Church of Scientology Enlisting Followers In Censorship 628
DrEnter writes "Apparently, the recent very public divorce of Katie Holmes and devout believer Tom Cruise is reflecting negatively on the Church of Scientology. Adding to this are other recent issues causing problems for 'church' leadership. In response, the 'church' has decided to encourage its followers to censor online chatter and comments about the 'church' and the divorce. This Yahoo blog post sums it up nicely. In short, they are encouraging members to complain about people posting negative comments about the 'church' as violating the Code of Conduct' in the posting venue. I can only imagine they are hoping these complaints will just be rubber-stamped and respected without investigation, but I think the campaign deserves a bit more attention."
First Thetan! (Score:5, Funny)
Book 'em, Xenu!
--
Posting anonymously because the Church of Clams still uses vexatious lawsuits against their critics.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Informative)
Book 'em, Xenu!
Please remove the above post as it violate's Slashdot's code of conduct which requires the exact phrase "Frosty Piss" to be used in all first posts.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Insightful)
Frosty Piss was unavailable to this poster as he has not reached OT$10M. His devotion is insufficiently funded, so he's basically darned to heck anyway.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Funny)
"I heard you got big stones."
No, Moses had the big stones.
Smith had the plates. But we're still waiting for the guy with the silverware.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Insightful)
Book 'em, Xenu!
And it is at this point that we need to let the moderation "Funny" go past the 5 limit... sure there are many informative and insightful posts but once you hit 5 everyone gets it. Humor, however, can do amazing things including allegedly healing people. Also it has been proven to sometimes cause fluids to suddenly appear on monitor screens, keyboards, clothing, and furniture.
That post was at least an 8...
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone who doesn't hold that criminal enterprise in contempt is just not paying attention.
Or is Lawful Evil
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Interesting)
"As always, most of my contempt falls onto the suckers. Entirely there fault. Just like people who respond to spam."
While as a generalization I would be inclined to agree with you, it doesn't so much apply to this church. And here is why:
The church leadership -- especially early on, including Hubbard -- were very, very good at PR and BS. That's why they established a completely separate part of the church for rich and famous people, where they get treated completely differently than everybody else.
As a result, you have lots of rich and famous people thinking it's a GREAT institution, and telling everybody about it. But those who fall for all the hype, and aren't rich and famous, get bled of their possessions and shipped off to a work camp.
As I say, if it were just up to individual judgment, I would tend to agree with you. But they have this very well-engineered PR machine set up to make people believe.
Morally, that's fraud and deception. So far, they seem to have avoided legal consequences.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Informative)
They aren't considered a real, recognized religion in many countries in the world. They truly are a criminal organization. Too many people have died. They also pretty much control the town they are based in with the police completely in their pocket. No, they truly fit the definition of organized crime. If I personally thought assassinating church leadership would bring an end to the suffering they inflict, I'd probably be the first person camped out in florida with a rifle and a scope. I don't think that would put the organization out of commission though.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Funny)
"You mean I can't increase my Penis size? After I sent all that money for a 'WangRack'! I even upgraded the wieghts to 10kilos."
10 kilos? You could always moonlight as a swing at the neighborhood children's park.
Uh.... wait. Cancel that. Probably not a good idea.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Insightful)
... Christianity doesn't require you to pay money before they will reveal all of the church doctrines...
True, but once they suck you in all Christian organisations want your money and they want it tax free.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Insightful)
... Christianity doesn't require you to pay money before they will reveal all of the church doctrines...
True, but once they suck you in all Christian organisations want your money and they want it tax free.
But it is still a believer's choice to give or not, unlike scientology. And you should be glad that they are tax exempt. That's the only thing that keeps them from being able to tell their followers who to vote for. Being tax exempt means they can only speak on the issues, not the candidates.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Interesting)
... Christianity doesn't require you to pay money before they will reveal all of the church doctrines...
True, but once they suck you in all Christian organisations want your money and they want it tax free.
But it is still a believer's choice to give or not, unlike scientology. And you should be glad that they are tax exempt. That's the only thing that keeps them from being able to tell their followers who to vote for. Being tax exempt means they can only speak on the issues, not the candidates.
Ya, except some church's go on and on about giving, and Give to God and God will Give to You. tithes and offerings, and tithes means like 10% plus you got to give more for offerings.
They badger you so much on Sundays and if it was a holiday like easter or Xmas that pulled people in, omg, they would keep harping about it. Sort of like when you get them "free" vacations but you have to listen to them timeshare seminars while you are there? It is exactly like that.
That of course, was like 30 years ago when I was forced to go to church. Has it changed since then? I doubt it. It's a way of some Christians to feel even better about themselves because they give to the church and are religious.
What I do know is, the pastor bought a new car ever 6 months (caddies of course) and most the upper church management lived very very very comfortably.
Pretty good for a bunch of people who used to be drug addicts and "got religion".
