Surprise Arrest For Online Scientology Critic 954
destinyland writes "An online critic of Scientology was confronted at a routine hearing Tuesday with surprise arrest warrants and thrown into jail. Six years as a fugitive ended in February. (After picketing a Scientology complex in 2000 over the unexplained death of a woman there, he'd been arrested for 'threatening a religion' over a Usenet joke about 'Tom Cruise Missiles.') But 64-year-old Keith Henson had been out on bail, and was even scheduled to address the European Space Agency conference on Space Elevators. He's a co-founder of the Space Colony movement, and one of the original researchers at Texas Instruments. In this interview he discusses both space-based solar energy and his war with the Scientologists — just a few days before he was arrested."
Re:How the hell... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to me, though, that it's one of those laws that aren't really enforced except when local authorities are pressured. The linked interview also suggests there's some collusion between the local government and Scientology... claims of a falsified "Failure to Appear" warrant dated from 2000, illegally storing documents not entered in the dockets.
Re:Total BS! (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:How the hell... (Score:3, Interesting)
Institutionalized Hate is A-OK! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How the hell... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How the hell... (Score:5, Interesting)
Scientology, however, keeps its religious texts secret and hidden, and you are not allowed to view them until they deem you worthy. So if you decide to set off on the path of becoming a scientologist, you have no idea what beliefs you're ultimately going to be expected to hold until you've already spent considerable time and money to make it to high-enough level to be justified to view those texts. And at that point you've invested enough time and money that you won't want to back out, etc.
I also think that in Scientology if you decide to leave the 'Church' then other Scientologists are required to shun you. And considering that one needs to invest years to advance to the higher levels and that a significant fraction of their friends will be Scientologists, this makes it even difficult to leave the Church.
Re:How the hell... (Score:2, Interesting)
No. Well, I don't think its all that strange. In court, once this case were to reach a federal level things would probably be overturned, but if he doesn't appeal to a higher court then he's bound by California law.
Re:What I want to know... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:United States of Scientology? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wonder no more... [wonkette.com]
Hard to say (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, it's obvious that some people are using Christianity as a tool to help themselves. Ted Haggard is a loser and a hypocrite, but he pales in comparison to some 'Christian' pastors who embezzeled, molested children, or ran lynch mobs. But there are people who can latch on to any cause (good or bad) and abuse that power for their own ends. Whether it's embezzeling money from the United Way or trolling on slashdot, some people are just bastards, and the larger the group you're looking at is the more of them you will find.
Re:What I want to know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless you're a Scientologist.
This is the very ultra special tax break that Scientology members get - Fees for auditing, to the tune of (last I heard) $700/hour or so, are fully and completely tax deductible, in spite of a Supreme Court ruling that they were not. The IRS overruled the Supreme Court and said Scientology auditing fees were fully deductible in 1993.
Now, you may well ask, how come the IRS has the authority to overrule the Supreme Court? That is an extremely good question that I would really, really love to see answered.
Re:How the hell... (Score:2, Interesting)
I think you are missing the point. I'm not here to say that everything in the Bible can be and has been proven as fact. I am saying that there is some fact in it. On the other hand, Dianetics is no more a religious text than The Hitchhikers Guide. The Bible at least deals with events accepted as historically accurate, even before they were "known" to be historical events.
What does it take to qualify as a religion under your definition?
Re:This guy should have been arrested (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, the Church of Scientology has a history of behavior that is questionable, but when you infiltrate government agencies like the IRS, well.... is it still a religion at that point? Or is it a cult? Or, hey, perhaps more like organized crime?
Re:How is this appropriate for slashdot? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.daisy.freeserve.co.uk/stolgy_14.htm [freeserve.co.uk]
Funny that you mention Heinlein... (Score:3, Interesting)
Since Scientology and the Universal Life Church are actually what happened when Hubbard and Heinlein got into a competition to see who could invent the more popular religion. Hubbard won, but only because RAH's peaked first and he got freaked out by hippies making pilgrimages to his home.
Personally I prefer Heinlein's, but to each his own. Grok?
Re:How the hell... (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as the original topic is concerned Lazarus also has to say:
how is that fair? (Score:3, Interesting)
that's comparable to this scientology imbroglio with keith henson
meanwhile, comparing the secret documents of a religion (now there's an oxymoron), or the secret documents of a cult (now that makes sense: command and control requires secrets), with the priavte documents of an individual does not hold water logically
or rather
individual != organization
understand?
Re:He did show up in court and plead his case .... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Depends on the Atheist (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd go so far as to say Atheism should be considered a religion in it's own right. Atheists believe there is no God despite the fact that there is no direct evidence to support this belief, just as Christians (and various other religions) believe there is a God even though there is no direct evidence to support the belief.
As a scientist, with no evidence either way I can accept that there may or may not be a God - I don't hold a strong belief one way or the other. Remember the basic scientific principles - a lack of evidence cannot disprove a theory.
In any case, the problems caused by religion are usually not caused by the religion itself, but by the closed minds of the religion's followers. As far as I'm concerned, people can believe whatever they want to believe so long as they don't feel the need to impose their beliefs on other people.
Re:How is this appropriate for slashdot? (Score:1, Interesting)
He is commenting on the rewrite of the "Xenu" thing, by doing a similar rewrite of my Christian Bible [holy-bible.us] (yes, I'm paying to host that).
Of course, the difference is that you or I can see the "original" King James Bible, whereas the Scien[ce fiction]toligsts' bible is verbotten to you or I. You has to pays yer moneys.
Yes, it was a bit flamebaitish but it did illustrate his point very well. I'd have modded him as the other mods modded, despite the fact that I'm Christian.
Real religious people aren't afraid of words (in fact real faith destroys all fears). It's a weak faith that can't stand up to mere words. If you're looking at a pebble it's pretty hard to convince you pebbles don't exist. When God has manifested Himself to you, it's likewise pretty damned hard for someone to shake your faith.
If you don't believe in Africa you sound pretty foolish to someone who's been there, no matter how convincing your argument.
Re:Old news (Score:3, Interesting)
Any church that won't offer me that is one I won't set foot in.
Copyrights on Reality. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's like some physicist copyrighting String Theory. If it's the way the Universe is constructed, then how can you claim ownership of the fact?
Xenu exists, then he exists. He's not some some designed commercial property. (Which, of course, he is)