Gadfly
Crusader
The Nature of Evil
While reading some of the threads here today, an idea came to mind. For me, it seems that true evil rears its ugly head when a person (or group) suddenly finds his or herself willing to harm another because of an IDEA.
LRH stated this in the Code of Honor as:
"Never fear to hurt another in a just cause."
Realize that "causes" are usually abstract IDEAS, and that while having "something" to do with reality, there is not usually a total exact direct correlation between the two.
For me, after careful examination and thought, it seems that the only time that I can justify harming another is in pure physical self-defense. For example, if a robber entered my home and was threatening to rape or kill one of my children, I would put a 38 slug in his forehead without a second thought. I would do it with no regrets, and I wouldn't worry myself much with ideas about what possible horrible life and abuse may have led this sorry person to commit such an act.
Where would emotional and verbal abuse fit in? I don't like it at all, but I don't consider that it is an excuse to harm back in revenge or reprisal with physical harm. If one is experiencing emotional or verbal abuse, usually you can walk away. If you choose NOT to walk away, as many members choose not to do in the Church of Scientology, then you are aiding and abetting the abuse. In that case, then you are quietly agreeing and co-creating it, because YOU choose to stay and take it. The reasons why you do that are unimportant, but you are part of the problem by your choice to participate in the abuse. If someone were abusing me verbally or emotionally, which is unlikely because I simply don't attract or participate in such nonsense, I would walk away. The moment the person escalated the abuse to physical harm is the exact moment I would happily harm back to stop it - in physical self-defense.
Basically, I have a Buddhist attitude about it. Harm nothing. I consider that there is no excuse to harm anything, other than pure physical self-defense. Granted, a purist Buddhist might not agree with me on the self-defense part.
What about bombing abortion clinics by fanatical Christians? The belief held by the strict absolutist Christian is that once the egg and sperm combine, that life has started. There are all sorts of other "ideas" attached to this - and realize these are IDEAS about largely unverifiable topics. The Christian fanatic believes that "life is sacred", that "the soul exists in the Zygote", and all sorts of other mental concepts based on arbitrary interpretations of what I consider to be largely an extensive fairy tale - the Bible and related documents. The point is that some connection of IDEAS, some concatenation of logic, makes it acceptable for some fanatic to directly HARM another human being. Of course, it is always completely justified in the mind of the hurter. Always. It makes complete sense to the fanatic.
I am an equal-opportunity despiser of fanatics of all sorts. Scientology is simply one version of this rather rampant idiocy on planet Earth.
Or, take the common example of the torture and murder of witches in New England a few centuries back by the Christian Church. Again, there were all sorts of IDEAS wrapped up with the words "paganism", "witchcraft", "mother nature", "herbal curing", "midwifery", "Satan", "the devil", "evil", "goodness" and on and on ad nauseum. Again, this was largely a phenomena of the mind, where IDEAS had much more validity than anything observable or able to be honestly experienced. Add in the idiotic greed and desire for power by the male Church leaders, and it was a recipe for disaster.
Modern Muslims extremists follow the same pattern. The members have accepted a belief system involving all sorts of IDEAS about "God", "heathens", "sacred", "Satan", "heaven", "paradise" and again, on and on. Of course, all of these morons "believe what they think is true". That is a common denominator of this sort of pattern. These sort of folks really get wrapped up in and take very seriously their IDEAS. Watch it when and if you do that about anything!
What is common in all of these examples, and there are plenty more, is that the participants deal with IDEAS more than with actual observable and able-to-be-experienced reality. The environment of a "mental system of beliefs" is necessary for this sort of inhumanity. In fact, modern science is not without its own examples. The theory and concepts involving the evolution of species as envisioned by Darwin are largely NOT validated by observable facts, YET the dedicated and devoted followers believe it, defend it, and get all worked up about it just like the corresponding religious fanatics. In a very real sense, the advocates forward an orthodoxy and ideology far removed from observable reality. They are also BELIEVERS above anything else.
Here is the point, now that the stage has been set.
I have no qualms with anyone believing and thinking whatever he or she chooses to believe or think. In fact I encourage it. If I actually discussed what I think and consider as possible, most of you might consider me insane. I don't care. There are as many ways to conceive of things as there are independent aware conscious viewpoints (you and me). But, I would never consider demanding or forcing others to accept what I say, and I would never think to silent anyone in saying whatever he or she chooses to say. That is one major problem, that there are many others who happily and without any compunction at all, demand and force others to follow their beliefs (because only THEY are right, and everyone else is wrong). THAT is the formula for idiocy. "We are right and everyone else is wrong". Read KSW again. The idea is right there.
Where I stop is at the point where one becomes willing to harm another because of an IDEA.
