Sylver or any other scientologist, your response?

Why do people protest Scientology?
Scientology locks people up.

There are over two dozen allegations that Scientology has held individuals against their will.These illegal acts were not committed by rogue Scientologists – they were in accordance with Scientology policy.

Scientology held Lisa McPherson against her will for 17 days, according to Scientology’s own logs. She died in their custody. The state of Florida decided not to prosecute the two felony charges filed against Scientology in her death after Scientology used relentless pressure to get the medical examiner to make a partial change in the cause of death. Her estate sued Scientology for wrongful death and false imprisonment; the suit was settled in May 2004, with all details kept confidential..

Scientology lies.

Lying to people to get their money isn’t just unethical -it’s illegal. It’s called fraud.

Scientology claims there is a scientific basis for all their processes. There isn’t. Scientology claims it’s compatible with other belief systems, like Christianity. It’s not. Scientology claims to be the fastest-growing religion in the world, with 8 million members, utilizing infallible technology developed by a physicist and war hero. They’re lying.

Scientology is breaking the law.

In addition to false imprisonment and fraud, Scientology engages in the illegal practice of medicine by prescribing auditing and vitamins to replace legally-prescribed medical treatment.

Scientology also extorts money from its members, telling them it’s scientifically proven that their lives will become worse if they don’t pay for expensive auditing.

Scientology has a long, well-documented history of criminal activities.

High-ranking Scientology executives were convicted of extremely serious crimes in the United States for breaking into government offices and stealing documents. Founder L. Ron Hubbard was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in that case, and the defendants stated in their stipulation of evidence that, at all times, he acted as supervisor of the illegal activities.

Scientology itself was convicted of similar crimes in Canada. When Scientology then tried to destroy the reputation of the prosecutor in the case, they were hit with the biggest libel fine in Canadian history.

L. Ron Hubbard was convicted of fraud in France.

Scientology attacks free speech.

Scientology says that “public statements against Scientology or Scientologists,” “writing anti-Scientology letters to the press,” and “testifying as a hostile witness against Scientology in public” are all “Suppressive Acts” – high crimes, according to ” Introduction to Scientology Ethics.” The book goes on to say that people who do such things “cannot be granted the rights and beingness ordinarily accorded rational beings.”

In accordance with this policy (and others like it), Scientology has tried to silence all criticism:

Scientology framed journalist Paulette Cooper for sending bomb threats after she wrote The Scandal of Scientology.

Scientology sued book and magazine publishers – including Time magazine – in an attempt to prevent any future criticism by scaring publishers with the prospect of enormous court costs.

Scientology sued critics for copyright infringement, even though the copyrights to some of the documents in question may have been lost to the public domain years ago.

Scientology tried to unilaterally shut down the alt.religion.sciento
logy newsgroup – unintentionally bringing Scientology to the attention of hundreds of free-speech advocates.

Scientology imposes gag orders in settlement agreements, preventing those who have suffered most from telling the world what they know.

Scientology routinely threatens legal action against critics, alleging copyright infringement, trademark dilution, and dissemination of trade secrets – often in situations in which its allegations are baseless.

Scientology hurts people.

Scientology routinely pressures members into spending more money than they can afford on expensive courses.

Scientology’s disconnection policy destroys families.

Scientology betrays the trust of well-intentioned people by falsely claiming to have a scientifically-proven technology to save the world. Scientology ruthlessly attacks its critics with everything from frame-ups to unannounced visits to the homes of family members to libellous fliers distributed to their neighbors and business associates.

And sometimes, Scientologists die under suspicious circumstances. They even target their own kind.

Buddhism, Mormonism, Islamic, Judiasm, Christianity, etc., have not required bloodshed or money for Centuries. To have such draconian administration is simply morally not right today by any standard of good you want to pluck from.

We’re sophisticated ladies and you “Gutter” only carry fecal matter and detritus.

