Even though we make fun of Wikipedia, and even though any serious scientific piece shouldn’t cite Wikipedia, fact remains that the community-created and maintained encyclopaedia has turned into an impressive database of knowledge. Even though I don’t think you should trust it blindly, it’s usually an excellent starting point for information, especially when used in a casual setting. Still, its open nature is also a threat to Wikipedia, this week exemplified by the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee banning Scientology from editing Wikipedia pages.
This is a monumental decision by the Arbitration Committee. Individual people have been banned before from editing on Wikipedia pages, but never before has such a large organization been banned completely from editing Wikipedia pages. The case has been running for a while now, but the evidence presented was convincing enough: members of the organization that calls itself a church, but many consider to be a dangerous cult, have systematically edited relevant pages on Wikipedia in an organized fashion. The banning is achieved by blacklisting all IP addresses owned by the Church of Scientology. The ban covers all of Wikipedia (not just Scientology-related articles), and is effective immediately.
A former member, Tory Christman, has detailed to El Reg that the organization has a sort of PR division which actively looks for criticism on the web, with the goal to remove it. Wikipedia is of course a sitting duck in this regard, as anyone can edit whatever they want. “The guys I worked with posted every day all day,” Christman tells El Reg, “It was like a machine. I worked with someone who used five separate computers, five separate anonymous identities […] to refute any facts from the internet about the Church of Scientology.” Christman left in 2000, before Wikipedia came to life.
To balance the story, it is important to note that several anti-Scientology editors have already been banned from editing on Wikipedia over the past several years; part of a protracted information war between Scientology supporters and detractors.
This is not the first time that Scientology has come under scrutiny. The Belgian government launched a massive criminal case in 2007, accusing the local Belgian branch, the European branch, and 14 members of fraud, extortion, fraud, illegitimate practice of medicine, violations of privacy, and partaking in a criminal organization (applies only to the 14 members, not Scientology as an organization). Eight years of investigating preceded this case, making it the largest fraud dossier ever made against Scientology.
Its status as a religion is also disputed. The German government considers Scientology as a commercial organization, and is pondering a ban, stating it is incompatible with the German Constitution. Greece banned Scientology in 1997, reiterating the ban in 2003. Several other countries have refused to recognize Scientology as a religion, but a few others do recognize it as such: the US, Australia, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Sweden, Croatia, Hungary, and Kyrgyzstan. I had to dig pretty deep to find the status of Scientology in The Netherlands, but it appears my government treats it as a “religious movement”.
This story shows that while Wikipedia is a great resource to us all, and a testament to what we can achieve as a collective, its openness and freedom is also its weakness, as people with malicious intent can abuse Wikipedia to spread their own ideas, and stifle criticism, whether it’s valid or not, and this abuse is even more damaging when it’s done in a systematic fashion by an organization with vast labor resources.
It remains to be seen if the massive IP ban will actually stop individual members of Scientology from abusing Wikipedia as the information war continues. It’s not difficult to cheat your way around IP bans, so it most likely will be a temporary nuisance and symbolic measure, not an actual solution to the problem.
Scientologists are notoriously controlling of their followers and their portrayal in the media. Most countries consider them a cult and with good reason. It’s nothing more than a scam to bleed people dry.
I’m not sure why this article is featured on OSAlert.
On weekends, we sometimes post articles with a more general appeal to technology-oriented people, such as a major Wikipedia policy event related to free speech and online communication. Kind of like how the Wall Street Journal’s weekend edition is full of movie reviews and other “softer” entertainment and cultural stuff.
I think Anonymous may actually be amused… because none of us is as cruel as all of us.
Not that anyone here is likely to get the joke
See
Rules 1,2 and 46.
That is all
This is a misleading headline. Scientology hasn’t been banned from the site. Anyone (including members of the church; at home, not at church computers) can still write whatever they want about Scientology. It’s only the church computers themselves that are banned. I know the article is pretty clear on this, but anyone reading the headline might think otherwise.
I agree. Seeing that it is only the church’s computers that have been banned, a more appropriate and less misleading title would’ve been something similar to “Church of Scientology Banned from Wikipedia”.
It is interesting to see the difference between the different language versions of Wikipedia on Scientology. The Spanish language Wiki is more directly critical.
I think Scientology is better at policing English language sites.
