<snip 'reality' discussion>

Scn departs from common conceptions of religion, that's easy to see.
They charge a specific rate for services and they claim their rites are
technical. I don't have any more a problem with Scn claiming that
blowing mini-thetans will make you better than I do a Christian
Scientist (there's that word again -> Science) claiming that going to a
doctor is against the will of God. I don't even really have a problem
with Scn's fixed donation rates. I have already pointed out that a good
Morman of middle-class income will drop a bare minimum $400,000 into LDS
coffers within his/her life.

The perception you and many critics have, that Scn makes medical claims
or scientific claims as a _major_ part of it's doctrine, is closer to
what I think hampers the effectiveness of ARS. Were this a major part of
Scn doctrine then it stands to reason that in nearly 50 years it would
have surfaced as an issue, at least in the USA. Instead, I view it more
like the ritual baby-killings of Satanists. That meme spread throughout
the US and the Uk to the point where otherwise reasonable and logical
people actually believed that 50,000 babies were being slaughtered every
year. While it has been proven, in at least once instance, that some
people, purporting to being Stanists, did kill a baby, the facts hardly
bear out the accusations and irrational fear of the public.

The illogic of ARS group-think seems to be:
*Lisa McPherson dies
*She's on the I/R
*She should have received proper care
*The I/R 'seems' to have instructions that may have been mis-applied and
led to her death
*Therefore, the I/R killed her
*Therefore, because the I/R is part of Scn, Scn policy and tech kills
*Therefore, Scientology kills
*Therefore, any deaths may be seen to be caused by Scn tech, which kills

Is the above true or false? If you answered true, then you answered
exactly like a Christian bigoted against Jews in the middle ages. Or
perhaps like an ill-informed illiterate who believes that 50,000 babies
per year are being thrown into the maw of Satan. The obvious answer is
false and the lack of suspicious deaths alone ought to dissuade one from
over-reacting.

That doesn't make McPherson's death any less a crime, if indeed it's
proven to be one. It's just not a crime committed by an entire body of
people who both accept and apply a technology that they know leads to
death. To suggest such is, at the very least, a reprehensible and
destructive mindset.

You are correct. And rightfully pissed off by it. Not because it's
Scientology, but because it's a twisted use of the foundation of what's
good about the free world and democracies. I'll restate what I have
stated before: Scn is either a business OR a religion. The thrust of
what I consider valid criticism must be to insist they operate within
the laws that govern either one, but not both. The simplest, most
painless and (for me, the most pleasurable) method of accomplishing this
would be to eliminate the SO and the RTC. I see no reason why this
cannot be accomplished in a matter of a few years.

I think you're hung up on the word technology. Ritual cannibalism is
typically performed for one of two reasons: either to ultimately degrade
a vanquished enemy or to ultimately honor the respected dead. For the
cultures who practice (or practiced) it, it is their conception of truth
and I'd suppose their technology. Astrology was also technology at one
point in both western and eastern civ. From that spurious belief came
the science of astronomy and the origins of higher math, timekeeping,
calendaring, precise navigation and geography.

I believe it was Bernie who recently pointed out that best way to deal
with a Scientologist is to gently persuade him of the facts. The facts
about the RTC, OSA and the SO in general are enough to persuade some Scn
to question their leaders, if not their beliefs. Isn't that the whole
point?

Wolf