Germany seeking to ban Scientology

[Mister Joy]

Good on Germany. Half of those money-laundering fraudsters deserve to be put in prison anyway.

[shoruke]

I did scientology for my report in critical thinking class...

Anyone ever heard of Operation Snow White? The Church of Scientology infiltrated the government offices of (I think) 32 different countries, in order to remove (delete, destroy, and/or confiscate) any incriminating evidence against scientology. The countries included the U.S. but not Canada. After they were discovered, Toronto was alerted, and there was huge government raids into all the churches of scientology (yes, including the one in Toronto)... a bunch of higher-up scientologists were arrested... Hubbard and his wife were charged...

Anyway, I think Scientology is classified as a religion in the U.S., but it's only a cult in Canada and Germany. A thumb-up to the German PM for recognizing scientology for what it was and banning it.

P.S. my history teacher has trivia every Friday with our classes... he asks questions from the local newspapers and news stations...
Mr. Hedlin: Germany banned this cult fro-
Me: (Hand shoots up) Scientology!
Mr. Hedlin: Right, Scientology, one point for the north side of the class...

[tacoma_kyle]

What? North-south...what ever happened to east-side/west-side?

[tacoma_kyle]

Oh yeah when I called him Elron, haha I just forgot that it was L. Ron .

ANyone else in to calling him Elron? haha I am down with it.

[Mister Joy]

Yeah I thought it was Elron for a while. I have so much overflowing respect for the man, though, that I am now woefully ashamed. I can't sleep a wink with all the self-loathing & am contemplating a mass suicide for all of those who share my past mistake, if you'd care to join me.

[flo1989]

well I am from Germany and thought I might comment

Ofcourse I cannot represent all of Germany but I will try^^

ok first of all, Scientology has ruined dozens of lives and stolen thousands of Euros, which in Germany is seen as a definite scamming or theft operation (eg Mafia).
We have a saying, ''You want too little rules go to France, you want too many come to Germany''
In other words there were probably loads of laws these guys broke.

And anyways you can't be serious, I mean Xenu??? Coming from outer space from planets ruled by a despot???? WTF??? just some immature star trek fans (no offense to all of u mature ones^^) if u ask me, that want some extra Cash and want to rip of the little guys.

[Whitney]

The only reason Scientology is so easily laughed at is because it is a young religion and has few followers.  Since it is young and has few followers it's scams not as easily looked over as the scams run constantly by those who claim to follow older religions (such as Christianity...see the thread about the prayer blanket god mail).

MOST religions are set up to rip off the little guys...it's just a matter of how obvious they are about it and especially if the mainstream population considers their beliefs "normal" or not.

If you ask me....Lord Xenu enslaving souls of captured space people on earth in volcanoes makes just as much sense as god making a virgin pregnant then making that child (who is also god) sacrifice himself to himself.

Singling out Scientology when other religious groups also ruin lives and take money from the clueless makes it seem more like a case of religious intolerance to me than one of trying to protect people.  

Not to mention that banning religious cults never did anything to stop what they are doing....certainly didn't work on Christianity; they thrived on persecution and now look what we have.

[Big Mac]

I'm hoping Germany are not banning it because they disagree with the belief.

Germany hasn't been quiet about their reasoning: it's a scam. It has nothing to do with Xenu or volcano souls and has everything to do with people losing money to a scam.

I'll give other religions credit, at least they aren't so forceful with the money grabbing. You don't have to donate so much to gain so little. Though both are dumb, the Co$ is a scam.