France Accuses Scientologists of Fraud

[Haliwali]

Ha! This is scheduled 5 days after the last day of school for me. SWo close to a day of distilled awesome.

 

[Arbre]

And because a Church is called as such by some, it's more legit than a Cult?
Because of... size?
Like, you know, my penis is bigger than yours so... eh?

Heck, some people still worship Ra (in a monotheistic way) in small numbers, yet this was very common a long time ago.

Your logic is obviously faulty.

The reason of this is simple: established, popular and large scale cults and sects don't like competition, and don't want to see a new current with some significant momentum grow on the faith market. Period.

As far as I'm concerned, It's all bullshit.

And all of you with your "Go France" are just missing the whole point. Plain and simple.

Thanks for attacking me personally over penises, it was cute. And you even called my logic faulty with it.

Look, everyone knows the battlefield of religion is covered with an amount of bullshit that shames the world's supply of manure-based fertilizer. But there are key defining legal differences between what qualifies as a church and cult.

What qualifies as a cult?
#1 People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations to cloud judgment.
#2 Their members' problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly over-emphasized.
#3 They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a local charismatic leader or offered those things as the final reward from the supreme leader.
#4 They have to adopt a new identity based on the group.
#5 They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, the mainstream culture, and/or any other potential influences).
#6 The access to information (such as scripture and tenets) is severely controlled and usually not free.

Yes, most if not all churches can qualify for it if you shoehorn it enough. But size isn't the qualifer for it is a church or a cult, but intention.

Dang, I completely forgot about this post.
Let's pick each point one by one:

#1 People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations to cloud judgment.

Pray God, do not disapoint him, or you'll go to Hell, where you'll spend an enternity of mental and physical torture. No coercition, I swear! (well, I shouldn't do that either...)

#2 Their members' problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly over-emphasized.

Which is just as damn vague as it can get. In Christianity, it can be summed up to pray God, and all will go well, for this day, tomorrow and your afterlife.

#3 They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a local charismatic leader or offered those things as the final reward from the supreme leader.

God/Jesus/Pope/Priests.
We'll notice that the scale of who delivers love is proportional to the size of the cult. When it becomes bigger, it has to dispatch love and faith delivering and maintainance duties to subordinates (priests, delivering God's love).

#4 They have to adopt a new identity based on the group.

Happens all day at the office.

Also applies to marriage and rave parties, for example.

Not to say that the identity is pretty much defined by your behaviour and thoughts, which are largely inspired by your beliefs and goals. ALL theological currents go through this.
Have you ever observed Buddhists or Muslims by the way?

#5 They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, the mainstream culture, and/or any other potential influences).

As much as I hate to say it, Cruise didn't seem that entraped you know, or cut from mainstream "culture".
Last day, I saw him on the big screen. Again.

#6 The access to information (such as scripture and tenets) is severely controlled and usually not free.

You know, on the scale of time, it's only recently that in a good number of countries, people didn't have to pay the Christian Church.

***
As for the penis thing, it was not directed at you. It was an analogy, but it obviously flew miles above your head.

_The Necromancer

 

[DarkLordofDevon]

Lets hope the rest of Europe follows suit.

I guess even the French do things right sometimes.

 

[Orekoya]

Dang, I completely forgot about this post.
Let's pick each point one by one:

#1 People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations to cloud judgment.

Pray God, do not disapoint him, or you'll go to Hell, where you'll spend an enternity of mental and physical torture. No coercition, I swear! (well, I shouldn't do that either...)

#2 Their members' problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly over-emphasized.

Which is just as damn vague as it can get. In Christianity, it can be summed up to pray God, and all will go well, for this day, tomorrow and your afterlife.

#3 They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a local charismatic leader or offered those things as the final reward from the supreme leader.

God/Jesus/Pope/Priests.
We'll notice that the scale of who delivers love is proportional to the size of the cult. When it becomes bigger, it has to dispatch love and faith delivering and maintainance duties to subordinates (priests, delivering God's love).

#4 They have to adopt a new identity based on the group.

Happens all day at the office.

Also applies to marriage and rave parties, for example.

Not to say that the identity is pretty much defined by your behaviour and thoughts, which are largely inspired by your beliefs and goals. ALL theological currents go through this.
Have you ever observed Buddhists or Muslims by the way?

#5 They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, the mainstream culture, and/or any other potential influences).

As much as I hate to say it, Cruise didn't seem that entraped you know, or cut from mainstream "culture".
Last day, I saw him on the big screen. Again.

#6 The access to information (such as scripture and tenets) is severely controlled and usually not free.

You know, on the scale of time, it's only recently that in a good number of countries, people didn't have to pay the Christian Church.

Hm, maybe you aren't good at reading, let's review something:

As far as I'm concerned, It's all bullshit.

Look, everyone knows the battlefield of religion is covered with an amount of bullshit that shames the world's supply of manure-based fertilizer.

Yes, most if not all churches can qualify for it if you shoehorn it enough.

See what I did there? Not only did I agree with you before you made the argument, but I called out what you were gonna do before you even did it.

