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- Invincible Overlord
- Posts: 10555
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Sometimes I wonder if Scientology is intentionally used as a lightning rod by other religions.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Scientology is a dangerous cult, and people need to know the truth. It's made to make money, seriously. It fits pretty much all cult signs as well, since it is one. People are slowly brainwashed and the Co$ becomes their life, and become hugely indebted/invested in it. Which is how the structure works.
Yeah, most of the people believe what they're selling, but so what? There's a *free* offshoot that isn't out to bleed people dry, or disconnect them, etc. If people wanna do that, I don't think anybody will stop them. But the exploitation perpetrated by the "Church" of Scientology must be stopped.
Yeah, most of the people believe what they're selling, but so what? There's a *free* offshoot that isn't out to bleed people dry, or disconnect them, etc. If people wanna do that, I don't think anybody will stop them. But the exploitation perpetrated by the "Church" of Scientology must be stopped.
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- Invincible Overlord
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I meant to say that the reason why more people don't go after Scientology is that it provides convenient cover for more 'mainstream' religions.
So when people are focused on the fucked-up things that Scientology is doing, the Catholic church can get away with insanely evil shit like excommunicating a doctor for giving a life-saving abortion to a pre-teen girl or actively trying to block the distribution of contraceptives.
So when people are focused on the fucked-up things that Scientology is doing, the Catholic church can get away with insanely evil shit like excommunicating a doctor for giving a life-saving abortion to a pre-teen girl or actively trying to block the distribution of contraceptives.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
- Josh_Kablack
- King
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As near as I can tell the difference between a "dangerous cult" and a "major world religion" is merely the number of worshippers.
When the Church of Scientology goes on crusades to recapture the holy land, tortures heretics into forced confessions, declares a jihad against other countries, massacres the hittites, burns slums in calcutta or pulls any actually big league moves, then I'll be concerned about it.
Interfering with the psychiatric treatment of individuals, is just not a way to get into the history books.
When the Church of Scientology goes on crusades to recapture the holy land, tortures heretics into forced confessions, declares a jihad against other countries, massacres the hittites, burns slums in calcutta or pulls any actually big league moves, then I'll be concerned about it.
Interfering with the psychiatric treatment of individuals, is just not a way to get into the history books.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
A tangent question on a related note. I had heard a while ago about a cultish religion that had almost a millionish followers in which the leader said that he was the antichrist or something along those lines. He said he was the savior come as the antichrist or some wierd logic along those lines. It was primarily a hispanic population apparently because of the locale or something or maybe of how he was targetting it. Anyone know anything about this? It was a couple years ago?
Ancient History wrote:We were working on Street Magic, and Frank asked me if a houngan had run over my dog.
Given it has tried to infiltrate several governments (generally failing), and is responsible for some killings, and the Fair Game tactics... Sure it isn't on the scale of other ones yet, but it doesn't mean it isn't worth stopping.
Fact is, telling people to lay off it because it hasn't done atrocities "yet" is horseshit. Just how much worse does a cult have to be to warrant action? This is a group that engages in some really scary shit, and manages to get off with little problems by throwing money, lawsuits, and (veiled) threats at problems.
If you'd like, I can find stats and numbers and that fun stuff. We're not pulling this out of our asses here.
Fact is, telling people to lay off it because it hasn't done atrocities "yet" is horseshit. Just how much worse does a cult have to be to warrant action? This is a group that engages in some really scary shit, and manages to get off with little problems by throwing money, lawsuits, and (veiled) threats at problems.
If you'd like, I can find stats and numbers and that fun stuff. We're not pulling this out of our asses here.
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- Duke
- Posts: 2434
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Well Scientology is fake in that the upper types know its a bunch of shit concocted by Hubbard. Thats one difference.Josh_Kablack wrote:As near as I can tell the difference between a "dangerous cult" and a "major world religion" is merely the number of worshippers.
The reason its worth going after is that its a perfect test case for attacking religion's tax free status. Its fringe enough and horrible enough and fake enough to be split off from the pack of religions and destroyed.
The fact that stopping them would be doing society a service in and of itself is icing.
Cynic, this is the guy you were probably thinking of. He's hella charismatic if you see him in a real interview, really reasonable and personable. He comes across alot less fake and money mongering than most evangelicals... And yet his creed is far more out there.
-Crissa
-Crissa
Hell, Hubbard created Scientology on a bet.Draco_Argentum wrote:Well Scientology is fake in that the upper types know its a bunch of shit concocted by Hubbard. Thats one difference.Josh_Kablack wrote:As near as I can tell the difference between a "dangerous cult" and a "major world religion" is merely the number of worshippers.
