So, you respond to what you think is intellectual lazinesss with your own laziness. Most critics would never profess to describe and/or define every aspect scientology and suggest that you get the net and read both sides. However, what we talking about here is the organisation and the policy driven actions of scientology, not the belief system.Nobody cares what the individuals believe. However, when you entangle the belief system in with your church policies then there is an overlap. For example, in their appleal on the Wollersheim v. Scientology case they tried to claim that their “Fair Game” policy was a core practice…. like a religious rite. Yes, they actually expected to win an appeal by trying to tell a court that they should be allowed to trick, lie to and destroy utterly, anyone who attacks scientology, because it was “protected” as “religious expression”.You see, it is not the critic who generally brings religion into the argument, it is always the scientologist because they expect to be able to hide their abuses under some sort of default forcefield of religiosity. They want to drag you down that convoluted route because they expect to garner sympathy from the broader religious community. As Admiral Ackbar says: “It’s a trap”.
I don’t know much about Scientology. My problem with your post is that after reading it, I still don’t know much about it.Yes, you provided a link. But, after reading just the title, it was obvious that was not the place to start. (The title “A New Face of Evil” just didn’t ring objective to me … for some reason.)Yes, you said they control people with mind tricks, but it appears to be nothing more than an assumption. You don’t understand how someone could possibly want to be a Scientologist … so they must be brainwashed. Again, that isn’t the way to start learning.So, in the end, I can’t support something as extreme as passing laws against their religious practice.On the other hand, there has to be clear reason for any sort of government support. For example, if tax money was given to the church, it would have to be used in the interest of the public – by running a soup kitchen, or housing a homeless shelter, or something like that.As for tax breaks, the requirements should be the same for them as it is for any other non-profit organization. Is that not the way it is now?
P.S. I give up. I tried formatting it with the paragraph breaks the original quotes had, but it defies me. I don't know why the forum likes to omit line breaks / paragraph breaks like it does.
I thought that was how I had it set. D'oh! It WAS selected, but should NOT have been. Sheesh, I should have figured that it wasn't set properly.