Linkin Park are back together, but their reunion has already been marred by controversy. The band’s new co-vocalist Emily Armstrong was part of a group of Scientologists who showed up at the courthouse to support That ’70s Show actor Danny Masterson during his 2020 rape trial, where he was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. The choice to have Armstrong fill in for the late Chester Bennington received quite a bit of backlash, notably from Cedric Bixler-Zavala of the Mars Volta/At The Drive-In. His wife Chrissie Carnell-Bixler was one of the four women who pursued rape charges against Masterson, and now, she has spoken out against Armstrong as well.
Oh, so Scientology is a religion and not a cult, that’s your stance?
And she has the right to believe in her cult and inflict their will on others?
You are comparing a top down controlled cult doing active harm to a diaspora of various religions with various levels of commitment, expression, and potential harm.
Reductio ad Adsurdum is your fallacy. A cult is not a religion, and you are comparing an actively harmful thing, lime thumbscrews, to the broad conceptual harm of an entire concept, like screws themself.
No, I’m saying that every religion is a cult. The only difference is whether or not people like them. They all engage I fuckery of the highest order. Catholicism is still top down cult, they just have numbers and history. A history of atrocities on a much greater scale than anything scientology has managed to achieve. It hasn’t even been fifty years that gay people were even considered anything but scum to the Catholic church. It hasn’t even been twenty since they were covering up child sexual abuse actively, and with knowledge it was going to keep happening if they didn’t stop it.
I’m saying that in the face of everything any given religion has done, none of them deserve a break for individuals unless all of them do.
I’m saying that none of the people except the victim of Masterson’s that made the public blame towards Armstrong were giving two shits about her. I haven’t seen anyone I’m this thread that’s said anything about scientology before this came along.
I’m saying that that’s bullshit. I’m saying that it’s a bunch of whiny little piss babies jumping into drama they didn’t give a fuck about two weeks ago.
I’m saying that a witch hunt on the basis of a cult or religion is bullshit when there’s no difference in them. Jainism, and maybe wicca have managed to not commit atrocities the last hundred years. And you’d likely find members of either of those that are bigger assholes than Armstrong has ever been
And, again, where were the complaints when she was fronting a different band? Nowhere. It’s a bunch of piss babies whining because it’s a bigger band, and that’s bullshit. Either she was a monster a month ago, or she wasn’t. If she was, then where were the attacks then?
It’s hypocrisy. It’s empty minded bullshit.
Now, to state it again, IDGAF about scientology. Tear it down, ban it, IDGAF if they’re all thrown in jail. Just don’t pretend they’re worse than any other big religious cult. And, unless we’re gong to go back thousands of years to some kind of ultra primitive version of animism, every fucking religion was a cult at some point. All the big ones operate as such, the monotheistic organized ones are just the worst about it.
This insane edgelord “all religion is bad so shut up about it” shit.
There a literally billions of Muslims in the world. They are not all following their cults orders in lockstep, doing exactly what is said, holding one belief.
You are vastly oversimplifying and grouping Sunni and Shia and Catholic and Protestant and Episcopalian and Jewish and Hindu and Sikh and Buddhist and Shinto all together.
None of those groups move as one within their faith. None. Scientology does. Because Scientology is not “lol religion is the opitate of the masses” cult, Scientology is a LITERAL “we keep people imprisoned and torture them routinely and steal all our members income while we take their children from them” kind of literal cult. Not colloquial. Not from a certain point of view. This is their entire structure.
The “gospel of prosperity” is almost a cult, arguably a cult of personality, but these people a literally physically free to do anything they want. They are manipulated into donating. Scientologists are blackmailed and, again, LITERALLY imprisoned within the groups of the groups facilities.
One, is a “proverbial” cult, because it is manipulating the weak minded and is very sad and wrong too. One is a LITERAL cult. And these two things can both be bad while one can be CLEARLY more objectionable than the other.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qgq919yl5o
Anyone that does not immediately renounce the religion is no longer eligible for benefit of the doubt, even if they were raised in the religion, even if they tether reject part of the beliefs.
Hate to break it to you, but if scientology is doing this level of horror to people in the name of their beliefs, it hasn’t made the news recently.
https://theconversation.com/violent-buddhist-extremists-are-targeting-muslims-in-sri-lanka-92951
Haven’t seen any bombings by scientology yet, though I wouldn’t be surprised.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-64658648
But, no true Christian would do such a thing.
If you’re arguing that scientology is somehow worse than any of that, I would say malarkey.
As nasty as scientology can get, as much as they need to be shut down, they aren’t even close you the kind of insanity of any of that.
I don’t care what word you want to apply to it. Cult, religion, idgaf. Call it whatever you want. But whatever you want to label things, I object just as much to literal terrorism and murder, no matter who does it.
You know who hasn’t done anything like any of this? Emily Armstrong. The worst thing she’s done is show up in court with a bunch of other brainwashed members of the group. That’s it.
If she is responsible for things she didn’t do, just because someone in the same organization did them, then everyone is responsible for the acts of the worst of their organization.
Seriously, how does nobody have anything in the way of proof she did anything illegal, dangerous, or even bad? Everyone is all whiny about her still being associated with scientology, like she’s some kind of ringleader instead of someone that’s stuck just as much because “we keep people imprisoned and torture them routinely and steal all our members income while we take their children from them”. If the cult is that bad, why is she expected to be the one to take a stand?
It’s bullshit. And that’s the point. I genuinely do not give a stinking shit what kind of semantics you want to fuck with. You do you, I’m done with that part of things because it has never been the point.
You got anything, any shred of proof that Emily Armstrong did any of the illegal acts that scientology has carried out? Because, again, I’ve gone looking, and there’s jack shit online. If anything, she’s just another victim of scientology via her parents. I get that the lady that masterson assaulted gets a pass for ranting at the wrong person. She gets that after what she went through. But nobody in this entire thread, nor in the YouTube comments, or on any of the social media platforms currently swamped by people that did not give a flying fuck about scientology two weeks ago have managed to dig up anything Armstrong has done other than sit in a courtroom.
That’s it. That’s her crime.
I read this whole thread, and started out kinda disagreeing with you, but I actually agree with you now. You make some very good points. Nobody is bringing this same energy to artists that are openly preaching for their own cults.
I’m not really a huge LP fan so I wasn’t going to listen to them too much anyways, but this whole thing is blown way out of proportion. I guess I can still somewhat understand people just being mad that they kept the name. Really should’ve rebranded, in my opinion, because they aren’t the same band. But, as long as she isn’t preaching Scientology in LP lyrics people that care are mostly all hypocrites.
I appreciate it.
And I mostly agree, it isn’t really the same band. Can’t say I object to the name staying the same since it was never “Chester’s band, Linkin Park”. It was a group effort, and as much as I love Chester, he was only part of what made them what they were.
As it stands now, there’s only one member from the original linkin park lineup not involved, and it seems like he’s just done with music entirely, at least as a performer.
If Shinoda had just hired on an entire new group, and used the name, I’d be annoyed. Wouldn’t necessarily reject it, but wouldn’t be standing in line for the new album either.
And it isn’t like there isn’t plenty of bands that have moved forward with a band after losing a vocalist, while keeping the original name.
But, yeah, I appreciate you taking the time to respond a lot. Thanks :)