back to article Brit diplomats' mission to expose Scientology's 'diploma mill'

British diplomats exposed the academic qualifications obtained by L. Ron Hubbard - the controversial founder of Scientology - as a fraud 30 years ago, as part of UK government efforts to thwart a potential lawsuit by the Church of Scientology, it has emerged. The British government made a decision to block pilgrimages to …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Who'd have thunk it?

    L Ron Hubbard, a complete fraud. Well i am surprised! Next you will tell me he invented some fantastical (is that a word? it is now!) religion which insists its members give lots and lots of money to the church.

    Oh.......

    AC.. cos im sick of Jehovah sending his witensses round, so I dont want to add to that by having Tom Cruise and pals popping round to discuss my 'crimes'.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    and just to wind up..

    Any 'scientologists' reading

    look away now if your disturbed by the following

    CULT!

  3. weirdcult
    Coat

    Sorry

    Just felt it appropriate to comment.

  4. EdwardP
    Flame

    Oh...

    ...these guys aren't dead yet?

    Back to it lads...

  5. Christopher Rogers
    Pirate

    vision of the future

    Wars being fought between Scientology and the Muslim faith (have i offended everyone there?)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Hail Xenu!

    For all your $cilon news

    http://www.xenu.net/

    P.S. - Don't read the OT3 documentationwithout giving them tens of thousands of £££$$$'s or you'll catch pnemonia and die.

  7. Gerard Krupa

    Be quick

    Better view that article fast otherwise Rupert Murdoch will be asking for cash donations to his Church of Newscorpology religion too.

  8. Flugal

    Scientology a bit dodgy?

    I am shocked to discover Scientology might be a little bit dodgy. I had thought it was just rationalists, atheists and Darwinists that had it so wrong.

  9. Stef 4
    Pint

    Best PhD ever...

    "In recognition of his outstanding work and contributions in the fields of Dianetics and Scientology"

    That is cool. I had no idea you could get doctorates for making crud up.

    All those super powered Scientologists, yet none of them want to use their power for good, to end war and disease, or even for selfish means like winning an olympic gold medal with their superstrength.

    Oh well back to the Flying Spaghetti Monster for me.

    Hmmm, how about a PhD :

    "In recognition of his outstanding work and contributions in the fields of pasta based deities and noodley appendages."

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    There must be one semi-qualified person there...

    ...someone must have installed the chip in Tom Cruise's brain.

  11. LaeMi Qian
    Happy

    When I was little...

    ...I made up an award system like the Girl Guides badges. I didn't get to earn myself many as my requirements were quite stringent and I refused to cheat on myself.

  12. Geoff Mackenzie

    @Christopher Rogers

    Nope, not offended, sorry. Have a dig at Linux and you should get me as well though. :)

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    @I had no idea you could get doctorates for making crud up.

    Hell, 138% of the doctorates are awarded on "thesis" "proving" "stuff". The other 17.5% are on solving problems that did not exist before the student started his/her work.

    Trust me, I have a PhD.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    A lot of Scientologists think they are part of a worldwide MOVEMENT to save the world

    Someone cheekily used their name to set up a critic site at www.scientology-london.com

    It is run on Wikileaks servers (i.e. prq.se) so is able to resist all legal takedown requests.

    Regarding the story, it's incredible that the Goverment have had concrete evidence for so long. A want a buy a beer or two for each of the people behind the Freedom of Information request.

  15. Big-nosed Pengie
    Alien

    @AC

    "...someone must have installed the chip in Tom Cruise's brain."

    This presupposes, incorrectly as it happens, that he has one.

    Xenu. Of course.

  16. Robert Hill
    Grenade

    Just remember Issac Asimov's quote...

    Asimov has written about the party he attended 40+ years ago with a bunch of other Sci Fi writers, including Hubbard. It was at this party that (and I quote Asimov here) : "We were sitting around discussing the difficulty in making a living writing, when Hubbard said 'You know what I ought to do? I ought to start a religion, that's where the real money is."'

