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Scientology is a crazy cult, but how crazy?
Ninja Bot
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Alright so ever since Scientology became the new Hollywood fad it's gotten all kinds of press and discussion about its nature. South Park did a fairly popular satire on the subject which ridiculed its theology. Recently its gotten more hubub as this video of Tom Cruise has been leaked. Tom says some pretty creepy shit that pretty obviously shows that neither him nor Scientology is exactly normal. But I think the general public pretty much sees it as "lol that crazy Tom Cruise alien religion" and not for the seriously dangerous cult that it is.
Case in point, this recruitment video that was also recently leaked. Frankly the overcomplicated bureaucracy and the idolization of L. Ron Hubbard creep the fuck out of me. I mean seriously each Scientology building has a ceremonial office set up for the guy, what the fuck? Furthermore they're making up shit about how the government and all of psychology and psychiatry are part of a conspiracy to take them down in order to hide the truth, it all sounds like the rantings of a depraved lunatic.
And these fuckers are dangerous too. Take Lisa McPherson for example. A member of the church of Scientology, she was hospitalized for a minor car accident when the hospital noticed that she was mentally unstable and determined to get care for her. Members of the "church" checked her out of the hospital, and basically kidnapped her and held her while she went through and "Introspection Rundown" until she died of a Pulmonary embolism brought on by severe dehydration.
So I'm not expecting to get many people on these boards to support Scientology, but this is still an interesting topic that some discussion can be had from. How dangerous is Scientology to society at large, and for that matter cults in general? Why has it attracted such a large following, especially with celebrities (Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Issac Heyes, Beck, etc.) How has Scientology suckered in so many members? Is there anyway to defeat Scientology? Does this recent exposure help or hurt Scientology?
Case in point, this recruitment video that was also recently leaked. Frankly the overcomplicated bureaucracy and the idolization of L. Ron Hubbard creep the fuck out of me. I mean seriously each Scientology building has a ceremonial office set up for the guy, what the fuck? Furthermore they're making up shit about how the government and all of psychology and psychiatry are part of a conspiracy to take them down in order to hide the truth, it all sounds like the rantings of a depraved lunatic.
And these fuckers are dangerous too. Take Lisa McPherson for example. A member of the church of Scientology, she was hospitalized for a minor car accident when the hospital noticed that she was mentally unstable and determined to get care for her. Members of the "church" checked her out of the hospital, and basically kidnapped her and held her while she went through and "Introspection Rundown" until she died of a Pulmonary embolism brought on by severe dehydration.
So I'm not expecting to get many people on these boards to support Scientology, but this is still an interesting topic that some discussion can be had from. How dangerous is Scientology to society at large, and for that matter cults in general? Why has it attracted such a large following, especially with celebrities (Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Issac Heyes, Beck, etc.) How has Scientology suckered in so many members? Is there anyway to defeat Scientology? Does this recent exposure help or hurt Scientology?
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And there will be the orthodox scientologists getting all bitchy about the new cyberpunk scientologists.
I'd say it wouldn't be as crazy if you never, perhaps, had a passing acquaintance with either logic or any form of religion. Yes, both of them. I have no idea how it suckered in so many (famous) people. Maybe it's for the money? It hurts society very much because it's a mockery of a "religion" and it diminishes the purpose of established religions for devout believers.
It's a fucking science fiction novel for god sake. Are you kidding me?
/end Lewis Black rant
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
I'll give you that Christian Science is pretty fucked up, but I've never heard of it being as malicious as Scientology.
While Christian Scientists and other groups might hold pretty strange beliefs, I don't think any of them advocate killing someone deemed to be a "supressive person."
I think Scientology attracts the rich people because the rich/celebrities usually have lots of personal problems, and it essentially promises that you can buy happiness.
He killed her and like 2 other people before committing suicide.
It was sad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_snow_white
As for how they could convince so many celebs how to get on board? That's arguable. Scientology is supposed to show you the "way" to being happy. Lot's of celebs are unhappy and have lot's of money, so they're perfect targets. Also, unfortunately there's plenty of rich people who are stupid and easily snookered into this con game. Then there's the rumors that they can "teach" you not to be gay which is supposedly why Travolta and Cruise signed on. Then there could be things like appeals to vanity so on and so forth.
The trick for them is they don't tell you about Xenu and that shit all at once, if they did they'd get laughed at.
Pretty much sums it up, eh?
