"One of the most remarkable legal hearings in Scientology's history" set to begin

[butwhatif?]

Yes, I think this was cultish, creepy, and wrong.

I'll have to disagree about praying for someone though. Baptizing someone into your faith after they're deceased is taking away their choice of faith. In Christian faith, the Holy Spirit draws people to God, and it's up to that person to choose to believe, follow, etc, and we know not all will choose that path. Probably unclear Christianese, but I'm trying. so maybe I get a point for that amongst the tomatoes?

I did the baptisms by proxy at the temple as a teen. In hindsight, I believe I joined the mormon church to rebel against my father who hated all religion, but I was also trying to find something that gave me a sense of belonging.
I think the sense of belonging is what draws a lot of people into religion.

Once I started rebelling from the church, and questioning things that didn't add up for me, I was told that I was no longer welcome there as I was a 'cancer eating away at the church'.

Even though I had a horrible experience at the church, I don't see it as ALL bad. That was just my experience. Most of my maternal family are mormons and they are wonderfully caring, and non-judgemental.

And I don't think that doing baptisms by proxy really effects anyone in the afterlife. It's just members in this life trying to save other souls- and I guess it makes them feel better.

I personally hated the temple. I thought it was ridiculous that a woman cannot enter the temple if she has her period....Somehow it makes a natural part of a females life feel 'dirty'. (that was one of the things I questiioned)

One thing I do appreciate about the church is that they didn't sweep pedophilia under the rug. My uncle was quickly ex-communicated when they found out his crimes....and this was about 25 years ago.

 

[Nova]

Nova, you are such a charming diplomat!

I'm sorry but, I will never be a proponent of this practice. And I will never understand why the Church of Scientology demands silence from those who choose to leave.

I promise you my tact has its limits. We're still fighting for marriage equality in California almost entirely because of the efforts of the Catholic and Mormon churches against it (and the millions of dollars raised among believers who don't even live here).

But I do try to remember that from their perspective, the Jehovah's Witness and the Mormon missionary at the door are trying to save MY soul. I think my soul is just fine, mind you. But if someone believed I was starving and brought me food, I wouldn't accuse him of rudeness; I'd simply say, "No, thank you."

As for Scientology demanding confidentiality agreements from high church officials, how is it different from Catholic church officials moving child molesters from place to place to protect the reputation of the church? Actually, the confidentiality requirements are much more benign.

Institutions have an inherent tendency to protect the whole at the expense of the individual, which is why we should be at least a little suspicious of any group formed by human beings.

 

[Nova]

Yes, I think this was cultish, creepy, and wrong.

I'll have to disagree about praying for someone though. Baptizing someone into your faith after they're deceased is taking away their choice of faith. In Christian faith, the Holy Spirit draws people to God, and it's up to that person to choose to believe, follow, etc, and we know not all will choose that path. Probably unclear Christianese, but I'm trying. so maybe I get a point for that amongst the tomatoes?

I don't know who the tomatoes are, but your post is perfectly clear to me.

And I certainly understand the difference between praying for someone and baptizing them without their consent, at least from the viewpoint of Christian denominations that believe baptism must be voluntary. But as I'm sure you know, some denominations think parents can give consent for infants, while others find that entirely presumptuous.

From the outsider's point of view, both actions assume the believer knows best and is entitled to beseech God to influence the non-believer. As a former evangelical, I know the intentions are good and most of the time I focus on that. But I can understand the deliberate targeting of Holocaust victims strikes some Jews the wrong way.

If it came out that a group of Mormons had decided to baptize-by-proxy all dead popes and Christian martyrs, I'm sure there would be a similar outcry.

 

[Nova]

...I think the sense of belonging is what draws a lot of people into religion.

Once I started rebelling from the church, and questioning things that didn't add up for me, I was told that I was no longer welcome there as I was a 'cancer eating away at the church'....

I think you are so right about the sense of belonging. And to some extent, the more extreme the requirements of the religion, the greater the sense of belonging and the greater the sense of isolation from the rest of the world.

And while being called a "cancer" is extreme, the reaction to your questioning is typical of a lot of groups. In my case I was told I had a "good mind", but that I "didn't use it correctly". That was in the Disciples of Christ (an evangelical denomination that was better known before so many new groups popped up).

 

[Fairy1]

I promise you my tact has its limits. We're still fighting for marriage equality in California almost entirely because of the efforts of the Catholic and Mormon churches against it (and the millions of dollars raised among believers who don't even live here).

