Scientology-should it be destroyed?

JupiterKid

BillShorey wrote: »

Not really.

The Saudi's are currently the biggest producers and distributors of the Qu'ran in the world. The Saudi interpretation is very specific with regards to who the scum in the world are (Christians and Jews) and how they should be slain. You're welcome to read it yourself, they're available for free or little cost in a lot of countries, including Ireland. Most English translations have footnotes pertaining to what I've just said.

Pure Islam may be one thing, but the Islam that is spreading is another. When you have otherwise smart, normal girls stabbing UK politicians because some guy in a gave posting messages on the internet told her to, then it's worth worrying about.

Look back at Egypt and Iran in the 60s and 70s, before the spread of radicial Islam, and you'll note that the women weren't hidden and submissive, everything was progressing. Now look at them.

There's obviously scores of moderate muslims, however radical muslims are spreading everywhere and are more than just cause for concern, as can be seen from the footage of protests in NY by muslims, in the UK even as recently as the sentencing of that nutjob recently.

It's also a bit much to start your post with "apparently" and then claim I'm the one picking up the wrong messages. A bit silly if I may say so.

Completely agree. Radical Islam is a force of incredible darkness and evil and is a great threat to our way of life in the West.

I'm sick and tired of all the PC appeasement of extremist Islam. It feels like Chamberlain's apeasement of pre-WW2 Hitler and the Nazis.

Dizraeligears

I dunno about all this religion malarkey.
Reckon the hokey-cokey might really be what its all about after all...
p.s could anyone make Tom Cruise go away please

bronte

Religions are a load of bollocks.

grizzly

I've a comparison that might change some minds – when Christianity started it was considered a dangerous cult, people thought no good would come of it and now look... ok bad example.

Don Juan DeMagoo

Saila wrote: »

so what your saying is your a scientologist then

holster those accusations right there.....

I am in the process of formulating my own religion, taking bits and pieces from various religions.
I like the bit in Scientology were the followers donate money to the head of the church...... for research!?!
I think I will make it naturalist religion..... for women only ..... for very pretty women ..... for very pretty women with no clothes....

I am finding problems with the whole back story, should I make it a cosmic, spiritual, apocalyptic religion?

In my dictatorial religion I will make it seem transparent (with no clothes)....

BOOBIES

Opinions welcomed:D

A Primal Nut

Gerry Asstrix wrote: »

If you dont know what Scientology is about, basically its an organisation that is based around the belief that 75 billion years an evil overlord called Xenu ruled over the universe, the universe he found overpopulated so he decided to banish mass amounts of the beings from different planets to earth via ships that resemble with we would now deem airplane. They were then placed in volcanoes and blown up with H bombs and their spirits flew to earth taking host in humans.

I'm sure someone got here before me, but to me this makes more sense than any of the three Abrahamic religions. At least we knows Aliens, volcanoes and H bombs exist. If you actually read one of the three big holy books, you will see they are, in many ways, crazier than Scientology. And the suffering caused by Scientology has been nothing compared to those religions, either.

General Zod

ok, Athiest anti-scientologist checking in.

The Xenu story is something that gets bandied about alot, in a "lol look at this" but it really only gets shown to high level Scientologiest who have spent a long time in Scientology and a lot of money along the way. The vast majority of them are never shown the story.

There is so much more that people should know, and what drives my opposition to it.

Ask any questions and I'll try to answer them as best I can.

gent9662

I don't think scientology is anymore or less dangerous than catholicism. Don't get me wrong, it's a strange cult with some very questionable antics.

Should it be destroyed? I don't think it can be, given the millionaires behind it who support it. I think it will eventually die out.

Capt'n Midnight

A lot of people here don't get the point that scientology is NOT a religion. It's a money making tax-dodging scam by a scifi writer that has developed a momentum of it's own because some people are greedy.

You can't compare it to islam (a bilion muslims can't be wrong ) or any other world religion.

Islam insists that the koran isn't the same when translated into other languages, and when you see the weird stuff some christians have come up with archaic translations of the bible you can sorta understand why (catholic church used latin for nearly 2,000 years , no doubt mis-translation was one reason) It's fairly easy to get translations of the quoran if you want and if there is any arguement on the meaning you will get referred back to the original one


On the other hand scientology use copyright and the full extent of the law to keep it's teachings / scripture secret even from it's own members.


Please name one major religion that does anything similar ?


A nice test for scientology would be to make it financially and politically unattractive, such that the benefits would be in the next world and not this. Be interesting to see how long it would last then.

themadhair

This thread makes me want to tear my eyes out. Far too many people are conflating different things and are getting steeped in false equivalencies.

