Wikipedia excommunicates Church of Scientology
I believe the world doesn't give us enough to believe in.
So we should look to any possible source of guidance to help us through the messy morass of life.
If Wikipedia does it for you, lovely. If the Church of Scientology is your preference, lovely too.
But it seems these two sources are in something of a credibility saber fight, one in which Wikipedia has dealt the church a wounding swipe.
In a decision that will concern some in Los Angeles, the online encyclopedia has decided to ban all changes to the site made by IP addresses owned or operated by the church and its associates.
According to a report by the Register, the arbitration against the church, the longest in Wikipedia's history, ended this week with a 10-0 decision, one Wikipedian abstaining.
The decision shows that Wikipedia's arbitrators were anything but arbitrary. They noted around 430 articles concerning the Church of Scientology and described "persistent point-of-view pushing and extensive feuding over sources on multiple articles."
They said that the very topic of Scientology "has become a magnet for single purpose accounts, and sockpuppetry is rife." (Single purpose accounts are those that only contribute on one sole topic. Sockpuppetry is, oh, you can work that one out.)
The least reliable, or perhaps least neutral, entries appear to have been biographies of living people in which pro- and anti-Scientologists tried to force their own mirror on the innocent reader.
I don't know about you, but whenever I am approached by Scientologists on the street, asking to take my blood pressure, asking the time, or asking if I'd like to fly up to Planet Excitement in a rather fine rocket, I marvel at their conviction.
However, Wikipedia demands a little faith too, so one has to admire that it is trying to keep its vast Church of Knowledge in order before someone knocks over a pew or two.
Still, it would be heartening if the two parties could find some sense of accommodation in the long run. There are many who would really like to discover an objective truth or two about Scientology.
So perhaps Wikipedia could ask some Scientologists to edit a few entries about Hollywood. You just know they must have some rather fun information they could share on certain biographies of living artists.
And perhaps, in a return gesture of goodwill, John Travolta could play Jimmy Wales in a biopic.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
It is NOT intended as a GUARANTEE to readers that the content is accurate and neutral; it was done as a CRUTCH to help active editors who are striving to make it accurate and neutral.
How does one write about the holocaust neutrally for example?
In many cases to stay neutral is to allows one side to have its viewpoint, which is nothing but lies and half-truths.
Granted, Scientologists are nutbags, but one has to be careful about the damage neutrality can cause.
How about this:
In early to mid 20th century Europe, an Austrian leader put to death millions of people?
The devil is in the details. Its easy to make a one line sentence on the topic. When one writes an article on the finer details on what happened personal bias always creeps in. Espically on emotional topics like this. and when you are talking about a religion, esp one as zealous as Scientology, you are going to have strong emotions on both sides of the fence.
For example, an article on Scientology is of course fine so long as it factually explains views without trying to pass them off as verified and proven truth.
E.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Not
so does every other religion....
It just Scientology it knew and learnt how to make a lot of money of it.
So does Wikipedia. And, no, I'm not a Scientologist; have nothing to do w/ them and don't even really know what they're about except that they seem to get many people's undies in a knot.
It is the biggest plague ever to hit the planet.
All religions started out as cults.
Yes Organized religion has its draw backs, just as Government, Schools, TV, Radion the Internet has its draw backs. Just as sports clubs, just as about anything in life has draw backs.
Like any club which competes for the mind, and the pocket book there will always being discorse.
But religion and in this we should say the Church had a major factor in many peoples life in the past and in many cases still today.
It brought people together it unified people. Many people in there communities do not often see each other. Gathering for Church on Sunday was when people on mass tended to get together they spent time together to know each other.
The community coming together, hardened the community, made people watch out for each other and helped with local crime issues. A simple example of something a church often helped with. Walk down any middle class neighbour hood today. And in the back yards you will often see expensive play structures for the younger family. Most ranging in price of $500-$1500 and in many cases they are not played on. Kids tend to like to have friends to play with. And, often the parents like to keep the kids home in the increasing dangerous and violent world. Citing I don't know that family or kid. So you take your average neighbor hood, and you may have 300-500 of these things all over the place. Thats a good wad of cash that can easily be $500k or more spent, good for the local Walmarts and Costco's. In the past the church most likley would have started a fund raising campaign bringing people and local government together. To raise money to build a local play center.