In case anyone wonder who am I talking about, I'm mostly referring to Christian Faith Center in Seattle, and the red headed paster, Casey Treat.
I could tell you stories about them and their fake beliefs. Life how they would have someone speak out in "tongues" then someone "randomly blessed by god" with the interpretation of what they said. One day, some guy says the interpretation of it, and I see by the look on Casey Treats face, that this guy isn't supposed to be talking. So what does Casey do? He says that god just told him that wasn't the interpretation we were to hear and then one of the deacons (and good buddies of Casey) said what the interpretation of the tongues where. Apparently they think I'm stupid as the rest of them, because I'm supposed to accept the blatant lie that just went on?
Ya, fuck that.
In these times of economic struggle, the Government should just take away the Tax Exemption for Religions. It would only be fair and if the religions have a problem with that, then they can pray to their gods for help with money.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Insightful)
"In these times of economic struggle, the Government should just take away the Tax Exemption for Religions. It would only be fair and if the religions have a problem with that, then they can pray to their gods for help with money."
There be monsters in them there woods.
The REASON churches are tax exempt, is that we have a practical separation of Church and State in this country.
The reason we have a separation of Church and State, is that our Founders, through experience of very recent (for them) history, knew very well the consequences of either having a Government-run Church, or a Church-run Government. Either case ALWAYS (over the last 800-900 years or so) ended in disaster.
So they decided: government will stay out of Church affairs, and Churches would stay out of Government affairs. And it has turned out to be, in the long run, a very healthy way to run that relationship.
But once you start to allow Government to tax Churches, you must then allow Churches to have some say in Government ("no taxation without representation"), and you have just re-created the mess that everybody fought wars to get away from.
NO. No taxing of churches. And no influence by churches on government. No.
No. No. No.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Insightful)
There wasn't an income tax code for approximately the first 150 years of the country, so the reasoning given doesn't hold water. By the time the tax code was established, religious organizations were providing much of the medical care, orphanages and other social welfare systems. Congress decided that this was good as it benefited society and it should be encouraged. As such, contributions to these organizations were encouraged, though the tax code.
Then in the 40s, many churches became out spoken regarding reparations from the war and the treatment of the Germans and Japanese people. The government felt that this was counter to its agenda. Out of fear of the power of churches the law was changed that to keep the tax exempt status, churches could not get involved with politics. As a side note, this was also around the same time that Eisenhower wanted to start the interstate highway system to mimic the autobahn. His concern being that like the churches, the railroads were too powerful and could thwart the movement of troops.
Basically, the issue with churches being tax exempt and not being allowed to be active in politics stems from them providing a public service for the common good but also in protecting those in power from the popularity of religious leaders.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Informative)
True, but once they suck you in all Christian organisations want your money and they want it tax free.
In almost every Christian denomination, giving is voluntary, not compulsory. As a practicing Christian, I give what I can, because I know the money goes into local charities, into keeping the lights and heat on in the church, feeds and houses the priest (giving him time to minister to the homebound, imprisoned, critically/terminally ill), etc. Most Christian denominations follow a similar pattern (note that I'm excluding the televangelists, and for obvious reasons, as most of them are blatant and obvious scam artists.)
There is only one denomination I can think of which comes with a monetary requirement: The LDS/Mormon church, where you're required to give 10% of your income (among other requirements) in order to be considered "temple-worthy".
Re:First Thetan! (Score:4, Interesting)
There are actually plenty of evangelical churches that consider the tithe to be mandatory for membership. A friend of mine was a pastor in one such (he's an atheist now).
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Insightful)
You realize that the whole "information for free" part of Christianity is relatively modern, right? There's a reason why the Church flipped out about first the Gutenberg Bible and then even more about the Luther Bible - they didn't want just anyone being able to read the thing, you never know what damn fool ideas those laymen are going to get into their heads (and to be honest they were right [wikipedia.org]).
Yes, Christianity is shareware today, but it has a history of being locked down tighter than Steve Jobs' iPad.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First Thetan! (Score:4, Interesting)
You realize that the whole "information for free" part of Christianity is relatively modern, right? There's a reason why the Church flipped out about first the Gutenberg Bible and then even more about the Luther Bible - they didn't want just anyone being able to read the thing, you never know what damn fool ideas those laymen are going to get into their heads
You realize that this only applies to the Roman Catholic Church, and even that was a later "innovation"? Originally, the Church was spreading literacy far and wide precisely so that laity could read the Bible. And Greek Orthodox Church, which didn't try to focus so much on a single language, went even further and specifically created a writing system [wikipedia.org] for languages which didn't have any until then, just so that they could write down the Bible in those languages to spread it further.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Informative)
But the Church of the Subgenius. http://www.subgenius.com/ [subgenius.com] does pay taxes and want to make YOU rich! Not just that but we also have a deal with YHVH1 and a group rate for the "divine excuse" that Christians have to dedicate everything to achieve. All we ever pay is $35 to Bob and we get boundless SLACK and so much else.