First some clarifying definitions:

Religion – A body of beliefs.
Religious group – A group of people who, among other things, share a common religion.
Cult – a group or organisation that, through excessive undue influence upon members, causes severe mental, financial and/or societal harm to those members.

The reason I use these is because ‘beliefs’ are different from ‘groups’, and conflating the two is nonsense. Beliefs don’t screw people over, but groups certainly can.

You can compare Scientology, the body of beliefs invented by Hubbard, with any other religion of your choosing and conclude that both are equally bat-**** insane. But you would be missing the point. No one cares that Scientology is bat **** insane. After all, an idea being ridiculous is hardly a reason for concern. What people care about is the existence of a group, namely the ‘Church of Scientology’, which gouges people for every penny they are worth.

Whether it is the use of the stress/personality tests to find a person’s ‘ruin’ (an insecurity that a person has that can be used against them), the use of ‘training routines’ and ‘auditing’ sessions to instil trance-like states for increased suggestibility, the use of carefully crafted words and phrases to function like newspeak does in 1984, the use of a person’s private information against them for regging purposes (selling them expensive courses or gouging them for IAS donations), the use of coercion/blackmail/peer-pressure to keep people in line (which includes coercing members of the Sea Org into abortions), the use of ‘fair game’ to deliberately harm ex-members and/or critics, etc. etc. etc. the list of nasty **** this organisation does is difficult to ignore when you learn of it.

I like to use the analogy of drug dealers. The Church of Scientology is, in essence, selling a psychotropic drug in the form of Scientology to its members with all the negative connotations this analogy implies. People can get hooked on this psychotropic drug, and they then get completely gouged because of it.

Some people see the Church of Scientology as a scam while seeing all other religious groups as being a scam too. You won’t get much argument from me about this, but I would ask you to consider this point. Getting done a weekly donation via the collection plate is a scam. Having your life completely and utterly destroyed while you are brainwashed into being a subservient is also a scam. They are both scams – but do you really think they are even remotely comparable??

As an aside, there are Scientologists who consider the Church of Scientology to be a complete and utter cult. Non Church of Scientologist Scientologists are known as ‘freezoners’. You get a whole range of ‘freezoners, but in general even though they are devoted Scientologists they largely recognise the Church of Scientology as being a dangerous cult. It is kind of similar to a Christian who can recognise the child abuse scandals as being cultic.

marcsignal

i've heard about these cults

everyone dressing in black, and saying our lord is going to come back and judge us all....... :pac:

Wibbs

A Primal Nut wrote: »

At least we knows Aliens, volcanoes and H bombs exist.

Eh wut?

BrokenArrows

let the gullible be gullible.
Estimated members world wide are less than 100,000. Who cares what they do.
Eventually they will all realise that it is a waste of time and money. If they don't realise but are happy with their lives then so be it.

If someone spends all their money on a car and it makes them happy, some people think they are insane spending that much on a mode of transportation.

Once their "religion" has no impact on non members day to day lives then who cares.

Seaneh

fulhamfanincork wrote: »

Will Smith and Tom Cruise are Scientologists...;)

Will Smith isn't.

PeterIanStaker

galwayrush wrote: »

There will always be stupid people with a lot of money. Scientology therefore can't be destroyed.

Could say the same for other religions too unfortunately.

Misanthrope

DingChavez wrote: »

So....Catholicism with sci-fi instead of magic.

Yup, early fifties sci-fi with exotic technology like 'magnetic tape' and 'Atom Bombs' and transuniversal 'rocket powered DC-8s"

These are all obsolete today but from 1952-mid sixties these were exotic technologies to the average person.

Question. Why would a vessel which travels across entire galaxies, need an aeroplaned wing setup?Surely these would be a fatal hinderence on anything but the type of gaseous lower atmosphere we have on Earth.

And rocket engines?Clearly Mr Hubbard was not well informed of the limitations of rocket engines, which are manifold.

Can any brainiacs out there calculate the volume of the fuel tank required to propel such a vessel across the milky way alone let alone to Planet BinBong or where ever Mr Xenu hangs his hat?

In today's world the use of E-meter is pretty much anachronistic.

Hubbard is the non thinking man's Gene Roddenberry.This is why Gene has had a massively successful career in sci-fi writing and production and Ron had to slip out of that overly savvy arena and into the good ol Faith Industry(my new term for religion/quackery).

I'll give him this though.His brand of lunacy holds it's own in the competitive presence of Goliaths like Daystar.

Rather than going head to head with the Titans for the Jerry Springer led WWE watching classes,Ron cornered the gullible celebrity market which boomed in the 60s.Quick to recognise the potential of star power then he also recognised that the phenomenon was in it's infancy and would become ever more powerful.

