I could have sworn I had answered a question about this but I can't find it anywhere. Someone else has done a good job of answering it for me, so I'll just refer you to that article.
Once Again the Myths and Fables about Scientology (No Virginia, there is no Fair Game)
Other data:
What does the term “fair game” refer to?
What is Fair Game?
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
From a Volunteer Minister in Uganda
Time for some good news instead of answering questions. Here is what Scientologists are all about: helping others. Here is a story from a Scientology Volunteer Minister who went to Uganda to help out after severe flooding had displaced over 300,000 people.
Yalama Scientology! Thank you!—One Volunteer's Story
(BTW: "Yalama" means "Thank you". )
Yalama Scientology! Thank you!—One Volunteer's Story
(BTW: "Yalama" means "Thank you". )
Monday, February 25, 2008
Scientology Sunday Service & Other Services
I got a "question" from "David". Throughout his 'question' he comes across as very angry and over and over told me that I am lying.
Here is one of the "lies" he accuses me of:
There are no regular Sunday CoS services. Where are they? What would they be like? Would you stare at Ron for 2 hours? Auditing is the only "service" they provide, and that must be done one-on-one.
Unfortunately with fanatics like David it is impossible to reason with them. If I say that there are Sunday Services at Scientology Churches then I'm lying. The fact that I have attended such services makes no difference to David. Naturally I must be lying about that to. The fact that you can do a search on any search engine and find tons of data on the Scientology Sunday Service means nothing to the David's of this world.
Here are some sites I found when I did a search:
- Scientology Sunday Service, All are welcome
- Scientology Sunday Service in Australia
- Sunday Service at Celebrity Centre
- How do I learn about Scientology?
- Come to Scientology Sunday Service
The list goes on and on and on.
David also shows incredible ignorance and bigotry by his "questions". "Would you stare at Ron for 2 hours?" I was going to say something very nasty in response to that, but I will restrain myself; this is a public place and there may be children present :) . So, I'll just say, "No we wouldn't."
"Auditing is the only 'service' they provide, and that must be done one-on-one." Oh, dear me, David. You show in that one statement how little you know about Scientology. You show that although your "question" was all about the cost of Scientology services you have not bothered to study up on your subject. (I'm sort of cringing at where this is going, because I don't want to sound sarcastic or high-and-mighty but how am I supposed to respond to such a comment? Okay, I'll count to 10 and try to be good. 1, 2, ... 9, 10. )
In Scientology there are many, many "services". Let's start with Sunday Service.
The main part of a Scientology Sunday Service is the sermon which typically addresses a topic related to an important Scientology principle or practice and explores its relevance to everyday existence. Sometimes a recorded L. Ron Hubbard lecture will be played. This is followed by "Group Auditing" (also known as "Group Processing") (note that David: "Group") in which the minister conducting the service uses auditing to extrovert the attention of the attendees with the intention of orienting them to their present time environment and increasing their ability to communicate. Next come announcements regarding community outreach and benevolent activities that the Church and its parishioners are involved in, community programs, Church events, etc. The service ends with a reading of the "Prayer for Total Freedom." At the Sunday Services at Celebrity Centre (which I attended when I lived in LA) they also would often have musicians performing.
You can find out about some of the many other Scientology Services here:
- The Services of Scientology
- Introductory Services
(and please note, David, that they are not all one-on-one auditing).
To answer your other "questions", or maybe "accusations" would be a better word, I already covered them here: Answers to Questions regarding the cost of Scientology Services.
Here is one of the "lies" he accuses me of:
There are no regular Sunday CoS services. Where are they? What would they be like? Would you stare at Ron for 2 hours? Auditing is the only "service" they provide, and that must be done one-on-one.
Unfortunately with fanatics like David it is impossible to reason with them. If I say that there are Sunday Services at Scientology Churches then I'm lying. The fact that I have attended such services makes no difference to David. Naturally I must be lying about that to. The fact that you can do a search on any search engine and find tons of data on the Scientology Sunday Service means nothing to the David's of this world.
