Inspired – very indirectly – by this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=362733
Why does the Church of Scientology – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_scientology – use a cross as its symbol? It is not a Christian church. It does not claim or purport to be a Christian church in any respect. Its doctrines have nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity.
I don’t think christianity has any kind of trademark on the cross either, pretty much anyone can use it as they see fit.
But the Scientologists never would have thought of using it, if it had not first been established as a Christian symbol.
Hubbard was a plagiarist 
Seriously, he just used it to cloak his quackery in a religious disguise to keep the feds off his back. Nothing more.
No one has yet taken a decent photo of a Thetan, so conceptual artists have precious little to go on…
In one of the books onm Hubbard (I forget which) they show the form of the cross used by Aleister Crowley on a design he made – a Tarot deck or something. I’m pretty sure it was Crowley’s own design, and not a Golden Dawn thing. The Scientolog Cross is a dead ringer, with its florid ends and its four subsidiary “sunbeams” coming out between the arms of the cross. It looks like Hubbard just “lifted” Crowley’s design.
Hubbard was supposed to be a big Crowley follower back inthe 40s when he lived with Jack Parsons, and there’s a famous letter from Crowley roundly condemning Hubbard and Parsons by name (It has to be a mark of especial honor to be condemned by name by Aleister Crowley himself). As has been said above, Hubbard plagiarized from a wide variety of sources. He certainly took other things from Crowley, so why not this symbol. Crowley himself was no Christian, so Hubbard presumably had Crowley’s thelemic views in mind when he took the symbol, rather than Christianity. But I have little doubt that he adopted the symbol simply because the uninitiated would assume it was a CVhristuian symbol, and made his bunch look more like a religion.
In one of the books on Hubbard (I forget which) they show the form of the cross used by Aleister Crowley on a design he made – a Tarot deck or something. I’m pretty sure it was Crowley’s own design, and not a Golden Dawn thing. The Scientolog Cross is a dead ringer, with its florid ends and its four subsidiary “sunbeams” coming out between the arms of the cross. It looks like Hubbard just “lifted” Crowley’s design.
Hubbard was supposed to be a big Crowley follower back inthe 40s when he lived with Jack Parsons, and there’s a famous letter from Crowley roundly condemning Hubbard and Parsons by name (It has to be a mark of especial honor to be condemned by name by Aleister Crowley himself). As has been said above, Hubbard plagiarized from a wide variety of sources. He certainly took other things from Crowley, so why not this symbol. Crowley himself was no Christian, so Hubbard presumably had Crowley’s thelemic views in mind when he took the symbol, rather than Christianity. But I have little doubt that he adopted the symbol simply because the uninitiated would assume it was a Christian symbol, and made his bunch look more like a religion.
I recall seeing an explanation somewhere on Operation Clambake (but can’t find it now) that Hubbard had made the statement “There was no man on the cross.” and that the cross is actually a crossed-out cross. The answer is somewhere on that website, but they have so much information (and propaganda) now that it is hard to find.
Here’s a comparison between Crowley’s cross and Scientology’s. I’m not fanmiliar with this site, and it’s not where I first saw it, but the pictures are the sam,e:
http://www.lermanet2.com/scientology-and-occult/crowleyscrossedoutcross.jpg
Many commonly accepted religions have little better of a leg to stand on, what makes scientology so special. At least we know for a fact Mr Hubbard existed.
Let’s be honest here, at the time that L. Wrong Hubbard started this gobbledygook, the only way he could have gotten it past government officials was to masquerade as a church. Nowadays, I could probably start The First Church of Trash Compactors, with the founder of GE as my high priest, and get it to stand up, and it would provide just as much help to the world as Scientology does :smack:
Gosh, thanks, smudgeyjoe. We waited 6 years for you to comment, and you contribute nothing to factually help answer the GQ and share an opinion pretty much universally held on the SDMB.
Zombie thread.
Scientologist Zombies!
THETAAAAAANS! THEEETAAAAAANS!
The idea of Zombie L Ron Hubbard coming back to life and reclaiming the position of head of the church of scientology would make a damn good film…
or south park episode.
Scientology Zombies, the Apocalypse is worse than anyone ever could have imagined!!!
You know, this is not useful at all.
Okay, this brand new poster brought up a six year old thread. Slamming them for it is rude and unnecessarily harsh and ugly. What’s the matter with you, all of you?
All of you were new posters once; you didn’t spring forth into Doperness full grown and with total understanding. Cut somebody a break here.
Well only one poster actually slammed smudgeyjoe. The zombie jokes aren’t mocking anyone they’re just harmless fun (well, apart from to zombies, but they have a poor sense of humour anyway).
If you’d played good cop we would have had a perfectly balanced response.
But I’ll do the honours:
smudgeyjoe, welcome to SDMB! It’s considered poor form to post to a thread that was last contributed to more than a few months ago. There are some FAQs in the “About this message board” section, here’s the FAQ about resurrecting old threads.
I should note that the Scientology Center near my house here in Tel Aviv does not feature a cross, not does it display any other religious imagery or anything else that could indicate that it is something other than a psychological testing institute.