Scientology

[minsx]

[quote="YH";p="513327"]A more interesting topic for cults is Mormonism (Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints). I just came back from Utah and Salt Lake City, and.... oh my goodness.[/quote]

YH, I wouldn't define the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as a cult in the popular, derogatory sense of the word. Could you clarify your position?

[Deacon]

*sigh*

Grummy, you bury a short, un-linked URL on the last line of your post in the midst of inconsequential musings after having thrown out huge fireworks previously, and you're surprised that I missed it? You then go on to spend several lines berating me for not dissecting your post and studying it as one would do a professor's written lecture? Christ, dude.

[Grumlen]

Point. In. Case.

[Deacon]

...

Where's the :speechless: smiley?

[Terrene]

[Grumlen]

Sorry, I suppose it's my fault that you didn't even read everything I write. It's also apparently my fault that even when you DO dissect my posts you still don't go through to check and see if I covered a point already that you choose to call me out on. Apparently I'm a horrible person for being one of the first to respond to your sarcasm and selective reading in this manner.

I don't care if you want to have an intelligent debate, but if you want to have one of those then you need to treat everyone else as an intelligent person. That includes ensuring that you understand their posts and arguement, as well as not skip over what they have written because it's "inconsequential musings," before you respond. Otherwise all you do is irritate others and make the poster do nothing other than reiterate what they have already written because you somehow skipped over it.

[Seraphim]

You're not the first to respond to Deacon like this Grumlen.

I distincly remember a few months ago, talking about how Deacon will respond to any well made point against himself (especailly if it in any way threatans christianity) as if you failed to make any point at all. As if rather than writing a post, you just banged your head on your keyboard. Or ignores it all together.

[Bigity]

I was laughing today at the radio, because is some interview, Tom Cruise was asked if he believed in aliens. He went off on a tear about how with all the billions of stars out there, you'd have to be arrogant to think we were the only folks out there.

Then he said that Xenu was gonna come and kill us all, unless everyone can become OT8 or higher. (well, I made that part up)

So..the thing about aliens...real belief, or shameless plug for his new movie, War of the Worlds?

[Silux]

I heard them making fun of him for this too. Now don't get me wrong, I think Tom Cruise has made himself into a joke for the last couple of months, but surely the possibility that there is other life out there somewhere is one of the weaker zingers they've come up with.

[kyoryu]

Grumlen,

I still disagree with your general theory that "Christianity did some bad things in the past, so Scientology gets a free pass and is exempt from criticism."

I'm guessing you're just really pissed off at Christianity. That's cool, I did that for a while myself. But, as I said, MOST of the xian offenses really should be taken in historical context. The Crusades were about military power as much as religious dominance, and let's face it, they happened during an incredibly brutal time of history. That doesn't give Christianity a clean slate, but it does put things in historical perspective.

Nor do they get a free pass on some of the abuses today (insert priest molestation joke). However, my point remains that while individual abuses may happen within the organizations, Scientology, as an organization, exists primarily to suck money from its adherents. Its doctrines are cultish and designed to insulate their adherents from the outside world. They are dangerous and have been implicated in multiple deaths.

Read up on them. Really. http://www.xenu.net, for starters. Read some of the accounts written by people that left the 'church'. Read about the harassment. Read about the lawsuits. Read about the legal contracts they require at every step. I cannot think of a single modern church that does any of these things. And if they did, yeah, I'd probably be arguing that THEY were a cult, too.

[StruckingFuggle]

On a breif aside, I'd agree with Cruise's general thought, mostly - the universe is so vast, there's probably other life out there somewhere. What was really hilarious, I think, was the bit of an interview I caught the Daily Show showing clips of, where he was talking about psychology and drugs.

Kyoryu: I don't think Catholicism, at least (just talking about Catholicism here, which you seem to be talking about as well) can be excused from their actions due to 'historical context' - they supposedly have a directly line to god, chosen by god - by their own doctrine God wants the Pope to be the Pope, so it either falls apart in the whole concept, or the Catholic God was a right bastard and all their actions were Properly Catholic, and being yet after the coming of Christ, it's not like between then and now God has "grown up", we've simply drifted in our morals. Or, y'know, whatever. Could be God.Catholic sent a bunch of Popes to hell, huh?

Ahem. Kyoryu, you make a good point on how bad the practices of Scientology are, but I really don't think Grumlen's point is "most other religions were bad in their early days, so you can't really criticize a new religion being a bastard in its youth" ... though it does read like that to an extent, more I get the idea that he might be saying, ''y'know, all major religions that have done some good had to start out as right bastards and get a foothold before they grew up and did some good" (which is largely true, though it seems to be going in reverse for the Muslims, who in ages past had the religion of some of the more advanced cultures...)

... though even if that's what he's saying, I don't think it exempts Scientology from being criticized (nor do I think Grumlen does, but I could be getting him wrong) - merely that its valide to say "Scientology's bad, but Catholicism and Protestantism and Judaism have all been worse, too". They killed thousands of heathens, at the behest of their God, so some lawsuits and 'several deaths' don't really weigh out the same And you can say 'historical context' all you want, but that doesn't forgive even the non-Catholics. Even the Prophets were sometimes violent men (Gideon, anyone?) who gladly killed all the rest of God's beloved people, 'cause they were Heathens and stood in the way of his Chosen Folk.

I guess, your holy text says "this was the will of god, and was good", and even if you don't take it all literally (which you shouldn't), isn't God supposed to be Timeless, or something, and thus kind of undermine "omg historical context!"?

[Grumlen]

Stucking hit the nail on the head. As I said, I don't like organized religion, and personally think that they should be done away with. I don't believe in the "2 wrongs make a right" that Kyoryu is inferring from my posts. I believe that 2 wrongs makes 2 wrongs and both should have to own up to what they did.

But thats not going to happen to Christianity as long as it's a dominant force in the world. Scientology, however, is nowhere near as dominant and thus is MUCH easier to attack for it's wrong doings, both current and in the past. I suppose to be horribly blunt, I'm calling anyone who bitches about Scientology when they belong to an organized religion themselves a hypocrite.

[Bigity]

I think the Catholic Church in particular (and Christianity in general) has "owned" up to what has happened in the past in the name of the church (not Christ).

Scientologist, however, will admit no wrong, and label you an "SP" if you push it, basically given all other Scientologist carte blanche to deal with you in any way they see fit (deception, lies, lawsuits, slander, and so on).

If I'm a hypocrite because I think Scientology is vastly different from my religion, then I guess that makes you moronic for not seeing the difference.

[Deacon]

Yeah, I strongly agree with Biggy.

[Jin-roh]

yeah, think of how fundies have tried to lump all athiest in with "Godless Communists" or something similiar. That's what this kind of religion critque starts to sound like after awhile.