Jock's Place - First they came for the Scientologists... - Comments

Yeah - I was thinking about

Jock — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:58:45 +0000

Yeah - I was thinking about that - my last paragraph. Peronsally I don't see a need for "freedom of religion" separate from "freedom of association" and that having such does produce added protection for something that can claim to be a religion.

It is a pertinent question here too, since we seem to define it as something in which a given proportion of the population "believes" and hence the attempts to get as many people as possible to put "Jedi" in the religion box on their census forms.

But the main point is that there must be better ways to prevent or punish any abuses that arise, even of "article one of the basic law", than to ban somethng as an organisation.

How do you tell the difference?

Joe Otten — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:34:00 +0000

How can you tell whether something like Scientology is a religion or not?

Perhaps it just claims to be a religion because religions tend to get special privileges or at least kid gloves treatment, compared to other outfits, commercial or whatever.

I would have thought the first legal objection to Scientology should be under trading standards.

I am sure there are plenty

Jock — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 02:15:19 +0000

I am sure there are plenty of people (Evan for one!) who would argue that *any* religion offends human dignity though. I'm not sure that visitors from another planet are any more malign than, say, some beardy bloke who periodically floods the planet and has his son killed! And anything that encourages anyone to believe that they have their "lot in life" ordained by some superior being and that they should therefore accept this "vale of tears" and make the best of it they can without moaning about it is surely offending human dignity.

I do see a special sensitivity to this kind of thing given their 20th century history I guess, but I suspect they need to "get over it" sometime soon, and banning something like this is not going to help that process!

When I was in Germany on my

Jonny Wright — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 02:08:06 +0000

When I was in Germany on my year abroad, last year, I went on the website of the Berlin branch of the JuLis (the Young Liberals), and found that their next upcoming event was a protest outside the Scientology building. I went along, hoping to find out a bit more about the JuLis (in particular, the details for their regular drink/policy evenings in a pub round the corner from the Reichstag) but whilst I was there, I raised this same question with them. They apparently think that Scientology breaches Article 1 of the Basic Law: the inviolability of human dignity. I'm not by any means an expert in Germany constitutional affairs, but I do worry that a constitutional ban on anything that offends human dignity could easily be misused to ban things merely because they cause offence. But ask someone who knows what they're talking about on the subject! The Basic Law has to be seen as a product of its time, though. If Germany's history had been different, there would have been less need to put human dignity as the most fundamental principle of their constitution. Or to criminalise Holocaust denial, for that matter.

First they came for the Scientologists...

Jock — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 23:43:33 +0000

...but, because I think they are probably completely loopy, I'm not a Scientologist. But I'm damned sure that in a pluralist society where we accept as a Human Right the freedom to follow religions we don't agree with, that we ought not to let this happen without a fight:

Germany moves to ban Scientology:

Germany's federal and state interior ministers have declared the Church of Scientology unconstitutional, clearing the way for a possible ban.