This says it all for me. I think I am a very tolerant person, as far as religions go, any way. And altho I will not, as a matter of principal, attack their beliefs, I will say their “CHURCH” has done things, that has Torquemada down in hell, slapping his forehead with his palm, and saying “Now, why didn’t I think of that!”.
first. Hey Daniel, you coming to SF on sunday? Everyone’s going to be there.
I’ve had semi-personal experience with them. A close friend had some classes of theirs paid for by her mom. I made my objections known right off the bat. She went, and realised that it’s mostly bullshit. But, I got her to tell me what she learned in each “class”. I tell you, third grade amatuer pop-psychology bullshit.
The world is made of of constructive and destructive people, and shit like that. If you are destructive, you will always be destuctive, you can’t change. I always wonder what happens to destructive people who sign up and take the classes. :rolleyes:
Some discussed bans on E-meters, and serious IRS investigations back in the eighties, but nothing that stuck. In fact, the Church of Scientology has tax-exempt status granted by the United States Government, which is suspected by many to have been obtained through not-so-legal means.
Why would it be so difficult to get tax exempt status that they would get it by less than legal means? From what I see I don’t like their tactics, but i don’t see why the US government would say they are not a religion.
The fight bbetween the IRS and Scientology has a long and twisted history, for which you should consult the sites listed above. (I’d tell you to consult a book on scientology, but the scientologists have been very active in legislating those books out of print. Paulette Cooper’s book “The Scandal of Scientology” and Miller’s “The Bare-Faced Messiah” are all but unobtainable – except on the Web.)Basically, the IRS saw them as a business, not a religion. Until a few years ago when they suddenly and without explanation changed their mind. The reasons for this change of mind have been sealed, despite repeated efforts to open the case. Some people see this abrupt about-face as a wee bit suspicious.
I didn’t see that anyone answered this so I thought I’d give it a whirl [I am *NOT* making the following up]…
Once upon a time, about 75 million years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there lived an evil glactic tyrant named Xenu (sometimes known as Xemu). Xenu didn’t like the fact that his galaxy was populated with low-life scofflaw criminals, and in the tradition of mafioso keeping their own neighborhood clean, he gathered them all up and brought them to Earth (then called Teegeeack), put them into volcanos and blew 'em up real good with H-bombs.
Unfortunately for humankind (but fortunately for $cientology) they didn’t die, they were just blown up into a mega-zillion little particles and covered the earth like a fine, undetectable mist. Everyone who is born is covered head to toe by millions of these little critters, called “Body Thetans.” They’re the cause of everything bad that happens as a result of human action. Man is basically good, but these things cause him to do bad things.
Fortunately for humankind (and for $cientology, but unfortunately for humankind’s wallet) there is a way to get rid of these beasties, and that’s through $cientology courses and auditing. It takes a lot of really expensive courses and a whole lot of really expensive auditing, but hey, once you’ve gotten rid of the nasties, you too can be an invincible superhuman, just like L. Ron! Such a thing is priceless, so why quibble about how much it’s going to cost you? (in the 6 figures, minimum)
Talk about any of this to a regular Joe scieno and you’re sure to get a blank stare and probably an argument that you’re out of your mind. Most “public” scientologists have no clue about Xenu because they haven’t paid enough money and gone far enough up the “Bridge” to learn about him. Those who have are prohibited from talking about Xenu to anyone, even fellow scienos who also know about Xenu. They are prohibited (threatened with insanity and death!) so they can’t compare notes with each other.
Oh yeah, scienos are taught to believe in reincarnation, and so when the time comes (they’ve paid enough money and have been brainwashed enough to believe), not only do they have to pay to audit away the body thetans from this lifetime, they also find out they’ll have to pay to audit away the thetans from previous lifetimes, before L. Ron discovered the way to total happiness.
I’ve been pretty glib, but all this is documented. The so-called “Sekret Skriptures” of $cientology have been posted to the net numerous times and resides on tens, if not hundreds of thousands of hard drives around the world.
Btw, Hubbard said “There is no Christ” so he wasn’t exactly a Christian. Scientology has zero religion and zero science in it.
I also recommend http://www.xenu.net/ as a starting point for learning about the cult.
Btw, Tom Cruise is still a scieno and has probably gone far enough up the Bridge to know about Xenu. John Travolta almost certainly knows about Xenu too.
On my list of things that I passionately hate $cientology tops my list.
I have had my run ins with $cientology and was targetted by their members as a subversive person, see the already mentioned policy in regard to SP’s.
Once upon a long time ago I happened to take a very strong liking to this woman and her two little girls, their father had embraced $cientology completely and had sold off everything to pay for his quest to become clear. This not being good enough he stalked his ex-wife and made several attempts to illegally abduct his daughters. She was designated as an SP and my association with her granted me the same status. I knew her husband from teaching martial arts and had kicked his ass a few times. He seemed to have a healthy respect for me. I started getting nightly calls at three am so the next time I saw him I told him that the next time someone phoned me at 3 am and hung up I was going to come and take it out on him. The calls stopped.
There’s something about having known Scientologists follow you around in an attempt to scare you or psych you out. I found it really freaked them out when I would confront them and promise to hurt them in the most imaginative ways if they kept dogging me. You see… you’re supposed to be afraid of them.
This guy was a small player in the world of $cientology but my involvement with him led me into a deeper study of Elron and his little cult. They are more than just a bunch of paranoid flakes… some of them are downright evil.
Having written this I can only say to any Scientologists reading this…
Come and get me.
