Pirate Pete spotted this … It looks like there’s an FSM symbol on the “$cientology i$ a $cam” sign. I don’t know any details about the protest. Anyone know? More pictures can be found here.
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An elaborate spoof on Intelligent Design, The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is neither too elaborate nor too spoofy to succeed in nailing the fallacies of ID. It's even wackier than Jonathan Swift's suggestion that the Irish eat their children as a way to keep them from being a burden, and it may offend just as many people, but Henderson, described elsewhere as a 25-year-old "out-of-work physics major," puts satire to the same serious use that Swift did. Oh, yes, it is very funny. -- Scientific American
Yesterday, there were Scientology protests all across the country. A group called Anonymous is determined to bring them down, and they’re using the internet to gather followers and to threaten the church. Look up Xenu.net, that’s where a lot of the details are.
The wise and all-knowing FSM has led me to this link in my search for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology
They are out to get us too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATZvRyB364s
That’s plymouth, I’m sure of it!
That’s definately an FSM symbol. Yay!
For the good of all, this entire science fiction book by a pedophile to turn a quick buck turned into a religion and must be stopped, the FSM will surely see to this and clearly he is helping.
RAmen
It’s 41 Ebrington street, drake circus, plymouth, Uk.
The shop on the right is a take away, on the left is a former poorhouse. I can’t find a good picture to prove it. :( Only this
http://base.googlehosted.com/base_media?q=maps:www.scientology.org/world/worldeng/global/orgpics/plyorg.jpg&size=3&hl=en
If I’d have known there was going to be a protest there, I’d probably have made an effort to join them. Interesting that they dress rather like I do.
The Flying Spaghetti monster can beat Xenu´s ass anytime anywhere, but knowing him he probably prefer to invite him to drink a few beers around a volcano, I don’t know if Xenu drinks beer but ive heard he likes volcanoes.
Meh… I’m not sure I can agree with the sentiments behind these protests. Scientology is an obvious hoax, but then, to me ALL religions are. Quite a lot of scientologists seem to be zealots for their religion, but again, that certainly isn’t limited to their religion.
You cannot have selective religious tolerance, and remember the 8 “I’d really rather you didn’ts”.
RAmen
Coimbra, April 23, 1975.
“A few days ago, during the homily of Sunday Mass in a parish church in rural surroundings, the priest spoke to his parishioners about the forthcoming elections for the Constituent Assembly. Launched hand of the parabola to be better understood and told them:
— “My dear brothers in Christ: suppose that one of you is owner of a dairy cow; if socialism wins, the brother takes the cow, but will have to give the milk to the party, if the communism wins, we will stand without the milk and without the cow. ..” “
I’m not sure I get the reason for the protest.
.
Like Gnocci Man said, ALL religions are scams… except for CoFSM of course. ;-)
.
-OEJ
@ Gnocci Man
The protests are about the legality behind Co$. They have tax exempt status, which is unjustified. They have committed a startling number of crimes and so forth. The protests aren’t about the delusion of $cientology, rather, the legality of it.
Pirate Pete? I’m glad to know that I’ve become someone’s role model!
.
Coolio, it always seems like Pastafarianism has paid a lot of attention to Scientology.
RAmen
RAmen, Gnocci Man! One would think that “true” Pastafarians would know better.
Next time, my mom wants to go with a shirt that says “Pastafarian” and below it “Future Cyber-Terrorist” just because the CoS wants to pain the protesters as adolescent cyber-terrorists and it’d get a funny reaction.
Gnocci Man:
Sadly, it’s not their beliefs; it’s their actions. Google “Operation Snow White” and “Operation Freakout.”
I have heard some terrible things about this “anonymous”.
I heard a rumor that one of their group ordered a pizza delivered to a scientology church and the scientologists had to pay for it even though they did not order it !! Obviously the scientologigt church is right in calling them terrorists.
On the other hand the scientologist church only indulges in positive actions like going into the house of one of their critics, stealing a piece of paper with her fingerprints on it, and using that paper to mail a bomb threat to themselves in an effort to get a critic arrested. another tactic that they enjoy is to claim they heard a critic make a suicide threat which when reported gets the critic locked up in a mental hospital for 72 hour observation.
That way when questioned about their critics they can say ” Oh her? wasn’t she in a mental hospital?”
And lets not forget that the largest criminal infiltration of the US government (and Canada) was not conducted by a foreign government but by the scientologist church, If that sounds a little outlandish look up “Operation snow white”.
And since you seem like a law abideing church group,read what judges have to say about scientology.
http://www.xenu.net/archive/disk/archive/quotes.htm
It’s 4chan’s attempt to eliminate Scientology. It was funny for about a week, and now it’s just annoying.
Scientology… come on. Are you serious?
I will be at the 4/12 protest in Clearwater, FL, proudly proclaiming FSM is the one true religion!!! Could a 50ish pirate wench be a secret cyber-terrorist? A round of grog for all Anon Pastafarians!!!!
RAmen!!!