Pamphlets #1 & 2
Your Own Personal 8x11 suitable-for-framing DOBBSHEAD
Official Dobbshead/Church Logo Metal Pin
Dobbshead Sticker, Bumper Sticker
The SubGenius Pledge
The Divine Excuse (signed by "Bob"!)
(WHAT OTHER RELIGIONS CHARGE ALL WORLDLY GOODS FOR!!!)
Doktorate of Forbidden Sciences
(be a Doktor INSTANTLY. Incredible, sinister super-miniaturized fine print details all the scores of Church Ranks and Titles from which YOU can CHOOSE. Signed by... "Bob")
Propaganda flyers to copy, Stickers
Wallet sized, SubGenius MINISTER'S CARD
(Without that card you have NO HOPE on July 5th!!!)
Minister's Ordination papers and instructions.
The STARK FIST of Removal online / SCRUBGENIUS secret forum
(they're full of rants, art, Prescriptures, doctrine, charts, filth, comics, reviews and CHURCH NEWS & CONTACTS)
Plus we are the ONE TRUE flying saucer RELIGION. With that in mind you can rest assured that $cientology is just a secret money making scam. We make no attempt to conceal anything!
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Insightful)
Also Christianity does not specifically target those suffering from psychological illness and to compound that target psychologists and psychiatrists and their professions with a vilification campaign in order to ensure people suffering from psychological illness will end up trapped with in the corporate for profit cult of Scientology. This corporate cult of greed also goes to any disaster event to target people at the weakest, people when they are most vulnerable with a scheme or providing aid only to try take everything those people own. Far better to be called the Church of Corporate Psychopathy a for more accurate description.
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is that a religion is a large, popular cult, while a cult is a small, unpopular religion.
(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.)
Re:First Thetan! (Score:4)
Is there a reason why you left social consequences off that list? Cutting escapees off from friends and even family is a technique widely used by cults, the others you list are really only used by scientology (perhaps physical threats are more widespread, but abuse of the legal system to harrass their enemies is a scientology thing, and the financial consequence of leaving a cult is usually that they stop being a drain on your finanaces).
Re:First Thetan! (Score:5, Interesting)
Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Informative)
Call all your critics liars (and wife-beaters and child molesters if possible), send private detectives and Sea Org types to follow and harass them, sue them and anyone who supports them, cry religious persecution to the cops and govt officials, rinse, wash, repeat...
Read [wikipedia.org] all about it, and more.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Funny)
Call all your critics liars (and wife-beaters and child molesters if possible), send private detectives and Sea Org types to follow and harass them, sue them and anyone who supports them, cry religious persecution to the cops and govt officials, rinse, wash, repeat...
Read [wikipedia.org] all about it, and more.
They remind me of a saying -- Their organization is so ridiculous that no matter how hard you tried you just couldn't make something like that up.
Can't say I've met any, but I have met some real wackos in my life and I suppose if people will believe in 5 billion years ago some aliens put a bunch of people in a volcano that didn't exist yet, to watch a movie and then blew them up, how are you ever going to get them to see any sense?
Meanwhile, it's Friday and me and my Thetans are going to go out and party. (c: Just a sec .. someone at the door
NO CARRIER
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:4, Insightful)
> Their organization is so ridiculous that no matter how hard you tried you just couldn't make something like that up.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:4, Insightful)
They remind me of a saying -- Their organization is so ridiculous that no matter how hard you tried you just couldn't make something like that up.
And yet someone did... Almost as if a science fiction author created a whole universe...
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Informative)
From the Wikipedia link:
Hubbard detailed his rules for attacking critics in a number of policy letters including one often quoted by critics as "the Fair Game policy." This allowed that those who had been declared enemies of the Church, called "suppressive persons" or simply "SP," "May be deprived of property or injured by any means...May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed." (taken from HCOPL Oct. 18, 1967 Issue IV, Penalties for Lower Conditions )
Sounds kind of Masonic.
All they need to throw in is "Admit nothing, deny everything, and make counter-accusations." and Hiram would give them all a great big hug-from-behind.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:4, Funny)
Call all your critics liars (and wife-beaters and child molesters if possible), send private detectives and Sea Org types to follow and harass them, sue them and anyone who supports them, cry religious persecution to the cops and govt officials, rinse, wash, repeat...
Read [wikipedia.org] all about it, and more.
Are you talking about scientology or the upcoming US presidential campaign?
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Funny)
Name one other "religion" that charges you to read the "bible" and forbids you to tell anyone what they teach under pain of law suite.
