Wikileaks Airs Scientology Black Ops 509
An anonymous reader alerts us to new material up on Wikileaks: 208 scanned pages (in one PDF) relating to the Church of Scientology and its former "Office of Special Affairs" employee (and subsequent apostate) Frank Oliver. "The documents are dated between 1986 and 1992 inclusive, when, according to the file, Frank Oliver was declared a 'suppressive person' and excommunicated. Frank Oliver should be able to verify the material and has appeared in the media before on subjects relating to the church. Starting on page 107, the document shows that at the time of writing the Church of Scientology was still actively engaged in black propaganda (especially concerning psychiatry), 'fair game' and infiltration."
Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Insightful)
slashdotted (Score:5, Funny)
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Being linked to a literal act of terrorism would be the end of Scientology in the US.
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>They survived the aftermath of Operation "Snow White" with no long-term consequences.
Several people were tried, convicted, and served lengthy prison sentences, putting the church in
the public eye and simultaneously making it a laughingstock. One long-term consequence was that
the media exposure about the church reached the attention of one Ivan Stang, inspiring him to start
a competing scam religious cult company.
Re:slashdotted (Score:5, Interesting)
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Media (at least outside of "web only") together with politicians and law enforcement would have to deal with the fact that they have been treating terrorism as exclusivly something to do with Islam for most of this decade. Even to the point of downplaying ignoring Jewish and Christian terrorists, who are likely to have a lot more in common with Islamic ones than anyone connected with Scientology. By choosing to misrepresent terrorist these people have painted themselves into a corner.
Re:Scientologists deserve a medal (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:4, Funny)
Ugh... I hate PDF... it makes me look like someone interested in actually reading TFA...
This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Funny)
Now that's what I call a good story.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm curious; why wouldn't you confuse it with a religion? What is a 'modern day' religion?
I ask these questions as a Christian myself, and a regular old boring protestant one at that.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Interesting)
If I asked you what you believe, you would point me to materials I can read, tell me yourself, or point me to someone else who can explain it better.
Scientology forces you to pay lots of money and undergo questionable interrogations before they will trust you to with their secrets. By which point you have made a huge emotional and financial investment. So it's unlikely you would question what you are being told anyway.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh and the fact that the "founder" pretty much straight up acknowledges that he made up the fictitious "religion" *cough*Cult*cough* to sell books and make money.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as I can see of how people actually use the terms 'cult' and 'religion'...
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Informative)
A cult, in other words, has elements of personality-worship in it. Religions are old enough to claim that the founder's personality could not have unduly influenced their membership.
In my opinion, a lot of it is a matter of a qualitative differences in what they do. There's a number of things. Some people in certain religions will try to bring you back if you leave. Cults, on the other hand, may blackmail, harass or threaten people who try to depart. Many religions ask for money; Scientology asks for money, and spends it on lawsuits against its critics. Many religions have people who approach you on the street and tell you that you need to convert or $badstuff (with varying degrees of pushiness). Scientology sets up a table with a "Free Stress Test" (presumably designed to be rather Scientific-looking) first to attract passerbys, then when you test positive for stress they try to sell you various courses, then ease into the dogma later.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:4, Insightful)
>It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members
Religions don't need to do that: they teach to children: it's much more easy to influence children than adults, but I don't think that it is better..
>It forms an elitist totalitarian society.
Well the vatican looks to me as fitting this description.
>Its founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has charisma.
A good definition of the pope job, he's not the founder but he has the same role.
The people who thinks that modern religions aren't very dangerous should try to think as if they were gay, what would you think about religions?
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Funny)
I'd think that if they perhaps add some color to those robes they would be more fabulous!
Simple Solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Scientology sets up a table with a "Free Stress Test" (presumably designed to be rather Scientific-looking) first to attract passerbys
When they pester you with their stupid personality test (which only points out what a screwed up person you really are, no matter what) I found a simple and reliable method:
Explain to the friendly Scientologist[TM] that he probably is not allowed to talk to you, since you get Ritalin prescribed by your psych (Scieno-talk for psychiatrist / psychologists) then watch and wonder.
