Remember I said I thought Richard Dawkins, despite his reputation, still bore the scars of being a brainwashed Christian…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3330239/Even-Richard-Dawkins-thinks-Lord-s-Prayer-screened-cinemas-Church-s-banned-video-receives-unlikely-backing-atheist.html

…this is a big story in Britain right now. Dawkins misses the point completely that cinemas don’t allow religious or political adverts, no matter what the cause.
And there is no way in hell he would have said this if it had been a Muslim ad that was banned. I got the heads-up on Dawkins ‘confusion’ when he debated the former Archbishop of Canterbury – the head of the UK Church (after the Queen I suppose). And it was clear he was not debating with the same rigour as he usually did. In fact, I would have described the bias he was showing towards the head of ‘his’ church – a non-believer though he claims to be – to be bordering on shameful.
As is the above. Dawkins wilfully misinterprets the statement regarding the ‘censorship’ which references ‘offence’ – but this is only a blanket word to cover the avoidance of ALL religious and political adverts in cinemas. Not to mention, you DO have the right to be offended at that advert, and that prayer in general (the ad can be viewed online). You could write a book about the amount of offensive remarks made in it. Indeed, I’m sure Sam Harris would have a field day with it.

From today’s Bunker post, headline (in bold) then content:

“Darth Xander wins in Clearwater

Back in September, we told you that Alex ‘Darth Xander’ Hageli, an Illinois attorney, had filed a motion in Clearwater, Florida seeking to get the infamous Lisa McPherson Trust permanent injunction dissolved.”

Now, without reading any further… take a wild guess about whether or not that injunction was dissolved… and then read on and wonder about that headline.

Just a quick response for now. Shoot, I DID misread part of your previous post. ‘Confirmation bias’ is such a difficult, if not impossible, cognitive distortion to regulate, and in this instance, it got the better of me. Not for the first time, and unfortunately it won’t be my last, but it eases (and paradoxically disturbs) my mind that I am not alone in such distortions, because they are so deeply engrained in the cognitive structure of our species. Again, sorry about that. More later.

I don’t believe there is an open to all Scientology message board (for its fans). If there was, I believe it would operate like The Bunker.

If I’m wrong, and that people have been critical of the content of Tony’s posts in the past (his posts, not necessarily him) in a serious fashion (claims of either lies, dishonesty or one-sidedness, say), and that such a thing generated debate and not a piranha like attack, then by all means point me in that direction.

I haven’t seen it. And yes, some of the things I have said have generated some agreement. But I’m also not convinced that the people who agreed would have made the comment first. And, indeed, didn’t.

This is a closed community, almost like a flip-side of the excellent Regraded Being. The comments also make it clear that many of the regulars consider it closed, and believe I should too.

Also, you pull the word ‘worse’ out of nowhere, and then break that down for half of that post. Cheeky. I actually said explicitly otherwise. ‘Worse’ was comparing The Bunker to other anti Scientology sites, which was clear, and came with an example.

But the bit in the middle of your post, after your intro about other Bunkerites, and before the misguided ‘worse’ stuff, makes some comments which, fortunately for us both, lie within the realm of provability.

So if there are any examples of this, and enough to make them worthwhile, I will gladly take a look. Of course, this could be quite a time-consuming endeavour.

Although I may post occasionally, I no longer read the comments section. But for the month and a half or so I did, I didn’t see anything like you speak of. And given the traffic, that would account for a not inconsiderable 100,000 comments alone. This seems like more than enough to form conclusions. And, again like I said, even after past experience, I gave it a bit longer, long enough, to convince me otherwise.

