Scientology is a cult

21May/083

A fifteen year-old in London is being threatened with prosecution after City of London police caught him with a placard reading "Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult." at a demonstration outside the cult's London headquarters. The boy was told he wasn't allowed to use 'that word' and after refusing to get rid of his placard, was served a court order.

The City of London police have been nvolved in controversies concerning the Scientology cult before. Their chief helped open the cult's HQ in 2006 and was full of praise for their spiritual enrichment of society. Without much more evidence to hand, I'd say that this whole things stinks and that another police force (like the Met) should take over the policing of the cult's headquarters... it sounds like the City of London police has far too close ties to be able to act in the spirit of Britain's law. Freedom of expression is being rep

Incidentally, the fifteen year-old's placard was poorly written, in my opinion. "Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult" is slightly misleading because 'cult' and 'religion' are not mutually exclusive terms. A far simpler "Scientology is a cult" would probably have done the trick and would still have been perfectly accurate.

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Tagged as: Britain, London, London headquarters, London police Leave a comment

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chris
May 22nd, 2008 - 19:11
I used to walk passed that place on the way to work and every time it amazed me. That's some serious real-estate right in the middle of London!
Incidentally I've been thinking about a new video blog 'The Church of Scienceology' get it? It would involve me, who as you know is quite an expert on cosmology and theoretical physics, talking about science and doing experiments with my disciples Matt and Joe. Each week there'd be a theme like 'probability waves' or 'Symmetry and time'. The set will feature a mock up stain glass window with Carl Sagan's likeness.
I was thinking I'd wear a lab coat and maybe a priest's dog collar thing. And Matt and Joe would wear some sort of demeaning grey tracksuits with customised church of scienceology logos.
But then again you probably don't want to get on on the wrong side of those people even with a perfectly legitimate blog aimed at educating and entertaining people at the same time.
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leftbanker
May 27th, 2008 - 10:03
I suppose we take our freedom of expression rights for granted in the USA. Every religion is a cult in my book although scientology is exceptionally creepy and stupid. Can I get busted for writing that?
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Tom
June 7th, 2008 - 01:35
Chris – Matt and Joe told me that they're well into Scienceology.
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