http://www.google.com/groups?selm=8385d874.0308201442.52a5d56%40posting.google.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain
From: BarbaraSchwarz@excite.com (Barbara Schwarz)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Prof. Kliever actually says you apostates are
not truthworthy.
Date: 20 Aug 2003 15:42:18 -0700
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I agree.
Who is an apostate: Magoo, Arnie, Stacy Brooks, Robert Clark, Jesse
Prince, Michael Pattinson, Garry Scraff, Gerry Armstrong, etc. etc.,
and the rest of the gang. The Prof wrote you guys are being biased and
should be not accepted uncritical by the media and others.
Another way to see how little you are worth is going in ARS and just
posting that you are a Scientologists, and to see what happens next.
What an eye opener! You are a lot worse than anybody I had oontact
with before.
Barbara Schwarz
The Reliability of Apostate Testimony
About New Religious Movements (cont)
II. ASSIGNMENT
I have been asked by the Church of Scientology to give my expert
opinion on two broad issues: (1) The incidence of apostasy in new
religious movements and (2) The reliability of apostate accounts of
their former religious beliefs and practices. These two questions are
of crucial importance for a proper understanding of new religious
movements because such apostates are often singled out as reliable
informants about their former beliefs and practices in media exposés
and even scholarly studies of non-traditional religious movements.
Moreover, a limited number of apostates have filed grievances for
damages, variously charging their former religious communities with
deceptive and fraudulent practices or physical and emotional duress.
In turn, these individual litigants have often served as expert
witnesses in other cases brought against new religions either by
governmental agencies or by hostile dissidents.
The special attention given by the media to apostates from new
religious movements and their recourse to the courts for alleged
damages suffered at the hands of their former religious group involves
a profound shift in the public attitude toward and treatment of
apostates in this century. In the past, apostates were roundly
condemned for abandoning their faith. Indeed, the punitive action
taken against the apostate by the rejected religious group was often
reinforced by the power of the state. By contrast, in recent years the
apostate is more likely to take punitive action against the religious
group, sometimes with the support of the law. Apostates from new
religious movements are often seen as victims rather than as turncoats
by virtue of the harshly negative stories they tell about their
religious past. But the question remains whether these apostate
accounts are reliable reports of their past religious associations and
activities.
The Church of Scientology's special interest in the question of the
reliability of apostates is based on the fact that it has been the
target of apostate-based media "exposés" and civil litigation.
In
anticipation of the full discussion that follows, I am convinced by
reason of my own professional training and scholarly research that the
apostate should not be accepted uncritically by the mass media, the
scholarly community, the legal system, or governmental agencies as a
reliable source of information about new religious movements. The
apostate must always be regarded as an individual who is predisposed
to render a biased account of the religious beliefs and practices of
his or her former religious associations and activities.
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