Gutless. The government and the opposition joined forces in the Senate to vote down Senator Xenophon’s proposed inquiry into the Church of Scientology.
Both the ALP and the Coalition have folded like cheap garden chairs in the face of organised evil. Shame on both of them.
Perhaps they are just tired of that annoying little wowser and want to take him down a peg or two? While we would probably be better off without the Church of Scientology, the sort of people who are exploited by it would likely find some other idiotic cult to join in its absence. If Scientologists break the law, prosecute them like anyone else.
As someone who zones out when I hear about the church of Scientology, could we get a little more analysis from you Jacques. I promise to read it.
What’s there to analyse? The Church of Scientology has been shown again and again to be a relentlessly evil bunch of brainwashing gangsters. They do not deserve the status of a religion; indeed they ought to be characterised as organised criminals.
I didn’t mean “seeing both sides including the church’s side”, I’m interested in why the pollies are so timid. It is, after all, only an inquiry.
I have no idea. I can only speculate.
Perhaps the Scientologists have something on important figures in the majors.
Maybe the churches are concerned about the ‘thin end of the wedge’ that a delisting of scientology would represent.
Maybe they’re trying to get Xenophon to support or block something.
Most likely, the Scientologists sent smooth representatives with perfect teeth, immaculate hair, and money.
Maybe they are just more committed to freedom of religion and speech than you are.
If Scientologists are committing crimes, arrest them.
Otherwise this religion is no more retarded than all the other ones.
I tend to agree with Yobbo, and am a little surprised that Jacques as a self-proclaimed libertarian takes a more censorious/statist approach.
What behaviours do the Scientologists exhibit that many other religions don’t also manifest?:
(1) Their religious mythology is no more bizzare or loopy than any other religion, just of much more recent invention.
(2) They pressure adherents to pay over lots of cash to find the “Bridge to Total Freedom”, but that isn’t obviously different from the tithing that traditional Christian churches have long practised. Moreover, although the extent of free will and its capacity to be overborne may be real issues (as with some forms of media advertising of lots of products and services), liberal democratic societies all start from the proposition that adults with full mental capacity are autonomous individuals who are free to decide how they spend their money. A fool and his money are soon parted, but whether donating it to the Scientologists; the poker machines or gee gees; diets, plastic surgery and silly gadgets they see on Kerry-Anne; or drugs and alcohol; are the most foolish alternatives is a matter of opinion. Unless they’re mentally incapacitated, I’m not going to lose any sleep worrying about people who spend their money stupidly, and I certainly don’t think Parliament should be wasting public money on a huge “nanny state” inquiry into it. Moreover, I’d rather tolerate some level of manipulation of some people’s decision-making functions by marketing techniques and a range of social pressures than concede the right of “nanny staters” like Bob Brown, Nick Xenophon or Clive Hamilton to decide what I should spend my money on.
(3) The Scientologists apparently deter members from accessing psychiatry and related services. Although psychiatrists may find that appalling, there are perfectly respectable theorists (e.g. Thomas Szasz) who advance very powerful critiques of numerous aspects of psychiatric practice. Shock treatment, frontal lobotomies and a range of other ill-advised and potentially abusive “therapies” are fairly recent phenomena. However, even if you take the view that psychiatry in all its aspects is unchallengeably good, I fail to see why there is any imperative for a parliamentary inquiry into a religion that seeks to deter its members from psychiatric treatment. The Jehovah’s Witnesses similarly have a policy that opposes members accessing numerous aspects of modern medicine (anything involving blood) while the Catholic Church forbids abortion (even in situations where there are significant health dangers flowing from continued pregnancy) and stem cell medical research.
There might well be an issue for State intervention in an individual case where a child was being denied a life-saving or clearly beneficial medical procedure without which serious damage to that child’s life or health was highly likely to occur. But that applies equally to the Catholic and Jehovah beliefs, and again it doesn’t require a parliamentary inquiry to establish the facts. These religions make no secret of the fact that those are their beliefs and practices.
(4) Apparently the Scientologists pressure family members not to have any contact at all with other family members who have been excluded from the religion. This is not common in other Christian religions although it appears to be the norm in some brands of Islam, but it is also a hallmark of other sects like the Exclusive Brethren (to whom John Howard and Kevin Rudd both seem inexplicably favourably disposed). I think there is a reasonable arguable case for such organised pressure (to break up families) to be made unlawful. Certainly I’d like to see a debate about it. But again there’s no need for an inquiry to establish the facts. The Scientologists do not deny that this is their practice. Here’s what their official spokesperson said in last Monday’s Four Corners program:
Don’t get me wrong. I find the Scientologists extremely obnoxious. I just don’t think there’s any reasonable case for an expensive parliamentary inquiry or for that matter for the religion itself to be prohibited. I do, however, think like Yobbo that all individual cases of apparent criminal activity should be investigated and prosecuted, and that individuals who plausibly allege they have been the victims of such criminal behaviour should receive legal aid to pursue civil claims for damages. I also think that all tax breaks for religions (as opposed to charitable and benevolent activity) should be abolished. People should be free to hold whatever wacky beliefs they like, but not at my expense.
You’ve convinced me Ken (although I probably was to start). The only thing I’m not convinced about — and you don’t seem to be especially so either based your wording, is: “I think there is a reasonable arguable case for such organised pressure (to break up families) to be made unlawful.”. I can’t see why that should be so, although I’m not clear of the arguments, which I’d love to hear from anybody knowledgable on the matter.