And, with the fact people spent time together, there trust levels increase the children spend more time together while parents talked. The community thrived, today our communities are shrinking. Our crime is going up, people are looking more and more to police and government to look after us. It does not appear to make any impact how many people you toss in jail how many police officers you have out there. Crime is still going up, the US has the most people per capita in Jail then any nation on the planet. We have more police on the ground then almost any other major nation. Yet we have crime levels that are on par with some of the worst back waters on the planet.
We have stopped looking out for our selves, so yes organized religion the church does have some draw backs from its past. But, we have also lost a lot of what it brought to the table.
Studies of religious, political, and other cults have identified a number of key steps in this type of coercive persuasion:
People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations;
Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized;
They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a charismatic leader;
They get a new identity based on the group;
They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the mainstream culture) and their access to information is severely controlled.
Now to use Christianity as an example, I would say that as a whole it is not a cult. However because there are so many factions it is entirely possible that some groups are using Christian Doctrine as a basis for their cult. We must be careful not to paint all denominations with the same brush. As someone raised Catholic I would say that it is not a cult. I was never hurt physically or emotionally by clergy, isolated from anyone or anything, I never based my whole identity on my faith, and definately met some uncharasmatic leaders.
Before you get to the point of banning a whole block of IP#s there usuallywould have been warnings from Wikipedia Administrators (or people elected by the community to be administrators) they would warn the IP#s that the watched edits being made were questionable. At which time if those IP#s continue to abuse the system they would go from something like a one-two day ban to longer periods. Or articles would be moved to protected status where only established editors can make changes. If the abuse continues, then other editors can seek to place a temporary protection order on the article. If the abuse continues, after every time the article-protection is removed then they may start to ban certain IP#s for a set amount of time. If it continues then the entire bloc of IP#s can be blocked and legitimate persons from those IP#s can submit a formal request concerning having it unblocked for them... Sure Anti- Scientology people could contribute but it is unlikely their edits would stay.
Since many editors on Wikipedia took this step of banning IP#s from Scientology (If that is what happened) then it means that many people probably have Scientology articles on their Watchlist and are monitoring those edits now closely... They will revert bad edits on sight if anything is effecting the integrity of Wikipedia or the articles.
Are you joking? Logically, two contradictory things can't be true at the same time. If person A said Jesus is god and person B said he wasn't, it makes no sense for either of them to say "oh, well, maybe you're right and I'm wrong." If you follow a religion, if you don't completely believe your faith is correct and true, then don't follow it. Of course in practice people don't do this. If you agree with one doctrine with an organized religion, then the logical thing to do would be to believe in all the doctrines except that one. If you can't be part of the club any more, then so be it.
You should be open to other ideas, but if so you should explore them, deem them true or untrue for yourself, and continually make modifications to your faith. Believing in a religion with a set number of doctrines makes much less sense, and I'm surprised anyone on this green Earth is even Catholic given Catholicism by nature believes it is the one true faith (the truest. All faiths can hold some truth, but only Catholicism, as I learned in my Catholic and Jesuit education, holds the most complete truth). Granted you can disagree with second and third order teachings and still consider yourself Catholic, but I can't understand how people can just follow what an organization lists as doctrine without even researching it and deciding for themselves.
I mean to say
"If you DON'T agree with one doctrine with an organized"
In fact Christianity use to burn people alive for disagreeing with them. And sent whole armies after Britain when we told the pope where to go.
Religion always use violence to achieve its goals, Muslims and Jew and Christianity all did and still do to some degree. Scientology just join the club.
What do you mean still do to some degree? Did you ever watch Bush Jr, give his speachs about his wars? He beat the Religion drum to a furor. Heck we don't need to go back to far, Although "In God We trust" was widley struck on coin's it was done so initially during the Civil war, to have the population believe that they are back by "God"
It was placed on the Dollar bill in the late 50's as the cold war heated up, and the Russians where labled as anti chrisitian, and we are the chosen ones. We wanted this made clear to the public with our Moto placed on every dollar bill.