I live in Los Angeles: ground central for Scientology. If anyone in LA ever offers you a free personality test, say ‘no’. If you say yes, the test will reveal that you could use some counseling, and that counseling is the first step in attempting to convert you to Scientology.
Say what you will about the logic behind Christianity, but, Christianity is open source: all the texts are there to be examined and are free to distribute. Scientology is copyright and closed source. You have to sign a non-disclosure agreement to gain access to higher teachings. You may not share the higher teachings with others.
Well some Christian brands comes with a pretty heavy subscription pricing scheme (for something that is open source) and they have pretty dubious SLA:s.
While I personally hate Scientologists, I do think it might be somewhat useful in that it serves Darwinism by making sure the most stupid idiots of the gene pool have less money and hopefully less chance of propagation.
Unfortunately it seems much cheaper to be a moron member of YHVH’s witnesses or being a moron creationist. But I suppose smart businessmen will arrive there too, helping to prune the gene pool.
Christianity in and of itself is free. Some christians support their organization with money, because it needs to rent rooms and pay for expenses like electricity, water and even organizational employees.
I’m not saying there are no scammers out there, just that not everyone is a scammer.
But BTT: Scientology shouldn’t be allowed to edit Wikipedia entries about the organization. The Vatican shouldn’t be allowed to alter entries about Catholicism, the same should apply to Microsoft, the aforementioned “Christian Brands”, the Dalai Lama, Siemens, Sony, Apple or anyone with a financial interest in editing stories other people tell about them.
WOW, I really like this comment. I’ve had my run-ins with the scientos, in fact i’ve been been to St. Hill in the UK. Very interesting, ALLOT of name dropping there (“and here is where John Travolta played on the piano”). I’m now an SP
.
Putting aside the dubious nature of the founder of this “religion”, open source is the point. I’m a Muslim but I respect all major religions and the reason is simple; i can view their texts and contrast and compare. By and large the message is the same. With scientology on the other hand you can’t examine all the texts ahead of “joining” and you pay and you sign contracts. And, btw, its not a religion, unless of course their applying for tax status. At any other time its just a “philosophy”.
</rant>
There’s a lot of information in this book:
http://www.eason.ie/look/9781903582848/Complex/John-Duignan
When I bought it a few months ago it wasn’t available from UK booksellers, hence the .ie link.
It’s well worth a read if you’re interested
Thanks! I might look that up.
Oh yes, the personality test, also known as the Oxford Capacity Analisys or OCA for short. It’s a big sham. The validity of that test is as much as the tests you see in girly-mags like cosmopolitan and the like. It works similar too. With the difference that there are no right answers. What ever you answer on the test, they always claim you need scientology.
Look around on the web for the OCA. There is a cgi floating around that will let you take that test without scientology involvement. You can cheat with it too
It’s strange that the Wikipedia are taking such drastic measures with this.
This to me is reminiscent of the elephant page vandalism fiasco. For those that don’t know, there was (is) a movement going to prove the ineffectiveness of Wikipedia by continuously vandalising the elephant page (I notice the page is still locked), by writing that the numbers of elephants had grown by ridiculous numbers in the last few years.
If you look at the average time one of these vandalism attempts lasts on the history page, it’s very low, mostly only a couple of minutes.
Looks to me like the Wiki guys are either losing their patience or they have something particular against Scientology, which would be understandable.
I have noticed that Wikipedia does seem to have a pretty low tolerance for anything that doesn’t push the standard lines of the major religions though.
While I don’t disagree with you I think it has more to do with the Scientology people trying to control the information that’s put there. They have a history of being control freaks as being pointed out by the first post.
http://www.binaryfreedom.info/node/318
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Church_of_Scientology_warns_Wikileaks_o…
The controversy and criticism section of this article is an interesting read:
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Church_of_Scientology
Well, if you look at the dispute the problem was escalating beyond the control of the admins. The constant edit wars between Scientology and anti Scientology to a variety of pages, not even those directly related to Scientology was overwhelming admins and causing them to lose their neutrality in a few cases. They wouldn’t stop and the problems were getting worse. If the anti-Scientology groups came from a single IP block there is a good chance they would have been cut off as well.
I believe the next step is that Scientology will simply distribute its edits to various privately owned homes. It won’t solve the problem, but it was the easiest thing to do.
Tom Cruise won’t come out of the closet?
Because he likes it in there?
Seems like R. Kelly and John Travolta do too. Maybe Nicole Kidman can talk them out of the closet.
