Scientology

they are very scary....

I read a book, now almost impossible to get, called The Bare Faced Messiah which was an unexpurgated bio of founder L Ron Hubbard. He was a penny-dreadful sci-fi writer in the 30's and 40's who realized he could make a fortune by starting a new religious movement - and did. There is actually a bona-fide quotation which has him saying something along the lines of 'I am going to start a new religion and make a million dollars'.

I won't go into all the details, or the ones that I can remember, but here are a few points.

They have a science-fiction version of 'eschatology' (a.k.a. the fate of souls) which is built around this (ridiculous fantasy) that the Earth used to be inhabited by an alien species who trapped the souls of millions in volcanoes, aeons ago. The whole race is now bearing the scars of this dreadful trauma, and only L Ron and his people know how to 'clear' you.

They sign you up for these extremeley pricey sessions called 'auditing' and also insist you tithe a % of your income to them. Devotees have given accounts of spending literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on the teachings (which are sold, note, not given away).

If you question them or show signs of disloyalty you can be subjected to segregation, virtually jailed.

There is a lot of info out there, it ain't pretty. They sue anyone who tries to expose them. Time Mag ran a cover story on them called The Cult of Greed in the early 90's, it was reputed to have cost Time Life almost half a billion dollars in legal fees in the 10 years following. Anyone who leaves the movement is classified as a hostile and harassed, followed and hounded.

An Australian senator read a big file on them under Parliamentary privilege earlier this year, detailing some very nasty cases of abuse, splitting of families and harrasment, but the Government was too busy fighting other fires to let an enquiry happen. It is a pity, they have tax-free status in Australia which is an outrage, considering they sell their material for thousands of dollars.

They have come very close to being banned outright in France and Germany.

My take: they're a vicious, evil, nasty, paranoid bunch of losers and parasites, who masquerade under Freedom of Religion laws, and I will never understand how people are stupid enough to let a huckster like Hubbard take them in.

Stay well clear

Postscript: let's see if the Scientology auditors pick this up. They will hassle the mods to delete it.

Here's a link to lots of A2K threads on the subject of scientology.
http://able2know.org/forum/scientology/

Hard as it may be to believe, the news section of their Christian Science Monitor is top notch, and I consider it a valid source.

PLEASE don't confuse Scientology with Christian Science. The latter may have their eccentricities, but they are a perfectly wholesome Christian sect and have nothing to do with Scientology, which has no relationship with Christianity. Check it out in Wikipedia or somewhere.

(The confusion reminds me of that anecdote about the Japanese Christmas store decorations which featured Santa Claus being crucified.....)

I checked and you are right. My apologies to Christian Scientists.

The practitioners of this cult like religion would seem, to me, to be uneducated dolts who dont know any better. However, since many are some of our better known show business personalities with high profiles. This actually play well for the whole sect.
The premises upon which SCientology is built are silly and infantile. However, when you look at many religions, their Creeds are all based upon unsubstantiated crap and myth. SO why not SCientology.

Exactly. Why not? If you're gonna go the irrational route anyway, why not jump in with both feet?

They all have the same logical basis, but some are in better taste than others.

They are not all the same. Scientology is of very recent invention.

Can not we become a Church ? Church of Sophia ? We would have advantages like not paying taxes and things like that. Not the first church on~line with a web~site, but a virtual gathering... Ultimate freedom of Speech, sovereignity of Reason. Just an idea <O>

Scientology is a religion invented by a science fiction author. I doubt there's a science fiction author alive or dead who hasn't done the same.

I have this terrible feeling that Hubbard fully intended at some point to say "oh come on people, it's a joke! I just wanted to see if could do it"... But then he went and died. Oops. Hope he thought ahead like Hari Seldon.

He did leave a manifesto that cannot be opened until 50 years after his death.