Works like a charm.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:4, Interesting)
I would definitely say that if we call LDS a cult, we must continue to call the Catholic Church a cult. The principle is the same: a religious group built around a cult of personality, where the original leader is subsequently replaced by a series of leaders chosen according to the originator's alleged principles.
The only difference - and I mean this honestly and without irony or sarcasm - between the cult/religion status of the Mormon and Catholic churches is time. That doesn't mean they aren't perceived differently, but it does mean that many people aren't being fair to LDS.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:4, Informative)
If you build a Radio Shack lie-detector kit, you can also experiment with the results of their "e-meter", which is nothing but a very expensive and not very sophisticated resistance-meter based lie-detector.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Insightful)
People with severe mental issues are frequently prescribed drugs to try to alleviate those issues.
Correlation DOES NOT EQUAL causation. In fact the most recent school shooting I can remember occurred when the shooter stopped taking his drugs and regressed to a much worse state. Clearly the drugs were at least holding his psychosis in check while he was taking them. To put your statement in a clearer light, "the 9-11 hijackers took aspirin when they had head-aches! Ban aspirin, it causes hijackers!"
The story from the beginning (Score:5, Funny)
At the dining room table, two couples playing bridge:
LRH: My books aren't selling. Who makes the most popular books?
RAH: The Boy Scouts. After that the Q'uran and the Bible.
LRH: Religion sure sells a lot of books.
RAH: Yeah, I thought about writing out some book for that a while back. I turned it into a short story "Gulf".
LRH: I don't think you could do it with a short story. All the big religions have high word counts. I would think a trilogy at least.
RAH: I could do it in one book.
LRH: I bet a dollar I could do it better than you.
RAH: Done and done. Now shuffle the cards.
... Three years later ...
LRH: Can you believe it? I've got groupies! They worship me!
RAH: You can have mine too if you want them. They're camped on the lawn. They're scaring Ginny. Here's your buck. The bet's over.
LRH: Win!
RAH: Whatever. Shuffle the cards.
Re:The story from the beginning (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Insightful)
Modern religions have a theology or a philosophy and they actively share that with their peers and others, while a particular translation of a religions holy book may be copyrighted, the original is not, a person can typically obtain the holy book of any modern religion simply by asking; scientology text are copyrighted and the copyrights, trademarks and servicemarks are vigorously defended, the only way to legally obtain scientology texts are to purchase them and not even the CoS members in good standing have access to the totality of the "religion" Scientology is secretive rather than open like modern religions. Scientology just doesn't fit any definition of religion that applies to modern religions, it's a form of shammanism or which doctor-ism where only the annoited have the secret knowledge reveled to them who then shake their beads and rattles for the unwashed masses.
In Church of Scientology, God is You! (Score:5, Informative)
This is pretty similar to other religious claims, I think. It covers all the basic tickboxes: "you are more important than non-believers", "you get everlasting life" and "you get to be like God". I think it is specifically tuned for extremely arrogant people, though, because there is no notion of God as something better than you, that you can at best only aspire to be like. I think this is a deliberate choice by LRH, who liked hanging around with film stars and seems to have figured out what they wanted to hear:
LRH: You're the most important guy in the Universe!
Tom Cruise: I already knew that, L. Ron. Have some more of my money!
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:4, Insightful)
Take any religion that has some more or less major impact, be it monotheistic or polytheistic, from Christianity to Hinduism, it creates a moral code that enables people to cooperate as a collective without jumping at each other's throats. Whether you agree with the morals is another matter, but generally religions served what we try to solve technically through surveillance, now that people aren't afraid of some sort of divine boogeyman anymore: That people "behave". The religious approach is that some all seeing big brother in the guise of some god or gods notice all your crimes and will punish you in some sort of afterlife.
I can't think of a religion now that requires you to be very efficient in making money for the church. I also don't know a single "normal" religion that requires you to disclose every single weakness or shortcoming you have so it has blackmail material against you. I also can't think of any religion that promises you anything for this life, they usually put a lot of emphasis on your afterlife, your next life or some other divine/enlightened/elevated state you will attain if you "behave" right.
