Subject: A new type of Vice
From: Xapped <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 18:32:58 -0400
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology

Besides gambling, alcohol, drugs and sex for money, now we have a new type
of mind control.  It's called "religion."

Religion, when it is free, is not a problem.  Neither are gambling, alcohol,
drugs or sex.  When it is offered in exchange for money, however, it turns
into an instrument which can be used to control judgment and the thought
process.

But wait, there's more.

A new religion called Scientology, whose activities were found to be
religious and was thus granted tax-exemption by the I.R.S. in 1993,
controls judgment and thought on a wholesale basis, including law
and government.  $750,000 spent on lobbying efforts over a two
year period paid off with the introduction of a Scientology bill in
the U.S. Congress, the purpose of which was to condemn Germany,
Scientology's 1984-style arch enemy.

Even though top Scientologists were convicted less than twenty years
ago of breaking into I.R.S. offices to steal confidential documents,
Scientology leader David Miscavige reassured the public in 1994 that
his organizaion had turned over a new leaf.  The law-breaking days of
Scientology, he stated under oath, were over.

1995, one year later, Scientology documents were confiscated in Greece
showing not that Scientology had discontinued its undercover activity, but
just had been working more diligently to camouflage its politically
motivated, anti-social activities. 

The use of vice to influence the powers-that-be is nothing new.  However,
the U.S. government has a problem addressing the use of "religion" as a
vice due to Constitutional restrictions, and because religion is supposed
to be unimpeachably respectable.  Everybody does it.  Most people also
gamble in some manner, use drugs or alcohol, and have sex.

Joe C. 
           Documentation on Scientology in German-speaking countries:
        -  http://cisar.org