One is a religious philosophy, one is an organization. It's like Christianity vs. The Roman Catholic Church.
As Anonymous battles against the Church of Scientology, some people sympathetic to the Church of Scientology raise the issue of religious freedom. What those who protest the Church of Scientology should keep clear is that they are protesting against an organization, not a system of belief. The distinction is commonly lost when people outside of a system of belief look in, and not just when Scientology is the belief system under consideration.…
Article comments
26 - AnonymousAleph
We know who our enemy is. It is not the free peoples of the world, but the CSI, and its organized crime syndicate.
03.15.08
Be There - Be Eveywhere
27 - waaahnonymous
I hear that David Miscavige plans on squirreling the severely flawed L Ron Hubbard "tech" and release the OT IX and X levels around the time of the next protest. Kinda funny that the policies are so broken that the violent megalomaniac has to revise it to keep the "Church" afloat. Spread the word, it's gonna be a fun party. Go Xenuphiles, go! See you on 03.15.08
28 - AF
"AF (#23) do you believe that there is any point to protests whatsoever? Are they always a waste of time, or is there ever any chance of a result? Are protests only intended to make the protestors feel better?
If protests ever have a chance of effecting change, and I believe that they sometimes do, then they must, by definition, *threaten* the freedom of people to remain as they are. They don't inherently infringe, but they inherently threaten to do so.
I really don't think this should be a difficult point to grasp."
Are you sufficiently convinced of the perfection of your opinion, that you cannot conceive of any possibility lying between "does not grasp my opinion" and "does not agree with my opinion"? I grasp your point; I simply disagree with it.
Again, go back to my first comment. Most people would not count as part of a person or organization's "freedom", anything which is not part of that person or organization's right. Right? So let's suppose, only for the sake of argument, that every public protest is aimed at directly effecting change (rather than, say, indirectly effecting change by educating people about things they may not have known) and therefore, a public protest inherently leads to the possibility that things may have to change. But ... who among us can say that it is their right to not have things change? Not you, not I, so why the Church of Scientology? Why all Scientologists whether Free Zone or CoS? Why Roman Catholics? Why the Unitarians? Why the atheists? No one can be deprived of a "freedom" that they didn't possess in the first place, and that seems to be exactly the kind of "freedom" you are referring to.
29 - Critical Thinker
We all have a right to think, believe, and say what we want, provided that our BEHAVIOR is respectful of others' rights to do the same. Scientologists are free to have an idea, and I am free to criticize it, protest it, discuss it, and write about it. Any retaliation must come within the marketplace -- or the battlefield -- of ideas. If it's a good idea, it will sustain attack. Ad hominem attacks (attacking the critic) in no way establish those ideas as more worthy, or more credible. Those ad hominem attacks are just attempts to shut down debate.
That is the most criminal aspect of all, in my opinion, of the Church of Scientology's behavior. The Protestant Reformation, the United States Constitution, the Enlightenment, and our modern concept of civil society all owe their existence to free debate of ideas. It is the perfecting process of ideas, and it is a gift to mankind. None of us can be protected from being offended, or having our ideas challenged, without infringing on all of us.
I will join protests of the behavior of the Church of Scientology 3/15/08. It's my right, and doing so is in no way hateful, bigoted, or oppressive. It is freedom and democracy in action.
30 - LdsNana-AskMormon
This is a rarity to have someone actually speak so objectively on principles and not practices, which relate to the practice of principles...
Excellent work... on this article.
tDMg
LdsNana-AskMormon
31 - Frank
Pretty good article. The focus is and should be on the crimes of the church of scientology, rather than of the religious philosophy of scientology itself. As a scientologist myself (outside the church), it's obvious that the church practices very little scientology these days.
Even criticism of the philosophy is fine by me, but as the auditing is a spiritual pursuit, and often very subjective in the results attained, intellectual criticism of the philosophy in terms of auditing (the tech) can come up short of what it's really like.
There is a great documentary called the Beginners Guide to L. Ron Hubbard which shows a UK TV presenter getting auditing in the freezone, which is about as close to seeing what auditing is, without having some yourself.
32 - Gigaplex
"Again, go back to my first comment. Most people would not count as part of a person or organization's 'freedom', anything which is not part of that person or organization's right. Right?" - AF
Right, most people would not as most people get the word "liberty" confused with the word "freedom". A couple of the definitions of the word freedom on dictionary.com mean the exact same thing as liberty. This alternative definition of freedom only shows up in the realm of politics. The closer proximity a word has to politics, the more likely it's meaning will get distorted over time ;)
Obviously, they wouldn't have created the term liberty if the word freedom already meant the same thing. Nearly all the other 17 definitions of freedom on dictionary.com refer to the original meaning of the word. For example:
Freedom - the power to determine action without restraint.
That definition of freedom would include anything and everything. The freedom to kill my neighbor and the freedom to rob people, for example. If there are no restraints, no regulations, etc. keeping me from doing something then I have the freedom to do it. It does not matter what the action is. The definition does not apply to only certain actions.
Liberty is a better word for what you are trying to describe, AF. Liberty is a limited subset of freedom that has the restrictions you refer to: namely, the freedom to initiate aggression against another is not included in the subset of freedoms defined by liberty. Liberty basically means you can do whatever you want as long as you are not hurting another's property (their body also being their property).
You could of course define other subsets of freedom besides liberty. For example, "freedom of religion". This is defined in the US Constitution which is built on the base of liberty. So freedom of religion is exactly what that amendment says and would not include those freedoms outside the scope of liberty.
So really, both the author and AF are correct in their statements but each of you are using different definitions for the same word thus creating the confusion.
33 - Gigaplex
If a person is protesting against the religion as a whole, they may be doing it because they want to raise awareness of their belief that the religion is not logical or right or whatever. That is certainly legal to do and in itself does not infringe upon anyone's right to religious freedom as defined in the US Constitution.
The problem occurs though when that person is also protesting to get the government to do something. Maybe they want the government to shut down the organization because of their illegal activities or fine them or whatever.
If they are trying to protest both of these things or if there are two different people there protesting these two different things, then the protest can easily be interpreted as though the group is protesting because they want scientology the religion banned which would be an infringement on the freedom of religion. This hurts credibility, hurts the chances of actually getting anything done, makes it harder for scientologists to get out (because the protesters look crazy), and can warp the movement into a movement that really IS about destroying a religion rather than an organization.
Making the differentiation between an organization and a philosophy is just being a responsible adult. I hope to see more responsible adults in the anon movement because certainly some already have it down.