Scientology's volunteers get frosty reception at fire scene (Hilarious)

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-fside09.html

As fire raged inside the LaSalle Bank building, a band of serious-looking young adults in yellow jackets hustled past the police tape toward the action.

Their coats bore the words "Volunteer Minister." But these weren't your standard chaplains -- like the five Catholic, Jewish and Protestant clerics already on the scene.

The volunteer ministers are members of the Church of Scientology, a religious group founded in 1954 by the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and perhaps best known for celebrity followers such as John Travolta and Tom Cruise. Some critics -- including the German government, which views it not as a religion but a money-making scheme -- insist Scientology is a cult.

This was the first time the group's ministers responded in an organized fashion to a fire in Chicago -- and it probably won't be their last, even though their debut didn't go over too well with the Chicago Fire Department's chaplain corps.

"I threw 'em out," said one chaplain. "If they want to minister to the people on the sidelines, that's great . . . but they were standing in the triage and treatment area and they were making total chaos in there.

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[morgan2]

1. hah

they're learning new recruiting techniques from other religions. Get people at their weakest moment, offer them help and hope. A great way to convince someone your way is the right way. Also a very good PR move...

[ET Awful]

3. They aren't "learning" it, they've been doing it for years

Except they've been looking for out of sorts teenagers on college campuses and other such known sources for the easily impressionable (they were also at ground zero after 9/11, even to the point of pushing their "detox" program on people who were breathing the air at ground zero). They're famous (or infamous0 for using front groups that pretend to be suicide hotlines, drug abuse hotlines, etc.

[izzie]

2. Half the people I knew in Alaska were in that cult.

All had their 'church room' and did not pay tax. We paid it for them, but that is another thought.

[noamnety]

4. The new breed of ambulance chasers. (nt)