He has targeted the wealthiest, most famous and most gullible Hollywood Stars and has hit some sweet bullseyes.He's taking plenty of their money and using them as magnets to lure in the smaller fish.The more famous people join the more regular joes will join.

When presented with the farce that outlines their beliefs they claim that a farce is exactly what it is and that once you join you are gradually enlightened to the real truth.

But none of them want to share this with anyone until they take money or service or both from them.If you can't generate them a positive economic flow they don't want you.Why do you think the world appears so rosy to them.You don't have to be cash rich.If you are willing to go out and snag people who have money to lose then you have value to them and can join their 'Stress Test At The Mall' division.Have you ever wondered why Pfizer don't conduct their scientific research in the corridors of Shopping Malls.If you don't know the answer to this,you just might be perfect Scientology fodder

And watch how they behave when confronted by criticism or critical questioning.Just like most other religions,they respond with aggression of whatever nature produces optimal results,secrecy,slander and libel and other ploys.

Religions are Corporations.Get it?That's why they behave like corporations.They have the same goal as any corporation.To attain a total monopoly with optimal profits and control before one of their competitors does.

As a footnote I'd like to see stand up comedians refrain from making Scientology jokes.It is like shooting fish in a barrel and the hallmark of a lack of originality.The fact that you are uncomfortable with or incapable with making priest jokes (shooting rats in a barrel)at this time, is not an excuse, rather another damning indictment of your lack of comedic ability.

Right I'm going to sit back and wait for Cruise or Travolta to send me an email virus that will wreck the already scattered debris of my life.

curlzy

It's banned in a few countries and rightly so in my opinion. It's not a religion, it's a cult, it ticks all the cult boxes: it persuades you to cut ties with non-members, it requires money from members etc etc. It should be banned completely, it's a danger to vulnerable people. I'm not religious myself but I respect other people's right to be, not with regard to this one though.

Seaneh

It's not even a cult, it's just a dangerous business.

Scientology is just Dianetics with a back story and Dianetics is an unlicensed form of Psychotherapy.

Hubberd was pimping Dianetics in California for years and eventually the State licencing board for pshyco-therapeutic practices caught up with him and told im he would either have to (a) get have Dianetics reviewed and tested or (b) stop practicing for money.
He knew it would never approved as it was and is dangerous and causes people a lot of emotional stress and long term damage and forces them to be reliant on the treatment, where as psycho-therapeutic practices are meant to designed so that eventually the patient doesn't need it any more and should never be dependent on it.

so to get around licencing laws he invented the Xenu story, stole the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church (in the early days there were every people called priests and bishops) with himself as the self appointed Pope (in other words, infallible) and formed the "Church of Scientology".

An "e-meter" is just a crude lie detector and they use to ask you questions that are designed to make you uncomfortable. For instance "what is bothering you" you answer nothing, it tells them you are lieing, they ask you a load of questions until you eventually tell them what is bothering you, then they delve into what caused it, etc etc etc until eventually they know everything about your, all your weakness and emotional flaws and then use these emotional flaws and weaknesses to make more uncomfortable, they then tell you that this discomfort is caused by thetans and that the only way to fix it is to go clear and that this will cost you x ammount, then at the next level they do the same all over again, and then charge you more and more and more until eventually you sign your entire life over to the "church".

The Leaders of the "church" in France were found guilty of "commercial harassment" around this time last year and The French government want the organisation banned entirely. I think other EU countries should follow France's lead here.

The "church" is also in the middle of a criminal investigation in Australia and in various states in the US the "church" is being implicated murder investigations of followers, ex followers and whats the "church" calls "supressive persons" or "SP's".


Anyone who thinks Scientology is harmless or "just like any other religion" is either entirely uninformed, stupid or a scientologist.


Interview with the former poster boy of the church Jason Beghe that explain the inner workings of the "church".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNUjMz9-W2I

And a series of videos from a speech about scientology he gave about 2 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smZgZPxUFV4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRytU_TNYYw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I70KABMnac8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohEb5XglOo8

Terry

General Zod wrote: »

Ask any questions and I'll try to answer them as best I can.

Why do you have such a problem with the son of Jor-El?

Seaneh

If you lot haven't seen the Panorama special the BBC did a few months ago, it's worth a watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l42UrHDx4lE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NykEiJMP-Jo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcCuXDdKfSI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOVCY8dezoA

John Sweeny previously did a special called "Scientology and Me" which is also a very good watch.

Capt'n Midnight

BrokenArrows wrote: »

let the gullible be gullible.
Estimated members world wide are less than 100,000. Who cares what they do.
Eventually they will all realise that it is a waste of time and money. If they don't realise but are happy with their lives then so be it.