* He claimed that there was a bill in 1955 which would give psychiatrists a million acres of land in Alaska on which they would build a “Siberia, U.S.A.” for the purpose of housing mental patients and that the bill would also have weakened the commitment laws to make it easier to commit people. Miscavige claimed that it was “in no small part thanks to the Church of Scientology [that] that bill was killed in Congress”.

Now, Nightline could have disclosed to the audience that in fact the bill would have increased protection against being committed. At that time, four years before Alaska even became a state, the Alaska Territorial government had almost no facilities or resources for the treatment of the mentally ill; if someone was suspected to be a danger to themselves or others, the established procedure was for them to be transported to Oregon for handling there. One of the goals of the bill was to reform the archaic commitment procedures that were already in place; the bill would have made it possible to establish in-state resources for making mental health assessments. Where would the funding for these services come from? Nightline could have disclosed that the bill proposed that it be funded the way that many proposals in Alaska had been funded previously, and would be funded subsequently. The bill proposed the establishment of a land-trust: a grant of land that could be leased or sold at the discretion of the territorial government, with all the revenues resulting from such lease or sale going to the funding of Alaska’s mental health services. That’s where the million acres of land came in; the idea that the bill called for the construction of anything on that land was simply a figment of the imagination of the groups which fought the bill.

Finally, Nightline could have disclosed the most egregious untruth David Miscavige told about the bill: namely, claiming that the Church of Scientology deserved credit for “killing” the bill when the bill passed in 1956. That’s right, the bill passed — unanimously. Did the hypothesized “Siberia U.S.A.” ever come into existence? Obviously not.

* Miscavige also claimed that the Food and Drug Administration sent an informant into Scientology’s Seattle “Org” who “murdered the head of [Scientology's] organization”.

Nightline could have disclosed that the only head of Scientology’s Seattle Org who has been murdered was William J. Fisk, who was murdered by Russell Edward Johnson, and could have disclosed that no evidence has ever been presented which suggests that Russell Edward Johnson, a carpenter and building contractor was an informant for the FDA or for any other government agency. Nightline could have disclosed what Miscavige failed to about the murder of Fisk: Fisk was not only sleeping with Johnson’s wife (who had joined Scientology to get help with her marital problems) but had bragged to Johnson about it. Nightline could certainly have disclosed this information, instead of simply letting Miscavige’s unsupported nonsense about Johnson (who served fifteen years in prison for the killing) being an informant sent in by the Food and Drug Administration go unanswered.

* Miscavige claimed that “the studies that brought about the Holocaust of the Jews, that … justified killing the Jews, they were done at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Leipzig, Germany, and that justified the killing of six million people.”

Nightline could certainly have disclosed that the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry did not even exist until 1966.

Now, if you’re going to say Nightline was obviously biased against Scientology because it did not disclose that terminally ill Roxanne Friend was suing the Church of Scientology, and because it did not itself make the unsupported accusation against Richard Behar that Miscavige would later make anyways, that Behar had advocated kidnapping Scientologists, then you must say that Nightline was also obviously biased towards Scientology because it failed to disclose that what David Miscavige said about the Church of Scientology getting the Alaska Mental Health Bill “killed” and about the Max Planck Institute participating in a genocide that took place two decades before it existed were completely false.

Here’s a proposed alternative — David Miscavige has to take responsibility for himself. If he came across as a liar, just maybe it’s because he lied. If he came across as a paranoid, just maybe it’s because he aired his paranoid fantasies to the whole nation.

I felt physically ill after having to watch him squirm and gesticulate wildly about how he and the COS have been maligned by its detractors.

The whole interview started with an intro piece showcasing critics only stating a number of falsehood on the organization and failing to disclose their personal interests (such as the woman candidly failing to disclose that she was suing for 70 million buck or the other guy who was on record advising people to kidnap scientologists).

This was known to the journalist who nevertheless failed to mention it to the audience. So the whole show was a set-up. It wasn’t done to inform the American public at all.

It was carefully calculated to make Scientology look bad…and failed, because any rational person looking at these videos is bound to realize that Scientology wasn’t treated fairly and that there is more to it than media would have you believe.