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What is the attraction to Scientology?

Jackovarian

Just wondering, why do you think people get involved in Scientology so easily?

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Biggins

enfant terrible wrote: »

Is Scientology Above The Law?

http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=44191

That's a well known example and part of the reason why the German government has placed the cult on a permanent watch list besides banning it.
They tried to infiltrate the German government too till their special investigation section discovered what the cult was up to.

One of their latest tricks is to set up so called front companies and try and operate as "staff training" businesses or "staff consultancy" services among other things.

See:

http://www.scientology-lies.com/organization/front-groups/index.html

http://www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/programs/programs37.html

Example;

A former employee of a Southland telecommunications company claims the company's required training included courses "designed to indoctrinate employees" in Scientology, and when she objected to the religious aspects of the training she was fired.
Margaret Warfield, of Montgomery, filed her religious discrimination lawsuit in federal court Monday against BTI Communications Group.
According to the company's Web site, BTI Communications Group is a business telephone and communications technology company headquartered in Lemont, with branch offices in Santa Fe Springs and Sacramento, Calif.
Warfield worked for BTI from Sept. 6, 2005, until she was fired on Dec. 9, 2005. According to the lawsuit, she was required to attend mandatory training courses that were offered through Hubbard College.
"The training courses (were) provided through Hubbard college, known as the Hubbard Management System, based on the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology," the suit says.
"The teachings in the management courses required by BTI were not truly courses in management but in fact were courses designed to indoctrinate employees in the religion of Scientology," the lawsuit also claims.
Warfield told management of her objections to the courses and that she did not want to attend them based on the Scientology teachings, and as a result, she was fired, the lawsuit says.
BTI, the lawsuit claims, "refused to make any accommodation for (Warfield) and her religious beliefs, and continued to insist, on a regular basis until her time of termination, that (she) embrace the religious teachings of the Scientology Church."
According to the company's Web site, BTI was founded in 1985 in Chicago by Eric Brackett. BTI's clients include The Options Clearing Corporation, Lawndale Christian Health Center and Sea Breeze Financial Services Inc.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

or to continue...

http://www.lermanet.com/cos/frontgroups.html

http://www.skeptictank.org/nl/nutl194.htm

http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/elcoslnk.htm

...to name a few!

What REALLY worrying now is that they are infiltrating the education system at the source! Seriously!
From one link above...

Some parents are upset with a study method introduced by a Montessori school in northwest Toronto, which they say has its roots in the Church of Scientology. Parents said the owner of the Bambolino Montessori Academy, a private school, told parents last week that it was introducing a new learning method called applied scholastics. Parents weren't given a choice when the dean told them they'd be implementing the study technique.

Some typical examples of their front companies:

» Applied Scholastics
» Citizens Commission on Human Rights
» Concerned Businessmen's Association of America
» Cult Awareness Network
» Foundation for Religious Freedom
» Narconon / Criminon
» Way To Happiness Foundation
» World Institution of Scientology Enterprises (WISE)

(http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s04n.html)

Amid some of their other techniques to get rid of opposition is the method of first they sue a company forcing it into bankruptcy - then they take it over too!

The Church of Scientology uses front groups either to promote their interests in politics or to make their group seem more legitimate. The FBI's July 7, 1977 raids on the Church's offices (following discovery of the Church's Operation Snow White) turned up, among other documents, an undated memo entitled "PR General Categories of Data Needing Coding". This memo listed what it called "Secret PR Front Groups," which included the group APRL, "Alliance for the Preservation of Religious Liberty" (later renamed "Americans Preserving Religious Liberty"). The Cult Awareness Network (CAN) is considered by many to now be a front group for the Church of Scientology, which took the group over financially after bankrupting it in a series of lawsuits.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_company#Scientology

They are now targeting the African continents were the forms of real-time updated information is a lot slower getting to the public about their day to day activities and the infiltrating their government systems there.

Reindeer

For those of modest wealth, it is simply a means to justify their existence.

For those of real wealth, it is an opportunity to express that wealth in power far more rapidly than is available in other religions which have a more structured power base.

Both parties are misguided, as neither of them shall find any real meaning nor any real power.

Kevin Bacon

Reindeer wrote: »

For those of modest wealth, it is simply a means to justify their existence.

For those of real wealth, it is an opportunity to express that wealth in power far more rapidly than is available in other religions which have a more structured power base.

Both parties are misguided, as neither of them shall find any real meaning nor any real power.

