Darth Wong wrote:Who gives a fuck about the specifics of the German government, and what the flying fuck does that have to do with the subject of this thread? How the hell did this tangent start, and why is it relevant? Is it the fact that the German government is persecuting scientologists? If so, I'd agree that this is pretty fucking hypocritical considering they have no problem with the same Christian churches which refused to excommunicate Hitler and which successfully promote various forms of group discrimination worldwide even today. But that specific German situation is of only fleeting relevance to the general issue of whether Scientology is really any worse than Christianity.
Ok I'll stop posting about this tangent in this thread. If Flagg wants to answer, I propose he open another thread (or maybe just split this entire discussion into a new thread?).
I do not think that Scientology as a whole is worse than Christianity right now, for the simple reason that the negative influence of Christianity affects a lot more people.
However, if the influence of Scientology were to grow unhindered, I can easily see them being a lot worse than Christianity is right now - at least in most of the "western world." I don't know if they can achieve the same scale of destruction that Christianity is doing in Africa for example right now, but I would prefer not to find out.
I wonder if there is any sociological precedent for this level of coordinated networking and group activity while remaining anonymous. It's almost like Anonymous is its own organism.
A Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men; claiming higher authority for existence, or sanction for its laws, that nature, reason, and the regularly ascertained will of the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service of any religious creed or family is a standing offense to most of the Governments of the world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves.
Surlethe wrote:I wonder if there is any sociological precedent for this level of coordinated networking and group activity while remaining anonymous. It's almost like Anonymous is its own organism.
Its really quite astonishing. By my count they have protests being organized in at least 14 different countries in North America, South America, Europe, and Oceania. They claim members on all 7 continents (one person from MacMurdo put their mark on the map), and they'll be having protests in 15 separate time zones on Sunday.
Their forum (not sure if I linked it before) is www.enturbulation.org and if you check out their 'planning' forum's first page, I guarantee you'll find threads in at least five different languages, from Danish to Japanese. I think if the protests are successful in their execution, this phenomenon will be studied for years to come. They have no leaders, but they somehow issue edicts which are enforced on the group BY the group. They have a list of 22 rules for their protests, which everyone agrees to, and have come to a group consensus that NOBODY can speak for anonymous, but can only point media to the agreed-upon statements of anonymous.
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147. That's how many people were protesting outside a Florida Scientology center.
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Davis 51 wrote:147. That's how many people were protesting outside a Florida Scientology center.
Wow. That's about 146 more people than I thought I'd ever see doing this. Good job them!
And it's not even February 10! There already are signs advertising the DC Protest on my college campus. I'm a good 4 hours drive from DC, so that should tell you something.
Brains! "I would ask if the irony of starting a war to spread democracy while ignoring public opinion polls at home would occur to George W. Bush, but then I check myself and realize that
I'm talking about a trained monkey."-Darth Wong "All I ever got was "evil liberal commie-nazi". Yes, he called me a communist nazi."-DPDarkPrimus
Why the fuck do these people think that protesting outside Scientology centres will deter them at all? A feeling of persecution only gives people a bunker mentality and hardens their resistance to outside influence.
Anyone with half a brain should realize that this is why Bill O'Reilly and his ilk continually try to manufacture such a sense of persecution for white Christian men even where no justification whatsoever exists. Far from hurting the unity of a religious group, it strengthens it.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Surlethe wrote:I wonder if there is any sociological precedent for this level of coordinated networking and group activity while remaining anonymous. It's almost like Anonymous is its own organism.
If it's anything I'd say the 'angry mob' might be analogous in that Anonymous seems to have ideas created semi-randomly by members and action taken on those that the mob, as a whole, likes. Except with the internet a mob can be highly dispersed and maintain the 'mob mentality' for longer periods due to instant communication with other members.
Previous 'internet wars' seemed to have similar patterns with how quickly they began and ended when people gained/lost interest respectively. The real difference is that the 'goal' this time is fairly long term compared to 'Punish X site for being annoying.'
Mobs aren't entirely anonymous, but they were pretty close considering how easy it is to lose a face in a sea of people. At least they're the closest thing I can see that resembles it. I think several protests movements used a decentralized structure at the very least, so there is precedent.
