"Anonymous" Takes Scientology Protest to the Streets 740
This past Sunday members of the group "Anonymous" that has been running an attack on the church of Scientology took their battle from the tubes of the internet to the pavement of real life, staging a protest outside the central Phoenix Church of Scientology. "The protesters said they gathered Sunday in lieu of the birthday of Lisa McPherson, a Scientologist once cared for by church staffers. Her 1995 death sparked media attention and a civil wrongful death suit against a branch of the Church of Scientology. A wrongful death suit by her family was a public-relations nightmare for the church for years until it was settled in 2004. The Church of Scientology declined to comment on the Phoenix protests. It did provide a news release calling members of Anonymous cyber-terrorists."
Not just Pheonix (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not just Pheonix (Score:3, Informative)
The Video That Started It & A Few Notes (Score:5, Informative)
As a non-scientologist, this is scary. Possibly the most scary part of it is the editing. I have no problem with people having convictions but when he talks about "fightin' the fight" and "people needing them" and "people depending on them"
Whatever the case, I will not ever affiliate myself with a Scientologist and after reading Have You Lived Before This Life [wikipedia.org], I will do everything in my power to convince those that I know and love to avoid Scientology.
The thing that concerns me about Scientology is that after reading some books by Hubbard about it, I have found very little criticism of it. A book [amazon.com] & some articles [cmu.edu] with the most notable one being Time Magazine. It seems like such an easy target. It takes seconds to find books criticizing Catholics or Muslims
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Turn the tables (Score:3, Informative)
IANAL, but I'm fairly certain they would need to reveal their identities in order to do that, which would really the defeat the whole purpose. Besides, think of the hassle it would cause for them to have to come up with a new name with the same degree of awesome!
Re:Not just Pheonix (Score:5, Informative)
http://forums.enturbulation.org/ [enturbulation.org]
- A bit of planning, a early rough estimate of attendees around the world, post protest media being uploaded all the time.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_international_report:_%22Anonymous%22_holds_anti-Scientology_protests_worldwide [wikinews.org]
- Wikinews with pics/vids/links related to 10feb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanology [wikipedia.org]
- About the project so far (sources only from credible media)
http://www.partyvan.info/index.php/Project_Chanology [partyvan.info]
- Anonymous own wiki on the project, mainly used to gather information, results, future plans and events.
Re:Photos (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Informative)
Anonymous has explicitly noted that the "Free Zone"--that is, the Scientologists outside the organization--are just fine and dandy.
O'course, the "Free Zone" doesn't charge for its teaching...
But I don't think the antagonism against psychiatry is what you think it is--I think it's more a control structure (given that the auditing, in essence, imparts a codependent relationship between the auditee and the auditor (and by extension, the CoS)). Also worth noting is that the founder, Mr. Hubbard, had a very distinct antipathy towards the profession, and which created certain aspects of Scientology specifically to counter standard psychiatric practice.
I would note that, while not a member per se of Anonymous, I do think that their efforts against Scientology are a good thing, and were carried out remarkably peacefully and with remarkably good organization.
(I've also heard there's more planned for 3/15--beware the Ides of March!)
Re:I thought "it was all good"... (Score:4, Informative)
Xenu.net is a good place to learn about all of this.
Re:The Video That Started It & A Few Notes (Score:5, Informative)
Though the CoS claims that it revoked its official "fair game" doctrine that specifically endorsed these tactics in 1968, there have been a number of scientology defectors who have confirmed that they were instructed to carry out similar exercises against those whom the CoS has declared to be "SP".
This is, by the way, one of the reasons why Anonymous has been careful to conceal its members' identities. During the protest, the Scientologists are known to have videoed the protests; and taken special effort to photograph any members of Anonymous who were not wearing a mask, any cars that members of Anonymous entered, and in some cases, cars that stopped and received literature that Anonymous was handing out. It does not take any imagination at all to determine what the CoS is likely to do with this information.
Re:Not just Pheonix (Score:5, Informative)
London, UK - around 500 people.
LA - around 500 people
Sydney, Australia - around 300 people.
Clearwater, Florida - around 250 people. This one is scientology headquarters.
New York - around 320 people
Boston - around 270 people
Atlanta - around 250 people. They called out the riot squad in full gear, with a helicopter. There was no incidents at all.
Washington DC - around 200 people.
Toronto - around 200 people.