    Now of course, the rationalist in me can't figure out how what he does is any different than the major "churches", except at least he admitted it's a game...how is paying for Scientology "training" any different from Catholic tithing, or the passing of the collection plate, or even sending your children to Sunday school? Oh yeah, more people do it, so it must be OK...oh, wait...

  17. Fozzy 1
    Flame

    @Christopher Rogers

    Not everyone, no. You forgot to add that it will be fought as a WWE cage match Where the Muslims will be tag teamed with the latest neo-nazi movement and the Scientologists will be paired with what is left of the christian religion

    LET's GET READY TO RUMMMBLE !!!!!

  18. Moss Icely Spaceport
    Alert

    The Co$ in some way bogus, surely not?

    I am aghast!

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    always more to it than meets the eye...

    we are often told there is a war on for our minds.. and since the 1950s, scientology has been battling with the psychiatric industry for exactly that - control of our minds.. the two industries - the CofS and Psychiatry, are diametrically opposed and loathe each other..

    Scientology feeds off Psychiatry, through the many malpractice lawsuits it launches against shrinks and drug companies. By way of balance, i should add that many of those suits are doubtless warranted.. i wouldn't be surprised if Scientology is, right now, offering its legal services to the family of the late Michael Jackson, who died with a noxious cocktail of prescription drugs in his system....

    Forget the "religious" side of the church's argument... the above pretty much sums up what scientology is actually all about...

    as cults go, i tend to think that scientology is basically benign. YMMV

  20. Blue eyed boy

    @Robert Hill

    "how is paying for Scientology "training" any different from Catholic tithing, or the passing of the collection plate, or even sending your children to Sunday school?"

    Because the guy who started *our* cult off, about two millennia ago now, was REAL.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Welcome

    Hastur? Hastur? Is there a Hastur in the house? Oh, Shi-i-i-i-i-i-

    One trick for getting rid of those pesky doorstep religious zealo^H^H^H salesmen is the one used by my wife - that is, she tells them that she doesn't peddle her religion on their doorstep so they can foxtrot oscar and stop peddling theirs on ours.

    I prefer the other method, which is even more fun (especially on the younger ones...) when they start spouting about their deity, just mention that you recently asked yours to send round another sacrifice, and you're pleased to see he sent you a pair...

    Welcome, come on in and meet my mate with the Unspeakable Name and holiday villa out Fomalhaut way...

  22. Winkypop Silver badge
    Alien

    @Blue eyed boy

    "Because the guy who started *our* cult off, about two millennia ago now, was REAL."

    (Gufffaw)

  23. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    @Blue eyed boy

    oh...that's ok then.

    To whom do I address my cheque for the entrance fee to heaven? Is it Jesus H. Christ or will just 'J.C' do?

    I'll ask Santa to deliver for me some time in December.

  24. Spleen

    @Robert Hill

    "Now of course, the rationalist in me can't figure out how what he does is any different than the major "churches", except at least he admitted it's a game...how is paying for Scientology "training" any different from Catholic tithing, or the passing of the collection plate, or even sending your children to Sunday school? Oh yeah, more people do it, so it must be OK...oh, wait..."

    The usual response is that those have more of a voluntary element. I mean, the implication is that if you don't give enough money God will torture you for eternity, but no-one actually comes out and says it.

    Also, if the collection plate worked in exactly the same way as Scientology fees, you would have to spend hundreds of pounds before you were given a Bible. No, sorry, that's wrong; you would have to donate hundreds of pounds just to get the boring space-filling chapters about who begat whom. Thousands of pounds later you might be lucky enough to get the gospels (if you're considered "ready"). After several years and thousands of pounds you would eventually be given Genesis, and told that if you read it to anyone else they would commit suicide.

    Of course, Christianity was exactly the same for centuries - the peasants weren't allowed to read the Bible and translating it into a language they could read was blasphemy. So really, long story short is that they are all as bad each other, religions are just bad in different ways at different stages of their development.