Possibly the most eloquent comment ever made on after hours at this hour of the morning. You are either an insomniac, a crazy person, or a drunkin' philosopher, whichever hats off to you sir.

kumate_champ07

one time in london there was a girl who left anti drug leaflets in a mc donalds, she gave me one, in the small print i noticed it was made by scientologists, they did some kind of anti drug education school thing, which is fine in a way but they are also against helpful drugs too.

[Deleted User]

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

one time in london there was a girl who left anti drug leaflets in a mc donalds, she gave me one, .

Usually you just get a big mac there.

kumate_champ07

Deleted User wrote: »

Usually you just get a big mac there.

I gave her a 'big mac'

[Deleted User]

Reindeer wrote: »

For those of modest wealth, it is simply a means to justify their existence.

For those of real wealth, it is an opportunity to express that wealth in power far more rapidly than is available in other religions which have a more structured power base.

Both parties are misguided, as neither of them shall find any real meaning nor any real power.

You may well be right, but the real danger is should one of the followers of such doctrine decide to take it even further.

Many of the early 20th century dictators were directly influenced by 19th century writers.

Reindeer

Deleted User wrote: »

You may well be right, but the real danger is should one of the followers of such doctrine decide to take it even further.

Many of the early 20th century dictators were directly influenced by 19th century writers.

Semper vigiles

Originally Posted by Kevin Bacon
You are either an insomniac, a crazy person, or a drunkin' philosopher, whichever hats off to you sir.

I'll drink to that.

ShooterSF

For me the attraction to scientology is that I am watching a religion in it's early years. I imagine most religions started similarly. Most people think their beliefs are insane and so they are heavy handed in acting on them. I bet in a few thousand years if it survives, the beliefs will have some age behind them and more followers and as such they will be able to calm their actions.
To be fair to the guys they at least came up with something new. The born of a virgin, died and was resurrected thing was done to death before christianity picked it up.

Jeanious

ShooterSF wrote: »

For me the attraction to scientology is that I am watching a religion in it's early years. I imagine most religions started similarly. Most people think their beliefs are insane and so they are heavy handed in acting on them. I bet in a few thousand years if it survives, the beliefs will have some age behind them and more followers and as such they will be able to calm their actions.

Eh, do you mean "attraction" in a sort of Tom Cruise way, or a kinda "look at these crazy bints, how are they gettin away with this sh1t" scientific study interest way?

If it's the former, does that not tell ya what a farce religion in general is? I mean, i could write some hogwash and 2000 years later people might worship it and believe it as fact, but that doesn't make it anything more than hogwash.

If the latter, than yeah i kinda agree with ya, it is sort of interesting how they manage to pull it off, however ive said it before and ill say it again, "Only in America".....hopefully

Biggins

How do they get away with it?

Hiring the best solicitors, bogging courts down in litigation, buying off politicians with "party contributions", intimidating the families of those they have sucked in, etc.

They have the skills of manipulating the legal system and public down to a fine art like none before them!

Maximilian

It's a joke. Hopefully these poor deluded people will one day be touched by His Noodly Appendage and be welcomed into Pastafarianism and the arms of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Beer volcanoes and stripper factories await only the faithful.

Praise FSM and his prophet, Bobby Henderson (pesto be upon him).

ShooterSF

coyle wrote: »

Eh, do you mean "attraction" in a sort of Tom Cruise way, or a kinda "look at these crazy bints, how are they gettin away with this sh1t" scientific study interest way?

If it's the former, does that not tell ya what a farce religion in general is? I mean, i could write some hogwash and 2000 years later people might worship it and believe it as fact, but that doesn't make it anything more than hogwash.

If the latter, than yeah i kinda agree with ya, it is sort of interesting how they manage to pull it off, however ive said it before and ill say it again, "Only in America".....hopefully

Oh, the latter. Very much so. I am very much an atheist with pastafarian leanings. I disagree about the "only in America" thing though. Religions succeed all over the world. Scientology only gets so much derision because we have our own first hand fresh accounts of how crazy it is. But give it a couple of hundred years and a few chinese whispers and it has a good chance of standing out as the next big religion. After all it has the advantage of modern day science to build itself around so is less likely to fall into the trap of making claims that science can show are absolute falsehoods.

nitrogen

Jackovarian wrote: »

Even after all the horror stories. The fact that you have to pay. The brainwashing. Why do people believe in this rubbish?

