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Chanology?

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Johnny C:
It's a dangerous line to walk between criticism and intolerance.

Scientology is one of those things that as a religion is incredibly harmless. It's frivolous at best to mock their beliefs. However, the Church Of Scientology itself is an enterprise not only based on fear, intimidation, profit and power, it's an extremely corrupt example of it. I don't pretend to defend the organized structure of any religion as immune from error, but in the latter half of the twentieth century the Church Of Scientology has embarked on a campaign of harassment, legal bullying, psychotic behaviour against critics that is endorsed by high-level Church administrators and quite possibly murder by torture, which may have actually occurred on multiple occasions.

As an additional corollary, there are organizations like Free Zone who are essentially in the process of a modern schism from the main Church of Scientology. The difference is that where such things were often settled with years of physical conflict and cries of "heresy," it's now being settled with expensive lawyers and cries of "heresy."

And to confound my argument even further, any criticism is good, by the way. Criticism of a religion is no different from criticism of, say, a government. Certainly, there are some people out there who believe in the current American administration, but that doesn't mean that George W. Bush and co. are somehow beyond protest just because some people happen to support them. To suggest that Scientology shouldn't be singled out for protest not only negates previous public protests against the machinations of other religions, but it sets a dangerous precedent. Especially when, although because of their particular self-referential brand of humour the proceedings were a bit bizarre and occasionally cruel, a protest against a religious organization's practices is carried out in as peaceful a manner as this.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this is a complex thing. No point in reducing it to an inaccurate situation of "It's a religion and this is intolerance" vs. "It's a cult and it's dangerous."

a pack of wolves:

--- Quote from: tommydski on 11 Feb 2008, 09:03 ---If the people who are staging these protests have definitely given all of this due consideration, good luck to them. Protest away. Maybe next week we can protest the right-wing Christian administration that has essentially hijacked American politics. Maybe the week after that we can protest the treatment of women by Muslim extremists on basically every continent. Maybe afterwards we can protest the wars our governments have started abroad. In the current climate, protesting Scientology is akin to a man in a burning building complaining about having an itchy leg.

--- End quote ---

To an extent I'd agree, but nobody ever starts with the toughest things wrong with this world, the things which force you to question your own way of life. It's a first step, and I'm usually happy to see people willing to take to the streets over something. Once they've done it for once it becomes more natural to do it again, so maybe in a few years there'll be people outside oil refineries or army recruitment centres chatting about how their first protest was this. In fact, I'll be very surprised if that isn't the case.

Ozymandias:
Tommy, you keep saying "if them why not them?" which is basically an erroneous argument and you know it. If someone wants to protest one wrong, they should be allowed to, despite the existence of others. Otherwise, what's the point? What's the point of fighting any evil if  other evil continues to exist? Anonymous can't take down the Catholic Church. Anonymous can't take down Muslim extremists. Anonymous can't take down the government. Those entities exist outside of the modern construction of society, the internet, the businesses, the corporations. Anonymous and Scientology both feed off the modern construction of society. They grew in it and use it to their advantage. It's something that Anonymous can actually, at least, feel like they're doing something about.

And, yeah, Anonymous is malicious themselves. No one is arguing that they're the white knights coming to save us from the vicious dragon of Scientology. They're a bunch of nerds, script kiddies, /b/tards, and other assorted internet bottom dwellers who do stupid shit because it's funny. If they want to feel like they're doing something because it's right for once, though, I'm okay with that.

AnotherQCaddict:
While anon is making some good arguements (paying for salvation?), they aren't exactly the most orthodox of protesters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoA0mnISlyQ

Might this constitute harrassment?  I don't particularly like either group, but it's more a matter of "who is worse?"




At least anon has done a few good things, wheras the few good things one might be able to be said about Scientology are shrouded in a cloud of doubt and legal nonsense.

Spinless:
That video was horrible. The youtube comments say she is the one who approached them on a "rampage". That's not to say they protesters were justified in their following actions either. Both the protesters and the woman in the video were in the wrong.

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