What is scientology anyway?

weird weird weird stuff about 100,000 year old alien spirits living in humans.

Reeeeeeally ridiculous

Anyone who does not have lots of money cannot participate in Scientology. That is why most people don’t know what it is about or what they believe in. It does not have great exposure – and you only hear about it on TV.

From BeliefNet:

Belief in Deity
Scientology considers the belief in a God or gods as something personal and therefore offers no specific dogma. The nature of the Supreme Being is revealed personally through each individual as s/he becomes more conscious and spiritually aware. There exists a life energy or force (Theta) beyond and within all.

Incarnations
There are no particular human incarnations of God, as the universal life force (Theta) is inherent in all. All humans are immortal spiritual beings (thetans) capable of realizing a nearly godlike state through Scientology practices.

Origin of Universe and Life
All is manifestation of the universal spirit, which is all that actually exists.

After Death
Rebirths continue until one consciously confronts all pre-birth, current-life, and previous-life traumas and realizes one’s true nature as a “thetan,” immortal spirit—transcending matter, energy, space, and time. Achieving this state enables the spirit to escape the cycle of birth and death—to operate independently of the physical universe and become one with God.

Why Evil?
Painful experiences and harmful acts in one’s prebirth, current, and past lives become imprinted in the reactive mind and lead to irrational behavior. Departures from rational thought and untrue ideas (“aberrations”) can result in wrongdoing.

Salvation
Salvation is achieved through the practices and techniques of Scientology, the ultimate goal of which is to realize one’s true nature as an immortal spirit, a thetan. The path to salvation, or enlightenment, includes achieving states of increasingly greater mental awareness—Pre-Clear, Clear, and ultimately Operating Thetan. An Operating Thetan is a spirit who can control matter, energy, space, time, thought, and life. Practitioners (“Auditors”) are regarded as ministers and counselors who assist others to achieve self-enlightenment. Auditors help others to identify their prebirth, current, and past-life disturbances, which are obstacles to happiness and spiritual enlightenment.

Undeserved Suffering
Suffering occurs as part of the spirit’s entrapment here in the physical universe. Only when the individual is aware of his spiritual nature can he identify his barriers within the universe and overcome them, rising out of a lower state and into a higher state of happiness and freedom.

Contemporary Issues
Based on the belief that you cannot free yourself spiritually without working to free others, Scientology has founded and supports many organizations for social betterment, particularly in the areas of drug abuse, crime, psychiatric abuse, government abuse of law, human rights, religious freedom, education, and morality. Scientology strongly favors the use of their methodology for spiritual/mental healing over the use of conventional treatment.

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Question: “Is Scientology Christian or a cult?”

Answer: Since its founding in 1953, Scientology has presented the question of whether or not it is compatible with Christianity or whether it is a cult. The increased popularity among celebrities adds to it mystique and Christians wonder how much of Scientology’s teachings are biblical.

Scientology is a very difficult religion to summarize in just a few paragraphs. It was founded in 1953 by fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, just four years after he made the statement, “I’d like to start a religion. That’s where the money is,” to Lloyd Eshbach; quoted by Eshbach in Over My Shoulder. That is indeed where he found wealth—Hubbard became a multi-millionaire. An easier question to ask would be, “What are the similarities between Christianity and Scientology?” The answer to that would be, “There are none.”

Scientology teaches that mankind is an immortal being (called a Thetan) not originally from this planet who is trapped by matter, energy, space, and time (MEST). Salvation for a Scientologist comes through a process called ‘auditing,’ whereby ‘engrams’ (basically, memories of past pain and unconsciousness that create energy blockage) are removed. Auditing is a very lengthy process and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. When all engrams are finally removed, the Thetan can once again control MEST instead of being controlled by it. Until salvation, each Thetan is constantly reincarnated.

Scientology is a very expensive religion to associate with. Every aspect of Scientology has some sort of fee associated with it. This is why Scientology’s “pews” are filled only with the wealthy. It is also a very strict religion, and very punitive against those who would try to leave behind its teachings and membership. Its “scriptures” are limited solely to the writings and teachings of L. Ron Hubbard.

Its teachings are taken from science fiction and eastern mythologies; it promotes man as the ultimate power in the universe (he just hasn’t realized it yet); salvation comes through an extremely expensive process of mind games; and it categorically denies the existence of the God of the Bible, heaven, and hell. To a Scientologist, Jesus Christ was just another nice guy who unfortunately was wrongfully put to death and whose story ends at that death.

Of course, you can decide “Hey, I want to make a religion. All I have to do is come up with an explanation for a few key things.” I came to that conclusion when I was 11. It’s no matter for a grown man to do so.

You can tell a man he is immortal and will reincarnate, and that he is powerful. Who wouldn’t want to believe it? But it isn’t like when he dies, and doesn’t reincarnate – that he can come back and say “You lied to me!”

You can adopt methods of creating a state of mental awareness, and your followers will see that they feel better, and attribute their new state of mind to your teachings, and see that their life is better.

You can explain the reasons for evil, pain, suffering – and your followers will start to see correlations in everyday life. They will believe you are wise.

You can tell them that the reasons they do wrong things or behave crazily is because they are remembering things from a past life and are acting accordingly. It’s ok to be crazy – it’s who you are. There you have protected your followers from anyone who may say they are crazy for believing such hogwash.