The Church of Scientology crossed that line when it was willing to set up Paulette Cooper in a phony crime to shut her up when she was going to release her book about Scientology. They were willing to hurt her - send her to prison - due to an entirely fabricated and contrived crime, thought up and enacted by the Guardian's Office, that she NEVER committed. The Church of Scientology was willing to HURT her because of their IDEAS. What are these ideas? Basically, the ideas of KSW.
1) We are the only ones with the truth
2) Nobody else has the ways and means to free, save and expand beings forever
3) Everybody is against us
4) We are fighting a battle with little time, against severe odds
5) Anyone against us MUST be evil, have crimes, and be deserving of harm, because WE ARE GOOD
6) Fair Game information
If one just sits back and studies these concepts AS CONCEPTS, and looks at how they logically relate together, it is easy to see how Church members can and do justify harming others to "forward their goals". Heck, LRH even says so in the above quote in the Code of Honor. There are many examples where the Church has inflicted harm and has justified harm to "expand and defend our religion". As David Miscavige said, "we are not a turn-the-other-cheek religion". They are far more than that when it comes to the willingness to cause violence and harm to anyone it perceives as being "against the Church".
Interestingly, a Muslim fanatic would fully agree with LRH's quote. I am sure that an Inquisition priest tightening the thumb screws on a young "witch" would also agree entirely. Nothing wrong with hurting another in a "just cause" to these people. Of course, the big question becomes, "what is a just cause"? Again, there can be as many "right" answers to that as there are different opinions and belief systems.
For me, I don't think there is any human being alive capable of making that decision or determination correctly.
I envision this as a more perfect world. A world where all people are guaranteed the right to:
1) Think and believe whatever one chooses, no matter how absurd to others
2) Freely communicate about anything they so choose (a right not supported in repeated behavior by the C of S).
These rights continue up until the point where any person HARMS another because of anything other than pure physical self-defense. Generally, a great deal of harm has been and continues to be committed on Earth in the name of some IDEA or set of IDEAS. This is human idiocy in full bloom. It is active today in many parts of the world. It is active in religion, politics, and science.
For me, I have the opinion that a legitimate spiritual path would choose to NOT harm others due to ANY belief, idea or abstract notion. If you can't win on a battlefield of simple honest communication and free understanding, then you don't deserve to win. This is a major flaw of the subject and organization of Scientology. It contains the idea that it is okay to harm others in alignment with its convoluted belief system. Attacking critics, fabricating crimes against enemies, noisy investigations, Fair Game, and other Scientology concepts all relate to, enable and encourage harming others.
There is a great deal more to all of this, such as creating ideas of "good guys" and "bad guys". That is what made the actions of Christianity so horrible for about 1000 years of its history. Creating the idea of "total evil", in the concept of the "devil" and "satan", directly opened the door to attacking, harming and destroying any imagined manifestation of that "evil". Realize that most of the thinking had to do with nothing real. People tortured and killed each other for centuries over fantasies, delusions, fairy tales - IDEAS entertained in the minds of thinking beings.
LRH and the Church of Scientology conveniently create and support similar ideas of the "bad guy" who can be attacked forever, and who also conveniently explains away their failures and weaknesses. The same is true in Christianity. "The devil" made me do it. The devil is to blame. The devil must be crushed. Just exchange the word "devil" with "SP" or "critic", and the same logic applies exactly. The Nazis had their Jews to blame for all of their problems. Solution? Wipe them out. Scientology has the "SPs" to blame. Solution? Crush them!
The same was true for the manifestations of Communism where Stalin killed about 50 million of his own people to realize a damned IDEA.
The way I see it, one of Mankind's greatest evils is its willingness to harm others because of a belief or idea. It never seems to stop. IDEAS are always incomplete, rarely come anywhere near "the truth", and usually fail to connect up exactly with REALITY.
Scientology and the actions of Scientology in many ways follow the same exact pattern. They may not torture and kill people, but at times the pain and suffering caused is real and entirely in accordance with the above ideas.
I have zero affinity for tyrants of all sorts. Tyrants always get others to accept certain IDEAS, that usually have little connection to observable reality, and get these folks to hurt others in the NAME of these IDEAS. Lying, misrepresenting facts, and deception are simply other aspects of how others can be harmed because of the belief in some set of (arbitrary) IDEAS.
I have a very loose and all-encompassing definition for the word "fanatic". It is "any person or group who uses ANY idea or set of ideas as an excuse to harm another human being". For me, and this is just my opinion, a top level quality of a legitimate spiritual path would take away all judging, divisions and inhumanity toward others. In other words, the highest activity is to treat all others as living beings, to grant all complete beingness, to basically "love" all others, despite differences in IDEAS. Any concept or idea that enables harm to be enacted against another pulls the person or group down from that lofty legitimacy in my eyes.
Scientology has utterly failed in this regard as a spiritual activity.
