Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance on Scientology (OCRT): Unbiased?
R. Hill
on Scientology. Writing is not my forte, I'm all open for suggestions
for improvement. I wrote it mainly for web site purpose, so it's quite
messy if I cut & paste well here, thus here is an excerpt and click the
link to read the rest. I will probably make a pure text version once I
feel it has stabilized. Anyway, hope it is useful.
=====
About Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance (OCRT thereafter) is a
Canadian-based non-profit organisation which purports to provide
unbiased information on 'faith groups' and various topics related to
these 'faith groups'. They own an expansive web site,
religioustolerance.org, claiming "over 3,550 essays" about religious
faiths and various related topics.
One particular statement on OCRT's web site will be of interest for the
present essay (highlight is mine):
This site describes both the positive and negative aspects of
religions.
[Source: OCRT - About this web site]
Another statement by OCRT that is of interest (highlight is mine):
We will attempt to overcome our biases on each topic that we describe,
by explaining each point of view carefully, respectfully and
objectively. To this end, we have many of our essays reviewed by
persons familiar with the issues who represent all sides of each topic.
[Source: OCRT - Our Statement of Beliefs]
Many seems to consider OCRT as a reliable source of information on
religious movements. As an example, the U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps
information page on Scientology is actually the OCRT's essay on
Scientology. Also, this excerpt from The Good Web Guide:
Don't be dissuaded by the home-made quality of some pages, because the
quality of the articles is extremely high, and (whatever your faith
perspective) the site merits frequent visits.
[Source: The good web guide - Review of the Ontario Consultants on
Religious Tolerance]
OCRT maintains a web page that lists various sources, many prominent,
identifying religioustolerance.org as a good resource to learn more
about religious faiths.
When one search for the word "Scientology," OCRT's web site ranks
highly in Google and Yahoo, and relatively high in Live Search. The
U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps essay on Scientology, which is essentially a
reproduction of OCRT's essay on Scientology, also ranks high.
Therefore, when one search for "Scientology" using the main search
engines, they will likely be offered the OCRT's essay on Scientology,
with the perception that it is actually an independent essay and thus
reliable.
We will demonstrate here that it is neither independent and reliable,
and actually strongly biased with the views of the Church of
Scientology.
[...]
=====
Ray.
R. Hill
Android Cat
I believe that "Director of Public Affairs" is their current snowwhitewash
name for Director of Special Affairs, an OSA position on the Organizational
Chart. (Somewhere there's a nice big image of the chart, but I can't find
it right now.)
I should be able to dig up a reference for Al Buttnor as the DSA.
--
Ron of that ilk.
Android Cat
On their page http://www.religioustolerance.org/scientol4.htm (another one
Al copied from CoS publications) there seems to be many inaccuracies and
missing information.
For example "Netherlands: Church of Spiritual Technology and Religious
Technology Center v. Dataweb, Stichting XS4ALL, et al., Case No. 96/160,
Regional Court of the Hague", gives the impression that CoS won that fight
when ultimately they lost. Either the information is out of date or they
picked one particular battle in that long war to give a misleading
impression.
This is the page where Al appears to be referencing the academic site
religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu, but he's really just pointing to a copy
of a CoS press release.
And so it goes...
R. Hill
You're right, good catch -- I forgot about this one. I had noticed they
didn't mention Spaink & XS4ALL conclusion, it was on my original to-do
list.
http://www.xs4all.nl/nieuws/bericht.php?id=706&taal=en
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/13054/final-victory-xs4all-and-karin-spaink-win-scientology-battle
I will update as soon as I can.
Many thanks,
Ray.
Hartley Patterson
> Many seems to consider OCRT as a reliable source of information on
> religious movements. As an example, the U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps
> information page on Scientology is actually the OCRT's essay on
> Scientology.
They use other pages about other religions from OCRT as well. The page
they use for Scientology used to be the only one on OCRT, when it was
changed and other pages added it was updated on the Navy website at the
request of the CoS, not OCRT.
> We will demonstrate here that it is neither independent and reliable,
> and actually strongly biased with the views of the Church of
> Scientology.
Actually *that* page isn't so bad, as most of it was not written by Al
Buttnor. It's the other scientology pages that are straight propaganda.
--
http://www.newsfrombree.co.uk
A medieval spreadsheet and enturbulating entheta.
PGP: 0xC27CDDDC
Android Cat
> R. Hill rh...@xenu-directory.net:
>
>> Many seems to consider OCRT as a reliable source of information on
>> religious movements. As an example, the U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps
>> information page on Scientology is actually the OCRT's essay on
>> Scientology.
>
> They use other pages about other religions from OCRT as well. The page
> they use for Scientology used to be the only one on OCRT, when it was
> changed and other pages added it was updated on the Navy website at
> the request of the CoS, not OCRT.
>
>> We will demonstrate here that it is neither independent and reliable,
>> and actually strongly biased with the views of the Church of
>> Scientology.
>
> Actually *that* page isn't so bad, as most of it was not written by Al
> Buttnor. It's the other scientology pages that are straight
> propaganda.
Compare the page to the previous version:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/scientol1.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20040820033012/http://www.religioustolerance.com/scientol.htm
It's not so bad because it was starting from the existing page, but there
are significant changes. I'm sure that the changes (probably all by Al)
were also crafted with an eye to staying neutral enough on the surface not
to lose the navychaplin mirror page.
lmng...@myrealbox.com
>I've been trying to write a small essay regarding OCRT's current essay
>on Scientology. Writing is not my forte, I'm all open for suggestions
>for improvement. I wrote it mainly for web site purpose, so it's quite
>messy if I cut & paste well here, thus here is an excerpt and click the
>link to read the rest. I will probably make a pure text version once I
>feel it has stabilized. Anyway, hope it is useful.
>
>=====
>
>About Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
>
>The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance (OCRT thereafter) is a
you can leave out "thereafter" if you want to be more concise.
>Canadian-based non-profit organisation which purports to provide
"purports"? would "claims" work? Never use a large word when a
diminutive one will suffice. or perhaps ".. organization provides..."
>unbiased information on 'faith groups' and various topics related to
>these 'faith groups'. They own an expansive web site,
I don't think you need to put single quote marks around "faith groups"
>religioustolerance.org, claiming "over 3,550 essays" about religious
>faiths and various related topics.
why don't you just count them? or better yet, try this:
"Their website, religionstolerance.org, claims over 3550 essays... "
>One particular statement on OCRT's web site will be of interest for the
>present essay (highlight is mine):
Okay Ray, that is all proofreading I want to do today.
R. Hill
It's almost as bad because of what was *removed* from earlier versions,
that's the thing:
- FDA raid of 1963
- FBI raid of 1977
- Volney Mathison mention as the inventor of the e-meter has been
removed
- Mention of Hubbard's death has been removed from the latest version
(not yet propagated to Chaplains)... Oh that's right, Hubbard didn't
die, he dropped his body :-)
Ray.
R. Hill
Points taken, thanks very much for that.
I will correct asap.
Ray.
lmng...@myrealbox.com
>Points taken, thanks very much for that.
>I will correct asap.
I am no more an expert on writing than you are. While I'm flattered
that you would adopt those specific suggestions, I have some
self-doubt regarding the validity of my suggestions. Rather than risk
making your essay worse with my amateur skills, I suggest you review
some more reputable sources:
http://www.mantex.co.uk/samples/style.htm
and
http://dictionary.reference.com/writing/
I'm sure those widely recognized references will help you a lot more
than "the success through communications course" described at
scientology.org/en_US/religion/introductory/pg002.html
Best of luck to you in this endeavor!