I saw a page about another one being defined as ‘cults’ from general religion people, but the page contained direct copy from the cults’ own introductory and stuff. I tried to correct few bits on it, added a bit of fact information to another related page, though however, they have reverted it back right away reasoning that it was own research, even though, I have provided link to prove the fact. They seem very biased. Be warned they might contain misleading, incorrect information over the pages.
“Even though I don’t think you should trust it blindly, it’s usually an excellent starting point for information”
You usually should not trust blindly on any source of information.
But yes… Wikipedia is a good start.
I find it ridiculous to have such a huge encyclopaedia which can be edited by anyone according to their own views. One of the funniest things I read some time ago was about ethnic Muslims or people who are Muslims by ethnicity. I wonder if, by following the same standard of scientific methodology, one can be defined an ethnic Roman Catholic. Or maybe even an ethnic agnostic/atheist. As long as those blunders are still there, why on earth ban that peculiar Church from studding a few Wikipedia pages with some pearls of nonsense?
Edited 2009-05-31 07:01 UTC
For me, scientology is a criminal organisation which abuses a good thing (religious freedom) to do bad things (prey on the weak and extort their money). They’re a dangerous cult, just a really well-organised one. I see them as no better than the Mafia extorting protection money and buying themselves into government to keep themselves safe from the legal system.
As a result, I have a strict policy to avoid any material made by scientology cult members, such as Tom Cruise. Of course, it’s hard to keep track of who is part of what, so I’m sure people fall through the cracks.
Let me make it clear, though, that this has nothing to do with the beliefs of the cult. I don’t care what people believe, that’s a personal thing and really none of my business. My problem lies not with their beliefs, but their actions. If this bunch of crooks really were a religion, access to their teachings and beliefs would be free, and you would be able to walk into any of their cult houses without any problems.
You know, like how you can read the holy books of other religions for free, how you can walk into their houses of worship whenever you feel like it, how you can be part of those religions without having to pay for anything or signing NDAs.
I’m not religious myself, but I know a cult from a religion when I see one.
Yet you see no problem with Microsoft , multiple time repeat offender and multiple time crimally found guilty , seem to me like scientology is a kid amateur compared to Microsoft , not an opinion , not a comment , simple factual observation that only apply to Microsoft.
* You cant read all the holy books , for a fee or for free.
* You cannot enter all house of worship.
* You cannot enter all house of worship when you feel like it.
* You cannot be in a religion and not pay for anything.
* NDA are joke compared to code of silence in some religion.
Fraudster , Extremist , crook , liar and criminal are extremely dangerous in everything they are in. They are also everywhere and in everything.
Do you have to inject anti-Microsoft sentiment into all of your comments? It doesn’t help your position at all. I have agreed with some things you have said in the past and but rigid idealogues are not the kind of messengers FLOSS needs.
I am not a FlOSS messenger.
I am not a rigid ideaologues.
Goodbye Saintology, vivat Ubuntology!
http://translate.google.ru/translate?prev=hp&hl=ru&js=n&u=http%…
It’s new sect named Ubuntology sect! Does anyone interesting to joining in it? I also want to add in wiki article about it!
Edited 2009-05-31 07:49 UTC
Also, don’t forget the criminal case that has just been started against Scientology in France…
I agree with Thom as the guy was just spreading anti-Mormon propaganda with no real evidence of his accusations and applying a different standard to Mormonism than other Christian movements who also engage in the exact same practices.
Even the law in the United States recognizes there is a difference between free speech and slander and libel. I am almost certain the same holds true in most countries that value free speech.
Not quite sure what was said about the Mormons, but yeah, for the most part you can’t walk into their temples without being a member (paying your 10 percent straight off the top, or tithe).
I mostly wanted to state that while people call Scientology a cult, they don’t realize that the ONLY difference between a ‘cult’ and a ‘religion’ is the amount of people in it.
Though I’d also like to add that I don’t belong to any cults, religions or any sort of social club for that matter. I don’t even like having to get membership cards for grocery stores (why the hell did they start that anyhow? So they can send more spam to your physical mailbox?)
Good on Wikipedia, though I think for them to be truly neutral, they should ban the IPs that are owned by all the cults from around the world.
I think that one of the main hallmarks of what separates a cult out from other religions is whether the organization encourages its members to disassociate themselves from their non-member friends and family.