"Manifest Destiny" has often been brought up to sway the publics belief.
People use religion to justify the violence they use to acheive goals. Keep that in mind. It doesn't change one whit if a person blames their evil on religion or something else. They are still wrong.
Just don't confuse blame for faith.
This bogus religious filth should be banned. It exists as a tax exempt structure which discriminates against human rights. The pope, bishops and mormons are cult members promoting discrimination against minorities. That bogus black book called the bible should be banned. Religion and the churches should now be exposed as a bigoted structure that gets away with hate mongering. Love between two guys or girls existed long before these cults existed. By enjoying their tax exempt status and benefits from the state ... it also puts them at the mercy of America; to be forced to adhere to the human rights laws. Religion is thriving like a cancerous growth on society that should be stopped in its tracks; outlawed & banned. Interesting global occurrence ? Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien told the Vatican that there was to be no cross erected over the Canadian Parliament buildings ? figuratively speaking; when the Pope demanded the Prime Minister go against gay rights. An Alberta bishop had the audacity to say that The Canadian Prime Minister would go to hell for going against the church. Such outrageous evil threats; the religious extremists force upon us trying to multiply ? with their control over birthing like animals at the pulpit. With reference to protecting the children. The Right Honourable Prime Minister ? in return; basically told the Pope to go to Hell. The Honourable Hedy Fry, member of the Canadian Liberal Parliament, who happens to be a doctor spoke eloquently to defend the rights of babies being born and stated that she was in fact defending their rights by speaking on behalf of equal rights for the children and youth of the future; defending their integrity and dignity.
Many theologians state quite correctly that the birth; crucifixion; resurrection and other elements of christianity actually didn?t even happen! Today?s evangelical extremists are like the nazis who cast others into ovens & are actually supremacists - who practice their bogus hocus pocus - and are trying to suppress and deprive others of their happiness and their legal rights in an open and proud society. Liberty College, Oral Roberts University and others should be looked at as tax exempt terroristic training grounds for evangelical lunatics.
I'm not trying to fight with you or put you down, but some of the things you have just claimed are quite untrue. I'm studying to receive a degree in Bible and Theology, so we are taught how to prove what we know about God and the Bible. There is a lot that cannot be proven in the sense that much of Western culture understands it: in the context of a scientific study. But some can be proven. One of the most amazing things I have found is that there is no evidence against the Bible's truth that can be proven. Whether or not one believes what is in the Bible actually happened, I have never come across evidence that can prove that any one thing did not happen or is not true. I'm not planning on proving God exists or that Christianity is right here on this site. But some of what you have said should be backed up if it can be.
For instance, the argument of the Jewish race does not really prove anything and it is flawed. Jews originated from Cannaanites, who originated in a region understood today as Iraq. This people group is arguably the oldest in the world, according to science. Whether or not there were people in Ireland before the Jews, or anyone else, existed does not show whether or not God chose them to be his ambassadors to the world. Christianity is not 2009 years old. Most historians believe that Jesus was probably born roughly around 6 B.C. due to information known about when various kings died who are mentioned in the texts that reference Jesus' birth. Jesus live almost exactly 33 years because of what is known about Jewish culture and the various writings about him. So most likely we are looking at a belief system that has been around at least 1,982 years old.
When talking about Constantine, the one error he made as a king that effects the world today is that he presided over the council of Nicaea in 325 AD. The error of the church leaders of the day was to allow him to do so instead of standing up to the king and deciding that they in fact were best suited to run the church and not a man who had recently come to know the Lord. Constantine transformed some of the church into an organization with lots of government sanctioned buildings. This was a mistake on both the parts of Constantine and the church leaders who went with it instead of sticking to the points and ideals of the faith. Many of these men had had extremely hard lives before Constantine due to persecution of the church sanctioned by the previous Caesars.
