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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.
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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  • by Naughty Bob (1004174) * on Friday March 28 2008, @02:43PM (#22896676)

    Scientology's Credibility...
    (Splutter!) That got me.... Also questioned this week-

    Bears' woodland sanitary habits
    Pope's Nazi youth
    Apple enthusiasts' devotion....
  • Since when (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nimey (114278) on Friday March 28 2008, @02:45PM (#22896692) Homepage Journal
    did Scientology have credibility?

    Besides among the easily duped?
  • by rrohbeck (944847) on Friday March 28 2008, @02:45PM (#22896698)
    Do they have any cool vids of Xenu and the starships? Volcanoes? That could rival the Sci-Fi Channel.
  • Prior to that screwup, they were a vast reservoir of credibility.
  • by Michael Hunt (585391) on Friday March 28 2008, @02:55PM (#22896838) Homepage
    ...CoS has already been busted (albeit not overly publicly) for releasing a video compilation of death threats, hate mail, etc, which had said death threats in higher res than their supposed 'original' posting on youtube. Suss as....

    (can't be screwed finding cites right now, worked for 26 hours straight, and now i'm plain out of it... little help?)
    • Calling Scientology a "religious group" stretches it in my books: they are a scam that hides behind being a cult which promotes itself as a religion.
      • A phrase that gets passed around [theregister.co.uk]: Calling Scientology a 'religion' really is an awful lot like calling Dunkin' Donuts a 'restaurant'
        • Something the person at the top when looking into themselves honestly believes.
          • by wattrlz (1162603) on Friday March 28 2008, @03:10PM (#22897070)
            The whole point of a religion is that whatever's at the top isn't a person.
              • by damienl451 (841528) on Friday March 28 2008, @03:31PM (#22897424)
                No true. I'd say that the RCC is the exception, not the rule here. If I remember correctly, there is no eccleasiastical hierarchy in Islam, which already accounts for about 1.5 billion people. There is no formal hierarchy in Judaism either, and many Protestant denominations are also made up of autonomous local congregations that associate on a voluntary basis (e.g. the SBC in the US). Even those denominations that are more organized do not usually have a "central point of authority" as the Pope to Roman Catholics.
                • by Naughty Bob (1004174) * on Friday March 28 2008, @04:00PM (#22897944)

                  If not, the whole thing is a scam.
                  And if so?

                  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?'.
          • Something the person at the top when looking into themselves honestly believes.


            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.
        • by b96miata (620163) on Friday March 28 2008, @03:29PM (#22897368)
          A religion generally starts off as one, does not have mandatory financial contributions (no matter how strongly they may *suggest* them) and was not founded by a guy who was previously on record as saying he should found a religion because that's where the money is. They also don't sue people who dare leave the fold.
          • by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 28 2008, @03:41PM (#22897612)
            Belief Systems Classified by Time Since Inception

            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
    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 28 2008, @02:59PM (#22896896)

      Religious groups are well known for twisting the words of non-members to support the wacky claims. Some nut-case Christer fundies produced a movie that twisted the words of several well known Atheists.

      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.

    • by AioKits (1235070) on Friday March 28 2008, @03:19PM (#22897216) Homepage
      I am certain this has been stated many times, but here I go anyways, cause I'm new and want karma... For me it is not necessarily what they believe. You could believe that the waffle I toasted this morning is the 'Supreme Being' and bathe in maple syrup (thanks Canada!) as part of your religious rituals and I could care less... What gets my goat is that you must pay to pray, so to speak. If I wanted to learn about the beliefs of Christianity, Islam, Wicca, or even Voodoo, there are books out there and for the most part, a 'holy person' you can throw questions at. They won't ask for cash if you want to advance your knowledge of their belief system. Scientology requires that for you to become a more true believer, you pay, and through the friggen nose (I think the CoS has more to do with this than their individual adherents). I could be wrong, who knows.
    • by Joe the Lesser (533425) on Friday March 28 2008, @03:19PM (#22897220) Homepage Journal
      I don't give a fuck if you believe in Xenu or Jesus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but the Church Scientology lies to and steals from it's 'believers', and does horrible psychological damages to people and their familes. No mainstream religion is remotely as corrupt and sadistic.

      Please read for a start:

      http://www.exscientologykids.com/ [exscientologykids.com]
    • by eclectic4 (665330) on Friday March 28 2008, @03:39PM (#22897568)
      True:

      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.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 28 2008, @03:55PM (#22897878)

      This article/topic is neither.

      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.