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Fighting good roads and fair weather (continued)

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Now, just what is it that Scientology is trying to conceal?

Would it be that Narconon doesn’t work, and the toxic amounts of vitamins can cause blindness and liver damage?

Would it be that their “Scientology Volunteer Ministers” swarm to disasters like flies to droppings, trying to sell books and pose for PR pictures with smoking ruins in the background?

Would it be that the cult claims to be able to cure disease with an e-meter and auditing, rather than send members to a medical doctor? The number of deaths and suicides within the organization is certainly an indication that Scientology doesn’t work.

Would it be that Scientology is a destructive cult masquerading as a religion? They claim the Federal Government has given them religion status. This is not true. It is not the government’s job to determine what is or isn’t a religion.

What the “religion” did do, however, was file hundreds of frivolous lawsuits against the IRS, while doing background checks on IRS officials. The lawsuits, from individual Scientologists, overwhelmed the agency and led the mighty IRS to cave. In exchange for the lawsuits being dropped, Scientology paid a fraction of the millions owed the government and received tax-exempt status. This secret agreement was first exposed in an article in the Wall Street Journal.

Scientologist spokespeople respond to criticism by crying religious persecution. You will notice that nowhere have I mentioned anything about their beliefs. If you want to believe that all humankind’s problems are due to an evil Galactic Overlord named Xenu, whose actions resulted in all of us being covered with the spirits of murdered space aliens, have at it!

No, it is the fraud, abuse, and other criminal behavior that people object to, not the upper level beliefs. It is a fact that Scientologists who reach the level where Xenu is revealed have spent several hundred thousand dollars to get there. Most Scientologists never do reach the level of Operating Thetan III, and to them, the Xenu story is just something made up to make the organization look silly. Actually, the Xenu story is just something L. Ron Hubbard made up to separate the gullible and naïve from their savings.

Scientology has many front groups designed to covertly draw the unwary into the Mother Ship and extract public money from communities with its “social betterment” programs. They are designed to attract a wide range of suckers, from environmentalists (Earth Org) to inmate rehabilitation (Criminon, Second Chance), to illiteracy (Applied Scholastics), drug abuse (Drug Free Marshals), to, ironically, human rights (Youth for Human Rights).

Here’s Scientology’s version of free speech: Stop talking about us and we’ll leave you alone.

Here are a few warnings about Scientology and its “public outreach” activities. You might see them on some San Diego street, giving Free Stress Tests. Result? Yes, you are stressed. Buy this copy of Dianetics.

Or the Free Personality Test. Result? You are screwed up. We can help you.

Scientology is considered a destructive cult in France and Germany. In the United States, we stress freedom of religion, which enables groups like Scientology to thrive without official scrutiny. Scientology acts more like a mafia than a religion, however, and people who are net-savvy are beginning to realize that. Scientology’s reputation may eventually make it as popular as Al Qaeda, but don’t expect the group to go out with a bang. They’re more slithery than that. They’ll go out with a whimper, whining about religious persecution all the way.

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