You can invest the works of your faith wholly in bettering communities. This will convince the wavering faithful that it can’t be all bad – you are doing good things.

This, my friend – is Scientology. In my own words.

At first, they appear to be a simple spiritual group. They lure new members in by giving out free “stress tests” using a device their leader (L Ron Hubbard) “invented” called the e-meter which is pretty much nothing but a simple lie detector. Very quickly from that point on, you have to start to pay to get more training material and information, and the group rapidly becomes cult-like in appearance and conduct (encouraging you to spend time with other members, discouraging critical thoughts of the group to the point of encouraging members to not associate with critical family members or other critical folk).

Eventually, once you have paid a lot and lot of money and have been there for years (reaching level OT3), you are told the real secret of Scientology, which sounds like a horrible science fiction plotline because L Ron Hubbard WAS a horrible science fiction author! I’d love to be joking here, but I’m not. The South Park episode Trapped in the Closet explains their beliefs surprisingly accurately. Basically, they believe that all of humanity’s problems are caused by souls of alien which were killed on Earth (known back then as Teegeeack) 75 million years ago (via dumping into volcanoes) by the Dictator of the Galactic Confederacy, Lord Xenu, whose spaceship was a Boeing DC-8 without “fans”.

The Wikipedia article about Xenu goes into a lot of the “history” behind this supposed galactic leader.

It’s very hard to consider Scientology as anything in the least bit true when L Ron Hubbard has been quoted many times in saying, “You don’t get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.”

My personal experience is limited to having a stress test done while listening to their silly recruitment speech.

South Park Episode: Trapped in the Closet on Comedy Central

Oh. My. God.

That’s seriously a great sci-fi story. I love sci-fi. lol

@TaoSan, remember to be very particular and careful when considering any spiritual beliefs “ridiculous”.

Sure, I don’t “get” Scientology. Admittedly, it’s a little mind-boggling to understand – especially given the founding. And I think I’d probably choose just about any other form of worship on the planet (or beyonnnnd) instead of Scientology.

But remember: All churches at some time or another were founded by men. Some less qualified than a science-fiction author.

And on the surface, pretty much every single religion sounds ridiculous. If I may pick on Christianity for just a moment, (with respect and apologies) – So this “God” guy comes down, finds this married woman (who’s still a virgin apparently!), and impregnates her. She births the son of this God, who grows up in obscurity until he’s executed. But wait – then this son of God rises from the grave. And promises that he’ll do so again…someday…maybe. And in the meantime, they celebrate his return from the dead by painting eggs and sitting on giant bunnies’ laps. And don’t get me started about this story with a snake, an apple, two naked people, and a rib!

Sorry ‘bout that. That’s just one example (and of course, I could’ve gone much farther) – all religions are bizarre and require normally really logical people to take a leap away from logic for the sake of faith.

Same goes for Scientology.

@bananafish Can you give a logical reason why people should “be very particular and careful when considering any spiritual beliefs ‘ridiculous’.”?

It’s a democratic society where people believe not in democracy – but “don’t stomp on my or anyone’s beliefs”.

I don’t have any experience, but my advice is stay away from them. This organization brainwashes people’s minds and takes all your money. They are extremely dangerous. It’s difficult to get out again. Like getting off hard drugs.

@dynamicduo, because if there’s one thing I’m certainly sure of in this life, it’s that none of us really have any clue what this life is all about.

We’re all just guessing, making up stories (stories of nothingness, or of substance). And until we have all the answers and can empirically say, “I hold all the answers”, then it is unsafe to judge anyone else without risking looking like a ninny and needlessly hurting other people.

When you point fingers and laugh at others, you might someday be shocked to find you’re pointing at a mirror.

Don’t waste this life’s energy being a hater.

As Einstein once said, “The wiser you are, the more you believe in equality, because the difference between what the most and the least learned people know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to all that is unknown.”

@bananafish I loved your response, and I agree with it substantially.

The issue is that not all humans behave in such an appropriate way. In fact, it is the slim minority of people, in my experience, who act so respectfully. I am hurt needlessly on a day to day basis by people across the spectrum from all walks of life. It becomes increasingly hard to justify being a nice person when the entire world is a shithole. Let me be clear, I don’t purposely go out hating, but I don’t see any particular reason to take the high road 100% of the time.

The thing about being a “hater” is that the definition completely changes depending on where you’re looking from. To some, all scientists are “haters” of religion. Would you tell a scientist to not waste their life energy in pursuing their goals, simply because one group of people see no value in doing so?

@mattbrowne dont all religions brainwash and take money?

No, they don’t.

Forgot about that preacher down the street driving the Benz

And what about the Seventh day Adventists? I believe they have a system where the tithes don’t go to the pastor – it goes directly to the head office and then is disseminated between pastor’s salary [which isn’t much], relief work, missionary work, and schools?

There are a lot of religions that work this way.

@dynamicduo, I define “hater” in the context of religious tolerance only (in this case). Meaning only that you shouldn’t waste life’s energy judging whether other peoples’ beliefs are right or wrong. Just go along your own path.

And if you don’t? You risk hurting people, you risk perpetuating the hate.

Sometimes it’s easier to give into the pool of hate in the world. But rising above it is what makes good people who they are.

just what I was looking for thank you xxx

Here’s an opportunity to hear what Tom Cruise has to say about it.

@Triiiple – No, but sadly too many.