Scientology: How does this place of faith view the commandment, or a similar one, to "multiply and replenish the earth"?

Steph asked: How does this place of faith view the commandment, or a similar one, to "multiply and replenish the earth"?

That isn't part of Scientology. We view man as a spiritual being, so whilst reproduction of bodies creates more vessels for beings to operate, it isn't a spiritual activity and so is left up to the individual.

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Scientology: Is it important that you marry someone of this religion? Why or why not?

Steph asked: Is it important that you marry someone of this religion? Why or why not?

That's a really good question to answer on Valentines Day :)

There is no requirement from the Church or from any teachings in Scientology. The Church does not interfere in its members' personal lives.

Personally, when I was single, I found it easier to date Scientologists because of the shared reality about life and personal goals. I'm sure members of other religions would probably say the same about dating people in their own faith. But that's just a personal observation.

I have a good friend whose husband is not a Scientologist. He's a great guy and it's not a problem.

I know people who are Scientologists and they date non-Scientologists. It's really just personal preference.

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Scientology: Does your religion encourage you to keep a particular day of the week "holy"? If so, how do you do that? Or is this not important?

Steph asked: Does your religion encourage you to keep a particular day of the week "holy"? If so, how do you do that? Or is this not important?

No. There is no holy day of the week in Scientology.

Scientologists I know usually follow the traditions in which they were raised.

Scientology: How often do you attend services? Do you think that is enough or do you feel you should attend more often?

Steph asked: How often do you attend services? Do you think that is enough or do you feel you should attend more often?

In Scientology we go to Church for specific purposes, such as to get auditing or training. So there is no set attendence schedule. For example, a few years ago I went on full-time training at my church for 5 months. Then I went off and applied it and didn't need to go back for more services for another 6 months.

Of course, if you are on course or receiving auditing then there is a schedule you follow. But when you are not, there is no requirement to go to Church.

However, when not on services, many Scientologists do go into their church (me included) to do volunteer work, for the purpose of helping others in the community.

And there are Sunday Services that anyone can attend.

Scientology: If you have a holy book, are members encouraged to read it? If so, how often? How do you use this holy book in your life?

Steph asked: If you have a holy book, are members encouraged to read it? If so, how often? How do you use this holy book in your life?

We have a lot of books: Scientology Basic Books. We are definitely encouraged to read them and understand them. There are courses available for every book. Scientologists are encouraged to take those courses and then use those books in their lives. There is no particular requirement to read them often, just to get through the courses so you understand them and can use them in life.

I use the books in most parts of my life. For example: I use the "conditions formulas" from "Introduction to Scientology Ethics" a great deal. Everything is in some sort of condition and these formulas can be applied to improve the condition. So, for example, I wanted to lose weight, so I started on a really grate program (Eat to Live). When my weight went down a little (what I wanted) then I applied the "Normal" formula, when it went up a little (not what I wanted) then I applied the "Emergency" formula. I have now lost 40 lbs and am back at the weight I was in my early 20s :)

Another example is when my wife had a major operation and was in great pain. I gave her Scientology Assists (a form of auditing directed at helping a person recover from physical problems: Scientology Assist ). After a few hours of assists she was able to come off heavy pain killers and next day was able to come off all pain killers.

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Scientology: What are the most important values in life to you? Do these come from a religious background?

Steph asked: What are the most important values in life to you? Do these come from a religious background?

Honesty, integrity, helping others.

See the Code of Honor

The moral code a Scientologist follows is captured in the secular book "The Way To Happiness. To me, the 21 precepts described there are the most important values in life.

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Do you often discuss your religious faith (or lack) with other people? If so, why? If not, why not?

Steph asked: Do you often discuss your religious faith (or lack) with other people? If so, why? If not, why not?

On this blog I definitely often discuss it. In-Real-Life, not often. I don't get the chance much. If someone expresses an interest I will certainly talk to them about it. But if I'm at work, them I'm working and I feel it is inappropriate to prosthelatize in the work place. If I'm at a restaurant then I and the other people there are out for a meal, so it wouldn't be appropriate.

But every now and then I get the chance to talk to someone about it and I do.

