Scientologist Nutjobs

[DepricatedZero]

Why are Scientologists automatically labeled nutjobs?

I mean, more than normal. I mean, if I were to say "he's Christian, ergo nutjob" there would likely be a dearth of immediate agreement. Lets take, for instance, someone who is generally a nice guy, he doesn't spread proselytize, he stands for what he thinks is right, he doesn't kill people or bomb doctors and scientists. Now lets say he's Christian - would you automatically label him a nutjob? Probably not. Scientologist? Absofuckinlutely. Why?

I mean, isn't one as crazy as the other? Why does Scientology deserve more derision than Christianity? I was just reading a thread where someone had disregarded an entire site as a sham because it had information about scientology somewhere on it. I didn't look to the site, I didn't bother reading the rest of the guy's argument either. It seems to me that Scientology is no less legitimate than Christianity.

Why do others think it is?

 

[fenyx]

ive read some dianetics books and frankly they arent even english. its...well...insane. there's really no way to describe it except the mad ravings of an insane looney. in my personal opinion, it goes far beyond the bible in its level of sheer batshit crazy.

http://www.xenu.net/archive/secret.html

that has some Hubbard lectures on scientology and some other stuff but really if you want to understand it, its best to read their books

warning though, they really do make Finnigan's Wake seem like light reading by comparison.

 

[Aught3]

`You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.' - L. Ron Hubbard.

You'd have to be a moron to join.

I think Mormonism gets this a lot as well. Since the founding of that religion by the con-man Joseph Smith is so well documented, there's no reason to doubt that either of them are anything but massive frauds. Both made it on to the list of dangerous cults put out by the French government.

 

[fenyx]

the auditing process in scientology scares the crap out of me. i have nightmares about it. they stand you in a room alone with an auditor and hook you up to this bogus machine and then grill you with some of the lists of questions in the link i provided. they do this to kids too.

some of the ex member accounts are crazy, like how hubbard decided at one point to make it so you weren't allowed to blink during a 2 hour auditing session. he later retracted this requirement because no one could get past the first level(these tests cost money...lots of money)

go to the church of scientology youtube channel..its creepy. like flat out creepy.

 

[DepricatedZero]

Ok, but I guess my point is, what makes the gullible people who buy in to it any more batshit insane than christians?

 

[fenyx]

Ok, but I guess my point is, what makes the gullible people who buy in to it any more batshit insane than christians?

in my opinion, its because christianity at least allows for some freedom of thought. scientology does not..at all. there are for sure christian groups that have the same kinds of suppressive mentality that scientology does but not all of them are like that. there is NO group/denomination of scientology that doesnt not employ abusive methods to prevent members from being critical of the church, to prevent them from watching the news and diverse other things people can do to educate themselves on alternative points of view.


you can be a moderate christian. you CANT be a moderate scientologist.

 

[AndromedasWake]

Ok, but I guess my point is, what makes the gullible people who buy in to it any more batshit insane than christians?

Generally speaking, I think a clear distinction can be made between the average convert to christianity and the average convert to scientology. In the latter case, the convert is actually paying a fee to attend brainwashing sessions under the guise of 'getting help'.

There is a significant group of non-religious people out there (at least in England) who are aware of christianity, but don't practise it. However, at a low point in their lives, they may seek it out themselves. Occasionally, a preacher might pray on the emotionally unstable, but they likely do so simply because they genuinely believe that introducing people to Christ is the best way to help them.

The scientologist technique is to convince mentally healthy people that they have a real problem, characterised by the actual physical impact of thetans. The problem can be fixed with money, rather than just praying for forgiveness. Maybe that's what makes it attractive to credulous folk; you can just pay for the convenience and forget about the rest. :lol:

On the other hand, both groups appeal to the notion that "there's something wrong with you, and we know how to fix it" but at least you can stop outside your average church of christ without getting filmed.