In total, the estimates are around 8000 people worldwide. The aim was, of course, to get over 9000.
grip: i submitted details of these protests to slashdot twice before this took place, hoping we could get some of you folks out. *shakes fist at editor*
COME NEXT TIME - MARCH 15TH.
Re:Balanced view. (Score:2, Informative)
Yep, L. Ron Hubbard, to be precise; sci-fi author: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard [wikipedia.org]
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Balanced view.CORRECTION (Score:4, Informative)
I believe you mean DC-8's -- but without the propellers...
Oops! The DC-8 was and is a pure jet aircraft. No propellers.
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Informative)
Voiceless [youtube.com]
Thats one. There are hundreds, if not thousands, more. Including the niece of David Miscavish (the current leader of scientology).
Come on people, the information is out there. You can easily take a balanced view by READING the accounts of the hundreds of people who've been victimized. Look up Paulette Cooper. Shes still alive today to tell her story of being harassed and sued for 15 straight years.
Re:The Video That Started It & A Few Notes (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Turn the tables (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Informative)
The regulations of the Catholic church are very strict that what is said in the confessional -stays- in the confessional under all circumstances (except for a -very- restricted few).
The Church of Scientology -says- that what is said stays confidential, but routinely uses any information obtained during an audit as either a method of coercing the auditee to take more auditing sessions, to refrain from leaving the Church of Scientology, or to attack the ex-Scientologist when they have left with blackmail, or ruining their reputation in the community.
This has been documented by nearly every ex-scientologist--sometimes, all three instances.
Where is the "vigilante justice"? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing people exercising their LEGAL right to protest.
You can claim it is "hate", but that's just your claim.
Do the research and see the instances of abuse by Scientologists. Including brainwashing.
Re:Turn the tables (Score:2, Informative)
Well, someone did empty the database of religiousfreedomwatch.org (the Scientology organization's libel-spewing rag page)... someone almost certainly associated with Anonymous. But the difference between Anonymous and the Scientology organization is that the Scientology organization consists of legally incorporated entities, while Anonymous is just a name applied to a bunch of individuals acting alone. No one gave the order for religiousfreedomwatch.org to be injected and emptied, but Hubbard and Miscavige give all kinds of orders, and the law recognizes their hierarchy. The Scientology organization can absolutely be sued and dismantled. Anonymous can only be chipped away one member at a time.
(and no, it was not me)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:4, Informative)
It should be trivial to separate Scientology from real religions. Whether or not you give genuine religions a tax break on property based on this is another story and one I don't particularly care about.
Re:Not just Pheonix (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The Video That Started It & A Few Notes (Score:5, Informative)
Standard tactics are to harass the person by picketing their house and calling them a 'religious bigot'.
Further, contact will frequently be made with the person's employer and any relatives, emphasizing the 'religious bigot' angle and any other damaging information gathered.
Lawsuits are filed to harass the person--whether or not they have any merit is immaterial, as the aim is to waste the person's time and money.
Xenu.net has documentation on this, for a start, and other repositories of similar records can be found in various places on the internet; I seem to recall that there are several
No need for imagination. The truth is bad enough.
Re:Balanced view. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Protest? (Score:3, Informative)
The Scientology organization is not a religion. It is a deceptive, dangerous cult worthy of as much hate as anyone could possibly throw at it. The Scientology organization defrauds people -- not even for a 10% or 20% tithe, but for hundreds of thousands of dollars, for as much money as it can take. The Scientology organization actively prevents people from receiving life-saving medical and psychiatric care. It tells people that their money is better spent on more e-meter auditing than on chemotherapy. When people try to leave, it harasses them, follows them, libels them, and not infrequently murders them. When people leave the organization and try to find others to practice their beliefs, the Scientology organization sues and attacks them.
Yes, there have been other religious organizations that have done things like this. And we stop them whenever we can.
You dismiss the objections to Scientology only because you have either not read them carefully, or you are being paid by the Scientology organization to dismiss them.
Your words are quite obviously not those of someone who has tried to leave Scientology, and you are deeply wrong.
Re:The Video That Started It & A Few Notes (Score:5, Informative)
They're not likely to suffer debilitating lawsuits, accusations to their employers and relatives of religious bigotry (given that the Church of Scientology tends to isolate its members from non-Scientologist family) or, frankly, any harm at all for taking their action.
