CoS and the Limits of Religious Freedom

I was reminded, watching the full Tommy Davis KESQ interview, of a certain peculiarity of the Church of Scientology. It will be the first to stand up for religious freedom inasmuch as it so often paints itself the victim of oppression at the hands of its critics, but rarely is it forced to confront its own limits on that religious freedom.

Jonathan Barbera began a thread recently on ARS claiming he was being denied, notionally at least, his religion by the critics. I, perhaps glibly, responded that, as a critic, I did not seek to deny him his religion, but that the Church of Scientology did. Glib that response may have been, but truthful and honest too. At the heart of practiced Scientology lies the document Keeping Scientology Working. Hubbard, throughout his life, revised and updated policies, but naturally enough once the man had died, such revisions stopped and his words were etched in titanium. Whereas it was fine for Hubbard to revise his work, if anyone else did it, this would be considered treason. That's why whenever David Miscavige revises the scriptures he needs to frame it within the idea that he is correcting what had already been "squirreled" by those people working with Hubbard on the original texts who somehow managed to get their suppressive personalities past the sec checks. The reason given for such stern protection of the Church's copyrighted materials is supposedly to ensure that the texts are not altered in any way - as long as the church owns and controls the writings, then the religion too can be controlled; its policies suspended in amber from the mid-eighties on.

But here's the thing. In the world at large we have figures like Barbera and Schwarz who, while still true believers in their religion, were ousted by the Church they loved. In the eyes of the Church of Scientology they are not, and have never been, Scientologists. Yet Barbera states, as well he might, that he is "more of a Scientologist now than [he] was when [he] was in the church". So what happens now? People can practice their religion outside of the church, despite the church's insistence on its own monopoly. The faithful Scientologists of the Free Zone, many of whom believe not only that they count as proper Scientologists, but that the religion's texts should be freely available, clearly have as much right to their religion as do the "pay and obey" brigade.

This is why it's so vital, when COS is allying itself alongside conventional religions and claiming victimhood to such horrific crimes as having its logical inconsistencies and pseudoscience pointed out in public, when it is waving the religious freedom flag, one must look it straight in the eye and ask "does the same go for the Free Zone?"

The comedian Stewart Lee once said, in response to criticism of the religious content of Jerry Springer: the Opera, that Christians had to understand that they didn't own their stories. I think that in order for CoS to be taken seriously, it has to learn that lesson too. It cannot go on claiming religious persecution yet at the same time chooses to persecute, notionally or otherwise, Scientologists who have, following their own reasoning and believing what they have observed themselves, made the decision that their bridge to total freedom lies away from the Orgs.

I Believe in Public Transport

The so-called "atheist bus campaign" rolled out recently and the predictable flood of complaints has begun. The ASA, who handle complaints about advertising in the UK, have received 150 or more messages from disgruntled members of the public. According to the Guardian 39 of them weren't even about the ads themselves, but about reportage covering the campaign.

The more valid complaints have been about offensiveness, and more of that in a moment, but the ever-hilarious Stephen Green of Christian Voice notoriety has decided to plump for a "truth and misleadingness" basis for his grumble. This is an interesting tact to take. Sadly, many of the commentators who have suggested that the arising adjudication will hinge on Green, or anyone for that matter, proving the existence of God, are mistaken. The advertiser has to prove its claims, and not the plaintiff. However, the claim in question is that there "probably is no god". Demonstrating the improbability of the existence of a deity will be much more straightforward than proving the inexistence of one, something Green seems not to have realised, blinded, no doubt, by his own faith.

What I find more interesting is the idea that the ads are offensive. The claim is not specific to any religion, something which is perhaps muddied a little by being in uppercase - the sentiment is clearly that there is likely no lowercase-g god. It may be that to a member of a particular religion that this makes no difference - no god logically means no Jehovah, no Allah, no Krsna, no Thor, no Mithra and so on. Where it does become significant is as part of the wider picture. Here's an ad for a church. Its suggestion is that Jesus is real, and alive today. It's advocating a God that is false in the eyes of other religions; and yet these ads do not receive complaints from members of other religions. You won't find many column inches decrying this blasphemous bit of advertising.

The tired old cliché came out for an airing, based again on the above misunderstanding. Would the campaign have been given the go ahead if the slogan had been "there probably is no Allah"? That is already what the campaign says; the Humanists do not want to single out any particular god - it'd be a wasted opportunity, and would misrepresent their beliefs. The rebuttal to the cliché would be "if this was a campaign for Allah, would you still find it distasteful and offensive?"