And since the above post, even Tony got involved in a whopper. He repeated a story about how Tom Cruise refuses to answer questions in the way Marty Rathbun (one example used) never would. And yet, we don’t actually know what, if any, limitations Cruise puts on an interview – it’s all conjecture. But we *do* know the limits Rathbun does. Cruise is considered a Fail on this, despite the fact he hasn’t been tested (recently, he has previously invited questions on the matter). Rathbun got a pass, despite the fact he failed outright to pass this test, several times, in no uncertain terms, and on camera, even leading to verbal abuse of the journalist for asking. So the information being given is not only untrue, inaccurate, however you would like to characterise it… it is almost THE EXACT OPPOSITE of the truth. But in the Bunker, it flies.

Hi Mr. Clarke, sorry for the delay. The Nola thing was indeed a long shot, but no harm in asking.

While I definitely agree that the comment section has a strong cheerleading and group-think mentality (I’ve had run-ins with several commenters that were incredibly maddening because I realized that there was no point in attempting to correct the record or in reasoning any further because a) the commenter was blinded from reason by his hatred of Scientology and b) the community would not tolerate dissent, particularly because of one of these commenters popularity. I will not forget these individuals, one of whom for which I have lost all respect. However, one of the other commenters that I attempted to reason with was ultimately kicked off the site because he was not only irrational, but also vile and hateful. So while I fully understand your criticism of the community here, what I cannot agree to is your characterization of the bunker community as operating as “exactly as its Scientology counterpart would. “EXACTLY”?! Mr. Clarke, am I’m understanding you correctly, that you also think that the bunker community underground

Nola? Again, never heard of it, although someone on here
calls herself NolaGirl. I looked up Teddington – I know the surrounding area,
but I’ve never heard that place mentioned once in my whole life!

Just to be upfront – you’ll notice I’ve deleted my previous correspondence here
(just for privacy reasons – you should still have it via email or Disqus) .This
correspondence wont be part of it, don’t worry, but I’ll be doing something
about the ‘anti-scientology community’ somewhere. I’ve given it a long time,
but this community operates exactly as its Scientology counterpart would. The
Bunker is by far the worst. Far more honest back-and-forth occurs elsewhere in
the community, fortunately.

Here, there is no analysis of anything, ever. It’s just all
cheering against Scientology like a football game. Of course, they would come
back with ‘So that makes Scientology all right them?’ or ‘You’re an OSA troll’ (both
exact quotes made to me) – so they also have self-blinding tendencies, and
divert every criticism immediately by changing the argument.

As soon as you open your eyes to it, it seems the rot even
on the right side of the fence is everywhere. It’s the side of the fence I’m
on, but I don’t like seeing it. Many of the crusaders are hugely dishonest. I’m
sure you don’t need convincing any more about me, but to say these things on
here make you an OSA outcast.

I actually post about hardly any of it that seems suspect to
me. In today’s post, Tony mentions a few Achilles Heels in the Remini book, and
thinks it wise to fix ‘em. But they are everywhere!

To take just the last
week’s Bunker posts…three examples. The Leah Remini Knowledge Reports – as I
posted, the fact she had been given a refund of $300,000 hadn’t been mentioned
before (but would have been known). Bizarrely, my detractors tried to prove
Tony knew about it two years ago, but had withheld it ever since. Once again,
the ‘other side’ of these arguments are oblivious to how they are making it
worse. If I had been completely open, I would have also pointed out Tony’s
little semantic dance, rather than use the word ‘refund’. [For those in the
know, Remini’s refund actually does more bad than good for Scientology – it’s a
horse they didn’t want to publicly bolt maybe – but that’s not the point]

Jon Atack also put up a post that I thought was a load of
old crap. But having been tipped about his trustworthiness, it all looks pretty
blatant now. According to another well known former Sci, JA is still convinced
in the reality of some very disturbing black arts that even Hubbard might have
laughed at. But just to take him as a speaker – check out the first minute and
a half of this baloney:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHXMWS9Wei4

He describes religion at 1:10, then shows how LRH doesn’t match it.
Unfortunately, the description he uses doesn’t match *any* religion in living
memory, not even remotely, which makes this all just dishonest bullwack. This
is the third strike against this particular warrior as far as I’m concerned.