The reason its worth going after is that its a perfect test case for attacking religion's tax free status. Its fringe enough and horrible enough and fake enough to be split off from the pack of religions and destroyed.
The fact that stopping them would be doing society a service in and of itself is icing.
Here's something that made me shake my head in disbelief...
The Governor of South Carolina went missing on Thursday, without telling his staff where he was going.
As of yesterday evening, they still hadn't heard a peep from him.
But they weren't *too* worried. Why?
Because he does this kind of thing all the fucking time.
Apparently, the governor (can't remember his name and I'm too lazy to immediately look it up), is a really self-effacing guy who values his solitude. He's said many times that if he could dispense with the constant security detail, he would.
He was once overseas and his own staff didn't know it until they got in touch with him.
The Governor of South Carolina went missing on Thursday, without telling his staff where he was going.
As of yesterday evening, they still hadn't heard a peep from him.
But they weren't *too* worried. Why?
Because he does this kind of thing all the fucking time.
Apparently, the governor (can't remember his name and I'm too lazy to immediately look it up), is a really self-effacing guy who values his solitude. He's said many times that if he could dispense with the constant security detail, he would.
He was once overseas and his own staff didn't know it until they got in touch with him.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
South Carolina: the only state that is proud of having their major college mascot be a gamecock.
FrankTrollman wrote: Halfling women, as I'm sure you are aware, combine all the "fun" parts of pedophilia without any of the disturbing, illegal, or immoral parts.
K wrote:That being said, the usefulness of airships for society is still transporting cargo because it's an option that doesn't require a powerful wizard to show up for work on time instead of blowing the day in his harem of extraplanar sex demons/angels.
Chamomile wrote: See, it's because K's belief in leaving generation of individual monsters to GMs makes him Chaotic, whereas Frank's belief in the easier usability of monsters pre-generated by game designers makes him Lawful, and clearly these philosophies are so irreconcilable as to be best represented as fundamentally opposed metaphysical forces.
Whipstitch wrote:You're on a mad quest, dude. I'd sooner bet on Zeus getting bored and letting Sisyphus put down the fucking rock.
"I'm sorry, we can't use Cocky, he has representation - they have a lot riding on him, so-"
"Wait. You're saying they have a lot riding on the cock?"
"-so we can't bring him out for this segment."
"The cock is out?"
"Yeah"
"All we wanted to do was give the cock some exposure - and it's so frustrating, first he was in, then he was out, in, out, in, out..."
-Triple H and Shawn Michaels, regarding not being able to utilise the gamecock in a segment in South Carolina.
"Wait. You're saying they have a lot riding on the cock?"
"-so we can't bring him out for this segment."
"The cock is out?"
"Yeah"
"All we wanted to do was give the cock some exposure - and it's so frustrating, first he was in, then he was out, in, out, in, out..."
-Triple H and Shawn Michaels, regarding not being able to utilise the gamecock in a segment in South Carolina.
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/988 ... n-god.html -- Now this is a case of how somebody uses a catchy one liner to get your attention but almost doesn't use it in the story. I won't to kill th reporter. THis story wants to make me cry for the quality of the writing in this newspaper. It used to be awesome.
Last edited by Cynic on Wed Jun 24, 2009 5:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
Ancient History wrote:We were working on Street Magic, and Frank asked me if a houngan had run over my dog.
- Absentminded_Wizard
- Duke
- Posts: 1122
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
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Details? I've always wondered if Hubbard created Scientology just to see if he could turn a sci-fi novel into a religious text.Prak_Anima wrote:Hell, Hubbard created Scientology on a bet.Draco_Argentum wrote:Well Scientology is fake in that the upper types know its a bunch of shit concocted by Hubbard. Thats one difference.Josh_Kablack wrote:As near as I can tell the difference between a "dangerous cult" and a "major world religion" is merely the number of worshippers.
The reason its worth going after is that its a perfect test case for attacking religion's tax free status. Its fringe enough and horrible enough and fake enough to be split off from the pack of religions and destroyed.
The fact that stopping them would be doing society a service in and of itself is icing.
Well, members of my country's government take train and busses to work. And when the minister in charge of finance had a heart attack one day he was lucky a personal friend was around to drive him to the hospital - he surely had no security with him. So while the minsters don't go missing they are not all the time in touch with their staff.Maxus wrote:Here's something that made me shake my head in disbelief...
The Governor of South Carolina went missing on Thursday, without telling his staff where he was going.