Also, cults generally require that their members perform acts or sacrifices that are intended primarily to enhance group cohesion and “prove” loyalty. (though this is also a common practice in the armed forces and in sports teams, but not in most religions)
Many cults place a huge priority on non-disclosure of secret doctrine. (and this isn’t just for keeping the truth about scandals quiet – every organization wants to keep its scandals under wraps)
Some major religions have cultish aspects or cultish affiliated groups, and some cults eventually grow up and become less culty religions. There’s kind of a middle ground.
I think Scientology pretty clearly deserves the cult designation, though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty_program
Har.
The trouble with the Mormon religion is that they continue to change there teachings to cover up the evidence of their odd beliefs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon#Changes_from_original_1…)
Their strange original beliefs in English are still easy to find, but the real trouble comes for non-English Mormons, which make up about half of the Mormon population (http://www.mormonwiki.com/Mormon_Population), since many of their strange beliefs have been removed from the non-English versions of their canon, which came out later. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Book_of_Mormon_translations). For these Mormons there is NO evidence, at least that they can read and understand.
One example of this is the recent infamous Fundamental Mormon church child abuse case (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article…). Mormons will go on saying how the Fundamentalists are not ‘real’ Mormons, and how those crazy polygamists have nothing to do with them. The truth however, is that the Fundamentalists follow the exact teachings of original Mormon church leaders (http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1416-fundamentalist-mormon…).
Edited 2009-06-01 02:41 UTC
Changing beliefs is nothing strange; the US where 35% of Americans are fundamentalist Christians, have over turned centuries of conventional Christian theology on the creation of earth to concoct this ‘young earth creationism’ that is all the rage in the United States. Until the rise of fundamentalist Protestantism, no sane person would take Genesis literally; Augustine of Hippo himself rejected the literalism that has crept into the bastardised version of Christianity that seems to be prevalent in the United States.
Then there is the prosperity gospels that basically turn the basic tenants of Jesus up on their head with the total re-branding of Christianity into nothing more than a ‘self help session to get dollars in your pocket”. You point out Mormonism and the changes they have made – it pales in comparison to the bastardisation which Christianity has undergone in the new world.
Edited 2009-06-01 04:43 UTC
To be fair to the ‘bastardization’ of Christianity of America, let’s go back further in history, Christianity has been bastardized when it first became the Roman Catholic Church. Council of Nicea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea pretty much determined at that point which ‘should’ be canonical and which should not. Not all the members there agreed on everything.
This is what happens when a man is declared a diety 300 years after the fact, then it spreads. You can take any bit of information, pass it orally to 100 people and by the end of it that information will be distorted. Such is the way our brains work.
In conclusion, search out your own answers, don’t accept them blindly from some random person with a book or pamphlet.
I’d have to disagree. Mormonism has changed greatly, and quietly hides their odd beliefs, such as:
– three heavens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrees_of_Glory)
– church currently lead by a prophet and 12 apostles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_succession)
– 3 extra Bible(s) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_and_Covenants, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_of_Great_Price_(Latter_Day_Saint…))
– God is a man with a wife (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavenly_Mother_(Latter_Day_Saints))
– Not God, but Jesus, Micheal and Adam created the earth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beliefs_and_practices_of_The_Church_of…)
– Man (and women) can be come Gods and Goddesses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beliefs_and_practices_of_The_Church_of…)
– the Garden of Eden was in Missouri (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beliefs_and_practices_of_The_Church_of…)
– in the Temple, member make an oath do donate ALL of their money to the church, if the church asks for it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beliefs_and_practices_of_The_Church_of…)
– men can be married in heaven to more that one women (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-d…)
– early church leader established that members follow a health law called the ‘Word of Wisdom’ which states that Mormons should essentially be vegetarians, by ‘eating meat sparingly’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_Wisdom) which is ignored by Mormons.
– Mormons killed a large group of unarmed families that tried to cross through Mormon’s land (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre)
– and the list goes on and on
It’s funny how you mention that the Mormon church hides its odd beliefs (and it’s true that Mormonism has many beliefs that seem odd to many Christians) but then you mention several of those odd beliefs that are actually a prominent part of the lessons that prospective members get when they’re thinking of joining the church:
– The “three heavens”
– Prophet and apostles
– The “extra bibles”
– People can become “gods and goddesses”
Mormons are actually quite proud of these doctrinal innovations.
