Speaking strictly about the success of Scientology to gain and hold onto members, it seems to me that the Xenu stuff is a hindrance that has to be overcome. I understand that by the time it’s sprung on the follower, they are heavily invested, both financially and emotionally, and will tend to accept it.
But are there advantages to having to have members go through that? Perhaps something like that is needed to take the brainwashing to the next level?
Would Scientology be more successful without the crazy Xenu stuff, or less successful?
If Scientology is a religion, it needs a mythos. All mythos sound idiotic from the outside; power to 'em.
The odd thing is that you never hear much of anything about Scientology as a church, temple, meetinghouse, whatever - all the religious window dressing seems to be that, even to the members themselves who are above the new-convert level. It seems to be all about the endless “processing” and so forth, with handwaves at the theology/mythos from time to time - as if Catholic churches were packed with people there to do confession, and everything else was just ignored or given faint lip service.
So IMVHO, the mythos seems to be justification for the status as religion - which of course is a help to their tax and other civic status - but is pretty much irrelevant to the beliefs and practices of most members and the various Orgs. I’d say it’s can’t-hurt, might-help to the intrigued and the converts who want assurances that it’s a “real” religion. Getting rid of it would leave… well, only the parts that look like something other than a religion.
I used to think that Scientology was a special case of specialness when it came to mythology, but is that really accurate when you get down to it and compare it to other religions? Almost all major religions believe in aliens and beings with super powers who are fighting over souls or what not.
Angels vs Aliens?
Xenu vs Ganesh?
Thetans vs Souls?
And science seems to believe we live in a multiple dimension quantum soup as part of a theoretically limitless multiverse. And we still don’t know what consciousness actually is or how it works. We don’t even know what matter is, because as soon as you look close enough it turns out it’s something else. It’s an atom! No wait… it’s quarks! No… shit… it’s quanta! No, maybe vibrating multidimensional super strings… aw fuck it, we’ll have got get back to you.
The reality (as far as I can tell) is that we don’t know what WE are. Are we the body? The awareness? The thoughts? Am I this mind, this body, these emotions, these thoughts, these reoccurring behavioral patterns… am I the one producing them, experiencing them… All of it? Neither? Something else?
We don’t know what we are and we don’t know what this universe we are experiencing is. From my perspective figuring these things out is the most interesting, exciting and important thing in the world, but the more this body/mind system learns about it the more it realizes it does not know. Everything I ever used to believe has turned out to be wrong, and I’ve been through all the usual Belief System.
Today after almost four decades of investigation I can proudly proclaim that I don’t know what or who I am and I have no idea how anything works.
We for sure have issues when going to the quantum level, but we still live really in middle world as Richard Dawkins tell us, we do have to rely on science and not just embrace uncertainty, it is not really your friend.
As for Scientology one has to apply also what Dawkings said:
IMHO Scientology is still in the stage were very bad things are being done in the name of the religion, dropping that Xenu bit is not as important as dropping the extreme control that they have over their members and to demonstrate that they are dropping their anti-scientific positions on mental health matters for starters.
How dare you say uncertainty is not my friend! It’s not just my friend, it’s the friend of science as well. As soon as you are certain, you stop evolving.
For me Belief Systems are no longer personal or that important. I can look at this world through an atheist lens, though a scientific lens, through a buddhist lens or through a gnostic lens. The more perspectives, the clearer the underlying picture becomes. Science is not the truth, it’s a method of investigation to find the truth through external means. Just like buddhist meditation or Advaita self-inquiry is, only they are coming at it from the other direction.
The question in science is “What is this?”
The question is scientific spirituality is “What am I?”
We need to figure both out. If I want insights on evolution I’ll listen to Dawkings, if I want insights into consciousness I’ll listen to Adyashanti. One does not exclude the other.
It is not that what I’m talking about, after a theory is proposed coming from that uncertainty then the theory survives by looking for evidence in the real world. Your mistake is in not noticing how we are less wrong than before as Asimov showed. We can indeed be and we are still uncertain of many things, but not in many others as the result of the march of time and the progress of science.
That is not a mistake of mine but rather a mistake of your own assumption of my perspectives. Obviously we know much more today than we did yesterday, and we will know even more tomorrow. My point is that we should not stop (become certain) until we are actually at the destination (truth).
Where I come from is that I do take into account that saying that goes like:
‘It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.’
The point stands, we do know a lot about what we are. There are uncertainties, but it is really silly to talk like if “We don’t know what we are and we don’t know what this universe we are experiencing is.”
Of course then once we take into account Scientology we do also know a lot about the past and the origins of that faith.
We don’t know how this universe came into existence. We don’t know how it works (the two main theories contradict each other). We don’t know how life came into existence. And most importantly we don’t know what the awareness or consciousness experiencing all this actually is.
Those are the important bits really.