I think its hilarious that during the whole protest Anon managed to stay peaceful, but several scientologists were arrested for assaulting them. I’m sure the FSM supports what they are doing to scientology and will continue to touch them with his noodley appendage
Gnocci, if you think that these protests aren’t justified, then go Xenu.net. Scientology is a lot more than a hoax; it has an uncanny knack of destroying people’s lives.
“Meh… I’m not sure I can agree with the sentiments behind these protests. Scientology is an obvious hoax, but then, to me ALL religions are.”
Issue isn’t their beliefs. Issue is the suffering they cause others.
This is the official summary that was posted on their website. Also, the link is to other pics, and there is a good one of the FSM sign in it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24708249@N07/2335218433/in/set-72157604122866516/
“United Kingdom: Plymouth
Turnout Plymouth: 40-50 people.
10:30AM - 6:00PM
It was very wet.
We split into three groups at one point, heading into the very densley packed town centre to follow both the scientology carts who were giving out propaganda and stress tests. We met them with our leaflets and well made signs.
They tried several tactics including baiting us out to nowhere to keep up busy with a decoy and taunting us to stay with them.
They had hired a security guard who we can happily say had very little to do that day. The anon outside the Org spent the day handing out flyers as did the anon picketing the carts through town. Eventually all three groups met back at the org until the protest ended at 6pm.
We had two ex-Plymouth staff members with us as well as many people from around the South West region and despite the weather we had a great time. The public was very receptive.
Scilons took many videos and photographs and hopefully the news team that interviews the ex-staff members will run a story on us.
There were no police this time. The worst we had was some Big Issue sellers saying that Scientology was good, and some old people who lived next door saying we were doing no good. ”
Flickr photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24708249@N07/sets/72157604122866516/
The protests are not directed at the religion, but specifically the CHURCH’S ACTIONS. There’s a difference. I support people’s rights to be Catholic, but I condemn the Inquisition.
I have to agree with Gnocci Scientology makes every bit as much as sense as the Flying Spaghetti Monster maybe we could have join meetings and find what we have in common
I was at the first Anon protest last month, good times. Its a shame they are against Pastafarianism though.
Gnocci Man, Cabin Boy Jon:
It’s not that Scientology does or does not make sense - if they peacefully practiced their religion, no one would have cared. But when they wring every penny from their followers and cause the deaths of innocents, there’s a problem! You really ought to check out http://xenu.net, as was previously posted, if you really want to see why the Church of Scientology is a truly terrible organization. No one wants to condemn them for their beliefs, but like Pontius Pirate says.. for their actions!
Egads, Cabin Boy Jon- I admire your tolerance, but I don’t think I could enjoy my pasta at a meeting with scientologists! Can I be tolerant of them from afar?
Anon and the FSM? And here I thought they were the bad guys.
I am one of the Legion, but also a Pastafarian. Scientology has done quite horrible things as you can see by looking at the many sites on the web.
More protest info:
http://www.whyweprotest.net/
http://www.enturbulation.org/
I don’t get why people hate on Scientology…I mean, it is organized religion and that sucks but is it any suckier than other organized religions? Are they out somewhere hurting kittens or something?
Okay, I did a little research, weird stuff.
I also do not understand why this particular brand of flim-flam is any worse than any other. I do know that to date, Scientologists have killed fewer people than Catholics. Maybe we should go protest the Pope in a ‘bombard Manuel Noriega with loud rock and roll’ style, but we should sing pirate shantys.
PC
cabin boy jon. they might make just as much sense, but remember
A: they have no graph.
B: they get people dead.
I never said we had anything in common! I find scientology both ridiculous and disturbing, along with pretty much all other religions, but I also dislike it when people attack others beliefs. If I had known that the scientologists had been proselytizing at the time, I might not have reacted as I did. But regardless, those posters can hardly be seen as polite and innocent critiques; I find many of the anti-scientologists just as disturbing as their nemeses, and I confess, the whole situation scares me.
.
I guess I’m just one of those naive “if only we could all get along” people. Oh well.
FNORD,
RAmen
JORDAN , NIKE , ADIDAS , PUMA shoes only $20 per pair !!!!! Welcome to http://www.netsowntown.com
I have the sacred Spagetti….blasphemer!
As a proud Pastafarian, and as a “member” of Anonymous, I’m proud to see that sign.
I don’t see what the problem is here. We are supposed to be tollerant of all religions and belief systems, Right? So perhaps we should spend less time worrying about scientology, and more time loving our fellow man…
oh my god, i just read some of the hate mail and some of these people are off their rockers. I personally am christian though question my religion daily because of the lack of tangible answers in the world. Christians are supposed to be taught acceptance and understanding, kindness and the ability to forgive. I mean come on, people can believe what they want, why would you want to force your own beliefs on them? Spreading your beliefs does not mean “Oh hey lets go force feed people what i believe and see if they choke.” That makes about as much sense as the people who chew tobacco… “Hey Edd I have an Idea! Lets go chew on something with pieces of glass in it that was left out to dry with rats and probably has a substantial amount of rat shit in it!”