For whatever illogical reason, there is something more inciteful about an atheist campaign, and whatever that might be, the complaints arising from the ads, if upheld, will open the floodgates for atheists and others to complain about equally offensive and unsubstantiated pro-religious ads. I suspect that the ASA will be aware of this too, and rather than creating a de facto ban on any form of religous advertising outright, will choose instead to tell the complainants that they really need to be a bit more tolerant about other people's beliefs, and that, really and truly, it's not always about them.

EDIT - 21/01/09 The ASA decided not to pursue the complaints.

Atheists Go Home!

One of the accusations that is regularly trotted out when addressing critics of the Church of Scientology is that of "religious intolerance". This is to suggest that by voicing one's concerns about the Church's scant avoidance of corporate responsibility in, say, the safe removal of blue asbestos from it's fleet, or its willingness to allow its staff to practice medicine without a license, a person is no better than an ignorant bigot and would probably go around leaving burning CroSses on Beck's front lawn. Apologists and Scientologists alike are quick to draw comparisons between critics of the Church and Nazis, which is rather insulting to Jews, and also confuses religious and racist persecution. It was the Jewish race (along with gypsies, the mentally ill, homosexuals) that Nazi Germany had a problem with - no appostates were saved. Unless I have misunderstood, and the Nazi card is played in reference to their persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses, then the murder of six million Jews ought not be compared to people speaking out against another person's belief system or, as is more usual, their behaviour.
Religious Tolerance, though, is a peculiar beast. It has to be universal for it to work at all. We can't pick whose religion we are tolerant of. You could, for instance, say that you were tolerant of all Abrahamic religions, but you're still making a distinction. I think it's true to say that most people who pay lip-service to religious tolerance have to qualify it to a greater or lesser extent; they have to draw a line in the sand. That line may concern itself with behaviour, fundementals of belief, or even be personal to individuals within a particular belief system, but it is drawn nonetheless.
Except that in today's political climate, you can't say any of that out loud. We're all supposed to have universal religious tolerance. People of differing religions are expected to have tolerance of other religions. This latter issue is particularly amusing because in most cases, it's fundementally disallowed. Nazarene dissident Jesus Christ said "No one comes to the father, but through me," and pretty much all religions have some kind of exclusivity claim built in somewhere; so what is the true nature of that religious tolerance? It is either an admission that one's own religion is just as flawed, unlikely and dubious as everyone else's or it is disingenuous "I tolerate your beliefs, however wrong they may be."
Now, how far this is right or wrong doesn't immediately concern me. I'm an atheist, so anyone of any religious conviction is barking up the wrong tree as far as I'm concerned. What does interest me, however, is the effect that this tolerance is having on the religious landscape as a whole.
The importance of tolerance comes down to the current climate of fear we're enjoying following the terrorist attacked that have been made by Islamic fundementalists. Political figures, realising the possibility of widespread civil unrest and intolerance in our multi-cultural and multi-faith world, made it hand-wringingly clear that we all had to get along, Catholics and Protestants, Muslims and Christians, Scientologists and Moonies. So we end up with senior policemen making glowing speeches about Scientologists at the opening of a London Celebrity Centre, and we decide to lift the ban on the Reverend Moon entering the United Kingdom.
Put plainly, fringe religions are, more and more, enjoying the same kind of respect and lack of scrutiny enjoyed by more mainstream religions, and at the expense of mainstream religion. Christianity in the UK has been multi-denominational for years now, but I'm noticing a greater number of small churches springing up, often with more letters in their overbearing titles than they have congregation. Along with that, Christians themselves seem to be getting kookier, or at least the visible ones are. Fundementalism is creeping into the fragmented church under a blanket of political correctness. Fringe cults are beginning to enjoy tax funding for the running of faith schools. It is becoming increasingly possible to pick a religion that matches one's own prejudices, faiths that use the bible to excuse a belief in racism, slavery and sexual inequality.
Here's a reality check. The guys who stand on street corners and tell passers by that they're going to hell are not good adverts for their religion. The smiley, happy clappy Christians performing entertaining bits of shtick in front of a Sesco are not good adverts for their religion. Both parties are projecting an image of what their particular religion does to its converts. This, you're probably thinking, is stating the obvious. But the trouble is, passersby aren't going to know where these people have come from as they quicken their step to take themselves out of earshot. They'll hear the word "God", or they'll recognise the tome of onionskin in the preacher's hand, and just lump the evangelical in with all the other Christians. And in an environment where we are continually told all religions are created equal, where does this ripe and fertile ground for fringe religions leave mainstream religions. Which faiths are rubbing off on which? Religious tolerance does not, in practicality, provide a bedrock for Christianity or Islam; by embracing the fringe and the fundementalist, religious tolerance serves only to undermine it. It is said of Incident II that it is no stranger than many of the events spoken of in the bible. This is quite true, but illuminates Christianity more than it does Scientology.