While reading some of the threads here today, an idea came to mind. For me, it seems that true evil rears its ugly head when a person (or group) suddenly finds his or herself willing to harm another because of an IDEA.
LRH stated this in the Code of Honor as:
"Never fear to hurt another in a just cause."
Realize that "causes" are usually abstract IDEAS, and that while having "something" to do with reality, there is not usually a total exact direct correlation between the two.
For me, after careful examination and thought, it seems that the only time that I can justify harming another is in pure physical self-defense. For example, if a robber entered my home and was threatening to rape or kill one of my children, I would put a 38 slug in his forehead without a second thought. I would do it with no regrets, and I wouldn't worry myself much with ideas about what possible horrible life and abuse may have led this sorry person to commit such an act.
Where would emotional and verbal abuse fit in? I don't like it at all, but I don't consider that it is an excuse to harm back in revenge or reprisal with physical harm. If one is experiencing emotional or verbal abuse, usually you can walk away. If you choose NOT to walk away, as many members choose not to do in the Church of Scientology, then you are aiding and abetting the abuse. In that case, then you are quietly agreeing and co-creating it, because YOU choose to stay and take it. The reasons why you do that are unimportant, but you are part of the problem by your choice to participate in the abuse. If someone were abusing me verbally or emotionally, which is unlikely because I simply don't attract or participate in such nonsense, I would walk away. The moment the person escalated the abuse to physical harm is the exact moment I would happily harm back to stop it - in physical self-defense.
Basically, I have a Buddhist attitude about it. Harm nothing. I consider that there is no excuse to harm anything, other than pure physical self-defense. Granted, a purist Buddhist might not agree with me on the self-defense part.
What about bombing abortion clinics by fanatical Christians? The belief held by the strict absolutist Christian is that once the egg and sperm combine, that life has started. There are all sorts of other "ideas" attached to this - and realize these are IDEAS about largely unverifiable topics. The Christian fanatic believes that "life is sacred", that "the soul exists in the Zygote", and all sorts of other mental concepts based on arbitrary interpretations of what I consider to be largely an extensive fairy tale - the Bible and related documents. The point is that some connection of IDEAS, some concatenation of logic, makes it acceptable for some fanatic to directly HARM another human being. Of course, it is always completely justified in the mind of the hurter. Always. It makes complete sense to the fanatic.
I am an equal-opportunity despiser of fanatics of all sorts. Scientology is simply one version of this rather rampant idiocy on planet Earth.
Or, take the common example of the torture and murder of witches in New England a few centuries back by the Christian Church. Again, there were all sorts of IDEAS wrapped up with the words "paganism", "witchcraft", "mother nature", "herbal curing", "midwifery", "Satan", "the devil", "evil", "goodness" and on and on ad nauseum. Again, this was largely a phenomena of the mind, where IDEAS had much more validity than anything observable or able to be honestly experienced. Add in the idiotic greed and desire for power by the male Church leaders, and it was a recipe for disaster.
Modern Muslims extremists follow the same pattern. The members have accepted a belief system involving all sorts of IDEAS about "God", "heathens", "sacred", "Satan", "heaven", "paradise" and again, on and on. Of course, all of these morons "believe what they think is true". That is a common denominator of this sort of pattern. These sort of folks really get wrapped up in and take very seriously their IDEAS. Watch it when and if you do that about anything!
What is common in all of these examples, and there are plenty more, is that the participants deal with IDEAS more than with actual observable and able-to-be-experienced reality. The environment of a "mental system of beliefs" is necessary for this sort of inhumanity. In fact, modern science is not without its own examples. The theory and concepts involving the evolution of species as envisioned by Darwin are largely NOT validated by observable facts, YET the dedicated and devoted followers believe it, defend it, and get all worked up about it just like the corresponding religious fanatics. In a very real sense, the advocates forward an orthodoxy and ideology far removed from observable reality. They are also BELIEVERS above anything else.
Here is the point, now that the stage has been set.
I have no qualms with anyone believing and thinking whatever he or she chooses to believe or think. In fact I encourage it. If I actually discussed what I think and consider as possible, most of you might consider me insane. I don't care. There are as many ways to conceive of things as there are independent aware conscious viewpoints (you and me). But, I would never consider demanding or forcing others to accept what I say, and I would never think to silent anyone in saying whatever he or she chooses to say. That is one major problem, that there are many others who happily and without any compunction at all, demand and force others to follow their beliefs (because only THEY are right, and everyone else is wrong). THAT is the formula for idiocy. "We are right and everyone else is wrong". Read KSW again. The idea is right there.
Where I stop is at the point where one becomes willing to harm another because of an IDEA.
