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From: Hartley Patterson <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,alt.answers,news.answers
Subject: alt.religion.scientology critical FAQ 1.8.2
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Archive-name: scientology/skeptic/faq
URL: http://www.daisy.freeserve.co.uk/faq.htm
Maintainer: Hartley Patterson <[email protected]>
Posting-Frequency: monthly

An Alt.Religion.Scientology FAQ (1.8.2)

1. What's an FAQ?

FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions. Newcomers to popular
newsgroups, forums and websites often have the same questions they want
answered, a FAQ is intended to be an aid to those who get bored of
repeating the same answers every week.
This FAQ expresses the author's views not those of any other ARS poster,
though on occasion he does state what he believes to be the majority view.
FAQs do not require unanimous approval of every word in them, just
sufficient truth not to get buried under a mountain of abuse.
The author is not nor has ever been a scientologist and is a critic of the
Church of Scientology (CoS).
Internet URLs are signalled by ***. If you cannot use them as links
directly, cut and paste into your browser.

2. What is Scientology?

This is an FAQ for ARS not for Scientology so the answer will be very
brief:

American author L Ron Hubbard (1911-1986), founder of Scientology, first
presented his ideas in the bestselling book "Dianetics - the Modern
Science of Mental Health" (1950). Scientology, an expansion of Dianetics,
followed in 1952, the Church of Scientology appeared in 1953.
CoS headquarters are in Los Angeles and its main training facility is in
Clearwater, Florida. The CoS has branches in 59 countries; about half of
CoS members are believed to be US citizens with another third in Europe.
The CoS claims to have around 10 million members, however its own data and
independent sources suggest an active membership of 50-100,000. In
addition there are scientologists who practise their faith outside the
Church ('Freezoners'). Some have set up their own organisations, though
the CoS remains the largest group. The CoS considers all Freezoners to be
'squirrels', the scientology term for heretics.
There are a number of CoS enterprises that promote Hubbard's teachings
such as Narconon (anti-drugs), Criminon (anti-crime), CCHR (anti-
psychiatry), Applied Scholastics (schools) and WISE (business). When
convenient the CoS claims that it does not control these groups,
internally circulated documents show otherwise.

There is a wealth of information about Scientology on hundreds of Internet
websites, more than you will ever have time to read. Type 'Scientology'
into a Search Engine such as Google and you'll find them. Please try
Searching first for answers, only when you can't find something specific
should you post questions to ARS.
*** Wikipedia, the Internet encyclopaedia, has a wide range of articles
about Scientology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology
As an exercise you might like to open your web browser now and put any
words or phrases you don't understand in this FAQ into a Search Engine.

3. What do scientologists believe?

Scientology is an 'applied religious philosophy'. It is unique; it does
not conform to the stereotypes of 'cult' or 'religion' or even 'scam'
portrayed in the media. This is an important point that newcomers often
take some time to grasp as they try to fit Scientology into preconceptions
of whose existence they are not aware.
Scientology is not derived from Christianity or any other religion, being
an original belief set devised/researched by L Ron Hubbard. Concepts that
are considered important in some religions such as a personal relationship
to God do not exist in Scientology.
The CoS claims Scientology to be compatible with other religions. This is
untrue.

4. I have some questions for scientologists, are there any here?

Ordinary members of the CoS do not usually post here and are discouraged
from doing so. It's also likely that they couldn't answer the questions
you want to ask anyway for doctrinal reasons. Scientologists are not
encouraged to discuss Hubbard's teachings amongst themselves or to explain
them to outsiders but to read them and advise others to do so.

