Corona688

If only that were true. I suggest you research narconon.

Corona688

Oh please. Nobody's going to bust down your door and arrest you for not agreeing with the majority of this board on scientology. Being in the minority does not make you persecuted -- you have to actually be persecuted to call yourself that.

It elicits so much ire as a discussion topic because it makes a great deal of money off being a fraud, is a particularly transparent fraud, hurts lots of people doing so, exceedingly well-documented, and the true believers stay steadfast no matter what you show them... I bet wf doesn't even believe my story about narconon starving the people it "rehabilitates" into compliance with scientology teachings. Nobody's disputed it, either -- it's far easier to ignore it.

B_Sharp

If true, what better place for more pre made victims for Scientology, than narconon.

That is clever. :thumbs:

fließendes

Corona, GW, it's wasted energy preaching to just about anyone on this board (including me) that Scientology is not rooted in reality. However, that's also why this is a good place to discuss its ideas. We're not in danger of inspiring anybody to sign up if we discuss it even-handedly.

However, just screaming "FUCKING RETARDED" without discussing what it is in Scientology that makes it appealing or even provides beneficial experiences to some, is like trying to keep kids off drugs by describing anything that falls into the "drug" category as a monolithic evil. Then the kid smokes a joint, wakes up the next morning and sees he's neither a bum nor a heroin-addict, and so tosses aside all the warnings which he now sees were obviously hyperbolic. If people go to xenu.net and all the other web-sites, hear the horror stories, and then meet some Scientologists who seem like perfectly nice, happy people--they may not only go in for some auditing, they might even believe the CoS's claims of persecution and media bias.

And no, I wasn't expecting my door to be banged down for discussing Scientology. "Mocked" and "berated" were the words I used. If everyone's of the same opinion, why bother having a discussion? If you want to see some questionable stuff posted by former-Scientologists who still believe in Hubbard's methods, go here:freezoneamerica: State of Clear--from the "Prometheus Reports". Xenu.net and most other sites are run by people who've not spent significant time inside the Church, so their attitudes tend toward the hysterical.

**********************

On a different note, I found something on the above site (State of Clear) that disturbs me because it echoes what Tom said in the Matt Lauer interview:

You may wonder, if there some day will be invented a pill, that could clear the person. There isn't. All drugs have accomplished in terms of the mind is, drugs reduce a Thetan's ability to create mental image pictures. You have "anti-depressants" and "anti-psychotics" drugs. Over time they pretty much destroy the person. The pictures that bothered the PC [pre-clear] are still there and will act up again as soon as he is off that drug or the drug simply stops working. That drugs stop working after a while is well known, even from painkillers and sleeping pills. Sometimes drugs can help a person's ability to create pictures for a short while. This is especially true for street drugs. That is how artists get hooked. As with most drugs/medicines, they stop working after a while. Now the person thinks bigger doses will work, but drugs are essentially poisons. Some drugs can make a Thetan exteriorize, but usually in a traumatic or engramic way. Sooner or later it causes the symptoms known as Out-int in a violent way.

You may recognize oft-quoted statements from Tom such as "all drugs are poisions". This is probably why Scientologists categorically dislike psychiatric drugs. They believe it permanently destroys a person's ability to be cleared (in that lifetime).

I suppose someone like Tom has to spend so much time just mastering the Scientology jargon that they don't have much time to learn to think for themselves. Here's a man who's supposedly OT VII, and yet can't seem to do better than repeating talking points. He got into the program via the "study technology" which apparently is quite good at helping certain people grasp concepts such as those in mathematics with its emphasis on definitions, cumulative learning and concrete examples. However, that's also an excellent tool for indoctrination into a complex (or labyrinthine) ideology like Scientology.

Having mastered the concepts of Scientology, Tom now figures he knows "the history of psychiatry"--which Scientology, of course, provides >> Wundt, Pavlov.

Sturmrabe

Atheists rabidly decrying people who believe in ANYTHING other than hard science... rather like a fundie to an unbeliever???

NEVER! Not on this forum!:Cheeky:

Anyway, scientology IS fucking retarded, and Southpark owned them as bad as they did the mormons... how? by simply explaining the origins and beliefs of the "religion"...

Its so stupid its funny, but its also so stupid I'm sure it drives people crazy that come to this forum just because its hard to comprehend how someone with believe this shit... Its just not easy to wrap your head around.

fließendes

I went to a Beck concert in October, and he kept making jokes about R. Kelly "coming out of the closet" before he played the song "Debra" (R. Kelly inspired). He apparently had some advance notice about that Southpark episode.People come to a "Non-Abrahamic Religion & Philosophy" board to discuss hard science? Buddhism doesn't have any science behind it. The Southpark episode (here) is very funny, but it glosses over the subtleties of Scientology and its less sensational ideas.Scientology wouldn't have nearly the number of adherents it does and would probably never have garnered its following had it started with Xenu or body Thetans. I don't think there's a "thetan level" reading on e-meters, and Hubbard didn't even come up with Xenu until 1968, by which time it's speculated he was experimenting with some of those psychotropic drugs the CoS so decries.

