Former Lutheran checking in

[Durandal]

fx'd fer ya

Welcome noobie (of troll-like schmelt). reading, you have much to do..

Beg yer pardon? I have no intention of trolling here. Not guaranteeing people won't get upset by anything I say, of course, but that's just the way of the world and the interwebs.

 

[Mick Wenlock]

One of the things I am most happy about in my life is the fact that like just about everyone I know, I lost my Christian faith as I grew up. It didn't feel like a loss. It felt like coming out into light and sunshine. Freedom!! This liberating experience was quite possibly the main reason I just laughed at Scientologists when they tried to recruit me. I had been down the road of miracle solutions and come out the far end.

My parents were agnostics/atheists (my mother returned to the Church in her old age (her family are very Catholic) ) and that's pretty much how I grew up. To this day i still have not managed to figure out how Scientology conned me - I think it was the pitch that it was not really a religion that got me.

In my opinion the main difference between Scientology and any form of evangelical religion (where you're supposed to have a conversion experience while the choir sings and people pray and wave their arms about) is that Hubbard's techniques were more effective than Billy Graham's, including hypnosis and the kind of crowd effects also used by various dictators (too early in the thread to mention H@t1er).

Well if you look at the "generated power" then Graham is way ahead of Hubbard - not only did her convert hundreds of thousands to the "faith" but he achieved power and influence without getting himself hunted into an RV in the boonies.

Edited to add: I don't want to get into a big anti-Christian thing because really I think people can, should, and will believe what they want to believe but it seems to me a lot of Scientologists come from a Christian background, eg Tom & Katy, and I think his previous two wives as well. So maybe they are used to believing the unbelievable delivered to them by people in authority who tell them this is what they must believe.

I don't think that holds water - otherwise those who left would then be more prone to get into another religion and that doesn't appear to be the acse.

 

[SweetnessandLight]

fx'd fer ya

Welcome noobie (of troll-like schmelt). reading, you have much to do..

Now Oggie, don't crab! Point him towards something to read!!!

Be constructive...didn't we have a thread on Scientology and Mormonism?

Not sure this is it, but it's a start: http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthre.....Rick-Perry!&highlight=Scientology+Mormonism

 

[Durandal]

Now Oggie, don't crab! Point him towards something to read!!!

Be constructive...didn't we have a thread on Scientology and Mormonism?

Not sure this is it, but it's a start: http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?25087-So-now-Mormons-are-a-cult-Oh.....Rick-Perry!&highlight=Scientology+Mormonism

Ha! I love how that article in the OP starts out:

WASHINGTON — A Texas pastor introduced Rick Perry at a major conference of Christian conservatives here on Friday as “a genuine follower of Jesus Christ” and then walked outside and attacked Mitt Romney’s religion, calling the Mormon Church a cult and stating that Mr. Romney “is not a Christian.”

The comments by the pastor, Robert Jeffress of Dallas, injected a potentially explosive issue into the presidential campaign: the belief held by many evangelicals that Mormons are not Christians.

---

Speaking as a former "Christian," I think that's a fair representation - Mormonism is different enough from the older, more mainstream versions of it (all of which have only the Bible and possibly some apocrypha from the Bible's time as a scriptural basis) indeed have a lower regard for the Mormon church. Their ideas get too far away from God the creator and savior vs humans the sinful beings in need of perfection through Christ

Another thing that has struck me regarding similarities between it and Scientology, though, is the hierarchy through which people move and titles they earn within the organisation as they proceed. I expect that sort of aggrandisement is characteristic of cults, and similarly of all organised religions to varying degrees. It makes sense that they would feed the ego like that and dangle a carrot of power, importance, wealth, recognition and so forth in front of all the followers.

 

[Freeminds]

...

The one difference I perceive so far is that there are no "gods" involved in scientology.

Oh, there are differences, but if you've chosen to leave your former religion, and given that Scientology never was a proper religion... why compare the doctrines? It's like trying to work out if Superman could beat the Incredible Hulk... it doesn't matter, unless you're a fanatic.

Most folks around here will tend, rather, to talk about the abuses of Scientology, either for cathartic reasons or in order to end those abuses - although there are quite a few threads on silly bits of 'church' policy, and the loonier bits of Hubbard's pseudoscripture (google: obscene dog incident).

Instead, since plenty of doctrinal dissection already exists, I'd like to examine the degree of abuse perpetuated by the Lutherans.

