On Tue, 11 Jun 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

At 5:59 PM 6/11/96, attila wrote:

...

too strong, moroni --remember _our_ values; not those of a critic. last night in FHE I covered the first mob in Jackson County where Bushop Partridge turned the other cheek to make it easier after the first was tarred by the mob.

Thanks, Attila. I think Paul Penrod and the Archangel Moroni missed my main point. I was not singling out Mormonism for special criticism, just using it as an example of a "cult" or "religion" which is in many ways even more "outre" to many of us than Scientology is. Belief that a body rotting in the ground can be baptized into one's church is at least as odd as believing that Mankind is descended from the survivors of spaceships fleeing an evil overlord.

No, Tim, I got your point. What I object to is the use of the list to express yet another tangental non-topical thread when we already have the "hallowed" Dr. Hallam-Baker pontificating on the virtues and existentialism of the marketplace at what I suppose he presumes is at the expense of Perry Metzger, the assasination politics bullshit, and various other noise producing posts. What you may not realize is, while the CoS may be interested in protecting their reputation, I have not seen spam in this list as the result of any critism; however, anti-mormonism runs long and deep, and there will be a deluge of postings here should some entrprising individual take it upon himself to post the topic elsewhere (which I have seen samples of post from this list appear in other usenet groups.) What I don't want to see is this list get any muddier. 4 Days out of pocket and I have 345 messages, most of which gets round filed.

My point, in using Catholicism as an example (interesting that only my brief lines on Mormon views were critiqued...Catholicism must indeed be nearly extinct on lists like ours), was that one's man's "criminal cult" is another man's "holy religion," and that the "net.war" declared by some on the Church of Scientology is little different than having a similar war against Catholics, Rosicrucians, Parsees, whatever.

I don't comment on the Catholics as I don't know enough about them to render an informed opinion. As to the free speech and exercising of religion issues, I find that more relavent and worthy of the writings that hallmark your thoughtfulness on any topic.

The Church of Scientology is no more a cult than is LDS or Catholicism....it is just much newer. Believing that clam consciousness suffuses our thoughts is no stranger than are the bizarre claims of most religions.

Talk is of some belief systems being "cults" and others being "religions." When the Constitution speaks of "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion...," it is clear that this is not just for "recognized" and "established" religions.

(Before the usual suspects jump in with quibbles, this does not mean that a religion may not be constrained in various ways. The laws against polygamy constrained the Mormons, the laws against certain drugs constrained certain Native American religions, etc. Constitutional law classes are the best forum to debate this.)

I am no supporter of the CoS, nor of any religion. I find it hypocritical for folks bashing the "clams" and bombarding a.r.s with copyrighted CoS material to now be whining that the clams are "unfairly" using a.r.s.

I also find it "unsurprising" that the CoS is taking steps to preserve what it thinks is its copyrighted, proprietary material.

(I am not interested in debating the ins and outs of whether the NOTS material should or should not have been published, nor of whether some investigators went overboard in investigations of Grady Ward, etc. This stuff is boring ephemera to me, just another religious war.)

--Tim May