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Inappropriate Responses

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The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

09:49 / 08.07.05

I'm not a wiccan.

Gypsy Lantern

09:50 / 08.07.05

It's quite scary to think of them waiting somewhere, their yellow jackets hanging on a peg, ready to respond at a moment's notice to any pseudo-religious emergency.

That's the creepy thing. The fact that there must be these guys all over London with orange emergency wear hanging up in their wardrobes, waiting for a crisis situation to happen so they can go off and talk to emotionally vulnerable people on the street, presumably with a subtext of how great scientology is and what it can do for them. Brrrr...

paranoidwriter waves hello

09:50 / 08.07.05

Would it be more or less disgusting had they been from a more mainstream religion?

Equally disgusting. It's one thing to offer comfort, but at times like these people are week and impressionable; ripe for plucking. If people went to (e.g.) a church yesterday, then fair enough, offer guidance. But to actually go out to the disaster areas and hunt lost souls.... That's mercenary.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

09:51 / 08.07.05

But we get into the slightly dodgy territory of which religion are legitimatly allowed to turn up during disasters to offer spiritual support. Would you like to be the one making that decsion?

Evil Scientist

09:52 / 08.07.05

Hmm, bombs happen and suddenly the Scientologists are on the scene. I think we've found our prime suspects.

(Legal thingy: Evil Scientist's views do not necessarily reflect the views of the Barbelith community. So leave em alone you naughty Scientologist lawyerbots).

(...don't sue me either. I'm a scientist, that means we're related...kinda).

Triplets

10:01 / 08.07.05

Reid', I was speaking to Mordant.

Jack The Bodiless

10:14 / 08.07.05

Did think yesterday - "well, that puts the kibosh on the V For Vendetta movie." I bet all of the bombers were tall athletic men, too. I mean, they'd have had to have been or it would have been just stupid.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:17 / 08.07.05

This was quite an inappropriate thought...

Planting a bomb so close to the centre of counter-terrorism operations HAD to be some kind of bet. Therefore it can't have been Islamic fundamentalists, because there was gambling involved. (I feel awful).

WRT the Scientologists- do you reckon they were telling people to spurn the life-saving medical treatment they were being offered? (Hey, at least it wasn't the Barefoot Doctor...)

Triplets

10:24 / 08.07.05

Has anyone checked the CCTV footage for two Natalie Portman's on-top of each other's shoulders?

OH SNAP

Jub

10:28 / 08.07.05

I don't get it Ms Trip.

Evil Scientist

10:31 / 08.07.05

That won't help. I see two shaven-headed Natalie Portman's on top of each other every time I close my eyes.

Ganesh

10:33 / 08.07.05

But we get into the slightly dodgy territory of which religion are legitimatly allowed to turn up during disasters to offer spiritual support. Would you like to be the one making that decsion?

Has anyone been pontificating on what should and shouldn't be "allowed"? As far as I'm able to see, it's mainly been people expressing negative personal opinions so far with regard to Scientology. By way of analogy, I find puffball skirts disgusting; I'm not sure, however, that this pulls me into deciding whether or not they should be "allowed".

paranoidwriter waves hello

10:35 / 08.07.05

Has anyone been pontificating on what should and shouldn't be "allowed"?

Yup. Me, for one. ;-)

Evil Scientist

10:40 / 08.07.05

Me for another.

I'm also officially starting a pro-puffball skirt backlash. Everyone follow meeeeee!

Cherielabombe

10:52 / 08.07.05

My inescapable inappropriate response, since midafternoon (when people on here and elsewhere have been talking about going to the pub) has been to have lines from Shaun of the Dead running through my head.

We're going to the Winchester etc...

Wow, me too! Again, i really wanted someone to tell me I could stop the terrorists by removing the head and destroying the brain.

Looking at the busses running in Central London on my way home from work yesterday, first thought was, "YAY London!" Second thought was, "I bet those drivers are so pissed off that they have to work when they thought they'd get the day off..."

Ganesh

10:55 / 08.07.05

Okay-dokay, then, ParanoidWriter and Evil Scientist, I'll leave you to address Reidcourchie's question re: which faiths should and shouldn't be "allowed" to minister.

w1rebaby

10:59 / 08.07.05

Seeing bloke with eyepatch being interviewed on TV (the one on the cover of today's Metro): "He's got terrible acne, poor guy." Or maybe it's from tiny high-speed fragments of glass.

Also wondered if the fishsticks I'd left in the fridge at work would go off. They haven't, though, I'm glad to say.

Olulabelle

11:02 / 08.07.05

A minister in a church next to Aldate has been using his church since the bombing to give the emergency services tea, sympathy and somewhere to have a pee.