To that I would add, the Scienos really are dedicated to keeping the public in ignorance about their true activities. For example, I checked out a few websites, and learned about a few books on the subject (“L RON HUBBARD MESSIAH OR MADMAN”). Anyway, at my local public library, all the copies were missing! Obvously, they are up to no good. Anybody contemplating joining this bunch ought to ask them a simple question-since “auditing” is supposed to raise one’s IQ, then why don’t we see scientologists winning Nobel prizes?
The whole thing is just a fraus that has outlived its crooked founder.
“Everyone who is born is covered head to toe by millions of
these little critters, called “Body Thetans.” They’re the cause of everything bad that happens as a result of human action. Man is basically good, but these things cause him to do bad things. Fortunately for humankind (and for $cientology, but unfortunately for humankind’s wallet) there is a way to get rid of these beasties, and that’s through $cientology courses and auditing.”
—Wouldn’t a good hot shower do the trick?
OK, I’m convinced.
Buncha Damn Freaks.
Of course, now all of our houses are going to burn down “mysteriously.”
My understanding of the origins of the Church of Scientology differs from that of blessedwolf and CalMeacham. I don’t have any sources and don’t intend to research it, but neither did they, so I’ll toss out my impression.
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L. Ron Hubbard was originally a science-fiction writer. At a convention of sci-fi writers he bemoaned the fact that writing didn’t pay - the only way to get really big bucks was to start your own religion. When he subsequently did just that, people made the connection. But the claim that the religion was started as a hoax is just supposition.
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The movement was originally founded as a form of psychotherapy (“Dianetics”). After time, the religious aspects were added in.
Don’t mistake a lack of source citing for a lack of sources.
Now that is some scary ass shit.
I didn’t realize how messed up it was…when I first heard of them, I thought they rejected the Bible in favor of Science!
What a bunch of loony tunes!
Of course, people said the same things about Christians when they first came about-imagine worshiping a man nailed to a piece of wood and claiming to eat his actual physical body in a piece of bread! 
But these people…eeek!
IzzR:
1.) What blessedwolf said
2.) What you write is just what I, in fact, said. Go read it again.
blessedwolf: I too did not make the stuff up. I meant that I wasn’t going to go out on the net and find some source to confirm my version.
CalMeacham: I meant to disagree with your assertion that Dianetics began as a science-fiction fad. I think this is caused by confusion over the fact that L. Ron Hubbard was a science-fiction writer before going into the Dianetics/Scientology business.
Eve, the only way to tell for sure would be to go ask a representative at your local Church of Scientology. Why don’t you trot down there at your next lunch hour and report back to us? 
Oh, I don’t know, I think “science-fiction” accurately describes that psycho-crap. 
The reason L. Ron bemoaned the poor pay was because he was a really lousy writer. His science fiction was always described as your basic pulp schlock, and the stuff of his that I read, “Battlefield Earth” and the “Mission Earth” series, was just terrible. Planetary sized plot holes, cardboard characters, and 6th grade prose. Before anyone asks, I was given the 10 volume “Mission Earth” as a gift. I doggedly slogged my way through and immediately donated them to the local library upon completion.
(Curiously, my post seems to have disappeared)
IzzyR:
1.) Read what blessedwolf said. Ditto for me.
2.) Read my own post again. I believe that you have simply re-stated what said. I do NOT believe the UL about Scientology being founded on a bar bet. I hasve good reasons for this.
Ptahlis:
I think you are right about L. Ron’s writing abilities. I have tracked don and read some of his pre-Battlefield Earth fiction (something even his biographer Miller doesn’t seem to have done) and I agree that it is awful. I don’t think my judgment is being slanted by my views of his organization. I really think I’d dislike his writing in any case. It’s filled with false bonhomie, bad science, and a general mean-spiritedness. Read L. Sprage deCamp’s essay “L. Ron and the city of Brass” (available on http://www.xenu.com ) to get an idea of why. Hubbard killed off one of deCamp and Kornbluth’s characters, withut even asking them, which seems rude.
Hubbard made out to be one of the lights of science fiction’s Golden Age, but the evidence s against him. Before Battlefiel Earth reprints of his works were very hard to come by. Lacer published “Slaves of Sleep” and 'Fear". Ace published “Return to Tomorrow” (Which, I suspect, previewed his Messengers Org) and “Beyond the Black Nebula”. DAW books in 1970 reprinted his “Old Doc Methuselah” stories as a collection. “The Final Blackout” was published by a company that published only books by Hubbard and a few by H.G. Wells, making me think that it was a sort of proto-Bridge Publications.
That’s a pretty poor showing. All of these were single editions, without reprints. During the same era Clarke and Heinlein and Asimov and Williamson were printed over and over. It was really difficult to find Hubbard. When Ballantine/delRey published retrospective volumes on the SF of the Golden Age (“The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum”, etc.) Hubbard was conspicuous by his absence. He has never, to my nowledge, been invited to be a guest at a science fiction convention, nor received any major SF award (I realize that the Nebulas and the Hugo were instituted after his heyday, but his later stuff certainly didn’t win, and he’s never ben up for an sort of Grandmaster award.). Most of the entry on him in Nicholls and Clute’s "Science Fiction Encyclopedia is devoted to Dianetics/Scientology, NOT to his writing.
Oh how convenient…
No wonder it’s been embraced as much as it has. It’s your basic “I’m not responsible for my own actions” cop-out.
And I thought the legal system already made it a religion.