The Church of Scientology crossed that line when it was willing to set up Paulette Cooper in a phony crime to shut her up when she was going to release her book about Scientology. They were willing to hurt her - send her to prison - due to an entirely fabricated and contrived crime, thought up and enacted by the Guardian's Office, that she NEVER committed. The Church of Scientology was willing to HURT her because of their IDEAS. What are these ideas? Basically, the ideas of KSW.
1) We are the only ones with the truth
2) Nobody else has the ways and means to free, save and expand beings forever
3) Everybody is against us
4) We are fighting a battle with little time, against severe odds
5) Anyone against us MUST be evil, have crimes, and be deserving of harm, because WE ARE GOOD
6) Fair Game information
If one just sits back and studies these concepts AS CONCEPTS, and looks at how they logically relate together, it is easy to see how Church members can and do justify harming others to "forward their goals". Heck, LRH even says so in the above quote in the Code of Honor. There are many examples where the Church has inflicted harm and has justified harm to "expand and defend our religion". As David Miscavige said, "we are not a turn-the-other-cheek religion". They are far more than that when it comes to the willingness to cause violence and harm to anyone it perceives as being "against the Church".
Interestingly, a Muslim fanatic would fully agree with LRH's quote. I am sure that an Inquisition priest tightening the thumb screws on a young "witch" would also agree entirely. Nothing wrong with hurting another in a "just cause" to these people. Of course, the big question becomes, "what is a just cause"? Again, there can be as many "right" answers to that as there are different opinions and belief systems.
For me, I don't think there is any human being alive capable of making that decision or determination correctly.
I envision this as a more perfect world. A world where all people are guaranteed the right to:
1) Think and believe whatever one chooses, no matter how absurd to others
2) Freely communicate about anything they so choose (a right not supported in repeated behavior by the C of S).
These rights continue up until the point where any person HARMS another because of anything other than pure physical self-defense. Generally, a great deal of harm has been and continues to be committed on Earth in the name of some IDEA or set of IDEAS. This is human idiocy in full bloom. It is active today in many parts of the world. It is active in religion, politics, and science.
For me, I have the opinion that a legitimate spiritual path would choose to NOT harm others due to ANY belief, idea or abstract notion. If you can't win on a battlefield of simple honest communication and free understanding, then you don't deserve to win. This is a major flaw of the subject and organization of Scientology. It contains the idea that it is okay to harm others in alignment with its convoluted belief system. Attacking critics, fabricating crimes against enemies, noisy investigations, Fair Game, and other Scientology concepts all relate to, enable and encourage harming others.
There is a great deal more to all of this, such as creating ideas of "good guys" and "bad guys". That is what made the actions of Christianity so horrible for about 1000 years of its history. Creating the idea of "total evil", in the concept of the "devil" and "satan", directly opened the door to attacking, harming and destroying any imagined manifestation of that "evil". Realize that most of the thinking had to do with nothing real. People tortured and killed each other for centuries over fantasies, delusions, fairy tales - IDEAS entertained in the minds of thinking beings.
LRH and the Church of Scientology conveniently create and support similar ideas of the "bad guy" who can be attacked forever, and who also conveniently explains away their failures and weaknesses. The same is true in Christianity. "The devil" made me do it. The devil is to blame. The devil must be crushed. Just exchange the word "devil" with "SP" or "critic", and the same logic applies exactly. The Nazis had their Jews to blame for all of their problems. Solution? Wipe them out. Scientology has the "SPs" to blame. Solution? Crush them!
The same was true for the manifestations of Communism where Stalin killed about 50 million of his own people to realize a damned IDEA.
The way I see it, one of Mankind's greatest evils is its willingness to harm others because of a belief or idea. It never seems to stop. IDEAS are always incomplete, rarely come anywhere near "the truth", and usually fail to connect up exactly with REALITY.
Scientology and the actions of Scientology in many ways follow the same exact pattern. They may not torture and kill people, but at times the pain and suffering caused is real and entirely in accordance with the above ideas.
I have zero affinity for tyrants of all sorts. Tyrants always get others to accept certain IDEAS, that usually have little connection to observable reality, and get these folks to hurt others in the NAME of these IDEAS. Lying, misrepresenting facts, and deception are simply other aspects of how others can be harmed because of the belief in some set of (arbitrary) IDEAS.
I have a very loose and all-encompassing definition for the word "fanatic". It is "any person or group who uses ANY idea or set of ideas as an excuse to harm another human being". For me, and this is just my opinion, a top level quality of a legitimate spiritual path would take away all judging, divisions and inhumanity toward others. In other words, the highest activity is to treat all others as living beings, to grant all complete beingness, to basically "love" all others, despite differences in IDEAS. Any concept or idea that enables harm to be enacted against another pulls the person or group down from that lofty legitimacy in my eyes.
Scientology has utterly failed in this regard as a spiritual activity.