It seems to me making organized pressure unlawful would really open up a whole can of worms (what do you mean by pressure? what about, for example, a family counsellor suggesting that as something positive? how do minor acts like excommunication get dealt with if it involves potentially stopping someone entering into events run by an organization the rest of the family is involved with? What about acts that cause separation, say, like pressuring some member of a household to live in a “green” way not compatible with others, etc.).
Conrad
You’re right. I’m hesitant about whether pressuring families not to contact excluded members ought to be unlawful. Your family counsellor example is an obvious objection, although there may well be a significant difference between a counsellor “suggesting” that a patient keep away from family members behaving in a way likely to damage the patient, and a church which coercively excludes members who maintain contact with excommunicated family members. Similarly with your “green” household example. What the Scientologists do is much more coercive.
They are committing crimes. In an organised fashion. We shouldn’t put up with organised crime and we certainly shouldn’t lend them the financial advantages of religions (not that religions deserve those, but that’s another matter).
I resent the implication that I am somehow against religious freedom. I am not. Many folk keep to the Scientology hokum under the name ‘freezone’. If they want to believe in aliens, I don’t care. But one of the legitimate purposes of government is to prevent organised crime. And the Church of Scientology doesn’t smell of roses if you look into their many, many, many, many crimes.
Jacques, no-one has suggested that you’re against religious freedom. However, you’re asserting that Scientology merits suppression or at least an inquiry into whether it should be suppressed, without outlining the behaviour you believe merits that approach. I think you need to do so, at the very least by linking to material that outlines the “many, many, many, many crimes” to which you refer.
I’ve outlined my own understanding of the gravamen of the main allegations typically levelled against Scientology, and as far as I can see they don’t involve commission of crimes. No doubt some individual Scientologists have committed crimes, possibly even motivated by their own understanding of the church’s teachings. But to what extent are any such crimes “organised” or endorsed by the church itself? That’s the case that needs to be made by people advocating an inquiry, and they need to make it by giving examples of criminal behaviour IN AUSTRALIA that appears to be officially endorsed by the church. Last week’s Four Corners program certainly failed to make any such case, and as far as I can see Senator Xenophon hasn’t made it either.
The easiest thing to do is to send you to Operation Clambake, which is pretty much ‘the’ clearing house for critics of Scientology.
There have been Australian inquiries into Scientology before; most notably in Victoria in the 1960s.
The High Court at the time overturned a ban on the consideration of Scientology as a religion.
Scientology is actually useful in one sense: it brightly illuminates the distinction between a religion and a religious organisation. I believe that freedom of religion is important. I am far less amenable to lending religious organisations any additional protection or privilege under law. In particular I see no good reason for them to enjoy substantial tax privileges.
During the 2001 census 70,000 Australians classified themselves as ‘Jedi’ for the religion question. The ABS reclassified these as ‘no religion’.
Yet Jedism meets the legal tests for a religion. It involves moral teachings and a belief in supernatural agency. Supposing I form the New Jedi Council of Planet Earth (Australia) Pty Ltd and declare myself to be the new head of the Jedi Council. All my business and personal dealings become church business. Once a week I put on the silly kak-coloured robes, make swooshing sounds with an LED-lit plastic sword, and spout inane trivialisms in broken backward sentences. Am I not entitled to the exemptions and protections of law?
Suppose we recognise that the tax-free status of religions is a silly hangover from the dark ages and abolish it. Am I then OK with the CoS? No. Their cynical and perfectly legal exploitation of this ancient rort is not the worst of their crimes. Their consistent abuse of litigation, slander and occasional outright criminal conspiracy makes them a dangerous organisation who should be classified alongside bikie gangs, mobsters and terrorists; equally and absolutely entitled to their rights but also subject to careful scrutiny, robust skepticism and generous lashings of satire and social opprobrium.
As for the tax concession, I’m not much of a supporter of tax anyhow but if you must have tax, then exemption should be only available to charitable organizations with both a charter and observable behaviour that clearly limit their activities strictly to charitable activities. Naturally such an organization could be run by a church but the church itself should not be tax exempt. Having said that, there are some very powerful churches out there, don’t expect them to give up their advantages easily.
Regarding the “evil” side of it, if you compare some of the monastic orders from all over the world and the very strange self cleansing ordeals that these people go through, it would be difficult to write a rule that separated Scientology weirdness from other weirdness. If you want to claim that religious dogma is brain washing then that rules out nearly all religion, more or less. Then again, we outlawed opiates, so it would be reasonably consistent to outlaw the opiate of the masses (and no doubt equally self-defeating).
Yes apparently proof of religion requires either self detonation or a bloody crusade, followed by oscillating between hypocritical claims of victimhood and regular public demonstrations of intolerance. You seem to keep making the mistake that the purpose of the law is to protect the weak when repeated practical observations indicate otherwise.
I agree completely that religions should not receive any special tax breaks.
That however doesn’t change the fact that all religions do. And unlike Jacques I don’t see any different between a “religion” and a “religious organisation”. They are both just another name for weirdo tea-parties, and shouldn’t get any tax breaks.
Personally I could point out a million evil things done by people in the name of Islam, Christianity and Hinduism, the 3 largest religions in the world. Scientology is no better or worse than any of them.
As far as special laws to deal with organised crime, most states in Australia already have them, and they are routinely abused on a daily basis by the police who lobbied for them. Personally I find such laws that target innocent people much more repugnant than religions like Scientology who are primarily taking advantage of people’s stupidity.