Actually, if we keep the mob analogy it would explain why such a group will never target threats that are popular- it won't work. The entire process is democratic in the extreme and the mainstream religions are popular enough to stop the process short of the 'threshold' of actually doing something. This hypocrisy has been pointed out, but blamed on cowardice rather than structure (or lack thereof).
A thousand years from now, while praying to their Messiah Tom Cruise and sucking the Thetans out of the Body of Cruise (i.e. a sausage), Scientologists can tell of stories how Scientologists of old were persecuted by the Internet and how mobs of Anonymouses blew up vans and all that. How Scientologists had to hide in the catacombs to activate their E-meters, how Anonymouses rounded Scientologists up and fed them to lions (OH MY GOD ITS A LION!). And, of course, the Germans.
Maybe to fight Scientology, these Anons should go with information saturation instead. Dispersing the truth about Scientology, but in a way that they won't get sued. Like Al Gore's Global Warming thing, or Micheal Moore's stuff, but through P2P networks or through internet sites hosted in places that Scientologists' army of lawyers can't touch.
Hrm, I wonder what would happen if Micheal Moore did a documentary on Scientology. Heh, wishful thinking. He's probably one of THEM!
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Shroom Man 777 wrote:Maybe to fight Scientology, these Anons should go with information saturation instead. Dispersing the truth about Scientology, but in a way that they won't get sued. Like Al Gore's Global Warming thing, or Micheal Moore's stuff, but through P2P networks or through internet sites hosted in places that Scientologists' army of lawyers can't touch.
The goal of the protests is to get people information about scientology, and get it into the public consciousness. Right now alot of people don't know or don't care about the practices of the church, and that's one of the goals of Anonymous.
Hrm, I wonder what would happen if Micheal Moore did a documentary on Scientology. Heh, wishful thinking. He's probably one of THEM!
Mark Bunker (aka Wise Beard Man) runs XenuTV.net and is one of the foremost critics of scientology. He's done media productions in the past (and even won an emmy for some news program) and hopes to make a doccumentary movie about Scientology.
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You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
Darth Wong wrote:Why the fuck do these people think that protesting outside Scientology centres will deter them at all? A feeling of persecution only gives people a bunker mentality and hardens their resistance to outside influence.
Anyone with half a brain should realize that this is why Bill O'Reilly and his ilk continually try to manufacture such a sense of persecution for white Christian men even where no justification whatsoever exists. Far from hurting the unity of a religious group, it strengthens it.
It does, but on the other hand, someone in the area may google Lisa McPherson as a result of the protest and then hopefully that'll be one more mind set against Scientology's progression as an organisation.
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Zuul wrote:It does, but on the other hand, someone in the area may google Lisa McPherson as a result of the protest and then hopefully that'll be one more mind set against Scientology's progression as an organisation.
There's a danger in trying to foment an overly terrifying impression of an organization like this. The recruiters can disarm people by simply acting really nice, thus completely deflating the image and casting doubt on it. Don't think they don't have some ready-made response for criticisms like that; if Catholics can get away with claiming the Pope has a special hot-line to God after all the horrible things Popes have said over the centuries, Scientologists can explain away a few crimes. They can also simply disavow the actions of other Scientologists; once again, Christians wrote the book on this one.
Ultimately, the very best criticism of Scientology is simply that it flies in the face of science. Unfortunately, that is not a popular line of attack because you could easily turn it against certain sacred cows in western society.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
D.Turtle wrote:However, if the influence of Scientology were to grow unhindered, I can easily see them being a lot worse than Christianity is right now - at least in most of the "western world." I don't know if they can achieve the same scale of destruction that Christianity is doing in Africa for example right now, but I would prefer not to find out.
I can't see that happening to Africa as we know it, for the simple reason that Christianity has always had significant appeal to the poor. As Scientology does not, I would be suprised if they were to gain a significant foothold in the Third World in the same way as more "traditional" religions. It is easy to sell Christian messages of salvation to the starving, because the sale does not involve actual money. Just try getting someone who can't even afford food or clothing to give you thousands of dollars, and you'll see what I mean.
