Thursday, November 27, 2008

German Ban - Historical Perspective

I personally oppose Scientology because of its cultic framework, in which an otherwise sound and original belief system exists. This framework leads the CoS into cultic behavior, and that behavior is rightly opposed by critics.

The problem, however, is that the critical movement itself currently exists in a cultic framework as well, that leads critics into cultic behavior. These could go as far as help to precipitate mass tragedies like Jonestown and Waco, on top of countless individual drama.

This is the reason I oppose the anti-cult and anti-Scientology movement in its present form, because they in fact represent a greater and more immediate danger to basic human rights than cults themselves.

Trying to scare the public and authorities through anti-Scientology myths may work in the short run but is doomed to fail in the long run because these obviously lack sufficient basis in truth to satisfy legal and academic requirements.

This is what the recent lifting of the German project to ban Scientology shows.

But there is more.

Graham, a moderate Scientologist, places the German ban project lifting in an interesting historical perspective where he shows that basically the same type of events happened in Australia, the UK, Spain and with the American IRS, among others. What is more, he points to the interesting fact that in many cases these investigations not only led to a possible ban lift but also led to a full religious status recognition for the CoS!

Grahame also argues that the burden of proof on the Internet is not the same as for legal situations and that this explains why anti-Scientology myths can have a long life on such a media and fool uncritical masses such as Anonymous.

In the long run, however, I believe that the fact that courts, government, and academics more and more refuse to follow anti-cult fanatics in their crusade, is one of the factors that increases the cognitive dissonance in the public and helps them question what they read on so-called critical web sites.