Scientology could be investigated by Australian Parliament

[weemadando]

Rudd's concerns about Scientology
November 18, 2009

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon attacks Scientology as a 'criminal organisation'.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he has concerns about the Church of Scientology but wants to see what material independent senator Nick Xenophon has before committing to a parliamentary inquiry.

Senator Xenophon told Parliament today there was criminal activity within the church and has called for a Senate inquiry into Scientology’s tax exempt status.

Senator Xenophon has also called for police to investigate the church after being contacted by a number of former Scientologists who accused the organisation of shocking crimes.

Senator Xenophon said their correspondence implicated the organisation in a range of crimes, including forced imprisonment, coerced abortions, physical violence, and blackmail.

Asked about the senator’s claims, Mr Rudd described them as ‘‘grave allegations’’.

‘‘Many people in Australia have real concerns about Scientology,’’ Mr Rudd told reporters at Bungendore in NSW today.

‘‘I share some of those concerns. Let us proceed carefully and look carefully at the material he has provided before we make a decision on further parliamentary action.’’

AAP

So, Xenophon has called for a Senate inquiry into Scientology, Rudd is supporting it and it looks like it might be going somewhere. There's been a lot of debate about it and for the most part Scientology's comebacks have been: "Well, people are MEAN to us."

Anyhow - the situation only left me with one thought:

[Pablo Sanchez]

Serious investigations into the actual practices of the Church of Scientology are basically a fait accompli. Any investigation will find that the CoS is a cult and/or fraudulent criminal organization that needs to be suppressed by the application of state action, just as happened in France and Germany. The CoS relies on crying about religious persecution to discourage governments from investigating or at least from acting on the results of any investigations. If Australia goes so far as to investigate Scientology, the issue will probably end with the revocation of their tax exempt status.

Scientology is interesting from a sociological point of view because it represents the formation of a religion in an era where systems of logic and study are equipped to observe and analyze it effectively. Every religion from Christianity to Buddhism probably followed a model of development, it's only the underlying conditions that have changed. Who knows how many Hebrew Messiahs ended up like David Koresh around the same time as Jesus! If Scientology is suppressed, defeated, and finally destroyed, it will be a really hopeful sign for the future of humanity, because it will imply the gradual but eventual extinction of religious superstition in general.

[Simon_Jester]

I think all it would imply is that the ability of people to go crazy over superstitions is slowly dying, that would-be cult leaders are having a harder and harder time making it work. Personally, I feel that's an even more hopeful sign, because I think that ending craziness (or, if you prefer, extremist anti-rationality) is far more important than ending superstition. Craziness can be a threat even without superstition; superstition can often be entirely harmless without craziness.

So as long as people aren't willing to kill or defraud over religion any more than they would over, say, a stamp collection, nothing is going truly wrong in my book.

[open_sketchbook]

That's a cowardly way out and you know it. If people can believe things with no evidence, then the jump to "extremism" is tiny indeed. All religion is "extremism" because the big leap is the one away from logical reasoning into believing made-up stories are true. Everything else is just tiny increments beyond that.

[frogcurry]

Good to finally see these scum slowly being pushed back in more countries. Hopefully we will see this happen more and more until the whole rotten structure of fraud is gone.