I am not one to bitch slap other peoples religious faiths. In my life I have attended many kinds of Christian services, a barmitzvah, and have visited the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, which I found to be one of the most tasteful religious buildings I have seen. Many of my friends are Wiccans or some other form of Pagan. So I believe I hold a pretty open mind with regards to spirituality.
The Church of Scientology, however, is pure made up wacko fiction. And more than that, they are dangerous.
You may have heard about these people, they have centers around the world and offer free 'personality tests' at many of them. They run commercials for the book 'Dianetics' which tell you that you can reprogram your brain.
But the simple fact is that this is a made up "religion". 100% fiction.
Why should you care? Because there are lot of them out there, they have a shitload of money, the best lawyers, and will use them against ANYONE they think is a threat to them.
For a little background, take a link over to Wikipedia for the basic story that their religion/science is based on.
Would you believe this if someone blurted it at you on a street corner? Hell no, you'd carefully cross the street to avoid such a wacko. But Scientology doesn't give you that story right off the mark. You will spend years and thousands of dollars learning these 'secrets'. And if you try to leave or cause them trouble? Well, take a look over at Xenu.net for more horrifying stories about what this 'church' is capable of.
Seriously, if James Bond existed he'd be sent to stop these people before they took over the world using their mind controll bullshit ray and their hoards of mutant lawyers with frickin' lasers on their heads.
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I agree... those pesky "Scientologists" are strange, to say the least.
Some of them are very successful (like John Travolta and Tom Cruise). I'll keep an eye-out for them.
The 'neo-con' religious wackos in our government today take top billing in my mind right now (as the ones to fear). Evangelical so-called "Christians" and this whole "moral/family values/anti-gay rights/anti-freedom of speech or religion" crusade... it's enough to make me power vomit worse than Linda Blair (spinning-head, choice profanity and all).
I'm keeping my sharpened stakes, crucifixes and garlic at-the-ready for their onslaught. They freak me out. If we can survive until 2008, there is hope (I hear John Kerry may run again).
I remember once years ago seeing a late night infomercial for Dianetics. Central to their theories is that everything that happens to a person is recorded flawlessly in the brain, and that one can learn to access that perfect memory. However, this was contrary to everything I knew about memory, and having just moved from a "repressed memory" capital of the US, memory was of no small interest to me at the time. I checked out the Dianetics book, in which L. Ron Hubbard says he conducted studies in the fifties, which proved people could access this perfect memory. However, there were no details anywhere in the book about the specifics of the studies. I suspected that the methodology was flawed.
I lived near a Scientology center, so I went there asking to see information about the studies. They assured me it was legit... why, they could even recall things from previous lives! I still wanted to see information on the studies (these types of claims are pretty easy to prove or disprove). They took me upstairs, where they had bound in hardcover everything L. Ron Hubbard ever wrote. Every memo, every scrap. But... nothing about those studies.
Shortly thereafter I read an affidavit by Hubbard's son in which is said "My father wrote his books off the top of his head based on his imagination. There were no case studies. He is not a nuclear physicist and flunked nearly all of his science related courses in high school and college." Turns out as skeptical as I was, I hadn't been skeptical enough!
This is a truly evil organization, designed from the ground up for the sole purpose of extracting money from people who are unhappy with their lives. And woe to those who get in the way of the Scientology money machine! They'll sue the pants off of any serious critic.
I have Goodman to thank for bringing these wackos to my attention. Thanks man!
Think nothing of it.
Off topic, like you, I recently decided to give blogging another go, and started an utterly mundane journal on blogspot (mostly for my own purposes, as I've started to wonder just where the time goes, and wanted to find out). But my sweetie is saying I should do it on LiveJournal instead. If you have a lot of friends on Livejournal, you can designate them as "friends" and follow all their blogs at once on a single page (which she does). It does a little threading of replies. And you have a lot of control over who does and does not see each individual post. The main downside would be that it nudges people to register, unless they're content to post as Anonymous, but Blogger may do that too. They've got like 5.6 million users registered. Should I post on my long forgotten LiveJournal blog instead?
This is the sound of me whistling: (twheeeooooh!)
Those people are NUTS.
But, just as an aside, aren't all religions "made up", at least to some degree?
Well, as an atheist I figure it's all a crock. But Scientologists lure a lot of people in through passing off their belief systems as science (the phony "Oxford" personality tests, the claims of having done scientific studies, etc). They also falsely claim their beliefs are compatible with other religions. They actually hide their core beliefs because a) they're silly and b) they can charge their believers through the nose for them.
Yes, all religions could be considered made up. But after a few thousand years they tend to mutate from bed time story to historical document. Scientology, on the other hand, was made up by a rather mad Sci-Fi author in the 50's. The worst part is trying to pass it all off as science.
Scientific theory is based on sound research. Scientific claims can be verified. $cientology is fiction, and bad fiction at that. Now, we Americans are free to believe whatever hoo-ha we want, but the guys (specifically the Sea Org, or evil henchmen branch of the 'Church' are seriously out for world domination and will stop at nothing to get it. Hop over to www.lisamcpherson.org to see how they treat their loyal mebers.
Once, long ago I was at my cousins house, there was a copy of Dianetics...next to the Rush Limbauh (sp) book.
eh..what do I know, I sluged through all ten books of Mission Earth before before hearing about the church
-Rob/Talon
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