I mean come on guys… what the hell is up with the world now?
For too many years, religion has been given a free pass. And, to a large degree it still is. While I support a person’s right to believe a silly thing, I also believe in another person’s right to protest that silly thing. Would love to see more people stand up to belief in silly things…
Scientology…tsk tsk…as a vertebrate and inhabitant of Earth, I, like many other species, find the whole notion of humans arriving on Earth from space offensive. A Mexican walking fish sits at the top of my family tree…and I’m damn proud of it…
Gnocci Man and Cabin Boy Jon: You are both wrong, and apathy is an EXTREMELY DANGEROUS trait.
I agree with Pontius Pirate when he says, “I support people’s rights to be Catholic, but I condemn the Inquisition.”
Its fine if you guys want to blaspheme against The Church of the Spaghetti Monster, thats your right, but the Cult of Scientology has something called the “Fair Game Policy”. To quote directly from the Scientology founder: enemies of the cult “May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.”
Scientology is not just a “funny religion”, its a CRIMINAL CULT, which poses serious threats to society. And the mentality of “Oh, Scientology is just one of many wack religions” is the same as seeing one single enemy soldier in war and thinking, “Well, theres so many more I’ll just let him pass by and kill whomever he wishes since I can’t kill the entire enemy army at once.” Look, theres shit tons of info available about how fucked up Scientology is. Join the resistance. When was the last time you protested something? Start taking stances! Educate yourself, and join the next worldwide protest on April 12th in a city near you.
xenu.net
enturbulation.org
I was at the austin texas protest dressed in my pirate gear in support for his Noodly Goodness.
I think that this was his noodliness’s stamp of approval for protesting false gods rather than an organized protest of pastafarians. besides, where is the full pirate regalia?
There are protesters like this with posters and guy fox masks at every week’s Farmer’s Market here… Their main beef is that Scientology isn’t just a cult, it’s a rip-off. They want to arm people against a scam.
Anybody who says that they’re pushing their faith is ignorant. Look in all of the pictures. See anything that says, “convert”? No. It’s telling people that Scientology is dangerous because of the things it does, you can look up what their faith entails if you want. All they’re saying is to stay away, not to convert to pastafarianism, the one true faith. RAmen.
GOOD, IT IS ABOUT TIME! THEY ARE FOOLS AND MERE MORTALS!!!!
@Gandhi
I’ve seen apathy; I would be apathetic if I thought it didn’t matter, but I know it does. It isn’t apathy to say “Just Fu**ing learn to tolerate them already!” They certainly aren’t going to do anything but get stronger if you attack them–you’ll just get people to sympathise with them. Also starting out Project Chanology with Distributed Denial of Service attacks strikes me as being remarkably unethical…
I dislike Scientology, but thats going a bit too far.
Honestly, we can’t be selective with religious tolerance. Remember the eight “I’d really rather you didn’ts!”
RAmen
The Flying Spaghetti Monster created everything, so he must have created scientology for some unkown reason
hmmmm their seems to be pastafarians in annoymous wich means that they would not hack into our site but would support it
Fact is, that scientology does kill members of their own religion.
check out www.xenu.net
Anon fights!
Another wonderful bit of Scientology fact. They say that the ultimate reality will only be achieved after all people on Earth are removed of all their N-Grams or thetans or whatever the hell they are. problem is … there isn’t enough money on Earth to achieve this. So i ask you, what will scientologists do with those wh can;t afford it?
Kill them of course! Most. Dangerous. Cult. Ever.
I think my points before were misunderstood. I don’t have any respect for Scientology and think its a vile organisation BUT christianity and islam are a 1000 times worse. Scientology screws up 10’s maybe 100’s of lives these ‘main stream’ religions destroy millions. The organisations attacking scientology are often not beacons of reason, rationality and genereal nice people but often religious fundies who are far more of a problem
Silly ole’ Gnocci Man & Cabin Boy Jon, both of your rebuttals carry absolutely no weight whatsoever because they essentially restate your original posts which clearly were already countered and smashed. Gnocci Man: How is not supporting The Cult but not opposing them NOT apathetic towards them? Neutrality, or as you call it “tolerance” is the same as apathy. And if you wanna get semantic about it, just replace the word apathy with neutrality, and keep in mind that “You can’t be neutral on a moving train” -Howard Zinn. Cabin Boy Jon: See original post with the one soldier vs. entire enemy army metaphor. And to clarify my original message: I in no way support or, have ever claimed to support, any illegal or unethical attacks on The Cult (such as ddos attacks). In fact, I think the ddos attacks were extremely foolish, but that doesn’t take away from the truth of the message that anonymous is trying to get out. All I am saying is what harm could ever come from peaceful protests and knowledge disbursement???? Oh and heres a hilarious vid from the last protest in Houston with me in an impromptu drum circle at the beginning, lol: http://youtube.com/watch?v=LMsByKV2_Cc
I am new to fsm so forgive me for iconoclastic foibles. I have just digested some of the hate meal. Amazing how the longest, most agonized-over arguments for the existence of “God” are using the same rote, illogical writings from so-called christian scholars that have been around, and thoroughly discredited, for years. If one must attempt logic one aught to learn the “fundamentals” and test against real alternatives to evolution. But one must also learn the basic principles of the subject they attempt to condemn.
