I did not fully understand this issue. Then I removed Ad-Block :)

I can't understand how this may be a problem for someone, especially if the ad is visually prettier than most of the blogs here. It's like trying to hide a Santa Claus - or the fact that he is imaginary - from small children.

In my opinion, most adult people know that scientology exists, it's a sect, and it has enough resources to pay for ad. If the won't appear here, they will still appear on other places. Not a big deal.

But treating scientology as the ultimate evil that prevents someone from writing a blog - if it just appears in a reserved place at some points - it's just crazy. I have never clicked on any scientology ad but I am sure that my feelings would be at most mixed and that there are at least 30% of organizations in the world - and 30% of ads - that are worse or much worse than scientology.

Also, I don't understand Tommaso's authoritative tone. "I complained, and therefore my complaint automatically had to be reflected within hours". Huh!? Are you a dictator here? It reminds me of the randomly ejaculating godless communist Pharyngula who has the power to block Pepsicola from a major server.

Firefox comes with this nice plugin called Adblock Plus which basically hides all ads on web pages. Haven't seen any ads since I installed this plugin.

I've never seen your Scientology ad, so it hasn't influenced me to do anything more kooky than usual.

It must be an animation, but I've turned those off. (I use Firefox with Greasemonkey to avoid a lot of noxious internet advertising etc.)

I block all ads, on all sites, at all times, no exceptions, no debate. I do not consent to be exposed to any kind of marketing, because it is a form of violence. That may be a purist position, but I think your previous commenters are on to something: this is an audience that knows how to defend itself. In the meanwhile, your country, your profession, every group that you can be construed as a member of, contains some non-zero number of genuinely vile individuals. Do they destroy your motivation?

Jumping on the endless comments train, imho it's reasonable to think that the majority of your random readers will think even momentarily that you endorse scientology if they come across the ad (I haven't, but I get it on lolgod.com all the time). Even if they read an article directly attacking religion or sects, the impression that either this site endorses scientology or that scientology is something that belongs to scientific sites will stick subliminally -- don't act naive guys, this is what advertisement is about! the point is not to click on the link, the point is to make the product recognizable!

Also, the vast majority of the vast majority of internet users *definitely* doesn't know how online advertising works and that it's independent of the site itself... If someone believes the opposite they better run a reality check.

Scientology is different from major religions in the sense that the latter wouldn't advertise through google, and it's different from other sects and frauds in the sense that it's largely widespread right now. (This doesn't make it necessarily worse than the paranormal ads I get, but I'm just saying.)

On the other hand, if a site stays alive by ads (even if it's one that I'm not a fan of), and it doesn't want to hire people to work full-time on finding clients, then there's not much left apart from google. And online advertisers for things as rich as scientology know by now how to circumvent URL blocking etc. So I guess this will need a considerable amount of blocking and re-blocking by hand, unless some hacker somewhere found a permanent solution to this kind of issues.

Last, I saw that some people object to banning a religious ad from one's page. I think they confuse an ad with free expression - it's not the same as asking to ban readers' comments supporting scientology; an ad can't be contradicted.

Ok, end of coffee break....