Religions, Scientology, and Ritual Cannibalism

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 4:53 PM 5/20/96, jamesd@echeque.com wrote:
>At 01:08 AM 5/20/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote:
>> But any country that is "anti-Scientology" is likely to be
>> repressive in various ways we would find inimical to our goals.
>> [...]
>>
>> (The issue of how believable the claims of CoS are is no more relevant than
>> similarly outlandish claims that taking communion is eating the flesh of
>> JC.)
>
>The Australian law is (or was) based on the idea that if you charged someone
>$2500 for eating the flesh of christ, it then becomes legitimate for the
>government to check out whether or not the customer was getting actual
>flesh of Christ.  This seems to me a lot less repressive than the American
>FDA.

Caveat: I'm an atheist, a non-believer in the supernatural. When I die, my
CPU and consciousness will vanish. If there are various gods and goddesses,
sprites, trolls, Supreme Being(s), I see no evidence of them.

Having said this, I don't want _any_ government intervening in religion,
for any purposes. If the Church of Zed says that one's tithing to the
Church will buy one eternal salvation and healthy gums, I don't want some
government demanding to see "proof."

(Inasmuch as at most one religion is right, this makes the remaining N - 1
religions automatically fraudulent in some sense. This is why the
"Schelling point" in mostly-free societies is "we won't interfere with
religions and their various bizarre claims...caveat emptor.")

As far as I'm concerned, if a church can convince some yokels to pay $2500
for getting to eat a couple of pounds of Jesus every year (cooked, or Jesus
tartare?), I'd say they've got a pretty good racket going.

More supernatural power to them, I say!

(And if the Clams can convince some out-of-work actors in Hollywood to pay
$250,000 to be e-metered, have their engrams analyzed, and eventually "go
clear," it seems like L. Ron made good on his bar bet with Heinlein that he
could invent a new religion and make millions of buck. As another SF put
it, "think of it as evolution in action.)

--Tim May

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