The closest I can think of is Pythonism which typically utilises a comfy chair to punish aspostacy but in extreme cases may apply an entire three piece suite.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Interesting)
Not exactly the same, but pre-reformation Catholicism almost fits the bill. They just had all their texts in latin, and forbid translating it into any language the common people knew. The only people who had the time or opportunity to learn latin were the priests, so the reading and interpretation of their holy texts was exclusively the domain of the clergy. They didn't have law suits back then, but they did issue legal bans against the translations.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:4, Informative)
Not true,, not true, not true! There were several translations of the Latin Vulgate into the vernacular. The Vulgate was the official translation, however
It is indeed true. Pope Innocent III banned unauthorized translations of the bible in 1199 [wikipedia.org]. Yes, people still did it anyway, and yes, enforcement was patchy, but translations were officially banned, and some people (although not all) were persecuted for performing such translations. The Wycliffe version was the most widespread translation, and it too was explicitly banned in 1409. However, scribes just fudged the date whenever they produced one, so that the date of writing purported to precede the ban, and it became so widespread as to become a de facto standard.
What kept it from being common was the great expense. Only the wealthy could afford their own copy, whether in the vernacular or in latin.
Well, it's true they were very expensive. But even in Wycliffe's time, it wasn't so much the expense (although they were expensive) as illiteracy that kept Bibles out of the hands of individuals. Wycliffe's translation wasn't intended to increase personal Bible ownership, so much as it was to allow people to hear the Bible in their own language, the same way the apostles taught it to the Gentiles. The "personal study of the Bible" thing really gained steam a hundred years later with the Reformation.
Re: (Score:3)
Name one other "religion" that charges you to read the "bible" and forbids you to tell anyone what they teach under pain of law suite.
While they may harass and sue you, they don't often go with the "Kill the Infidels" if you say something nasty about their Ronnie or Tommy.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Insightful)
This is false. They have been indicated in a number of murders and convenience suicides of people who speak out about either, or the Church itself.
They are, in short, very much like extremist Muslims, except without the benefit of their religion having been created far enough back that quasi-rational people might give it the benefit of the doubt as being legitimate.
It also helps that Islam doesn't have actual documents with its founders talking about making a fake religion to bilk people out of their money.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Informative)
They are, in short, very much like extremist Muslims, except without the benefit of their religion having been created far enough back that quasi-rational people might give it the benefit of the doubt as being legitimate.
This.
Scientology's been caught blackmailing politicians, breaking into government offices to steal records, forging papers used to indict and jail people, and sent in infiltrators [paulettecooper.com] incredibly deep in near critics to try to break them, dig up dirt, or even get them to commit suicide. They've been caught breaking into doctors' offices for private medical records, breaking into psychiatrists' offices for anything they can find against their critics or targets.
This doesn't even deserve to be called a cult. Scientology is nothing but a mafia, a criminal enterprise. This is the Cult of Scientology [wikipedia.org] in action, how they really operate. The BBC did an absolutely great documentary on how they still operate in 2010 [wikipedia.org].
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:4, Interesting)
This is just my take, but: in real religious texts you find metaphor for what works long-term, stories that just show how people behave, basically a catalog of the human soul from lots of different perspectives. Gods are the usual stand-ins for what happens for no apparent reason. Care to explain the patterns and gaps in the logistic map [wikipedia.org] without using math? Jesus spoke openly of the reason so much is told as metaphor. "A village is made up of stories about itself", and the stories in fake religions do not describe the real world.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Informative)
While they may harass and sue you, they don't often go with the "Kill the Infidels" if you say something nasty about their Ronnie or Tommy.
I suppose you've never heard of Auditing Process R2-45 [wikipedia.org].
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the definitions of a cult, rather than a religion, is that their holy books aren't available to the public.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Funny)
You've never tried to implement the Bluetooth speck.
Its not a speck. It is the tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:4, Interesting)
That's religion in general, Scientology just ups the ante.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:4, Informative)
Citation?
While many churches are pretty opulent, I've never been inside one and there aren't any like that within a hundred miles of where I currently live. I've attended five churches comprising three different flavors over the past 20 years, and I never got so much as a baleful stare when I couldn't afford to contribute... and at two of them, that lack of funds lasted several years. In two of them the pastor worked a second job to pay the bills and received little or no salary from the church. In all of them the balance remained just big enough to go a couple of months paying the rent and other bills if all income suddenly stopped.
People give to churches voluntarily because of what they expect to accomplish with their money -- feed the hungry, house the homeless, send missionaries to the remote corners of the world to spread their message, whatever. Church finances are, by law, open books so we all know exactly how much the church staff is tucking away (hint: I could never live on that little!) and how much goes to charitable causes. Any nonstandard major expense like buying a new heater to replace the one that's 40 years old, the congregation gets together to vote on it.
Yes, places that call themselves churches misuse their status beyond belief for selfish purposes or ugly causes (I'm lookin' at YOU, Phelps) but those are individuals acting on their own initiative, vs. corporate policy as defined by the CoS.
Re: (Score:3)
Last I checked Scientology is still considered a cult, and is defined as a cult in numerous countries not just the US. Cults are not new, and of course not restricted to Scientology, but they are always called cults. This is true even when the cult calls themselves religion, as an extremely high percentage of cults do.
If you really believe what you said, I would recommend seeking psychological consultation since it's a rather psychopathic statement.