Yesterday’s Bunker post is from Mark Bunker. One of the
Xenu-named message boards had a thread about him being on the take, continually
fundraising with very dubious reasons. A day later, Bunker admitted his latest
reason was no longer valid and offered refunds to all. Hmmm. Anyways, it didn’t
last, a week later he’s on another Fund Me expedition. And if you read Tony’s
post, he seems to be hedging with his word choices about Mark’s constant
cash-grabs.

This community could do worse than go online in search of
criticism. I think there is a lite version of a Scientologist’s critical
aversion going on in their web browsing. Some of the anti-anti-Scientology
stuff out there is eye-popping. Both from Scientology and the places where this
community dares criticise itself (other sites allow this). Scientology have
said some things about ex-members which, if untrue, would yield payouts that
would give them as big a headache as the IRS.

I should also add that I took a lot of heat over criticising
Alex Gibney / Paul Haggis. I’ve since read the book Going Clear. For anyone
with a critical eye, the reasons for Haggis leaving Scientology are right there
in the book. It has *nothing* to do with the reasons given in the film. I’ll be
posting in more detail about that too. Unlike some, I don’t think you’d burst a
blood vessel when I do, so I’ll send you a link when it happens.

I do not have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, or Instagram page and try my best to avoid social media, but alas I do check a few Twitter accounts regularly (you do not need an account to read someone’s tweets)’ which is largely a colossal waste of time. But carefully chosen, a few are excellent portals for cutting edge reasearch and ideas (Steven Pinker, for example).

Regarding the cultural differences, the U.S.’s Puritan roots are deep, and hardly new (even de Tocqueville was struck by the number of churches and how enmeshed religion was in American political culture), but the in vs. out and demonization of the other seems to be worse. What I find most pernicious is the popularity of anti-scientific and anti-intellectualism, which the Conservative Republican party tends to especially pander to (although the liberal/democratic party has their own strain), and I throughly agree that religion is one of the primary, if not THE primary, root cause of the idiocy.

This is a silly and ridiculous long shot, but I know someone who lives in London and somewhat fits your description (very British, not from there, well traveled), so I’ll give it a go: any chance you are from Nola?

I’m an avoider of social media almost entirely, so didn’t know about those Twitter accounts. I might have a look.

I’m entirely British, although initially from somewhere other than London. I have to admit I’ve never even heard of Teddington!?! I have seen more of the USA though than any American I’ve ever met (although an American tourist over here likely sees more of the U.K. than I ever have – just how it goes). I’ve been to about half of the States.

And there’s a huge cultural overlap of course. The biggest difference is now probably religion. It isn’t tolerated politically in Europe. In fact, from an outsiders point of view… I’m amazed at political divisions in America. The left/right battle is universal but in America I get the feeling that both sides think the other is insane and an evil in society. It just isn’t like that over here. And something like this from Marco Rubio would end his career forever in Europe: “God has blessed us. He’s blessed the Republican Party with some very good candidates.” This is CRAZY TALK. Not only is he bringing a fictional genocidal maniac into the debate, he’s saying he’s a Republican. And the icing on the cake is that the good candidates he’s talking about have made America something of a laughing stock abroad. It’s the sorriest group of candidates in history. The reputation of the USA is being harmed by that particular contest. Without any preference between the two parties, we are scratching our heads at how Rubio could say such a thing, how Trump can get away with a single utterance, how Huckabee can triumphantly lift the arm of Kim Davies like she just cured cancer… and I haven’t even mentioned Ted Cruz or Ben Carson, a man who comes across like he couldn’t get a job at McDonald’s never mind be a Dr. I don’t have a dog in that fight, I’m just saying that one side behave and talk in a way that is no longer acceptable in most of Europe. And with the possible exception of Trump, religion seems to be the biggest factor in their idiocy.