 

[Schmoikel]

IMO, Scientology is labeled as crazy, wacky, insane, etc... more readily than christianity because of a few reasons.
1. It's new. Not yesterday or today new, but compared to other religions it quite fresh.
2. Even the most cursory glance into scientology reveals how absurd its beliefs are (e-meters, h-bombs, thetans)

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Part of it is also a cultural thing. Most people are members of some sort of religion, and most places on earth have a majority or official religion. Because of that, when someone falls into the local main religion, whether by birth or conversion, even atheists can see that it isn't insane in any real sense for them to do so. Believing what everyone else believes is how most people conduct their lives anyways, so there's little difference between accepting the consensus about Christianity in a Western nation and accepting whatever they teach about history and science in school. You SHOULD dig deeper, but most people don't and most people's lives aren't ruined by not doing so.

There's no similar "acceptance of consensus" with Scientology in general. It has only been around for a few decades, and we're able to see exactly how it was constructed. Knowing what we know about Hubbard and his cronies, all the abuses, and the apparent fact that most members of the Church are adult converts and not indoctrinated as children(might not be fact, but it seems that way) and it becomes more of a thing of "how can you not see this is a fake" than it would be with religions that are part of our culture.

 

[DeathofSpeech]

Why are Scientologists automatically labeled nutjobs?

I mean, more than normal. I mean, if I were to say "he's Christian, ergo nutjob" there would likely be a dearth of immediate agreement. Lets take, for instance, someone who is generally a nice guy, he doesn't spread proselytize, he stands for what he thinks is right, he doesn't kill people or bomb doctors and scientists. Now lets say he's Christian - would you automatically label him a nutjob? Probably not. Scientologist? Absofuckinlutely. Why?

I mean, isn't one as crazy as the other? Why does Scientology deserve more derision than Christianity? I was just reading a thread where someone had disregarded an entire site as a sham because it had information about scientology somewhere on it. I didn't look to the site, I didn't bother reading the rest of the guy's argument either. It seems to me that Scientology is no less legitimate than Christianity.

Why do others think it is?

Hubbard constructed scientology in answer to an IRS policy ruling that prevented him from distributing his income for one of his Sci-Fi books over the 7 year period he claimed was required to research and write it. He decided to become a religion in order to screw the IRS.

The church is constructed in such a way that his pseudo-science cult derives income based upon revelation of subsequent chapters in a (badly written) sci-fi novel.
At the same time it makes provision for some very real science /psychology.
A person is most suggestible when he actively participates in his own indoctrination, so people who are paying for their own brainwashing will make the assumption that it must be real because if it were not then they are throwing their money away... and only fools do that.

The church doctrine includes characters out of an almost Star Wars like universe in which an evil galactic emperor, Xenu, banishes his detractors to primordial earth in space-fairing DC-8s... or spaceships that look exactly like DC-8s (would they still have looked like DC-8s if he had described them before DC-8s had been built?)
In any case, Obi Wan does not show up in time to help them.
He then has them dropped into active volcanoes (nasty guy) and then just to make sure, drops hydrogen bombs on the volcanoes. Then, to prevent them from escaping earth in their spirit form, he sucks the spirits of his dead enemies up with giant soul catching machines in the sky and takes them all to the matinee and forces them alla Clockwork Orange to watch endless reruns of I Love Lucy and Three's Company until the spirits become insane. Then he releases them upon primitive man who have somehow popped into being from nowhere while the earth's crust was cooling. These insane spirit beings then cling to and possess human beings and only by the church of scientology can one be de-loused of them.

Compare that to a bronze age culture trying to explain nature and why famine, flood, lightning, earthquake, and disease happen, why the sun rises and why the ocean is full of water and you can see the bible is a clumsy attempt to frame explanations for a world in which there were no answers.
Scientology has none of these features, but is obviously a work of fiction.

So... as far as I'm concerned yes. The older religions are pre-science explanations for nature and a documentary drama about "goddidit."
Scientology is basically crazyass batshit Troma sci-fi.

