Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

[Rowsdower!]

This was crazy good.

I feel like all religion should be taxed, no matter how small or big/how sane or crazy. It's ******** how much many these 'businesses' make and how ****** they treat their 'employees/customers'. People harp on Wal-Mart, those guys look like saints compared to what religion organizations get away with.

Damn right. The one thing this documentary really made clear is how much of a tax avoidance scam Scientology really is.

 

[Aejej]

Deleted.

 

[Marvolo]

This was crazy good.

I feel like all religion should be taxed, no matter how small or big/how sane or crazy. It's ******** how much many these 'businesses' make and how ****** they treat their 'employees/customers'. People harp on Wal-Mart, those guys look like saints compared to what religion organizations get away with.

Read this:

There is said to be an old Arabian proverb: "If the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow." This expression is especially pertinent in the tax exemption context. Churches are tax exempt under the principle that there is no surer way to destroy the free exercise of religion than to tax it. If the government is allowed to tax churches (or to condition a tax exemption on a church refraining from the free exercise of religion), the camel's nose is under the tent, and its body is sure to follow. But that's not just my opinion; it's the understanding of the U.S. Supreme Court.

In its 1970 opinion in Walz vs. Tax Commission of the City of New York, the high court stated that a tax exemption for churches "creates only a minimal and remote involvement between church and state and far less than taxation of churches. [An exemption] restricts the fiscal relationship between church and state, and tends to complement and reinforce the desired separation insulating each from the other." The Supreme Court also said that "the power to tax involves the power to destroy." Taxing churches breaks down the healthy separation of church and state and leads to the destruction of the free exercise of religion.

http://www.latimes.com/la-oew-lynn-stanley23-2008sep23-story.html#page=1

And churches are considered "non-profit" because their profit goes back into the church and their mission and not the employees. And churches give to charity and do charity work for the community to some capacity. The only way we could tax churches is if we rewrote our tax laws to tax organizations like the salvation army and got rid of charitable tax deductions in general. These changes would do far more harm than good. Hell most charitable organizations would have to shut down.

 

[Virgo_Luxx]

Read this:



http://www.latimes.com/la-oew-lynn-stanley23-2008sep23-story.html#page=1

And churches are considered "non-profit" because their profit goes back into the church and their mission and not the employees. And churches give to charity and do charity work for the community to some capacity. The only way we could tax churches is if we rewrote our tax laws to tax organizations like the salvation army and got rid of charitable tax deductions in general. These changes would do far more harm than good. Hell most charitable organizations would have to shut down.

Not really.

 

[nightwing06]

They made the IRS take back a claim for 1 billion dollars,the IRS that goes after people relentlessly for anything as small as 200 dollars,with threats to take property and even pets!!!!!!!!!

 

[weezerspider]

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/01/how...rson’s_film_in_the_wake_of_going_clear/

 

[Rowsdower!]

Yeah, I was just saying I need to watch The Master again after seeing this doc because it made me appreciate it more.

 

[weezerspider]

Yeah, I was just saying I need to watch The Master again after seeing this doc because it made me appreciate it more.

Yeah, I knew it had to have more to do with Scientology than PTA let on because Tom Cruise pretty much ended their friendship.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Is Cruise still heavily involved in the church? The doc almost made it sound (at the very end) like he might be drifting away from it. One of the people made a comment like, "If anyone could bring down Scientology, it would be Tom Cruise."

 

[Erzengel]

I think he is, I think his family, his children and friends are all still in it so him leaving would essentially cause him to be ostracized by everything he loves. Secondly, he gets a lot of perks for being their poster child. Need a car pimped out? Sea Org will do it at $0.45 an hour. Lastly, he's really into it based on some of those Scientology videos. It'd take something really big to make him leave and essentially give up everything. And if he didn't leave cause of his "daughter" Suri, what would make him leave?

 

[Octoberist]

Some say he's too far gone in the 'religion', due to his bromance with the current megalomaniac leader.

Honestly, I think he would be taken down legally though, if there is enough evidence against him with the forced labor in pimping out his bikes, and house.

 

[Octoberist]

i can see John Travolta leaving though, especially now. I just think he's been on the verge of leaving for a while, since the death of his son a few years back, and also struggling with his sexuality. I believe that he is bi or gay, and it's killing him to hide it, since Scientology hates gays. HATES GAYS.

