[ SECRET POST #3090 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3090 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 060 secrets from Secret Submission Post #442.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I honestly wish America would just pull a Germany and ban scientology outright.

[(Anonymous)]

They can't, really. The U.S. is hyper-protective of religions (or at least, the ones consisting mostly of white people) even when they have dumbass beliefs, like not giving your children necessary medical treatment and letting them get sick and die. To a lot of people, Scientology looks, smells and acts like a cult. But if you dig down, it's not that different from a lot of evangelical mega-churches that also squeeze money out of their followers in the name of self improvement. You cannot go after the mega churches because people pitch a fit whenever Christianity is even remotely threatened in any way.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, I know the futility of it but one can't help but wish.

I honestly sometimes think of starting a religion that doesn't believe in paying taxes because we recognize no authority outside of God.

Bet the federal government would change it's tune MIGHTY quick in that case.

[(Anonymous)]

SA *its

*ITS

DAMMIT

[(Anonymous)]

In the U.S., churches are already tax exempt. I don't believe they ought to be, but there you have it.

[(Anonymous)]

Ha. You think Americans have it bad?
In Italy, Italian taxpayers sometimes have to pay taxes to support the local churches, because not only are they places of worship, but also national monuments. We are talking about big money being used to do expensive restoration of, say St. Mark's in Venice. Makes you wonder how many people would rather evade paying their taxes and claim to be atheists.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm pretty sure that U.S. taxpayer money also goes toward upkeep on national monuments. Though I won't argue that Italy isn't fucked up in its own way...

[(Anonymous)]

Google "freemen" or sovereign movement. There are people who are already doing this. (Anarchists, basically.)

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, it's scary how much influence pious anti-medicine crackpots have had at the highest levels of USA government. Two of Dick Nixon's closest advisers were Church of Christ, Scientist, an "idealist" religion that believes in praying away illness.

D:

[(Anonymous)]

Yep, it's ridiculous. Part of the problem is that while most people who self-identify as Christian in the U.S. aren't hardcore about it, they also don't want to come out and say that prayers aren't effective enough as medical treatment. Oh, if they get sick or their kids get sick, they want a doctor and real medical treatment, but they're still reluctant to come down hard on the fringe sects of Christianity who take it to the extreme.

[(Anonymous)]

+1
This.

[diet_poison]

k I'll say it

I identify as a Christian in the US and people who think prayer should take the place of medicine are silly, and people who deny their kids medical treatment are committing neglect and should be jailed.

I think the latter is a pretty common attitude though I'm not sure about the former. (I believe prayer has spiritual value, I don't think we should just try to pray away everything and not actually DO anything about it, that's really just silly. But I've seen varying approaches to this.)

(Also, I'm not trying to claim to be the voice of American Christianity or anything, and by and large American Christianity is much, much more conservative and anti-science than I am, not gonna deny that at all)

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

As a Christian in Australia I view people who say prayer should replace medicine as denying God's gifts of the intelligence to make scientific/medical breakthroughs.

(I am not the voice of Australian Christianity either, this is just my personal opinion on the real relationship between God and science.)

[diet_poison]

IA.

He gave us brains!

Out of curiosity, how conservative/anti-science are Christians in Australia, in general?

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I don't really know, I have not been to church regularly in a long time. I rather hope the rest of the country isn't too bad, though I think we have a small advantage because we're considered "non-religious" as a nation (we have plenty of religion but we strongly believe in the separation of Church and State).

[(Anonymous)]

German anon with a clarification: Germany has not banned Scientology.

It is not officially recognized as a church here, and there are some groups keeping a very close eye on it (mostly anti-cult representatives in some state governments). The general attitude towards Scientology is more sceptical from both the government as well as from the general uninvolved public, but it has not been banned here and is in fact rather active in a few places.

Of course, Scientology tried to twist that into some sort of "the Germans are going all Nazi again and are trying to persecute uus like they persecuted the Jews during the Third Reich"-kind of publicity spiel. IMO, they are pretty pissed that the German government doesn't just let them do as they want but is in fact watching them.

Here's an interview with Ursula Caberta, one of the prominent German government figures fighting Scientology with Tony Ortega. It contains a clip of what happened when Caberta arrived at a US airport and was greeted by a special Scientology welcome committee. I think that says it all:

http://tonyortega.org/2013/01/31/ursula-caberta-retiring-tomorrow-she-talks-to-us-about-fighting-scientology-in-germany-for-20-years/