But I do try to remember that from their perspective, the Jehovah's Witness and the Mormon missionary at the door are trying to save MY soul. I think my soul is just fine, mind you. But if someone believed I was starving and brought me food, I wouldn't accuse him of rudeness; I'd simply say, "No, thank you."

As for Scientology demanding confidentiality agreements from high church officials, how is it different from Catholic church officials moving child molesters from place to place to protect the reputation of the church? Actually, the confidentiality requirements are much more benign.

Institutions have an inherent tendency to protect the whole at the expense of the individual, which is why we should be at least a little suspicious of any group formed by human beings.

I understand your POV but to me, there is a difference between deliberately covering up the horrific acts of individuals who happen to be church officials and going to great lengths to keep secret the actual practices and fundamental beliefs of a church itself.

 

[Seek&Find]

Lol, Nova, I meant the tomatoes that might be thrown at me.

 

[Nova]

Lol, Nova, I meant the tomatoes that might be thrown at me.

Oh, of course, I see now. Sorry. I was being dense.

No tomatoes from this quarter. I thought your post and your point were apt.

 

[Nova]

I understand your POV but to me, there is a difference between deliberately covering up the horrific acts of individuals who happen to be church officials and going to great lengths to keep secret the actual practices and fundamental beliefs of a church itself.

Well, as I said up river a bit, I think other religions have things they keep secret, too. I really don't mean to pick on Catholicism and I'm not assuming its secrets are necessarily harmful, but I think there are secrets in the Vatican. The Masons (only quasi-religious, but still) have their secret rites. I believe certain mystic traditions in Judaism, Christianity and Islam have things they hide from the uninitiated.

I admit I get suspicious when secrets are kept, but it isn't exclusive to Scientology. Sometimes it seems like Scientology does everything to extremes, but I'm not sure we can really measure who is the most secretive.

 

[gitana1]

Most if not all religions were at their genesis labeled as cults. The question is, when does an entity become established as a bona fide religion, with no intimations made that it is still, at its core, a cult? When, and why?

As Nova demonstrates, they are no longer called "cults" in academia. They are called "new religious movements". But I disagree that all religions could be called cults to some degree. I think near TOTAL control of finances, not 10% tithing requests (which are not forced in most churches), high pressure mind control tactics that include sleep and food deprivation or restriction, using "buddies" to surround new members so they cannot be influenced by non-members, forcing members to give up all contact with non-believing family members, punishment of followers who break the rules via physical abuse, retaliation against the member's loved ones, or emotional abuse, and so on, is what marks a group as a cult. Most main stream religious groups today do none of that.

Here's a great video I have seen that shows what cults do. It seems very straight forward and would not tend to apply to most modern religious groups. It's also funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnNSe5XYp6E

Quiche's definition re impinging on member's civil freedoms is eloquent, and not a bad standard for any of us to employ for ourselves.

But one thing that almost always happens when new religious movements are discussed is that people immediately begin comparing members who have chosen to give up everything and work for the church with far more casual members of established religions. A fairer comparison would be to compare Scientology workers with nuns in a convent. Members of both groups give up their worldly belongings, submit themselves to the absolute authority of a superior, spend nearly all their waking hours in service, etc. and so forth.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who took a personality test, maybe were audited a few times and attended some social functions at Scientology centers. They aren't that different from Christians who go to church on Christmas and Easter. But they also aren't the people we hear about when somebody wants to bash a new religious movement.

I chose to do my field research on the Unification Church rather than Scientology and spent some time at the "Moonie" center in Manhattan. I saw nothing that was any more coercive than what I would expect from the Disciples of Christ church in which I was raised. That's not to say that other people don't get so involved they find it difficult to leave; but on that subject, take a poll of Catholics or Methodists.

Catholic and Methodist clergy don't send people to your home or try to sue you if you try to leave the church. Nuns are not brainwashed into going into the convent or staying there. It's based on what an individual Catholic feels due to the feeling of an "inner" calling, not based on someone or a group convincing them that they must do this or face destruction. Further, they do earn money at various occupations which they keep for themselves and do not give to the church. Their finances are not controlled by the church.

In any event, the German government for one does not recognize Scientology as a church or a religion. Instead, it view Scientology as an abusive business. Scientology in Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Nova]

...Catholic and Methodist clergy don't send people to your home or try to sue you if you try to leave the church. Nuns are not brainwashed into going into the convent or staying there. It's based on what an individual Catholic feels due to the feeling of an "inner" calling, not based on someone or a group convincing them that they must do this or face destruction. Further, they do earn money at various occupations which they keep for themselves and do not give to the church. Their finances are not controlled by the church....

Christians don't send people to your home? Since when?