As a matter of fact, god isn’t. Doesn’t even qualify as theory. We understand this. They do not. We cannot remain polite against ignorance. All beliefs are not created equal and all do not deserve serious consideration.
This goes for scientology, which is not a parodic tome, and is worthy of as much scorn and ridicule as we can load on a plate.
To all the readers out there wondering about the protests:
Don’t believe everything you read (I realize you’re reading this). Scientology itself has been putting out propaganda regarding the Anonymous movement against the practices of the “church”. Let me say the following quite clearly:
Anonymous is NOT against the religion of Scientology. Anonymous is against the sneaky, evil, illegal, and underhanded actions taken by the so-called Church of Scientology.
I’ll stop here and provide any readers that come along with a a link to www.Xenu.net Want to know more? Google Lisa McPherson, project snow white, or operation freak-out. These are just a few real-world, documented accounts of the actions taken by the ‘church’ of Scientology.
Anonymous is protesting the tax-exempt status of a church that literally forces it’s members to pay them more and more money, to purchase their literature, all for the sake of learning more about them. No other religion operates this way (though many pyramid schemes and cults do). Anonymous first protested on the birthday of Lisa McPherson, to honor her death at their hands. Anonymous then went on to protest their tax-exempt status on March 10th, shortly after the birthday of late L. Ron Hubbard.
Anonymous is going to protest again on April 12th in Operation: Reconnect.
What is that about? Google ‘disconnection’ and the policies of the “church” of Scientology. Why does Anonymous cover faces and wear masks? Google the policies of ‘fair game’ and some of things L. Ron Hubbard suggests be done with so-called “suppressive persons”.
Want to join us? www.enturbulation.org Maybe together, we can make a difference and re-unite more families and prevent the tax-exempt “church” from stealing more money from unsuspecting followers and breaking up more familes.
Scientologists are allowed to believe whatever sillyness they want.
What they cannot do is:
- Mistreat members (lookup the SeaOrg) exscientologykids.org
- Ruin families (lookup Disconnection)
- Silence critics (lookup Fair Game)
- Bully the government for special Tax exempt status (Operation Snow White and ensuing lawsuits)
- Ruin Couches (look up Oprah reruns)
“I don’t have any respect for Scientology and think its a vile organisation BUT christianity and islam are a 1000 times worse. Scientology screws up 10’s maybe 100’s of lives these ‘main stream’ religions destroy millions.”
To Paraphrase:
“You guys are right to protest this, but I won’t because there are also other things that I believe are worth protesting.”
To which I must reply:
So, are you protesting those things? Or are you just throwing words around in a desperate attempt to keep others from making a difference where they see that they can and should?
People believe the organization of Scientology is bad. They believe it because they’ve read court documents, testimony from people who escaped the organization, and seen videos of members behaving badly. Now they’re doing something about it. All you’re doing with your “Yeah but”s is wasting good people’s time and energy. If you’ve read up on this subject, and I don’t think you have, you can decide whether it’s worth it to you to try and make a difference.
www.xenu.net
www.youfoundthecard.com
www.exscientologykids.com
www.enturbulation.org
Get involved if you think that this sort of thing has gone on long enough.
Cabin Boy, then you should be out protesting islam and christianity. When’s your next picket?
“I don’t get why people hate on Scientology…I mean, it is organized religion and that sucks but is it any suckier than other organized religions? Are they out somewhere hurting kittens or something?”
Funny you should say that. Did someone forget to mention the cat-killing?
http://remembermudkips.org/
Religion is not the issue for the Scientology protests. Crime is. No religion should be allowed to force members to have abortions, or force children into labour, or deprive its staff of proper food and sleep, or harass its critics with the aim of driving them insane (google “operation freakout”), or the kidnapping (see Martine Boublil, January 2008)… Scientologists can believe what they want, but they must stop with the human rights abuses and the crimes.
The protest is not condemning them for their belief in space aliens. In fact, most scientologists don’t realize that their religion is about aliens. The protest is about the Church of Scientology’s multiple crimes, such as breaking into the IRS and stealing documents, or the fact that they’ve gotten a tax exempt status, the fact that they collect vast amount of money from their followers in audits. It’s a gigantic scam pretending to be a religion.
The protests aren’t specifically against the beleifs of the “Church of Scientology”, but rather it’s inhumane and criminal practices. It fits the definition of cult to a tee, and there’s loads of evidence online for anyone who feels the need to look it up. They’re only even considered a religion because they cut a deal with the IRS, and were granted tax exemptions in the US unique to them. No other religion in the US gets as good a deal with the IRS as Scientology.
I urge anyone and everyone reading this not to take my word for it, but to look into for yourself. The resources available on the web are near endless. Xenu.net is a good place to start.
Hello Pastafarians!
