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Scientology's Credibility Questioned Over Video Channel
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Mar 28, 2008 02:40 PM
from the scientology-and-shady-almost-synonyms-these-days dept.
from the scientology-and-shady-almost-synonyms-these-days dept.
stonyandcher writes to share that the Church of Scientology has come under fire for some items on their recently launched video channel. Most notably, claims have been leveled that dignitaries in one of their videos were faked and at least one of the people featured in the video is claiming their statements were taken out of context.
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Firehose:Scientology video channel's credibility questioned by Anonymous Coward
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Credibility??? (Score:5, Funny)
Bears' woodland sanitary habits
Pope's Nazi youth
Apple enthusiasts' devotion....
Re:Credibility??? (Score:5, Funny)
"The Pope was on vacation to Bermuda during the youth in question"
"And whats with those Apple enthusiasts, damn, like seriously, there more devoted than Xenu!"
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Tell me about it (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be more surprised if the site launched and everyone found out it was entirely on the up-and-up.
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Re:Credibility??? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Since when (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides among the easily duped?
Video? Nice! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, it's the video channel that's done it (Score:5, Funny)
Probably worth mentioning... (Score:5, Interesting)
(can't be screwed finding cites right now, worked for 26 hours straight, and now i'm plain out of it... little help?)
Re:Won't be the first time a religion did this. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Won't be the first time a religion did this. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Won't be the first time a religion did this. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Won't be the first time a religion did this. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Won't be the first time a religion did this. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Won't be the first time a religion did this. (Score:5, Insightful)
It'll still be a scam, just a conventional, accepted and well-integrated one.
Scientologists are loons for sure, but let's not differentiate their own brand of crazy from all the others.
As Douglas Adams said- 'Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?'.
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Re:Won't be the first time a religion did this. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should that be important. Hell, the Anglican Church had an Archbishop of Canterbury who doubted the divinity of Christ. Does that mean the entire Episcopalian movement no longer qualifies as a religion?
The chief difference seems to be that a successful religion is a sect or cult that manages to get near-universal acceptance as a religion within the societies that it exists. Scientology is seen by most of society as a crazy-ass money-hungry cult with a pack of swirly-eyed true believers who pay their money and believe any and all nonsense that Hubbard and his heirs shove down their throats.
Mormons were in the same boat for decades. They were seen as sexually deviant heretics. Fortunately for them, in those days a cult could basically seize control of a large, unpopulated area and grow relatively undisturbed for decades, and by the time the greater society finally met them head on again, they're numbers were sufficient that they had to be dealt with as a religion.
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Re:Won't be the first time a religion did this. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Won't be the first time a religion did this. (Score:5, Interesting)
0 - 0.5 years : Eccentricity
0.5 - 10 years : Scam
10 - 100 years : Cult
100 - 5,000 years : Genuine theology that reflects the true nature of being and the foundation of our civilization
5,000 + : Myth
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Re:Won't be the first time a religion did this. (Score:5, Insightful)
Impressive. Two posts into the thread and someone's already trying to turn it into a debate over all religions. I'm not accusing you of being a Scilon - merely pointing out that it's a tactic the Scilons try to cultivate, because it turns the entire discussion into a debate about theology, effectively distracting everyone from the main issue.
Were this a thread about religion, for instance, it'd be fine, but the Co$ debate isn't about theology.
Organizations that use barratry ("The purpose of a lawsuit is not to win, but to harass") and violence (consider the similarities between the mysterious fates of Judge Swearinger's dog in 1998, and the fate of an outed anonymous protester's cat earlier this week) as a matter of policy are not religions.
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Re:The main issue is lying liars. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:The main issue is lying liars. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:The last frantic grapsing of a desperate group (Score:5, Insightful)
You forget: there's a sucker born every minute. And those suckers will continue to buy penis enlargement products from poorly written emails, and give their remaining money to Scientology.
A lot of these people also feel that the criticism and "attacks" on Scientology only *validate* it. How do you argue with that?
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Re:Scientology is the quintessential religion (Score:5, Interesting)
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It is a cult/organized crime (Score:5, Informative)
Please read for a start:
http://www.exscientologykids.com/ [exscientologykids.com]
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Re:Scientology is the quintessential religion (Score:5, Insightful)
When Dionysus turned water into wine, we understand that as a myth.
When Romulus is described as the Son of God, born of a virgin, we understand that as a myth.
When Vespatian's spittle healed a blind man, we understand that as a myth.
When Apollonius of Tyana raised a girl from death, we understand that as a myth.
etc... etc... etc... Jesus was just a guy that had Pagan mythological stories thrown on his name decades after his death to start a religion. Nothing more.
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Re:News for nerds. Stuff that matters. (Score:5, Informative)
Scientology and the Internet [wikipedia.org] explains the history.
In brief:
- attacks on USENET involving forged rmgroups in 1995.
- attacks on USENET involving Hipcrime-style spam for many years since then.
- legal attacks that resulted in the compromise of every user of the anon.penet.fi [xs4all.nl] anonymous remailer in 1996.
- Angry about copyright term extensions? What we jokingly refer to as the 1998 Mickey Mouse Protection Act was passed into law as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act [wikipedia.org]. By a staggering coincidence, Sonny Bono [wikipedia.org] was a Scilon.
- Angry about the DMCA? The Mickey Moust Protection Act wasn't enough of a legal club, and guess who was one of the first organizations to use it in mid-1999?
- And guess who was behind the DMCA attacks against Google in 2002.
- And last but not least, guess who was behind the DMCA attack against Slashdot itself [slashdot.org] in 2001.
Sorry you haven't been paying attention for the past decade, dude, but this is news for nerds, and it is stuff that matters.
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