So, I'd say yes, there are a few differences between religion and a cult 'round some (rather bad) SciFi writer. In another way, I'd rather be a Jedi than a Thetan. It's also just SciFi, but at least the story is better.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:4, Insightful)
i'd say control over people was the primary goal.
financial gains and other benefits just resulted from that, and were gladly accepted.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Interesting)
1) All real religions will gladly tell you what they're about before hand. 2) No real religion will brainwash you into mortgaging your house. 3) No real religion protects their materials by copyright, so they can do #2, and use the law to squelch leaks and critics. 4) No real religion will make you disconnect from your friends and family, so you will have nobody to instill some sense into you--and stop you from doing #2. 5) All real religions on this planet are inclusive, instead of exclusive.
I could go on and on (and on and on), but I really don't want fingertip blisters pointing out stuff that's obvious to the un-brainwashed masses after they've completed about 10 minutes of research (2 of which might be clicking on google links).
What is a 'modern day' religion?
I'm guessing he means any religion that is widely practiced, and has evolved enough to be generally accepted as (at least) "mostly not evil" by most people (especially by most who don't practice that particular religion). For instance, there's plenty of passages from the old testament, and all of the Abrahamic traditions, which are not generally acknowledged as being things which apply to the modern world; and extremists who believe these things are generally shunned from the mainstream of their own religion. Islam is probably the one exception to the last part, because Islamic extremists are often heroes within their communities. So, whatever.
That scientology eventually teaches the idea that some Xenu character planted frosty dead people and hydrogen bombs in the Worlds' volcanoes, and that they have these ghosts stuck to them doesn't particularly enrage most of the scientology critics I know; it's their abuses and covertly hostile nature that disturbs them, and me. Fact is, that part isn't all that much different from other equally silly stories religions teach.
Still, the fact that it was dreamed up by some twice divorced sea-faring, drugged up satanic NAMBLA perv, is a lot less noble than the supposed origins of the other religions... And scientology makes it out that LRH was a 7' tall descendant of European nobility, who shot rainbows and unicorns out of his ass. So, because of that, add this to my list: 6) It's easily demonstrable that a) the people who run scientology are either purely malevolent because of the lies and contradictions in their teachings, or b) they're incredibly incompetent nincompoops who couldn't find their asses with both hands.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Interesting)
When Bin Laden calls for a Jihad against the US, we can say that it isn't Islam that's at fault, because the religion of Islam itself grants no inherent authority to Bin Laden, he simply twists some of its teachings.
However, if the Pope were to call for a Crusade and start up a new Inquisition, and Catholics (or at least enough of them) were to go along with him, we would be more justified holding Catholicism at fault. It teaches obedience to the Pope and its core leadership would have initiated the action.
You can certainly separate the religion from its followers. However, with Scientology you have a situation where the leadership of the church practices abusive actions against individuals, the majority of its followers go along with the abusive practices of the leadership (or are unaware of them), and the teachings of the church often call for those abusive practices. It's because of this that many people lay the blame on the church as a whole.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:4, Funny)
Well, according to Aus. Bureau of Statistics, "Jedi" is one. That is, it's resurgence is modern; it's origins were long ago, in a galaxy far far away...
Oh and I'm a strict constructionist Pastafarian myself, I guess that one's fairly new. Arrrr.
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I agree, it should be confused with modern day religions, since all are groups of adults believing in fictional stories and allowing them to control their lives.
As my wonderful Grandmother (she'd beat me for calling her that, she's my Nan) has always said when questioned about her unwavering belief in the Christ God, she would rather believe and be wrong, than not believe and be wrong.
Or, to quote some lyrics from a Strapping Young Lad song, "Believe what you want to believe... just believe.".
You must be young though. It seems most people of my generation and younger go through a phase where they think they're so clever believing (any) God does not exist, and
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Interesting)
The wager is uniformly understood by anyone with a passing understanding of logic to be facially invalid and incorrect.
The reason is simple: the wager makes the blatantly false assumption that believing in God while alive has no cost. Moreover, it fails to account for the fact that the 'value' of a cost paid over time is intrinsically linked to the duration of your existence (i.e. your 'life' plus any 'afterlife' you may have). If God doesn't exist, and you believe in God while alive, you pay the maximal price of wasting all that time and energy (along with all the missed opportunities this entails) during the entirety of your existence. It is difficult, if not impossible, to believe that this cost is not greater than living an actual life of happiness without a deity followed by an afterlife of 'hell'.
