AOL, CoS, & FZ

annelomb@panix.com (Anne) wrote:

>George Pratt (gbp4@indy.net) wrote:
[Let's bug Ron in his own backyard] >It won't pay you to bother doing this, as AOL seems to be in the
>$cieno's back pocket, and will remove any dissenting message you
>may post to any of the myriad of $camatology folders.
Hearing of the HIV "cure" and the deletion of posts on AOL, I went and checked it out. I posted a couple of items, finally, but they haven't been removed. Having read Cerberus' archive, I now see that I'm just carpet lint compared to her/his huge, steaming pile in the middle of the lobby.

BTW, the HIV "cure" post seems to have fallen in the bit bucket by now. On the other hand, there are still posts of posters gushing over having met Mr. Miscavige at social functions, and just how far he was from hiding. Hiding from whom? Who asked? <<deleted>>?

The folks I feel for in the "Other Religions" section are the Free Zoners. Sermoner and one of his co-sysops were really laying in on them earlier this year for "CoS-bashing", doubting theirs was even a religion, and threatening to delete their folder. They still have to contend with posts from RonArtist where he pretends to be just your run of the mill Scientologist, rather than a full-on FSM. Naturally, when someone mentioned a FZ confence, he wanted to know all about it. In addition, while their folder was "Scientologie" last week, this week it's "Scientologie Free Zone". What gives?

On the FZers' part, there was a discussion on whether the CoS was artificially boosting posts to the various Scieno folders so that Scientology could graduate from "Other Religions" to it's own topic folder alongside Xians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, and Buddists. There was also the hope that if this happened, the CoS posters would then leave them alone. Fat chance.

I took the trouble to look up some of the Free Zoner text files in the associated library area, and one of them (hoped) that with the Internet, FZers finally had a medium over which to seek out each other, organize, and grow. For their sake, I hope so. With the CoS continuing on the warpath, and the overflow of the heat from our discussions here, I just hope they got an email listserv going early on.

Truly, if anyone in this discussion has a "real religion", so do the Free Zoners. Anthropologically speaking, there's nothing "wrong" with a faith in engrams, thetans, and the prophethood of LRH any more than with the doctrines of any other faith I can think of. Obviously scienos and FZers have to labor with the problems of a recent prophet whose life and writings can be fleshed out with original documents. Nevertheless, if one has faith and the rituals work for adherents, then in the USA, the various levels of Government have little business mucking with it. But, just as the Pharisees had the Romans, the CoS has the State and Federal court systems. Martin Luther himself would have spent his last years in gaol were it not for his secular protectors. Just as organization witin the Church in Rome in the past cheapened it's faith with it's power games and money hunger, so too does the org within the Church in L.A. it's own.

Hmm, grist for Sermoner's mill, perhaps? Enough babbling from me for the night.

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