Constantine did not fabricate Christianity. In fact, he did not aid in any of the areas that effect how the Bible is read or understood today by scholars. The Church finalized the Cannon in 367, much later than Constantine. These books that are part of the Bible are copied from manuscripts. The church copied the documents it felt were important during the first century. If a church in a certain city got a letter from an apostle, they would then copy it and send it to other churches in the area. Over time, more and more copies were made. There are thousands of manuscripts still around, some of which date as far back as before 100 AD. In terms of historical evidence to prove my point, the Illiad by Homer has only 400 manuscripts. The earliest information available in written form about Alexander the Great was written 400 years after he died. To argue that books printed within the Bible are historically inaccurate would be to either claim no history is believable or to be insane. There is in fact more historical evidence to support the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was born, was a teacher in Israel, and was executed by Pilate, than the single fact that Abraham Lincoln existed at all. Few theologians with any real credentials (like, a Ph.D) that are credible sources would ever argue that Jesus never existed.
One last thing. I'm not into the idea that Christians should force morals on anybody, especially through the law. This is because true change comes from within a willing heart to be transformed, not an external rule that tells one what is right. BUT, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter that stated that there should be a wall of separation between Church and State. What he did not do is write that anywhere in the constitution. The constitution contains no rules about whether the Church and the State should be separated. Religion cannot be enforced by law as an amendment, but that does not mean the Church cannot be included in the lawmaking process, such as give advice or have its members vote a certain way on a bill. That is all that means. Anyone who argues that it is part of the constitution is wrong. In the public school system, this means that students have the right to speak their opinion on religion all they want, no matter what. I would love to discuss this more with you if you have a facebook or an email address. You can reach me at thunder (dot) dude44 (at) gmail (dot) com if you would like.
Of course, religion can be abused and misused, but today's mainstream Christianity here in the U.S. is a tremendous source of goodness. I have a few simple litmus tests. If you were walking at night in a bad part of town and saw ten large men walking toward you, would you be relieved to learn they just left their Bible study class? Also, when natural disasters occur, who is usually first on the scene to provide aid? The Red Cross and other religious-based charities and relief organizations. Same thing regarding homeless shelters, food pantries, women's shelters, etc. ? most are run by churches or other religious institutions.
Regarding your references to 'homophobia' and 'hate-mongering', just because some people oppose gay marriage does not make them homophobic or hateful towards gays. I have gay friends. I find nothing wrong with their lifestyles and I support their right to get the same benefits married people receive. But, I do not want to re-define the historic meaning of the word 'marriage'. While gay relationships may have been commonplace throughout history, gay marriage was not. I am curious, do you support multi-person marriage (polygamy), marriage with underage children (see NAMBLA), marriage with animals, or even material objects (see: Buster Mitchell wants to marry his '96 Mustang GT)? Why is it ok for you to impose your values [against such marital arrangements] and not ok for the majority of society to uphold the traditional meaning of marriage? By the way, can you cite a single mainstream religious organization that seeks to kill or otherwise harm or oppress gay people? Most religious organizations I know accept gay members; they simply won't marry same-sex couples.
Throughout your rant, you paint caricatures of religious people as evil, hate-filled zombies. You carelessly throw accusations at Pope Benedict, suggesting he willingly joined the Nazi Youth and actively supported genocide. Do you understand how absurd that sounds? I know lots of religious people, and they are almost universally tolerant, compassionate, good people.
Try to offer intelligent, rational arguments without demonizing everyone who has different opinions than you. You will appear much more credible.
It's important to note that during the 20th century, societies *absent of religion* committed the most evil and caused the most human suffering. Nazi Germany (12 million innocent deaths under Hitler), Soviet Union (20 million under Lenin), and China (40 million under Mao), largely supplanted religion with political ideology. So perhaps you should think twice about the calling for 'religious filth' to be banned.
Here's a bit of religious insight for you. Most religions have mystical schools of thought that reveal profound meanings to otherwise mundane things. One area I have a little familiarity with is Jewish mysticism. One of the many names of God is Echad or "one". One what? Oneness of all things! The unity of life and death, of things observable and beyond observation, creation and destruction, male and female, time and space. Another interesting name for God is Ayin, or 'emptiness' or 'nothingness' or no-thing-ness. God is neither this nor that. How can you quantify something that is infinite (Ein-sof = 'without end')? The more you empty your mind of pre-conceived notions, the closer you may approach to understanding God. Armed with interpretations like this, simple prayers (really meditations) take on profound meanings. Saying a blessing before eating a piece of fruit, for example, one can imagine the fruit, the tree, the seed, the soil, the sun, photosynthesis, the farmer, and the infinite chain of events required to produce it, and give thanks to the source of creation that provided it all. Eating a piece of fruit gives one the opportunity to connect with the universe and all of creation!