If you disagree with the anonymity of Anonymous, you're more than welcome to do so. This doesn't mean that their message is any less true, though.
I would note further that Anonymous may be, in this case, a real-life example of a Stand-alone complex [wikipedia.org]--a movement that has no structure, no leaders, but unites under a common face, name, and cause. As such, the identities of the individual members is, in the end, irrelevant--much like a corporation, the cause exists as an entity unto itself.
Re:what (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not just Pheonix (Score:3, Informative)
Boston - around 270 people
Um, bullshit. It was a crowd of a few dozen at most, from the pictures I saw (no, not by a news agency.) They were protesting on Beacon Street (I've walked by the Scientology building many a time) and there isn't anywhere near enough room for 270 people. Boston PD had four officers working a paid detail- far as I know, no other BPD presence.
Re:I thought "it was all good"... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:5, Informative)
Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.
- L. Ron Hubbard
Re:Balanced view. (Score:2, Informative)
The Xenu story is revealed only when the scientologist has paid enough to get to OT III [xs4all.nl] level (OT stands for operating thetan). It's not until you get to OT VIII [xs4all.nl] (which very few ever do) that you learn:
For tons of fun and some incredibly bad science-fiction, you can read all the top-secret Scientology documents here [xs4all.nl]. They were released as part of a court case.
Protest in Seattle too... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Balanced view. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:other cults (Score:4, Informative)
The mainstream media for the most part give them a wide berth, leading to a lack of public awareness. Out of interest I asked some older people I know what they thought the CoS was; a lot thought it was a Christian spin-off with a scientific tilt. The BBC have not yet even noted the fact 500 protestors gathered in London (let alone the fact ~8000 mobilised simulatenously around the world). Sure there were more important stories, but the fact is they managed to find far less notable filler stories to tell the world. My guess is it's a taboo subject they don't want to go near after the CoS's attack on informative Panorama investigation. Same applied with many other major media outlets who dodged it or downplayed it.
Still at least here in the UK the London Police supported the Anons, I distinctly heard one officer (after being harassed to do something by a Cultist) walk off to another and say 'fucking freaks'.
Hopefully the media will have no choice but to approach the subject as more people get involved in the movement against the crazy cult. Once they get onboard you can guarantee the Politicians will begin to notice.
Re:A guarantee (Score:3, Informative)
>Until you can answer the question of what was there before the big bang, and what was there before that, and what was there before that, ad infinitum, that is a debatable statement.
Not really. Every 'religion' I'm aware of makes claims that are factually inaccurate. The god-of-the-gaps is most certainly not the god in the bible, to koran, the torah, or the secret tomes of Lron. Nor is Spinoza's god. It's really just the last retreat of reluctant pseudo-agnostics.
Re:The Video That Started It & A Few Notes (Score:4, Informative)
Something you have to understand is that Scientologists _know_ they have the answers to everything (because L. Ron Hubbard said so). If a member has any doubts, then they're "out of ethics" and have to report for additional training (at their expense). The CoS does not use the same meaning of the word ethics that you or I would. To them, ethics is doing and believing exactly what you're told. If you don't understand something, or have questions, then you are assumed to simply not understand the material; because if you did understand the material, you wouldn't have any questions.
The organization is set up so that it slowly isolates members from normal society, both physically but also mentally. Everything the CoS teaches becomes the truth and any conflicting information is actively ignored. The group as a whole forms a sort of feedback loop whereby members receive positive affirmation from the group when they do, experience or feel something the CoS wants them to feel regardless of whether or not it's true. This is why some people claim that Scientology has helped them, it's not because of the "tech", it's because they feel acceptance and safety within that group.
The church has several ways of dealing with dissent and criticism. The first is by declaring someone a suppressive person, or SP. SPs are considered to be very, very evil people as they're trying to suppress or prevent the CoS from saving mankind (yes, that's their stated mission). People who leave the church, or people outside of the church that are trying to talk someone into leaving are "declared" SP which means that Scientologists are forbidden from speaking to them about anything meaningful. If you're a Scientologist and someone is an SP it doesn't matter whether or not they're your father, mother, brother or daughter, they're dead to you. The second way is through their "fair game" doctrine which basically states that the CoS will not punish a member for anything they do towards an SP, be it harassment, extortion, assault or murder.