The rest of the beliefs you mention are all true, but compared against crazy things that any other Christian believes that comes straight out of the Bible, they’re really not noteworthy at all. The only reason that many Christians find the Mormon beliefs odd is that they don’t bother to take a step back and see how crazy their own beliefs sound to someone who wasn’t inculcated with them from childhood. (and the Mountain Meadows Massacre was horrible, but doesn’t exactly win the Mormon pioneers any prizes in the religion-inspired atrocities competition).
“Mormons will go on saying how the Fundamentalists are not ‘real’ Mormons, and how those crazy polygamists have nothing to do with them. The truth however, is that the Fundamentalists follow the exact teachings of original Mormon church leaders”
Not true. You could ask those “crazy polygamists” and they would also say they have nothing to do with the much more common Mormons. If you look at the two sects, there’s quite a few differences.
Also, the polygamous sects split off from the Mormon church a long, long, time ago.
Polygamists are NOT an off-shoot of Mormonism, its the other way around. Current Mormons will deny this, while Polygamists are proud to announce it.
Just think about it for a second: 1) Original Mormonism was polygamous and 2) The US government threatened to throw Mormons in jail is they continued with this practice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_fundamentalism) 3) The group split at that point into two groups: a) the ‘new’ non-polygamous Mormons (which we see today, along with many improvements to avoid persecution) and b) the original polygamous Mormons.
Today what we see is a re-branded version of Mormonism that doesn’t practice polygamy.
The point I was making is that ‘true’ Mormonism is polygamous, believing just what Fundamentalist Mormons do (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_…).
I want to preface this by saying I’m not Mormon, am not defending them, because I agree. I just thought I should point out though that other religions practice odd things as well. Jews for example think it’s fine for a man to have a child by a woman other than his wife if his wife is barren.
But then, I would side with the Jews on that one, whereas if a Mormon woman was barren, she just wouldn’t get married, since they try to out breed all of us
I’m not really sure what your’e trying to say. Even if they are polygamous… Who cares? What business is it of yours if a man decides to marry to two women, and everyone’s happy with it, and it’s a free-will affair?
Never understood the big hubbub about polygamy. Must be jealousy or something.
I’m not really sure what your’e trying to say. Even if they are polygamous… Who cares? What business is it of yours if a man decides to marry to two women, and everyone’s happy with it, and it’s a free-will affair?
Never understood the big hubbub about polygamy. Must be jealousy or something.
Indeed. If they all are happy about it then no one else should complain, it’s their own business. It’s a different matter altogether if some of them is forced to it, then it’s not acceptable. But I personally know a few people who live in polygamous relationships and they’re all happy about it. I too am polyamorous, meaning that I can love multiple people at the same time, so I would be able to live in a polygamous relationship too. I just choose not to because I wouldn’t have time to give everyone attention equally, someone would feel neglected.
Agreed. However, I’ve heard a lot in the news about women and children in polygamous communities that are trying to ‘escape’, since the men decided who marries who, which included older men marrying underage women.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/us/24abuse.html?_r=1
This is very true. The leaders of Mormon polygamous cults run the gamut from endearingly odd to abjectly evil. I’m very libertarian when it comes to many issues, including drugs and sexual practices (including polygamy). If the members of sects that believe it’s their calling to practice polygamy didn’t have this persecution mentality, and didn’t have to hide in insular compound communities, and could live their lives in the open with no fear of their children being taken from them, then they wouldn’t be so vulnerable to having leaders like Warren Jeffs, and it would be easier for the community to be more vigilant for signs of child abuse.
Let adults decide who they want to be married to, and let’s be vigilant about child abuse and people being held against their will, which are already illegal. Insular religious communities often have problems with abuse and “captivity” of minors and women. Take a closer look at the Amish. Same deal. Let’s do what we can to address the root of the problem: insularity.
The Church proper banned polygamy, and the fundamentalists didn’t break off until like 30 years later, and ignored the prophets that were part of the real church. The original church evolved, and the Fundamentalists were an offshoot that disagreed with the main church about the changes. It’s not even a semantic difference, you’re just wrong.
Also in another post, none of that stuff is even kept secret. I’m not a mormon but every once in a while I’ll attend services at a nearby Mormon church, basically to meet girls. They let me in, I am not a member at all, and their most popular hymn is “If You Could Hie to Kolob” so I always laugh when people say Mormons try to keep God’s home planet a secret.
