Can you solve the maze?

Australian Scientology in Hot Water

I suppose a pragmatic argument can be made that many types of religion serve a positive and practical purpose in society (though, see). Scientology is not among those qualifying for such a defense. After wielding the power of intimidation against the press for some many years, the past couple of years have seen more willingness by many to speak out against the abuses by the church. The latest are comments and an article in Australia.

In France they have been convicted of fraud and brought within a sight of being stripped of their church status. Literally from Scientology's doorstep The St. Petersburg Times has done an expose series on various aspects of the "church" (an excellent read).

ABC Nightline has done a two part series into David M and the church. (See Tom Cruise receiving an award. Is it just me or does he look genuinely insane? If not that, completely deluded.)

In part one of the Nightline series there was a very interesting comment by one of the former members that the church has the power over eternity. Where have we heard this before being used to control members? In fact all the brands of Christianity and Islam hold eternity over the heads of members, either implicitly or explicitly. Growing up in the Adventist Church I lived with the constant threat of being stricken from the Book of Life. The terror of seeing that day when Jesus comes in the clouds to receive his own, and watching all my family rise into the sky to meet Him while I watched from the ground laced my every decision. With Catholicism and many types of Protestantism the fear of eternity suffering in the flames of hell is the hammer to drive people into the particular direction that churches and leaders want their "flock" to go. Guilt over the suffering of Christ is also used, especially in recruiting help for some goal. Mel Gibson's movie drove a spike in returning people to religion and motivating them to prosthelytize the lost.

Talk of Scientology always brings up the question for me, "What is a religion?". We protect the religious freedoms of people in this country; as a necessary side effect to reach this goal, we provide a protecting bubble around religions. They receive tax exception and first amendment protection for what they say as part of their religion. Scientology receives this same protections in this and other countries. Why? Because they declared themselves a religion? Because they have unprovable history and metaphysics? Because they evangelize and claim to provide help and healing for people? Because they call themselves a "church"?

In fact, in my mind they are no church and they are dangerous. Yet as I denounce their right to be labeled and protected as a "religion" I am well aware that other religious groups and sects also could come under the same scrutiny; who would survive an inquest into the efficacies of their teaching, history, practices and prophecies?

At about -5:50 into the second ABC Nightline video the Scientology spokesman avoids the interview questions on Scientology's theology and teaching by hiding in a cloak of church secrecy and spiritual sensitivity. When asked questions about Xenu, volcanos and teachings by L. Ron Hubbard their official spokesperson refuses to answer the questions as "offensive" (always a good hiding place. Love this guy.) and inappropriate. He denounced what we commonly find on the Internet as vulgar misrepresentations. He refuted them but was unwilling to offer clarification to what we find described on the Internet. What religion does this? Why would anyone want to join a religion that refuses to honestly disclose its own teaching? In the end he rips off his microphone and walks out of the interview as he promised. (My response? What an ass.)

Scientology is dangerous. It is not a church. It needs to be exposed now before it modifies its tactics and becomes more mainstream and acceptable (see Mormonism and Seventh-day Adventist). It needs to be stripped of protections before time itself protects it. Some guy goes out into the desert and invents a religion by declaring that an angel visited him and dictated a holy book. It's crazy, but through force of intimidation and military prowess it eventually (with time) establishes itself as one of the "Great Religions". A thousand years later a guy sticks his head into a hat and an angel helps translate a lost holy book and now and entire state of our nation is identified with this religion. If Scientology is allowed to continue, 100 years from now will we be calling it one of our "Great Religions"?

Update Dec-08-2009: Good summary of Scientology's recent troubles and history.

Dead man...walking?

I found this story of the Brazilian man who attended his own funeral intriguing. He "died" in a car crash and the next day the family held a funeral for him. Problem was, he didn't get the memo that he was supposed to be dead and strolled into his funeral.

I'm sure that's not the first time that this situation happened. What I found intriguing was this quote:

The sight of Ademir Jorge Goncalves alive shocked relatives, some of whom tried to jump out of the windows of the funeral home in southern Brazil.

I don't doubt that seeing him alive was shocking. It's the ones who tried to jump out of the window that is strange. The dissonance between what they believed to be true - based on vague or second hand evidence - and what they could actually see was true was too much for them to handle. Since many in these Latin, Catholic-infused, countries believe in spirits and ghosts the combination of "facts" drove them to a faulty and weird conclusion: The dead man's ghost had just strolled into the room.