Also, it shows how Scientology is full of it, since as you move up in the OTs, you're suppose to gain special powers. You can get rid of your homosexuality with ease, cure diseases, have telekinesis, or teleport your consciousness to Venus within a nanosecond, or even travel through time. That's what Tom Cruise can do…supposedly, since he's a level 7, just three levels away from L. Ron.

That's why he can hang off of planes; he was using levitation!

 

[Octoberist]

Yeah, I knew it had to have more to do with Scientology than PTA let on because Tom Cruise pretty much ended their friendship.

Do you think he toned his madness after 2005? It seems like he has a good relationship with JJ Abrams and Christopher McQuarrie.

 

[Sawyer]

I believe Travolta is gay. Cruise, not so much, though I have seen gossip about it. But Travolta, definitely.

 

[Octoberist]

Someone on a website made a great observation on Cruise:

Tom Cruise back in the day was a handsome, talented dude who was felt he was dumb, or rejected, due to his dyslexia. It is a fact that he did poorly in high school.

An insecure person like that can be exploited, and when Scientology woed him, for the first time in his life, Cruise probably felt important, like a leader. He probably felt like an intellectual, something that public schools or colleges couldn't offer to him.

I STILL think he has dyslexia, because on the set of the latest Mission Impossilbe, he was listening to something on headphones, making weird hand gestures and movements. I think his assistant would dictate the scripts for him.

 

[Erzengel]

I think Mimi Rogers said in an interview that Cruise during their marriage, Cruise was thinking about becoming a monk and wanted to be celibate and she had needs which lead to their divorce. She later said she was misinterpreted.

Here's what I think. You have 2 women who married Cruise and had no biological children with Cruise. Yet after their divorces, went on to conceive with other men.

Maybe he's gay, maybe he's asexual, maybe he's celibate. Don't think we will know.

And in regards to his child with Holmes, I know it sounds like Illuminati stuff but there are rumors that the child isn't his and if it was anyone else you'd probaly wouldn't have reason to doubt.

 

[Octoberist]

It is strange….isnt it?

Keep in mind, that the 'Church' sees homosexuality as a 'vile perverted sin', and they'll protect Cruise by all means, since he's the poster boy.

 

[flickchick85]

I thought they primarily see it as an illness? Maybe "curing" him is part of their hold over him. I feel like that may be at least part of the case with Travolta, too.

 

[Schlosser85]

I don't know if Cruise is gay, but there has always definitely been something strange about his female relationships.

 

[Octoberist]

I thought they primarily see it as an illness? Maybe "curing" him is part of their hold over him. I feel like that may be at least part of the case with Travolta, too.

But let's say Travolta is struggling with his sexual identity, obviously it's not helping, especially if he's been in the Sci game for the past 40 years. Unlike the internal members of the Church, who exists in a vacuum and are denied access to the real world, celebrities like Travolta have full access. With social media being so powerful, and with today's shift in change towards perception of homosexuals, I think he'll jump ship in the next few years.

 

[Sithborg]

Good documentary.

 

[flickchick85]

But let's say Travolta is struggling with his sexual identity, obviously it's not helping, especially if he's been in the Sci game for the past 40 years. Unlike the internal members of the Church, who exists in a vacuum and are denied access to the real world, celebrities like Travolta have full access. With social media being so powerful, and with today's shift in change towards perception of homosexuals, I think he'll jump ship in the next few years.

Yeah, he doesn't seem like such a hopeless case, especially if this doc's portrayal of him (and his disapproval of Spanky's ordeal) is accurate.

 

[mclay18]

It is strange….isnt it?

Keep in mind, that the 'Church' sees homosexuality as a 'vile perverted sin', and they'll protect Cruise by all means, since he's the poster boy.

Didn't Miscavige privately refer to Cruise's 'perverted lifestyle' in confidence with someone else? That could be referencing something else, but I doubt it.

 

[Erzengel]

Yeah, he doesn't seem like such a hopeless case, especially if this doc's portrayal of him (and his disapproval of Spanky's ordeal) is accurate.

He admitted his son was autistic something Scientology doesn't believe in.

 

[weezerspider]

Do you think he toned his madness after 2005? It seems like he has a good relationship with JJ Abrams and Christopher McQuarrie.

PTA and Cruise were big pals through out shooing Magnolia and long after. He didn't have a falling out with PTA until PTA showed him a private screening of The Master, so I'm sure that if a director doesn't make a not so subtle film questioning his religion, Cruise is fine, PTA did that very thing. It's also worth noting that the artist involved with the transitions in Punch Drunk Love "commited suicide" after leaving Scientology, which disturbed PTA greatly.