Scientology and Freedom of Speech

I want to admit up front that I am a critic of Scientology. I became one after much thought and study. I also want to make clear I don’t hate any one member of Scientology. I do however have problems with the actions of Scientology.

Ever since Scientology was created by L Ron Hubbard, a 1950s science fiction writer, the organization has done everything it can to stop any type of criticism. Scientology has a policy to “always attack, never defend.”

No so-called “church” has filed as many lawsuits to prevent people from reading its scriptures. That bears repeating here. Not only do they enforce church rules that prevent open internal discussion, but have sued non-Scientologists for distributing their copyrighted scriptures, and threatened to sue others for commenting on the writings.

This group claims to defend human and civil rights. Yet they spend millions of dollars of their “fixed donations” every year to stop those who would dare to speak out against their abusive policies and practices.

Protest against Scientology and you may find them outside your home passing out fliers saying you are a religious bigot. They will inform your neighbors that you may be a child molester. Your child may come home from school one day and tell you they were saying the same thing outside his or her school.

Scientology has spent over fifty years walking over critics and the press. They acted like no one and nothing could stop them. Then they took aim at the Internet.

And hit a brick wall.

It started out with Scientology scaring Internet providers into taking down critical web sites using a law meant to protect copyrights. Then it got nasty, when Scientology abused the law to raid the homes of Dennis Erlich, Arnie Lerma, and Bob Penny, confiscating their computers and other items while performing personal reconnaissance in every room.

They were wrong, but that didn’t stop them; their litigious actions are based in a doctrine that says the purpose of the lawsuit is to harass, not to win. The idea is to beat their opponent down with excessive litigation, personal attacks, having a private investigator comb through their trash, etc.

However, Scientology doesn’t know how to handle the Internet. The organization is constricted by rules made up by Hubbard that, according to doctrine, can never change. There was no Internet in the 1950s. While Hubbard wrote policies for everything from brushing your teeth to preparing baby formula, there are no writings on how to deal with the ‘net.

Early attempts to control critical speech about Scientology included an effort to flood newsgroups with ‘theta’ or positive messages about Scientology in an effort to drown out any negativity. There were also floods of nonsense messages called “sporgeries” that were altered to look like they came from critical posters.

There was even an rmgroup command issued from a Scientology lawyer to attempt to completely remove the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology.

The result: Thousands of new web sites teaching millions of new people about the cult of Scientology. Videos that would have never been seen under Scientology rule are posted every day, and re-posted if they are removed.

Still, newsgroups, message boards, etc., are spammed with hundreds of off topic posts everyday in order to dilute and stifle conversation, and make it impossible for any real discussion to take place.

Websites like Associated Content allow members of Scientology and critics both to post their thoughts and views. Yet Scientology still tries even there to stop open discourse.

They spam Associated Content for the same reason and will mass click off any voice that is not pro- Scientology. I have been called “insane,” “a criminal,” and have even been accused of being paid by some unknown source to post critical viewpoints.

Yet critical voices are still finding ways to be heard anyway.

If Scientology would listen, I would ask a question: Why do you fear people so much? Do you have so little faith in your beliefs that you feel people who disagree with you must be stopped? Are you so afraid your fancy house of cards will crumble when the truth comes out?

Sue me if you feel you must. I have faith in my stand. Sue the next guy. Sue a thousand of us. Sue a million. There will always be someone ready to take our places. There are six billion people in the world, and Scientology is not exactly beloved, or even legal, in more than a few countries.

But I would really like to know, Scientology: What are you so afraid of? Nobody seems to be afraid of you anymore.
And it’s a shame that no Scientologist would likely ever read beyond my first sentence here.