• Were your pastors taught at the seminary, "Make money. Make more money. Make other people produce so as to make money."?
• Did your former faith have its own pretend navy, complete with silly uniforms?
• Did your former faith refuse to let people leave, even locking them up "for their own good" for weeks on end?
• Were followers of your former faith fold that they couldn't play a useful role if they were pregnant, and coerced into getting abortions?
• Did your former faith conduct the largest ever infiltration of the US government, in the hope of destroying documents that described their conduct? (Google: Operation Snow White)
• Does your former faith deny people access to conventional mental health care, despite having no evidentiary proof of a valid alternative, and despite the fact that your former faith's founder died with psychiatric drugs in his system?
• Does your former faith demand that families sever all contact with a person who makes critical remarks?
• How much does it cost to buy all the holy books and/or study materials that your former co-religionists owned?
• Would you expect a lifetime as a member of your former religion to cost you personally, say, more than a four-bedroom house?

I think that'll do for now. Other folks might have more. The real religions might well be wrong but I don't think any of them ever peddled quite such a businesslike and cynical form of harm, and to no perceivable benefit.

 

[secretiveoldfag]

Instead, since plenty of doctrinal dissection already exists, I'd like to examine the degree of abuse perpetuated by the Lutherans.

• Were your pastors taught at the seminary, "Make money. Make more money. Make other people produce so as to make money."?
• Did your former faith have its own pretend navy, complete with silly uniforms?
• Did your former faith refuse to let people leave, even locking them up "for their own good" for weeks on end?
• Were followers of your former faith fold that they couldn't play a useful role if they were pregnant, and coerced into getting abortions?
• Did your former faith conduct the largest ever infiltration of the US government, in the hope of destroying documents that described their conduct? (Google: Operation Snow White)
• Does your former faith deny people access to conventional mental health care, despite having no evidentiary proof of a valid alternative, and despite the fact that your former faith's founder died with psychiatric drugs in his system?
• Does your former faith demand that families sever all contact with a person who makes critical remarks?
• How much does it cost to buy all the holy books and/or study materials that your former co-religionists owned?
• Would you expect a lifetime as a member of your former religion to cost you personally, say, more than a four-bedroom house?

I think that'll do for now. Other folks might have more. The real religions might well be wrong but I don't think any of them ever peddled quite such a businesslike and cynical form of harm, and to no perceivable benefit.

This is off the cuff; I haven't had my coffee yet so take that into account. But remember at least that the Lutheran variety of Christianity is a Reformed variety. As I recollect Luther was a Catholic priest, but became a squirrel. What he taught led to his being excommunicated and if the official Church could have caught him they would have burned him, as they did others.

If we look at Catholicism through the ages the answer to these questions is Yes, yes, yes,

One thing that led to the Reformation was the RC selling pardons; rich people could buy immortal life. Sound familiar?

The Roman church owned the legal processes, the judges, the police and the army (if not the navy). It had a heavy-duty squad known as Inquisitioners - remember them? They didn't just lock people up, they burnt them alive 'for the good of their souls'.

The rest of it is peanuts; these are things that any illegal self-referencing organisation does when it has devoted followers an enough money and clout. Extremism is always dangerous whether it is defined in terms of religion or political or economics.

 

[Jump]

This is off the cuff; I haven't had my coffee yet so take that into account. But remember at least that the Lutheran variety of Christianity is a Reformed variety. As I recollect Luther was a Catholic priest, but became a squirrel. What he taught led to his being excommunicated and if the official Church could have caught him they would have burned him, as they did others.

If we look at Catholicism through the ages the answer to these questions is Yes, yes, yes,

One thing that led to the Reformation was the RC selling pardons; rich people could buy immortal life. Sound familiar?

The Roman church owned the legal processes, the judges, the police and the army (if not the navy). It had a heavy-duty squad known as Inquisitioners - remember them? They didn't just lock people up, they burnt them alive 'for the good of their souls'.

The rest of it is peanuts; these are things that any illegal self-referencing organisation does when it has devoted followers an enough money and clout. Extremism is always dangerous whether it is defined in terms of religion or political or economics.

I don't think Scientology should be rhetorically excused for acting within the moral framework of the middle ages.

 

[Student of Trinity]

I think that one reason it can take so long to recover from having been in a cult is that cults color one's thinking in many more ways than one thinks. Here's one way that I think is important: even long after they've stopped buying the cult's answers, a lot of people still hang onto its questions. That is, they keep the cult's basic take on what the major issues in life are.