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Scientology: How do you show tolerance for other religious faiths if you believe yours is the only true one?

Steph asked: How do you show tolerance for other religious faiths if you believe yours is the only true one?

Tolerance is very important. We don't believe our religion is the "only true one". We believe that it is a workable path to spiritual freedom, but we don't discount the fact that there could be others.

A person can be a Scientologist and a member of another religion. In my years as a Scientologist I have met Scientologists who are also Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu. As long as being in another religion doesn't get in the way of your spiritual advancement then there is no conflict.

My church is a big supporter of human rights and sponsors a human rights educational campaign (Youth for Human Rights and Human Rights ). Freedom of conscience and religion is a basic human right, and in order to allow others to practice this right one must practice tolerance.

On a personal level, I try to never make fun of or denigrate another's beliefs or religious ideas. If I get into a discussion with others about their religion I always validate what they are doing because I feel that having a grounding in the spiritual side of life is very important.

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Scientology: How does your religion differ from others?

Steph asked: How does your religion differ from others?

While it certainly contains ceremonies of a spiritual nature for marking the major steps in a person's life, and has Sunday Services, Scientology does not contain traditional Judaeo-Christian-Islamic forms of worship. The concentration in Scientology is on learning and using practical skills to help others and to attain spiritual improvement. Belief in a god or gods and methods of worship of them are left up to the individual. That's one major difference when comparing it with the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic tradition.

Another difference is that Scientology is all-denominational, meaning that people can be Scientologists and members of any other religion. Although this is not uncommon in Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, it is unusual in the West.

Another difference between Scientology and traditional western religions is its practical nature. There is no requirement to believe anything: you learn a technique or piece of wisdom, you use it and you see if it works or not. Faith doesn't enter into it. There are some eastern religions that have a practical nature and Scientology is more related to them than to the traditional western religions.

There is a rather long treatise on Scientology written by sociologist Brian Wilson, Ph.D. that does a very good job of comparing Scientology with other religions. I've given some links here to specific parts, but I recommend reading the entire treatise if you are interested in the full answer to Steph's question:
(From the Treatise on Scientology by Brian Wilson, Ph.D.)
- Scientology: Similarity to Buddhism and Hinduism,
- L. Ron Hubbard as Religious Leader
- Scientology: Religion and Church Organization
- Differences in concepts of worship between religions
- Worship in Scientology
- Scientology and Other Faiths

Here is another treatise: The Relationship Between Scientology and Other Religions by Fumio Sawada a Shinto scholar. I did not have time to go through this one and pick out particular pieces, so you're on your own with this one.

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Scientology: How does one accomplish this goal?

Steph asked in the last post "What is the goal of your religion? This time the question is "How does one accomplish this goal?":

By helping individuals improve themselves spiritually - as described in earlier answers:

- Scientology Auditing
- Scientology Training

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Scientology: What is the goal of your religion?

The Goals of Scientology:

The short version is:

A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights.

For the full version click on the link above.

Scientology: What role has religion played in your life?

Scientology plays a huge role in my life. It is a practical religion. It contains wisdom and practices you can use in life to make life go better for you and for those close to you.

I use it all the time. I use it to get on with others, to keep up with the advances and new technologies in my field (computers). I use it to help friends who are having troubles with relationships or other areas of their lives. I use it to evaluate what car to buy :)

It contains knowledge that is applicable to almost every area of life. There is not sufficient time to go into it all, but that link about "what car to buy" is just an example of the practical nature of the religion.

Scientology: Have you become more religious as you have grown older?

Another answer to a question from a student:

I have no idea what "more religious" means, but I'll have a shot at answering:

As I progressed in Scientology I found that I did better in life and life got a lot easier, therefore I wanted to continue learning more. If that qualifies as "more religious" then I guess I'd say "yes".

Scientology: How did you come to adopt the religion you practice?

I came across Scientology when I was at University. I read the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, took a basic course and found that it worked.

It was a course in Communication and it got rid of about 50% of my intense shyness. That wasn't the purpose of the course, it was just a side-effect.

The purpose of the course was to improve my ability to communicate with others and it sure accomplished that. So I decided to try other courses and I found that they delivered what they promised too and I continued from there.