Don't even get me started on the mormons. Scientology had to limit how much crazyass batshit they could construct because all the really good batshit had already been adopted by Joseph Smith. Mormon makes the Creation Science Museum look like the NAS by comparison.

 

[DepricatedZero]

Best response, DeathofSpeech, though all good answers. I understand now.

Though AW made a point that has me wondering: Regarding insanity at the buying off sins, what about Catholic indulgences and pardoners?

 

[MRaverz]

`You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.' - L. Ron Hubbard.

Did he actually say that or did Anon make it up?

 

[DeathofSpeech]

Best response, DeathofSpeech, though all good answers. I understand now.

Though AW made a point that has me wondering: Regarding insanity at the buying off sins, what about Catholic indulgences and pardoners?

Well it did give us the printing press.
When the Gutenberg Press was invented, the church held a monopoly on clerical work. It would take a crew of a dozen scribes 6-8 months to pen a basic bible. Longer if the pages were illuminated. Bibles and papal indulgences were a huge cash cow for the church, and when the press was presented, it appealed to them as a way to radically increase production. One block could run out a stack of indulgences faster than an entire monastery. A single press could produce several dozen bibles a year.

The mechanism that made indulgences possible was the old hellfire staple. Indulgences were backstage passes to heaven.
It didn't rely upon a fabrication beyond the evolved dogma of the church and that dogma evolved from the original sloppy attempt to define the world.

So an indulgence is a corruption of what was otherwise an honest effort to define the world.
While I am not in any way defending the bible, I do view it as an honest effort.
What sort of account of nature and the world would you expect of bronze age goat herders and farmers?

Indulgences then were just the logical progression one could expect in a politically corrupt system.
The irony of which is that the press ultimately lead to the reform of the very practice that made the press so successful.
With the publication of the Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences which was reprinted throughout Europe as The 95 These, the church had no choice but to end the practice or cease to be viable as a religion.

 

[DeathofSpeech]

`You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.' - L. Ron Hubbard.

Did he actually say that or did Anon make it up?

If the quote is a fabrication, it does not owe its source to Anon or any LoR member... it's way too old.

http://lermanet2.com/reference/hubbard-start-a-religion.htm

Google the quote. It is notoriously attributed to Hubbard. Evidence to support it is variable for credibility.

 

[Aught3]

`You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.' - L. Ron Hubbard.

Did he actually say that or did Anon make it up?

I don't think anon made it up. It's very likely Hubbard said something like this although the exact wording varies upon the source.

 

[Story]

I think it's mostly because we don't understand why someone would take it up as their "faith" and whenever we don't understand something, our minds automatically label it as wacky. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, even from the most lenient rudimentary basis even I can't apply any plausible theory of mind that would suggest that Scientology had any credibility, but then we would be wrong in assuming that people assumed any religious identity for logical reasons, but always always for emotional reasons.

Doxastic reasoning in general is primarily emotional.

Now... this is where it gets odd. I can't think of any emotional reason why someone would turn to Scientology instead of one of the variety of different flavours of sky-daddies there are.

But I suppose that's what the Tom Cruise promotions were about. This was their logic:


a) Tom Cruise = Awesome

b) You = Awesome?

c) Your Beliefs = Tom Cruise's Beliefs

d) You = Tom Cruise = Awesome


I didn't study logic, but I think they went wrong around c. You see, Tom Cruise was awesome only because he wasn't a Scientologist.

 

[wolfrayet]

Do you think he's reached the point yet where he's deeply regretted doing this....



Scientology - the newest, wealthiest cult. Remember this....

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Do you think he's reached the point yet where he's deeply regretted doing this?

Maybe... but only in the same way that the Catholic Church regrets covering up for pedophiles. In other words, they both regret that this became public knowledge.

 

[wolfrayet]

[quote="

 

[Pulsar]

I was suprised he came across as.. well quite pleasant. :facepalm:

Well, he is after all an actor.