Was it the emotion of the situation that caused the panic and confusion? Was it the religious soaked culture that virtually "saw" ghosts and spirits in every shadow? Was it simply a normal reaction? I imagine that I also would have been very confused at my Grandfather's funeral had he strolled into the room during the service. Yet why would we not immediately believe our own eyes and search for a reasonable explanation?

Carl Sagan addressed this in Demon Haunted World. Our minds are so easily fooled that even solid facts are at first rejected in favor of our long-held beliefs. In this case, the man who attended his own funeral had not been in the car that crashed - someone else was in the car. Lacking the advanced testing capabilities of dental records or DNA I don't suggest that they were wrong to conclude that he was the driver - especially since he was nowhere to be found. Yet, deciding to jump out of a window when he walked into the room is a ridiculous response; I doubt this response would have happened if the culture did not believe in ghosts and spirits of the dead.

Netflix returns my game - woot!

I had been watching a movie from Netflix. I hadn't realized that my son had taken it out of the PS3 and popped in one of his games. The next morning I ejected the "movie" and slipped it into the Netflix sleeve and sent it back. Later I noticed the movie that I had though I returned and the realization that I'd just returned a game sunk in. Oh no.

On their site Netflix says that they'll simply automatically return personal CD/DVDs if they are mistakenly sent in. Sure enough, a couple of days later I got an email about it and the next day a envelop with my game in it.

Kudos to Netflix. Now to return their movie.

Kudos, this time, to AT&T

I inadvertently left the international calling plan on my account from my last trip to Germany - last year. I had previously seen the item on my bill, but since it had "iphone" in it I assumed that it was just the iPhone charge. With my recent upgrade to the new iPhone the data plan is now is a different amount. Hmm, so what was this $25?

Yup, this was the international calling plan for the iPhone, Brook confirmed. After researching when it was added and that it was not being used she went ahead and credited 10 months of charges for me. Nice - they didn't have to do that. Normally, she informed, they only go back 3 months. She was polite, she was quick, and she gave me money. Sound perfect to me!

Kudos (this time) go to AT&T.

Velvet Assassin - meh

I just finished playing through Velvet Assassin. Some games I go through again after completing it, either in a harder setting or to just make sure I've achieved all the "dings". Not this one - once through is quite enough. In fact, I'd recommend skipping it all together. It seriously was not worth the full retail price, and I doubt I'd recommend picking it up for 29.99. The game play is shallow and redundant. There are simply too few variations. It's all sneak and kill interspersed with an ample dose of try, die, retry cycles. The stealth mode is inconsistent with the soldiers often walking right by you without detecting you, while other times they see you from far off. There's very little that Velvet can do if she is detected in most situations except run, try to blast away, or simply lay down and die.

If there was a redeeming aspect to the game it is the reminder that war sucks and the insanity that was Hitler's Nazi's was a blemish on history that, like the blood that was spilled, will not soon wash out. Visually the game is dark and sinister at times - oh, and Velvet running around in next to nada is ok, for about the first millisecond.

Probably better than this game is to rent Schindler's List and Defiance to be reminded of the history a bit.

Your game doesn't own my PC

I just bought Velvet Assassin. It didn't get particularly high marks by the pundits, but it's supposed to be similar to another game I enjoyed, Splinter Cell. What drives me crazy is that no where does it say that this is a "steam" game. OMG I absolutely hate games that use Steam. It installs a client that wants to run all the time, and they expect you to activate and try games through their online connection. The installer forced me to create a Steam account before I could continue. I tried to cancel, but it simply cancels the who installation. Really funny thing is that "abcd1234", "abcde12345" were already taken. Guess there are others who aren't too keen about this stupid roadblock to game-play.

I've always hated these types of "services" because they are so transparent in their attempt to suck you into their online world and sell you more crap. We'll see how this one works out and how easily I can disable it. What I hate is that even though I exit Steam, launching the game relaunches it.

Update: So far I'm underwhelmed by this game. Very limited attack moves, very repetitive "levels" and my left pinky is sore from having to sneak by holding down the Ctrl button. There's not even a toggle for "crouch" like some games - you have to hold the Ctrl button down to sneak while using your other fingers to control movement. There is a configuration to enable toggle. The engine is not as good as what the "Clancy" games use, especially not like Splinter Cell. There are no frontal attacks that I can find. If she gets seen she's usually dead.

So far I give this a 4/10. The scenery is good, though mostly dark. It's basically a grayscale game, but some of it looks cool.