I often wonder what anti-religious people do for significant life events, like when a baby is born or when someone passes away. I am so thankful that religion exists to provide rituals, meaning and context for these events, so that I don't have to make up something myself. Besides, isn't an organized, established religion more effective at transmitting our values and ideals throughout time? Or do you think it should be every man/woman for himself/herself? In that case, you would have no basis (scientific or otherwise) to oppose bizarre belief systems that require torture and human sacrifice, for example, to achieve divine favor. Is chaos what you hope for? Please admit that your humanistic value system of treating others with dignity and respect originates specifically from the Judeo/Christian tradition.
I don't deny that religion can be and has been abused. But not here, not today. Please rethink your harsh perspective of religion.
It's good you are starting to think. Just be sure to keep it up lest you find that you are unable to actually finish thinking as your post seems to indicate.
For example. What does it matter that the Celts are Older than Hebrews according to current scientific methods? Nothing if you also understand that what you are trying to disprove is an event that happened after the Celts and Hebres has long been separated both scientificly and biblicly.
A great story ? pertains to a boy at a catholic school in Oshawa, Ontario ? who wanted to take his boyfriend to his school prom. The nasty catholic school forbid this. The boy?s father is an employee with General Motors Canada and the courageous union leader ? Buzz Hargrove stood up for the boys? rights. The boy took his case through the courts and because the school was benefiting from government funding which demands equal rights void of discrimination; the judge ordered the school to allow the boys to attend together. Their limo arrived at their prom with adoring onlookers ? there wasn?t a dry eye to be found.
There is no doubt that there are likely at least some passages in any gospel (of which there are well over 500 of the time...not just 4) that represented events of the day. However, angles and demons and dragons are not coming to get us. ........the church cannot even prove the existence of Jesus.....no archeological evidence has ever been found other than we know that Jesus was one of the most popular names of the time(convenient). Just like after 30 years of digging in Egypt by jewish archeologists, no archeological evidence has ever been found of a major exodus of jews from Egypt....on the contrary ancient trash dumps show that jews lived and died in settlements in Egypt but did not leave in huge numbers.
Can't cure you from your indoctrination at birth. The cool aid has been digested. At this point in your life it may be best for you just to keep being deluded...there is likely a job for life as a priest or minister or something of that nature.
But here is a thought for you......no child will become a catholic, christian or muslim if he is not taught from birth/childhood.....no one is born a christian, muslim, budhist, hindu etc.......need I list more?
Explain that? Probably the devil's work, eh?
I did not say I could prove the existence of God. What I was saying is that Bible students are taught to be able to able to back up what they say. As I said, what I was pointing out is that there is no evidence, scientific or speculative (historical analysis, etc.), that shows anything within the Bible to be untrue. What I was referring in proving things had to do with exegesis. This is not coolaid. This is logic. A person's choice to believe one thing or another is separate from some of the truth that is known about the Bible. I suggest you take a class on Jewish culture and a class on the gospels. Take it from any university you want, any university will do. There is basic cultural and historical evidence to show that the gospels and letters of the early church are some of the most reliable historical documents of the world and were most definitely not written anywhere after the first century. If the content of the scriptures was treated like any other historical document, it would be absurd to say that these documents were lying about much, if anything. To write down anything during that day, especially writings that could get you executed by the government if the one reading it did not understand what you were saying, was only done very carefully and was expensive. The scriptures of the Jews, for example, could usually only be found at the Synagogue in a full collection. There would only be one set. They were extremely expensive. For the church to have written down anything would usually require lots of money and time and effort, which shows that they believed in what they were doing and that they believed what was being written was true. Also, the Jewish culture is not like Western culture. It is a oral shame and honor based culture. Actions reflect the community, not the individual. Villages that date back to the time of Jesus in Israel still refer to actions performed by their ancestors as their actions. "Three hundred years ago we did this. Last week we did that." It's the same to them. Everything spoken within the community is inspected by the memory of those in seniority and equals of the person who spoke. If something is misunderstood or conveyed incorrectly, they are publicly shamed: they yell and yell and interfere with the one speaking and correct them, sometimes shaming them enough to finish the story for them (a serious insult). Those that were within the early church were still alive when these writings were created. If something was incorrect, it would have been very hard to have had them copied or even read at all. Yet we have over 7,000 manuscripts. The letters of early church leaders who wrote to other churches in other cities quote the New Testament writings enough that we could have the entire New Testaments multiple times over from them alone. Also, if these writings were wrong, then why did all the people who wrote them and every leader in the early church die for what they claimed was true? Obviously, it takes faith to believe what these books claim is true, but they also have astounding historical evidence that stands up to the most rigorous analysis.
