In article <34085cff.53677...@nntp.netcom.com>,

It's true, I wasn't here for any of that. And
because of that, I'm not particularly inclined
to accept a characterization of his claims from
someone who was on the other side of the argument.
I've witnessed far too much distortion of statements
that I've read here myself to set much store in
things that I haven't seen. As a result, I'm
commenting only on what I've seen here over the
past few weeks.

I disagree. I've often seen him post about the
detrimental impact that cult membership has on both
the personalities of many members, and also on their
ability to think critically. That seems pretty
specific to me.

Invalidate them how? In what sense?

Yeah, again I don't set much store by people who
tell me what their opponents claim "in essence". I'd
rather know what it was that they *actually said* and
make my decisions on that basis. The statements that I've
seen from him on these issues usually just implied that
they may or may not have happened, but they weren't
the whole story. Though I may have seen a couple of
statements that he's said he didn't believe related
to Dennis's experience in the cellar at the RPF's
RPF.

I don't know what his story is either, but I'd be very
interested in hearing it. As for a "casual interest", I'd
have thought an ex-member's who had been in GO or OSA would
have more than interest in the subject than most of the
non-members who post here.

As for his stirring, I'm all for anyone who stirs up
complacency and certainty - whatever their perspective
happens to be.

tell me, were you paying any attention to that argument at all, at the
time.

this is the original.

Subject:      Re: Hey Bernie stop defending CoS, they have the money
to do it themselves!
From:         b...@arcadis.be (Bernie)
Date:         1997/05/23
Message-Id:   <343afcb9.596924960@news.Belgium.EU.net>
Newsgroups:   alt.religion.scientology

Hiya Keith, welcome back to ARS.

The real cult apologists are those who do not hesitate to resort
to the same tactics as the cults to achieve their means.

Tell me Keith, if the COS is so obviously off the marks (and I
believe they are), why is it necessary for some critics to paint
a darker picture than the reality to bring about a reaction? Why
is it necessary to portray them as is if they are locking people
in basements and torturing them in RPFs, which is an obvious
misrepresentation of the COS at large? Why is it necessary to
bring in hateful generalizations and distortions instead of
rational discussion and factual information?

[I'll note many cults and Scn specifically do, indeed, do things of
this nature.]

This has been the behavior of the anticult and resulted in
serious violation of human and civil rights as well as to the
mutual envenoming that precipitated the Johnstown and Wacos.

[2. To urge or press on with eager haste or violence; to cause to
happen, or come to a crisis, suddenly or too soon; as, precipitate a
journey, or a conflict. --webster's 1913, entire definition follows]

[and no, later responses indicate that bernie didn't intend to
absolve jones of his crimes, but this post certainly seems at
least to imply that.]

I am not interested to get rid of the cults dictatory only to
have it replaced by the anticults one. Criticism against the COS
isn't going to be efficient as long as opponents are
undistinguishable from what they attack.

[a good point, when it is so.]

Bernie

-----

Definition for Precipitate from database web1913
(web1913)

Precipitate \Pre*cip"i*tate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Precipitated; p. pr.
& vb. n. Precipitating.] 1. To
throw headlong; to cast down from a precipice or height.

She and her horse had been precipitated to the pebbled region of the
river. --W. Irving.

2. To urge or press on with eager haste or violence; to cause to
happen, or come to a crisis, suddenly or too soon; as, precipitate a
journey, or a conflict.

Back to his sight precipitates her steps. --Glover.

If they be daring, it may precipitate their designs, and prove
dangerous. --Bacon.

-
rob

On Sun, 31 Aug 1997 03:32:28 GMT, in message
<3408dfb4.53920...@snews.zippo.com>, refe...@bway.net (Diane Richardson)
wrote:

[clip, down to re Gunderson]

        there's always people around who through ignorance or
        greed can distort a situation.  that's part of life, sadly.  but
        it is not a demonstration that some undefined anticult
        participated in envenoming that resulted in jonestown

        1.  ryan's *record* of grandstanding is not terribly relevant.
             what is relevant is what actually transpired.
        2.  you *know* what set jones off on his ultimate course?  how?
        3.  from what i have seen, it appears to me that ryan's visit might
             have turned out beneficially, had one of jone's guards not
             have gone basically bonkers.  it appears to me that it was
             that guard's action that was the actual trigger.  with jones
             now dead, of course, it's unlikely we'll ever know the actual
             reason.
        4.  obviously the State Department was not in a position to
             give Ryan instuctions.
[clip]

        cute, diane.  i say i find his personal accounts honest, and
        you try to make it appear i don't.  you do that kind of thing
        often.   are you really that careless and/or dishonest?

        and in direct answer to the question i perceive you have
        made, i think bernie believes nothing really bad happened
        to him in scientology.  on the whole, he found it positive.
[clip]

        i said he has come across as having more than a
        casual interest.  do you think he has seemed to
        have only a casual interest?   the rest of your
        comment exhibits your ability to read more into
        statements than are there, and to follow those
        imaginations with perjorations.  stupidity is, however,
        perhaps the wrong word ...

[clip - who *really* gives a shit]

        "so i admit".  another cute diane trick.  find where i have said
        otherwise.  a get a clue about why so many find you so
        objectionable.