I am anonymous. I have always admired your movement, and I see the truth in His Noodly Appendage.
Please join us and help rid the world of this noxious cult. Our interests coincide. One can believe in flying constructions of semolina and water (and sometimes egg) and one can believe in bad science fiction if one wants.
However the criminal organization of this cult can and does hurt a lot of very nice people. At the very least make sure your friends, family, and neighbors are aware of the danger. Knowledge is the inoculation that will prevent the spread of this disease. Anonymous is the broad-spectrum antibiotic for the festering kernel of infection.
Hope I didn’t put you off your lasagne with that last. I just adore melodramatic analogies.
We are Anonymous
We are Legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us
http://www.enturbulation.org
Christianity and Islam may screw up more lives, but it’s only because they’re bigger. Lots of people survive being Christian or Muslim without screwing up their lives.
Scientology is insidious. It screws up the lives of each and every person who joins the organization, no exception.
I’d also like to mention that this is not a freedom of belief issue. Nobody is campaigning against Freezone, which is a form of Scientology practiced outside the Church of Scientology. They are going up against the CoS which is a criminal organization.
Anon isn’t protesting the religious beliefs of scientology, but instead the criminal acts of the org.
Calling Anonymous religious bigots is the same as calling parents who scream at the Catholic church for molesting their children religious bigots. The crimes of the Church of Scientology are worse. One one of my videos on YouTube, some pastafarians said they’d show up for our protest.
If you want to know their crimes, download our info packet here: http://rapidshare.com/files/103822534/Info_Packet_GOLD.zip.html
there are still some typos we’re working on a final.
Just thought I’d chime in here and reiterate what others have said: Anonymous does not condemn the religious practices of Scientology in any way. If they want to believe that their bodies are infested by retard-spirits trapped here on Earth ten gajillion years ago by Lord Xenu and practice their self help techniques in an effort to gain superpowers, I’m all for it. In fact, Anonymous fully supports the Free Zone and its efforts to practice the beliefs of Scientology divorced from the corrupt and criminal institution that is the Church of Scientology. It’s when things get violent and criminal that there’s a problem.
Again, we condemn the actions taken by the CoS, NOT their beliefs. You can have your Bible (as it were), or you can have your gun, but the moment you pick up a gun, you no longer get to carry your Bible. Pick one.
Cabin Boy Jon,
Would you accept this statement?
‘Murdering people is okay because everybody will die some day. Murder just hurries the process a little, especially when considered against the times scale of geological history. What difference is a lifetime of 25 years and 100 years? And when considered against the deaths that occurred during the black plague, WW1,WW2, Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War 1 and 2, and the daily murder that occur around the world every day, murdering a few people isn’t all that many or so bad. If you considered the history of humankind, from the bronze age, to the Romans to the French revolution, the lost of a few lives isn’t even a tragedy. Most lives are insignificant and aren’t even worth being written in the history books
So murdering people is okay. The police are wasting their time catching murders. Don’t get so hot under the collar about serial killer staking your neighbourhood. Spend you time more productively, okay.”
Would you accept this statement? Is murder okay? Why not? I won’t give you the answer. But Cabin Boy Jon if you can answer this question, you can answer why people are trying to oppose the Church of Scientology.
@Cabin Boy Jon
While the kill count of Christianity and Islam is far higher than Scientology’s, it is spread over a long period of time and it is by no means a uniformed belief: the Church of Scientology’s crimes can be traced back to the policies of its central management. Through its indoctrination, organization and tight control over its parishioners, the upper echelons abuse the admittedly kooky pseudo-religious self-help books of a severely disturbed sci-fi hack to silence their critics, isolate their members and slowly drain them of all the cash they’re worth. We do not target the victims of this cult, nor do we target the beliefs to which they are entitled. We only have beef with the corrupt “church” that governs this whole scheme. I invite you to judge for yourself if we’re beacons of reason, rationality and nicety: www.enturbulation.org
They aren’t protesting the religious beliefs of the church, though some at the protests may make allusions to some of the more unconventional beliefs of the church. They are protesting the Corporation of Scientology which abuses it’s followers by taking their money and splitting families apart and denying people needed medical care.
Various people from the protests have been in contact with Freezone scientologists, these are practitioners of the beliefs of scientolgoy who do so outside of the corporate structure of the church. the protesters are encouraging people to get away from the corporation of Scientology not change their faith.
Cabin Boy Jon–give me the following:
20 first-hand accounts of abuse by the Catholic Church that they DENY ever happened (either by parishioners acting on their own, but by people acting on order of the church)
at least 2 instances of the Catholic Church performing severely illegal acts (espionage, organized harassment)
50 first-hand accounts of critics of the Catholic Church being harassed by the Church (not by members acting on their own, but by members acting on orders of the Church)
500 instances of salvation/religious texts being denied to someone because they can’t afford to pay for it
20 first-hand accounts of people going to the authorities (police, FBI, etc) for and being denied help/having nothing happen.
