It appears that the fine folks in the Hamilton Central Police Department are bigger fans of Scientologist nagging than actual freedom of speech: Zi-Xiao Liang, creator of Scientology Pwned, was recently contacted by Detective Chris Kiriakopoulos in regards to his "hate crime" of a game.
Liang was first called to the police station and questioned on his personal background and the nature of his game. Says Liang:
"A reoccurring question Kiriakopoulous kept asking was "Given that your game has offended people, what do you plan to do?" To which I initially responded "nothing" since I was under the impression offending people isn't a hate crime. He didn't like that answer too much.... anyways, in the end he 'suggested' I change the name of the game to something which made no reference to Scientology. He didn't mind me keeping the sprites, bullets, blood etc."
While the police do have a point -- if the game revolved around killing Jews or blacks instead of a hilariously stupid cult of psychopaths, it wouldn't be as easy to defend/laugh at -- as a freedom of speech issue, it's pretty open and shut. The game openly advocates nothing, and the cops have no legal right to force him to change the name (that's what I assume, anyway -- Liang lives in Canada, and I know very little of that place other than the fact that it's much cleaner, nicer, and more moose-filled than the US). Liang only created the game for his personal website, Scientology has no standing as a recognized religion in Canada, and the only "crime" he committed was offending some whackjobs who believe an evil alien emperor rules the universe.
Sadly, he has not only pulled the game from his official site after censoring its title, but he's also looking for alternative names for his game. C'mon, Zi-Xiao; fight the power and/or stick it to the man!
[Via GameSetWatch]
Contest:
7:43 PM on 05.16.2007
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Scientology isn't a religion. It's a business.
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/app/cipo/trademarks/search/viewTrademark.do?fileNumber=380092&extension=0&language=eng
uh oh... did i offend them?
please don't make me watch battlefield earth.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Does it also have applesause?
I may need to find a new place of living then
- Paul Mooney
That's as far as the Scientology discussion goes.
As far as this story goes? The guy should give a call to someone who has some rank in the police, and have this shit investigated as to who's trying to fuck with him. You can't do that AFAIK, unless you're in Iran or some other backwater post.
Seriously though, Canada is one of the most free (if not THE MOST free) country in the world. Don't allow yourself to be bullied by the government. If you allow yourself to give up your most basic rights, you might as well just go ahead and move to the United States.
Oh snap!
Although Canada is very clean, I didn't see one nice moose there. Canadians seem to be elitist assholes. But thats only what I saw in Canadian Bacon.
Oh and what a fucking pussy for changing the name and removing it. He doesn't deserve the right of freedom of speech if he doesn't fight for it. He might as well move to China.
That cop was probably a scientologist. Fucking nut jobs.
Not only do we have applesauce, we have different flavors of it too! I tried some peach and mango sauce the other day - damn that shit is good.
I don't think someone could offend me EVER with a generalizing swoop. Someone could say that all 21 year olds named chris who happen to be engineering students at UWO are worthless sacks of shit, and I'd say "well that could be anyone." You can't let indirect attacks get to you, and if you live your life clean you should never have to worry about personal attacks either.
Oh well. I guess if someone is that much of a douchewagon that a game's title can offend you all the way to the police, it's wasting his time way more than anyone else's.
also, @savagesaladin
As an elitist asshole Canadian, what's your point? We don't think we're better than anyone, but lately a lot of people are getting the wrong impression from Bush. I'd like to think most of us are aware that Americans are ok people and we're more like you guys than anyone else... but this war is giving us a reason to want to feel different.
The main differentiating factor between scientology and other, more established religions are the outlandish nature of many of their beliefs(not surprising considering their prophet was a science fiction novelist), the tendency of its practitioners to lean towards batshit crazy, and their horribly litigious nature. All the negativity they receive, they draw to themselves. As someone smarter than paul mooney said:
"You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt."
"The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments."-Friedrich Nietzsche
Man, I love Tool.
It's all pretty much explained and defined as it pertains to the topic in the paragraph that I quoted. I didn't think it would be hard to understand the point.
And the point is very good. How weakness of man, even when it comes to such an issue of the reason for existence, shines brightly as the sun just simply out of convenience and stupidity.
The sun and tomorrow quote is nice, but it kind of misses the point in this case, because things that are in doubt can still prove true, and therefore belief and struggle for them is ultimately justified by that reasoning.
The point should be that the whole Scientology THING is fucking retarded and only morons and/or parasites would want to dabble with it. It's not a question of "is it or isn't it?". It's a question of "These people need to go and see a psychiatrist".
