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January 26, 2008 2:59 PM PST
Church of Scientology responds to Internet attacks
After several days of Internet attacks by a group calling itself Anonymous, the Church of Scientology has responded with a comment about the posting of one of its videos. A response on Friday evening from the Church of Scientology did not address CNET News.com's specific request for comment on the denial-of-service attacks themselves. Instead, Karin Pouw, public affairs director for the Church of Scientology, focused on the leak of a Tom Cruise video on YouTube earlier in the week. The response reads, in full:
As the Church previously announced, the pirated and edited excerpts of Mr. Cruise were contained in an official Church event in 2004, an event attended by 5,000 Scientologists and their guests and further available for viewing in any Church of Scientology world over. Having presented these selective and out-of-context excerpts with the intent of creating both controversy and ridicule, nevertheless resulted in people searching for and visiting Church of Scientology Web sites as evidenced by "most searched for" lists of various search engines. Those wishing to find out the Church of Scientology's views and to gain context of the video have the right to search official Church Web sites if they so desire.
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must be like? Though the same can be said of every religion.
NOthing but mumbo jumbo for the scared ignorant masses. Wake
up and live!
That said, a person has the right to worship his religion without
interference or persecution, and the attacks on Scientology are
disturbing. Even individualistic atheists should stand forthrightly
against religious persecution and in defense of freedom of
conscience. Scientology is a minority religion which offends many,
and so is in special need of protection for attacks, online and
offline. Scoff at Scientologists, but protect their rights.
revealing, new manta. He can now control time, matter and
space, jut like the God of the Bible. Problem is, he couldn't
control the unwanted release of the video where he explained
his new self-made, god-like status. Heck fire, if he couldn't
even keep that from happening, how could he ever fix all of our
problems (like he promised in the video)?
I guess we'll just have to shop around for a new Messiah.
Madonna the Kabbolah, anyone?
The two great unknowns that all humans must address are, 1.) where did we come from and 2.) what happens to us when we die.
The Old Testament and the New Testament in modern religion.
But there are hundreds of similar interpretations of these two mysteries in all human cultures, from the very earliest to modern times.
Man is an animal that would rather believe a lie than say I don't know. Example, ancient cultures made up beautiful, but totally wrong, stories of what the stars represented. Ptolemy presented a incredible and plausible explanation of the movement of the planets and stars, only it was wrong. That didn't stop people and institutions, like the Catholic Church, from embracing it for 1400 years. It didn't stop the powers of the day, the Catholic Church, from murdering thousands of innocents who disagreed. It didn't stop Pope Maffeo Barberini from placing Gallileo under house arrest for writing a book in support of Copernicus.
No, superstition when widely embraced leads to power and power in men corrupts. Times past it was the Pharoahs, the Roman leaders, the Catholic Church, Adolph Hitler, and now it is the regional killers and murders of innocents.
Below this, on a smaller scale is the embrace of ideation of corporate leaders and their services, of presidents and their policies, of religionist and their causes - of politically motivated ideologies that create the facts to push their causes.
It's an inherent flaw in humans that allows us to be so easily influenced by ideology.
In the end there are two problems that face us all. My mentor Jacob Bronowski said it best when he wrote, " There are just two parts to the human delimma. One is the belief that the end jutifies the means. That push button philosophy, that deliberate deafness to suffering, has become the monster in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit: the assertion of dogma that closes the mind, and turns a nation, a civilisation, into a regimen of ghosts - obedient ghosts, or tourtured ghosts."
All religions - formal or not - assert dogma and therefore turn their followers into robots, void of freewill and the ability of critical analysis. This to me is the problem of L. Ron Hubbard and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez and all the zealots throughout history who have manipulated prople with their dogma and phony promises.
I see no difference between the Scientologist or the Anon's attacking them. Looks like a turf war to me. I see no difference between the Applelites who embrace all things Apple while putting down all things Microsoft. I see no difference in the religious embrace of global warming by people who want to think it is the end of the world and use filtered data to support their cause. The end justifies the means. WE WANT ALL PEOPLE TO THINK OUR WAY. Anything else is DENIAL.
Somewhere along the way, for complex reasons, these people lose the ability to make critical analysis of data and live in the closed world of their own minds.
Like religionists throughout history.
Me, I'll embrace science and questions and an open mind.
As for what Anonymous is doing, I don't fully agree with the DDoS attacks, but I would like to see some more of the Church's "valuable" information.
