them to die by giving them nonsensical advice on how to cure a disease or illness, etc.), they can be prosecuted for it. It has little to do with freedom of religion.
Re:Regarded as a cult? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why discriminate against religions invented in this century vs the ones created prior? They're either all religions or they're all cults. The latter term is more apt in most cases. Take Catholicism. Excommunication: Come out as an atheist and the whole community, even ones family will shun you... 10% of your income in tithes, that's fucking expensive 'eh? In some cases moreso than CoS fees. The whole "you're unclean unless you do these rituals" and guilt trips... Same as CoS body thetans. Influencing governments in the name of furthering their ideology, denouncing contraceptives and indoctrinating kids before they have the cognitive skills to question the beliefs, etc. etc.
Yet Catholicism is a "legitimate" religion where Scientology is not? They both regularly make up bogus shite, and are purposefully deceptive. The Vatican knows the "virgin birth" was a mistranslation error, [youtube.com] and yet they don't dare correct the public version they interpreted of their "holy" book.
Of course it's a cult. It's members are religious...
Re:Good! It's not a religion (Score:4, Insightful)
Scientology is a cult, it's entire story is based off a science fiction novel written by man who wanted to make a religion! All of that would be fine but then to charge your members fees to read from books is kind of messed up, that would be like the library charging you based on every book you took out. I don't see how any logical adult can honestly see Scientology as anything but a joke, it's only slightly more a joke then the Mormon based religion, both of which have near 0 evidence for what they take as fact.
And Islam is the "revealed truth" that its prophet made up. And Christianity reveals the "word of God" through the medium of a mystic who thought he was the messiah. And the Buddha came up with his own ideas for a religion. I guess a non-cult religion is one derived millenia ago from various polytheistic myths (Hinduism, Shinto, Paganism) but somebody, somewhere made that stuff up too.
Re:Scientology: (Score:5, Insightful)
Tolerance means refraining from using coercion to stop people from doing things that piss you off. An enlightened society tolerates religious differences, but not crime.
Scientology pisses me off, but I am prepared to tolerate its existence. I will speak out against it but I do not want the government (French or my own) to forcibly shut it down or punish people just for following it. What I am not prepared to tolerate is criminal behavior by individual Scientologists. If they defrauded people, lock 'em up like Bernie Madoff. I am not ashamed to be intolerant of fraud.
So I don't think freedom of religion is a bad thing. The fraud is not a result of religious freedom, it's a result of immoral choices by members of a religious organization.
Re:Scientology: (Score:5, Insightful)
99% of their scam is to pretend to be a religion to make it more difficult to stop their scam. They are no more a religion than My Little Pony fandom is. It's not as if we don't have dozens of clues that it's a scam.
Freedom of Religion is irrelevant in this case since we only have the word of the obvious scammers themselves that it's a "Religion", while we also have their word that it's a good way to dodge tax and that they took up the "Religion" angle late in the game after "Dianetics".
No, using the word "religion" is precisely what makes Freedom of Religion relevant - doesn't matter who says it, doesn't matter who believes it.
What is wrong, and what is not in the Constitution, is that any religions are tax exempt. They are all in business - might be the business of saving souls, but the only outward sign is that they're in the business of drinking wine, lighting candles and ringing bells for fun and entertainment. They all should be taxed just like any other nightclub.
Give nobody any perverse incentives to create one, and we'll have a lot fewer of them to deal with.
Re:Scientology is the truth (Score:4, Insightful)
He wasn't a third rate science fiction author though. Read his book Final Blackout, about the war in Europe. In 1939, he correctly predicted which country would use the first nuclear bomb in warfare. (Spoiler, it was the US.) Back in the heyday of scifi, he was one of the biggest names.
Also, if you consider he knew enough about the human mind, as well as society, that he created a really crazy set of beliefs and got people to accept them. There are plenty of crackpot false messiahs out there. Not many build a system like his, and have it survive so well after the messiah's death.
He built a fictional world, and got others to believe in it. That's what writers do. So, please, don't consider him to be just another third-rate science fiction author.
You don't have to be a good author to make an occasional accurate prediction. Some really bad books have done as much. And how much of his fame was due to a talent for self-promotion I don't know; I never considered him one of the "big names" in SF.
Actually, I've only read one of his works, which was a Battlefield Earth volume I chanced to pick off the library shelf years ago. The main character reminded me of how the power figures often behave in Phillip K. Dick novels: corrupt, venal, self-serving, not very competent and prone to panic when their little worlds fall apart. But usually one can identify with the villains in a PKD story. LRon's nemesis was just an idiot. I don't even remember what the book was about, beyond an alien warlord tasked with softening up the Earth for invasion but actually wasting time feathering his nest.
So I'd have to call his writing third-rate. Forgettable.
Re:Scientology is the truth (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty sure it's been central to all of the world's major religions from time to time.
So (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Scientology is the truth (Score:5, Insightful)
Cult: A small, unpopular religion.
Religion: A large, popular cult.