Like, it was made up by a science-fiction writer, who obviously seen that more money was to be made by turning one of his stories into a religion...

People probably just do it because its fashionable to do so, and they have absolutely no intelligence.

The exact same reason why nearly a third of the world can't put two and two together and comprehend that Muhammad was just an illiterate, cunning, deceiving businessman. And another few billion think their copy of Lord of the Rings, first published in 0060 AD, is fact.

Jeanious

ShooterSF wrote: »

Oh, the latter. Very much so. I am very much an atheist with pastafarian leanings. I disagree about the "only in America" thing though. Religions succeed all over the world. Scientology only gets so much derision because we have our own first hand fresh accounts of how crazy it is. But give it a couple of hundred years and a few chinese whispers and it has a good chance of standing out as the next big religion. After all it has the advantage of modern day science to build itself around so is less likely to fall into the trap of making claims that science can show are absolute falsehoods.

Phew, i was losin hope for ya there! Great point actually, they have 2000 years of history to look back on to see where mistakes were made and not make the same ones. Holy fcuk i weep at the very thoughts of Scientology being the next Christianity, i thought we were breaking free of all that sh1t at long last.

Shepherd3

Maximilian wrote: »

It's a joke. Hopefully these poor deluded people will one day be touched by His Noodly Appendage and be welcomed into Pastafarianism and the arms of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Beer volcanoes and stripper factories await only the faithful.

Praise FSM and his prophet, Bobby Henderson (pesto be upon him).

Ramen

ShooterSF

coyle wrote: »

Phew, i was losin hope for ya there! Great point actually, they have 2000 years of history to look back on to see where mistakes were made and not make the same ones. Holy fcuk i weep at the very thoughts of Scientology being the next Christianity, i thought we were breaking free of all that sh1t at long last.

I wish we could get past this religion thing but can't see it happening. Even if you can somehow persuade people that most of the beliefs are insane there are two BIG obstacles in the way regardless of religion. These obstacles are not obstacles due to evidence you can refute but rather most of mankind's desire for them to be real so bad that they will cling to *any* hope they can grab.
1: Why? The meaning of life and all that stuff. People need to think that they are a lot more important than they are. When you discuss religion with believers a lot will fall back on this question as if it needs to be answered and not with "there is no reason other than procreation and the continuation of our species".
and
2: Death. Even as an atheist who once had some christian beliefs (about the average Irish person's level) I realise the difference in comfort one has from being able to persuade themselves they will see thier loved one again and that they are secretly immortal and will just spend most of their time in heaven. Regardless of it's truth.
A strange one by the way with Irish people is they will subscribe themselves to the catholic heaven & hell belief, yet will laugh off the bits of the religions teachings they don't agree with even though it *should* mean an eternity in hell for them!
As for scientology all I can say is sit back and enjoy the show. Some people are going to join religions regardless of what we do.

Capt'n Midnight

Sam Vimes wrote: »

but it is a teaching of christianity that anyone who doesn't belive in christianity, no matter how good a person they are, is going to burn

only in some of the more puritan ones

the worst that would happen to a good non-believer was limbo

OK Back on topic

at least DC8's were supersonic. ( in a shallow dive anyway )

Jeanious

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

only in some of the more puritan ones

the worst that would happen to a good non-believer was limbo

OK Back on topic

at least DC8's were supersonic. ( in a shallow dive anyway )

i had a good read of the Scientology wiki there a while ago and its the most random thing ever! "The spaceships were exactly like DC8s but without "fans""....twould be the equivalent of me makin up some bunk nowadays about the aliens comin in a white and blue Ryanair 737, (for 1c of course!)....utterly bewildering how anyone can swallow such toss.

Capt'n Midnight

coyle wrote: »

i had a good read of the Scientology wiki there a while ago and its the most random thing ever! "The spaceships were exactly like DC8s but without "fans""....twould be the equivalent of me makin up some bunk nowadays about the aliens comin in a white and blue Ryanair 737, (for 1c of course!)....utterly bewildering how anyone can swallow such toss.

Why do think Boeing bought out McDonnell Douglas ??

Seriously are any of our politicians involved ??

[Deleted User]

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Seriously are any of our politicians involved ??