However, I have found this whole Scientology thing most amusing. If the people who practice it can be Thetans or whatever the fuck their titles are, I don't see why I can't be a Jedi Knight. Sure, I can only use The Force in my psychotic mind, but man if I'm not going to be cool swinging a bat out on the street, bludgeoning people to death.
Cause hey. I'm a Dark Jedi. There's a'killing to be done, so I can bring MY meaning of life to reality.
...what a bunch of fucking brain surgeons. Xenu's coming soon. Better get ready.
*sigh*
I'm offended that a government body would even consider harassing this gentleman for his game. That's what's offensive to me.
Unfortunately, he bowed to the pressure. I can understand why, although I don't exactly think he should have done such.
Brad, your sun quote makes sense in theory, but it seems to ignore the larger picture -- the quote makes it sound as if the only reason people shout from the mountaintops in order to defend things is because they themselves doubt them to some degree, and fear the reprecussions of being wrong so much that they push their beliefs onto others. That's undoubtedly true, but, for the most part, people shout from the mountaintops simply because another group of people disagrees with them: I'm sure many scientologists know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Xenu existed (brainwashing does that), but the reason they argue and litigate isn't because they're slightly insecure and scared, but simply because other people disagree with them and they need to prove that their belief is "better."
Secondly, calling Scientology ridiculous simply because it isn't a "real" religion that has been around for thousands of years ignores the entire point of its stupidity: at its core belief system, Scientology is just as stupid as every other religion on the planet -- Christians have virgin births and water tricks, Xenu has spaceships and evil aliens. They're two sides of the same coin, and to criticize one but let the other slide is to miss the point.
"every single scientologist on the planet is a fucking moron."
Ok, pick on the morons why don't you.
We need a John Sweeney game where you use the power of a rocket propelled voice to destroy scientologists.
Now as I understand it, Canada has harsher, stricter "hate speech/hate crime" laws that the USA. (Because everyone in Canada is 'tolerant' and a 'multicultural mosaic.') So the man probably backed off because it wasn't worth dealing withl. His initial stances was "I will do nothing. Back off." so that's OK for me.
- L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology.
-> BlackDove: But the quote was illogical in that an old broom possesses no more knowledge than a new one due to its lack of sentience. From my, agnostic, perspective, christianity(or most other religions) are no different from scientology because none of them are actually based on reason, only hereditary anecdotes. That was why I didn't think much of the quote. The pirsig quote I used was not about struggle, but fanaticism; being blindly obsessed with something at the exclusion of all else. Most religious representatives(that I can find any common ground with) would tell you that this is not the way you should be.
-> Rev: I don't actually know any scientologists personally, but I always kind of assumed that the whole brainwashing thing was mostly hyperbolic. I could be wrong, but I don't think practitioners of it are any more brainwashed than say born again christians or muslim fundamentalists(not equal terrorists). Like I said, I don't know, but I feel the quote applies.
I don't know if that second part was directed at me, but I didn't call their beliefs stupid. I referred to them as outlandish, because they very much are. All of that thetan/xenu crap is typical fare of science fiction, there isn't any precedence for able minded adults to actually believe it. I'm not saying it's any less sensible than what other religions believe, it's just so contrary to the norm that it makes it more difficult to identify with people who do believe in it.
@Rev: "Christians have virgin births and water tricks, Xenu has spaceships and evil aliens. They're two sides of the same coin, and to criticize one but let the other slide is to miss the point."
I strongly disagree with this sentiment. I understand that I'm arguing with THE demographic for unabashed religion hating, but I'm gonna say this anyway. The reason that Scientology doesn't deserve the same 'pass' that the 'major' religions get is that it charges for membership. I understand that many other religions take 'offerings' or other forms of donation, but these are not required. If you were to go to a church, you could receive all of the same benefits as the leader of the congregation himself without paying a dime, and no one would know (nor would many care). There aren't ranks. There aren't entry fees. It is a group of people who are trying to better people's lives (at least in their opinion).
Scientology on the other hand famously requires payment for all benefits, on what is made to seem like an exponential scale. It is impossible to ignore the likelihood that someone(s) out there is reaping huge profits off these people. That is not gnerally the point of religion. In every major faith, the overall message is that you need to be a "good person" to obtain enlightenment/immortality/really sweet nunchuck-swords. No other religion (that I am aware of) says you can buy your salvation. THAT is the major issue I have with Scientology.