What are your thoughts on Scientology???

I have a question. Where does all of the money brought in to the Church of Scientology go to?

 

...The Church of Scientology?

 

Farrie, we can prance around the issue or not. Certainly, the most memorabland greatest - or do you only mean great in the perjorative tense? - genocide in history, the holocaust, was precisely a result of Christianised thought. And let's not forget that antisemitism wasn't considered an issue till we realise that 6,000,000 dead wasn't really all that much of a laughing matter.

And of course genocide, which is purely defined within the context of the 1948 Charter, calls for the intent to wipe out, in whole or in part, a group. Merely killing ****loads of your enemy does not in itself constitute genocide.

E_S

 

Most of it went to L. Ron Hubbard when he was alive. Now, I think it mostly goes to the higher ups in the church, like David Miscavige. The people who work for the church for the most part are paid very little.

BTW, did they ever get their tax-exempt status back? I know they lost it at one point.

 

Farrie, we can prance around the issue or not. Certainly, the most memorabland greatest - or do you only mean great in the perjorative tense? - genocide in history, the holocaust, was precisely a result of Christianised thought. And let's not forget that antisemitism wasn't considered an issue till we realise that 6,000,000 dead wasn't really all that much of a laughing matter.

You know E_S I wasn't aware from your extensive posts castigating Turkey for ignoring the Armenian genocide that all you're concerned with is how many people can remember an event and nothing else. Thanks to your efforts though many more people know about it so it's now 'greater'.

And please you'll have to explain to me exactly what you mean by christianised thought. Certainly you can't mean the extermination of jews, because then you'd have to say the palestinians are guilty of christianized thought, which would be rather embaressing. Surely you must mean something more basic, that christians themselves are imbued with an 'us vs. them' philosophy which is itself foriegn to any other religion or culture.

Christianized thought? Really.

And of course genocide, which is purely defined within the context of the 1948 Charter, calls for the intent to wipe out, in whole or in part, a group. Merely killing ****loads of your enemy does not in itself constitute genocide.

So sacking 30 cities of an empire putting all their inhabitants to the sword is not genocide, but killing the jewish population of a city even if that population is of lets say 12 people, is genocide. I'm so happy your legalistic definitions remove all real usefulness from the word.

But no, the monguls didn't slaughter groups for ideology, they did it for for terror. Resist and die, and not just you but everyone aroudn you. Entire towns, cities, and empires put to the sword and flame. To kill anyone who would resist for the msot machivellian reasons.
However if it makes your poli sci degree feel better I'll humbly switch genocide with mass murder. After all, it would be a shame to hurt Stalin's feelings wouldn't it?


As for you red.

I see you conveniently glossed over why your counter-argument was flawed. My goal, since you seem to be interested, is to correct and inform. I'm interested in truth, not winning a contest of wills with a stranger on the internet.

The truth is numbers dying during the monguls conquest range dramatically. What we do have records of is that the song dynasty governed a population of roughly 100 million, the first census by the monguls recorded only 1.7 million households. Of course there is a lot of wiggle room there, but I think it is rather blatant the the mongul killed tens of millions of chinese.

Figures for the deaths from the entire period I've seen range wildly generally from 30 million to 60million, but 40 million is the one given at historical body counts.

I believe estimate for the world population of that time are roughly 400 million, for reference.


If you would like to engage in a discussion, and wish to bring something to the table, then by all means provide evidence, arguments, facts whatever to support your position - that Christianity is not the 'big bad' we little nasties are calling it.

This thread isnt' about christianity, please try to understand it. Thats entirely what the problem is, someone posted a site attackign scientology and no one even bothered to address a single point brought up by that site. I doubt you even clicked the link. All that happened is someone responded with a link that did the same to christianity.

Yuo relaize this is the scientology thread right?

And although this might seem off topic, we're in a thread discussing our thoughts on Scientology - in which someone earlier made the comment that it was no better than Christianity. In order to do that we need to compare the two... since you seem to be such a fan of pure numbers how about you tell us how many people
have died on the steps of the Church of Scientology?

Once agin thi

 

Cecil Adams on Scientology.