Hello Mr. Clarke, long work week for me, and only had time for my morning bunker lurk. Thanks for the brief education about Bill and the forensic techniques used to analyze writing styles.

Harris has gone quiet since his recent close-to-the-edge episode. I can tell you this with confidence: virtually every thing he says about his critics is accurate, especially Aslan and Glenn Greenwald, the latter of which is throughly dishonest and underhanded, if not outright sociopathic. If you wasted time looking into his background, it would not be difficult to find several reputable people speaking out about his attempts to ruin them, and there are suggestions that he is guilty of fraud or at least highly unethical behavior when he worked as an attorney. He appears to have all the marks of a David Miscavge-like character, and I think he would swiftly become full blown if he had more power.

I recall watching the first episodes of Mr. Diety soon after they were posted to the net. Loved his bit with Dawkins, but have not watched any episodes recently. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Tweet of God. And as a Londoner, you must also be familiar with BoringTweeter. I’m in the states, but reluctant to localize further, although, as an adult, I have lived in numerous regions of the U.S. and also Europe for several years. Visited London for a month many years ago, a portion of that time in Teddington. Are you perchance from the states?

I’ve read Harris say he’s beyond exasperated by some of these people – half of them seem to be called Glen – but I’m not familiar with them (not public figures in the UK, although neither is Harris of course), and I suspect they’d drive me up the wall too. I’m amazed at the coverage Reza Aslan (sp?) gets, because I think his arguments are shockingly bad. In every interview he bigs up the greatness of Islam due to the fact that anyone can bring themselves to it with their own interpretation. This is a huge criticism, and I’d put it to him that without the book and a possible interpretation, no one would be flying planes into buildings. I’m sure leading Scientologists would have a field day with that one – that the creator of the universe has bad or vague ‘comms’.

Yeah, Bacon and every other historical figure of the period, including Queen Elizabeth herself. Serious *cough* arguments tend to stick to Christopher Marlowe and Edward DeVere, the Earl of Oxford, both as preposterous as the other. Marlowe (murdered a few years after W.S. made his debut) cleared a path Shakey followed, right down to stealing some of his ideas, and a lot of these folk think it’s proof they are one and the same. But they don’t consider that a) if true, it means Marlowe wrote the same play twice (the ‘stolen’ idea version is far more plausible), and b) in almost every artform, it’s the 2nd wave that produces the best remembered / genius, whether it’s cubism, or bloody grunge. Sadly I haven’t seen the ‘reason’ side of the argument produce that last point yet.

Like DNA proving evolution beyond any doubt, computers can now determine authors with absolute precision. Every writer, no matter how clever, leaves a trace. It’s quite something. The only surviving handwritten manuscript of a play from Shakespeare’s lifetime was examined. It seems many writers had a hand in it. Obviously, there was some excitement about the possibility Shakespeare was one of them, and we finally had some handwritten work. Three pages were consistent with his known signatures* (and scholars believed the quality was also consistent). [*I should add that as a non handwriting expert, I couldn’t see the similarity myself, but I’ll go with the professionals]The whole play (called Sir Thomas More) was typed into a computer, and it was asked to identify the author / authors from its vast database with no prejudice. It came back with: three pages, and three pages only, were definitely the work of one William Shakespeare. The ones that match his known handwriting. Utterly clinical. And brushed off by the doubters with the same ignorance of a Ken Hamm who is happily spending tens of millions of dollars to convince Americans man and dinosaur happily co-existed.

If you just want to take it down a notch… have you heard of Mr Deity? It’s a web series which started about 10 years ago. With a white bearded former Mormom playing a not-too-bright God. It was a huge hit in the atheist community – Richard Dawkins recently guest starred in an episode. His co-stars left the show after a few years, and it went a little off the boil, but the first three or four seasons are comedy gold, and I think most of it is on YouTube.

Where in the world are you, Sir H? (I’m in London)