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 Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."