The church of scientology called me

[Angrboda]

Me and a group of atheists toured the local Scientology church this past winter. I noticed they had a camera on our group when we came in, but not after that. Our organizer told me later (much later) that wherever we went, they had cameras just in sight, recording everything we did. I suppose if I'd known at the time, I might have been a bit peeved, but I didn't, so I wasn't. Other than that, they were pretty nice. However they didn't allow any photographs, except for a few taken by the organizer, and when I started grilling the lower level Scientologist demonstrating the e-meter, they cut it short and asked us to hold our questions until the question and answer session. Which was fine; here I was giving this Scientology noob the third degree, and I suppose it was a little unfair. Of course, any hard question and they just give you the run around. I stayed after to ask questions about their scholastic/educational technology and programs, so they were pretty open. Another group from our group asked them why, if they don't discriminate against homosexuals, the CoS supported prop 8 banning gay marriage in California. They just went in circles. I'm sure it was fun to watch, but I wasn't there. I've still got a bunch of their literature and DVDs in a pile here, but haven't gotten to them. They were very nice, and the materials were all slick and well produced, but the one thing we noticed more than anything else was how empty the church was. They had a study center the size of a major library, and the whole wall was a window, so you could see that there were only 4-5 people in there.