Here are some sites I found when I did a search:
- Scientology Sunday Service, All are welcome
- Scientology Sunday Service in Australia
- Sunday Service at Celebrity Centre
- How do I learn about Scientology?
- Come to Scientology Sunday Service
The list goes on and on and on.
David also shows incredible ignorance and bigotry by his "questions". "Would you stare at Ron for 2 hours?" I was going to say something very nasty in response to that, but I will restrain myself; this is a public place and there may be children present :) . So, I'll just say, "No we wouldn't."
"Auditing is the only 'service' they provide, and that must be done one-on-one." Oh, dear me, David. You show in that one statement how little you know about Scientology. You show that although your "question" was all about the cost of Scientology services you have not bothered to study up on your subject. (I'm sort of cringing at where this is going, because I don't want to sound sarcastic or high-and-mighty but how am I supposed to respond to such a comment? Okay, I'll count to 10 and try to be good. 1, 2, ... 9, 10. )
In Scientology there are many, many "services". Let's start with Sunday Service.
The main part of a Scientology Sunday Service is the sermon which typically addresses a topic related to an important Scientology principle or practice and explores its relevance to everyday existence. Sometimes a recorded L. Ron Hubbard lecture will be played. This is followed by "Group Auditing" (also known as "Group Processing") (note that David: "Group") in which the minister conducting the service uses auditing to extrovert the attention of the attendees with the intention of orienting them to their present time environment and increasing their ability to communicate. Next come announcements regarding community outreach and benevolent activities that the Church and its parishioners are involved in, community programs, Church events, etc. The service ends with a reading of the "Prayer for Total Freedom." At the Sunday Services at Celebrity Centre (which I attended when I lived in LA) they also would often have musicians performing.
You can find out about some of the many other Scientology Services here:
- The Services of Scientology
- Introductory Services
(and please note, David, that they are not all one-on-one auditing).
To answer your other "questions", or maybe "accusations" would be a better word, I already covered them here: Answers to Questions regarding the cost of Scientology Services.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Why is L. Ron Hubbard the only source? and other questions
Jim Gatos asked me some good questions and made some observations about religions and the history of religion.
On the observations you made, I largely agree with you. I think it is important to differentiate between the religion (the philosophy, the scriptures, etc.) and the people who are in it. The people in any religion are human beings and are subject to all the frailties and failings of human beings. There will always be some people in any religion who do illegal or bad things but what is the proportion of them to the ones who don't? If a couple hundred Catholic priests go off the rails over a 40 year period that is a terrible thing, but how many good Priests are there in the world and how many good Catholics are there in the world? I think the proportion that did those horrible things to kids is very small compared to the number of good people who are Catholics.
One of the main things religion does in this world is give people ideals to follow in their daily lives, for example, the Christian story of the "good Samaritan" teaches tolerance for people with different beliefs and that you should judge an individual by his actions, not by his race or creed. Religion teaches the ideals and then it is up the individual himself or herself to follow those ideals. You mentioned several people who failed to live up to the ideals, such as Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. But what about Sister Teresa or Mahatma Gandhi? There are two shining examples of people who did follow the ideal.
Now for your questions: On a couple of them I have no data at all. I'll try and find out something and give you answers when I know something.
On your questions that I can answer:
You asked: "Britney Spears, Oh MY God.. What is her mental state? I even heard her manager fed her drugs to control her! I'm sure Scientology could have helped her, and if anyone says waht about the money she saved by NOT joining Scientology, I ask, what about the money she spent on drugs, or other stupid things? I'd like to hear your opinion, if you want to go there..."
Do I want to go there? Maybe I shouldn't, but I'll try some sort of answer. It is very sad what has happened to her, doubly sad because there are kids involved. The data on her manager drugging her makes sense to me if you look at her behavior since he came on the scene - she acted like someone who was drugged and out-of-it.