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
What really gets me is the demonization of psychologists & psychiatrists. I mean -- really?
--
Mahn: You realize that's a specific tactic because shrinks are the exact people who could help people here?
Edgy or uncontroversially accurate?
No it isn't.
What's Martin Luther ever done for me anyways
This kind of overgeneralizing and total refusal to examine people is not at all a bad thing
See, the thing about Scientology, it's philosophies aren't so extremly different from CHristianity. That's not what really sets it apart. What makes it stand out so much are it's practices.
Example; Every new member, if they wish to become a full-fledged Scientologist, must confess all of their lives' sins to a priest. Not that big a deal, right ? Except part of the ritual involves having a tape deck on hand recording everything you say. How quickly are you going to be willing to turn and betray the church, when they have a recording of you admitting to everything bad you've ever done?
Now why would the people behind the scenes view psychologist as a threat to their scam.
The entire "religion" was a scam by Hubbard to not die a Pauper. I wonder if he realized, or cared, about the damage he was going to cause.
Man, you would never expect the Spanish Inquisition.
--
The only difference between Scientology and older religions is that it has learned from the past.
The Quran is like 5000x better than the Bible for getting its ideas in, and Scientology has a really great marketing method that allows them to gain power without dealing with normalcy.
It's also working really hard to get that old time Mystery sensation back that Christianity lost when it became mainstream.
Scientology is just as crazy as other crazy religions. Sabbath elevators and the E-Meter are equally ridiculous devices.
I'm saying that their beliefs are equal, not their accomplishments, so settle down spaz.
yeah what
oh hey there are some fucking nuts out there that happen to be religious
surely, without religion people will no longer be fucking retarded, also we will stop waging wars, also we will no longer kill people
The funny thing is the Church of Scientology is the only religious organization in Canada to be charged and convicted of breaching the public trust (or anything else, for that matter).
He made a gmail account, went on a Scientology usenet thingy and posted asking about the docs.
2 hours later, his gmail account was shut down.
These people are fucked up. Just watch the videos/stories linked in this thread if you don't believe me. This ain't no religion, it's a cult and it's SCARY.
Dude the Church of Scientology is not a Christian organization just because they have the word "Church" in there.
What are you trying to say about Martin Luther exactly?
And what the hell are you on about with your over-generalising nonsense? There are plenty of scientologists who are not crazy, are perfectly nice and you wouldn't even know were scientologists until they started declaring things "up-stat" or something. Not every scientologist is some mouth frothing kidnap monkey - for many scientology is just another religion and anyone who grew up within the church will tell you as much, even if they've since left it.
The fact is that makes fundamentally crazy claims and that some people do ridiculous and horrible things because of their allegiance to it. Just like any other religion you care to name.
It's relative. I'm not talking about how either religion got started, I'm speaking of the sort of things they preach in how people should live their lives. There are a few very big differences, but the majority of it isn't all that different from other mainstream faiths.
It's the practices of the church as a whole that really make them so obviously sinister and much more untrustworthy than other faiths.
Christ offers salvation freely, and the Christian Church (in pretty much all it's forms) emphasize this. Scientologists offer help for a price.
Yes, because replacing religion with another blind ideology and state worship is considered a huge step forward by everyone you're attempting to critique.
Way to just take what I said, make some shit up, mix it together and run with it. All I said is that lots of people believe lots of crazy shit. Surely my next step was the eradication of all religious people.
I strongly agree with this, actually. Most major religions are more or less the same in terms of philosophy, but the acts of the Church of Scientology themselves are suspect. One example would be the advent of independent scientologists, and how the Church has reacted to them.
Wait. What?
A) Who said anything about benefits? We started out talking about how the beliefs and actions of scientologists were not qualitatively distinct from any other religion.
C) I'm curious as to how you're going to defend the analogy between deciding that religion, on the whole is not well founded and on the balance a harmful force with racism, modern or otherwise. Please, elucidate, make clear exactly the steps involved in that argument. I am agog.
Actually, the key fact here is that stalin was an atheist
The missing link in this puzzle is the fact that Stalin was in no way motivated by nor justified his actions through his atheism. You'll find that it was his totalitarian ideology that he relied upon. They are not the same things.
You realize that Scientologists are also atheist, right?
And that the key is not that they believe in a deity, but that they believe in batshit insane things?
Batshit insane doesn't need pixie dust.