When it comes to demons, they do in fact exist. I see them all the time. And I was in no way indoctrinated from birth. God adopted me into his family when I was thirteen.
Look around you. Everthing you see is the truth of what is. Science it utterly wrong on many points. Gravity being one they are starting to figure out that what they thought they knew isn't what really is. Yet if we drop a rock it falls because gravity exists, we just don't understand it, or how to understand it. Right now real scientists are coming to come to grips wtih their lack of true understand of gravity.
What makes you think God is any easier than Gravity?
You made the point that nobody is born believing in any one faith. True. We are born to believe though or we wouldn't. Some folks put that belief in science. I've had them tell me how solid a theory gravity is. Wrong. Einstein had it right. He knew he was wrong even as he published his work on relativity.
It's a big universe. There is more than you know or understand in it, and more than you will ever come to know. Yet you look at the truth of it every day. It's up to you to sort it out and when you do. That's your flavor of coolaid. Right or wrong.
Hey, in my book, if you're naive enough to give money to ANYONE, it's your loss.
I try and challenge them that they're so ingrained with Catholicism and monotheism, that anything else seems like a scary sect to them. They still think Mormons are ALL practicing polygamists, for example.
One mans cult is another mans salvation! Ha!
And yes, as I said, I too feel that ALL religions take money from their followers, and some even from the gov't! Hello?
Tax deductions, non-taxable income, etc....
Scientology (which Germany has properly banned from being a tax-exempt church) does NOT make it's teachings freely available - it actually *sues* people to prevent them from revealing "the secret teachings". That's a cult, and Wikipedia is definitely in the right to ban all edits from IP addresses associated with that cult.
Score one for sanity over a cult that ends up taking the entire life-savings of many unfortunate and gullible people.
Scientology is also elitist, but in their case they believe the world's population will believe any crazy thing they make up. Somewhat surprisingly, in many cases they appear to be right. They have a lot in common with Republicans in that they are purely self serving and consider themselves a superior class that has secret knowledge.
The truth is global warming in real and dangerous. Scientology, on the other hand, is pure science fiction, an elaborate scam that appeals to people who should know better.
Water is also a byproduct of hydrocarbon combustion.
When those computer-programming climate-modelling hacks get enough computational power to understand the behavior of water in our ecosystem, and not just ignore it, I'll take them more seriously.
As it is, individuals always seem to turn this into a political issue -by simply picking sides.
As a result, computers are taking over the world -because underinformed individuals have too much confidence in their modelling of chaotic systems, much like the quants on Wall Street. Fortunately, the economic policy makers were only able to wreak the economy. Next, I imagine, it will be wasting a bunch of energy building CO2 sequestration instead of using our resources to protect and expand natural habitats, construct sewage and storm water treatment plants, etc.
I'm a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, I own no energy stocks, have no affiliation with any company but my own meager construction gig. I voted Democrat always, as far back as I can remember.
Despite their shortcomings.
That individuals seem to turn this global warming debate into a conspiracy isn't surprising, but expected; and highly unfortunate.
