Here are the latest updates for blogworldreligion@gmail.com
- NY case spotlights Dead Sea Scrolls, fake e-mails
- I know the dark side of Scientology…I almost lost my friend when she became obsessed with it
- Church of Scientology told to drop Churchill images
- More Recent Articles
- Search Religion News Blog
Students and university officials started getting e-mails last year in which a prominent Judaic studies scholar seemed to make a startling confession: He had committed plagiarism.
The messages, it turned out, were a hoax. Prosecutors filed criminal charges, saying a lawyer sent the messages to tarnish the professor, his father's rival.
The court case has drawn attention to issues both ancient (the origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls) and decidedly modern (phony online identities).
I knew Scientology was in trouble when the media moved on from the usual silly gossip about its celebrity members to much darker, disturbing issues at the heart of the movement – issues, as I have come personally to understand, that actually matter, Jonny Jacobsen writes in Herald Scotland.
After a Paris court last month convicted several Scientologists and two organisations associated with the movement in France of organised fraud, and amid other investigations in France looking at a suicide and an alleged abduction, Oscar-winning film-maker Paul Haggis, a long-time member, quit Scientology.
Haggis, who wrote and directed Crash, denounced the practice of "disconnection", which sees members forced to cut off contact with anyone – even their loved ones – if they are deemed an enemy of Scientology.
In Edinburgh in the early 1990s, I found out just what the practice of disconnection could do to ordinary people when a close friend became involved in Scientology. It was an experience which marked me so profoundly that I have been tracking the movement ever since...
The family of Winston Churchill has asked the Church of Scientology to stop using images of the former prime minister in its recruitment literature, The Times reports.
The controversial religious organisation has been circulating promotional material to recruit staff in the UK which includes photographs of Churchill along with quotes from some of his most famous speeches.
It has also used Churchill's image to promote speaking engagements by its members and campaigns to raise money to create new Scientology facilities in Britain.
The church defended its use of Churchill in its materials and accused detractors of "trying to stir up mischief".
The cult apparently sees aligning itself with respected causes (e.g. human rights), celebrities or respected personalties (e.g Einstein as an effective recruitment tactic.
Another favorite ploy is the use of the impressive sounding -- but basically useless -- Oxford Capacity Analysis test.
More Recent Articles
0 comments