Other people's reasons to be a critic of Scientology

There's lots of reasons. Here's a list of other people's reasons I'm adding to as I go.

• Anima - includes posts from Warrior and Robert Vaughn Young. "The most scary thing is not that it is true, but that with the Final Solution spelled out so clearly, so repeatedly, so persistently, on-lookers will still shrug and deny that Hubbard meant what he said and will deny that the apparatchiks and their dupes act precisely as though they were following the views of the Founder on these matters as on all others."

• Alan Barclay. "I was not a critic until attracted to ARS by Helena Kobrin. I wouldn't have become a critic if I hadn't seen with my own eyes over the top reactions by scientology."

• Pope Charles (William C. Barwell), SubGenius Pope of Houston. "You cannot BUY entertainment like this!"

• BC. "If any words I write can help someone else avoid what I experienced in my time in the cult (and/or much worse ...), I will have accomplished something good."

• Belladonna 99.

• Ex-Mudder (D. Keith Bennett).

• Dave Bird.

• Klaus Bloemker. "Basically I have a moral gut-reaction to Scientology: their 'humanitarian' lie pisses me off!"

• Geoff Burling. "There are two activities that show the true power of the Internet, and what it is capable of. The first is the free operating system known as Linux. The other activity is the campaign against the CoS. People with access to an inexpensive means of communications empowered to do what they think is right. And somehow, this thing is working."

• Lori Ann Chauvette - short answer and long answer. "It made me mad to think that someone would try to stifle me from asking for information in a newsgroup on the Internet, a place that I've always considered the mecca for free speech. So now, I'm in this for the long haul."

• Rob Clark explains why it's a bad idea to try taking on the Net.

• Conner, a.k.a. Seekon, Number 3, henry 3, Tritium. "what got me the most was the lies. i'm not sure i'm such a lover of the truth, but i hate a lie. and i have never seen such liars as scientology. all forms of lies, more forms than i had imagined - PR, vague testimonials, acceptable truths, half truths, evasions, word-twistings, perversions of truth, and outright stinking whoppers."

• Louise Cook: About me, my reasons for posting and some thoughts on Scientology - "I was provoked by my disgust at the hypocrisy and abuse I witnessed at the Canberra org ... Human rights are being abused and good hearted people like Matt are being used and abused; and pushed right over the edge. Children are growing up without parents. People are defrauding the government. This is all occurring behind the facade of a 'Church', a religion, and a tax free organization to boot."

• Frank Copeland.

• DeoMorto. "I actually started out on ARS being more of a defender of the CofS than a critic - my main disagreement with the CofS being one of free speech. Gradually over the last two years or so I have gotten more and more irritated with a lot of the CofS tactics."

• Wesley Fager.

• Why Scott Goehring started a.r.s (was at http://php.indiana.edu/~sgoehrin/scientology/ - now missing).

• Mike Gormez.

• Gregg Hagglund. "It is their presumed right to conduct harmful activities and impose their will on others without limit I oppose, not whether they believe in Xenu etc."
  • A later answer. "I have seen the naked lingering terror in the eyes of children survivors of our modern wars ... But I had never seen that in the eyes of an adult speaking about their involvement with a 'religion'."

• Joel Hanes. "The reason I can't let go, the reason that I think that Scientology is evil and must be opposed, is that its practices of massive litigation and intimidation through fair game strike at the bases of civil society, and subvert the rule of law."

• Andreas Heldal-Lund: why he does Operation Clambake.

• Keith Henson.

• Martin Hunt: short answer and longer answer. "Scientology can fuck with just so many people over so many years and get away with it, silencing through fear and intimidation, but eventually they will fuck with the wrong person, just by the laws of chance. That person was me ... Now they get taken down."

• Cornelius Krasel. "The CoS is directly responsible for my HTML knowledge :-)"

• Al Landeck.

• Chris Leithis. "Fascinated by the possibility that an evil (but stupid) organization might be tumbled by fallible human beings, fighting fair, armed with only intelligence, information and the ability to communicate."

• Arnie Lerma. "When I found that the incidents that happened to me in Scientology were MILD compared to what had happened to David Mayo, Andre Tabayoyon, Gerry Armstrong, I began soliciting and scanning and ocr'ing affidavits and court records."
  • "My motivational rant."