Could she have been helped by Scientology? Well, anyone can be helped. The question is would the various influences in her life have allowed anything to help her? It is an unfortunate fact that artists tend to attract to themselves a certain type of person who has bad intentions towards them. My wife has read many biographies and autobiographies of famous people and you can see nasty people throughout their lives. There is more data on this here: Overcoming the Ups and Downs in Life. So my answer is: If she'd had this data early on in her career and she'd used it, then she could have avoided the mess she is now in. (Also that booklet I linked to is available online or you can buy it for a few bucks, so it wouldn't have been expensive at all.)
You asked: "Are there any other sources to be studied in Scientology? Seems like L. Ron is the only one..."
L. Ron Hubbard is the only source for Scientology. Maybe that sounds funny to you so I can only answer why that is from my own experience.
Ron began his search for the answers to life very early on. He studied just about every philosopher who existed - he acknowledges many of them at the beginning of his book "Science of Survival" and it is a very long list, including Plato, Socrates, Francis Bacon, Thomas Jefferson, Rene Descartes, etc.
So Ron had that broad background of knowledge and was the one who started it all and thus was the one who was always on the leading edge of research and discovery. He obviously had a lot of help, one man couldn't have done it without help. But the way it worked out was that he made the initial discoveries about the mind and developed techniques to improve the mind and the capabilities of the individual. Then as others were learning these and trying to catch up with him, he was researching to find out more about man and better ways to help him. So, as I said, Ron was always on the leading edge, and he made his researches and findings known by writing books and articles and by delivering lectures. These form the basis of Scientology. These are the "source" materials.
Ron himself says:"Scientology is a workable system. This does not mean it is the best possible system or a perfect system. Remember and use that definition. Scientology is a workable system."
I've found it to be workable, so I follow it, right from the source. I'm a lazy sort of guy. If someone already invented the wheel then I'm quite happy to use four of them on my car. I'm not going to go out and invent it all over again. I don't have the time, I need to drive to work now :)
On one of your other questions about people leaving the church I have a partial answer: If someone wants to leave the church then they can. Simple as that. A friend of my wife did a couple of courses and then decided not to continue. Nothing happened. She and my wife are still good friends. She enjoyed her courses, she just didn't want to continue. It was her choice.
One thing you have to watch out for on the Internet is stories from "Apostates." An Apostate is someone who renounces a belief or allegiance. Religious scholars have examined the phenomenon of people leaving a religion and then bad-mouthing or attacking it. The conclusion of one such scholar was "apostates from new religions do not meet the standards of personal objectivity, professional competence, and informed understanding required of expert witnesses." See The Reliability of Apostate Testimony About New Religious Movements by Lonnie D. Kliever, Ph.D.. Another expert said, "The apostate is generally in need of self-justification. He seeks to reconstruct his own past, to excuse his former affiliations, and to blame those who were formerly his closest associates." See Apostates and New Religious Movements by Professor Bryan Ronald Wilson.
So stories from people who left and bear a grudge are not going to be reliable. And I can confirm that from personal experience.
Other data:
Why are ex-members poor sources of true information on Scientology?
On the observations you made, I largely agree with you. I think it is important to differentiate between the religion (the philosophy, the scriptures, etc.) and the people who are in it. The people in any religion are human beings and are subject to all the frailties and failings of human beings. There will always be some people in any religion who do illegal or bad things but what is the proportion of them to the ones who don't? If a couple hundred Catholic priests go off the rails over a 40 year period that is a terrible thing, but how many good Priests are there in the world and how many good Catholics are there in the world? I think the proportion that did those horrible things to kids is very small compared to the number of good people who are Catholics.
One of the main things religion does in this world is give people ideals to follow in their daily lives, for example, the Christian story of the "good Samaritan" teaches tolerance for people with different beliefs and that you should judge an individual by his actions, not by his race or creed. Religion teaches the ideals and then it is up the individual himself or herself to follow those ideals. You mentioned several people who failed to live up to the ideals, such as Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. But what about Sister Teresa or Mahatma Gandhi? There are two shining examples of people who did follow the ideal.