Scientology does seem to be uniquely litigious, but I haven't made a formal study of the subject.

Nobody is "brainwashed" into joining any religion (except the children of believers, one might argue). Studies of brainwashing show that physical confinement and isolation from one's existing support structures are necessary to actually accomplish brainwashing.

So one might argue that some members are brainwashed AFTER they join, but only because they have consented to be subject to isolation and extreme measures. In fact, every group (and not just religions) tends to reward its members for obedience and punish them for disobedience and free thinking. Again, Scientology may take things to extremes, but it's hard to say, when the only testimony we get is from bitter apostates; I'm not saying such people are lying, but that their perspective is influenced by the effort it takes to walk away from a tight-knit group.

And just to be clear, I was talking about nuns in the most extreme and cloistered convents (which are less common today, but still exist AFAIK), not all nuns. Are women who agree to rules of silence and poverty and seclusion and bad haircuts brainwashed? Or are they women of the deepest faith? I'm not proposing we argue these questions here, just saying that we tend to apply a different standard to traditional religions.

And we are kidding ourselves if we think traditional religions don't apply strong pressures to acquire and keep converts. If their methods seem less extreme, it may be BECAUSE they are established and receive various forms of communal support that new religious movements can't rely on. For example, as a rule it isn't socially acceptable to mock the beliefs of a Lutheran, but a Scientologist's ideas are fair game. If Tom Cruise had criticized psychiatry on the basis of his strong, Roman Catholic faith, we would have all agreed he was entitled to his opinion. In these ways, most of us give tacit support to established Christian denominations; they don't need to use the most extreme measures when entire congregations are inducted into belief from birth.

 

[wfgodot]

As a Lutheran, I hereby declare my beliefs open for mocking, lol.

 

[Nova]

As a Lutheran, I hereby declare my beliefs open for mocking, lol.

I swear I didn't mean to pick on Lutherans. Nor do I mean to pick on Catholicism; it's just that the Roman Church requires rather well-known self-denial from its clergy and so it makes a handy example.

I could just as well point to my own experiences with the Disciples of Christ. No, nobody I know was beaten or confined to a hot trailer in the desert. But I remember how sorry we all felt for my friend, Darlene, when she decided she couldn't be baptized with the rest of us nine-year-olds; as an adult, I recognize what courage it took for her to refuse to do the expected thing. I could also point to the minor scandal that ensued when I stopped taking Holy Communion as a teenager, because my beliefs had changed. Again, I wasn't beaten, but all sorts of pressures were applied.

And trying to actually resign from my church? That took an eternity of argument to get them (as a matter of principle) to remove my name from their rolls.

Yes, keeping 100 executives in a hot trailer in the California desert is unwise. But it's no different from the New Age, sweat-lodge rituals that are still conducted, despite the deaths in Sedona, AZ.

 

[wfgodot]

I know, I know. But I'm the rare Lutheran (well, maybe not quite so rare) who can view his individual beliefs as being certainly in line for a bit of critique, shall we say!

 

[Nova]

I know, I know. But I'm the rare Lutheran (well, maybe not quite so rare) who can view his individual beliefs as being certainly in line for a bit of critique, shall we say!

Good for you. Alas, my own beliefs would probably be lumped in with "New Age" thinking, an association for which I do not care, but there you go. Certainly my thinking on many subjects has been the cause of much amusement--for me and others--over the years. LOL.

And, while we're on the subject, I have no idea how any rational adult keeps a straight face while being told about ancient aliens imprisoned in earthly volcanos billions of years before the planet was even formed. I just recognize that all dogmas have some funny parts.

 

[wfgodot]

Daily Mail with an overview update, taking into account (see link below)
ABC's interview of Debbie Cook recently; lengthy article, many pictures,
plus videos, here:

'Church leaders screamed at me and slapped me': Top Scientologist tells
of ordeal imprisoned in 'The Hole' for questioning organisation's chairman

• Debbie Cook was 'held with other Scientology managers in a large trailer'
• She claims David Miscavige punched another senior executive in the face and wrestled him to the ground
• Miscavige 'ordered his secretary to slap Mrs Cook'
• Publicity is embarrassing for Church, which took legal action to prevent her from revealing details of their practice

Another PR Crisis for Scientology (ABC News)

Article has 3 pages, video, and links to other articles and videos relevant to the discussion.

 

[OneLostGrl]

Good for you. Alas, my own beliefs would probably be lumped in with "New Age" thinking, an association for which I do not care, but there you go. Certainly my thinking on many subjects has been the cause of much amusement--for me and others--over the years. LOL.