About the Fair Game policy:

By establishing a religion Hubbard was able to set himself up as a font of revelation rather than a scientist and thus control the movement. He also hoped to deflect outside criticism and indeed might have succeeded in doing so had it not been for his own implacable paranoia. He established thought police, conducted purges, and declared his critics "fair game," who "may be deprived of property or injured [or] tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed."

Bolding mine. Seriously, I'd say that's something worthy of criticism, wouldn't you? That anyone who criticizes the church is a fair target for harassment and assault?

 

But no, the monguls didn't slaughter groups for ideology, they did it for for terror. Resist and die, and not just you but everyone aroudn you. Entire towns, cities, and empires put to the sword and flame. To kill anyone who would resist for the msot machivellian reasons.
However if it makes your poli sci degree feel better I'll humbly switch genocide with mass murder. After all, it would be a shame to hurt Stalin's feelings wouldn't it?


Actually the Mongols were pioneers of diplomacy and diplomatic immunity. They gave each city they planned on conquering ample time to decide its fate, offered clemency to whoever wanted it and did their darndest to preserve the lives of the artisans. That doesnt sound like conquering for the purpose of terror. It sounds like the most powerful and militarily advanced peoples of their time having a plan for the known world. Conquering the known world and terror are probably two different things. But who knows, they way our lexicon is in flux right now anything can at least be made to be possible from a definition standpoint. And I dont think that christianity coming up in a scientology thread is a reason for it to be locked. I would imagine that any discussion of scientology would eventually progress to comparisons with christianity, pros AND cons. And yes there are plenty of cons to christianity.

 

The mongols were indeed entirely diplomatic, but that doesn't also mean there weren't cruel vicious and guilty of mass murder(but of course, not genocide, because Stalin wrote what constitutes genocide, and he would know).

The two are not mutually exclusive. What remains is even as enlightened rulers they waded through the blood of anyone who opposed them and climbed a ramp made of their bones to rule as such.

And frankly this thread is barely about discussing the pros and cons of Scientolgy, to go fromt hat to claiming it's only natural to discuss the pros and cons of christianity is completely and totally laughable.

 

Seriously, I'd say that's something worthy of criticism, wouldn't you? That anyone who criticizes the church is a fair target for harassment and assault?

Go and stand in the Vatican City, denounce Christianity and see how long you last.

Similarly, isn't one of the Ten Commandments something to do with not following another God? Oh, and aren't there countless examples in the Bible of God laying down his wrath on non-believers or onto those who didn't support Christianity ?

Point being that throughout history Christians have had a habit of attacking or waring with other religions even up to the present day (ie Protestant vs Catholic in Ireland and Scotland).

 

Since this page questions "What are your thoughts on Scientology???" I won't hold back with what my thoughts are. Of course I won't stray away from facts this I will back up with figures.

Scientology is a scam and a load of rubish and has stories that rival some of the Science Fiction of L. Ron Hubbard. How strange that the guy who started Scientology was also a Sci-Fi writer.

First of whom ever said that Christ did not exist should considder the reasons that we have the breaks of Before Christ (BC) and Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ") (AD) The fact remains that even if Jesus was not truly the Son of God he was a historical figure that did live.

Here is the link from non religious sites...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Domini
Jesus Christ on PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/

Secondly, the Crusades were conducted by corrupt Popes as a form of religious domination. It was a war which would count as full penance to the "brainwashed" and the "illiterate." Since this was going on during the "Dark Ages" it was easy to get followers to believe what the cause of the Roman Catholic Church.

Here is the link from a non religious site...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

L Ron Hubbard was a con artist, if you wish to read his accolades follow on...
L Ron Hubbard who was this man...
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/cult/l-ron-hubbard/

My thoughts on Scientology? They are in the same line with the Roman Catholic Church of the "Dark Ages." Only in this case we have an opportunity to read and to learn the facts.
And the facts don't look very good in favor of Scientology.

 

Actually, one of the main teachings is "Turn the other cheek." GOD may meet out punishment, but not us.

However, in Scientology, they don't have a god or a being they worship. They're referring to themselves. And they have the "right" to harass and assault people they disagree with.