10 people who indirectly or directly died through a command of the Catholic Church;
if the church says “don’t use meds” and someone dies because of it, that counts;
if the church says “prayer helps people” and someone doesn’t get medical treatment because their parents prayed INSTEAD OF (as opposed to “in addition to”), that doesn’t count
If you can’t come up with the following, then stop bitching about the other religions. If I want to say “The Catholic Church brainwashes its children” or “Catholic priests needs to stop molesting little boys” or “Fundamentalist Christians are morons”, I have the right to say it, and I would not be afraid of having the Church itself come over to my house and harass me.
—–
Blahblahblah, tl;dr:
The Church of Scientology commits actual crimes, and threatens and harasses its critics. This is illegal, and we are demanding that they be held accountable for it.
When the whole priest sex scandal thing happened, there were people demanding the Catholic Church be held accountable as well. HEY GUESS WHAT. THEY WERE HELD ACCOUNTABLE AS WELL. If they reacted as the Church of Scientology reacted (by calling its accusers terrorists, suing them, harassing them, and denying all the allegations while CONTINUING TO COMMIT THE CRIMES), you can damn well bet that there’d be some group out there protesting them.
(From Wikipedia:)
“Serious lawsuits emerged in 2001 claiming that deviant priests had sexually abused minors.[232] As of 2008, the vast majority of worldwide sex abuse cases have been in the United States[233] where 4 percent of all priests who served there from 1950 to 2002 faced accusations[234], though the Church estimated that the global figure was probably no more than 1 per cent.[233]
Some priests resigned, others were defrocked and jailed[235] and financial settlements were agreed with many victims.[232] The church was widely criticized when it was discovered that some bishops knew about allegations of misconduct and then reassigned accused priests instead of removing them from ministry.[232][236] Some bishops and psychiatrists noted that the prevailing psychology of the times suggested that people could be cured of such behavior with counseling.[236][237][238] Many of the abusive priests had received counseling before being reassigned.[234][239]
Pope John Paul II responded by stating there is no place in the priesthood or religious life for those who abuse children.[240]
The church instituted reforms to prevent future abuse including requiring fingerprinting and background checks for church employees and, because a significant majority of victims were teenage boys, disallowing ordination of men with deeply seated homosexual tendencies.[118][237]
These reforms also set up a clear code of conduct for all dioceses to follow when faced with an allegation including alerting the authorities, conducting an investigation and removing the accused priest or employee from duty.[241][242]”
To be fair pastafarianism was established as a innocent way to poke fun at those silly creationists and their attempt to teach their religion as science. Anonymous has a good time poking fun at the ridiculous teachings of scientology and the more devious practices of their cult. I’m pretty sure the corporation that runs the CoS is in direct violation of alot of the “I really wish you wouldnts” Yes yes, they started off with some DDOSs and those are less than legal but thats no longer the chosen method of the current incarnation of Anonymous. They’ve come a long way from their “HACKERS ON STEROIDS! Chan roots. Just as many of us worship his noodly goodness do we also feel it necessary to strike back at a cult that abuses its parishoner’s human rights. It may not be part of the main stay of the Pastafarian way but i’d think you should be proud to see the good word being spread, albeit subtly. RAmen
I’m surprised that so many here are unaware of the recent Scientology protests or believe that the protests are led by religious fanatics.
Scientology is protested because they suppress freedom of speech. They are extremely secretive about their activities, even to their own members. A member must pay thousands of dollars to even find out what the religion is really about. Imagine going into any other church and them forcing you to pay to find out about their god or beliefs.
Scientology’s censorship is what originally sparked the protest.
Anonymous - the organization beyond the recent protests - is not a group of religious fanatics trying to promote a particular religion. Anonymous is everyone. Anonymous are people spread throughout the world, people of every religion and ethnicity, united to fight against Scientology. Many people have died as a result of this horrendous cult. Critics have been harassed mercilessly by this cult.
There is so much information about this cult out there. I have a few links, and google is your friend:
http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com/ - a good, brief summary of some of Scientology’s many crimes.
http://www.xenu.net/ - I could spend hours browsing through the information here.
http://www.enturbulation.org/ - Hosts activation forums. Has links to more content.
[Knowledge is free — Scientology is not]
Btw, as an afterthought, FSM owns. ;D Flying Spaghetti Monster >>>> Xenu.
Srsly, you guys preaching love and acceptance” need to do your homework. Anonymous IS NOT PROTESTING THE RELIGION. They are protesting the PRACTICES of the religion, such as employing child labor, filing frivolous lawsuits against any critics, stalking, draining hundreds of thousands of dollars from parishioners, forced abortions for female followers, etc. They are a CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION. Anon does not have any problem with people believing what they want…in fact, they’re in full support of Freezoners, a splinter group of Scientologists who do not charge thousands of dollars to become members of the church.
Anon is protesting the tax-free status of this cult which masquerades as a non-profit religion, yet rakes in millions from gullible followers. They are breaking the law in that respect and costing ordinary taxpayers lots of money. Thats just to name ONE of their many transgressions.
