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

Jenna on primetime? Talking about Co$'s schenanigans? Oh my! That's a broadside on them. This is getting bigger each month.

 

Speaking of broadsides:

Scientology about to get busted for exposing thousands of their followers to huge amounts of asbestos

 

Wow, it's been a while since I've been in this thread.

That link Darth Guy is pretty crazy.

I went to the protest last month in my local town. I must say, it was pretty lame. People were looking at us like a bunch of fools, no one was honking, there was only like 30-40 people there. It was not very fun. I will most likely not be going to another one. Just thought I'd point that out to people. Though, that doesn't change my stance on the issue.

 

Personally, if the reason you'd not do so again is it wasn't 'fun' then you're out there for the wrong reasons.

 

Yeah, I see what you mean. But, I in all honesty, I don't think it accomplished anything either. Like I said, no one was paying any attention to us, whenever people would pass by on the streets, they would rarely accept our pamphlets. It wasn't a success, IMO. That is the main reason why I will not go again.

 

Try the one in San Francisco. There are people protesting everything!

 

I think you can pretty much unfold a "Mission Accomplished" banner in any case as I think people are pretty much wary of Scientology these days due to all of the bad publicity. Certainly there appears to be a greater awareness of problems within the COS now than there was even 2 years ago, even in Australia. People will be going in with their eyes open at least.

 

True, and that's good to see. (Incidentally, the CoS has been running into trouble in Australia too recently.

By the way, just to throw Malkie a bone: Most Christian churches aren't like this, but Hagee's church is one of the biggest, and it's... a little disturbing, to say the least.

 

I think you still have to draw a line between attacking some of the beliefs of the COS and the actions of those people who run the COS at the executive level. For example, the COS had nothing to do with a severely mentally disturbed/psychotic girl turning violent and killing her family. I know that story you linked quite well and if you read the entire article you will note that it has little or nothing to do with the COS - the accused had seen a private psychiatrist and had resumed anti-psychotic medication prior to the attack. The COS parents simply did not want her to follow up on the course of drugs prescribed by the Bankstown Hospital mental health team because of their concerns about those drugs. The fact that they were members of the COS is a media beat up and the Bankstown Hospital were glad of the deflection because they avoided an investigation into why one of their patients went on to butcher her family (they claimed it wasn't their fault because she did not continue treatment with them - she went off to another service provider).

According to Dr Cross's report, instead of receiving follow-up treatment by Bankstown Hospital's mental health team, the woman had instead seen a private psychiatrist as well as a psychologist.

She also was prescribed an anti-depressant as well as an anti-psychotic treatment that she took until January this year, which made her feel anxious, and depressed.

She stated that her parents did not want her to take the prescribed medication she had been on in 2006, and apparently started her on medication they got from America ? which was not psychiatric in nature," Dr Cross said.

The woman told Dr Cross that her feelings started to worsen three weeks before the killings and that her parents allowed her to restart her anti-psychotic medication as it helped her to sleep

This thread has been good in revealing the worldwide disclosure of problems within the COS and the stories of ex COS memners but I remain skeptical about much of it simply because of these sorts of allegations, ie, the COS is "running into trouble" when in fact the unforunate story has little or nothing to do with the COS - it has more to do with a severely mentally disturbed person who happened to have parents that were unhappy with the treatment provided by a certain hospital (but happened to have COS beliefs and so it became a media frenzy).

I'm more interested in the stories about actual COS conduct towards its members - those stories are more compelling and look less like a grasping at straws witch hunt.

 

Yeah, there's a big difference between say Evangelicals and Catholics, etc.

 

It's not exactly "grasping at straws," LoH. It's a fact that Scientology -- not just the organized church, but the belief system -- teaches that psychologists, or "psychs" as they're pejoratively called, are evil manipulators (and agents of the evil Lord Xenu, although they leave that part out until you're indoctrinated enough to believe it), and deny their members psychiatric care. That's part of how Lisa McPherson died; she had a psychotic break, and their solution was to lock her in a room until she was minutes from death, then drive her straight past three hospitals to find the one hospital, 45 minutes away, with a Scientologist doctor.

Yes, I know that Christian Scientists also deny their members medical treatment (they believe that only good things are real, sickness is part of the Matrix, and you can pray to get rid of it -- if it doesn't work, you prayed wrong), and that people have died from that too, some of them recently. But Christian Science is a very small off-shoot of Christianity as a whole -- numbers are sketchy, but some say they've shrunk to about 20% of what they were 30 years ago -- and in the book, Jesus implicitly states that sick people need doctors.

Even if you leave out the corruption of the CoS, "don't get medical treatment" is a very destructive belief. Of course, when you factor in the corruption of the CoS, it becomes, "don't get medical treatment, except for our phony treatment which we'll make you pay through the nose for, and if it doesn't work, it's your fault for being a broken person." Needless to say, that's much worse.

On a related note, back when the CoS' asbestos-filled ship was still operational, they knowingly left the asbestos there, believing that (a) Hubbard never warned about asbestos, and he knew all about ships, so it must be okay, and (b) Scientologists have magical cancer-proof powers anyway.

It's like jumping off a cliff and believing God'll make you fly.

 

Someone leaked the CoS' RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force) manual.

The RPF is where Scientologists get sent when they don't raise enough money or question the church too much. Effectively, it's a forced labor camp. Check out some of the highlights of the "Personal Restrictions and Penalties" section, starting on Page 16 of the original doc:

So, yeah. Prison camps, with armed guards, that hold people against their will for months at a time, on American soil. That can't be legal.

 

Yeah, that can't be legal.

I wonder if the government is afraid of Tom Cruise's power of jumping on couches.

 

And yes, there is a Children's RPF.