Johnny, that’s not how the guidelines for tax exemption work, partly because the government (and the IRS) are supposed to stay out of making specific judgments about religious practices. There are some broad requirements such as “public benefit” that Scientology is probably increasingly vulnerable on, but that’s a matter of making a case based on multiple points of evidence and broad patterns, rather than just one measure that might seem traditionally expected of a religion or charity. It’s important to accurately understand what would need to be done, in order to know what to do.

Well, in most money-making corporations, there isn’t a lot of room for compassion, Mike. That would be counter-productive, now wouldn’t it?

I know, it really does piss you off, doesn’t it? Just empty buildings standing there, I don’t think it would even OCCUR to DM to help these people. What a farce this whole thing is.

ACTUAL churches, most likely. And the Red Cross and disaster relief agencies. Yes, Int seems to be pretty close to the fault line. A good portion of So Cal is.

I grew up in Sac and most of my family is still there. Kevin Johnson is the most ineffectual mayor the city has ever seen.

Scientology is helping NO ONE, except for Miscavige’s bank account. Don’t be fooled.

This will show that scientology has absolutely no interest in giving any help to those who need it (and will probably call the police instead). Thus proving that scientology does not deserve tax-exempt status.

I thought of that in the middle of the night! Thank you so much for all the tips. I need all the help i can get!

p.s. There’s a great example of Scientology’s monitoring of the internet over at Tony Ortega’s site The Underground Bunker today. Yesterday someone posted a comment there with a link to a video of the inside of a building in Clearwater that they found on a Facebook account, and within hours an official of the CofS was at the workplace of the Facebook account holder asking them to take the video down.

Thinking about it further, if you want to check out an org I think you need to be prepared to kind of play dumb, deflecting any questions intended to probe whether you’ve heard about them on the internet or from ex-members, and letting them know that you have enough interest to want to be shown around and find out a bit more but probably not enough to do a personality test (unless you really want to be separated from your friend and each put through that recruiting routine). Asking questions that could be seen as critical risks making the staff suspicious and shutting them down unless you approach it very carefully after you have established some rapport.

Whats the big difference? Most scientologists that I know personally shower twice a week whether they need it or not. Funny but true