-- see...@ix.netcom.com (Number 3)
   Friends of Dennis Erlich Club (www.netcom.com/~seekon/friends.html)

On Sun, 31 Aug 1997 15:33:34 +0100, in message
<B02F3F4E966872...@petermc.demon.co.uk>, n...@petermc.demon.co.uk (Peter

        yes, he has recently said that it impacts
        their ability to think critically.  it's about as
        specific a criticism as i have seen him make.
        i was going to ask if he actually said that about
        scientology, but i recall that he made comments
        to that effect while describing his own experiences.
        and as i remarked elsewhere, i find his accounts
        of his own experiences honest and interesting.

        if he has talked about what specific and detrimental
        impacts on personality cult membership leads to, i have perhaps
        missed those posts.  i no longer read everything on the newsgroup.

        as described at the end of the paragraph

        i have to describe the essence, or quote
        bernie's words.  there's an awful lot of bernie's
        words, which i have no particular inclination
        to try to dig out at the moment.

[clip]

        actually, so would i.  

        i agree.  but i am curious what drives a person to thousands of
        posts, nearly entirely contrary to prevailing opinion.  that has
        to be stressing and exhausting.  it requires more than just a
        casual, or even a not so casual dedication.  what keeps someone
        going at it that hard?  we have a clue or two in diane's case, we
        don't in bernie's.

-- see...@ix.netcom.com (Number 3)
   Friends of Dennis Erlich Club (www.netcom.com/~seekon/friends.html)

Dammit, I go away for a day or two and the thread stops being about
knowledge and starts being about Bernie.

Well, I'll just have to go on from here.  What I'm reading here is
actually an *example* of the "norming practices" of epistemic communities,
especially with regard to the admission or lack of sam accorded to
subjects' claims.  See, in every epistemic community there are certain
axiomatic statements that define what "we" believe to be true.  It is not
only statements, however, but *attitudes* by which we judge whether someone
is a trustworthy or competent "knower."  Thus the argument about Bernie.
Bernie either does not accept, or does not find necessary to say
repeatedly, that "he knows the cult is bad."  He will say some things he
thinks are bad about it, but he does not find those bad things to be *as
significant*, or significant of the same things, as some do.  ANd they
don't make him froth at the mouth, which may be the real problem.  Thus he
is branded a cult apologist, and his statements re-interpreted as symptoms,
or expressions of some view that he is thought to hold because he will not
say the required statements.

In AA, for instance, the axiomatic statement is "Alcoholism is a disease."
 You can't get far in the epistemic community of AA unless you're willing
and able to assert that proposition, with some frequency, and also to
participate in the naming practice by which you call yourself an alcoholic
and therefore a victim of a disease.  Whether that it true or not its NOT
my point; my point is that you have to say it to be a player.

Bernie does not assent to or regularly assert a few of the central axioms
of ARS as an epistemic community, and thus gets "read" as an enemy, or a
cult apologist.  I've read his posts myself and I don't think he is a cult
apologist; he's simply failing to produce the" right" axiomatic statements
and attitudes without the reiteration of which some people will not accept
him as an interlocutor.  If Bernie changed his sig file to something
henry-like, that is, a vociferous and obscene (also funny) demand that all
Scientologists pay for the deaths of Susan Meister and Lisa McPherson, he'd
have less trouble on theis NG.

judith

bernie also described leo ryan's visit as a "brutal invasion" despite
the fact that jones maintained the appearance of cooperation before
the violence broke out.  to precipitate also means "to cause to
happen," and the ambiguity of the word resulted in people believing
he meant the word in its stronger form, of causing by abrupt,
violent action.

bernie, i believe, meant the word in its milder form, but the
implication of his anti-cult rhetoric, when he hasn't even proven
the existence of his anticult, is to minimize the responsibility
of cults while making villains of people like leo ryan.

jonestown would have blown up without ryan, and there were
already shocking and brutal crimes against human rights going
on long before ryan entered the picture.

spending dozens upon dozens of posts in statements like this,
bernie did some "mutual envenoming" of his own, and it is hardly
surprising his statement was interpreted in this way.

rob

In article <340994a1.3276...@news.mindspring.com>,

I don't see how you read this as either differing from Clara's
statement *or* implying that Jones wasn't responsible.

It simply points to the role that anti-cultists played in the timing
of the actual incident, ie, precipitate being used in the sense
of 'brought to a crisis suddenly'. It doesn't make any statement
at all about Jones' lack of responsibility that I can see.

On Mon, 01 Sep 1997 11:29:15 +0100, in message <B030578B96681C...@0.0.0.0>,

        like i said earlier, it's a shame you weren't here
        to see it for yourself.  maybe you could have
        even helped straighten it out.

-- see...@ix.netcom.com (Number 3)
   Friends of Dennis Erlich Club (www.netcom.com/~seekon/friends.html)

On 31 Aug 1997 22:07:58 GMT, in message
<19970831220701.SAA02...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, spinth...@aol.com

[clip]

        i doubt that he would have to go that far, and i agree that he gets
        some reaction that he would not necessarily get if he made the
        "right" axiomatic statements.  but unless you've gone back in
        dejanews to review the month after month of posting activity that
        took place, i also think you are also in danger of trivializing a
        rather more complex situation by covering them with a rather
        scanty sociological phenomenon.

        i don't know where that leads on your topic of knowledge.
        maybe you need to jumpstart it with a description of another
        element of knowledge.

        if we want to continue to use the jonestown thread as an
        example, perhaps we could discuss what happens when
        ideations get formed and propagated without much evidential
        support.

        fwiw, i doubt that bernie's a scientology apologist, either.

-- see...@ix.netcom.com (Number 3)
   Friends of Dennis Erlich Club (www.netcom.com/~seekon/friends.html)