Now for your questions: On a couple of them I have no data at all. I'll try and find out something and give you answers when I know something.
On your questions that I can answer:
You asked: "Britney Spears, Oh MY God.. What is her mental state? I even heard her manager fed her drugs to control her! I'm sure Scientology could have helped her, and if anyone says waht about the money she saved by NOT joining Scientology, I ask, what about the money she spent on drugs, or other stupid things? I'd like to hear your opinion, if you want to go there..."
Do I want to go there? Maybe I shouldn't, but I'll try some sort of answer. It is very sad what has happened to her, doubly sad because there are kids involved. The data on her manager drugging her makes sense to me if you look at her behavior since he came on the scene - she acted like someone who was drugged and out-of-it.
Could she have been helped by Scientology? Well, anyone can be helped. The question is would the various influences in her life have allowed anything to help her? It is an unfortunate fact that artists tend to attract to themselves a certain type of person who has bad intentions towards them. My wife has read many biographies and autobiographies of famous people and you can see nasty people throughout their lives. There is more data on this here: Overcoming the Ups and Downs in Life. So my answer is: If she'd had this data early on in her career and she'd used it, then she could have avoided the mess she is now in. (Also that booklet I linked to is available online or you can buy it for a few bucks, so it wouldn't have been expensive at all.)
You asked: "Are there any other sources to be studied in Scientology? Seems like L. Ron is the only one..."
L. Ron Hubbard is the only source for Scientology. Maybe that sounds funny to you so I can only answer why that is from my own experience.
Ron began his search for the answers to life very early on. He studied just about every philosopher who existed - he acknowledges many of them at the beginning of his book "Science of Survival" and it is a very long list, including Plato, Socrates, Francis Bacon, Thomas Jefferson, Rene Descartes, etc.
So Ron had that broad background of knowledge and was the one who started it all and thus was the one who was always on the leading edge of research and discovery. He obviously had a lot of help, one man couldn't have done it without help. But the way it worked out was that he made the initial discoveries about the mind and developed techniques to improve the mind and the capabilities of the individual. Then as others were learning these and trying to catch up with him, he was researching to find out more about man and better ways to help him. So, as I said, Ron was always on the leading edge, and he made his researches and findings known by writing books and articles and by delivering lectures. These form the basis of Scientology. These are the "source" materials.
Ron himself says:"Scientology is a workable system. This does not mean it is the best possible system or a perfect system. Remember and use that definition. Scientology is a workable system."
I've found it to be workable, so I follow it, right from the source. I'm a lazy sort of guy. If someone already invented the wheel then I'm quite happy to use four of them on my car. I'm not going to go out and invent it all over again. I don't have the time, I need to drive to work now :)
On one of your other questions about people leaving the church I have a partial answer: If someone wants to leave the church then they can. Simple as that. A friend of my wife did a couple of courses and then decided not to continue. Nothing happened. She and my wife are still good friends. She enjoyed her courses, she just didn't want to continue. It was her choice.
One thing you have to watch out for on the Internet is stories from "Apostates." An Apostate is someone who renounces a belief or allegiance. Religious scholars have examined the phenomenon of people leaving a religion and then bad-mouthing or attacking it. The conclusion of one such scholar was "apostates from new religions do not meet the standards of personal objectivity, professional competence, and informed understanding required of expert witnesses." See The Reliability of Apostate Testimony About New Religious Movements by Lonnie D. Kliever, Ph.D.. Another expert said, "The apostate is generally in need of self-justification. He seeks to reconstruct his own past, to excuse his former affiliations, and to blame those who were formerly his closest associates." See Apostates and New Religious Movements by Professor Bryan Ronald Wilson.
So stories from people who left and bear a grudge are not going to be reliable. And I can confirm that from personal experience.
Other data:
Why are ex-members poor sources of true information on Scientology?
Saturday, February 23, 2008
"Open your eyes" says santarosa
Since I put up my post about Answering Questions About Scientology, I've gotten plenty of questions from individuals who are actually interested in finding out what it is all about and I want to thank the people who asked them and say - ask more!
