What specific criticism has gone too far?
That is not in Scientology .
Acceptance of these crazy ideas is one of many ideas that keeps me happily an atheist. Religions demand so much belief in the ridiculous that I don’t know why any one still follows them.
But the Scientologists do seem to step the stupidity up a level with flying saucer people .
I take issue a bit with the way Scientology is being blamed for the kid’s death, because to this point I’m not convinced that’s the case.
At their lowest levels, I imagine the teachings of Scientology can be mildly beneficial, and the same goes for most religions or cults, even the loopy ones, as long as nobody is committing ritual suicide, molesting kids, or eating people. The organization itself is not benign at all, though, which becomes more obvious when you look at how they treat their high-profile and highest-paying members, Operation Snow White and crap like that.
Scientology deserves and gets a lot of ridicule. The organization deserves scorn and that’s how most people seem to treat it. Are its teachings more ridiculous than those of any “mainstream” religion? Not necessarily. Thetans aren’t any more ridiculous than angels; saying the universe is trillions of years old and used to be called Teegeeack and there was an evil monster named Xenu isn’t more absurd than saying the Earth is 6,012 years old, two human beings used to live in a magic garden named Eden until (depending on how you read it) a being named Satan got involved. Scientology’s dumb stories don’t come from the same tradition as the major faiths, so there’s a bit of a “picking on the new kid” quality, which bugs me, but then again, all these stories are ridiculous and Scientology lore has a “dreamed up by a little kid after a 50s-sci-fi-induced nightmare” quality that Christianity and Buddhism don’t have. It’s not like that should be off limits.
I thought that was for his seizures?
I’ve never seen parishoners billed for a building fund. My guess would be that she pledged that much, and then they sent her a bill. As far as religious schooling goes, it makes sense to have to pay extra for a service that takes up so much more of the Rabbi’s time than any other member would have access to (or that an instructor would have to be paid to do). But, as pointed out by Voyager, they won’t deny you the Bar Mitzvah (or 1st Communion or Confirmation for the Catholics).
As far as annulments go, I don’t know too much about them, other than there are stories that they can be bought. Never met anyone myself who has actually had to pay for one.
But regardless, my point stands…none of the mainstream religions will deny you access to the services or any information about what the religion teaches if you can’t afford or don’t wish to pay.
Not in this case. Harlan was born in 1934. Hubbard published Dianetics in 51 or 52, which would make Harlan 17 or 18. Harlan didn’t start his hack writing career until a few years later, so I have grave doubts about him being with all those BNWs to hear this supposed conversation.
What he said about Hubbard’s writing style is correct to the best of my knowledge. It is also said that Hubbard had a special typewriter with keys for “the” etc. to speed up his writing. Time is money when you are churning out pulp. I hadn’t heard that he wrote Dianetics in a weekend, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
The problem with the story is that Dianetics did not start as a religion, and only became one to evade the nasty old government which wanted some proof of the claims (and some money.) I do think the whole thing started as a scam. At the time Ray Palmer was making tons of money and getting tons of readers with the Shaver Mystery, which was even weirder than Scientology and which people were reading believing it to be the truth. So Hubbard had a clear example of Mencken’s observation that no one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public. I can certainly imagine him deciding he wanted a piece of the suckers’ money, and he got it.
1.) The story’s been told by others who WERE there, including Sam Moscowitz. There are several folkls who attest to it, so I think it likely.
2.) One thing that biographers of L. Ron never mention (I think none of them have actually been science fiction fans themselves) is that the idea of starting a religion as cover for something else was rife in the Campbell circles. Heck, Campbell himself used the idea in his story “All”, and encouraged Heinlein to do it in the story essentially based on the same idea, and published as “Sixth Column” (and leter in book form as “The Day After Tomorrow”). Asimov made a huge deal out of the idea in his “Foundation” series. In all those cases the eligion was used as cover for a subversive organization, or for social engineering. Bt money would be a similar idea. I’m not at all surprised that L. Ron reportedly said what he did.
3.) There’s an essay about this whole issue of whether Hubbard said the phrase or not, if I’m not mistaken, at Xenu.com
4.) Hubbard, by the way, was known for his exagggeration, and that story about the special typewriter with keys for “the” and “and”, and the writing on a single long roll of paper (stories that the normally skeptical Martin Gardner repeated in his 1950 book (Fads and Fallacies) In The Name of Science) sounds to me as if it’s just another of those stories. To my knowledge the Scientologists never put the damned thing on display, and I’m not familiar with anyone saying that they actually saw such a thing. I do know that fellow writer 9also in the Campbell stab;le) L. Sprague de Camp had a typewriter with special keys for diacitical marks, because he often wrote science fact and history articles (and historical stories) where he actrually used them. Hubbard did, on one occasion, try to one-up him. I suspect this is another case of him trying yo one-up him again.
