Bannination in Germany
Germany wants to ban L. Ron Hubbard's brain-child:
Can't really find fault in that, since it's not even a real religion -- of course, no religion is "real," but Scientology is more obviously a made-up pile of horse puckey than most religions, which have the advantage of shrouding themselves in the cloak of antiquity.
However, I'm thinking of another religion which has a proven track record of "threatening the peaceful democratic order." Can you guess what it might be? Hint: Starts with "I"... ends with "slam".
Germany's top security officials said Friday they consider the goals of the U.S.-based Church of Scientology to be in conflict with the principles of the nation's constitution and will seek to ban the group.
The ministers plan to task the nation's domestic intelligence agency to begin preparing the necessary information to ban Scientology in Germany. The agency has had Scientology under observation for a decade on allegations that it "threatens the peaceful democratic order" of the country.
Can't really find fault in that, since it's not even a real religion -- of course, no religion is "real," but Scientology is more obviously a made-up pile of horse puckey than most religions, which have the advantage of shrouding themselves in the cloak of antiquity.
However, I'm thinking of another religion which has a proven track record of "threatening the peaceful democratic order." Can you guess what it might be? Hint: Starts with "I"... ends with "slam".
posted by Jar(egg)head at 08:19
3 Comments:
Your statement: no religion is "real," has piqued my curiosity.
Could you elaborate?
Also, if religions are not real, why pick on scientology specifically?
Certainly.
Religions are "real" in the same sense that Grimm's Fairy Tales are "real": they exist, and they teach a lesson, but the stories on which they are based are just that -- stories.
Most of the major religions provide at least some beneficial social services, and for that they are to be applauded, but to accept them literally is, in my opinion, silly. Again, that is my opinion, and I'm entitled to it just as much as believers are entitled to theirs.
As for Scientology... L. Ron Hubbard said in a magazine interview a few years before his "death" that the quickest and easiest way to get rich is to invent (or re-invent) a religion. He further said that it didn't matter how outlandish or wacky it may be, you'll always find desperate, gullible people to give you their money. Voila!... Scientology was born. It's a cult of the worst kind, different from the likes of Mooneyism and Heaven's Gate only in scale -- and profit margins.
Scientology is, simply put, the exploitation of the weak-minded and soft-willed. Unlike Christianity, Buddhism, and other relatively benign religions, it has no redeeming qualities. The Church of the Sub-Genius, which is a deliberate and self-admitted parody of religion, is more internally consistent and honest. At least they tell you up front they just want your money.
So, to make a long response longer, religion is not "real" to me in the sense that it cannot be quantified. Faith for me is simply a poor substitute for a lack of hard facts and testable evidence. I have faith in my family. I have faith in few select friends. I have faith that gravity makes things fall down, (even though gravity is not entirely understood and quantified, its effects are). But faith in an invisible man who created the universe on a whim? Sorry, that's stretching it beyond what I can reasonable accept.
In the end, religion is simply another way of dealing with the foremost curse of sentient beings: the realization of your own mortality. I have my own way of dealing with that, just as you and everyone else does. But it doesn't involve veneration of unsubstantiated and inherently unprovable ideas. Does that make me "smarter" than religious people, as so many left-wing atheists claim, (or at least think to themselves)? No. It just means I look at the world differently, and in my world, religions do not reflect the reality of the human condition or our potential as a race. They are, from my viewpoint, cultural artifacts which pre-date the Enlightenment, just as polytheism predated monotheism, and nature worship predated them both. Religions are milestones on the road of human progress, not the Truth of the Universe.
Hope that clarified my use of the term "real," which in retrospect may have been a less-than-adequate term for what I was trying to convey. =o)
Thank you for your reply.
So you are a "right-wing atheist"? Isn't that an oxymoron? LoL
I went to church for many years but stopped a little while ago. The end came shortly after a lady asked the congregation to pray for her son-in-law who was thinking about taking a contractor job in Iraq which could be dangerous but paid very good money. I wanted to say to the lady that she should just tell her son to stay home if she was really concerned about his safety and not place her bets on a favor from God.
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