I may be incorrect about the current classification as a
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:4, Interesting)
As an aside, I've seen plenty of Radicals around the world. In my opinion, the original Bill of Rights got things right the first time around. You believe in whatever invisible sky man you want, I'll take mine, and we'll go about our merry way. Blaming a decline of morals around a lack of religious communities, honestly, reeks of religious superiority. You take your sky man, and leave me alone. I'm a good enough person without religion, and I'll continue to be that way despite of your mongering for more religion.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Insightful)
What's with the need for skeptics to equate all religion with Scientology in every article about the CoS?
The common underpinning of faith does not imply that other religions share the institutionalized, wholesale abuse and corruption committed by the Church of Scientology. If an atheist cannot see the stark differences in nature and degree, then he is blinded by a dogmatic opposition towards faith.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Insightful)
"The common underpinning of faith does not imply that other religions share the institutionalized, wholesale abuse and corruption committed by the Church of Scientology."
The Catholic Church has handed out over ONE BILLION DOLLARS in settlements to abuse victims worldwide (it can afford the hush money) and the problem is ongoing. Not only doesn't the Church punish pedos, it has sheltered them from prosecution and played a "shell game" moving them to new areas.
Islams abusive nature currently includes killing apostates and heretics.
Faith unsupported be EVIDENCE yet propagated as truth deserves opposition.
Prove your God exists, here, now, and I'll recant and kiss his/her/it's Noodly Appendage. Do it now or take your lying nonsense and stick it where the sun never shines.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:4, Interesting)
Consider Scientology an experiment, that shows just how easy it is to get people to believe in nonsense. And that it suggests not only to be wary of religion, but to be sceptical of everything, if you want to avoid delusions.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Interesting)
And then look up there, at comment 40570443 [slashdot.org], at 6:28PM, where another AC posts as soon as the 10-minute window is up:
Hello, Scilon operative! Welcome to the Internet. (Don't worry, we won't bite. In fact, when you finally blow, we'll be here to help.)
The internet is a big place, with millions of other threads for Theists-vs-Atheists, and Global Warming-vs-Deniers, and Obama vs. Romney, or whatever you'll be posting in your next round. But this isn't one of those threads. This is a thread about the abuses your organization has been conducting against free discourse on the 'net [wikipedia.org] for the past 20 years.
And no self-respecting theist, atheist, environmentalist, nor climate change skeptic, will fall for this classic attempt to threadjack the discussion. (Next time, try Apple vs. Microsoft, or emacs vs. vi. You'll still fail, but you'll provide us with much more amusement on your way down.)
"Standard Scientology Practice" indeed.
Re:Standard Scientology practice (Score:5, Interesting)
"Then why'dja bring up climate change in a thread about Scilons?" :)
If I mistook you for one, please accept my apologies.
Those of us who've been in the trenches have seen this before. Basically, when something comes up that's embarassing to the cult, the cult tries to make it about anything other than the topic at hand. The easiest way to accomplish this is for the Scilon to pick a similar inflammatory topic, about which many people hold sincere and impassioned beliefs, and to sit back and munch on popcorn as both sides of the (climate change | abortion | religion-vs-atheism | emacs-vs-vi | mac-vs-PC ) debate jump in on their respective sides and tear each other apart. (There's a guy a few posts down who tried to drag Israel-vs-Palestine into it, and for bonus points, he mentioned abortion, LOL!)
As long as everyone's talking about that, nobody's talking about the cult, and the cult wins.
To give a non-Scilon-related (and therefore off-topic!) example, governments use the same technique; the PRC has the 50 Cent Party [wikipedia.org], Russia has Web Brigades [wikipedia.org], and I'm sure our adversaries have their own word for the web equivalent of VOA [wikipedia.org]. But I'm not interested in talking about those. At least not today.
This thread is about how Scientology is enlisting its followers to report discussion of its practices as "off-topic" and/or "abuse" in order to sway the perception of Scientology on discussion forums. Not about the practices of other groups, however repugnant.
Then let me violate the Code of Conduct on /. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Then let me violate the Code of Conduct on /. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm glad Katie dumped his ass and is doing her best to protect Suri from that cult.
Yeah, but I can only feel so much sympathy for someone who walked right into that mess anyway, and if you believe the papers, she married him for cache down and a salary, plus bonuses for offspring. Bet they'll throw every lawyer and dollar they have into the battle to discredit her and rip that child away from her. Her best defense would be to blog everything so people can see how it really works when the Co$ is on your case.
Re: (Score:3)
It's hard to feel sympathy here; she chose Tom and his wacky religion. She decided he was good father material. Now she's changed her mind, but you know what? She doesn't get to do that. That's not how it works.
Her decision that scientology sucks NOW does not negate her decision that scientology was ok back THEN.
Re:Then let me violate the Code of Conduct on /. (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider the possibility that "then" she actually liked/loved/lusted after/whatever the guy and the Co$ bit was something she weighed against that and it was not as important. Her feelings towards him seem to have changed and so she re-weighs the factors and comes to a different decision.