This isn't propaganda, it's a fact.

 

Yes, but so do Christians. There's a story I heard of someone in Louisiana being poisoned just because they thought she was a witch.

 

What, is someone proposing that the Christians poison Scientologists?

 

No, I'm saying that Christianity and any other religion is equally guilty of harrassing those they disagree with.

 

It's not official Christian policy to poison people, though. That was done by wackos.

 

Well, I don't think anyone HERE would disagree with that, would they? However, if your religion is FOUNDED on the idea that it's okay to harass others (Christianity was not), then you've got problems.

Besides, how many religions keep their central beliefs secret until you pay a ton of money to get to a certain level?

Can we PLEASE stick to Scientology, rather than Christianity? I hate trying to have a discussion about a particular religion, and then having everyone trying to turn it to Christianity. Not EVERYTHING is about Christianity!

 

Yes, only god can harrass other people. Really, is there much of a difference in who's doing it? It's still being done. No religion is perfect in any regard to doing this.

 

Agreed. Let's move this away from Christianity. We have a lot of threads where Christian beliefs and actions can be discussed. This is not one of them.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Of course they aren't. However, this thread is, "What are your thoughts on Scientology", and I'm offering my thoughts that 1.) it's dangerous, and 2.) it's a cult.

 

Just as one more note, I would appreciate it if everyone would try to refrain from throwing around words like "cult". Cult (and related words) can basically be defined in such a way to label anything that you don't like, and then provides ample negative connotations.

For example, I bet that there are many cult members around here.

Kimball Kinnison

 

He's right. Now Aum, they were a cult. When I hear the word "Aum", I think "cult". By the way, are they still around?

 

I think along the same lines you do, Guin. But if people want to join it then that's their perogative.

 

Of course. But a lot of people join without knowing all the facts. And I find their anti-psychology lobbying to be alarming.

 

Figures for the deaths from the entire period I've seen range wildly generally from 30 million to 60million, but 40 million is the one given at historical body counts.

I believe estimate for the world population of that time are roughly 400 million, for reference.

Firstly, thanks for providing these estimates. That's a lot of dead people. Can you clarify the length of this period? Are we talking about x millions over decades or centuries for instance? I would also be interested in the causes of the deaths - the distribution of natural and unnatural causes etc.


This thread isnt' about christianity, please try to understand it. Thats entirely what the problem is, someone posted a site attackign scientology and no one even bothered to address a single point brought up by that site. I doubt you even clicked the link. All that happened is someone responded with a link that did the same to christianity.

I clicked on neither of the links because I couldn't care less what they said - they were clearly biased. The domain names told me that much... that was also the point of the anti-christian link. I'm sorry that you misunderstood this and lost your nerve. You started defending Christianity before ever I got here.


Once agin this is the bull**** I'm tlaking about. This sin't about scientology, it's about christianity. Acocrding to Mr Red here all he has to do in any thread is go in and complain about christianty being omg teh worse and then it's on topic to start bashing christianity to his hearts content. This thread should probabyl have been locked long ago but instead it now serves as MR Red OMG CHRISTIANITY IS TEH SUXXORS" outlet for his anti christian views.

Again you resort to childish tantrums... why don't you just get out of the pram instead?

And I find it interesting that you chastise me for using this thread as an outlet for my anti-christian views (something you've construed from one post that asked you to support your Pro-Christian rhetoric) when you're clearly using it as an outlet for your anti-mongol views... of course the mongols don't have a persecution complex so they're not complaining (although I'd be delighted if one popped in to grill you for your "omg teh mongols is teh suxxors" ranting that is deliberately confrontational)


I find Scientology rather than harmless as a religion. I don't see them trying to convert me in the street, and its backstory even raises an eyebrow and makes me smile. There are worse religions out there - which I suppose is the point that was being made by others who sought to compare it with others.

 

But a lot of people join without knowing all the facts.

Most people join their religions without all the facts. Consider the majority of people who are born into their religions. If everybody learned all the facts before joining their religions, we wouldn't have so many people who follow religions that they don't really believe in simply because they were raised that way.