  25. This post has been deleted by its author

  26. Reverend Izal Bum
    Flame

    God Botherers - There is Salvation! Hallelujah! Seek and Ye Shall Find!

    Yup...

    Go Google, Ye Wayward Christianalists..

    YouTube is the Way, the Light and The Truth...

    There's a great internet documentary called "Zeitgeist The Movie".. it blows the cover on the Jesus Myth, and it does to so very convincingly...

    The legend of the "Son of God" himself, his "Virgin Birth", the "Resurrection", Eternal Life Everlasting,. and all that crock of steaming happy crappy is completely dismantled by Zeitgeist.

    All those legends actually predate Jesus Christ Our Saviour by at least 2,000 years!

    So Jesus himself (if he even existed) was nothing more than a Cold-Calling Swindler.. The Bernard Madoff of his time!

    To lend credibility to the Jesus Fraud, the founders of the Early Christian Church - 12 co-conspirators and others - simply adopted the Great Legends from earlier Cults.

    Anyone who watches Zeitgeist The Movie and still turns up on Sunday for a Happy Clappy love-fest with the Vicar might as well go the whole hog and join the Branch Davidians to clean up the gene pool...

  27. Mike 16

    Benign Scientologists...

    ... don't throw pickets (e.g. Keith Henson) through windows into their buildings and then have them arrested for assault and trespassing. Nor do they subvert the legal system sufficiently to get a conviction.

    As for "forbidden to read the Bible", that was possibly "for centuries", but not for the _first_ couple centuries. Mostly happened after a certain British King decided he'd be a better pope than the one in Rome. Of course.the one in Rome had his line established when the Roman emperor took over what looked like a movement on the way up.

  28. M Neligan
    Flame

    @Geoff Mackenzie

    How about this for a Linux promotional slogan:

    "Too much time on you hands? Why not give Linux a go?"

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Not surprised

    The Church of the Holy Tax Deduction can hardly surprise me any more. Certainly shock, always disgust but surprises - no, not possible. I expect them to act in the lowest possible way every time. This is very much in line with the rest of the story of that old fraud LRH.

    Pirate, because they are. Parasites the lot of them.

  30. John Dougald McCallum
    Grenade

    The other nutjobs

    The last time that the JW's came to my door I had a very interesting little conversation with them to the effect that "if god existed atall then 'HE' was at the edge of creation and doing it's stuff and IF it came back it would be a reversal of it all and so would be total destruction.Havent seen them for several years.Mills Bomb for obvious reasons.

  31. Michael Dunn

    @AC

    AC wrote "fantastical (is that a word? it is now!)"

    Yes, it is, cf Chesterton's "Lepanto" - " From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun."

    /pedantry>

  32. Sparkypatrick
    WTF?

    CoS

    Can everyone please just stop calling this bunch of nutters a church? They are the Cult of Scientology, pure and simple.

  33. phoenix
    Badgers

    @Christopher Web

    Sorry Jesus was real and a great deal of non biblic literature says so even stuff written with in 100 years of his death by people that had no interest in him ( Romans). Wether you choose to believe He was who He claimed to be is another matter.

    Mind you, now correct if I wrong here, but aren't we are talking about Scientology. It is funny how talking about one belief triggers the need to bring into the conversation any belief or faith someone has heard of and bung them all in the same pot.

  34. Bill Fresher

    Proof of existence

    I'd like to see someone prove, without any possibility of doubt, that anyone who is dead actually existed.

    Photos - can be faked.

    Video - can be faked.

    Eye witnesses - could be lying or deluded.

    Once there's no chance anymore of meeting them personally their existence becomes a matter of belief.

  35. Mike 16

    Re: Proof of existence

    So, Santa's real then. I met him personally many times as a lad.

    I dimly recall meeting the Easter Bunny as well back in the day.

    Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, or G.W. Bush, not so much.

  36. Bill Fresher
    Happy

    @Mike 16

    "Eye witnesses - could be lying or *deluded*."

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