In other words, she may NEVER have considered scientology ok but that was not important then.
Re:Then let me violate the Code of Conduct on /. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to feel sympathy here; she chose Tom and his wacky religion
Truly, I'm happy for you that you've never had to meet any actors. 99% are beautiful, self absorbed, and utterly naive. Almost certainly she took Tommy's assertions about Scientology at face value and didn't notice the down side for years.
Re:Then let me violate the Code of Conduct on /. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard to feel sympathy here; she chose Tom and his wacky religion. She decided he was good father material. Now she's changed her mind, but you know what? She doesn't get to do that. That's not how it works.
Her decision that scientology sucks NOW does not negate her decision that scientology was ok back THEN.
What she did is called "growing up" and "maturing" and"learning from experience." Generally speaking, this is a positive thing. I hope you come to experience it in your life. Otherwise, you will spend it being exactly as you are now. That would suck.
Re:Then let me violate the Code of Conduct on /. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Blog is not accurate (Score:4, Informative)
I am not a Scientologist and would never join a religion purported to be created on a bet.
The blog takes quotes from the Scientology post out of context. It talkes bout clicking on the report tag and what to write but ignores the this intermediary step;
4. Read the comment from people and pick the ones that fit the violation of the Code of Conduct.
Where the blog post states that the Scientologists are directed to report all anti-Scientology comments they are actually directed to report only the ones that really brear the Code of Conduct.
One final comment; Has the existence of this email been confirmed by an independent source? I would be suspect of anything reported by someone who has a bias against an organization without independent verification. That is one reason I generally don't read blogs; they have a tendency to be unverified and very biased..
Please delete this story (Score:5, Funny)
It obviously violates the Slashdot code of conduct.
It is not related to bitcoin or raspberry pi, it is not a dupe and has links to multiple articles that have a lot of text per page, requiring very few, if any, "next page" clicks. It might fool some that it has merit to be on slashdot by being a rather lame story that might appeal to people who like getting pissed at reading stories they don't consider "news for nerds", but I am sure you will agree that that alone is not enough.
aka (Score:3)
The church of the Streisand effect
Oh Tee! (Score:5, Funny)
Not nary two years ago I stood upon a roof top in Clearwater FL as a superhero of justice (network engineer) alongside my sidekick (general contractor) and peered (as we setup a Clearwire cell site) upon all those that had dedicated 1,000,000,000,000 years of their existence to serving the word of Mr. L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer of some modest renown. We, in aghast awe, watched as they boarded their numerous bus vehicles to travel far to partake in what we would call lunch. What manor of noontime evil feast, we could not imagine. For they looked grim and uninspired.
I bared my being to him at that time and allowed that for some short time in the early 80s I had once myself, this bastion of all that is right with network protocols, had fallen suspect to the siren cry of their teachings I related the trial and tribulations of having to buy their manuscripts and attend communication training (which, sadly, they did not impart the truth of a single RFC.)
Fortunately I escaped by the narrowest means of not having enough money to buy the next book. For ages (about 2 hours) I beat my brow over not having the manly integrity to fight through my engrams and discover the universal truths of the Xemu protocol (RFC-infinity) and thereby understand, just my laying the wires upon my tongue, the truth of every communication protocol in the universe.
But now that I've gone through deprogramming I'm much better.
Now just if we could get everyone that believes in sky faeries to take deprogramming.
Frank Zappa was right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Frank Zappa was right (Score:4, Interesting)
"Cult" is one of those words that used to have a meaning, but has been so thoroughly divorced from its roots through perjorative use, that it now has no more actual meaning than any other curse word.
A "cult" was originally a subset of a religion; it was most applicable to pantheistic religions (like ancient Greek religion). You'd have, within the overall religious framework, the "cult of Diana" or "the cult of Dionysus". They were all part of the same religion, but there were specific rituals and observances that related to specific deities within that framework.
Within the rise of monotheism, "cult" became a lot less useful as a term. It basically came to mean a "branch" off of an existing religion, that is, a subset of religious believe that eventually came to be a distinct religion - you can see the similarity between this and its original meaning. Thus, Christianity would be a cult of Judaism, and Islam would be a cult of Christianity, as would Mormonism, Protestantism and the Latter-Day Saints.
Of course, the dominant religion doesn't like it when people break away from it (see: the inquisition), so at this time, cult began to take on a negative connotation. Previously, it had been purely descriptive. Cults were outlawed (the church at this time was a political player, so it had the power to do this), disbanded and demonised. Over time, the church's political power waned, and it no longer had the opportunity to squash its cults.
Nowadays, the perjorative connotation of the word "cult" is about all that remains. Technically, Christianity is still a cult of Judaism, but nobody (except atheists pushing the "all religions are cults" agenda) really describes it that way (and even the atheists are just using it as a perjorative, not in the technical sense).
