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Scientology Lawsuit
#1
Scientology Lawsuit
"A former Scientologist filed a lawsuit alleging child abuse, kidnapping, false imprisonment, human trafficking, forced child labor, and retaliation against the Church of Scientology. The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court is a likely the first of many to be filed against the church by former Scientologists."

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/withoutacr...w-lawsuit/

Hope Scientology goes down in flames. (in a volcano?)
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem.
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#2
RE: Scientology Lawsuit
I’d be lying if I said I was shocked.
Nay_Sayer: “Nothing is impossible if you dream big enough, or in this case, nothing is impossible if you use a barrel of KY Jelly and a miniature horse.”

Wiser words were never spoken. 
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#3
RE: Scientology Lawsuit
It’s yet another cult.
Dying to live, living to die.
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#4
RE: Scientology Lawsuit
(June 20, 2019 at 7:16 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: I’d be lying if I said I was shocked.

Well, I think it is shocking. Not that the Co$ does this shit, but that the dogs are finally biting back. Bear in mind, this is a group that files frivolous lawsuits by the truckload against their critics. Remember that scene from Better Call Saul where the retirement home Jimmy's suing decides to drown him in frivolous lawsuits in an attempt to slow him down? They did that to the IRS in an attempt to buffalo them into giving them tax exemption. And it worked. At one point, they even had 100 lawsuits against the IRS simultaneously.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.

[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]

I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
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#5
RE: Scientology Lawsuit
(June 20, 2019 at 9:17 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote:
(June 20, 2019 at 7:16 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: I’d be lying if I said I was shocked.

Well, I think it is shocking. Not that the Co$ does this shit, but that the dogs are finally biting back. Bear in mind, this is a group that files frivolous lawsuits by the truckload against their critics. Remember that scene from Better Call Saul where the retirement home Jimmy's suing decides to drown him in frivolous lawsuits in an attempt to slow him down? They did that to the IRS in an attempt to buffalo them into giving them tax exemption. And it worked. At one point, they even had 100 lawsuits against the IRS simultaneously.

And the IRS fucked up by caving.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem.
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#6
RE: Scientology Lawsuit
(June 20, 2019 at 10:11 pm)wyzas Wrote:
(June 20, 2019 at 9:17 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: Well, I think it is shocking. Not that the Co$ does this shit, but that the dogs are finally biting back. Bear in mind, this is a group that files frivolous lawsuits by the truckload against their critics. Remember that scene from Better Call Saul where the retirement home Jimmy's suing decides to drown him in frivolous lawsuits in an attempt to slow him down? They did that to the IRS in an attempt to buffalo them into giving them tax exemption. And it worked. At one point, they even had 100 lawsuits against the IRS simultaneously.

And the IRS fucked up by caving.

So did Jimmy. To be fair, at least Sandpiper Crossing offered to pay back all the money they stole as part of that settlement. And Scientology's plan was to avoid doing exactly that.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.

[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]

I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
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#7
RE: Scientology Lawsuit
I'd love to see scientology come crashing down and I'd also like to see a heap of families reunited with each other.




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#8
RE: Scientology Lawsuit
Scientology is a business which preys on the vulnerable and separates them from their friends and family (and anyone else who speaks out against Scn.) in order to maintain the flow of cash to the organisation. In the auditing process, the individual inadvertently gives the auditor the bullets to shoot them with, should they choose to leave. Can you imagine the dirt that Scn. has on Tom Cruise, John Travolta etc? They could probably devastate these guys' careers.

Two friends of mine got involved in Scn. Both got ripped off to the tune of thousands.

I would say it's a pseudo-mental therapy cult, not a religion, though some would reasonably argue for an overlap. Best thing a government could do is to ban it. Sadly it won't happen, because it's a business.

I guess the question arises of how much we should protect people from their own vulnerability and in some cases, stupidity?
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#9
RE: Scientology Lawsuit
(June 21, 2019 at 1:36 pm)squidfetish Wrote: I would say it's a pseudo-mental therapy cult, not a religion, though some would reasonably argue for an overlap.

Well, regardless if they treat the volcano story literally or not, they have a doctrine of reincarnation which may qualify them as a religion. Oddly enough, here I am wanting to say it does make Scientology a religion, whereas (in another thread when discussing Buddhism) I wanted to ignore the doctrine of reincarnation and treat Buddhism as a philosophy.

I suppose it depends on how allegorical one treats these reincarnation doctrines. Treating Buddhist and Hindu reincarnation as symbolic (perhaps describing through metaphor the changes that transpire in a single life) does much to make both belief systems more palatable. But truth be told, maybe it's just better to take things at face value and call such doctrines out on their bullshit. Truth be told, Buddhist and Hindu doctrines have been used to justify interpersonally destructive cult-like practices that are every bit as bad as what Scientology does.

The "banish all dogmas" thing sounds quite appealing in light of all this.
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#10
RE: Scientology Lawsuit
It's worth noting that the Xenu story is only told to people who reach OT III. Because the cost to reach that point is around $159,250, (and is invite-only, anyway) about 10% of Scientologists (possibly fewer) even reach that level.

So, perhaps for those lower 90+% of Scientologists, it is just a pseudo-mental therapy cult. As for those beliefs being allegorical or not, Hana Eltingham explains in the documentary Going Clear that, even though she knew that there were holes in the story (like the volcanoes that LRH name-dropped in the story weren't 65 million years old), she took the story literally enough that she fell into a deep depression, since this meant that she'd never be free of the Thetans) and she almost jumped off the roof of Big Blue. She only decided against it because of the negative publicity it'd give the Church.

But as for the distinction between a cult and a religion, honestly, I'd say the distinction is largely academic, but that would imply that there was some degree of agreement as to the criteria that distinguish a cult from a main religion. I might guess that the biggest distinction between the two is that a religion has some degree of mainstream credibility and a cult doesn't.

An Anti-Stefan Molyneux site I read, while trying to assess whether FreeDomainRadio counts as a cult, decided to create this flowchart to try and distinguish whether or not it counts in his attempt at even trying to figure out what a cult even is:
[Image: Cult-flowchart_s.jpg]

Of course, as the author he points out that "The Chicago Bears, the marines, people who have every book Stephen King has ever written, Methodists, and devoted Jonas Brothers fans" fit under this definition of "cult," so he zeroes in on destructive cults, which he identifies as your Jonestowns, your Heaven's Gates, your Aum Shinrikyos. By this flowchart, it would appear that Scientology qualifies as a "destructive cult" and most mainstream religions qualify as "cults, but probably not destructive" (at least not in the same way those groups are).

This article might be illuminating in that it explains a scientist who decided to give MBTI tests to converts to cults (present, as they would have answered in the past, and would expect to answer in the future) and found they seemed to have changed MBTI types and converged to a few specific types (with a specific convergence towards a specific type.) This may be part of a phoenomenon that Aum Shinrikyo leader Shoko Ashahara called "cloning the guru."

Meanwhile, converts to mainstream religions tended to stay the same, personality wise. Scientology was one of those groups where personality types converged. Which type the Scientologists converged to isn't explained, but it is said that "In three of the groups the movement was toward ESFJ. Two moved toward ESTJ. One moved toward ENFJ." Despite the book's saying all relevant information is included in tables in the appendix, the tables all refer to the main Boston Church of Christ study. I suspect that, with all that fucking coursework, they might be one of the two ESTJ groups.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.

[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]

I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
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