But deciding what the major issues are, in any problem, is actually a lot more than half the problem, right there. As long as you know what the issues are, you can change your views on those issues pretty quickly and easily. But to discard an entire issue, and identify a new one, often takes years of painful experience.

I think I've seen this with religious views in particular. Fundamentalist evangelical Christians have generally been taught since childhood that certainty is an overriding issue, to the point where they simply ignore as irrelevant any view that does not include certainty on every detail. Many a challenge has been dismissed for them with the conclusive observation, "Why, if we were to believe that, then we could never be certain about anything!" How unthinkable.

In fact, of course, it's just not true that the only alternative to total certainty is total ignorance. Science, in particular, is not an alternative set of certainties, but a whole different way of thinking, which begins by accepting that truth is very hard to discern, and absolute certainty is impossible, but then goes on to make real progress in spite of those facts. That's why there's so very little of any value in so-called 'creation science'. It's based on an absurdly false premise of what science is even about. It attacks a straw man.

The thing is this, though. It seems to me that militant atheists spend a lot of time attacking straw Gods.

 

[secretiveoldfag]

Scientology is a business, not a religion. I have no doubt that abuses exist within proper religions as well as in the Scientology pseudoreligion, but if your visit here teaches you anything about Scientology, I think you'll rapidly be disabused of the notion that what Hubbard created was any sort of faith.

People joining Scientology don't know it's a business. It is sold as an esoteric belief system with Hubbard as the Messiah.

 

[Durandal]

I think that one reason it can take so long to recover from having been in a cult is that cults color one's thinking in many more ways than one thinks. Here's one way that I think is important: even long after they've stopped buying the cult's answers, a lot of people still hang onto its questions. That is, they keep the cult's basic take on what the major issues in life are.

But deciding what the major issues are, in any problem, is actually a lot more than half the problem, right there. As long as you know what the issues are, you can change your views on those issues pretty quickly and easily. But to discard an entire issue, and identify a new one, often takes years of painful experience.

I think I've seen this with religious views in particular. Fundamentalist evangelical Christians have generally been taught since childhood that certainty is an overriding issue, to the point where they simply ignore as irrelevant any view that does not include certainty on every detail. Many a challenge has been dismissed for them with the conclusive observation, "Why, if we were to believe that, then we could never be certain about anything!" How unthinkable.

In fact, of course, it's just not true that the only alternative to total certainty is total ignorance. Science, in particular, is not an alternative set of certainties, but a whole different way of thinking, which begins by accepting that truth is very hard to discern, and absolute certainty is impossible, but then goes on to make real progress in spite of those facts. That's why there's so very little of any value in so-called 'creation science'. It's based on an absurdly false premise of what science is even about. It attacks a straw man.

The thing is this, though. It seems to me that militant atheists spend a lot of time attacking straw Gods.

I love it. All very true. Yes, creationists (my own dear family included) love to go for the certainty aspect in attacking science, saying that "it's always changing." Being absolutely certain about something to the point of rejecting evidence to the contrary is incredibly conceited and ignorant. That kind of thinking certainly acted as a huge repellant for me from my church, and indeed from all forms of religion. They all seem to share that kind of thinking, even if their individual ideas vary from one to the next. In fact, those variances only make them look all the more ludicrous on the whole.

Now, someone here mentioned "squirrel" in relation to what Martin Luther did and was. As it happens, I've just encountered that term in this rather disturbing video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSdiKShx1MM

The scientologist nutter in there keeps calling the cameraman a squirrel. Is that scientologist lingo or just general slang with which I'm unfamiliar? I live in the American midwest, so usage is obviously bit different for me. Obviously it refers to someone who's fled the organisation, but still, I wonder about its origin and range of use. Scientology is full of interesting jargon, in fact, and it introduces a bit of a learning curve for me as I get into this stuff.

 

[Ogsonofgroo]

Ah yes, good ol' George the OTVIII, a fine example of Hubbard's end product~ a quarter of a million+$ later

Since you are very new to the topic I offer you some light reading to try and catch you up a bit (I've been studying for over 4 years now and still learning new stuff, no end to it, beware of getting tangled up in too many of the old windbags convoluted blatherings though as I suspect potential brain-damage can result).

This site will get you started~ http://.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/index.html

The Yahoo info directory, lots of great links here~
http://http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/religion_and_spirituality/faiths_and_practices/scientology/opposing_views/

Happy reading! (oh, and too)

 

[Durandal]

Ah yes, good ol' George the OTVIII, a fine example of Hubbard's end product~ a quarter of a million+$ later

Since you are very new to the topic I offer you some light reading to try and catch you up a bit (I've been studying for over 4 years now and still learning new stuff, no end to it, beware of getting tangled up in too many of the old windbags convoluted blatherings though as I suspect potential brain-damage can result).