Global warming is the biggest hoax since Jesus. Government is pro-global warming to allow them to make some cash off of new taxes. I forgot, its no longer referred to as global warming, its "climate change" that humans are causing. The name had to be changed because all of the sudden the Earth cooled for 8 years now and it through a wrench into the global warming school of thought. So now... we are causing climate change. So we'd better stop, or next year will be either hotter or colder than this year. Either way... we made it happen.
Sorry, nobody rose up into the sky like a kite and flew off into space three days after they were dead.
And you know this for a fact how? Not that I agree or disagree with you, but if you don't have proof, then it's just as much a guess as anything else.
Wow. Lets take an example shall we? Miami. If Miami is going to end up underwater everyone living there could have moved north to the middle of Oklahoma years earlier. What would it cost them to do this? The land is cheaper, the cost of living is cheaper, and getting there is a Uhaul and gas. If they are that poor now... they should move whether Miami is underwater or not. You fail.
My claim is not extraordinary, the burden of proof is on them. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Similarly, I don't need to prove that Paul Bunyan did not carve out the Grand Canyon with his axe.
But when last time I check 95 percent of the scientific community actually agrees that man is causing climate change, and in many regions that may mean the temperatures rising, I think it right to put that out there.
It not the scientiest fault that the media looks for catch phases and people cannot actually read and examine evidence themselves,
Most of it easily available.
Yes, the forced abortions, child slavery, withholding of medical treatment, wanton fraud, criminal convictions, systematic mind-control, and multiple criminal prosecutions across numerous countries have no relevance. Now even wiki has banned them for, in essence, fraud, but they are just fine and dandy by CNET. In fact, CNET hereby endorses the Church of Scientology. Join them. Have a blast. If you wind up dead or flat broke or both, THAT'S JUST GREAT!!
Press are cowards today. Cowards. Journalism is dead. Google "fair game" "exscientologykids" "operation freakout" and learn just how afraid CNET is to report the truth. They have thrown us to the wolves, just as CNET dose here simply because it is afraid of the the COS will do to them. Fail.
Nothing there that other religions have not done and in some cases continue today.
The difference is that Scientology has these ills in the very core of its hierarchy. Programs like Operation Freakout come from the very top of the pyramid. When other religious groups are caught doing these things its usually a lunatic fringe responsible.
Then why does the sign say "Church Of"?
Whatever you do, Don't take their "Free personality test". It will show that you are a completely worthless excuse of a human being. All your friends and relatives don't really like you because you are such a pitiful sub-human. But guess what? They can help you with your problems! (For a nominal fee). Whats That? You do want help don't you? Come right this way and confess (mandatory) your most humiliating secrets, Which we record and will use against you if you try and leave the "Church". Explains why brainwashed egotistical 'movie stars' spout this drivel on TV Etc. I always make sure NOT to spend one penny on anything starring these stooges/shills.
Now leaving my soapbox. Do some research on this cult, it will curl your nosehairs!
I say ban them all and to hell with 'em.
I for one am glad to see these nutbags driven back to the psychotic babblings in their own hand out material and not in an encyclopedia. I am behind Wiki 100%.
As you noted, Scientologists do seem to have a unique histoy of using lawsuits to stifle dissenting views. And they have a cult-like aspect wherein only those who have reached certain "levels" (which seem to correlate strongly with financial contributions) can learn certain things. Hence, I can only imagine the degree to which they perceived themselves to be the sole arbiters of any Scientology-oriented Wiki pages.
Of course, the effectiveness of the IP block strikes me as TBD. I suspect virtually all their members have personal Internet connections they can post from. I would also think that an anonymizer tool would be effective in skirting the block. Hence, it seems to me that this ban is more symbolic than anything.
- by May 30, 2009 12:01 PM PDT
- Scientology _is_ a notorious organized crime syndicate, and the crime bosses and ringleaders _will_ eventually all be rounded up and get put in to prison.
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- by knowles2 June 1, 2009 10:28 AM PDT
- well might take them few milleniums, some how christianity and Jews and Muslims leaders always seems to avoid these problems and carry on there crime syndicate.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (94 Comments)But you never know one day government might start arresting them all and putting them jail.
But I would not hold my breath if I was you.