5. Can someone please Email me a copy of the secret scriptures?

You are referring to the unpublished writings of L Ron Hubbard that
constitute advanced courses in Scientology such as the OT (Operating
Thetan) levels. Anyone considering trying out Scientology should be aware
that the CoS holds that these levels should be studied in order and that
premature contact with the secret scriptures could result in serious harm.
According to Hubbard, he almost died whilst researching them. The
copyright to all Hubbard's writings is owned by the CoS.
Copies of the secret scriptures were stolen and summaries of them can be
found on the Internet. Exact copies are said to pop up on websites and in
bittorrents beyond the reach of CoS lawyers from time to time. The
esoteric language used is not comprehensible to beginners. Really,
honestly, you should search the Internet for summaries rather than going
for the original texts.
*** OT III Scholarship Page
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/OTIII

6. What is a newsgroup?

Newsgroups (most of which form Usenet) are part of the Internet. They are
not forums or discussion boards, which use webpage based software.
Specialised newsreader programs include Agent and Gravity; Email programs
such as Microsoft's Outlook Express and Mozilla's Thunderbird have
integrated newsgroup readers.
***
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsgroup
To access newsgroups you need to connect to a newsgroup server. If your
Internet Service Provider (ISP) does not provide one or does not carry ARS
(most do) then free access to scientology newsgroups is available from
nntp.lightlink.com.
Portals such as Google offer newsgroup access on webpages but this has
certain disadvantages and we don't recommend them unless you have no
alternative.
*** How to set up a newsreader
http://www.daisy.freeserve.co.uk/stolgy_19.htm
If you have technical problems accessing ARS then it is definitely On
Topic to ask for help. We have a team of geeks awaiting your call.

7. So who's in charge?

No one. A few newsgroups are Moderated: contributions are diverted to an
Email address where a human or robot moderator removes unwanted posts such
as spam. Most, including ARS, are not - what you post is what everyone
will see. Think before you press Send! That's not to say anarchy rules:
normal laws apply so you can be sued for libel and your ISP may well have
a clause in its Terms of Service (TOS) about causing offence on
newsgroups.

8. Can I delete or change my posts?

You can't edit posts once sent, you can try to delete them but some news
servers ignore the Cancel command - another reason for thinking before
posting. News servers delete old posts after a few weeks anyway, though
there is a searchable Usenet archive currently hosted by Google. If you
posted something really embarrassing, you can delete it from the archive.

9. Can I post anonymously?

Usenet doesn't check to see if you are using a real Email address so you
can post as [email protected] if you like. Please try to pick a unique
nickname and address so you won't be confused with someone else.
There is a normally invisible Header (some newsreaders can display it,
there are two examples below) attached to posts that gives details of
where you posted from, if you want to hide that as well you can use
Anonymous Remailers, a system that bounces your post around the Internet
like in those Hollywood hacker films.
A simpler way is to ask someone you trust to post your message for you.
By default, your ISP customer services department is staffed by idiots who
know nothing about the law or customer care. They will reveal your
identity to anyone sending them an Email full of legal phrases.

10. What are all these strange words?

Scientology has a lot of jargon that inevitably gets used here. We're not
going to apologise for this any more than alt.fan.tolkien posters should
apologise for talking about mathoms and ringwraiths.
There are several glossaries available on websites, and one is auto-posted
to ARS monthly.

11. Wasn't ARS started as a joke by someone using a fake Email address?

The creator had serious intent, but here is his setup post:

* From [email protected] Wed Jul 17 12:46:28 1991
* Path: rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!ai-
* lab!flag !miscaviage
* From: [email protected] (David Miscaviage)
* Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology.ctl
* Subject: newgroup alt.religion.scientology
* Message-ID: 80235@flag
* Date: 17 Jul 91 08:06:31 GMT
* Control: newgroup alt.religion.scientology
* Sender: [email protected]
* Lines: 0
* Approved: [email protected]

ARS was little used for a while, but as the Internet spread ex-
scientologists discovered it and the CoS became increasingly concerned
about what it saw as the 'false and derogatory' information being posted.
When extracts from its 'secret scriptures' were posted beginning around
Christmas 1994 the CoS retaliated with lawsuits and raids against the
suspected posters.
At the same time forged cancels began to hit ARS. The forger, nicknamed
'Cancelpoodle' after the legitimate spam canceller 'Cancelmoose',
attracted the attention of the wider Usenet and Internet community - no
one had seriously tried to wipe out a newsgroup like this before.