Moreover, belief out of fear of the results of being wrong is no belief at all: it is a shallow, deceitful pretense of belief. It is an insult to the very God you would claim to believe in, by virtue of saying that the only reason you believe is that you think it would be too costly not to believe. This is like a person who abstains from murder not out of respect for life, but rather out of avoidance of the prison-sentence. That person is a monstrous imitation of morality, not a moral man.
Belief, if you value it at all, must spring from an honest embrace of some purported truth. It cannot spring from a callow desire to avoid consequences.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Insightful)
And if your God is real, do you think he won't know that all the good YOU did was because you were afraid of burning in hell for all eternity?
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Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know about about the OP's children, but my GF's nieces made me a believer. After all, if God exists, so does Satan.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Interesting)
I know the cult is sue-happy and has successes under its belt, but wikileaks is set up *specifically* for this. The documents are out, they're on servers worldwide already, and a dozen bit torrents as well. There is no way to suppress this even if they were to somehow take down all of wikileaks.
Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the things I have seen about the Church of Scientology, from postings on alt.religion.scientology and other areas, is that, no matter how things turn out, they cannot believe that their "tech" won't work. (Part of that is because changing any of the "tech" is considered a crime against the church, called "squirreling".) Therefore, members will be assigned to keep either churning out "cease-and-desist" letters to any ISP that might be hosting a Wikileaks server, or will be posting information to try to drown out the information there.
But even if it doesn't work, they keep doing the same old things, in the same old way - because their religion tells them that it must work.
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Remember what happened last time (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Remember what happened last time (Score:5, Informative)
-Peter
Re:Remember what happened last time (Score:5, Funny)
My condolences to your family, good sir.
Here come da judge! (Score:5, Funny)
Anonymous marches March 15. (Score:5, Informative)
Are you going to be there? Find the closest church and be there! [enturbulation.org]
It is your civic duty. I hope to march alongside you.
Screw civic duty (Score:4, Informative)
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And that's terrible.
Prepare for the migration... (Score:4, Funny)
On a completely unrelated note... (Score:5, Funny)
You've given me an idea for a wicked prank (Score:5, Funny)
An eMeter [wikipedia.org] is really just a wheatstone bridge, right? All they're really doing is just measuring your resistance by inducing a tiny current through you.
Go into one of these centers and have them hook you up. Lick your other palm and every so often jam a 9v battery against it. Screw with the guy's mind. Keep twitching the needle at just the right time and see if you can convince them you're L. Ron reincarnated or something like that.
If you're really good, make some sort of a Van de Graff generator and use it to build up a gigantic static charge on you before you get hooked up. See if you can actually bust the thing.
Re:You've given me an idea for a wicked prank (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think carrying a charge could break one: the ones I've gotten to look at didn't have much vulnerable electronics. They used a transistor to drive the meter itself, based on the differential voltage across the bridge.
Passed the test, going for the brass ring (Score:5, Interesting)
This is probably the best time to do it, though, while WikiLeaks still has quite a lot of active attention because of the Julius Baer legal business.
I just hope they didn't waste some of that capital calling for the eNom boycott [slashdot.org]. Not exactly the same level of "evil"....
But I guess we'll see, either way. Stay tuned -- same bat-time, same bat-channel!
This is hilarious (Score:5, Funny)
being of sound mind...CONTRACT MYSELF FOR THE NEXT NEXT BILLION YEARS...
As the original submitter... (Score:5, Informative)
As the original submitter of the article, I'd like to mention that it is the now the second Wikileaks held set of documents for Scientology. Though I must apologize for the badly written rushed body of the firehose article, it's the linked content that is important :
Citizens Commission on Human Rights" (CCHR) exposed as an illegal Scientology front. [slashdot.org] exposes their LEAF (Letter to the Editor ATTACK Force) campaign, and illegal govt lobbying.
