Scientology explained

[Balthasar]

Personally, I think everyone should study logic, including the illogics - but especially Scientologists. If they would all study the illogics, they might stop using Hubbard's illogics to support their beliefs.
A rather extensive list is here LogicalFallacies

We have seen some of the true believers use the following illogics just in this thread alone.

• strawman Misrepresenting someone's argument to make it easier to attack.
• ad hominem Attacking your opponent's character in an attempt to undermine their argument.
• burden of proof Saying that the burden of proof lies not with the person making the claim, but with others to disprove.
• appeal to authority Saying that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true.
• black-or-white Where two alternative states are presented as the only possibilities, when in fact more possibilities exist.
• anecdotal Using personal experience or an isolated example instead of a valid argument.
• red herring An attempt to divert the debate from the subject being debated.

I noticed, with appeal to authority, that Scientologists will state as fact things which, on inspection, were only something claimed by Hubbard without any evidence of its truth. Scientologists do not question.

Imagine what would happen if they knew these tactics were bogus and didn't use them. We might be able to have conversations.

C'mon Bill, nearly everybody posting here is diving into fallacies, illogics etc, me not excluded. It's actually quite funny! You should try it out

 

[Bill]

...

I believe you have discovered something to rival the invention of the ARC or KRC triangle!

The FOG Triangle. Fear, Obedience & Guilt.

It's virtually identical to ARC = Understanding, with one very minor difference.

FOG = Misunderstanding.

The more ethics tech that is applied, the FOGGIER the Scientologist gets, until one day they no longer understand themselves or their own life to the degree that they are running around doing amends projects for not standing and applauding the photograph of a dead con man.

Check it out! If Fear is allowed to decrease, Obedience and Guilt will decrease. Raise Guilt, for instance, and Fear and Obedience increase.

It works! You are the new L. Ron Hubbard!

 

[ILove2Lurk]

. . .
Phil Spickler was working with Ron at Washington, DC Org in the 60's, if I'm remembering correctly.

I think I heard Phil on one of his videos mention something about the real reason that LRH developed ethics and rolled it out hard in the mid-60's. I thought Phil said that Ron was disappointed in the behavior of the Clearing Course Clears at the time. Disappointed with how they turned out.

Various ethics materials and techniques were developed to reign them in and get them to fly right, to be the "Clear product" . . . being the auditing tech didn't complete them quite as Ron had expected. I think this is an important point in the whole history of the whys and wherefores of tech development, if you will.

 

[Lermanet_com]

. . .
Phil Spickler was working with Ron at Washington, DC Org in the 60's, if I'm remembering correctly.

I think I heard Phil on one of his videos mention something about the real reason that LRH developed ethics and rolled it out hard in the mid-60's. I thought Phil said that LRH was disappointed in the behavior of the Clearing Course Clears at the time. Disappointed with how they turned out.

Various ethics materials and techniques were developed to reign them in and get them to fly right, to be the "Clear product" . . . being the auditing tech didn't complete them quite as Ron had expected. I think this is an important point in the whole history of the whys and wherefores of tech development, if you will.

Am I correct in 'dating' the 'ethics' stuff's arrival to spring 1966?

 

[Bill]

C'mon Bill, nearly everybody posting here is diving into fallacies, illogics etc, me not excluded. It's actually quite funny! You should try it out

Yay! A new one for this thread!

• Bandwagon Using the fact that many people do something as an attempted form of validation.

 

[Cat's Squirrel]

How can an improvement in one's ability to communicate ever be tangible?

Or a greater sense of one's own self-worth?

Or any of the other things people do gain here. These are subjective spiritual improvements and thus by definition are intangible.

People form judgments about others' ability to communicate all the time, so I should think that if someone learns to communicate better, it would be obvious to others. Self-worth? If it was a big difference, I think people close to the person would be able to notice it.

 

[Claire Swazey]

. . .
Phil Spickler was working with Ron at Washington, DC Org in the 60's, if I'm remembering correctly.

I think I heard Phil on one of his videos mention something about the real reason that LRH developed ethics and rolled it out hard in the mid-60's. I thought Phil said that Ron was disappointed in the behavior of the Clearing Course Clears at the time. Disappointed with how they turned out.

