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Tory Bezazian
Tory Christman (born June 27, 1947) is an American critic of Scientology and former member of the organization. Originally brought up a Catholic Church, Catholic, Christman turned to Scientology after being introduced to the book ''Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health'' authored by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard while staying with her parents in Chicago. She identified with concepts described in the book including the idea of attaining the Scientology state of Clear (Scientology), clear, and became a member of the organization in 1969. She hitchhiked from Chicago to Los Angeles, in order to begin the process of studying Scientology, and initially felt that it helped improve her life. In 1972, she joined the core group of staff members within Scientology called the Sea Org. After being a member of the Scientology organization for ten years, Christman reached the spiritual Operating Thetan level of OT III, and learned the story of Xenu. She subsequently rose to a higher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Christman
Paul Joseph Christman (March 5, 1918 – March 2, 1970) was an American football quarterback. He played college football for the Missouri Tigers and professionally for the Chicago Cardinals and the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted in the second round of the 1941 NFL Draft by the Cardinals. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1956. Collegiate career A St. Louis native, Christman led the Missouri Tigers to a 20–8 record during his three seasons (1938– 40) as their starting quarterback. He was a two-time All-American, and led the nation in touchdown passes in 1940. Christman was Missouri's all-time leading passer until 1976, when he was surpassed by Steve Pisarkiewicz. While at Mizzou, he was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity. His jersey number, 44, is one of seven retired by the school. In 1956, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. NFL career Christman made his debut in the third week of the 1945 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Celebrity Centres
Church of Scientology Celebrity Centres are Churches of Scientology that are open to the general public but are intended for "artists, politicians, leaders of industry, and sports figures". The Celebrity Centre International was established in Los Angeles, California in 1969 by Yvonne Gillham and Heber Jentzsch in the Château Élysée, a 1920s building that had been built to replicate a 17th century French-Normandy chateau. Other Celebrity Centre organizations have since been established around the USA and in Europe. As of 2024, there are eight Celebrity Centres open: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Nashville and New York in the USA, and Vienna, Düsseldorf, Florence, and Paris in Europe. Critics of Scientology point to L. Ron Hubbard's launch of "Project Celebrity" in 1955 to recruit celebrities into the church, and that the centres were established as an extension of this initial purpose. Though the Church of Scientology denies the existence of a policy to recruit high-rankin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disconnection (Scientology)
Disconnection is the severance of all ties between a Scientologist and a friend, colleague, or family member deemed to be antagonistic towards Scientology. The practice of disconnection is a form of shunning. Among Scientologists, disconnection is viewed as an important method of removing obstacles to one's spiritual growth. In some circumstances, disconnection has ended marriages and separated children from their parents. The Church of Scientology has repeatedly denied that such a policy exists, though its website acknowledged the practice and described it as a human right. In the United States, the Church has tried to argue in court that disconnection is a constitutionally protected religious practice. However, this argument was rejected because the pressure put on individual Scientologists to disconnect means it is not voluntary. Policy Antagonists to the Church of Scientology are declared by the Church to be suppressive persons (SPs) or potential trouble sources (PTSes). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freedom Of Speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been recognised as a Human rights, human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law. Many countries have constitutional law that protects free speech. Terms like ''free speech'', ''freedom of speech,'' and ''freedom of expression'' are used interchangeably in political discourse. However, in a legal sense, the freedom of expression includes any activity of seeking, receiving, and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. Article 19 of the UDHR states that "everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference" and "everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
User (computing)
A user is a person who uses a computer or network service. A user often has a user account and is identified to the system by a username (or user name). Some software products provide services to other systems and have no direct end users. End user End users are the ultimate human users (also referred to as operators) of a software product. The end user stands in contrast to users who support or maintain the product such as sysops, database administrators and computer technicians. The term is used to abstract and distinguish those who only use the software from the developers of the system, who enhance the software for end users. In user-centered design, it also distinguishes the software operator from the client who pays for its development and other stakeholders who may not directly use the software, but help establish its requirements. This abstraction is primarily useful in designing the user interface, and refers to a relevant subset of characteristics t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newsgroup
