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Religion News Report - March 19, 2001 (Vol. 5, Issue 337)
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=== Aum Shinrikyo
1. Aum Doomsday Cult Shadows Japan
2. Key Members of the Aum Cult

=== Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
3. Uganda Cult Mass Murder Anniversary
4. Up in smoke or into thin air? Uganda's killer cult leaders a year on

=== Ho-no-hana Sanpogyo
5. Taxman sinks boot into foot cult
6. Bureaus put foot down over Honohana taxes
7. Foot cult leader failed to declare 750 million yen in income

=== Falun Gong
8. Girl Set Ablaze in Tiananmen Dies
9. Exhibition Targeting Falun Gong Begins in Hong Kong
10. Falun Gong puts spotlight on HK civil servants
11. Analysis: US, China still clash on Falun Gong

=== Scientology
12. Threat of Scientologists' Legal Wrath Prompts Slashdot to Censor a Posting
13. Scientologists Force Comment Off Slashdot
14. Slashdot buckles to Scientology loonies
15. Xenu Do, But Not on Slashdot
16. Holy? Or wholly without grounds

=== Buddhism
17. 'Buddha's hair' found in China

=== Islam
18. 400 Afghan clerics decided to destroy statues: Minister
19. Taliban Ways Under Question

=== Catholicism
20. Italy threatens to silence Vatican [Radio]
21. Few confessions

=== Mormonism
22. SLOC and the LDS Church downplay the church's involvement in the Olympics
23. From SLOC Leadership to Liquor, Church Has Long Had a Powerful Olympic Voice
24. Special Treatment for the Church?
25. Non-LDS Religious Leaders Cite Minimal Input
26. Courting Controversy
27. Sex change worshipper sues the Mormons

=== Hate Groups
28. Bertollini sues Coeur d'Alene newspaper
29. Parade foes to put best foot forward
30. Report Links Putin to Anti-Semitism
31. Estee Lauder's latest tangle
32. What's in a Name?

=== False Memory Syndrome
33. Jury awards family millions

=== Faith Healing
34. Senate Panel Backs Faith-Healing Ban When Kids At Risk
35. Mandatory medical aid for sick kids gets committee OK

=== Other News
36. Atheist leader's remains found on Texas ranch
37. China Extends Cult Crackdown to Protestants, Says Rights Group
38. Sect Not Allowed to Build Cult Hall [Universal Church of the Kingdom of God]
39. Man Shot Dead As Bulletproof Magic Fails
40. Moscow police make arrest in multiple murder
41. Poles rethink anti-sect moves after minority church complaints
42. Appeals court says Ohio motto is acceptable

=== Faith-Based & Community Initiatives
43. Conservatives call for ouster of director of faith-based charities


=== Scientology

12. Threat of Scientologists' Legal Wrath Prompts Slashdot to Censor a Posting
Inside, Mar. 16, 2001
http://www.inside.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
On Friday morning, the open-source software developers' Web site Slashdot.org, where the faithful gather to preach the gospel of free software, free speech and a free Internet, was humbled by an even more dogmatic -- and litigious -- religion.

In the face of legal threats from the Church of Scientology, Slashdot pulled down an anonymous posting that quoted a copyrighted church tract, known as Operating Thetan, Section III (OT III). ''It's an open forum, but as of today it's a little less open than it was yesterday,'' says Robin Miller, the editorial director of Slashdot's parent, the Open Source Development Network. ''And we're not happy about that.''
(...)

Though Slashdot has removed the offending article, the site is not going down quietly. CmdrTaco's announcement offers readers a link to a Dutch site that quotes the offending tract. (The Dutch courts have, so far, found that site to be lawful under Dutch law, notwithstanding litigation by the Church of Scientology to shut it down.) Slashdot also linked to the results of a Google search listing 252 sites that offer information about OT III -- including, in many instances, its text -- as well as to the results of a broader AltaVista search, linking to 2,740 generally pertinent sites.

The Slashdot post urges disgruntled readers to write their congressional representatives to urge repeal or modification of the DMCA, which sets out the notice-and-takedown procedures that the Church of Scientology invoked to force the Web site to take down the copyrighted materials.
(...)

