Gadfly
Crusader
YOU cite an example of coercion at the point of a gun and then accuse ME of taking things to an extreme absurdity?
When did you have a gun held to your head, G?
People succumbed to peer pressure because they didn't want to face the prospects of severe changes to their life styles. That was horrible coercion. It worked because the individuals preferred to 'blend in with the group' rather than stand up for themselves & their own integrity.
I gather that for you 'I was only obeying orders' is an acceptable excuse.
Mark A. Baker
I agree with you entirely. I left organized Scientology fairly quickly, because I did see the BS, and I refused to participate and contribute, despite the fact of lost friends, broken family, etc. The most important issue for me in Scn was "Personal Integrity". While I am not generally one to "suffer", I did suffer through the enforced disconnections with friends and family, because real people enforced real Scientology IDEAS.
Still, there ARE TWO SIDES TO THE COIN. Both matter. It is NOT one of the other.
The only reason I say this is because I have seen agendas pushed here and elsewhere where the idea is forwarded over and over that "Scientology is only a subject, it is ONLY ideas, it DOES nothing", and then try to create this "dumb" logical argument that it is "ONLY bad people who use these ideas in BAD ways". In fact, Scientology often takes inherently "good people", gradiently gets them to think within a framework of Scientology ideas, and gets them to do "bad deeds". The ideas form the foundation for THAT.
The IDEA exists. It is real. The person exists and he or she is real. They interact in BOTH directions.
But also Mark, pulling out a minor point of my post, and making slight of that one aspect, while done wonderfully from a certain viewpoint (VWD!), does not negate what I was describing.
Of course, you can entertain the IDEA that it does.
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