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Senate Scientology: How should governments treat it?

Discussion in 'Community' started by Lowbacca_1977, Jan 13, 2014.

  1. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    This ties in to an old thread that surfaced and locked (although just coincidentally) as well as some element of the What is a religion thread I started, but this is a much more focused subset of that broad question, and in particular how Scientology should be addressed.

    For the basics, Scientology's basis is the writings of L Ron Hubbard, making it a very young movement, only around 60 years old. While the United States considers it a church (after several fights with the IRS), because of Scientology's structure of selling services as its primary revenue, it's considered a commercial operation in Switzerland. For other practices, some countries consider it a cult and it is restricted.

    In the past, my stance had been that if the members considered it a religion, then that sorted that, and it wasn't up to others to evaluate the beliefs as counting for a religion or not. However, reading I've been doing more recently has been having me reconsider that as I've learned more allegations about how Scientology operates.

    In recent times, there has been talk about the use of horrible labour practices and mistreatment, such as a story from 2012 in Australia, involving accusations that they were keeping minors in horrible conditions while making them work for free for long hours and largely kept in isolation, as can be read about here. That these are not rare accusations does make there be humanitarian concerns about Scientology, but there also seems to be political ones.

    In the 1970s, several members of the Church of Scientology, including Hubbard's wife, served prison time for something called Operation Snow White, which involved the infiltration of over 100 facilities so that church members could steal documents that were critical of Scientology or Hubbard. This seems to be emblematic of the Church's concerted efforts to silence critics and shield itself from any opposition.

    Which brings me to the big question, which is how should Scientology be handled? Currently the U.S. protects it as freedom of religion, but that is not a global attitude towards it. The more I've read about it, the more Scientology has seemed to have similar elements to organized crime, which shouldn't be shielded even under the claim of religion, and that their conspiratorial nature possibly makes them a danger to the U.S. government as well, as they haven't simply spoken out against it, but actually coordinated the largest infiltration of the U.S. government to have ever occurred.

    Should this be treated as a religion, as a company, as criminal organization, some combination of these, or some other policy? From my personal stance.... it seems like at this point, it is operating in such a way that it should be shut down in its current form, and I think Switzerland may be most right in treating the church itself as a company, subject to all the relevant laws, rather than as anything else. Other thoughts on this?

    Please try to keep this constructive, and even if it's criticising Scientology, have some substance to those criticisms.
     
  2. Fire_Ice_Death

    Fire_Ice_Death Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2001
    I think Scientology should have its tax exempt status revoked. If you read L. Ron Hubbard's writing he's mocking the hell out of his followers. I read a review of the book of Battlefield Earth and he just completely despised the people that followed him. And with good reason: they were fools. He knew he wasn't some sort of prophet and was just a very bad sci-fi author, but he played to his strengths and made lots of money. He also came up with a crapload of fiction about his own biography, too.

    So, the US continues to look like fools for propping up this cult of money and we get to keep telling ourselves how tolerant we are of other religions. Maybe it'll mellow out in a hundred years or so like Mormonism, but I doubt it.
     
  3. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    I'm not even sure about that, really. I hear the thing brought up about how he knew he was just making stuff up, but I've also read things from people that knew him in his writing days that described how Hubbard would make things up, clearly, but would get very defensive when questioned on it, like he really had embodied the things he made up enough that he started to believe his own lies. From there, it wouldn't surprise me if he let things get out of control and ended up getting swallowed up by the entire Scientology line he started creating.

    Not that I think I'd say he was necessarily benevolent about it, but I'm skeptical he really had that disconnected of a perspective.
     
  4. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    I don't mind the tax exemption for religious organizations, but I wish that all religious organizations had to comply with the same audit, financial reporting rules (e.g. filing the 990) as any 501(c)3 organization. I imagine a lot of the big protestant televangelists are not much different from the Scientology leadership in terms of lack of oversight and being organized primarily to serve the needs of providing a luxury lifestyle to the leadership. There's a difference in scale of course because of a lack of centralization. Megachurches tend to be islands unto themselves I believe.

    I think you can tell from the lifestyles of the leadership whether the organization is at heart a criminal enterprise. Scientology devotes more of its resources to hiding its nature from public view, that's for sure. I sometimes think that protestant televangelists display their wealth as a badge of pride showing that they have been favored by God for their holy work. That makes them somewhat less dangerous I'd say when they're slightly upfront about being crooks.
     