A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are not only discussion groups or conversations, but also a repository to publish articles, start developing tasks like creating Linux, sustain mailing lists and file uploading. That’s thank to the protocol that poses no article size limit, but are to the providers to decide. In the late 1980s, Usenet articles were often limited by the providers to 60,000 characters, but in time, Usenet groups have been split into two types: ''text'' for mainly discussions, conversations, articles, limited by most providers to about 32,000 characters, and ''binary'' for file transfer, with providers setting limits ranging from less than 1 MB to about 4 MB. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on the World Wide Web. Newsreader software is used to read the content of newsgroups. Before the adoption ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Park
''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boysStan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand their exploits in and around the titular Colorado town. ''South Park'' also features many recurring characters. The series became infamous for its profanity and black comedy, dark, surreal humor that satire, satirizes a Subject matter in South Park, large range of subject matter. Parker and Stone developed ''South Park'' from two animated short films, both titled ''The Spirit of Christmas (short films), The Spirit of Christmas'', released in 1992 and 1995. The second short became one of the first viral video, viral Internet videos, leading to the series' production. The pilot episode was produced using cutout animation; the remainder of the series uses computer animation recalling the prior technique. Since the fourth season, episodes have ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andreas Heldal-Lund
Andreas Heldal-Lund (10 December 1964 – 2 January 2024) was a Norwegian anti-Scientology activist best known for operating the website Operation Clambake. Personal life Andreas Heldal-Lund was born in Oslo, Norway on 10 December 1964. He moved to Stavanger, Norway in 1985. In May 2022, Heldal-Lund was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour, known as Glioblastoma. He died on 2 January 2024 at the age of 59, in the arms of his living partner and a few close friends. Activism Heldal-Lund served on multiple boards for the national secular humanist organization Human-Etisk Forbund. He was also a member of the Norwegian Society of Heathens. Heldal-Lund first became interested in the Church of Scientology in 1996 when he read about Magne Berge, an ex-member in Norway, who sued the organization in court and won. Heldal-Lund started gathering information about Scientology and eventually began hosting the materials himself as part of a project he called Operation Clambake. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Clambake
Operation Clambake, also referred to by its domain name, xenu.net, is a website that published criticism of the Church of Scientology. It was launched in 1996 by Norwegian Andreas Heldal-Lund, and maintained by him until his death in 2024. Operation Clambake has referred to the Church of Scientology as "a vicious and dangerous cult that masquerades as a religion". The website includes texts of petitions, news articles, exposés, and documents. The site has been ranked as high as the second spot in Google Search, Google searches for the term "Scientology". The term for the organization refers both to a traditional New England clam bake, clam bake as well as the notion from L. Ron Hubbard's ''Scientology: A History of Man'' that humans follow a "genetic line" which includes clams, and that the psychological problems afflicting humans are impacted by past experiences. The domain name xenu.net is a reference to the character Xenu from secretive "Operating Thetan, OT III" Scientology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks that consists of Private network, private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, Wireless network, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and Web application, applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), email, electronic mail, internet telephony, streaming media and file sharing. The origins of the Internet date back to research that enabled the time-sharing of computer resources, the development of packet switching in the 1960s and the design of computer networks for data communication. The set of rules (communication protocols) to enable i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scieno Sitter
Scieno Sitter is content-control software that, when installed on a computer, blocks certain websites critical of Scientology from being viewed. The software was released by the Church of Scientology in 1998 for Church members using Windows 95. The term "Scieno Sitter" was coined by critics of Scientology who assert that the program is a form of Internet censorship. Background The program was started in the late summer of 1998. Scientologists were mailed software on CDs, and told that the program would help members build Web sites which would then link to Scientology's main site. However, recipients of the program were not told that it also had a censorship program, which blocked critical sites from being viewed on the user's computer, if the sites were deemed dangerous. Critics of Scientology have referred to the program as "cult mind-control for the 21st century", and asserted that it stifles freedom of speech. One software developer stated that though he thought spam filters in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments and private institutions. When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of their own works or speech, it is referred to as ''self-censorship''. General censorship occurs in a variety of different media, including speech, books, music, films, and other arts, Newspaper, the press, radio, television, and the Internet for a variety of claimed reasons including national security, to control obscenity, pornography, and hate speech, to protect children or other vulnerable groups, to promote or restrict political or religious views, and to prevent Defamation, slander and Defamation, libel. Specific rules and regulations regarding censorship vary between Legal Jurisdiction, legal jurisdictions and/or private organiza ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