Quite apart from the legal consequences of defying the Church of Scientology and the laws of the United States, there's one more argument that could be made in favor of taking down the OT III post -- though it's highly unlikely it swayed Slashdot's Miller or Malda. According to accounts of Church doctrine that have come to light during past litigation, Operating Thetans like OT III are designed to help Church members combat evil spirits that were unleashed upon the universe about 75 million years ago when an extraterrestrial king named Xenu murdered his own people. Disclosure of the Thetans to non-Church members -- or even to Church members who have not yet reached the point in their studies where they are ready to receive them -- is said to invite catastrophic harm on a global scale.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

Read all about OT III

13. Scientologists Force Comment Off Slashdot
Slashdot, Mar. 16, 2001
http://slashdot.org/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Last Saturday a comment was posted here by an anonymous reader that contained text that was copyrighted by the Church of Scientology. They have since followed the DMCA and demanded that we remove the comment. While Slashdot is an open forum and we encourage free discussion and sharing of ideas, our lawyers have advised us that, considering all the details of this case, the comment should come down. Read on to understand what this means.

This is the first time since we instituted our moderation system that a comment has had to be removed because of its content, and believe me nobody is more broken hearted about it than me. It's a bad precedent, and a blow for the freedom of speech that we all share in this forum.
(...)

We need to choose our battles and this isn't one we want to have. We want Slashdot to be a forum where you can say what's in your heart, but we simply can't defend an anonymous poster who violates copyright law.
(...)

Now there is the matter of this specific comment. It contained a text called ''OT III'', part of what is known as the Fishman Affidavit. This text is Copyrighted by the Church of Scientology. In compliance with the DMCA, we are removing it from Slashdot. In its place we are putting non-copyrighted text: Links to websites about the church of Scientology, as well as links to how you can contact your congressman about the DMCA. Thanks a lot to Jamie for putting this together.

First of all, we would like to point out that the text of OT III is available at many other places on the web. To many to list here in fact. Instead, try a Google search on ''OT III'' and ''Fishman'', which as of this writing (March 2001) returns over 250 pages. A broader search on AltaVista returns over 2,000 webpages.

Operating in the jurisdiction of the Dutch courts, Karin Spaink's Fishman Affidavit webpage has fended off two lawsuits from Scientology, one in 1996 and one in 1999. The latter suit, according to the page, is still being appealed. >From the link listed just above, you can click through to the Fishman Affidavit, which contains links to not only to an annotated copy of OT III, but to the documents on the other OT levels as well, number one through the disputed number eight.

If you would like a plain English explanation of OT III, see OT III Rewritten For Beginners, by Jon Atack. Its author is a former Scientologist who himself completed level OT III. The webpage contains nothing copyrighted by a Scientology organization. It is an explanation of what OT III says and what that means, along with commentary by the author. Jon Atack is also the author of A Piece of Blue Sky, which is a history of Scientology from before its founding to after L. Ron Hubbard's death. At the above link, you can either purchase it, or read it in its entirety online.

If you are interested in Scientology, you will want to visit Operation Clambake, at xenu.net. It seems to be the most important central resource for information on the organization.

You may also want to visit the Lisa McPherson Memorial Page, which claims that ''Lisa died needlessly at the hands of Scientology.'' Her case is truly a tragic one and she deserves to be remembered. The site has a great deal of information on her death. Related is

The Lisa McPherson Trust, which has not only information about Lisa, but a very large archive of interviews, court transcripts, news reports, testimonials, and videos about Scientology.

Here's a Slashdot story last year on eBay removing auctions for e-meters based on the Church of Scientology DMCA copyright allegations, which is odd because Copyright law doesn't cover a physical device.

If there's anything else about Scientology you want to know, you will want to see AltReligionScientology.org, which contains a huge list of links to all the sites I don't have room to list here.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

Thanks to Scientology's lawyers for helping to get the world out on OT III. Few things help inoculate people against Scientology more than a careful reading of the material in question.

14. Slashdot buckles to Scientology loonies
The Register (England), Mar. 16, 2001 (Opinion)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Geek paradise Slashdot has taken the unprecedented step of removing a post which contained text allegedly copyrighted by the 'Church' of Scientology, after receiving threats from Hubbard Space Command shysters citing the dreaded Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
(...)

The post in question contained the full text of some reincarnated-aliens-scifi drivel called ''OT III'', which in turn belongs to a Scientological sacred document called the ''Fishman Affidavit''.

What little sense we were able to make of OT III suggests a science fiction role-playing game involving impossibly ancient alien spirits called ''Thetans'' which were hypnotized and subsequently (we gather) implanted in the minds of 'intelligent' beings belonging to a Galactic Confederation of 76 planets, including our own, roughly 75 million years ago.