  5. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    I do agree on the tax exemption rules there, certainly. I think the big difference, though, is that a lot of the televangelists may be bilking their followers, but I don't think that most of those groups have the same ties to people dying under questionable circumstances, accusations of being held against their will, unpaid forced work, etc. There's a lot more concerns to scientology, it seems, than a lot of these other groups, and it seems there's a much broader set of concerns.
     
  6. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    I'd agree Scientology's leadership is more audacious in its corruption than the run of the mill greed of people like Oral Roberts's son. L. Ron Hubbard founded a culture based on greed plus disregard for the law plus deep seated paranoia. From all I've read, he was a genuine psychopath and the core principles of paranoia, greed and the trappings of a stateless tinpot dictatorship were passed down intact to the next generation. It's self-perpetuating like North Korea, but possibly with more foreign currency at its disposal. It also has a highly functioning business model, which provides the incentives for everyone to play along, sort of an auditing pyramid scheme organized along the same lines as Herbalife.
     
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  7. LostOnHoth

    LostOnHoth Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2000
    I think any organization, whether it be religion based or otherwise, must be treated with neutrality unless actual laws are broken. I don't see any more or less validity to the claims made by scientology than those made by any other religion. Whether it is a religion or a cult is just a matter of definition. Yes, scientology is renowned for its devious practices and industrial esponiage, but the catholic church is renowned for covering up child paedophelia. There is an element of rot in nearly every religious organisation. Practically speaking, it is different from any other religion I know of because it is basically operated like a "self improvement" business which is based upon a user pays system. I'm not aware of any other religion that signs you up for various courses with a schedule of fees, like a private tuition enterprise. I believe its actual activities should be regulated like the activities of any other organization regardless of its spiritual foundations. All modern religious organisations run enterprises of some kind and those enterprprises should be governed by the same laws that apply to non-religious enterprises.
     
  8. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2000
    Well, a dear friend in another thread reminded me that the Catholic Church used to charge for indulgences, but the Papacy decided it wasn't a viable business model around the time of the Reformation. :p
     
  9. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    And I think at that time, it was also pretty clear that something needed to be done about the Catholic Church, too
     
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  10. yankee8255

    yankee8255 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    May 31, 2005
    It's worth keeping in mind that there are some serious questions about how Scientology gained its tax-exmpt religion status in the US in the first place. There are serious questions about whether they achieved it mainly through extortion of IRS officials.
     
  11. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    How do you mean extortion? I'd thought it was more due to the sheer scope of the legal action it was trying to carry out against the US government but that sounds more like it was personal targeting the way you worded it. Which they did do in many other situations so I'd not be surprised if they targeted people about this, too, as they did when they needed to cover up the effective murder of a Scientologist in Florida by the organization.
     
  12. yankee8255

    yankee8255 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    May 31, 2005
    There was a report on German TV on Scientology which alleged that they hired private investigators to dig up dirt on IRS officials and even filed frivolous lawsuits against them privately, all to apply pressure. Not sure how much actual proof there is to back that up. But the ruling was a rather dramatic reversal of course.
     
  13. KissMeImARebel

    KissMeImARebel Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 25, 2003
    Personally I think it's a cult. Scientology isolates its members and breaks up families, and it does it very methodically. It is NOT just a religion with problems, it's dangerous mind-control organization that abuses and rips off it's members.

    That being said, I think in the US the most realistic solution at this point is to revoke it's status as a religion and let it be a commercial "self-help" business. It will still be a rip-off, but at least some of it's practices with respect to labor laws will be curtailed and it's finances will be scrutinized. Not sure if that will be enough though.

    I keep a list of blogs/vids on Scientology, so here's my obligatory link dump:

    http://www.xenutv.com/blog/
    http://www.xenu.net/
    http://exscientologykids.com/
    http://www.forum.exscn.net/forum.php

    youtube.com/user/ToryMagoo44?blend=1&ob=5
    youtube.com/watch?v=cfQ5E7Uwfr0
    youtube.com/watch?v=gNjbAgSyoeg&feature=relmfu
    youtube.com/watch?v=Dk0NLEohgKo