Ah yes, yet another religion practicing its beliefs!

[TheAnimus]

http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonig...d-labour-camp/

Shane is now 21-years-old. Until just over a year ago he had never used the internet, watched television or followed the media.

“You're not allowed to read any books other than scientology books, you can't read newspapers, no radio, no movies, nothing,” Shane said.

Shane says he was held captive and groomed to see all of us on the outside as pathetic, useless and stupid.

“So I lived in a garage until that got flooded by a storm, and my mum got really pissed off and said 'what the hell' and so I got moved into a closet. It is a closet under the stairs - maybe two metres long and a metre wide,” Shane said.

The true Australian headquarters of the Church of Scientology are located in the Sydney suburb of Dundas. The RPF base - which stands for Rehabilitation Project Force - is where Scientologists are sent for punishment and training, for crimes that most of us would regard as trivial.

Why would anyone want to speak out against such things!

Its obviously very intolerant. We should allow big organisations that carry out abuse to continue because they are able to convince the people in question not to talk about it, because of sky fairyness. Or Alien fairy in this case....

[blueball]

and the annoying thing is that Scientology was invented as a joke.

[aidanjt]

Hail Xenu!

[MadduckUK]

and the annoying thing is that Scientology was invented as a joke.

Sounds a lot less sinister than why the rest of them were invented then.

[chuckskull]

Careful Animus, you'll be getting followed home by Black SUVs.

Hope this lad and others like him are ok. This is why secularism is important because, apart from allowing religious freedom, it stops people hiding behind religious privilege to do such things. If these allegations had been made about any other kind of childrens centre bar a religious one, a highly litigious religion at that, then Australia's version of SO19/SWAT would have blown the doors off 6am the morning after he escaped.

[billythewiz]

and the annoying thing is that Scientology was invented as a joke.

I don't think it was a joke. Lron is well known to have said "You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion."

Anyone who watched the video will probably be asking "How can a 14 yr old boy be made to work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week in a kitchen (i.e 100 hours a week) .... for $4 ! ? It's then easy to conclude that this practice must be outlawed and if necessary these centres and this organisation shut down ....

That's where the trouble starts. As soon as you suggest anything like that the theists will band together and start demanding "religious" freedom.