If someone spends all their money on a car and it makes them happy, some people think they are insane spending that much on a mode of transportation.

Once their "religion" has no impact on non members day to day lives then who cares.

If they did not prey on vulnerable people or target rich and powerful people few would care. If they didn't hound ex-members and go legal at the blink of an eye again it wouldn't be much of an issue.

Some Islamic fanatics have committed terrible crimes that they say are in the name of Islam. And there have been conflicts between muslims and Christians for the last 1,400 years. But it is a genuine religion rather than a cult and few would consider banning it (and it would be nice to lock those few into a room until they agreed which was the true religion)

Ghost Estate

Terry wrote: »

Why do you have such a problem with the son of Jor-El?

the broadband forum mod?

In Soviet Russia scientology destroys you!

fufureida

Everyone is entitled to believe what they wish..but i dont think this is even a belief I think its just fanaticism and like ... geeky. And obsessive. Its weird...lol

Capt'n Midnight

fufureida wrote: »

Everyone is entitled to believe what they wish..

provided it doesn't affect anyone elses right to believe what they want

General Zod

Terry wrote: »

Why do you have such a problem with the son of Jor-El?

Because he is the spawn of Jor-El! The sins of the father shall be paid by the son!

themadhair

Seaneh wrote: »

Will Smith isn't.

Yes he is. He has been using Scientology shibboleths for ages, and they are pretty obvious if you know the stuff to listen for. I remember his membership being debated to death until he opened a Scientology school. The debate ended at that point.

curlzy wrote: »

It's not a religion, it's a cult

Why do people think that a religious group cannot be a cult? Or that a cult’s ideology cannot be a religion?

There is also an irony here, in that this misconception is granting a certain ‘legitimacy’ to religious groups. This very misconception has been one of the reasons the Church of Scientology has been able to survive for the last five decades.

But the key point that needs to be made is that whether a group is a cult has absolutely nothing to do with whether their ideology is a religion. The question of religion is a complete red herring.

Seaneh wrote: »

And a series of videos from a speech about scientology he gave about 2 years ago.

Jason was awesome at that conference. Particularly amusing was the way that people kept commenting on how nice his language was, and were riling him up because he couldn’t drop any f-bombs. The whole time this was going Ursula, the conference head honcho, was glaring Jason out of it with a look of “don’t you even dare drop an f-bomb”.

fufureida wrote: »

Everyone is entitled to believe what they wish..

That’s not the issue. The issue is that this group will destroy the lives of others without much of a care.
One of the more explicit examples of this was the case of Paulette Cooper. They stole her stationary and mailed themselves bomb threats. They then called the FBI and, due to her fingerprints being on the stationary, tried to have her framed. The full wickedness of what went on can be seen in this file which contains the marching orders to ruin her:
http://www.lisamcpherson.org/scans/operation_freakout.pdf
And her ‘crime’ was to publish a book titled ‘The Scandal of Scientology’


Arguing that people can believe as they wish is noble and right, but completely and utterly missing the point in this case.

Funglegunk

iamstop wrote: »

I know we're not all stupid enough to join but doesn't mean it couldn't get powerful enough to affect us.

Thats not strictly true. The methods they use to indoctrinate people are specifically designed for people with an above average IQ. They can be EXTREMELY persuasive apparently, which is why I will never, ever take a Scientology personality test.

General Zod

Misanthrope wrote: »

Yup, early fifties sci-fi with exotic technology like 'magnetic tape' and 'Atom Bombs' and transuniversal 'rocket powered DC-8s"

These are all obsolete today but from 1952-mid sixties these were exotic technologies to the average person.

Question. Why would a vessel which travels across entire galaxies, need an aeroplaned wing setup?Surely these would be a fatal hinderence on anything but the type of gaseous lower atmosphere we have on Earth.

Actually, Hubbard does explain this in one of the lectures he gave where he mentions the subject.

Why a DC8 was the shape of a DC8 was because the designers were influenced by their thetans memories of the flight, so lots of things on Earth were designed as a result of these memories. He had a specific word for these things which I can't remember.

General Zod

Funglegunk wrote: »

Thats not strictly true. The methods they use to indoctrinate people are specifically designed for people with an above average IQ. They can be EXTREMELY persuasive apparently, which is why I will never, ever take a Scientology personality test.

The Oxford capacity test (heh) is marked out of 200% (madhair, shut up) and is designed so that you will answer negatively or at least show contradictions in your answers, so that they can say that you have issues that Scientolopgy courses can help you with.

KeithAFC

biko wrote: »

All religions must be destroyed.

No it shoulnd't. Let people pray to what they want. Thats not the society i would want to live in.