The Energon Pub

Jeep! wrote:Explain to me again why Scientology is 'crazy' but Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Shinto are sane. Cause, you know, as a follower of dianetics, I feel I should have been told somewhere along the line.

Senor Hugo wrote:Wow, and to top things off. Thought this was pretty interesting.

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/%22Anonymou ... ntology%22

Seems Scientology websites are getting hacked, removed and all that.

While it's nice to see more and more people standing up against Scientology's BS, but deleting the websites is the wrong way to go. It really does give the Church of Scientology the chance to use the martyr card.

Edit Edit: This is getting insane. Apparently the same group who brought down the Scientology websites, has planned a 'raid' on the scientology HQ in London.

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/460/ ... 097ig4.jpg

Senor Hugo wrote:Other than that, seeing as how several people, ranging from journalists, courts, and governments have said that "the Church of Scientology is a cult and an unscrupulous commercial enterprise that harasses its critics and abuses the trust of its members."

Cult (also called new religious movement)

A group typically characterized by (1) distinctive ritual and beliefs related to its devotion to a god or a person, (2) isolation from the surrounding "evil" culture, and (3) a charismatic leader. (A sect, by contrast, is a spinoff from a major religion.)

Examples of cults:

Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church - "Sun Myung Moon's mixture of Christianity, anticommunism, and glorification of Moon himself as a new messiah attracted a worldwide following. In response to Moon's declaration, 'What I wish must be your wish,' many people committed themselves and their incomes to the Unification Church."

Jim Jones's People's Temple - "In 1978 in Guyana, 914 disciples of Jim Jones, who had followed him there from San Francisco, shocked the world when they died by following his order to down a suicidal grape drink laced with tranquilizers, painkillers, and a lethal dose of cyanide."

David Koresh's Branch of Davidians - "In 1993, high-school dropout David Koresh used his talent for memorizing Scripture and mesmerizing people to seize control of a faction of a sect called the Branch Davidians. Over time, members were gradually relieved of their bank accounts and possessions. Koresh also persuaded the men to live celibately while he slept with their wives and daughters, and he convinced his 19 "wives" that they should bear his children."

Marshall Applewhite's Heaven's Gate - "Marshall Applewhite was not similarly tempted to command sexual favors. Having been fired from two music teaching jobs for homosexual affairs with students, he sought sexless devotion by castration, as had 7 of the other 17 Heaven's Gate men who died with him (Chua-Eoan, 1997; Gardner, 1997). While in a psychiatric hospital in 1971, Applewhite had linked up with nurse and astrology dabbler Bonnie Lu Nettles, who gave the intense and charismatic Applewhite a cosmological vision of a route to "the next level." Preaching with passion, he persuaded his followers to renounce families, sex, drugs, and personal money with promises of a spaceship voyage to salvation."

Caelus wrote:Is the leader conveniently profiting off of his religion in the form of material or sexual gain?

Shadowman wrote:

Caelus wrote:Is the leader conveniently profiting off of his religion in the form of material or sexual gain?

I wouldn't refer to him in the present-tense. L. Ron Hubbard has been dead since the '80s.

Shadowman wrote:

Caelus wrote:Is the leader conveniently profiting off of his religion in the form of material or sexual gain?

I wouldn't refer to him in the present-tense. L. Ron Hubbard has been dead since the '80s.

Thunderscream wrote:I've been looking for information on Scientology of an on, and so far as I can find out, it's basically a cult that targets people whose earning are in the millions, or larger. In otherwords, most of us here wouldn't "qualify."

Jeep! wrote:

Thunderscream wrote:I've been looking for information on Scientology of an on, and so far as I can find out, it's basically a cult that targets people whose earning are in the millions, or larger. In otherwords, most of us here wouldn't "qualify."

Actually, the money only comes into getting into the higher levels of Scientology. Compare it to the Catholic Church, where reaching their higher levels takes oaths of chastity, years or devotion, and a big ol' "who's gonna die next?" lottery. Probably helps to consider that Scientology has paid ministers (I don't know what the official term is, I'd need to ask them next time I drop by) unlike a lot of faiths. I wouldn't call it a cult any more than Presbyterianism or Judaism.

Also, I have to add in that Presbyterians are awesome where I live. They give out free lunch and make me coffee when I'm drunk.

Jeep! wrote:They give out free lunch and make me coffee when I'm drunk.

Senor Hugo wrote:

Jeep! wrote:

Thunderscream wrote:I've been looking for information on Scientology of an on, and so far as I can find out, it's basically a cult that targets people whose earning are in the millions, or larger. In otherwords, most of us here wouldn't "qualify."

Actually, the money only comes into getting into the higher levels of Scientology. Compare it to the Catholic Church, where reaching their higher levels takes oaths of chastity, years or devotion, and a big ol' "who's gonna die next?" lottery. Probably helps to consider that Scientology has paid ministers (I don't know what the official term is, I'd need to ask them next time I drop by) unlike a lot of faiths. I wouldn't call it a cult any more than Presbyterianism or Judaism.

Also, I have to add in that Presbyterians are awesome where I live. They give out free lunch and make me coffee when I'm drunk.

Ok, well since you are a follower of Dianetics, we can get some answers straight from the proverbial horses mouth, or as close to it as we can get anyway. So don't take these as bashes of any sort. I just want to get information and have any misconceptions I may have cleared up.

You said money comes in, when trying to achieve a higher rank in scientology. So is it not based on a effort system like the boy-scouts, if you pay the cash you automatically get bumped up?

I've read on a lot of places, Scientology has you follow orders unquestioningly, which is one of the bigger problems people seem to have with Scientology, is this the actual case? If Tom Cruise asks you to shine his shoes, or make him a sandwich, are you made to, with penalties for not doing so, encouraged to etc?

Also, as a side note, I know several churches end up paying their preachers, especially if the minister or priest or what not has to relocate for the church. Such was the case for the father of my families Greek Orthodox Church, he found a better paying job out at anther church, so he relocated, and we got a relatively new one. But may not be the case for all of the religions.