As for the Hippocrasy of targetting Scientology rather than Christianity, I can think of at least two other reasons. One would be simply that instead of ignoring Christian atrocities, one could be ignorant of them. This would seem a likely cause in the US, since the vast majority of them happened in the rest of the world. I shouldn't need to tell anyone here how little many Americans know about world events.
The other has already been mentioned here, namely how futile similar moves would be against Christianity. Attacking an opponent so well entrenched would simply be a waste of time.
CaptainChewbacca wrote:The goal of the protests is to get people information about scientology, and get it into the public consciousness. Right now alot of people don't know or don't care about the practices of the church, and that's one of the goals of Anonymous.
This is anecdotal, but I've discovered that a startling number of Christians think that Scientology is some obscure brand of Christianity. Maybe they just get it mixed up with the Christian Scientists or something (hey, I never said people were smart). Raising awareness that Scientology is really some kind of weird pyramid scheme might actually help deter some people who might be swayed into it.
Well, doing almost nothing against Scientology hasn't done anything so far.
I view Scientology as a con. They get people to come in, and slowly reveal the belief system while taking money and conditioning them mentally. By the time the really crazy stuff is revealed, the person is heavily invested in the belief system, making it near impossible for them to leave. Thus, the secrecy of Scientology is one of its tricks.
So maybe by educating people about the beliefs and methods of the Church of Scientology before they get sucked in and become too emotionally, mentally, and financially involved to leave; the protesters can begin to make Scientology's craziness obvious enough to cripple its ability to recruit new members. Which will hopefully result in Scientology slowly dying out.
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CaptainChewbacca wrote:The goal of the protests is to get people information about scientology, and get it into the public consciousness. Right now alot of people don't know or don't care about the practices of the church, and that's one of the goals of Anonymous.
This is anecdotal, but I've discovered that a startling number of Christians think that Scientology is some obscure brand of Christianity. Maybe they just get it mixed up with the Christian Scientists or something (hey, I never said people were smart). Raising awareness that Scientology is really some kind of weird pyramid scheme might actually help deter some people who might be swayed into it.
That's intentional on the part of the CoS; their symbol intentionally resembles a crucifix and they initially even claim to not be a religion and that Scientology is compatible with Christianity; it's not until later in the Operating Thetan levels that they claim otherwise.
Rogue 9 wrote:That's intentional on the part of the CoS; their symbol intentionally resembles a crucifix and they initially even claim to not be a religion and that Scientology is compatible with Christianity; it's not until later in the Operating Thetan levels that they claim otherwise.
Not until OT VIII, though it gets pretty kookie before then and Scientology has officially denied the legitimacy of the publicized OT VIII documents (which they cannot do for OT VII and below because they declared them to be trade secrets).
It's lime some kind of glorious drug fuelled alternate universe, where the Internet wages war.
And it reminds me of of the Individual Eleven line of GitS episodes.
"Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth." M.A.A.A
Turin wrote:This is anecdotal, but I've discovered that a startling number of Christians think that Scientology is some obscure brand of Christianity. Maybe they just get it mixed up with the Christian Scientists or something (hey, I never said people were smart). Raising awareness that Scientology is really some kind of weird pyramid scheme might actually help deter some people who might be swayed into it.
That's intentional on the part of the CoS; their symbol intentionally resembles a crucifix and they initially even claim to not be a religion and that Scientology is compatible with Christianity; it's not until later in the Operating Thetan levels that they claim otherwise.
You'd think there was enough general awareness about Scientology that would prevent this level of deception. People are pretty gullible... at least with the mainstream religions the mechanism of indoctrination is more insidious (being "raised Christian" for example).
Xeriar wrote:
Not until OT VIII, though it gets pretty kookie before then and Scientology has officially denied the legitimacy of the publicized OT VIII documents (which they cannot do for OT VII and below because they declared them to be trade secrets).
Xeriar wrote:
Not until OT VIII, though it gets pretty kookie before then and Scientology has officially denied the legitimacy of the publicized OT VIII documents (which they cannot do for OT VII and below because they declared them to be trade secrets).
'Trade secrets' for a purported religion?
American IP law is a fantastic joke.
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