This site will get you started~ http://.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/index.html

The Yahoo info directory, lots of great links here~
http://http://dir.yahoo.com/Society...ths_and_practices/scientology/opposing_views/

Happy reading! (oh, and too)

Great, danke sehr!

 

[SweetnessandLight]

Calling someone "Squirrel" in this context is calling them a dirty name.

It means someone who has taken the Scientology teachings and altered them, or is doing them "wrong", meaning not paying the COS to do them...

...people have been altering and adapting Scientology practices to their own needs, so that it works better or makes more sense to them, in other words practicing Scientology independently since Dianetics was first written in the early 50's...

...this of course cuts into the COS general income...and is considered a serious crime in Scientology culture.

You will see squirrel jokes and funny pics, etc. here and elsewhere as a means of taking back the term...I used to have a squirrel avatar.

So "Squirrel" means any use or alteration of anything Scientology outside of the official Corporate Scientology of COS. Meaning is "enemy", "traitor", "criminal", "thief", etc. You do know you're learning about a real Cult...total "us and them" mentality.

Yes, Ron created a lot of jargon to give his group that inner circle special feeling of belonging, to make people feel they were doing something productive and useful when they spent hours with a Scientology dictionary word clearing his writings...

...and to help create an aura of mystery about the whole con job. If you don't call "Body Thetans" body thetans (BT's) what are you going to call them? The closest terms in real, common language are either ghosts, demons, or dead space aliens that are clinging to you in clusters and causing all of your aches, pains and problems... how are you going to sell the "spiritual technology" of shooing them away, at a huge price, to the masses of ordinary people looking for some answers for their problems in life??? It sounds just as crazy as it is, when you put it in plain English. Talk about a hard sell!

Besides, it's too much of a fun game if you have made your living as a Sci-fi/pulp fiction writer making stuff up for much of your adult life, to create all this space opera stuff and package it as a new technology of the mind and the only answer to mankind's problems, and the REAL spiritual reality...that only you have seen and can show to others.

Lots of fun to make it up as you go along (which Ron did constantly) and change things to whatever worked to attract new paying customers, keep people interested and involved and working for you and paying you money! And getting other people to pay you money! Which was the whole point of Ron's creating COS.

There are several Scientology glossaries available on the Internet and you can always ask if you encounter a term that you do not understand. Most people here will tell you to go look it up, rather than explain to you what it means (to them), because they were indoctrinated to think it's a crime to talk about the meaning of words, or even the meaning of Ron's writings, which are not discussed openly in COS. (No verbal tech.) You either understand it and accept it as Ron meant it or you don't...Which means you totally accept and allow Ron's thinking, ideas and values to become your own, the more and more you "study" Scientology in COS. A lot of the folks "in" who don't understand or accept it pretend that they do, as in the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, so as not to get into ethics trouble. It's a CULT.

Scientology was designed to be really obscure and confusing and secretive, with constantly evolving practices and more and more new "upper levels" to attain... (the "highest levels" still have not been released, until COS members cough up enough money to make so many "Ideal Orgs" in the world...a form a spiritual blackmail)
... to make people feel as if they were really gaining something of value for their time, money and effort...when in reality...it's a LOT of created fantasy using a lot of made up words to get people to cooperatively agree with the reality that Ron was selling them, to work for him and make a lot of money for him.

Ron is gone but the con goes on...all because of the money to be gained, tax free!

 

[SweetnessandLight]

 

[SweetnessandLight]

Ah yes, good ol' George the OTVIII, a fine example of Hubbard's end product~ a quarter of a million+$ later

Since you are very new to the topic I offer you some light reading to try and catch you up a bit (I've been studying for over 4 years now and still learning new stuff, no end to it, beware of getting tangled up in too many of the old windbags convoluted blatherings though as I suspect potential brain-damage can result).

This site will get you started~ http://.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/index.html

The Yahoo info directory, lots of great links here~
http://http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/religion_and_spirituality/faiths_and_practices/scientology/opposing_views/

Happy reading! (oh, and too)

Thank you Oggie! That helps the lurkers as well!