I personally see Cruise as a helpless, lost being frantically trying to avoid feeling the roaring emptiness that rages inside. He deserves compassion and respect as a teacher to us all of what that avoidance can lead to.
to offer is very much needed in our world. They do a lot of good
things. I remember reading something in the Katrina news too
about Scientology crews there and John Travolta going around in
a boat to help. I have a lot of respect for John Travolta and
personally am moved by Tom Cruz's passion for what he believes
in. I did notice that no matter how angry they become in their
subject of passion, they don't lower themselves to the level you
have permitted yourselves to sink. But then that is likely normal
ops for you in daily life. You guys are a bunch of bored
computer nerds with too much time on your hands. I don't care
how far fetched a religion seems or how passionate the
members. But what I read so far was positive and actually quiet
admirable. I found a personality test on one of the sites. I'm
tired tonight but I'm going to take it tomorrow. Interesting. Back
off and get a life okay?
I have seen 40 minutes at least of this video, and believe me, I got the context.
I am VERY concerned.
And all the more so based on the further context of this event (an account of a 2007 scientology gathering and a presentation entitled "The Global Obliteration of Psychiatry": http://www.xenu-directory.net/topics/miscavige-vs-psychiatry.html
"An insider provided pictures of the Church of Scientology 2007 New Year's event: images of an exploding grenade are associated with the Church of Scientology's campaign for the 'Global Obliteration of Psychiatry.'"
I challenge the corporation of scientology to release the Award Ceremony video featuring Tom Cruise in its entirety.
We would ALL appreciate the opportunity to see it.
Sincerely,
Another Surfer
If people heard what David Miscavige, the scientology "Reichsführer",says or does to the cult, that could be still more incredible.
PS: Hubbard did not appeal the ruling...
Let's not forget that covert Scientology operatives mailed their own bomb threat into their own "religious" organization to get law enforcement to go after Paulette Cooper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulette_Cooper
The Scientology cultists run by cult head David Miscavige will do anything and they'll say anything. They would want the "suppressive persons" they target to look really bad.
Tom Cruise of course wants SPs looking bad. He wants a world without us people who stand up to the Scientology madness.
Don't forget too Miscavige's "Loyalist" operation, where he had his own personnel pretend to be disaffected Scientologists who wanted to reform the cult and even get Miscavige jailed for his crimes.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/illegal-videotaping.html
The moronic media, ever in search of a Big Story, have raised these not-particularly-skilled hacker-vandals to a level they don't even vaguely merit.
They've been committing essentially criminal acts against more or less random targets for some time now, and have accomplished nothing whatsoever - unless it is to show that all too many people will overlook criminal behavior in favor of their own prejudices.
The flood attacks are accomplished using deliberately compromised computers belonging to innocent people. The nasty characters who run these botnets intrude into the machines and lives of thousands of people. Their malware gives them comprehensive access to the systems they've invaded, and they can be consistently counted upon to USE that access to do senseless mischief and to profit criminally. I see it almost daily in my work, these guys do DAMAGE, and LOTS of it.
The scientologists couldn't possibly be doing the Net as much harm as these botnet-wielding lowlifes. Buy a clue, people! Don't give them the smallest break. Whoever you want to crusade for or against, do it LEGALLY and with some semblance of style and grace. Reject these detestable thugs and their destructive tactics COMPLETELY. They contribute nothing to the dialogue but chaos.
Shouldn't this tell everybody something about the views that people hold about Scientology. If this had been against a black church there would have been outrage from the man on the street.
lyric let alone 20 minutes of mumbo-jumbo script. Maybe L. Ron Hubbard was on to something. I don't think his book explained EVERYTHING in life. So sorry Tom, Bruce and the rest of the flock. NASA can
teach a monkey to fly a plane/rocket. We movie goers
can watch you suceed after how many takes? Not good odds with mind over matter in my books. Satellite*
Oh no. They blindly believe false accusations that have been thrown out of court time and time again because there is no shred of evidence to back them up.
But actual proof is no obstacle to bigots and hatemongers. "Repeat a lie a thousand times and it becomes the truth," was said many years ago by the ultimate bigot Dr. Joseph Goebbels and these duped hackers are proving him right.
- Believe nothing, no matter where you read it
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by Vryht
January 27, 2008 2:47 PM PST
- Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. - Buddha
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