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San Francisco, 2:59 PM
Mon Nov 30
21 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/23/09
It makes me wonder if so many high-profile celebrities weren't involved (for reasons I'll never understand) if people would still call it a church and not a flat-out cult. Hubbard had said on multiple occasions that the way to make money was to start a church, and from everything I've seen the whole religion feels like one big money-grab with creepy stalky overtones.
11/21/09
Aztec sacrifices are not what you thought.
The victims were enemy soldiers from other tribes, examples: Zapotecs, Otomi, Nahuas and Mixtecs.
All those tribes join Cortez and togheder exterminate Aztec because of what they done.
The only aztec lefts are in El Salvador it was an aztec colony.
The Mexican Aztec are all dead and gone.
11/21/09
11/21/09
11/21/09
[en.wikipedia.org]
11/21/09
#speakup
11/22/09
11/21/09
I'm with the Senator, religious freedom does not allow Nazi-like behavior, or negligence that leads to the death of children..
I hope justice is served.
11/22/09
11/21/09
I know. What a stick-in-the-mud.
Aztec blood sacrificing - especially of the ripping hearts out of gushing chests - however, involving adults and being spectacularly YouTube-friendly, needs to be added.
11/21/09
Seems like we have two cases of kids dying because of poor parental responsibility, and a bunch of complaints that people don't know when to say "screw you, I'm leaving".
Always good to blame someone else, especially if they're a persecuted minority. Sounds like a witch hunt to me, just like the rest of the anti-scientology crap.
-Kle.
11/21/09
Of course, it also sounds like blatant pro-Scientology propaganda, so it's not really surprising that it's both wrong and devoid of any grounding in reality.
11/21/09
11/21/09
I think Anonymous is on a "witch hunt", I don't think the Senate is however. Slave labor camps, and negligence contributing to death of minors, should be investigated regardless of any perception of a "with hunt", that is pure injustice..
11/22/09
I have no objection to the Senate investigation. What I object to is the blind bigotry against Scientology, and the conviction by popular opinion that it leads to.
I'm old enough to remember when people said similar things about Jews. Nobody would countenance (publicly) the same sort of commentary about any other religion I can think of, yet the supposedly "enlightened" secular/geek community regularly jumps all over Scientology, because it's popular to do so.
Is Scientology stupid? I think so, yes.
However, it doesn't seem any stupider to me than any other religion, and all these purported abuses that people claim they commit don't seem to be anything more than what the RC Church (for example) does on a regular basis.
Feel free to keep picking on the little guy, though - I'll just keep sticking up for their rights.
-Kle.
11/22/09
Yes, a parent bears some small responsibility if their child dies at daycare. It's a parent's responsibility to protect their child, and if they aren't going to do it personally, then they bear some responsibility for anything that happens to that child when under the care of people that they chose.
-Kle.
11/22/09
Sure, they have some sort of social/psychological influence.
However, that is a situation entered freely into by adults. I see no legitimate way to blame the organization. People need to be free to choose.
-Kle.
11/22/09
If they're using illegal coercion , then that can be addressed by the courts.
However, for it to be illegal, it has to be one hell of a lot more than "peer pressure".
AFAICT, the complaints of these people amount to "I'm a spineless idiot who let people push me around because they said they had more imaginary alien blood than I do."
How is that anyone's fault but their own?
-Kle.
11/22/09
I just keep hitting "share" too soon.
How is this a slave labor camp, any more than Jimmy Carter's "Habitat for Humanity"?
When people volunteer for charity labor, they often work hard for no profit, and are often pushed around by other volunteers.
It isn't slave labor, if you volunteer.
Every member of Scientology is a volunteer.
-Kle.
11/22/09
11/22/09
That goes for nuts within normal religious orders too.
11/22/09
Scientology is not a religion, it is a cult who's sole purpose is to steal money.
Judaism wasn't an IRS scam.
11/23/09
Well, whether you mean me or the other guys, I think it's important to point out blind bigotry whenever it's accepted.
-Kle.
11/23/09
I consider individual liberties to be amongst the most important ideals. You can't have "making people do what's best for them" and freedom - they just don't mix.
-Kle.
11/23/09
Sure, Judaism wasn't set up as an IRS scam three or four thousand years ago (or whenever it got going).
However, it's basically indistinguishable from one now, except for its history, and the thoughts of the people that believe in it.
There are clearly people that believe in Scientology, too - I see no reason to punish them, simply because their religion is recent.
The Episcopal / Anglican Church was set up as a divorce dodge - should we all go crazy about making it illegal, too?
-Kle.
11/23/09
#calendar
11/24/09
Because saying "treat people like people, instead of making bigoted, ill-informed attacks on them" is clearly trolling...
