I watched the movie Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief a 2015 documentary film about Scientology.
Is it a cult or a religion.
The IRS classifies it as a religion.
It’s both. People enter “this religion” and confess there sins during recording sessions and then are blackmailed with their very own confessions to follow “this cult’s” moneymaking schemes.
When John Travolta found himself in that darkest of places they threatened
to tell the world that he was gay and all because he simply wanted to leave
MM wrote:
It is despicable and utterly beneath contempt to tell a man he must repent, that he is evil.
L. Ron Hubbard - Scientology
How does one define a Cult?
The leader of a Cult is often charismatic, as L Ron Hubbard was for many and he was a man who claimed to have special abilities. Scientology, Dianetics, is heady stuff for people who are weak and confused and with hope and happiness offered by the group it would be hard to bypass. The entire approach is very similar to the reincarnation cycles and to keep people they encourage dependence upon it, the member becomes indebted to the group emotionally and financially and they are brainwashed or threatened with exposure if they want to leave as surreptitious57 wrote.
Yet on reflection this could also apply to any of the other major religions world wide.
I don’t see any ‘good’ in any of the religions or cults.
Yet your a Buddhist. Ironic, thinking your somehow immune, despite being knee deep in it.
No, Scientology uses a psychological typology aimed at “potential” entrapment, including reading your pulse using their hand scanners, hooked up to a computer. I don’t think the vast majority need be manipulated, it acts far less as a cult than a mainstream religion on the basic level. If someone is “merely” a member of Scientology, I don’t think they are any more brainwashed than your average Seventh Day Adventist, Church of Christian Science (not the same religion), Catholic or Dawkings Atheist is, all encourages a less critical, faith based approach, but not outside the scope that common skeptism most men are endowed with can’t readily break out of. This encouragement isn’t necessary bade, we have that cognitive capacity for good reason, democracy wouldn’t be possible without it. It is a part of all of us, preference us that we voluntarily can search it out or leave it when the time arises.
Now, once you get to the level of the Sea Org- that’s straight up fuckness. They try to write it off as being monastic, but while it has some traits of it, looks more like a floating administrative apparatus feeding off slave labor and ignorance, your only allowed in if they can write you off as a proven drone, and you get net to nothing, working your whole life. I think they have a couple of retirement homes now for old Sea Org members, only one I know with certainty is in your country.
Speaking if your country, I see you strategically left out your country’s mention to make a witty counter towards the end. No, your not above them or superior, you are not smarter nor more rational. They do constantly reapply themselves to “not free” psychological tests and counseling that is indeed taken from mainstream psychology. At that point, it passes theology into pure psychology, and it isn’t philosophical but purely diagnostic, giving prescriptive advice on a paid and regular basis. They really should be required to have degrees. In time, I think more and more will level this charge, and Scientology will just say fuck it, establish it’s own school, and use every masters degreed member it has to teach it. There isn’t anything you can effectively do to stop them, because while they do strategically blackmail people (hard as fuck to price, and they are reducing emphasis on famous elites so won’t need to do it as much in the future to save face), 99% is based on science derived typology, and counseling is counseling. It does improve peoples lives just as well as going to a priest or psychologist does. That’s obvious looking at how they conduct themselves on lower levels. Doesn’t do good for the bank account.
In general, they are (if they can afford it) far more rational and mentally balanced than you, or the other members here. That’s the obvious truth if you’ve ever visited them. I did in DC (didn’t plan on doing it, was invited in). I would never join them, I would be very hesitant to date a member as they keep records on everything while not so obviously denying it (nobody needs to know my bedroom talk), but I’m not scared of them either. They make good workers, good neighbors, good firmen and road workers, good bakers and cooks, businessmen etc. I just wouldn’t be very accepting of a neurologist or psychologist who also was one, honestly, WTF?
TF wrote:
I wrote I worked in a Buddhist soup kitchen for a couple of years. I am not a Buddhist, nor would I ever take their philosophy seriously.
I consider myself immune from man made religions, but not immune from scripture.
On the other hand you have stated you are Catholic and true to form…
Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man
That was the Jesuit motto, alleged to be attributed to Francis Xavier, the co-founder of the Jesuit Order. The implication is that the best opportunity to indoctrinate a person in a lifetime of belief and devotion to religious dogma is when they are young and from your comments I would presume you have experienced a lifetime of Catholicism, which very few people are able to dispense with by the time they become adults. Scientology would not stand a chance with you simply because you have already been brainwashed, you may dabble with other ‘religions’ but don’t kid yourself, with your last breath you will ask for a priest.
No, I went to just about every church, especially the ones with white vans handing out the candies. I’m not a Catholic true to form at all, but in spirit. I was born Catholic, and the various philosophers speak to me within the church, but some do not. I am no Jesuit. The church is larger than any one philosophy.
Besides, I’m considering leaving it for a more orthodox branch of Christianity. I’m best versed in the Greek Orthodox Church, but don’t like their pointless stand against Aristotle, isn’t exactly orthodox, nor reasonable, Plato said far worst and is left alone.
Some years, only book I ever heard preached was the book of revelations in a pentacostal church. I’m generally hesitant to assert the book of revelations as useful or authorative on anything, it barely made it into the Canon.
When I look at your posts, all I see is sectarian faith. I’m generally more secular than you. You might as well be the High Priestess of Australia sacrificing Koala Bears on the Altar. Are you not aware religion has sunk it’s roots into every aspect of human awareness, that our so called modern viewpoints are a outgrowth from it? Your merely biased and prejudiced against creeds.
Those guys in those Same Org vessals are every bit, if not so more, human than you are. The nasty side effect of modern existentialism is we all too often forget that others can be every bit, if not more, complex as we are. Nobody found the yellow brick road to the self, and transcendantalism is a self-mockery. You can never climb higher than who you always were.
If Shiekdmaiden rarities her consciousness anymore she will turn into a disembodied spirit, ascended to the realm of bullshit sniffers.
Why, why do you have the need to belong to a church?
Besides in 2017 all the churches will unite under the Church of Rome who will wield the power for all.
What did Donald Trump say a few months ago? “Christianity will have POWER in the US if I’m President” .
So in America, there will be a uniting of church and state with the church receiving POWER from the state to “speak” and enforce religious laws, just like the Papacy did during the dark ages.