My opinion?
No.
I’m openminded about relegion, but scientology is such an obvious cult, it’s rediculous. Thoughts?
Just about all religions are an obvious cult.
Beliefs and ways of thinking,
eventualy can become groups…
Like, personaly, i feel that bill-cozbey
is the third comeing of jesus,
and when he healed people on
“kids say the darndest things”,
and blessed childeren, i cried my eyes out every epasode!!!
It WUZ KOOLERZ!!11!
(note that i was not serious^)
but on a serious note:
There can be realy REALY insain groups of people out there…
Religion often makes super-natural and un-provable claims.
Religion exists because sertian kinds of people are willing to join it and be a part of it.
…(* bows down to gold cross with bill cozbey on it*)
you see Jesus is like jello puding,
some flavors were black, some were white, or brown,
but then you can eat one of them’s body to gain eternal life and be washed clean from sins! Wait no, Jesus is like codac film! Its like… (sniff)
crack!
Crack, is like a bicycle!
Its a fun ride but you gotta peddle it!
(maybe ive gone to far…
and cant handle laughing anymore…)
I’ve done a lot of reading about them and literally live around the corner from the Philly chapter (not much going on as far as I can tell) and don’t see that they have any kind of guiding ethic. They do have a complex and zany story whose underlying idea is that we aren’t really responsible for our negative ways (which I as an existentialist hate) and that reason leads them to want to be what they call Clear.
The concept of being “clear†is almost the same as the concept of being authentic in Gestalt therapy. It’s a good idea because you end up speaking your mind about your issues and feelings, so secret tension is released.
This is a famous cult/religion technique were you take good practical ideas and mix them with the insane, thus reinforcing the insane. Christians and Jews will tell you to be nice and fair not because it makes for practical living, but because a superbeing told you to. So, the average person says, “oh, I like the idea of fairness, so I guess I like that superbeing and the priest that told me about it,†and then you’re hooked.
My work with people has revealed that a lot of people have trouble coming to grips with their negative thoughts. I suppose that they judge themselves too harshly in light of say their hatred toward their mom, dad, society, or whatever and so they look for a scapegoat. For some, it’s the devil, but for the scientologists it’s aliens.
So, I think that the group, just like most religions, attracts people that are having trouble organizing their thoughts about life, and are looking for some outside agent to blame, or ask for help from.
Holy ****…
So true…
Once id said “idealism is the anti-christ”, for all that was worth!
I dont think people should always throw all their crap onto the name of God, man sometimes i regret saying that word… “God”… i dunno anymore… i usedto be so religious… wow…
“God” (the word’s meaning) = collective of human subjective of superior of all things?..
I’d reword that.
All religions start out exactly like cults.
Thadlerian… if you truly are in the mental health profession you should have a detailed understanding of the problems with scientology.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientolog … psychiatry
as far as “cults” go, is they’re belief any more whacko than others?
Muslims believing a single individual has the power to speak with god?
Christians believing that god impregnated a woman with himself and then he was resurrected?
Yeah sure believing that Aliens implanted the seed of man is wierd. But so is believing in an invisible being none of us will ever see while we’re alive.
Again, I agree with them, but for different reasons.
The article mentions Hubbard and 911, well he was dead at that point, so I’m not sure what is going on there.
why am I not surprised.
I think it must’ve meant the scientology foundation in place of hubbard there.
I’ve posted on this idea before. You never hear about a perfectly succesful person with an awesome life becoming a born again christian.
And these “cults” do have an attraction even to me, the agnostic. Where else can you find such a great sense of community? Where else can you find the power of the mind helping people (attach personal belief here in place of the mind. reiki, prayer, god, jesus, allah, ohming out your body to get a ‘tone’, etc.)
If there was a group that was into the power of the mind, and meditation for growth, without all the insane stuff, I’d go.
Yes, scientology, it makes perfect sense.
First, the evil galactic overlord thought to himself "fuck, is this galaxy ever over populated, what to do, what to do…
And an epiphany came to him. “I know, I’ll round up a few trillion people from various worlds and uhh…execute them”
Obviously, killing them on their own planets was too simple and cost effective to meet the evil overlords diabolical standards, so instead he abducts them all in spaceships modeled after human DC10s (or maybe the DC10 was modeled after the evil spacecraft?), freezes them and dumps them into volcanos on didtant earth
The perfect crime!
But wait! all the trillions of souls from the dead aliens tried to escape into earths atmosphere for some reason! Oh well, good thing the evil overlord had some foresight…because he deployed an aray of ‘soul catchers’ into the skys.
That’ll teach em to try to escape!
And as punishment, the alien ghosts were forced to watch thousands of hours of brainwashing movies to insure their unhappyness forever.
Of course, along comes man, evolving his way up from the soup…
“Oh goody” say the alien ghosts, “bodys to inhabit and make as miserable as we are”
It wasn’t until L.Ron came along and uncovered this horrible conspiricy that we got wise to this, but it’s a good thing he did!
Damn alien ghosts anyway…
LMAO. that was awesome Dr. S
Mental problems are caused by life related situations for the most part. Brooke Shields mentioned about anger and depression after having a child and her feelings of hatred toward the kid. The report was that she had a chemical imbalance that was the cause of these feelings.
Meanwhile she told a public story about her reaction to getting cut open and being seriously ill BECAUSE of the baby. Now what she really had was a misplaced anger towards the child and not a chemical imbalance. The baby has nothing to do with it. It’s like when you stub your toe on a door and blame the door. Scientologist acknowledge that people have anger and resentment and that’s why they become disturbed, which is true. However, they believe that the source of these feelings come from dead aliens, which is not true.
Also, psychiatry was to blame for many of the ideas that were behind Nazism a similar early twentieth century concepts related to eugenics. Degeneracy was another concept created by psychiatrists and other doctors caused a lot of harm. If you read psychiatry from 100 years ago it reads the same as today. So, critics charge that all the talk about the brain and its chemicals and regions is nothing more than modern phrenology.
So, scientology is correct in it’s analysis of psychiatry, as it is the same criticism that many psychologists would give including myself. However, the premise for the criticism would be much different. Mine wouldn’t include aliens.
Harlan Ellison once overheard him report that he bet that he could start his own religion at a science fiction writers meeting!
Peter once overheard Paul say the same thing at a barn raising…weird…
I think it’s a trend that crops up every couple thousand years or so.
Tom Cruise is a nut.
I don’t think that he’s a nut, in fact he seems like a very nice fella. Didn’t he save some stranger’s life with CPR?
Anyway, the guy probably had, and still has, a confusing time in life (like most cult members), and the truth mixed with bullshit of scientology pulled him in. The thing that gets me though is that no one ever “saved” him from it. I’m sure that he knows lots of bright people, but doubt that he has any friends.
Naw, he seems like a nut. Maybe a nice guy if he’d ever shut his yap, but it rarely happens.
Strangely enough, today while browsing our local ‘flea market’ I found…a scientology booth! The rather tall plain bespectacled woman gave me a ‘stress test’ (free even!) whilst a short balding man explained to me the benifits of dianetic therapy. OH my.
AFTER the ‘stress test’,(which concluded I was highly stressed and in need of dianetics!) the lady asked me what I thought caused my stress, to which I replyed
“The ghosts of long dead aliens bent on making my life a living hell…duh!”
She gave me a sort of blank look when I said that and as I walked away…maybe she hasn’t reached OT3…
Hey, I have seen them doing that. What is the stress test?