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Since some of the materials which describe the $cientology cult could be considered to be copywritten materials, I have censored myself and The Skeptic Tank by deleting any and all possible text files which describes the cult's hidden mythologies. I have elected to quote just a bit of the questionable text according to the "Fair Use" legal findings afforded to those who report. - Fredric L. Rice, The Skeptic Tank, 09/Sep/95 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- From news.interserv.net!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!news-e1a.megaweb.com!newstf01.news.aol.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!world!news.kei.com!ub!galileo.cc.rochester.edu!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!rlvd_cif Tue Jul 18 10:03:42 1995 Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Path: news.interserv.net!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!news-e1a.megaweb.com!newstf01.news.aol.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!world!news.kei.com!ub!galileo.cc.rochester.edu!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!rlvd_cif From: rlvd_cif@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Robert Levandowski) Subject: Re: Why the clams are so mad? (Was Re: The Quite Mad Diane Richardson) Message-ID: <1995Jul17.213522.14214@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> Sender: news@galileo.cc.rochester.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: uhura.cc.rochester.edu Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York References: <3udilt$nnq@lantana.singnet.com.sg> <3ue3ml$o5j@lear.cs.duke.edu> Date: Mon, 17 Jul 95 21:35:22 GMT Lines: 97 In <3ue3ml$o5j@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@lear.cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes: >4) Stupidity. Well... In my opinion, many of those who have posted here defending Scientology in some fashion have made statements or used tactics which indicate that their grasp on the obvious and common-sense is rather weak. In short, I've seen lots of stupid things. Like what? * Forging cancel messages that appear to violate Federal law in several ways, including possibly violating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and having libelous content; * Forging said cancel messages so that they appear to have passed through a computer owned by the United States Government; * Forging said cancel messages with blatantly false paths and hostname; * A lawyer who sent an unauthorized "rmgroup" message, which itself would appear, in my opinion, to violate the ECPA; * A lawyer who has sent messages to several people here, suggesting that they have violated the Berne Convention and the Lanham Act, when it would appear to people with no special legal training that neither piece of law is applicable to the situation; * A lawyer who has sent such messages in a fashion which could be construed as intended to annoy or intimidate, which, if true, would itself constitute a violation of California law; * A poster who made what was clearly a death threat against a close friend of Dennis Erlich; which would not only seem to be a violation of the law in most states as either aggrivated assault, harassment, stalking, and/or terrorism, but which also might constitute tampering with a Federal case, if I understand that statute correctly; * A poster who continually makes claims based on quotations from public sources, which, when consulted, show that the quotations are wholly out of context and in fact refute the poster's claims; * A poster who continually violated instructions from their service provider, informing them that "outing" anonymous posters was not acceptable, to the point where their account was reportedly terminated; * Several posters who do not seem to have read the Constitution of the United States nor the United States Code, yet feel compelled to render their interpretation of the laws with no evidence to collaborate their viewpoint, which, when investigated, seems to be mistaken; * A poster who claims to have access to a police report which should be confidential between two people, although he claimed at one point that he had contact with neither of those two people; and then posts details from the report which not only don't match known facts, but which aren't even consistent between postings, from appearances; * Many posts which are devoid of content, except for vitriol and whining about persecution, etc., but which seem to indicate that the poster(s) are not actually reading and understanding the topics at hand; * Several posters who have offered to answer any questions, but who then fail to do so, either by ignoring the questions, or dodging them with vague and dogmatic responses; * References posted to other newsgroups purporting to be from citizen's commissions which cite journal articles as supporting a claim that a widely-tested, long-used drug which is generally regarded as among the safer pediatric psychoactive medications can cause suicide, when in fact the cited articles do no such thing, but rather point out a few abberations in case histories, which point up the fact that any negative occurrances are rare with the medicine in question, and which furthermore do not chronicle any cases of suicide as claimed; * Posts in which outright lies are told, and when confronted, the posters claim that "it was an experiment," or "it was necessary to protect myself," although they dismiss the notion that they lie; * Posts which contort the English language beyond all belief, including consistent and amazing spelling and grammatical errors which make communication difficult if not impossible, and the use of a vocabulary and terminology unique to the COS which is not only not proper English, but which is redundant (as the concepts expressed already have proper English representation with properly-formed and typically shorter terms) as well as inhibitory to discourse and understanding. * On top of all of this, claims that the "tech" of COS will, when properly applied (as has presumably occurred in the case of most of these posters), will increase one's apparent intelligence and make it possible for one to communicate with utter clarity their ideas to other beings. Now, given this evidence, in my opinion, "stupidity" is a good explanation for many supposed pro-COS activities I've seen in this group. -- --Rob Levandowski Computer Interest Floor associate / University of Rochester macwhiz@cif.rochester.edu [Opinions expressed are mine, not UR's.]

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