~The Internet-vs-Scientology~ The War on Scientology

If any of you frequent the website digg.com often, then you would have heard about the ongoing battle between Internet Users and Scientology. A brief summary:

A group simply known as Anonymous released a video on YouTube (can be seen Here) entitled "Message to Scientology" where they have "declared war" on Scientology. They reportedly DDOS attacked many well known Scientologist websites, namely scientology.org, bringing the load times to a server low, even disabling some of the websites.

That's pretty the gist of it all, but you can read a better, in depth summary of it Here.

What are your thoughts on this? I guess it is being taken slightly serious, with reports being on the news and such. I personally find it funny and will be keeping an eye on this.

(I apologize if this does not belong in this forum; I assumed it would be the best place to put it since it has to do with religion)

 

Digg and Reddit internet users have a problem with just about all things religion. I don't put any stock into religious attacks that appear on those two particular "What's Hot" websites.

 

I wouldn't say they are particularly digg.com users (though they could be). They are users who remain anonymous at the moment. I would say digg is simply relaying the information to its users.

 

It's a sad day when I'm in agreement with Germany...

But Scientology's not a religion. Seeing Tom Cruise talk, on that famous Scientology vid on YouTube, it just convinced me that an illegitimate cult with lots of money and high profile adherants is still a cult.

That these groups are tackling Scienlologists doesn't bother me at all.

ES

 

Nothing angers me more than money scams, and Scientology comes in second (just underneath those silly e-mails from Nigeria telling you that you have a great uncle leaving you $1000000000000000000000000000000).

Interesting BBC video of what happens when you cross Scientology (It's 29 minutes long)

 

Heh, Nigeria's largest industry is fraud.

//incoming Suzuki rage that he doesn't understand

ES

 

I am all for religious freedom and couldn't care less what cooky things they believe, but I think the test for any group is to judge them by their fruits. And by that standard I just can't say that Scientology isn't a cult. I just don't see anything good that has really come of this, and as far as I can tell their most high profile members don't seem to be much better off because of it. I don't like learning about a religion from its detractors, but Scientologists don't seem too intent on letting the world know much of what they actually believe. The one thing that disturbs me is that they seem intent on using any tactics to make sure others can't speak badly about them. If they didn't do that, I wouldn't care so much what the detractors had to say about them.

I have never known one so really all my information comes from the media and things on the internet.

As for this "war," I don't see a good side here.

 

I remember hearing on a BBC interview a former Scienlologist being interviewed, describing the size of their intelligence agency and their doctrine for dealing with criticism (shred the credbility of the critic, i.e. attack them not what they are saying). Yeah, go religious freedom!

ES

 

I see a good side. It gives the Scientology leaders something to waste time on

 

About two years ago Rolling Stone printed a long, detailed, and unflattering article about both Scientology & L. Ron Hubbard. Ex-members were interviewed, one stating flat-out that she considered Scientology's beliefs to be brainwashing. She also said ex-members are harshly shunned, and openly attacked on a personal basis if they speak out publicly. Kirstie Alley was one Hollywood star who was mentioned within the article. In the very next edition of Rolling Stone, the editors printed an angry letter Alley penned in response to the article, and sure enough, she attacked the article's author on a personal level. RS also printed the author's response, which was to the effect of "See? Just like clockwork."

 

Wait, I thought it was about Scientology?

 

I guess I should have posted "supposed religion"...My apologies.

Yeah, this whole Scientology thing, IMO, is ridiculous.

Did anyone happen to catch the Scientology episode of South Park? Tom Cruise actually had it pulled from the air, and Isaac Hayes quit because of it. Personally, I believe that episode to be a work of art.

 

As crude and offensive as South Park can be, I still can admire it for not pulling any punches for anyone. Even when they make fun of my religion I can't really get angry over it because they do it to everyone. And besides, they still managed to give us some compliments for our good behavior.

 

I'll say, I actually disagree with this current incarnation of the war on scientology.

Much of the criticisms of it I would agree with, however, I don't like things like DDOS attacks because my issue with scientology as far as its interactions with people outside their beliefs is how they try to silence criticism and basically stop free and open speech. I don't think that the solution to combatting that is to silence their speech in return.

 

Declaring war against something actually gives it grounding, whereas it would better just ignored.

If people want to worship an all seeing being that no one has ever actually met, while paying loads of cash to the person at the top of the tree, and following a list of rulings which may, or may not be accurate then let them do so.

I mean, you wouldn't catch sensible, educated people doing that - would you?

 

QFT. Scientology is a cult and Tom Cruise is a kook.

 

Interesting.

Scientology.org is back up.

 

Its been back up since at least last night.

 

So does that mean they failed?

 

No, its way a DDOS attack works. A denial of service attack works by having lots of computers try to access the same website at the same time. The page can't handle the volume of traffic, overloads and crashes. They just don't have enough computers to keep the scientology site down permanently, but the fact that I saw You Tubes vids about this from both Fox and Sky News in Britain suggests that Anonymous did manage to bring down scientolog.org, at least for a while.

 

Church of Scientology did do Operation Snow White in the 70's. They infiltrated US goverment's facilities, embassies, etc, and stole documents. High-ranking scientologists (Hubbart's wife among them) were convicted. And then there are those, how shall I say this, "unclear" deaths in their ranks.

Scientology is a scam. It is sad that so many are sucked in each year.

 

I think they are a bunch of nuts and some internet war is not newsworthy.

 

Religion is a based on piety and lack thereof of money.

cults and scams need money and all your possessions to survive.

No religion asks for money to become a believer. They only ask that you believe.

Plus scientology really rankles people cause the followers are rich. Those who are the most faithful of any religion give up the pursuit of money to become the faithful.

money and religion dont mix. Ever. just ask Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker and the other televangists that were brought down by their love of money.

The love of money is the root of all evil.

 

everytime I've been in a church I've been asked to give a donation

 

That's called a donation. You can choose not to give one, and you can still worship there.

In Scientology, you either give them your money, or you don't participate.