12. Didn't a CoS lawyer try to delete ARS?

*** Here you go:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.config/msg/a8bbf4ca497633c6

* Control: rmgroup alt.religion.scientology
* Newsgroups: alt.config,alt.lotto.players,alt.lotto.players.ctl
* Path: uunet!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!
* netcom.com!hkk
* From: hkk@netcom
* Subject: cmsg rmgroup alt.religion.scientology
* Message-ID:
* Followup-To: alt.config
* Sender: [email protected] (Helena Kobrin)
* Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
* Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 22:52:23 GMT
* Lines: 17
* Xref: uunet control:1568915
*
* We request that you remove the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup from
* your site.
* The reasons for requesting its removal are: (1) It was started with a
* forged message; 2) not discussed on alt.config; (3) it has the name
* "scientology" in its title which is a trademark and is misleading, as
* a.r.s. is mainly used for flamers to attack the Scientology religion;
* (4) it has been and continues to be heavily abused with copyright
* and trade secret violations and serves no purpose other than condoning
* these illegal practices.
* Please confirm that you have removed this newsgroup from your system.
* Helena K. Kobrin Counsel for trademark and copyright owner

As mentioned earlier 'Path' above reveals that Helena was posting from
Netcom, as is also shown by her Email address.

*** Wendy M. Grossman's article 'alt.scientology.war' (1995) covers the
early days:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.12/alt.scientology.war.html
*** and on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_versus_the_Internet

13. And the CoS is still hostile to ARS?

ARS is nowadays just a minor front in a still expanding 'war' between the
CoS and its critics which includes pickets, media exposure, law suits and
other activities outside the scope of this FAQ.

In 1998-9 another attack on ARS was made, thousands of spam posts each day
that forged the names of regular posters and were dubbed 'sporgeries'. Its
only lasting effect was to attract the attention of more Internet users,
as regular readers quickly learnt how to filter out the spam.

*** Google has some stats on ARS (most frequent posters, monthly number of
posts) at
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/about

14. This is a hate group trying to destroy the Scientology religion.

Was that a question? The CoS says so, yes. Naturally no one here is going
to admit to being a hatemonger or a religious bigot! You'll just have to
read ARS and make up your own mind on this.
Amongst critics, opinion differs about the 'destroy' bit. Some say they
are here to stop the alleged abuses committed by the CoS and are not
concerned with scientology as a set of beliefs. Others do not believe the
two can be separated - any scientology based organisation is bound to end
up as bad as the CoS.
Critics presently have no formal organisation; such bodies have in the
past provided the CoS with targets to infiltrate, undermine and destroy as
was the fate of the Cult Awareness Network and the Lisa McPherson Trust.
The sometimes referred to 'ARS Central Committee' does not exist, being a
humorous reference to CoS paranoia about imagined plots against it.

15. I want to spread the bad news. Is there some simple information I can
pass on to others?

*** What Scientology Won't Tell You: An Information Pack
http://www.xenu.net/archive/infopack/

16. Will posting on ARS cause the CoS to make trouble for me?

If you are a CoS member, post without permission and disagree with CoS
policy or doctrine you will probably be Declared. If you are not a CoS
member or ex-member then simply expressing your opinion is safe enough,
the CoS has too many critics nowadays to pursue them all.
The CoS has a documented history of attacking its perceived enemies,
sometimes in long term and carefully planned 'dirty tricks' operations.
Before doing anything other than posting you should find out about these.

17.  So what is On Topic for this newsgroup?

Anything connected with Scientology or the Church of Scientology; since
this is supposed to be a newsgroup, news and new information are
particularly on topic.
Posts that are just long reprints from webpages or books about scientology
are on topic but not encouraged, it's better to put in a hyperlink or a
reference.
Some people have been posting here for a long while, have become friends
and can wander off topic and start discussing cats, cookery or life on
Mars. This is normal human behaviour.
You may see posts about psychiatry. Scientology beliefs include a strong
dislike of psychiatry; opinion differs on whether this makes psychiatry a
suitable topic for ARS. The posts seem to be intended as spam, as the
posters are not interested in actually discussing psychiatry.