Negative? (Score:4, Funny)
subject (Score:4, Funny)
"Apparently, the recent very public divorce of Katie Holmes and devout believer Tom Cruise is reflecting negatively on the Church of Scientology."
More negatively than the deaths Scientology has caused? That must have been some breakup.
Re:Gossip for Nerds, Stuff that's irrelavant (Score:5, Informative)
How soon we nerds forget Scientology's war [wired.com] against the internet back in the day.
Re:In fairness to Scientology (Score:5, Informative)
Because they had a late start.
Re:In fairness to Scientology (Score:4, Insightful)
That is only because Scientology is still young. Given time, I am sure they can kill as many people as good old fashioned cults have managed to.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That is only because Scientology is still young. Given time, I am sure they can kill as many people as good old fashioned cults have managed to.
You do know that in the 20th century, the two godless societies of the former USSR and China killed many more people than the so called cults have throughout their entire history.
Re:In fairness to Scientology (Score:5, Informative)
You would be wrong.
Stalin and Mao were the gods of their religion built around a cult of personality and unwavering faith in authority and righteousness.
Re:In fairness to Scientology (Score:5, Insightful)
A cult != a charismatic "cult of personality" != a totalitarian movement != religion != "faith".
People are constantly trying to stick all of these on a continuum, mainly so they can tar anyone who isn't as atheist as them, but they all significantly differ in kind. Lumping them all together significantly reduces our understanding of the world and how people really are.
Religion, Faith, Authority, and the Supernatural (Score:5, Interesting)
Religion is defined by faith.
Any appeal to authority is ultimately an appeal to faith in said authority. "It must be right, because such-and-such said so."
So authoritarianism is inherently religious (based on faith), even if devoid of the trappings we associate with "traditional" religion, e.g. the supernatural.
What makes the supernatural in turn inherently religious (based on faith) is that nothing can be known about it from evidence, and so any opinions on it must be based on faith, and whoever you have faith in (as in, whoever's word you take as 'gospel truth'), you are taking to be an authority.
If you have faith only in things that come to you directly by some sort of inspiration, then you are simply taking yourself as the authority of your own religion.
Re:In fairness to Scientology (Score:5, Interesting)
The vast majority of religious sects DO burn out in one or two generations following the death of their prophet. There are probably over 100 thousand cults and sects right now and the majority of them are less than a hundred years old. They rise and fall, mutate, evolve, and spawn spontaneously from the minds of prophets. Only a handful of religions stick around for the long haul, and most of them branch, merge and change radically over time.
Religion does not have to have a specific set of beliefs about the cosmos, or particular classes of rituals, morality or even a belief in the supernatural. Each one will have different dogmas that focus on different things.
Again, deities are not required for religion. Many faiths do not venerate gods. And in the case of Mao (more than Stalin or Lenin, but they did get some of this as well) the prophet is deified and worshiped.
You can not honestly claim that religion is accepted freely and without duress. For millennium conversion at the point of a sword was the standard operating procedure. Children are brainwashed before they have formed independent thought. People at the end of their rope are offered the illusion of salvation while in a compromised and impressionable mental state. And individuals converted by the inordinate amount of influence by spouses and lovers.
Religion is fundamentally a memetic complex that takes advantage of the mental illness of faith to infect and compromise the minds of a population. Another defining characteristic is that the complex changes thought processes and behaviors of its hosts to propagate itself and resist competitive memes even if it is harmful to the host or the population to which it belongs. This often results in faith so strong that ignorance and acceptance of objectively wrong (both logically and morally) behaviors becomes routine. Religion is a virus of the mind and the prophet of every religion is patient zero.
Both Maoism and Stalinism have exactly those characteristics. There is no fundamental difference between the non-magical irrational faith and devotion and magical irrational faith and devotion.
Re:In fairness to Scientology (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me say first that I find Scientology repulsive and a particularly greasy form of pyramid scheme. However, compared to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic trinity, they are responsible for much less evil and far fewer deaths. Between those three religions you have tens of millions slaughtered in pointless wars over minor differences in doctrine. You have sexism that runs deep through the dogma of all three. You have churches who have officially sanctioned everything from genocide to sexually abusing children to slavery. This stuff isn't even in the distant past. I can find examples in the last century where each of these religions has committed terrible atrocities.
Scientology is easy to hate because it is so ridiculous, so absurd, and generally unpopular. It's an easier target than Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. But if you really take a step back and look at the doctrine of those three faiths, they are equally as ridiculous.
All those other religions had a 2000 year head start on Scientology, so the Scientologists are way behind in the killing and other stuff, but that is irrelevant. Scientology is not a religion by any reasonable definition of the term. They only use the word church in their name for tax-avoidance purposes and so that they can claim "religious persecution" if anyone tries to challenge their absurd nonsense.
Scientology is a lot of things -- scam, dangerous cult, organized crime -- but one thing it is not is a religion.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In fairness to Scientology (Score:4, Informative)
Between those three religions you have tens of millions slaughtered in pointless wars over minor differences in doctrine.