5.) Hubbard was at least moderately successful. I don’t know that he was immensely successful. I think if he’d been more of a success we’d have seen an awful lot more of his pulp publications than his various publishing houses have issued. And, as it is, I have a helluva lot more of the pulp publications of Heinlein or of Fredric Brown than I’ve seen of Hubbard’s.
L. Ron Hubbard was the founder, chief prophet, and high priest of $cientology. There are many , well-confirmed reports of this man’s madness (and psychotic behavior). he was a liar, a criminal, and extremely cruel (even to members of his own family). wht can we conclude from this?
Plus, none of the grandiose claims of $cientology have ever proven out. people who reach “OTVIII” (or whatever0 do not have 200 IQs, and have no magical powers.
Ergo, $cientology is a scam, QED.
Washington Post article on Hubbard’s statement about “the way to make money is to start a religion”:
Don Wollheim published the Ole Doc Methusaleh stories, which were a bit over the edge - Doc had a slave, IIRC. I need to check my Unknown anthologies to see if any of Hubbard’s stories got reprinted there. As for why there aren’t more, I don’t know if it was because Scientology doesn’t see some of the light hearted stories in keeping with the image of the founder. I’d suspect many other anthologists didn’t want to even get involved. I don’t recall any Hubbard stories in the 20 or so Groff Conklin anthologies I have, and he anthologized almost everyone.
Even if Hubbard said that someone could get rich founding a religion, the fact remains that he didn’t - or didn’t until he was forced into it by his legal situation. Sure it was a common plot point, though Asimov’s use of it might be more from the analogy of the Empire to Rome than anything else. Heinlein appears to be influenced by the radical priests of the '30s - Scudder shows up in **For Us the Living, ** though he was unsuccessful in that early version of the Future History.
Anyhow, I’d have to find a better source than Harlan to believe that he was there.
This is irrelevant – I have several books by Hubbard that weren’t printed by his byzantine publishing empire, but I don’t have many of them. There are a lot more reprints of other authors from the Golden Age than of Hubbard. I don’t know why, but I suspect he really isn’t (and wasn’t) popular – those reprints are, like the DAW edition you describe, AFTER he founded Scientology. But, if you except Bridge Publications and such Scieno clones, it’s really hard to find Hubbard’s stuff, while you can easily finf Raymond Z. Gallun and George O. Smith and other such obscurities from the period.
What legal situation? None of Hubbard’s bios hint that he was in desperate straits when he gfirst published Dianetics. If he tried to pal,m it off as a eligion later, that was his own doing.
Heinlein got Campbell’s plot relayed over the telephone to him for writing “Sixth Column”. He was influenced by Campbell.
You’ve got it – look at my citing Moscowitz and the cite two posts up.
I’m not sure I’m getting you. Do you want some AnLab numbers for Hubbard vs Smith and Gallun. (Obscurities? Do you call the author of the Venus Equilateral stories an obscurity? I shall have to ask you to step outside! ) I think Hubbard was at least as well respected as those guys. He had a really interesting after the war novel (conventional, not nuclear) in 1940 or so whose name escapes me. And I think his fantasies at least stand the test of time better than Smith’s vacuum tube stories. I’m not sure I have the time to do the research, but I suspect he had higher numbers than a lot of stories which did get anthologized. I’ve already given some reasons which seem more plausible than lack of popularity, which doesn’t seem to be the case given the letters about the stories and AnLab. He wasn’t Heinlein, of course, but who was?
Not when he founded Dianetics, which was not a religion. However IIRC the claims of Dianetics about improving ones mental health and such were starting to get federal scrutiny. By making it a religion, it became immune from such. Someone said above that it was for tax reasons, which might be true also. However even the founder of a religion has to pay taxes, so that didn’t help that much.
So was everyone, but For Us the Living came before Lifeline. I never much liked Sixth Column, but my hazy memory of it agrees that religion was used as a cover for the revolt. However religion was far more integral to “If This Goes On …” though Scudder may have believed in it. In any case, both the Heinlein and Asimov examples use religions set up for political goals, not to make money.