-Kle.
11/24/09
#tips
11/25/09
Sure, their beliefs are moronic.
I challenge you to find a religion whose beliefs are not equally moronic, however.
Many other religions have secret teachings, too.
As for their methods being destructive, lots of other religions share that, and the various claims of abuses are hearsay. Hearsay really isn't a valid reason to abuse people.
As for being persecuted; that's bot really debatable. There is at least one organization, specifically devoted to persecuting them.
A large percentage of the human species finds religion to be a valuable component of their lives. There's even some evidence that it's biologically determined. Just because I think it's stupid and have no interest in it, is no reason to attack other people for their beliefs, especially when they are in the vast majority.
-Kle.
11/25/09
Here, maybe I can make this clearer for you.
I believe that consenting adults should be allowed to engage in self-destructive activities if they want to.
If they want to get beaten up for sexual gratification, fine.
If they want to gamble money in a ridiculous rigged system where the house statistically always wins, fine.
If they want to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, eat fried food, drive w/o seatbelts, enter marathons, become vegetarians, whatever, fine.
If they want to join silly religions that give them bad advice and take their money, that's fine, too - because they're consenting adults.
The government should not decide what people can and can't do, based upon what adults volunteer to do to themselves. The government should only tell people what they can and can't do to other, non-consenting individuals.
On top of that, Scientology is pretty much indistinguishable from other religions, behavior and doctrine-wise. Making one of them illegal w/o making the rest of them illegal would be inconsistent, and thus prejudicial.
-Kle.
11/25/09
First: Moronic beliefs must be challenged specially when the vast majority of people believes them, because that's when they're the most damaging. We all feel like having sex right here right now with someone attractive we cross paths with, because we're hard-wired to do so. But we don't, because we're more evolved than that. But that hasn't always been like that, and I'm sure the first person who said "raping is wrong" was stoned, burned, raped, or all of the above.
Second: All religions have beliefs that are completely illogical, that's why they are religions, they require faith to jump the gap from accepting stuff that can't be known to stuff that's just plain impossible or moronic. Scientology's beliefs just happen to be (for what's leaked) almost fully so.
About destructive methods:
They have been proved to try to disrupt the workings of medical associations because psychology is the root of all evil. Yeah, Jehovah's witness are against blood transfusions (the reason to this is not even as moronic as basically all about Scientology), but they don't try to keep blood to get to the hospitals where it's needed. They've tried to frame people for murder in several instances. They've been proved to harass and even ruin economically people who leaves the church.
I'm sorry, but Scientology has a lot more of organized crime/pyramidal scam than it has religion.
PS: For your latter comments, it seems you're not denying any of this, it just pisses you than most of the people who attack them does it without any knowledge, just because it's what the mob does, am I right?
#calendar
11/26/09
"PS: For your latter comments, it seems you're not denying any of this, it just pisses you than most of the people who attack them does it without any knowledge, just because it's what the mob does, am I right?"
More or less.
It disgusts me to see SF fans/geeks/scientifically aware people being this intolerant. Anonymous is indistinguishable from the KKK, IMO . It has become enormously popular and acceptable to bash Scientology, and that is a situation that leads to abuse.
I would like to think that the demographic of a site like this one is capable of rational, logical, thought and unlikely to just strike out emotionally.
I agree that Scientology is silly, and does things that aren't terribly ethical. However, I can give examples of other religions that do all of the same things. The RC Church, because of it's historically great power, has committed acts vastly worse than anything Scientology can dream of. The Church of Christ, Scientist has worse policies on medicine. Since those (for example) and other religions are granted protected status, I see no reason why Scientology should be denied it.
"Moronic beliefs must be challenged specially when the vast majority of people believes them, because that's when they're the most damaging."
I agree, to some extent. There are two problems with this though - first, it seems at least possible that some form of religious belief is a biological imperative for the majority of people. Fighting that is probably futile. Second, most of us live in representative governments. If the 15% of the population that isn't religious pisses off the religious 85% enough, they can easily strike back with legislation. Freedom of Religion protects atheists, and with a huge enough majority, even the US Constitution (for example)can be changed.
I think that challenging stupid beliefs is a good thing.
I don't think that hate rallies are a good way to challenge them.
-Kle.
11/26/09
I'm too young to have known of this in my time (and a continent away anyway), but I recently read a story about a journalist who infiltrated KKK and published all of their customs and rites, stripping them of all their mystery, with result of their numbers dropping suddenly with all the mocking that ensued, and I think that's the only efficient way to fight back a pyramid scam that has proved to be extremely efficient at marketing (yeah, they're mocked, but they keep recruiting more and more of the very rich, which are the ones with money, which is what they want after all)
And, about "Freedom of Religion protecting atheists", I'm sorry, but that's effectively valid in maybe 4 or 5 countries all over the world, and the US of A is not one of them. Maybe on paper, but I don't think I have to tell you that the Church/State separation is a joke in most of the world (including most First World countries), and, at far as I know, in the US freedom of religion is interpreted as "freedom to choose your way of believing in God" by pretty much anyone who makes important decissions.