I liken it to the Calvinists and the Perseverance of the Saints. It’s a huge division in the Christian church between the Calvinists and many other evangelicals, but they don’t get into every single aspect of theology all the time, so even big differences just don’t get talked about that all that much. It’s not a secret, people just don’t talk about it all the time.
The difference between scientologists and Mormons is that Scientologists have a tiered membership system that strongly corresponds to how many thousands or millions of dollars you donate, that the scientologists have secret doctrine at the higher tiers (Mormons don’t have this, but they do have some rituals but they don’t matter to your salvation) and basically, the Church of Scientology is dangerous to it’s critics while the Mormon church hasn’t been dangerous to its critics for over a hundred years. And the funny thing is, to my knowledge nobody has ever lynched or burned to death a scientologist, unlike say a Mormon a hundred years ago. Because of polygamy, mormons got treated like gays have until fairly recently, polygamy disgusted people so bad that mormons were fair game for violence and discrimination which (arguably) led to their radicalization.
So Mormons think that God lives on another planet? When I think of beings from other planets, I generally think of space aliens. Doesn’t Scientology have aliens in their church history too? (not that I know much about Scientology)
I don’t think that Scientologists believe that their space alien is a god, it was like a warlord or something. The Mormons believe that God is God, he just has a home that wasn’t Earth because he has an actual physical body.
Who is the off-shoot has a lot less to do with how the doctrine has evolved and a lot more to do with the organization’s leadership and main body of members. When polygamy was outlawed, the main body of the church and its leadership eventually foresook the practice and survives today as the LDS Church. Many smaller groups believed that abandoning Polygamy was wrong, and split off and formed their own churches. This was in 1890. Those offshoot sects have continued to split from and merge with each other, but have evolved separately from the central Mormon Church during the past 120 years.
It is worth while to note, however, that the main Mormon church still has some doctrinal vestiges of polygamy. For example, a man may marry a woman in the temple (be sealed for eternity), and if she dies he may be sealed with another woman. So in the afterlife, he’d have both wives. A woman, in the same position, would need to either be un-sealed from her first husband, or would need to have only a temporal (non-eternal) marriage with the second husband.
But by and large contemporary Mormons are quite conflicted about Polygamy, and wouldn’t want to see it reinstated. Interestingly enough, it’s the Bible that teaches that Polygamy is okay (the Old Testament is full of it), while the Book of Mormon outlaws it. So it’s ironic that Fundamentalist Christians are always criticizing Mormons about polygamy. If you are a Bible literalist, then you are obligated to allow polygamy.
That is interesting. So what you’re saying is that once Mormons get to heaven, they will continue with polygamy, since the US government can no longer stop it.
That’s the interpretation that many people, both in the mainstream church, and outside, have come to. My feeling is that this policy exists mostly because the issue of having to tell someone they have to foresake their dead spouse to remarry or face a second-class remarriage is a very inconvenient and heartbreaking policy, so the church tries to avoid it where doctrinally permisssble. Really, the issue is that eternal marriage is a problematic doctrine whenever a widowed person remarries. Most people believe that they’ll be in heaven with their loved ones, so that would presumably include any people that you married.
I have always been an avid fan of Wikipedia, and I’ve always seen it as a proof that the Anarchistic model can be successfully applied to almost anything.
But as the years pass Wikipedia becomes less and less open, and more and more the playground of narrow-minded, interest-ridden “admins”. These admins killed Wikipedia. They have too much power and they almost always bring it to bad use. Articles are deleted just because some so-called admin doesn’t think it’s “notable” or that it’s too “in-universe”, while hundreds of similar articles remain intact.
I think people should get banned from Wikipedia if they continually abuse it for their own interests (That includes the so-called admins). If some Scientology followers abuse Wikipedia, they should be banned. But declaring a full ban on Scientology is entirely the opposite of the goals and ideas that once were the shiny beacon of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia threw away the basic beliefs and ideals it created itself. In the past, I used to edit Wikipedia dozens times a day. Now, I only do so a couple times a month, when I discover some error.
Let Wikipedia admins everywhere know they’ve ruined Wikipedia for the rest of us!
ido50: You should read the actual blocking decision, because then you’d see that it’s not all Scientologists who have been blocked, but only all IP addresses owned by the organization itself, and they can request that some of those IP addresses be given back editing rights as long as they promise not to break the rules.