As of yesterday evening, they still hadn't heard a peep from him.
But they weren't *too* worried. Why?
Because he does this kind of thing all the fucking time.
Apparently, the governor (can't remember his name and I'm too lazy to immediately look it up), is a really self-effacing guy who values his solitude. He's said many times that if he could dispense with the constant security detail, he would.
He was once overseas and his own staff didn't know it until they got in touch with him.
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- King
- Posts: 6403
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
You guys have nothing on us. We're still waiting for one of our prime ministers to come back from the beach.
He HAS been at the beach for 42 years now, but we know he is coming back.
Because he left behind his pants.
Though that is apparently not an unremarkable thing for Australian prime ministers to do since Malcom Fraser did the same thing in a Memphis brothel in 1986. (that is lose his pants, not dive into the surf and promptly vanish to never be seen again)
He HAS been at the beach for 42 years now, but we know he is coming back.
Because he left behind his pants.
Though that is apparently not an unremarkable thing for Australian prime ministers to do since Malcom Fraser did the same thing in a Memphis brothel in 1986. (that is lose his pants, not dive into the surf and promptly vanish to never be seen again)
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Wed Jun 24, 2009 11:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Absentminded_Wizard
- Duke
- Posts: 1122
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And now we know where he was.
Apparently, this time he was in Argentina breaking up with his mistress. Presumably, a bunch of those other times he was fooling around with said mistress.
Apparently, this time he was in Argentina breaking up with his mistress. Presumably, a bunch of those other times he was fooling around with said mistress.
And of course everyone is in an uproar about how shameful it is this time.
You know, like every other politician's affair.
Something Positive says it best.
You know, like every other politician's affair.
Something Positive says it best.
Hey, here's something to make you laugh and/or cry: Michael Jackson died today
He's the third one this week, Farrah Fawcet and Ed McMahon preceded him.
He's the third one this week, Farrah Fawcet and Ed McMahon preceded him.
FrankTrollman wrote: Halfling women, as I'm sure you are aware, combine all the "fun" parts of pedophilia without any of the disturbing, illegal, or immoral parts.
K wrote:That being said, the usefulness of airships for society is still transporting cargo because it's an option that doesn't require a powerful wizard to show up for work on time instead of blowing the day in his harem of extraplanar sex demons/angels.
Chamomile wrote: See, it's because K's belief in leaving generation of individual monsters to GMs makes him Chaotic, whereas Frank's belief in the easier usability of monsters pre-generated by game designers makes him Lawful, and clearly these philosophies are so irreconcilable as to be best represented as fundamentally opposed metaphysical forces.
Whipstitch wrote:You're on a mad quest, dude. I'd sooner bet on Zeus getting bored and letting Sisyphus put down the fucking rock.
Mask_De_H wrote:Hey, here's something to make you laugh and/or cry: Michael Jackson died today
He's the third one this week, Farrah Fawcet and Ed McMahon preceded him.
Maybe it's just me. But no matter who it is. I can't laugh at death. No matter who it is. I am not that desensitized yet. It brings me a twinge of sorrow for these people. Even in the entertainment topic when I talk about dying authors who've lost me, it's because their death has made me sad rather than numb or happy.
Ancient History wrote:We were working on Street Magic, and Frank asked me if a houngan had run over my dog.
What's weird is all the people at work were...well, they made jokes. But they also mourned the loss of someone who was great when he had his shit together. Even my own parents are like, "Yeah, he probably ruined his health with god-knows-what, but it's a tragedy..."
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
Well, I tend not to feel sad when a famous person dies - no matter how much I liked them or their work - simply because I don't know them personally and likely don't even know who their families and loved ones (the ones who feel it the worst) are. It would just seem a bit... shallow? As though the fact that they're famous should not make a difference and that there are millions of other people I don't know who are dying.
That being said, I don't find it funny or anything. I might cheer if someone I dislike is hounded from office, fired or found guilty in court of the things that I don't like them for, but I won't cheer or laugh or celebrate if they die.
Still, it is *news*, so it does belong here. And I will admit to repeating the above comic, just because Horatio is awesome and I'll take any opportunity to do the Horatio routine. I even found my sunglasses.
That being said, I don't find it funny or anything. I might cheer if someone I dislike is hounded from office, fired or found guilty in court of the things that I don't like them for, but I won't cheer or laugh or celebrate if they die.
Still, it is *news*, so it does belong here. And I will admit to repeating the above comic, just because Horatio is awesome and I'll take any opportunity to do the Horatio routine. I even found my sunglasses.
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.