There was (according to the radio) a bit of hand holding going on yesterday but not much in the way of Churchy preaching.

If the Scientologists must go, then so must he surely?

Smoothly

11:04 / 08.07.05

I've been thinking, 'I bet Seb Coe is gutted'.

Alex's Grandma

11:11 / 08.07.05

Church of Scientology 'emergency ministers'

What's wrong with being scientific ?

Evil Scientist

11:16 / 08.07.05

I haven't got a problem with people from religious organisations helping in a crisis. What I have a problem with is fluorescent jackets proclaiming you to be a "Scientologist Emergency Minister". Exactly why did they need to have that on there? Why couldn't they have helped without putting an advert on their back?

Given the predatory nature of scientology, I can't believe it was anything more than a cynical attempt to recruit people when they were vulnerable.

If you're really there to help, do you go straight to the scene and offer aid? Or do you pop home and get your emergency jacket?

Perhaps I'm wrong. we have little information on where these Emergency Ministers came from, could have been a scientology church nearby. It's my natural reaction to distrust and suspect.

paranoidwriter waves hello

11:17 / 08.07.05

Okay-dokay, then, ParanoidWriter and Evil Scientist, I'll leave you to address Reidcourchie's question re: which faiths should and shouldn't be "allowed" to minister.

Like I suggested: no faiths should be allowed to hover around ministering on the spot. For if people need spiritual reassurance they should seek it out. Of course, if (say) a Catholic victim asks for the last rites to be read to them, then a priest should be found ASAP. But this is an example of people seeking religeous counsel, not religeous councils seeking out lost and confused souls.

Gypsy Lantern

11:18 / 08.07.05

If the Scientologists must go, then so must he surely?

Not at all. There is a huge difference between some guy in the nearby area opening up his church to help people in need, and an organisation sending people onto the streets dressed like paramedics to talk to people about scientology. It's the orange flak jackets that make it distasteful as it makes them look like they are in some way connected to the emergency services when in fact they are serving a cult agenda.

If the Catholic church had mobilised a bunch of priests onto the streets dressed up like the emergency services, I would find it equally distasteful. If a scientology church near one of the incidents opened its doors and started making cups of tea for people and looking after them, I would find it equally dignified.

Benny the Ball

11:30 / 08.07.05

I had some "Un-Scientific Emergency Minister" flourescent jackets made up and spent the afternoon offerring people leaches and trepanning procedures.

Whisky Priestess

11:34 / 08.07.05

That's pretty inappropriate. Can anyone else do better?

Evil Scientist

11:35 / 08.07.05

Do they suggest handy, yet-unscientific, ways to help people?

"We shall lift this 4 ton chunk of debris by asking mice to assemble and sing it into the air."

Char Aina

11:40 / 08.07.05

i've been sticking firecrackers in models of london buses and selling them as souvenirs.
on site.

how'd i do?

Whisky Priestess

11:51 / 08.07.05

FUCKING HELL toksik

that is impressively inappropriate.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:01 / 08.07.05

It would be funnier if you were based in London, I think. As in, standing a chance of being in any way at all funny.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

12:02 / 08.07.05

Good points all.

"Church of Scientology 'emergency ministers'"

Does this mean they are like Global Frequency?

Char Aina

12:04 / 08.07.05

sorry, haus.
i have lived in london and do have friends there, and was regularly at two of the stations attacked while there.
i also only said it as a response to the priestess' request,but hey.
you have right to be unimpressed.

paranoidwriter waves hello

12:08 / 08.07.05

Someone I bumped into in the pub last night said:

"I'm only here to pick up widows."

I thought that was pretty inappropriate (but I still laughed -- like I typed earlier, I'm a sick puppy).

Benny the Ball

12:18 / 08.07.05

A friend IM'ed me "do you think I could use this as an excuse to get in touch with ex girlfriends that I still want to fuck?"

Char Aina

12:28 / 08.07.05

hah!
one of my mates from fort drastic said the exact same thing after new york!
must be a wierd time to get a call like that, i reckon.
you might want the sex; hell you might need the sex, but it would feel wierd.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:37 / 08.07.05

Reid', I was speaking to Mordant.

Um, I'm not a Wiccan either. I've been a heathen for about five minutes, if that's what you meant.

And yes, if I was to start turning up at bomb sites and trying to convert bleeding disaster victims to my way of thinking ("Nasty headwound you've got there, mate. Thor'd never have let that happen!") you'd have a point. Otherwise you seem to be implying that just sitting at home believing in things is the same as aggressivley promoting those things to the psychologically fucked, which confuses me.

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