I’m not a fan of the “Ethical Culture” cult but I don’t claim people don’t have a right to join them. France however is now claiming to have the authority to make people’s religious choices for them. Anonymous may be happy but anyone who thinks people have a right to live their lives without the government making choices for them will be appalled:
PARIS (Reuters) – A French prosecutor on Monday recommended a Paris court should dissolve the Church of Scientology’s French branch when it rules on charges of fraud against the organization.
Registered as a religion in the United States, with celebrity members such as actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta, Scientology enjoys no such legal protection in France, where it has faced repeated accusations of being a money-making cult.
The Church’s Paris headquarters and bookshop are defendants in a fraud trial that began on May 25. Summing up her views on the case, state prosecutor Maud Coujard urged the court to return a guilty verdict and dissolve the organization in France.
The Church of Scientology denies the fraud charges and says the case against it violates freedom of religion.
A ruling is expected within months.
French state prosecutors had previously resisted the idea of an outright dissolution of Scientology in the country.
If the court follows the prosecutor’s recommendation, Scientology could appeal and the verdict would be suspended.
The trial centers on complaints made in the late 1990s by two former members who spent huge sums on Scientology courses and “purification” sessions.
Maybe if France had a free and fair press (like we used to have in America) people in France could see the evidence that Scientology is a scam and decide for themselves. But the French have found a religion it’s safe to persecute and the authorities can take out their frustrations on Scientologists secure in the knowledge there will be no riots.
Meanwhile, how much justice is there for the Muslim gang that kidnapped and tortured a Jew to death?
I hate this flap against Scientology. Even though I’ll never become a Scientologist ever, this is obvious persecution.
Great,yet another anti anti-scientology rant
You obviously don’t know much about scientology and it hasn’t affected or ruined your life in any way.
Scientology is more than just a scam, dig deeper into the matter and you’ll see exactly how dangerous it is.
Scientology hasn’t “ruined” my life because I’m not a sucker. Suckers by books and trinkets from some company that tells them they’ll be better people. So what? You anti-Scientology folks won’t protest against the modern slave trade, drug addiction, Islamic imperialism etc but you give a crap about some sucker who’d get conned in some other way if there was no Scientology?
Grow up. Tell your friends whose “lives are ruined” that it’s their fault for falling for something so asinine anyway.
“Anyone who thinks people have a right to live their lives without the government making choices for them will be appalled.”
Anyone who thinks that is an arch-nincompoop. The state exists to make collective choices that cannot be made by individuals.
I think the government has every right to dissolve a pseudo-religion that is merely a money-making scam, as has been proven in Germany, among other places. The consumer should not be forced to do a full-scale invesigation of every gang of thugs that wants to present itself as a religion (like Islam and Scientology). That’s what government is for.
You and Stalin agree then. What will you do when your precious state decides you can’t decide who to have sex with?
Why not just admit you’re a closet sadist waiting for the state to reform the SS so you can start persecuting those pesky “individuals” who won’t bow to collective will.