 

[Durandal]

Sweetness and Light, you live up to your name

There are several Scientology glossaries available on the Internet and you can always ask if you encounter a term that you do not understand. Most people here will tell you to go look it up, rather than explain to you what it means (to them), because they were indoctrinated to think it's a crime to talk about the meaning of words, or even the meaning of Ron's writings, which are not discussed openly in COS. (No verbal tech.) You either understand it and accept it as Ron meant it or you don't...Which means you totally accept and allow Ron's thinking, ideas and values to become your own, the more and more you "study" Scientology in COS. A lot of the folks "in" who don't understand or accept it pretend that they do, as in the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, so as not to get into ethics trouble. It's a CULT.

More in common with the pre-reformation Catholics in here, methinks. I recall learning how they treated the Bible like something only they in the priestly class and up could interpret for the masses, and of course it wasn't openly available yet to people in print anyway. Isn't it just sad to think that people like Hubbard created cults thousands of years back that still thrive and, what's worse, aren't even called cults anymore, but are treated as something respectable and quite possibly true Apparently it helps if the lie is really old.

Anyway, wow, LOVE these posts! I hope the dopes still being doped by that cult will come to see that they've seriously mislabeled a lot of smart foxes

 

[Freeminds]

The Christian bible obviously existed in an 'ivory tower' for centuries, when ordinary people couldn't have afforded a (hand-copied) book and/or didn't know how to read. Perhaps conducting business in church in Latin was also a barrier (and services must have been way boring). Once people were free to read their Bible in their own language (thanks, incidentally, to Martin Luther) things started to change. Perhaps not for the better if you were a high-ranking old geezer in the Vatican City, but change nonetheless.

I think that what the printing press did for democratization of Christianity looks like very weak tea compared to what the Internet is doing to the printed word.

We still have copyright law, of course. In most countries, copyright is valid until 75 years after the death of the author. That means that Scientology has already used up more than a third of its 'grace period'. Less than forty-nine years from now, the 'church' of Scientology will have NOTHING left to sell. A child victim recently press-ganged into the Sea Org will most likely live to see the day when Hubbardism ALL goes open-source.

Perhaps they're being told it will lead to planet-wide dissemination and a new era of peace and harmony.

 

[secretiveoldfag]

More in common with the pre-reformation Catholics in here, methinks. I recall learning how they treated the Bible like something only they in the priestly class and up could interpret for the masses, and of course it wasn't openly available yet to people in print anyway. Isn't it just sad to think that people like Hubbard created cults thousands of years back that still thrive and, what's worse, aren't even called cults anymore, but are treated as something respectable and quite possibly true Apparently it helps if the lie is really old.

This is good.

It was the Reformer Wyclif in England who first translated the Bible into vernacular English, and Luther in Germany who produced the first German version. Which led to a lot of people realising Holy Write was open to different interpretations.

 

[Durandal]

The Christian bible obviously existed in an 'ivory tower' for centuries, when ordinary people couldn't have afforded a (hand-copied) book and/or didn't know how to read. Perhaps conducting business in church in Latin was also a barrier (and services must have been way boring). Once people were free to read their Bible in their own language (thanks, incidentally, to Martin Luther) things started to change. Perhaps not for the better if you were a high-ranking old geezer in the Vatican City, but change nonetheless.

I think that what the printing press did for democratization of Christianity looks like very weak tea compared to what the Internet is doing to the printed word.

We still have copyright law, of course. In most countries, copyright is valid until 75 years after the death of the author. That means that Scientology has already used up more than a third of its 'grace period'. Less than forty-nine years from now, the 'church' of Scientology will have NOTHING left to sell. A child victim recently press-ganged into the Sea Org will most likely live to see the day when Hubbardism ALL goes open-source.

Perhaps they're being told it will lead to planet-wide dissemination and a new era of peace and harmony.

Good sir (I presume!), it wasn't long ago I read someone's opinion somewhere on the wide interwebs that the Catholic mass was indeed more impressive in Latin, when s/he didn't know what it meant. Once it had been changed to something more vernacular, it lost its magic.

That effect is, I believe, a part of what is called Mystery Religion, and certainly by definition People don't really understand what they're getting themselves into, but they know that there are great-sounding promises for the believers, that unbelief will be shunned or possibly punished outright, and so on.

Now with Christianity, what the reformation seems to have done was, as has been said here, give people the opportunity to interpret scripture directly. In doing this, they managed to come up with various interpretations of it that they liked, and at the same time got rid of the cultish / domineering trappings of Catholicism (perhaps to be replaced by their own, but still they were different).

Now, I wonder about this "free zone" concept I've encountered here. Might this be likened to protestantism?