People can believe what they want, no matter how strange. But they cannot get away with DOING whatever they want if it breaks the law, endangers minors, costs taxpayers money and denies civil rights to members through force and intimidation. Go to xenu.net to read more.
Also check out www.whyaretheydead.net to see the hundreds of people who have died while in the care of Scientologists due to being denied medication, psychological help or even basic needs like food and water.
@Cabin Boy Jon
When was the last time that christianity
- inflitrated the IRS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White)
- hired private investigators to harrass you at your home and then sued you(http://glosslip.com/2008/03/27/member-of-anonymous-in-boston-being-fair-gamed-by-scientology/)
-held you hostage at your own home without food and medication until you died? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_McPherson)
or numerous other violations against any possible human rights you could think of.
Not in a few hundred years i believe.
Scientology, however, keeps doing these things day after day without anyone daring to stop them. Well its about time now. The crimes of Church of Scientology are something that you can stop right now, right here.
Google ‘Operation Snow White’
Google ‘Lisa McPherson’
Google ‘Operation Freakout’
Google ‘Fair Game’
Google ‘Scientology Disconnection’
Google ‘BBC Scientology and Me’
Google ‘XenuTV’
Google ‘Rehabilitation Project Force’
Google ‘Introspection Rundown’
Find out the truth.
Does this sound like a religion to you?
As a fellow Pastafarian and former member of the First Church of Xenu, I am saddened by the ignorance and apathy that permeates this discussion. In a community that condones critical inquiry, too many people seem to ignore it.
The fact of the matter is that the fight between Anonymous and the Church of Scientology has nothing to do with religious freedom. It has everything to do with the illegal practices of a corrupt organization that manipulates its followers, the media, and the government to legitimize its pseudoscientific principles in the court of public opinion.
Do you know that many public schools around the United States use Scientology’s “Applied Scholastics” program?
Are you aware of the organization’s infiltration into numerous federal agencies, most notably the IRS?
Are you in the slightest bit familiar with the ongoing abuses that take place in their gulag-esque Rehabilitation Force?
Do you realize that Scientology education programs are tax-deductible, while all other religious education is not?
The information is out there, it’s verifiable, and it’s more damning than a thousand Wedge Documents.
But it’s still not as bad as Christianity, right? That’s like telling the doctor to ignore a man’s burst appendix, because someone else has cancer.
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was created, in part, to prevent religion from infiltrating public policy. While I encourage, even endorse such an endeavor, you must realize that while you’ve been preventing the Phillip Johnsons and Bill Dembskis of the world from influencing our federal government, Hubbard’s followers were able to slip in unnoticed.
The good news, though, is that Anonymous is making a difference.
But don’t just take my word for it. Do the research yourself.
As a matter of fact, Scientology does kill kittens! Killing a critic’s pet is a well known way that Scientology tries to harass its critics. If only that was the worst of what they do. They force children into hard labor (exscientologykids.com), they have their own slave labor force called the Rehabilitation Project Force (google it!), and they kill their own members (whyaretheydead.net). They also tell people to stop taking their medication, and sell them auditing for thousands of dollars, but if you aren’t cured through auditing, they claim that it is really your own fault, you’re just doing it wrong!
How can you say Islam and Christianity of today are worse?
The terrorists in the middle east are not the religious authorities behind Islam. A couple of clerics are terrorists, that doesn’t make all Islamic clerics terrorists.
There are no mass murdering Christians today. They just make you wish you were dead.
But Scientology is just plain evil. Do your own research. Listen to these guys. Visit http://www.enturbulation.org/. Talk to people who actually lived inside of Scientology for 30+ years. Google Arnie Lerma and Tory Magoo. Talk to people who were victims of Scientology’s fair game policy. Google Paulette Cooper and Mark Bunker. Learn about the people who died under their care or because of their illegal medical practices. Check out http://www.whyaretheydead.net/.
Was any Christian church or Islamic organization ever caught in a large scale infiltration of the U.S. Government to steal and destroy documents critical of their church? Scientology was.
The victims of Scientology deserve justice. Not from crimes that happened hundreds of years ago, but today and now.
Holy spamming Anonymous, Batman!
Sorry about that my Pastafarian friends. I think everyone must have commented at once. … and all apparently said the same exact thing. O_O;
FSM parodies religion as well as intelligent design, and while I applaud and gladly partake in these efforts for the lulz, I firmly believe the “Church” of Scientology deserves more than just a few laughs. Indeed, once you scrutinize their activities, some things come out as very disturbing.
I am, of course, referring to their vicious suppression of dissent, which includes stalking, harassing, and suing perceived critics and former scientologists, their policy of “disconnecting” families - whereby they forbid their members from speaking to their family relatives seen as critical of the church, and their physical and mental abuse of their members.
In addition, once you take into account their practice of charging ludicrous sums of money for the purpose of attaining salvation and their illegal activities (Operation Snow White; Operation Freakout), it becomes quite obvious that the Church of Scientology, in its present form, is nothing but a dangerous cult.