Players (or 'church members', as they doubtless prefer to be called) progress in the game (or 'religion', as they no doubt prefer to call it) by channeling their Inner Thetans, or their pets' Inner Thetans, or by casting spells upon their enemies' Inner Thetans and so turning them against their hosts, or something along those lines. We don't know, but rather suspect that twelve-sided dice are involved somewhere....
(...)

Related Links
A detailed and entertainingly harsh critique of the OT III drivel is available from Karin Spaink here.
Another and somewhat broader on-line resource which pulls no punches is maintained by Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor David Touretzky here.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

Karin Spaink and David Touretzky are outspoken critics of the Scientology organization, and have thus been subjected to the cult's hate and harassment tactics.

15. Xenu Do, But Not on Slashdot
Wired, Mar. 17, 2001
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,42486,00.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The geek-culture destination Slashdot.org said on Friday that it deleted a post in response to legal threats from the Church of Scientology.

Scientology's notoriously litigious team of attack attorneys successfully pressured the site's editors into erasing a discussion board message, which allegedly contained copyrighted material.
(...)

Over the last decade, Scientology has gained a reputation for fiercely protecting its copyrights, including action against posters to newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, prompting many observers to complain about censorship through copyright threats.

The church is particularly eager to suppress information about Xenu -- the apparently evil space alien who is a character in the scriptures written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction author. In one famous case, Scientology sued The Washington Post -- and lost -- after the newspaper republished a short excerpt of the Xenu scriptures.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


16. Holy? Or wholly without grounds
The Age (Australia), Mar. 18, 2001 (Opinion)
http://www.theage.com.au/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
An email came yesterday from my new friend, the Reverend Charles Simpson. Charles is an American, but somehow he has got hold of my email address, and he is offering to ordain me as a minister, which will allow me to perform weddings and baptisms, forgive sins and start up my own church. All for only U$29.95.

There are real advantages in being a religion in this country. You can employ priests and priestesses without paying pay-roll tax. Religions are generally exempt from GST. You don't have to serve in the army. You are protected from mockery on the airwaves - unless, of course, you are a Roman Catholic.

The High Court ruled in 1983, in the case of the Church of the New Faith (Scientology) v. Victorian Commissioner of Payroll Tax, that if you call yourself a religion then you are a religion. You don't need to believe in a god or have rituals or a moral code or any of the other folderol associated with the word church. The state has no way of defining a religion, and if you say you are one then it is your constitutional right to be one.

For some reason, this judgment is usually attributed to the late Lionel Murphy but, in fact, it was a judgment of the full court. The bench allowed that Scientologists might call themselves a church ''to serve an ulterior purpose'', as Judge William Crockett had said in the Victorian Supreme Court, but, they went on, ''charlatanism is a necessary price of religious freedom''.

Judge Murphy's contribution to the judgment was delightfully mischievous.
(...)

Not very judicial language, but it summed up the situation - if some organisations that call themselves religions can get away with it, then the court has to find that all self-styled religions must get the same privileges.

As I read Murphy's judgment, it is not a finding in favor of Scientology; it is a finding against the absurdity of granting special benefits to this precious group of businesses that call themselves religions.

All the judges in the case agonised over the definition of a religion and displayed in their judgments an extraordinary knowledge of comparative religion.

They were at pains to avoid a definition that was formed from personal prejudice and, at the same time, they were anxious to avoid giving the impression that they were making any value judgment about Scientology or any other religion.

They found the writings of Lafayette Ronald Hubbard impenetrable and unintelligible. They accepted that he appeared to be running a business and not a charitable institution. They make the point that if his followers break the law in their observances, then the fact that they call themselves a religion will not protect them from the sanctions of the law - even if their unlawful acts spring from deeply held ''spiritual'' convictions. They cite the case of Mormons and polygamy. Mormons may believe in it, but they may not practise it.

Their honors concluded that freedom of religion meant that one may believe what one chooses, no matter how idiotic, irrational, dangerous and exploitative the beliefs may be.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* The publisher of Religion News Report agrees with the German government's view of Scientology:

''The German government considers the Scientology organization a commercial enterprise with a history of taking advantage of vulnerable individuals and an extreme dislike of any criticism. The government is also concerned that the organization's totalitarian structure and methods may pose a risk to Germany's democratic society. Several kinds of evidence have influenced this view of Scientology, including the organization's activities in the United States.''

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