Various ethics materials and techniques were developed to reign them in and get them to fly right, to be the "Clear product" . . . being the auditing tech didn't complete them quite as Ron had expected. I think this is an important point in the whole history of the whys and wherefores of tech development, if you will.

Phil spoke at the most recent FZ conference, which the wonderhusband attended (I didn't go). Said husband dude was quite impressed with the talk.

 

[Adam7986]

That sure is vague. Are you saying things like courage are religious? People's passion about things like music etc are religious?

They certainly could be if the person's religious beliefs encourage them to be courageous, or to enjoy a particular kind of music. There are plenty of people who have been inspired to sing or play music because of religious beliefs and in that case their passion could be considered religious.

 

[Adam7986]

What do you get when you cross an Anglican with a Mormon?

Somebody who knocks at your door on Sunday for no particular reason.

If you are an Anglican you fit on that scale on the agnostic end. What I have said applies to you only glancingly, because you are not overly religious.

So they have a few beliefs that trespass on the territory of science, but they don't consider them important?

You say these people believe in a message, which if true, would be the most important thing in the world, but they don't take it seriously because the message doesn't matter?

None of these people are religious.

That doesn't sound religious to me. It sounds like aspects of human well being. That I would place within the purview of psychology.

Every time there is an earthquake, the religious know why. Not the geologists.

Every time there is a flood, the religious know why. Not the climatologists.

When a religious person is survives a tragedy by sheer luck, while other die, they thank God, not the law of averages.

When a religious person is diagnosed with cancer, they sing praises to God, rather than the clinical researchers and oncologists.

People that are very religious think like this. The degree to which this does not apply to you is the degree to which you are not religious.

That isn't actually how religion works at all. I am pragmatically agnostic myself, and I claim no religious beliefs at all, but there are plenty of religious people in my life and when they were cured of cancer they thanked the doctor and the clinical researchers and everyone that helped them, as well as God. Rather than thanking God instead of everyone else.

 

[Adam7986]

More on depression. Getting them to talk about their problems is probably up there with one of the worst things you can do to someone who is suffering from depression. They are not depressed because of their problems. They are depressed because they suffer from depression. Making them think about things that are upsetting (i.e. their problems) is an awful thing to do.

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Phil spoke at the most recent FZ conference, which the wonderhusband attended (I didn't go). Said husband dude was quite impressed with the talk.

give my regards to the spouse claire...

 

[Commander Birdsong]

...



I believe you have discovered something to rival the invention of the ARC or KRC triangle!

The FOG Triangle. Fear, Obedience & Guilt.

It's virtually identical to ARC = Understanding, with one very minor difference.

FOG = Misunderstanding.

The more ethics tech that is applied, the FOGGIER the Scientologist gets, until one day they no longer understand themselves or their own life to the degree that they are running around doing amends projects for not standing and applauding the photograph of a dead con man.

WOW!!!

the FOG triangle...

EXCELLENT!!!

good work, this one's a keeper HH...

 

[Operating DB]

Check it out! If Fear is allowed to decrease, Obedience and Guilt will decrease. Raise Guilt, for instance, and Fear and Obedience increase.

It works! You are the new L. Ron Hubbard!

Ahem! It's Hell Ruin Hoaxard!

That name cracks me up in the most delightful way!

 

[Claire Swazey]

Re: ignore tech explained

[manual ignore assist]

Hey, dude. It's not that simple. Scientology has "disconnection", I have my ignore list. Now that's how La Dritch[SUP]TM Mystic[/SUP] ignore tech[SUP]TM[/SUP] works: you're on my ignore list - ever since I announced it, looongcat before CBS accompanied you there, and with well-mannered, satisfactorily intelligent, and satisfactorily mind-fucked Leon ("1984" villain, anyone?) not accompanying you at all and not for the foreseeable future. So I couldn't see your recommendation, and only saw it because Helena has quoted it. Helena, btw., was in the VIP club as well, but I often opened her posts, so here. Now I've taken her off that anyhow short list for good, so that she can't make fun of me [strike]behind my back[/strike] in front of my screen. Go figure. :wink2: My ignore tech is as advanced as Lone Star's sockpuppet tech[SUP]TM[/SUP] and Virginia's typing tech[SUP]TM[/SUP]! You might even call it a firewall! (Says the person who found a keylogger once. Not on this 'puter, 'k?)

