Quote from: Ratchetcomand on Jun 23, 2008, 06:54:34 PM
What do you guys think about Scientology? I don't know that much about it other then that Tom Cruise believes in it and South Park made fun of it.
Here's what you need to know:
The longer a person stays in Scientology, the more layers of Hubbard's revelations he learns. The forbidden central core of Hubbard's philosophy is disclosed only to those who have been prepared by extensive auditing. Regular folks aren't ready for these shockers, according to the leadership, and such knowledge could actually be harmful to the unintitiated
The organization charges $12,000 for a course on the secret teachings (this does not include the cost of prerequisite auditing). Scientology splinter groups have offered no-frills versions of the same course for as little as $1500, but this was ruled a violation of Scientology's rights in 1985 by U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer. "It's the first time you've ever seen a decision that religious scriptures constitute trade secrets," a Scientologist attorney claimed.
According to the documents former Scientologist Larry Wollersheim placed in evidence--the documents that fifteen hundred loyal Scientologists tried hard to conceal--here is what Hubbard and his inner circle believe:
Seventy-five million years ago, the Earth was called Teegeeach. It was one of a federation of about ninety planets. A bad guy named Xemu ruled the planets. The federation was overpopulated, so Xemu rounded up the surplus population and beamed them down to ten volcanoes on Earth/Teegeeach. Then Xemu dropped H-bombs on the volcanoes and they all died.
No,
really. Then the spirits of the dead guys, the thetans, all stuck together in clusters. Xemu imprisoned the clusters of thetans in a frozen mixture of alcohol and glycol for thirty-six days. (Note: Glycol, sythesized by Charles-Adolphe Wurtz in 1856, is the main ingredient of Prestone antifreeze.) During the thirty-six days, Xemu put bad personality traits in the thetan clusters. When the thetans got out of the antifreeze, they attached themselves to humans and infested them with bad personality traits. All emotional illness and antisocial behavior come from the thetans. When a person dies, the thetans move on to another person. The upshot is, when you do something bad it isn't you, it's the thetans and Xemu. The practical side of the course tells you how to identify thetans and how to exorcise them.
Wollersheim didn't think that this was worth $12,100.
Quote from: Undeadite on Jun 23, 2008, 07:05:49 PM
I think that all religion is little crazy, and this particular one is no worse than any of the others. Im an absurdist, but I understand that not everyone is and some people need more validation in their lives than others. Whether they get it from friends or alien souls is no concern of mine; whatever gets them to sleep at night.
What concerns me is how dangerous it is to innocent people. It claims to help people, but it sometimes physically harms them in some way and always cheats them out of money.
Quote from: Miker25 on Jun 23, 2008, 08:33:00 PM
Whatever people believe in is fine by me Ive got a very open mind to stuff like that
An open mind is fine, but make sure that you have a critical mind, too. Here is a sample of Hubbard's claims:
QuoteA woman is knocked down by a blow. She is rendered "unconscious." She is kicked and told she is a faker, that she is no good, that she is always changing her mind. A chair is overturned in the process. A faucet is running in the kitchen. A car is passing in the street outside. The engram contains a running record of all these perceptions: sight, sound, tactile [sic], taste, smell, organic sensation, kinetic sense, joint position, thirst record, etc. The engram would consist of the whole statement made to her when she was "unconscious": the voice tones and emotion in the voice, the sound and feel of the original and later blows, the tactile of the floor, the feel and sound of the chair overturning, the organic sensation of the blow, perhaps the taste of blood in her mouth or any other taste present there, the smell of the person attacking her and the smells in the room, the sound of the passing car's motor and tires, etc
How this example relates to insanity or psycho-somatic ills is explained by Hubbard this way:
QuoteThe engram this woman has received contains a neurotic positive suggestion....She has been told that she is a faker, that she is no good, and that she is always changing her mind. When the engram is restimulated in one of the great many ways possible [such as hearing a car passing by while the faucet is running and a chair falls over], she has a feeling that she is no good, a faker, and she will change her mind
There is no possible way to empirically test such claims. A "science" that consists of nothing but such claims is not a science, but a pseudoscience.
Hubbard claims that enormous data has been collected and not a single exception to his theory has been found. We are to take his word on this, apparently, for all the "data" he presents are in the form of anecdotes or made-up examples like the one presented above.
Quote from: severen76 on Jun 23, 2008, 10:30:47 PM
To make money?
"You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion."
- L. Ron Hubbard, 1948