Sorry for the rant, but I just don't think that freedom of religion applies to Atheists anywhere, or that it should apply to Scientology since they're only a religion for fiscal and brain-washing purposes.
And for calling you a troll. Denying that brainwashing can be done by cults was not a very good start.
11/27/09
Would it be better to have no protections for atheists, just because the protections that do exist aren't as strong as you'd like?
It's illegal to be denied a job on the basis of atheism in the US, for example. There are a good number of protections that actually exist, and don't have to. Angering the majority doesn't seem prudent, to me.
-Kle.
11/27/09
And I'm not talking about angering the majority, only about not shutting up when the fringe extremists of what happens to be the majority option try stuff like teaching creationism as "another valid theory" in schools, because that's the way they get away with them.
11/21/09
11/21/09
this sounds like a screenplay adaptation of some comic book to which a studio exec would say "its too far fetched even for comic adaptation. no one will believe it."
and btw... Senator Xenophon? he really calls himself that?
11/22/09
11/21/09
[www.cs.cmu.edu]
It would be nice for them to finally get some comeuppance, if only to prevent others from being so victimized in the future.
11/21/09
11/21/09
@Daniel-Midnight: I'd rather see her take them on.
11/21/09
11/20/09
11/21/09
11/20/09
Pretty ironic as they're censoring freedom of speech themselves.
11/20/09
11/20/09
I've always pretty much doubted the legitimacy of their protests, seeing as how this is 4chan, and their cooperation skills can be better compared to a troop of amorous baboons. Their penchant for pointless harassment and fruitless arguments leads me to think that this is just their latest trend, and if my friend's experience was an indication of how these get-togethers are handled, well, that's pretty sad.
Why people trust 4chan to competently follow a cause without deliberately making themselves look like an embarrassment is beyond me. In fact, it floors me that their public perception hasn't totally crumbled apart due to their own self-serving attitude. Aren't people with any emotional or moral attachment to an issue dubbed "moralfags" and then shunned by the majority of 4chan? A protest should mean something, especially to the person protesting, and I cannot believe, after almost half a decade of becoming uncomfortably familiar with 4chan antics, that these people have their hearts in it for the cause, and not for the sake of trolling.
My point is that, if Scientology is really responsible for the kinds of horrors that they've been accused of (and I believe they are and the orchestrators should be held responsible for them), then it's sad to see events like what I've described being passed off as legitimate protests, which aren't serving any practical purpose. Certainly someone must be doing something to keep the Hubbtards on edge, or at least maintaining the image of posing a threat, but the efforts of the few are being made fools of by the /b/tardedness of the many. Anon needs to get its shit together or let someone else (preferably people who realize that they would look utterly ridiculous in plastic masks, laughing at jokes about pokemon and dancing to Rick Astley) take the reins.
11/21/09
Popular protest involves having a lot of people who don't know much about it involved. It's not morally perfect but it's the way it is. Go back and interview some folks during the Russian revolution on communist theory. Go interview some angry folks in Iran about Ahmedinijad's domestic and foreign policy issues. Go back to 2003 and ask some of those millions of anti war protesters to talk about the flaws in the procedure leading to the wars in any detail greater than 'no WMD Bush dumb' they got off the news and any historic precedent, leading incidents etcetera.
11/20/09
Awesome. I really lacked a lot of respect for their government because of their position on video game censorship, but this gave me a little hope that they're not all that bad.
11/21/09
We've got socialised medicine, too, if you want to give that a kick... oh, and no guns. Or death penalty. *rolls eyes*
11/21/09
Censorship is serious business, and if a government censors one form of communication, what's to stop them from censoring others? Thus, governments who censor lack respect. So, yeah, it's actually a decent governmental respect standard thingy. Censorship and human rights are my two main standards. *shrugs*
Not being a pussy in the face of what's obviously a money-grabbing business that calls itself a religion for tax-evasion purposes is awesome, and I'm glad Australia's standing up against them. I wish other governments would too.
#speakup
11/21/09
11/21/09
@Hedgeworth: The main problem with our classification system is that it is a)ancient and b) can only be altered by agreement by the attorneys-general of all states, and the South Australian one is a bit ancient himself and seems to think that computer games are only played by children... so we're waiting for him to kick it, basically.
11/22/09
#speakup