Scientology staff members have been actively attacking Wikipedia for years and years, as their day-job or night-job. I don’t think all the anti-Scientology editors have been blameless either, but this decision does punish those of the anti-Scientologists who have acted wrongly.
This decision is hardly an example of admins running amok, and it was the longest running ArbCom case I’ve heard of. There are plenty of examples of Wikipedia admins running amok changing the rules contrary to what the users want based on absolutely failed ideas about what the laws require, for example – or deleting stuff contrary to Wikipedia policy.
Wikipedia admins are often wrong, but not in this case.
Edited 2009-06-01 09:03 UTC
Now waiting for Tartu university to be blocked and it would be possible to live with Wikipedia.
Ubuntology (often also ^A<>, in translation from the Zulu language means ^A<>) – the religious and philosophical doctrine, established African cosmonaut Mark Shattlvortom, which declared the withdrawal a new race of man-penguins, as well as raise awareness of involvement in the great mission of introducing Linux. Distributed stories of success followers Ubantologii about favorable results ubantologicheskih practices. According to these stories, Ubuntology can increase intelligence, to get rid of most problems with computers and girls, and to achieve happiness in the use of Ubuntu.
Discs containing the sermons and distribution Ubuntu – free delivery by mail for free.
(c)stoplinux.org.ru
Very interesting dialog, but like many bits I see on the web, no one seems to know what Scientology is, so the dialog slips off into other subjects or onto someone^aEURTMs pitch. Too bad, since everyone also seems to be looking for better understanding of themselves, whatever religious or philosophical framework they start from. And that^aEURTMs the value of Scientology. The most vital data in anyone^aEURTMs life is how they relate to life. That is a subject. The name of that subject which details who you are is ^aEURoeScientology.^aEUR It can get technical, but then any area of knowledge can. The test is: Does it work and is it useful?
Here^aEURTMs a bit of Scientology I found interesting: how can you increase certainty in life? With all the partisanship from media sources and even friends, gaining personal certainty is vital to anyone who wants to gain control of his life. This is not just getting more data. It^aEURTMs a personal goal of attaining a calm state of knowing that what you know is satisfyingly settled. With it, you can get into action free from doubts, second thoughts, vague fears and the like. Not a fixation. An Understanding that frees you to operate as you wish the way a hammer frees a carpenter from the frustrations of trying to use a randomly-shaped rock to pound nails.
Did it ever occur to you that there is a scale of certainty? Far from being something only handed down through revelation, certainty can be achieved by anyone. One can use the scale of certainty to climb as high as he wishes. Basic data of Scientology includes this, as the ^aEURoeKnow to Mystery Scale^aEUR:
Know
Not-Know
Look
Emotion
Effort
Solids
Think
Symbols
Eat
Sex
Mystery
How can this be used? There’s lots of data on each of these steps and how to handle them, but let’s keep it simple. Say you have a friend whose love life has his feelings all tangled up. Improvement means helping him rise from the effect point of “Emotion.” Talk to him about it. If your communication skills are good (a specialty of Scientology), his emotional outlook will improve toward a more cheerful viewpoint as you discharge pent up negative emotions. Expect that you’ll have to help him to establish more facts of the relationship than he initially has through discovering his own accurate perceptions of it (Look). Expect problems to come off along the lines of blind spots (Not-Know) he’s been stuck in. Persevering through these steps, one eventually arrives at an acceptable level of “Know” so he can function competently in this relationship. If he starts off further down the scale, you can see the nature and likely sequence of what you’ll encounter in helping your friend.
If you want further explanation, ask any Scientologist or visit designerphilosophy.com
I for one would like to welcome the church of scientology’s astroturfing campaign to osnews. Nice registration date, dude.
Very humorous retort, 6c1452, but I’ll say that I actually do welcome the astroturfing campaign to OSAlert, officially.
Here’s a little PR lesson for everyone: the public discourse is like an aircraft carrier. You can signal from far away that you’re going to attack it, and all you’ll do is bring down hellfire on yourself, and make it go in exactly the opposite direction of where you want it to go. It’ll scramble its fighters and launch its missiles right down your throat, and probably end up calling in an airstrike on your home port for good measure.
Alternately, you can approach in a friendly manner, and nudge it in the direction that you want it to go, gently. With enough gentle nudging, you can steer that big boat right where you want it to go.
Please, please let every organization that wants to control the public discourse on a particular topic do it by way of polite, friendly postings on news forums.
Welcome to OSAlert, Milo!