However, it is interesting that a few of the questions I have received have not been asked to get an answer at all but to "open my eyes". I suspected this when I got the question from santarosa regarding something that happened in the 1970s. I did answer it, but I took a few days and santarosa was impatient, so before I had answered, he sent me two more comments which showed that he asked the question purely because he wanted to prove to me that there was something wrong with the Church of Scientology.
He started with a closed mind and it seems he ended with a closed mind because he hasn't asked me any other questions since I answered that one. It is sad that "critics", as they call themselves, are so small minded and are unwilling to look at anything that shows the Church of Scientology in a positive light.
Personally I don't think the people in the Church are some kind of perfect beings who never makes any mistakes and I don't think that Church leaders are somehow infallible. Sorry to disappoint you, santarosa, but no one is infallible. The true test is can you make a mistake, learn from it and not make it again? Yes, people in the Church make mistakes but when we do, we try to learn from them so we can do a better job next time.
An example is the incident santarosa asked me about. Some people in a rogue department of the Church did something incredibly stupid and illegal 30 years ago. So did the rest of us learn from it and did we do something to make sure it didn't happen again? If we didn't then it means we condone their behavior and might still be committing such acts. If we did learn from it then that indicates we aren't perfect, but we are doing our best to do the right thing.
Well, it's been 30 years since "Operation Snow White" and nothing like that has happened again, so I think it is fair to say that we do indeed learn from our mistakes and we are trying to do the right thing. I guess "critics" like santarosa don't like the truth when it puts Scientologists in a good light. Personally I call the obsessed and close-minded viewpoint of the santarosas of this world "fanaticism" and "extremism" and I regard it as dangerous both to the fanatic himself and to anyone connected to the target of his fanaticism.
santarosa said in his final comment "Don't fear the truth. The truth is your friend even if it hurts sometimes. Lies will only bring damnation in the end even if it feels less threatening now." I couldn't agree more. Perhaps he should practice what he preaches.
Anti-Religious Extremists
However, it is interesting that a few of the questions I have received have not been asked to get an answer at all but to "open my eyes". I suspected this when I got the question from santarosa regarding something that happened in the 1970s. I did answer it, but I took a few days and santarosa was impatient, so before I had answered, he sent me two more comments which showed that he asked the question purely because he wanted to prove to me that there was something wrong with the Church of Scientology.
He started with a closed mind and it seems he ended with a closed mind because he hasn't asked me any other questions since I answered that one. It is sad that "critics", as they call themselves, are so small minded and are unwilling to look at anything that shows the Church of Scientology in a positive light.
Personally I don't think the people in the Church are some kind of perfect beings who never makes any mistakes and I don't think that Church leaders are somehow infallible. Sorry to disappoint you, santarosa, but no one is infallible. The true test is can you make a mistake, learn from it and not make it again? Yes, people in the Church make mistakes but when we do, we try to learn from them so we can do a better job next time.
An example is the incident santarosa asked me about. Some people in a rogue department of the Church did something incredibly stupid and illegal 30 years ago. So did the rest of us learn from it and did we do something to make sure it didn't happen again? If we didn't then it means we condone their behavior and might still be committing such acts. If we did learn from it then that indicates we aren't perfect, but we are doing our best to do the right thing.
Well, it's been 30 years since "Operation Snow White" and nothing like that has happened again, so I think it is fair to say that we do indeed learn from our mistakes and we are trying to do the right thing. I guess "critics" like santarosa don't like the truth when it puts Scientologists in a good light. Personally I call the obsessed and close-minded viewpoint of the santarosas of this world "fanaticism" and "extremism" and I regard it as dangerous both to the fanatic himself and to anyone connected to the target of his fanaticism.
santarosa said in his final comment "Don't fear the truth. The truth is your friend even if it hurts sometimes. Lies will only bring damnation in the end even if it feels less threatening now." I couldn't agree more. Perhaps he should practice what he preaches.
Anti-Religious Extremists
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