Scientology Protests
I thought this might be kindof interesting to people for a couple reasons.
First of all, we all remember Telltale's Scientology parody that they did in Sam & Max: Bright Side of the Moon.
Second of all, we're all very familiar with the internet.
These two things have begun to converge over the past several months when the actions of the group called "Anonymous", famous for its 4chan and /b/, have begun organizing a rather substantial protest movement against the Church of Scientology on the basis of its supposedly oppressive and con-like practices, especially in suppressing those that speak out against the Church.
Obviously you can make up your own mind, but I will direct you to this Wikipedia page about the movement, and also more specifically to this Youtube video.
Again, make up your own mind, but I have to say I find it hard to dislike a group that can say "Your organization should be destroyed. For the good of your followers. For the good of mankind. And for our own enjoyment."
First of all, we all remember Telltale's Scientology parody that they did in Sam & Max: Bright Side of the Moon.
Second of all, we're all very familiar with the internet.
These two things have begun to converge over the past several months when the actions of the group called "Anonymous", famous for its 4chan and /b/, have begun organizing a rather substantial protest movement against the Church of Scientology on the basis of its supposedly oppressive and con-like practices, especially in suppressing those that speak out against the Church.
Obviously you can make up your own mind, but I will direct you to this Wikipedia page about the movement, and also more specifically to this Youtube video.
Again, make up your own mind, but I have to say I find it hard to dislike a group that can say "Your organization should be destroyed. For the good of your followers. For the good of mankind. And for our own enjoyment."
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And please, if you are a Scientologist, I mean no disrespect, though I can see right away that I have already done as much, and will probably do it a lot more. I have my beliefs (Agnostic) you have yours. I respect that, feel free to tell me why I am wrong in believing what I do, I am quite open to listening to others opinions.
Scientology as a religion feels like a stretch to me. And in a way, so do most religions. If I was going to be a devout follower of a religion, and not merely a way of thinking as I do now, I would more than likely choose Buddhism, as it is a set of teachings on how to live life to its fullest, be a good person, and help your fellow man. All respectful things to any one I would hope. And to be fair, I find most religions a stretch, which is what makes me believe in things the way I do. Christ? An omnipresent being watching us from above? Aliens from space? Sure, why not all of these? Really, why?
Belief in a faith is fantastic, I have faiths, not in the traditional sense, and maybe a bit naive at that; I have a belief that the good in this world ultimately outweighs the bad, and that maybe one day people will come to their senses and realize there is more to this piece of rock hurtling through space than oil and fancy rocks. That maybe one day those that have their heads in the "right" path will be able to spread this to others, that we can all some how come to a common understanding that regardless of what form of God you worship, we can all work together, end wars, fight drugs, reduce crime, and just be who we are: human beings.
I do not understand this 4chan thing, I hear about it all the time but I never bother to find out what it is, they always seem to be rallying against something for the sole purpose of just being against it and causing controversy.
I say, let the scientologists believe in what they will. One of their beliefs, or at least a paraphrased version (my source is Wiki as I do not feel like digging out a book, but it seems to be correct) I will quote here, and then ask a simple question about it:
"Scientology is the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, others and all of life. And encompasses all aspects of life from the point of view of the spirit — including auditing and training in morals, ethics, detoxification, education and management."
Of course, this is just one of many things dealing with this religion, but is something like that inherantly wrong? No! All of those things many people could stand to learn! There are so many religions, and each of them, or most .. let us be honest, devil worship is where I draw the line and just say "Wacko!" .. but most, ninety-nine percent, have a lot of things in them that are truly great ideals, focusing the mind, cleansing your body, becoming one with your spirit, respecting others, animals, and the world around you in general.
Our world has a lot to learn.
Wow, I did not ever expect to post something this long dealing with religion on Telltale, pardon my lengthy post, and please, I may be in error in places, you may not agree, but if you walk away from this with anything new, let it be that people have a right to believe in what they want. I do not care if you are in the United States or Timbuktu, as a human being, you should not be stifled into a something you do not believe in.
Nobody really cares about Scientology as a religion. Scientology as a religion can be believed by anyone who wants to, nobody is contesting that.
The protests arise from the practices of Scientology the religious institution.
The Church of Scientology as a religious institution has a long and notorious history of attempting to edit the public's opinion of them in a variety of ways, from lawsuits to vandalism on wikipedia to infiltrating the U.S. government.
Scientology as a religious institution has had too many incidents to count wherein new converts are slowly drained of their wealth due to "donations" to the Church in exchange for information about the religion.
Scientology as a religious institution has had a few too many incidents wherein people die in suspicious circumstances related to Scientology.
The Church of Scientology has also ridiculously abused their tax-exempt status as a religion, in my opinion. Tax-exempt status is based upon the concept of a not-for-profit organization, which has a tendency to describe religious institutions but is not a necessary fact.
The Church of Scientology, for instance, purchases their E-meters for about 50 dollars, this in itself being an approximately 40 dollar profit margin above the production costs. But it doesn't stop there. You can buy your very own E-meter from the Church of Scientology (and ONLY the Church of Scientology) for...
No, let's guess.
Is it...
$60?
$70?
$100?
$200?
$300?
$500?
$900?
Well, to be honest, it depends on the model. I think I remember seeing a price figure for around $300, but I look on Wikipedia and see $900 and $4,650.
They've trademarked the name of their religion, and I get this feeling that they continually generate new material and new versions of old material so that they can continuously tout the latest and greatest version of the same material under patent and copyright, so that the current church doctrine is always only available for sale by them, and a full course all the way through all the known "levels" of Scientology costs more than $300,000.
This stuff is messed up.
And finally, a nice large list of links. Just the top one is maintained by the Church of Scientology, because they have so many branches and websites I really couldn't possibly list them all. Well, that's the official reason. The unofficial reason is that I find them distasteful and don't really like them.
http://www.scientology.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Zone_%28Scientology%29
http://www.xenu.net/
http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com/
http://www.whyaretheydead.net/
And there's a whole bunch more out there if you're intrigued.
EDIT:
Well, that's the thing, isn't it. I really don't know what to believe on the subject because the academic press and the mainstream beliefs on the matter are quite at odds, but many people would have you believe that the most ridiculous-sounding portions of the Scientology belief are only revealed after an intensive courseload costing much money and supposedly being specifically designed to break down people's inhibitions and make them gullible.
It's certainly true that you have to spend a lot of money before they get into the details of the religion, but it's less true whether anyone actually has, well, as you put it, "something mentally wrong with [them]."
The question has been raised, though.
Personally, I like the protests. It's high time something like this happened, and there's more than enough Anon to make them listen.