Also just because they've already finished brainwashing Cruise and let the public see him despite our wishes for otherwise doesn't mean they're not doing #5 to anyone.

 

[Arbre]

Hm, maybe you aren't good at reading, let's review something:

As far as I'm concerned, It's all bullshit.

Look, everyone knows the battlefield of religion is covered with an amount of bullshit that shames the world's supply of manure-based fertilizer.

Yes, most if not all churches can qualify for it if you shoehorn it enough.

See what I did there? Not only did I agree with you before you made the argument, but I called out what you were gonna do before you even did it.

Also just because they've already finished brainwashing Cruise and let the public see him despite our wishes for otherwise doesn't mean they're not doing #5 to anyone.

Drop the lecturing tone, pal. You listed points like if they could only apply to Scientology, but this is the bullshit. Again, there's a worldwide faith market with its own peculiar almost free business model, with billions of people being customers. What you're witnessing is nothing more than a corporatist mentality which does not allow for competition. That France reacts against scientology is not surprising the least, it's an extremely conservative country after all.

 

[Caliostro]

They're complete hypocrites if they don't follow it up with every other church or religion they have over there.

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

My all-devouring loathing for the entire human race has decreased a bit. Maybe my robotic overlords won't decide to invade and subjugate Earth after all- DISREGARD THAT COMPUTING ERROR ONE-ONE-SIX-TWO EIGHT.

Er, I mean, down with Scientology!

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

France...you're an arrogant mass of overhyped culture junkies with little regard for anything further than your own arses. But thanks for this. Thank you.

Your ever loving Neighbour; Britain.

P.S. Stop putting your language in our school curriculum, you'd think after 70 years of it we'd have it down. But we don't. Give up.

Oh yes, God forbid America learn a language other than the English they've already mastered. How dare the French do this, don't they understand American is the only language worth speaking?

[/end rant]

 

[Lord_Ascendant]

I have gained new respect for the French.

ditto

 

[theSovietConnection]

Wow. I'm going to think of the French a little more highly from now on.

 

[Fronken]

Great to finally see a government take efforts against the dangerous cult that is Scientology, lets just hope other governments do the same so we can finally rid the world of scientology, so that no more people have to get scammed out of their money or blackmailed/killed for something that is nothing more than a cult.

 

[Artheval_Pe]

Stop putting your language in our school curriculum,

I suggest you ask your own governement to stop putting french in your school curriculum. France has actually nothing to do with it (except for speaking the language of course).

 

[Ghost]

3 CHEERS FOR FRANCE!

 

[Aptspire]

I hope The CoS is found guilty
that's the kind of huge scam that my "religion" has been trying to reveal

 

[Bagaloo]

France...you're an arrogant mass of overhyped culture junkies with little regard for anything further than your own arses. But thanks for this. Thank you.

Your ever loving Neighbour; Britain.

P.S. Stop putting your language in our school curriculum, you'd think after 70 years of it we'd have it down. But we don't. Give up.

Oh yes, God forbid America learn a language other than the English they've already mastered. How dare the French do this, don't they understand American is the only language worth speaking?

[/end rant]

Just thought I'd point out; American isn't a language.
And this was a post from a British perspective.

America didn't factor in at all.

But anyway, go France?!

 

[metalhead848]

france has gone from -10 to -6 on the despise-o-meter

 

[Krakyn]

france has gone from -10 to -6 on the despise-o-meter

I feel that this is a gross misuse of the the "-meter" suffix.

"-meter"s are named after the unit they represent, and they track the value of said unit. With a despisometer, if you follow the formula, it would measure how much you despise in positive numbers, though the feelings may be negative. Thus, like when a speedometer shows a higher rate as speed increases, a despisometer would show higher levels of disgust as despisement increases.

This is the problem with our society today. Too much $cientology hating, not enough suffix learning.

 

[Charli]

France...you're an arrogant mass of overhyped culture junkies with little regard for anything further than your own arses. But thanks for this. Thank you.

Your ever loving Neighbour; Britain.

P.S. Stop putting your language in our school curriculum, you'd think after 70 years of it we'd have it down. But we don't. Give up.

Oh yes, God forbid America learn a language other than the English they've already mastered. How dare the French do this, don't they understand American is the only language worth speaking?

[/end rant]

Im british who the eff mentioned the Yanks?

/end totally sarcastic and unserious former comment stop digging up statements that aren't there.

 

[metalhead848]

france has gone from -10 to -6 on the despise-o-meter

I feel that this is a gross misuse of the the "-meter" suffix.

"-meter"s are named after the unit they represent, and they track the value of said unit. With a despisometer, if you follow the formula, it would measure how much you despise in positive numbers, though the feelings may be negative. Thus, like when a speedometer shows a higher rate as speed increases, a despisometer would show higher levels of disgust as despisement increases.

This is the problem with our society today. Too much $cientology hating, not enough suffix learning.

thats a negative sign in front of the 10 and the 6

 

[Pimppeter2]

HAHAH Frace rocks