Many apologize to the Wikileaks admins for the /. effect, but this news HAD to be made public.
To the $clilos - Disclaimer - I did not personally leak these documents, nor did Slashdot, I'm merely posting legal links.
The peaceful protests of Anonymous against the CoS are also legal. Anonymous is ONLY protesting the CoS organization, no other religion and not religious beliefs themselves. There is a campaign of fabricating/doctoring Anonymous protest images and footage to try to frame Anonymous for anti-religious protests (they started by attempting to attack the Vatican): take a guess at who might want to be doing that!
Rather worrying, a similar anti Anonymous "ad hominem" attack force is trying to re-define the cake meme from the game Portal into one about underage pornography.
PS. Everything I post is posted via strings of proxies and most importantly Tor !
(wish it was faster, and didn't have so many problems with slashdot, lol)
Send them to Venus (Score:5, Funny)
We then encourage all the COS members to migrate to Venus to separate them from the unclean non-believers.
IMHO, COS members are all "B Ark" material anyway!
This is quite scary (Score:5, Informative)
This is scarier than any horror film ever could be. Thank god Wikileaks. Kudos to Frank Oliver.
Re:This is quite scary (Score:5, Interesting)
Never if you can help it. It consumes time, means little but trouble for you. Suits are basically best as threats.
How bad can it get? We have evidence in a book Dr. Winder wrote. He knew it consisted of stolen ideas and enthete lies. Every code it sold killed him a little more. And one day he died
L. Ron Hubbard
The reason the United States is losing against communism is simply on these same mathematics. That they are losing is patent. All they are doing is defending the points attacked.
I can see the parallels of religion to CoS, but I have to say this goes way beyond any religion. Nothing other than a cult would write such aggressive, practical advice on silencing critics as this. With Immams declaring fatwahs at least that's not actually an officially sanctioned part of Islam, with Scientology it is.
I think all the media attention will eventually kill scientology. Hearing about "Xenu" has been worse for Scientology than hearing about even the worst silencing of critics, blackmail, and manslaughter.
Best parts start on page 100 (Score:5, Interesting)
Analysis threads & more leaked docs (Score:3, Informative)
http://forums.enturbulation.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6291 [enturbulation.org]
Also there are two threads on released e-mail dumps on CCHR ("Citizen's Commission on Human Rights" - a Scientology front group) being discussed here:
http://forums.enturbulation.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6059 [enturbulation.org]
and here:
http://forums.enturbulation.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6159 [enturbulation.org]
The website also reports that protests are being held at all CO$ center's world wide on March 15th 11am local time. Visit http://forums.enturbulation.org [enturbulation.org] for details.
Daughters of Scientology's top brass speaking out (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.exscientologykids.com/admins.html [exscientologykids.com]
The stories of all three are quite fascinating in terms of getting a look on the inside.
This shows Germany was 100% right to ban them (Score:5, Insightful)
However, with the Fishman affidavit, the whole case concerning Karin Spaink (see http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/fishman/home.html [xs4all.nl]), and now this I feel strengthened in my support for the decision of the German government to outlaw this sect.
Regrettably it doesn't work like that in the US. We gave them the tax-exempt status of "church" instead.
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An experience with aggressive recruiting... (Score:3, Informative)
I had three of these guys show up at my apartment looking for my friend... God damn it was a freaky experience. Two stood on lookout at the front door while the third fast-talked his way past me upstairs. Apparently my friend had only made acquaintances so they were just "following up" on a possible new member, and they left quietly after he rebuffed them.
I felt bad for a while for not having turned them away immediately, but you don't always know what you're friends are up to... and it's hard to be ready for something like that. When you are a naive college kid confronted by three overbearing, slick guys inviting themselves hurriedly through your front door, it really throws you for a loop.
Scientology is basically ritualized emotional abuse. It separates its victims from everything they know -- in fact it aligns them against their parents, family and friends, and everything that might come to their rescue -- and it turns them into abusers themselves. Elron was a sick, abusive, evil freak.
Scientology is... (Score:3, Interesting)
The human psyche is made up of a collection of personalities?
Against taking psych mediciations?
Thinking that psychiatrists are evil?
