If you came upon an article on the Internet about psychiatry which made some of the same outrageous claims that the Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights made, it would be an important critical thinking point to know whether the author was a Scientologist.
Knowing whether the author was a Scientologist would allow you to know the context of the author’s ideas, and you could better understand where the ideas were coming from, and why.
In the same way, when you see an article about the abuses of Scientology, calling it a “cult”, and leveling charges of “brainwashing” and “mind control” and comparing Scientologists to “robots”, it would be important to know the religious and spiritual background of the author.
Why?
Because studies of the anti-cult movement show many representatives from mainstream religions inhabit their ranks, and just as it was important to know it was a Scientologist who wrote the article against psychiatry, knowing the context of the author’s ideas here would provide you with important critical thinking points.
For centuries, mainstream religions have been threatened by newer minority religions and have fought against them. Ever since the 1970’s and 1980’s however, their religiously-motivated attacks on these newer religions changed to a more “psychiatric mental illness” paradigm, than the satan-inspired spiritual deception messaging they were using before.
Christianity
Islam
Atheism
All have ideological teachings against “cults” and “new religions”.
For instance, how many Catholics have you seen who are up in arms about Leah Remini’s episode where a single adult Scientologist was indifferent to the pleadings of a child victim of sexual abuse in the cadet org, but who never raised a peep about the thousands of children abused by pedophile priests in the Catholic Church?
Did you know that Ted Patrick, the notorious father of deprogramming, is a devout Christian?
And did you know that Tony Ortega is a devoted atheist?
Just as it is important to know that a Scientologist has written a screed slamming psychiatrists, it is equally important to find out the religious and spiritual backgrounds, and ideological rationalizations, for members in the anti-Cult movement.
Many members of the anti-cult movement simply want the abuses that they have heard about in “cults” to stop. But not all. A lot of the members of the anti-cult movement want the minority religion itself to stop – for their own religious and ideological reasons. It would be a mistake to overlook this very powerful dynamic of religious intolerance and persecution in the anti-cult movement.
So next time you see a rabid anti-cultist, find out what their religious and spiritual motivations are. If it’s important to know if someone is a Scientologist, it is just as important in their case, too.
Interesting, I hadn’t seen this prior post about Ortega’s boorish behavior on Twitter.
I also find it interesting that you were specifically banned from the Bunker for allegedly “intimidating” Rachel Bernstein, the highly unethical anti-cult “therapist” whose own abusive statements against Cathy Tweed, which amount to victim-shaming and blaming, would be enough to get her license reviewed, and rightfully so.
The comment from”Eileen” is incorrect. Any public statement or action is a “reportable offense”. Legally, there is no expectation of privacy on a public medium, which publicly viewable blogs and forums on the Web are (or Usenet, back in the good ol’ days of spam-free A.R.S.) In the U.S. anything you say or do on such a medium can be used against you. Email is a different story. But there are also various professional caveats regarding what journalists, doctors, lawyers, etc. can do with information made public by a civilian.
Ortega violates the privacy rights of Scientologists to such an extent he and his accomplices could be easily sued for posting personal information and pictures culled from Facebook and private inter-Scientologist emails and church promo. I’m surprised his personal attorney, Scott Pilutik (who actually makes his living working as Ortega’s webmaster, tax-free cash under the table) hasn’t cautioned his one and only client, or perhaps he has and Ortega is too arrogant to keep himself in check.
There was a case recently where a one-time Playboy model took a picture of an elderly woman showering in a gym and posted it on Instagram or Snapchat in a callous demonstration of body shaming. Within hours she had become one of the most hatest villains of social media and the elderly victim successfully sued her for invasion of privacy. She has no future whatsoever in Hollywood for this disgusting act. Not even the mainline adult film studios want anything to do with her.
Tony Ortega’s worst enemy is his own arrogance and addiction to trolling rank-and-file Scientologists. It may not be Cathy Tweed, but one day some Scientologist, current or former, who has suffered a personal tragedy is going to get trolled by him and not turn the other cheek and Leah Remini, Mike Rinder, et al will all disconnect from him like he’s got a case of the bubonic plague.
Ortega is just too arrogant, narcissistic and self-involved to ever realize just how evil and disgusting his behavior so often is.