• Robert S. Minton. "I'm angry that the scienos are so bad and so evil that people cannot even believe such an organization exists. I'm angry that more people are not willing to stand against the injustices perpetrated by the scienos. I'm angry that there are so many people who are so vulnerable that they will sell their very souls to the scienos. I'm angry that there are so many unprincipled lawyers who will look the scienos in the eye, ignore reality, take the money and adopt any set of principles the scienos want them to."

• H. Alan Montgomery on the lack of checks and balances in the CoS's structure. "Until policies and procedures within Co$ actually allow for members to question and actually implement the checks and balances in the tech, the abuses that we hear so much about will go on."

• NoGoot. "I know a lot about $cientology. Some of it I consider good and will battle with critics to defend it; but the main things I object to are the anti-social policies that the CoS follows."

• NoScieno. "But for a stroke of pure luck, I could still be in that fucking group somewhere, or dead like Lisa McPherson - and so could my girlfriend."

• David Patrick.

• Michael Pattinson, formerly a 'Scientology Celebrity'. "I was shocked at the use of top celebrities by Scientology to try and give an impression of it which, per my own experiences, is a false impression. When I compare the ridiculous charges made by Scientology against the German government with what I know Scientology has been doing itself I find a very strong similarity indeed."

• Elvis Presley. Yes - the King of Rock'n'Roll was a Critic of Scientology!

• Roland Rashleigh-Berry. "The Co$ betrayed me and now they will pay the price. They conned me out of $75,000. I'll lose them a hell of a lot more than that."

• Beverly Rice.

• Michael T. Richter. "I became a critic of Scientology after being lied to over and over and over again by Scientologists."

• Rondata. "I don't plan on going anywhere until this whole thing is gone. They have no regard for human life."

• September. "We must utter a literature to the public that is easy to understand and eyecatching. We must list their crimes in a simple, honest format that will appeal to public fancy and place these lists in public view."

• Clarence Sevdy. "If a 60+ year old man is still affected by things that happened in the early '50s, what about the victims of recent time?"

• Sister Clara. (This link to http://www.magpie.co.uk/SisC.html is currently not working; I am seeking a copy of this essay.)

• Son Of Xenu. "I feel I have a right and a duty to speak the truth of evils that I see ... The issue with Scientology is NOT RELIGION, it is CRIME!"

• 'Troutman, Defender of Sticks' was a regular on a.r.s during the latter half of 1995. Here's his goodbye message, giving his opinion of Scientology and Scientologists ... formed from reading their own postings on a.r.s.

• Dave van Horn.

• Boudewijn van Ingen. "I was outraged about the onslaught on free speech by scientology when I heard about them raiding XS4ALL."

• Kristi Wachter (Jour): Why I Picket Scientology.

• Grady Ward.

• Warrior. "To let others know my experience in the hopes that they may avoid having to learn the hard way (as I did) what Scientology really is all about without the PR, lies, half-truths and 'acceptable truths' that scientology pushes upon the world through the various media."

• Jim Wilbur: Scientology in a Cow Pie.

• Lawrence Wollersheim. "I have gained more personally and spiritually in my difficult resistance to the spiritual and social evil that they are, than I could have ever gained from any amount of money or an easier life."

• Lawrence Wollersheim and F.A.C.T.Net on the importance of standing up to Scientology's abuses. "F.A.C.T.Net believes that various under-financed, under-staffed, backlogged, and low technology government agencies are acting and will act but they need to be helped by the victims of Scientology and organizations like F.A.C.T.Net. The victims need to ethically cooperate and help locate, analyze, interpret, and prepare the information and evidences on which resource-short government agencies depend upon to forward their investigations and our defense."

• Steve Zadarnowski. "They endanger people's minds and lives with their pseudo-scientific crap."

• Zed, quoting from When Corporations Rule The World, on the power of citizen's networks, especially in the age of the Internet. "The power of civil society rests with its enormous capacity to rapidly and flexibly network diverse and dispersed individuals and organisations that are motivated by voluntary commitments ... attacks on citizen networks expose the ill will of the perpetrators, offend moral sensibilities, increase the network's visibility, attract new recruits, and strengthen resolve."