Hubbard probably developed schizophrenia, with paranoia, delusions, voices in his head, etc.
So he developed a way other think to justify his decisions after the fact, calling it Scientology. That is, the "Science of Science", or like one fellow I met in a psych ward said "You have to read between the lines between the lines"; layers upon layers of conspiracy seem to be common in delusional thinking.
So his organization is a draw to others who don't want to take their meds, including the large 'anti-drug' campaign they claim to have. Cruise on Oprah?, looked pretty 'Manic' to me.
Unfortunetly, the only consistant way to tell the differences between Religion, Cults and Insanity is how many people share the same set of delusions, kinda democratic really.
Get popcorn and watch the fight for freedom (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a chance, depending on how extensive these documents are, that CoS will merely try to "distance" themselves from "rogue members" - but if the fight turns dirty, WikiLeaks will have their hands full. Besides lawsuits, they can expect stalkers, death threats, sabotage, major network "failures" (see Blue Security Inc. vs the spammers) and other things that not even the shadiest bank would consider. I hope that free information will win the day.
An important and informative website on the matter (Score:5, Informative)
Re:PDF Link Broke (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:PDF Link Broke (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:PDF Link Broke (Score:5, Funny)
Would anyone like to wager how long it will be before we see a headline announcing the mysterious disappearance of Wikileaks' founders, their families and pets and anyone they've ever spoken to?
Re:PDF Link Broke (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
- RG>
Re:Should make a torrent (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So, (Score:5, Funny)
Hold on, there's someone at my do--
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Page 117 (Score:4, Interesting)
LRH on Data Mining - pg 117:
Thus, somewhere at the bottom of the pile is some hidden intention.
In collecting government files and the various false reports in them, through the use of Freedom of Information Act, it is not enough to simply see they are false and DA them. This of course is a necessary action but is NOT _the_ basic action.
One needs to construct a data bank of all documents and cross-index to get _all_ documents in their possession - using one file to find things that will detect the existence of unrevealed additional documents.
Interesting read...
Re:Slashdot vs. Scientology? (Score:5, Informative)
Because Scientology took legal action against Slashdot on what appeared to be a trivial matter. I do not think any other group has taken legal action against Slashdot in it's ten years of operation.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I wonder why... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Slashdot vs. Scientology? (Score:5, Informative)
users first post , check (not always the case but very common)
'witch hunt' comment, check
'bigotry' comment, check
*CoS countermeasures 101 detected.*
'cyber terrorists' comment expected soon
'ad hominem' attacks, coming 'real soon now'.
Slashdot posts what people submit, it gets front paged if enough people care about the story and vote it up.
With Scientology stories it takes a hell of a lot more people voting it up than normal as OSA and the LEAF campaign try to force such things down.
So the story only makes it if people REALLY care, are interested, and strongly think the story has merit.
Don't you wonder MAYBE such stories might at least have SOME truth in them if THAT many people are so interested in them even OSA can't keep them down?
Now you've pondered that for a pico-second enjoy your invasive security 'sec check'.
Re:Slashdot vs. Scientology? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:organizations that prohibit criticism (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why are you specifically stating Islam, and then forgetting all about those wonderful little people at the Discovery Institute. I understand that 'like religions' really does encompass all possible religions, singling out Islam by name is a bit unfair. They are no better, and no worse than any other major religion with extremist/fundamentalist groups.
Actually, Islam is the only major religion who has flown planes into buildings, posted videos of beheadings, preaches that the penalty for leaving the religion is death and is responsible for really REALLY close to 100% of terrorist attacks around the world (Not just the US, but all over the world). So, yeah. I think they deserve an honorary mention on this one.
So, when you say, They are no better, and no worse than any other major religion with extremist/fundamentalist groups., I'm afraid I have to say
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Islam does have many issues to work out with how they fit into the modern society and the sooner they do this the better for all of us.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Islam does not have a monopoly on evil shit anymore or less than Christianity does. To belive otherwise is to fall for the religious propoganda that encourages said evil shit.
Re:organizations that prohibit criticism (Score:5, Funny)
Wait...
Dammit!
Re:After reading this PDF... (Score:5, Insightful)