Man, how many times have I seen this line trotted out? For a group of people who pride yourself on free thinking (I'm assuming you're an atheist here) you certainly seem to find it hard to come up with an original argument.
Religion has been the sole cause of zero wars. Even if you find some way to measure the relative import of the various causes, I doubt religion is up there. It's a popular way to rabble-rouse, to create an artificial divide between "us" and "them", much the same way the U.S. used "capitalism vs communism" in the cold war, or "democracy vs tyranny" in the current terrorism debate (no, they really don't hate your freedom, they hate your politics).
Some examples that are often given:
Crusades: Bear in mind that during this time, the Catholic church was not only a religion, but also the most powerful political entity in the west. The Muslims (or rather, the Seljuks - like the situation in the west, they were a political entity that was also officially Muslim) were expanding, and conquering territory previously held by the Catholics (including Jerusalem, which has actually conquered 400 years prior to the first crusade). The first crusades were territorial disputes between two empires who also happened to be different religions. They were motivated by land, though, not religion. Later crusades still included territorial reasons, but they were also used for political means, either to attack people who threatened the Pope's power, or to start a foreign war to prop up a weak Pope.
Ireland: I'm just going to quote Wikipedia here, because it says it much more clearly and succinctly than I do:
For example, there is a common perception of The Troubles in Northern Ireland as a religious conflict, as one side (Nationalists) was predominantly composed of Catholics and the other (Unionists) of Protestants. However, the more fundamental cause is the attachment of Northern Ireland to either the Republic of Ireland or the United Kingdom and while religion played a role as a cultural marker, the conflict was in fact ethnic or nationalistic rather than religious in nature.[3] Since the native Irish were mostly Catholic and the later British-sponsored immigrants were mainly Protestant, the terms become shorthand for the two cultures, but it is inaccurate to describe the conflict as a religious one.[3]
Palestine: Again, I'll start with a quote from wikipedia, although this is about only a particular incident, rather than the hostilities as a whole:
The Shaw Commission found that the fundamental cause of the violence "....is the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility towards the Jews consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future."
Beyond that, the U.N. created the nation of Israel by decree, and basically forced the current occupants of that to make way for Jewish immigrants. Again, while the opposing factions are both of different religions, the primary causes for conflict are territoriality and political sovereignty, not religion.
Al Qaeda and Islamic Terrorism: This one actually has the best case for it being a religious war, as one of Al Qaeda's stated missions is the construction of a worldwide Islamic Caliphate. However, their other stated mission is the ending of foreign influence (notably American) in Islamic countries. It has been argued that without the United State's continual meddling in Middle Eastern politics, Al Qaeda might never have formed, or at least, not have attracted the influence it has. At best, this is an issue of both religion and political sovereignty.
Re:In fairness to Scientology (Score:5, Funny)
The problem isn't religion, the problem is mankind.
True, but advocate eliminating the problem and suddenly you're the bad guy...
Re: (Score:3)
I think it is deplorable that you would say such a thing.
It is an insult to piles of poo everywhere.
Re:So the $cientologists want a war with the inter (Score:4, Informative)
They've done it [wired.com] before. They were pretty successful, too.
Re:So the $cientologists want a war with the inter (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why is 'church' in quotes? (Score:5, Funny)
Because any 'religion' with an eschatology that reads like (bad) science fiction is illegitimate and false. A true religion has an eschatology that reads like a dragons and wizards epic fantasy.
Pssht, the Bible reads like sci-fi sometimes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is 'church' in quotes? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not like the church you think doesn't need quotes is any more valid than this 'church' which you think needs quotes.
Well see, if you go to a 'church' you believe in silly things like Xenu [wikipedia.org] dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of his people to Earth in a DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs.
But if you go to a church, you believe in completely unsilly and credible things like a god who created us to worship him, but is really going to throw most of us into a burning lake of fire to be tortured for ever and ever because he loves us unconditionally, and well... He really tried to prevent this from happening by lovingly being born of a virgin so he could sacrifice himself to himself so that we could be forgiven for our sins against him (which we've all comitted because someone ate a forbidden fruit a long time ago), and the he tried warn us by sending all kinds of really sane, down to earth people to tell us that this was going to happen. Oh, and no trace of him has ever been found. You believe all of this because other people told you, so it must be true.
Re:Why is 'church' in quotes? (Score:5, Funny)
I want to know why people keep claiming that these two got a divorce.
"Apparently, the recent very public divorce of...."
No divorce has been granted.
The same reason we refer to the vagina when we actually mean vulva.
Wait, that's probably not a good analogy on /.
-AI
Re:Scientology is as bad as Christianity, Judaism, (Score:4, Informative)
Except Scientology isn't, its a pyramid/litigious scheme passed off as one..
At least a real religion has faith, these jokers only have cash and attorneys.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Negative comments? (Score:5, Funny)