No, seriously: a page-long reply has recently been nuked by an OT psych attack or, as I perceived it superficially, some freezing/closing/reopening browser windows. I have already re-written it in demonic length. It contains a fair thrashing of Claire (just the usual stuff, nothing to worry), and the answers about life, the universe and the rest, and especially how that feels when you touch the wrong "high volt / high ampere" wires (here we have 220 V, ... what's it at your place? half, by chance?), or get acquainted with advanced "very high volt / low ampere" torture tech[SUP]TM WWI[/SUP]. So don't tell me anything about some dudes getting some mini shocks under anesthesia, that's no surprises for me. (Yes, watched. Yawn.) Now, meanwhile I need some sleep. Tomorrow, just before I'll check my reply for grammar and Ohm's law and send it, I'll see Udarnik and/or Student of Trinity and/or Arnie will have addressed all matters around the electric [STRIKE]universe[/STRIKE] cheesecake[SUP]TM Anonycat[/SUP] much more concise and less "verbose" and with a generally higher level of knowingnessness, if but not necessarily, and much to my pleasure, less "judgmental". Whatevs.

​

Meanwhile, enjoy (again):

[video=youtube;berzo1ocFkQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=berzo1ocFkQ[/video]
(Rammstein - "Ich Tu Dir Weh" ("I hurt you"))​

Never saw thrashing. An still able to sit down.

 

[JustSheila]

Well, maybe you're right so let's try a different approach.

As I once said on here, I had a Catholic housemate at university who had what Scientologists would call a big "win" on going to confession; I can't recall his exact words, but he felt as though he'd been completely cleaned and his "sins" forgiven or erased as though they weren't there any more. Almost like a rebirth.

If he was right about that (and I believe he was), that doesn't by any means say that Catholicism as a whole is a good thing, or work for everyone; it does however strongly suggest to me that that particular priest did something right that other priests who don't get similarly good results with their parishioners don't or didn't do, and it would be very instructive to look at similar positive stories about Catholic confessions to see whether or not there's a common denominator to them and we can learn from them (whether we're Catholic or not).

What happens here, on the other hand, and why I find these discussions so frustrating ultimately, is analogous to telling my former housemate that because Catholicism is a load of rubbish, confession didn't work and he was kidding himself.

Cat, I see your point and wanted to wait to really give you a well-thought response.

We who left Scientology weren't just leaving FROM, we were leaving TO something better.

Almost everyone believes they are superior to someone else in some way. It seems to be human nature. Even those with cerebral palsy or disabilities, if they have any self-confidence at all, still consider themselves better. They may think of themselves as kinder, purer, more compassionate, closer to God, but still - they see themselves as better.

True humility is difficult. There is the fake kind, and then there is the sincere kind.

True humility opens our hearts and minds to change, because by seeing our own flaws honestly and accepting ourselves, we can better accept others, love ourselves better and love them better, too - and the whole world opens up and unfolds in a beautiful, refreshing way.

When we choose instead to label those who disagree with us as "unenlightened", "suppressive persons", etc., vanity wins over humility and we grow further away from our goodness, our light, our true being.

Vanity and arrogance are childish and selfish. They close the doors to growth and spirituality. Scientology is all about vanity and arrogance. My wins are better than your wins. I am more powerful, etc., etc.

I've had amazing things happen in my life that I would put right up there in the miracle band - and they were all witnessed by one or sometimes several people. My close friends know. I am no stranger to the spiritual aspect of things. But these things are private and personal and I know, hard as I try, I will never interpret these events correctly. I also know it is childishly arrogant to believe I personally caused them - as childishly arrogant as the days when people believed the sun and universe revolved around earth.

These days I am humbled. Each of us found our own humility the day we left Scientology and by finding that, found love and life.