I’ll check my copy of Seekers of Tomorrow. But even if he did say it, perhaps as a joke, Dianetics did not start as a religion, but rather as an example of pseudoscience. Nothing I’ve read of Hubbard’s work, btw, ever made me think he knew anything about science beyond what he read in the science articles in Astounding. I have no idea of Hubbard actually believed what he was selling or if it was a scam from the beginning. Campbell certainly published enough nuts who did believe in their nuttery, after all.
Has the Scientology hate gone too far?
I would have to say not far enough. My buddies and I have been waiting for quite some time for followers to crossover from the darkside so that Lord Lucas and his teachings of the force can take its’ rightful place.
BTW, wearing Bear claw’s on each side of my ears, come in handy when I get the munchies.
And they say I should have picked a uniform more suited for a guy,… I kinda like my Leia pulpit robe.
When my family moved in the neighborhood we are in ,the local parish priest gave us a visit. He told us they had recently contracted to build an addition. They had checked out my fathers income and credit and determined how much should pay and how much he could afford. They then pulled out all the paperwork and said all he had to do was sign. We sicced the dog on him and threw him out. That is a local roman catholic church in about 1958.
Had you not included the first part I’d wonder about the second, but weren’t hers more like cinnamon rollups? Place by me deepfries them, coats them with sugar syrup, then frosts them with chocolate. Not normally a fan of cinnamon and chocolate together, but I make the exception there.
And pulpit robes by themselves are asexual. It depends on how you accessorize them. Roll up braids of your hair? Feminine. Use breakfast pastries? Masculine.
Things were different in the 50s, when The Mother Church was all-powerful. These days they’re happy if you show up.
LMAO!
Assume away. No, my grandparents were certain that nobody had told them they would be billed. My father is much younger than his siblings, who were adults at the time. They have confirmed this as well as being expected to pay for services. So unless you can definitely say that it didn’t happen in San Francisco in the 1930s I assume you will be retracting. Fact of the matter is that your own experience confirms that school attendees were charged and you assume that everyone was told. Then you act offended about the “free” tickets, which were not always free everywhere. You then pretend that I am making up my story. Really now. You haven’t thought through the “free” ticket thing, have you? Growing up at my church in the 70s, Easter and Christmas services were packed and standing room only out the door. Nobody would notice if you didn’t fill out the attendance card or put money in the basket (actually, some would, but nobody was supposed to say anything). But there were no tickets, free or otherwise. The fire marshal would not have approved, particularly with all the candles and all the people. Should I assume that at the synagogue that free tickets were available to regular contributors on a first come, first serve basis? Only if there were left overs that nobody wanted could freeloaders get them. But I assume. My grandparents were poor and freeloaders, and were most unwelcome and the bill was the way their lack of welcome was made known. Alas, they are still buried at the Jewish cemetery in Colma, the one with famous goy Wyatt Earp. Every few years I visit on my grandmother’s birthday. She was born on March 2, 1885.
And yes, churches do take voluntary attendance, but not with regularity in my personal experience. About half of the services I attend ask attendees to fill out an form and for visitors to check the box. I’ve seen this at every denomination for regular services about half the time: Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic, Assembly of God, Methodist, etc. I have not seen it at Jewish services, but those are virtually all memorial type services for passing relatives and there I don’t see it. (Most Jewish weddings I’ve attended have not been held in a formal religious building.)
Yes, if you discount all counterexamples, your point stands. If you consider counterexamples, it does not.
So, this happened seventy years ago? I can think of many explanations besides the shul trying to pull a fast one - especially in the '30s where money was an issue for almost everyone. What possible reason would there be for a temple to not tell people. After all, if school was over they’d have very little clout to collect the money. I’m not at all claiming that your friend is misrepresenting what he heard, just that this might not be the complete story. I only know personally about New York in the early '60s.
To members of the temple. I’m not aware that contributions had anything to do with it. Since we were members, I don’t know how hard getting tickets for non-members was.
There is a slight difference between High Holy day services and Christmas and Easter services. High Holy day services last three complete days. You can’t have multiple services. When my mother-in-law was alive and was here for Christmas she and my wife went to some service without tickets or anything. There is no way, though, that you can go to High Holy Day services without a seat. Even when I was 14 it was damn tiring, plus on Yom Kippur you’re fasting.
For normal Sabbath or any other service, no ticket or membership was remotely required.
My grandmother on my father’s side was very poor, and also very religious, but I never heard anything about her or my father or his brother being excluded. I’m certainly not denying the possibility that one temple was run by a bunch of snobby jerks, but, to get back to the point, it is certainly not policy or common the way it is with Scientology.
I certainly never saw it in my temple (and I went quite frequently as a teen) or in any other, and never at a church I attended for any reason.