David Touretzky (yes, _that_ Touretzky) has some great information about Scientology available on his homepage [cmu.edu]. There's a fantastic article available that describes exactly how someone gets sucked into the cult, little by little. Note I say cult and not religion because the CoS _is_ a cult. They simply call themselves a religion in order to attempt to shield themselves from "interference" from government and to take advantage of IRS tax breaks (so they can keep more money). In addition, they have members sign contracts that absolve the church of any responsibility should something like you dying from their Introspection Rundown happen. Check out this contract [xs4all.nl] they have you sign. Pay particular attention to this sentence,
Notice it says "only the individual's spiritual needs", which means that it doesn't meet your physical needs and you can die from their "ritual" like Lisa McPherson [lisamcpherson.org] did.
I could go on and on about things like church members being locked into compounds with patrolling armed guards, related organizations like Narconon treating drug abuse problems with long saunas and megadoses of niacin or actual proved conspiracies like Operation Snow White and Operation Freakout, but I'd prefer the reader follow some of the links I provided and educate themselves.
Re:Turn the tables (Score:1, Informative)
The article here left out a few salient details. Like the death threats [wired.com]. I'd say these retards are pretty much the epitome of forum trash.
Wrong! (Score:5, Informative)
That is just a classification, 'Sruti' essentially means those scriptures that have been passed down directly from God to man, while 'Smriti' would be collected ancient wisdom.
There are a number of books holy to Hindu faith, primarily the Gita [wikipedia.org], the Vedas [wikipedia.org], and the Upanishads [wikipedia.org].
~IAA Hindu
Re:Balanced view. (Score:1, Informative)
Or Read or download one online with thousands of actually very useful footnotes and references: http://www.bible.org/ [bible.org]
Get a free Koran: http://www.freekoran.com/ [freekoran.com]
Get a free Book of Morman: http://www.mormon.org/bookofmormon [mormon.org]
Estimated cost to get to read all the Scientology "holy" documents: $350,000.
They were already Anonymous. (Score:3, Informative)
This name had been taken on in pride by its adherents as a banner of unification among these Internet communities. This war with Co$ is their latest and most ambitious project. It has also drawn in people from the sidelines who might have not agreed with their earlier tactics but would like to participate now that target is deemed worthy, one can suppose.
Re:I thought "it was all good"... (Score:3, Informative)
Quote: After 9/11, the church received a commendation from the New York Fire Department for its relief efforts, but critics accused it of applying therapies such as rhythmic massages that some mental health professionals considered medically dubious.
"The public needs to understand that the Scientologists are using this tragedy to recruit new members," Michael M. Faenza, the president of the National Mental Health Association said in 2001. "They are not providing mental health assistance."
In Minneapolis, the group said it's working with the Red Cross. Yet members of the Red Cross working at the disaster zone questioned by ABC News weren't aware of the Church's assistance.
They show up, use the fact that they show up to make themselves look good, and proceed to basically get in the way and hand out Dianetics, pamphlets, and generally intercept you before you think about going to a mental health practitioner to handle the shell shock. It's really slimy, like ambulance chasers.
Re:Balanced view. (Score:2, Informative)
10-20, I should guess, mostly biology and biochemistry. I've worked for a couple of years in labs, too.
I've taken a few especially in astronomy and it's mostly made up malarkey.
Yeah, I suppose that's why it's commonly understood that your computer runs on phlogiston - science just confirms the same old theories regardless of the evidence, like you said.
I suspect if you had paid better attention in your science classes, instead of writing the whole thing off as "malarkey", you'd be better informed. As it is you're an astounding example of the kind of ignorance so closely associated with your ideology.
We have white dwarf stars, but the universe isn't old enough for them to exist.
This is nonsense, since it's by the age of white dwarf stars that we measure the age of the universe (and it's by the amount that they've cooled that we measure the age of white dwarfs.)
It doesn't take all that long for a star to reach white dwarf, so there's no inconsistency with the existence of white dwarf stars and a 14 billion year old universe. There are no black dwarf stars, and that is a function of the youth of our universe; that's probably where you got confused.
There are multiple examples of a such occurrences to disprove almost all science.
Funny, then, that you could only give one false example. I suspect all your other examples would be the same - things you've misunderstood or been misinformed about, not actual problems with the science. My guess is that you're simply not well-informed enough to actually understand what it is that science doesn't know, currently.
And yes there is a mathematical formula to prove the existence of God.
No, there's not.