Unfortunately because we are just so addicted to being certain, people will cling to Belief Systems (BS), and Scientology will be able to convince some that an alien overlord planted evil souls in a volcano and then blew them up or whatever. Does the Xenu meme help with recruiting? I really doubt it. When looked at from the outside, the whole thing looks pretty crazy, but then again… it seems pretty damn obvious that the universe itself is much more crazy than that story.
And I’m aware of a lot that was done already in those subjects. What one can be more certain is that the old fashion gods are less likely to be moving the stuff.
Remember, I did say “tune it down a little bit”. Going to the extreme that affirms that “We don’t know what we are and we don’t know what this universe we are experiencing is” is still silly.
Not really, you are reaching for the old chestnut of the “god of the gaps”, made worse by the understanding given to us by centuries of scientific history that the old fashion gods, and Scientology too, are not likely to be correct on the origins of the universe nor the origins of man.
Really, do me a favor and stop trying to put me into whatever hole it is you’re trying to put me into, I don’t appreciate it. It’s rude and not constructive. You can ask me what I think instead, much better method.
The “god of the gaps” argument is the anti-thesis of what I am saying, and would also be strange for me to argue since I don’t believe in god in a classical sense. I believe there IS a truth and I believe it can be experienced. That’s pretty much the sum total of the actual beliefs I hold. Everything else is just temporary Belief Systems being played with and investigated.
Just for the record I actually did quote what you said that I have a problem with, and as usual you are ignoring that I’m not asking for a complete change only that you dial the extremism just a bit.
It is still a small gap, but a gap nevertheless.
I also do think of god less on a classical sense, hence the point that even then there is less evidence to assume that “there IS a truth and [you] believe that it can be experienced.” L. Ron Hubbard also thought the same (or claimed to think that) and we did not get really a good religion IMHO, one really has to proceed with lots of caution regarding those “truths” that can be experienced.
I don’t see it. The gap argument is ”We don’t know, therefore god did it”. My argument is ”We don’t know. Isn’t that exciting? Let’s see if we can find out!"
If you don’t believe there is a truth to be found, why bother looking? Actually I don’t think it’s a logical position to hold. Maybe we have different ideas about what truth means.
Well, that is ok, but lets remember that you framed that what should be exciting with a “there is a truth and I believe it can be experienced”. That is indeed reaching for the explanation to be found to be magic or faith based.
Not my complete position, I do think that there is a lot that we need to find, but I do take here into account what Tim Minchin said:
“Throughout history. Every mystery. Ever solved. Has turned out to be… not magic”
It is nothing of the sort and I have no idea how you can think that it is. What can be known is that experience is happening. There is awareness. Something is being experienced right now in this moment. That is all I can say for certain. The experience is constantly changing, and there is a mind that is looking for patterns.
Are you saying that you don’t think there is a truth or that there is a truth but it can not be experienced? Those seem to be the only logical options to what I suggested.
Depends on your definition of magic. In my vocabulary magic or anything ”super natural” is impossible per definition. If it happens, it can’t be magic. If it exists, it’s not super natural.
Using another definition, that I suppose is closer to yours, you could actually make kind of the opposite argument from the quote. Everything we have discovered so far has turned out to be more magical and mystical than we ever could have imagined. The creation myth in the bible for example is infinitely less creative and amazing than the wonder of the big bang or evolution.
As that is not what the maker of the quote was talking about, your point here is a very underwhelming point (it was just part of his famous STORM poem).
[QUOTE=Tim Minchin's STORM]
Isn't this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable, NATURAL world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?
[/QUOTE]
First you tell me to tone it down, then you tell me I am underwhelming. You’re impossible to please. I don’t want to play with you anymore. Please let the Thetan take over so we can have a real conversation.
Just missing the point, you have to tone down on the idea that “We don’t know how this universe came into existence. We don’t know how it works”, We do know a lot about that, but we do still need to find more.
It was your attempt at continuing to press that or to make what Tim Minchin said to be about mysticism that was underwhelming.
As for the matter at hand, I do think that the tale of Xenu is not going to be a big stumbling block for the Scientologists, like the Mormons they will tell their followers that there is a mystical explanation and not a literal one for the strange tales.
Really? We know a “lot” about how the universe came into existence? I would say we do not know anything at all. We have a theory about what happened just after it came into existence. Apparently it was very hot for a while, and possibly there was some hyper-inflation of time space or what not. How it came into existence is basically explained by “Ehh… it just happened…!?”.
The biological situation is a bit better, but also bit similar. We don’t know how it started, but the Theory of Evolution does indeed seem to hit the nail on the head regarding what happens afterwards.
I’m going to have to ask you to tone down this notion that we know a lot (don’t be such an extremist). I’m also now going to have to ask you to explain how we can “know” anything if there is no “truth”.
Meh, good enough from your former extremist position.
As for the matter at hand I do think also that just like the Mormons the Scientologists are likely to change the original tale by claiming they got another source for it or by adding more to it, so as to show that the leaks that all the unfaithful knows are not what they really believe.