Sincere humility might be the most important part of waking up from Scientology.

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Cat, I see your point and wanted to wait to really give you a well-thought response.

We who left Scientology weren't just leaving FROM, we were leaving TO something better.

Almost everyone believes they are superior to someone else in some way. It seems to be human nature. Even those with cerebral palsy or disabilities, if they have any self-confidence at all, still consider themselves better. They may think of themselves as kinder, purer, more compassionate, closer to God, but still - they see themselves as better.

True humility is difficult. There is the fake kind, and then there is the sincere kind.

True humility opens our hearts and minds to change, because by seeing our own flaws honestly and accepting ourselves, we can better accept others, love ourselves better and love them better, too - and the whole world opens up and unfolds in a beautiful, refreshing way.

When we choose instead to label those who disagree with us as "unenlightened", "suppressive persons", etc., vanity wins over humility and we grow further away from our goodness, our light, our true being.

Vanity and arrogance are childish and selfish. They close the doors to growth and spirituality. Scientology is all about vanity and arrogance. My wins are better than your wins. I am more powerful, etc., etc.

I've had amazing things happen in my life that I would put right up there in the miracle band - and they were all witnessed by one or sometimes several people. My close friends know. I am no stranger to the spiritual aspect of things. But these things are private and personal and I know, hard as I try, I will never interpret these events correctly. I also know it is childishly arrogant to believe I personally caused them - as childishly arrogant as the days when people believed the sun and universe revolved around earth.

These days I am humbled. Each of us found our own humility the day we left Scientology and by finding that, found love and life.

Sincere humility might be the most important part of waking up from Scientology.

truly...

humility is not understood to be a virtue in CoS

nor is arrogance understood to be a vice

 

[Cat's Squirrel]

truly...

humility is not understood to be a virtue in CoS

nor is arrogance understood to be a vice

True, and for me, it's the very core of what is wrong with the subject.

 

[Commander Birdsong]

True, and for me, it's the very core of what is wrong with the subject.

there's a chance what's wrong with the core of the subject might be worse than that CS...

 

[George Layton]

No it isn't Sheila, because to continue the analogy there really was a time when people believed that flying a plane was impossible because planes were (obviously) heavier than air, and no one at the time could conceive of an engine sufficiently powerful to overcome this.

It's now part of our shared reality that powered flight is possible, so much so that anyone who tried to deny it now would be laughed out of court.

Similarly, Leon claims that he gets beneficial results with people by using a set of procedures closely related (though apparently not identical) to those invented by L. Ron Hubbard and his associates. Others here are convinced that this is at best very unlikely to be the case. So there's a paradigm clash here, similar to the one we had in the early days of flying except that we don't know for sure which is right - Leon, who claims that "Leonology" works, or those who claim that it doesn't and he's kidding himself.

Ok what about this analogy: A fellow goes through the CCH's and he finds that he has gained a greater awareness of the self and this awareness changes his perception of the world around him, making him more aware of that also. This fellow goes on to learn the mechanics of the process and finds that in teaching it, if his student is attentive and diligent in every command through the process, following every command with attention fixed on to the end result, the student has a very similar life changing awareness gain. But a second student does not follow attentively every command the teacher gives, the student's attention wanders off as some of the teacher's commands are ignored in the process, and the second student doesn't have the life changing awareness gain. Was it because the second student did not follow each command the teacher gave through the process or was it because process does not work?

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Ok what about this analogy: A fellow goes through the CCH's and he finds that he has gained a greater awareness of the self and this awareness changes his perception of the world around him, making him more aware of that also. This fellow goes on to learn the mechanics of the process and finds that in teaching it, if his student is attentive and diligent in every command through the process, following every command with attention fixed on to the end result, the student has a very similar life changing awareness gain. But a second student does not follow attentively every command the teacher gives, the student's attention wanders off as some of the teacher's commands are ignored in the process, and the second student doesn't have the life changing awareness gain. Was it because the second student did not follow each command the teacher gave through the process or was it because process does not work?

no process works

a hammer doesn't work but a carpenter does