I'd be much more worried about the hold banksters have on politicians!

themadhair

coyle wrote: »

i had a good read of the Scientology wiki there a while ago and its the most random thing ever! "The spaceships were exactly like DC8s but without "fans""....twould be the equivalent of me makin up some bunk nowadays about the aliens comin in a white and blue Ryanair 737, (for 1c of course!)....utterly bewildering how anyone can swallow such toss.

Apparently the entire world is all R6. Basic idea is that your inner thetan has a complete record of all its experiences going back to the dawn of time. One of those experiences is ‘incident 2’ which involves the mass genocide Xenu story. The world as it was back then 75 million years ago was ‘keyed into’ all those thetans. The memories from incident 2, known collectively as R6 implants, are what lead to the development of society. The reason we have the current fasions we do, and the reason we have the DC8 planes that we do, is because our thetans are recollecting these R6 memories from their ‘whole track’ (think of this as the recording of their experiences).

As for why people would believe such – strictly speaking they don’t. This requires a bit of explanation. Exposure to Scientology can effect the way a person views the world. Within Scientology words take on slightly different meanings. By altering the meanings of words Scientology can alter the worldviews of its members without them realising it. Two of the concepts that are key to achieving this are the ARC triangle and the “what’s true is what’s true for you” monicker. I explain both of these below.

The ARC triangle (ARC = Affinity, Reality, Communication) is founded on the concept of ‘reality’. Basic idea is that if you raise one point of the triangle you raise the other two. Reality has a peculiar meaning here. It is, in essence, the equivocation of understanding with acceptance. Think about this – Scientologists studying Scientology texts achieve ‘understanding’ by ‘accepting’ those texts’ conclusions. It is subtle but, once a person has bought into the concept, it can be used to completely alter a person’s outlook, worldview and loyalties.

The “what’s true is what’s true for you” is another concept that, at least at first, appears completely benign. When doing introductory courses and auditing, such as the communication course, a person has ‘wins’ and ‘gains’. The person would then, by buying into this “what’s true is what’s true for you” concept, value their subjective ‘wins’ higher than objective assessment. In essence they begin to ascribe the positive things in their life to Scientology while blaming the negative things on scapegoats such as suppressive or their own misapplication of ‘the tech’. This is a subtle but important point. The person is encouraged to reach judgements in line with Scientology – the person often believing those judgements were of their own free will. A good example of such is the ‘Ups&Downs’ course where a list of highly general traits are taught to the member so as to make that member apply those traits themselves. It is a more elaborate version of card-forcing, but much more powerful in that the member themselves believe that they reached a free choice. The reason this is so powerful is because when you challenge such a person they do not see you as challenging Scientology – they see you as challenging judgements they believe they made themselves.

Dozen Wicked Words

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuJlZ_f1594

Very sorry if this has been posted before, but the BBC's John Sweeney did a great episode of Panorama about Scientology.

Off Topic, he also did a brilliant piece on Vodka that contained industrial chemicals in Russia, which was killing hundreds.

Elessar

dooferoaks wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuJlZ_f1594

Off Topic, he also did a brilliant piece on Vodka that contained industrial chemicals in Russia, which was killing hundreds.

Would you have a link to that? I've tried searching youtube.

Ruu_Old

dooferoaks wrote: »

...

Very sorry if this has been posted before, but the BBC's John Sweeney did a great episode of Panorama about Scientology.

Off Topic, he also did a brilliant piece on Vodka that contained industrial chemicals in Russia, which was killing hundreds.

A pity he lost it with Tommy Davis though, hard to blame him.

Dozen Wicked Words

Elessar wrote: »

Would you have a link to that? I've tried searching youtube.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/6400363.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6434789.stm

Can't find a viewable version of it, sorry.

Pygmalion

Elessar wrote: »

Would you have a link to that? I've tried searching youtube.

It was on google video ages ago, but probably been taken down since then.

Probably can be found on thepiratebay or something if not.

Four-Percent

I remember seeing a story about an old man who had his skin boiled off in a bath by scientologists, with accompanying picture. Total scumbags.

edit: Story is on one of Biggin's links there.

Splendour

Biggins wrote: »

Don't even attempt to compare Christianity's teachings to the workings and ideological basis of Scientology.
Anyone with half a brain will see there is a gulf of difference.

Agree with Biggins here. Should any 'Christian' church preach with the brainwashing of Scientology they are not Christian at all and I would advise anyone to run from them. Christianity does not work that way at all.

Capt'n Midnight

So I was telling a joke about Scientology in my local yesterday and someone took offence.

Now I'm on the sects offenders register.