And, while we're on the subject, I have no idea how any rational adult keeps a straight face while being told about ancient aliens imprisoned in earthly volcanos billions of years before the planet was even formed. I just recognize that all dogmas have some funny parts.

Bold is mine

The thing is, they don't discuss that part until after you are "clear". To be "clear" means a person no longer has their own reactive mind. In other-words, the brainwashing has taken effect and they don't question what they are being told.

 

[Jack]

I have a really hard time even seeing people compare scientology to religion. Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was a nut who wrote a fictional book and called it dianetics. Then set out to start a following for his own personal gain. If you want to form an opinion of scientology, don't compare it to old established religious beliefs, look at the man who put it on paper. Look at how he lived his life and what he was. If what you find is in stark contrast to what he, and now his followers, are selling... then you have to come to the conclusion it's a scam.

One thing I gotta say he figured out really well... If you tell a rich narcissist how great they are, they will give you money.

 

[Nova]

Bold is mine

The thing is, they don't discuss that part until after you are "clear". To be "clear" means a person no longer has their own reactive mind. In other-words, the brainwashing has taken effect and they don't question what they are being told.

Do you know this from personal experience?

I ask because the same thing used to be said of Rev. Moon's Unification Church: "they act like a regular church until they get you hooked." Yet when I went to their outreach center, one of the first activities was a lecture with all of Moon's convoluted theology diagrammed on a blackboard. They weren't hiding one bit of the nonsense.

And while we're on the subject, I know what "clear" means in Scientology and, obviously, it takes an act of faith to believe in it. But the same may be said for the Christian "state of grace." I don't think there's any scientific evidence that brainwashing is involved, just the usual social pressures, including the big one that after you've spent a certain amount of money, it gets harder and harder to admit you've been fooled. (But that can be said of any religion.)

 

[Nova]

I have a really hard time even seeing people compare scientology to religion. Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was a nut who wrote a fictional book and called it dianetics. Then set out to start a following for his own personal gain. If you want to form an opinion of scientology, don't compare it to old established religious beliefs, look at the man who put it on paper. Look at how he lived his life and what he was. If what you find is in stark contrast to what he, and now his followers, are selling... then you have to come to the conclusion it's a scam.

One thing I gotta say he figured out really well... If you tell a rich narcissist how great they are, they will give you money.

And by the same standards, Joseph Smith was a con man who made up a crazy story about a salamander and tablets of gold.

But at least we KNOW who started Scientology and the Church of LDS. We can't say the same for Christianity; we don't even know who wrote the original gospel (which no longer exists) or any of the four gospels that now comprise the New Testament. But we are fairly certain that none of the existing gospels were written by people who knew Jesus (assuming Jesus actually existed, which is a whole other area of debate).

At least Scientologists know who their founder was. So do the Mormons.

 

[Jack]

And by the same standards, Joseph Smith was a con man who made up a crazy story about a salamander and tablets of gold.

But at least we KNOW who started Scientology and the Church of LDS. We can't say the same for Christianity; we don't even know who wrote the original gospel (which no longer exists) or any of the four gospels that now comprise the New Testament. But we are fairly certain that none of the existing gospels were written by people who knew Jesus (assuming Jesus actually existed, which is a whole other area of debate).

At least Scientologists know who their founder was. So do the Mormons.

But again, by comparing scientology to a religion you give them credence they do not deserve. However, IMO, knowing the founder doesn't change the fact that scientology, IMO, is a criminal and totalitarian society/cult/business/etc., claiming to be a church to reap the benefits of such. Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was a lunatic. His own family says most everything he wrote about his life was false and just plain made up. So yes, we know who founded scientology, and we know he was a fraud.

I understand what you are saying, and frankly even though I joined the catholic church by choice, I do entertain the thought that all religions are merely tools by which people can be controlled. I am intrigued though that historically it seems every major society/culture had/has a similar belief in some sort of a higher power although expressed differently. So I personally choose to believe there is something to it, although I don't claim to know exactly what it is... I do think it is possible that the 'characters' each religion portrays could be just representations of the ideals they mean to convey to their followers. For instance Christians portray Jesus to be loving and compassionate, and the ideal is that each Christian should strive to be like him (the irony of the violence also associated with Christianity isn't lost on me either). Or maybe Jesus was actually real and was elevated to a position of prominence because he actually embodied the desired traits... who knows, not me. I suppose mine is a simplistic view, but it is mine anyhow.

Oh yeah, I thought I read somewhere that even Lafayette Ronald Hubbard claimed scientology was not a religion, but a science.