Brent Stone wrote:
> >> Wolf wrote:
> >Actually, the CofS maintains that IQ's can be raised and that Purif
> >therapy is healthy. No doubt CofS has had some doctors agree on both
> >counts. But that's not the point. The point is that Scn services are not
> >sold or promoted with a feature being that they have been scientifically
> >proven to do anything.
> If claiming to be the "modern science of mental health", a "discovery"
> equivalent to that of the discovery of fire or the wheel, with more
> "scientific research" than any other field doesn't claim to be science,
> I don't know what does.
Hubbard, like thousands of other pitchmen, wrote what he figured would
sell the most of his books and services. Ad copy doesn't always qualify
as fraud just because it's hype.
> The blatant false claims of curing disease,
> solving problems with life, etc. with the "scientifically proven"
> E-Meter are sold as a proven science. The end result is sold as the
> "Homo Novis", a new species of human with super-human powers.
The e-meter does do something. And it has been proven that whatever that
something is, it is definitly happening. It's certainly a matter of
opinion exactly what the e-meter is registering. As for curing disease,
solving problems, etc., so what? That's what faith healing, herbal
medicine, exorcism, prayer, copper bracelets, chiropractic, channelling
and a host of other beliefs and practices claim to do also.
> The claims are still made, just not as boldly where the FDA among others
> can see them. NOTS 22 and 34 market the same things, and the members are
> given to believe that "we can't advertise the things we can really do
> because the 'evil' government is trying to stop us, but 'we all know that'
> we can really cure disease, etc.".
Your point is what? That CofS ought not to have the right to promote
within their membership an alleged spiritual gain? Or that because they
have the idea that the gov't is evil and working against them that they
should be restricted from transmitting it? This is where many on the ars
become self-appointed dispensers of 'truth'. My question then might be
this: who annointed you (collectively) to save others from choices they
make of their own free will?
> They "should" provide proof, even to us degraded beings who have the
> audacity to criticize them for the simple reason that we wouldn't
> call it a fraud if it wasn't one. Either they are selling a fraud
> with no evidence of it providing what they sell it to be, or they
> are covering up the evidence, "pulling in" the charges of fraud.
> The criticism would go away if they could show any evidence.
No they shouldn't. Not unless it can be proven, legally, that CofS does
not have the right to pursue their goals and growth. My contention is
that CofS is in actuality a for-profit service organization that ought
be be stripped of the religious shield it operates under. At that point
it would be required to tailor it's advertising to laws governing the
competitive marketplace.
> Unfortunately, the US government is so overprotective of the public
> (ie. forcing manufactures to put labels on products that detail
> essentially "don't be stupid when using this product"), that the
> public has come to _expect_ the government to be their babysitter
> ("but nobody _told_ me the coffee was hot and not to spill it on
> myself"). The fact that the government does not do this for
> "religious" claims leaves a public that is gullible to believing
> them purely because they expect their babysitter to protect them.
Fair enough. Now that you've sourced the real evil SP's (the gov't),
then it seems to me that attacking CofS serves little purpose. OTOH, I'd
suggest that if the gov't stripped religion of it's protections under
the constitution that a few other problems would befall us. The solution
is not to change the constitution, but to be more restrictive of what is
protected by it.
> When the "church" lies to their recruits about their core beliefs,
> the recruits cannot possibly determine for themselves on a rational
> basis whether or not to join.
This is one of the more arrogant and false accusations on ars. Xenu,
BT's and Marcabs are not a 'core belief' of CofS. They are specifically
a background filler to CofS's reason that one ought to pay for NOTS and
OT3. For you, me or anyone else to determine from a distance that
because we don't believe it then anyone who does is not capable of
making an informed decision, is the worst sort of arrogance. Tomorrow
millions of people will celebrate the notion that a man died and then
rose from the grave. I personally don't believe that but I don't
consider that I'm entitled to determine that people who do are not
capable of determining on a *rational* basis whether to donate to their
church.
> When they charge huge sums of money
> for discovering these beliefs, the person going in should be allowed
> to know that the "modern science" they are signing up for believes
> that space aliens are the cause of their problems. If they still
> want to exorcise dead space aliens, it's up to them, but not telling
> them what they are signing up for is bait-and-switch in my opinion.
I'm sorry, but bait-and-switch is not what you think it is. CofS is not
advertising one thing at a low price to lure customers in and then
claiming they are out-of-stock on the sale item in order to switch the
buyer to an overpriced item. That IS bait-and-switch.
> >When you read a headline about a
> >Catholic priest debauching himself with young boys do you immediatly
> >rush to the alt.religion.catholic ng and demand they be exposed as a
> >worlwide cult of pedophiles who have defrauded their members by asking
> >for donations in exchange for eternal salvation while secretly just
> >wanting to diddle their kids?
> I don't see any _policy_ of the catholic church to diddle kids. I _do_
> see _policy_ of Co$ to lie, harass, hi-pressure "sell", commit criminal
> acts and generally be anti-social. Even at that, I would protest
> when the catholic church tries to cover up for their priests, but it's
> not at all like when a "church" covers up for their active and written
> _policy_ of those kinds of actions.
If indeed CofS had a policy of committing crimes in order to hawk it's
wares, then no doubt it would have been prosecuted many years ago. In
essence, you have confirmed my point in your paragraph above. That is
that CofS has been aggressively investigated by a plethora of gov't and
private sources for over 40 years and it has not been proven that it is
a criminal conspiracy or that it has perpetuated a policy of malicious
fraud in order to sell it's offerings. The same holds true, I would
assume, of instances where Catholic priests, teachers in public schools
or elected officals have broken laws. Branding an entire group, class or
market segment as 'criminal' by citing antecdotal instances of criminal
behaviour is (sorry) both uninformed and stupid.
> The problem as I see it is that the "liars, cheats and crooks" are the
> ones directing the thing, and the lying, cheating and stealing are
> the core of the church's policies.
I'll restate the obvious: since only upper management *can* direct
things in CofS, it's easy to see that when a criminal act might occur,
that it's from within the management structure. The suggestion that
lying, cheating and stealing are at the core of their policy is
ludicrous. I'll point out here that there is a world of difference
between the Sea Org and what goes on there and the bulk of mainstream
Scientology. I'm not about to defend the existence or rideculousness of
SO policies or the effects on SO members, I dislike utterly that aspect
of CofS.
> If they don't want me to criticize, they can stop lying and covering up
> the problems. When they fix the problems, I won't have to criticize.
> It's like the catholic "problem" above, allowing the problems to be
> solved clears up criticism. Screaming that anyone who criticizes
> is a "hateful, lying bigot" and continuing to do the things that are
> being criticized will keep the criticism active.
It's my view that CofS could care less whether you, or the bulk of
posters on ars, criticize them. In fact, they could care less who you
are or that you even exist. In short, you're moot. That's because you're
not a prospect. What the CofS does care about is the state of mind of
their customers. To the extent that ars can disway potential customers
from buying service, ars becomes a problem. But from the perspective of
one who has long experience with CofS and who is not (like many *weeping
victims* on ars) blaming CofS for decisions I made of my own free will,
it's easy to see that CofS has little to worry about from ars as long as
the focus of this group is name-calling, paranoid conspiracy rants,
accusations of murder squads and pet disposal teams and endless
offensive posts from boring know-nothings. Present company excepted, of
course.
Wolf