We are protesting their activities, not their beliefs, in the hopes of educating the public about this dangerous microcosm of totalitarianism (hey, I think that rhymed!) in our society. Seriously, though, if you simply take the time to follow the links that fellow protesters have supplied, you will understand the gravity of the situation. So before you criticize us of discriminating against a goofy religion, take the time to follow some of the links and to educate yourself about Scientology. Thanks.
www.xenu.net
www.whyweprotest.net
www.youfoundthecard.com
www.exscientologykids.com
My husband and I think anyone who protests against Scientology is very brave. Not only will they sue opponents for every cent they have, but will stop at nothing to promote their agenda. Why? To be able to call themselves a “religion” and keep their tax-exempt status. Honestly, they are frightening people in ways that Anon and others have pointed out.
Well…
I’m not touching the Scientology as a cult = bad thing with a 10 foot pole - or even a 10 foot linguine…
But, as far as organized thievery, blatant manipulation, intimidation, torture etc goes, Scientology is light years behind the Catholic Church. Hmmm?
Indulgences? Inquisitions? Crusades? Excommunication with subsequent seizure of all real property?Ringing any bells with anyone? Person at the top of the heap living magnificently while the average sucker forks over too much of their monetary units for ’salvation’?
Sounds to me like the evil Dr. Hubbard had it right. a) The big money _is_ in religion. b) People are stupid as all get-out. But these aren’t revolutionary ideas by any means, as evidenced by the endless parade of kooks, crackpots, popes and assorted ‘prophets’ that have been hoodwinking folks since the first ’shaman’ announced to his tribe that the thunder they heard was the voice of an angry ‘god’…
So, I’m not willing to accept that this is any worse than anything else, but I am certainly on board (as it were) for reducing the power of illogical and often insane belief systems, whether they by powered by Xenu or Xenophobia or are merely wonky versions of Xianity.
Down with stupidity!
PC
Unfortunately, too many posters here are failing to make an important distinction. It is one thing for individuals (even Pastafarians) to oppose and protest, but it is another thing for them to claim to represent Pastafarianism or the CoFSM. They are only individuals. They DO NOT represent the CoFSM.
.
If a Jew protests the war in Iraq or the abuse of children by Catholic priests, he/she is not doing so as a representative of his/her religion, but as a concerned individual. That sign saying, “$cientology i$ a $cam,” with an FSM symbol on it, doesn’t say anything about the practices of some of the members, rather it is a direct attach on the institution, itself. I may agree with the sentiment expressed, but that is my own opinion, not the opinion of the CoFSM. The symbol on the sign was used inappropriately, in my view.
.
Gnocci Man is right when he says, “Honestly, we can’t be selective with religious tolerance. Remember the eight “I’d really rather you didn’ts!”
.
RAmen
From the Scriptures of Gnocci Man’s Journey Through the Internet:
“For lo, and Gnocci Man DID step forth into the internet, and once upon the thread he DID see a disturbing sight: Fanatics, fighting other fanatics, while claiming to be good and kind and in the right. And Gnocci Man DID try to see where in their battle goodness and kindness could be found, and got a headache from it. AND SO Gnocci Man did stop trying. And they did say that tolerance is apathy, and that in a war you cannot tolerate an enemy, to which Gnocci Man replied
‘If tolerance is apathy, then may I remain apathetic for life. It’s preferable to the observed alternatives. If you are a soldier in a war, the enemy you do not kill will kill you. SO, let’s not fight the damn war, and try to come to a peaceful solution instead. That way we all get to keep living, capiche?’
And Gnocci Man DID study the sites put forth in links, and could full understand what about the other fanatics could be found to be so objectionable by the first fanatics. BUT he COULD NOT understand why they had to be so unpleasant about it. Peaceful protest, which they claimed to be moving to, was not objectionable in the least. It was their attitudes in part that Gnocci Man found so annoying. Cloak-and-dagger righteousness, for any cause, can only be irritating. Fa la la spoon.”
Okay, let me be as clear as I can. Now that anonymous is moving into peaceful protest of the scientologist’s actions there is even a chance that I will join in. However, what put me off so much about it were the attitudes and actions of ANONYMOUS ITSELF. If you can tell me how a DDoS attack isn’t in itself an attack on free speech, which you claim to support, I’ll show a bit more respect. I find many of the things the scientologists have done to be completely and utterly repugnant, but I still feel like Anonymous is some sort of anti-scientology vendetta, and as I’ve said before, religious tolerance is to me paramount.
Gnocci Man, there is a group of people that practice L. Ron Hubbard Scientology-like techniques with out the lies and abuse. They are called the Free Zoners http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Zone_(Scientology). Anonymous does not protest this group. They support people who recognize the abuses of the Co$ turning to the Free Zoners for a continuation of their religious practices.
Also, please be aware that Scientology actively tries to influence legislation through their front group CCHR, and they try to influence our public schools through their front group Applied Scholastics.
Anonymous keeps an eye on these front groups, and tries to warn legislators and educators about the true religious roots of these Co$ sponsored groups.
i think i found a reference to epic fail guy somewhere amongst these posts. thread closed due to aids