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Scientology: Have you always belonged to this religion?

No. I was raised in the Christian faith. I went to Sunday School as a kid. You'd probably call the church Protestant. My mother was into it, my father didn't really care and by the time I hit fourteen or fifteen I was an atheist. The whole religion thing made no sense to me. I wanted proof. I wasn't into faith and belief.

So when I came across Scientology, I carefully ignored the fact that the organization was called the "Church of Scientology". A church was something I was not interested in being part of. But the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health made sense to me and I wanted to know more so ... onto the next question.
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Scientology: What happens in a typical church service? (4)

We also have what you might think of as a "traditional" service on a Sunday where there is a reading from the writings of L. Ron Hubbard that is usually something applicable to the lives of those attending. There can be other things at the service, such as group auditing (auditing delivered to more than one person at a time also called "Group Processing") and live music. Other than the reading there are no set rules.

Sunday Service is not as big a deal in Scientology as in other western religions, but that is because we go to our church much more often than just on Sunday. As you read in my earlier articles on Scientology Training and Scientology Auditing, these are the "big two" and a person might be on course five evenings a week, so they might not attend the Sunday Service. But if you are not on course or getting auditing, then Sunday Service can be a nice thing to attend for the sense of community it gives.

There are also Scientology ceremonies that mark major points in life such as naming ceremonies (what you'd call christenings), marriages and memorials (funerals). Also other events are celebrated such as minister ordination.

One can also go to the Chaplain for help on personal matters or if one has a dispute with another Scientologist, marriage problems, etc.

Scientology: What happens in a typical church service? (3)

Scientology Training consists of courses that train you in how to help others, primarily by leaning how to audit. There are training courses in other areas of life too.

The way the training is delivered is different to what you are used to based on how you are taught in school or college. For 3,000 or more years teaching has basically consisted of a teacher or instructor standing up in front of a group of students telling them about a subject. When printing came along books were added in and now the teacher had you read a book as well as watch him lecture.

Scientology training does not follow this old method. When you start a course you get the written materials and you get a thing called a checksheet, which is a list of things to study and do which will end up with you understanding and being able to apply what you studied.

So, for example, you study an article on personal relationships then you write an essay on what you learned and how you could use it, then you will do a practical exercise to gain skill with using what you learned.

There is a course supervisor who is there to help you understand and apply the materials, but he or she isn't an instructor or a teacher. Instead he is an expert in study and the barriers you hit when you study.

By the end of the course, you not only know the data you studied, but you can use it too. (Which is what Scientology is all about - application.)

One big advantage with this method over the traditional method of teaching is that each student gets to go along at their own pace, so faster students are not held up by slower students, and the slower students don't feel they are holding others back.

So that's training.

Scientology: What happens in a typical church service? (2)

The next part of my answer is this:

The major services of a Scientology Church are called "Auditing" and "Training".

Scientology Auditing is one-on-one spiritual counselling. It consists of very specific and exact procedures aimed at helping an individual attain higher spiritual levels. The goal of auditing is to restore individuality and ability. This is accomplished by (1) helping the individual rid himself of any disabilities and (2) increasing individual abilities. Obviously, both are necessary for an individual to achieve full potential.

It is difficult to compare it to practices in other religions, because it is not like anything I've ever come across anywhere else. There are hundreds of different procedures (called "processes") arranged in a very specific order. For example, one set of processes is aimed at achieving "The ability to communicate freely with anyone on any subject" another set achieve "Freedom from the hostilities and sufferings of life." One of the major goals is called the "State of Clear" which is a person who is self-determined and no longer the effect of his past and the traumas of his past.

Here is a video that gives a basic introduction to Scientology Auditing:

Scientology: What happens in a typical church service? (1)

The first part of my answer is this video:

Scientology: Questions from a student

I recently received a request from a student to answer a set of questions her professor had set. I thought that maybe the questions and their answers might be of interest to many of my blog readers, so I have taken my original answers to her (which I had to come up with very quickly) and expanded them.

I'll be posting the expanded answers in the next few blog posts.

Thanks to Stephanie and her professor for the original questions.