OT III is, according to the Prometheus Reports (OT III) where things start to get really weird. Prior to that, it's just Dianetics, the State of Clear, and OT I and II are pretty much natural extensions of those ideas. When people enter Scientology it's just class exercises and "auditing".

"Auditing" is what interests me, because it's a process in which people discuss past experiences, try to isolate painful memories, and try to follow their associations until they're wiped out. The "auditee" (case, pre-clear) does most of the talking and the "auditor" asks a structured set of questions. The e-meter probably does little more than detect a person's relative nervousness or calm and probably acts as a placebo that encourages a person to open up (like any lie-detector).

While it's rather unlikely that "Dianetics" auditing does most of what Hubbard claimed (at various times) I suspect it does something for people, because this is how Scientologists get hooked. It's essentially a very structured form of talk therapy, and I believe that there was some sincere intent when Hubbard developed it, because he was trying to heal himself. He published Dianetics in 1950, three years after he wrote this letter asking the veteran's administration for psychiatric treatment.

Corona688

How, precisely, am I not being even-handed? If you dispute the facts and conclusions I present, please deal with them instead of sweeping them off the table. Which is totally irrelevant since I am not screaming "FUCKING RETARDED", and neither am I characterizing the behavior of individual scientoligists. I'm talking about the organization itself, and the characterizations I state are accurate to the best of my knowledge. I'm not saying that narconon starves people because I'm hoping that'll scare people off it. I say that because it's true.I am not talking about individual practicing scientologists, and never was. Neither does Xenu, really -- by and large it mostly describes victims, and the behavior of the organization itself. They're not really at risk of anything except pouring lots of money into a black hole, until they try to leave. I'm talking about the behavior of the organization itself, the "clergy" if you will. Who's stopping you from having a different opinion?

fließendes

OK.I addressed what I think of the e-meter in my previous post. No, I don't know much about "ohm-meters" but I don't think they're really essential to the "auditing" process.Generally, putting something in caps and using swear words comes across as screaming. At any rate, I don't find you calm and even-handed.For clarification, I'm not talking about the organization either. I think I've used the word "ideas" ad nauseum in my posts. The ideas, the processes, what ideas in Scientology appeal to people--that's what I'm interested in.I haven't really been paying attention to the Narconon side of the discussion. That's an accusation against the CoS, which appears pretty corrupt on its own, aside from Hubbard's personal failings. But that begs the question, what does the Scientology experience offer people that keeps them interested despite all the questionable tactics? It's too simple to just dismiss it as a cult. Though it may have many cultish characterisitics, I believe the CoS and Hubbard's ideas/systems have something unique in their appeal. I'm just not going to pay money or sign my life away to find out. So, we're talking on two different tracks. I'm talking ideology and appeal, you're talking the machinations and tactics of the CoS. No wonder we're not communicating.Obviously, no one's stopping me. I just wish someone could calm down and discuss the other side of the question. We know most of the scary stuff about Scientology, what's the positive side? There must be one, unless every Scientologist is just a masochist. I want to get inside the mind of Scientology as best I can without joining. It's very interesting to me from a humanist standpoint.

Whether or not Hubbard was a fraud is less interesting than the fact that there are many true believers in Scientology. If the "church" survives in the long-run, the believers and Hubbard's ideas will become more important than the real Hubbard or the CoS. Splinter groups have already started to appear. (e.g. freezoneamerica).

pescifish

Please stick to the topic of Scientology and avoid comments about other users. Even handed or not, calmed down or not, every user is free to discuss or not discuss a particular topic for whatever reasons s/he may have.

fließendes

Am I really veering that off topic? I just wanted someone to say something other than the obvious (that Scientology has some scary aspects and that their are lots of web-sites devoted to that angle).Should I also have refrained from calling Whichphilosophy a perfectly nice person?

Originally, my reference was to something Corona688 said ("FUCKING RETARDED") and did not reference him personally, though I did use the adjective "screaming" because that's how I perceive the word "fucking" in capital letters. Then I said I think we should discuss the matter "even-handedly"--again no one named. Not until Corona688 replied with "I'm not screaming fucking retarded" and "How am I not being even-handed?" did it become personal.

I'm replying to what's written. I'm not insulting anybody's mother. If I don't like the tone of the discussion generally, am I not allowed to point that out?