18. Are there do's and don'ts for posting?

*** A page of Netiquette
http://www.newsreaders.com/guide/netiquette.html
Crossposting (posting to several newsgroups at once) is not encouraged; we
have enough traffic without sharing off topic threads with other
newsgroups. Please trim or do not reply to crossposts unless they serve a
genuine purpose.
The more readable your post, the more people will read it. This means
doing simple things like not reposting the full text of a long article
just to put a short comment at the end of it (or worse, in the middle),
quoting at least a few lines so it is clear to what you are replying,
separating your text into paragraphs, etc.
Researchers appreciate easily located Subject lines. Ideal examples for
Picket and Media reports:
       Picket report: London, UK 4 December 2007
       [UK Media] The Guardian 4 February 2008 Hackers declare war
Please make allowances for posters who are not native English typists.
Offering fallacious or fraudulent arguments attracts abuse and flaming on
ARS.
*** Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit:
http://www.xenu.net/archive/baloney_detection.html

19. There's a lot of rubbish on ARS, how can I get rid of it?

Newsreaders have a facility for blocking posts from people or about
subjects; this is called killfiling. Google Groups does not. Most ARS
readers have a carefully maintained killfile, this is an unfortunate by-
product of the popularity of the Internet, along with spam filters, virus
checkers and firewalls.
ARS has its share of trolls, the Usenet equivalent of children who throw
stones at windows and then run away. They are best ignored unless in
answering them you have something of interest to say. Some trolls
crosspost as well.
*** A special killfile minibrowser for Google Groups:
http://holysmoke.org/ggf/index.htm
*** A Google Groups killfile addon for the Firefox browser:
http://www.penney.org/ggkiller.html
OSA (Office of Special Affairs in the CoS) remains interested in ARS,
maintaining one or more 'OSAbots' here whose posts are intended to confuse
and deter casual readers. Some pretend to be critics and accuse real
critics of being fake. When a 'flap' is on (some event upsetting to the
CoS) these posts increase for a few days in the hope that they will swamp
normal traffic.
*** A list of suspected OSAbots:
http://home.primus.ca/~ronsharp/circlejerk.html
As above, they thrive on attention. Please only reply to them if you have
something new to say ("Scientology sucks!" is not an original concept to
this newsgroup), often they are not actually reading ARS anyway, only
posting to it.

20. Whatever happened to Bob Minton?

*** His Wikipedia entry, neutrality disputed of course and incomplete:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Minton
Since he withdrew from involvement with Scientology in 2002 Mr Minton has
not written or spoken publicly. Those still in touch with him report that
he and Stacy are fine. Critics remain deeply divided about what happened,
and some suspect that OSAbots deliberately ask this and other questions in
order to reopen old wounds.

21. What is Anonymous?
*** Anonymous is an Internet community that originated on the 4chan
message board:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan
Its interest in Scientology surfaced in a YouTube video in January 2008,
setting off a flood of Internet activism against the CoS that entered the
Real World with worldwide protests on 10 February.

22. Is this the only scientology newsgroup?

alt.clearing.technology (ACT) discusses the beliefs and their application.
It is little used at present.
de.soc.weltanschauung.scientology discusses scientology in German.
free.it.religioni.scientology is in Italian.
alt.binaries.scientology (ABS) is for pictures and such, the others being
plain text only newsgroups. A post to ARS saying 'new picture of Saint
Hill Manor on ABS' is OK. It has poor distribution but you can access it
free through
http://www.usenet-replayer.com/groups/alt.binaries.scientology.html
There are also a number of web based discussion boards about Scientology,
you may find these more to your liking than ARS as they are moderated to
remove rubbish.
http://beliefnet.com
http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/ Operation Clambake
http://narcononvictims.com/
http://forum.exscn.net mostly ex-members
http://www.enturbulation.org/ Anonymous activism
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/XSO/ ex-Sea Org members only.


23. Is this the only Usenet Scientology FAQ?

No, there have been a number of them in the past;
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/scientology/ archives thirteen of them! Most date
from the mid-1990s and the information in them is nowadays to be found on
web pages or is out of date.

***************
Special thanks to Deana Holmes for preserving ARS history, Homer Smith for
lightlink and the secret masters of Usenet for keeping ARS alive and
kicking the cult since 1991.
Reprinting this FAQ is permitted, encouraged even, provided nothing is
omitted including the header which points to the latest version.