nullportal: your two-fisted reaction to two posts is interesting. Why don't you all regale us with your personal story, because at this point your insulting us by suggesting that our pithy jokes, which can't possbily carry the future impact you suggest, is making you look oddly like the sort of silencer THEY favor.

What's up? So the best way to not make Scientologists rich is to not ever express any disdain for them and their ilk? Might Bush doctrine of you, I must say.

Enlighten us or seriously jump off the high horse, because some of us enjoy both freedom of religion and freedom from religion, being Americans and all.

//reconsidering my new hobby of posting instead of lurking on Fark

whidbey

nullportal: /Been there, know about that.

Let's hear it.

Otherwise it sounds like you're bragging about something you made up.

Believe what you like. Since Heinlien's Stranger in a Strange Land has already been mentioned, I'll simply say I understand all about buzzsaws.

Simple fact of the matter is when people engage in hate speech, the people spoken about that way are likely to have greater solidarity among themselves, not to mention sympathy from others, than without idjits spreading hate speech about them. It ain't rocket science.

\ Praise Bob.
\\ Praise Bob's head.
// Praise Bob's pipe.
/ SLACK!

lord greystoke

nullportal: your two-fisted reaction to two posts is interesting. Why don't you all regale us with your personal story, because at this point your insulting us by suggesting that our pithy jokes, which can't possbily carry the future impact you suggest, is making you look oddly like the sort of silencer THEY favor.

You're talking about people eager to grasp at ANYTHING which they can use to justify their own conduct. Even minor hate speech episodes on FARK are gifts from heaven to them. FARK isn't mainstreet of the internet, but it isn't a backwater either. For instance, as of this moment there have been over 25,000 hits on the article this thread is about. It is enough to plausibly seem a large community out on the net that tolerates hate speech about them.

It's common sense, and I ain't giving you a bio. I've done quite enough to alert you to the stupidity and self-defeating nature of your post.

What's up? So the best way to not make Scientologists rich is to not ever express any disdain for them and their ilk?

There's a difference between criticizing and citing Waco as a good remedy.

Enlighten us or seriously jump off the high horse, because some of us enjoy both freedom of religion and freedom from religion, being Americans and all.

Old Japanese saying: If you understand where a young man is beginning to err, enlighten him. If he will not listen to advice, let adversity enlighten him.

Your karma. Handle it as it pleases you to do so. I've enlightened you quite enough.

nullportal:

Simple fact of the matter is when people engage in hate speech, the people spoken about that way are likely to have greater solidarity among themselves, not to mention sympathy from others, than without idjits spreading hate speech about them. It ain't rocket science.

Hate speech? How about "it's a bunch of bullshiat" speech?

Yes, its the post you're waiting for.
So I'll probably be roasted nicely (but do try to be nice, I have a thin skin, poor me) but I gotta say it. I was raised in a Scientology family, in craaazy California, had plenty of family friends who were the same. But its hardly a situation like Heavans Gate. Most folks are regular people and you'd never know cause they don't go out converting anymore than a Lutheran.

Yeah, a lot of the stories, like much of the Xenu thing, are the core tale Scientology is built on. Yeah, a lot of things you hear about the "crazy" theologies are strange. I don't deny it. Hell, I'm not a Scientologist anymore than anyone who just happened to be raised in a Christian, Jewish, whatever home who questioned things and decided they didn't want to take part. So, that said, both my parents are ordained ministers in the church and are still involved to a small extent. But they don't stop me (23yr, F) from not believing, they don't stop my younger brother from the same thing, nor do say we're wrong for doing so. Kids I grew up with are in the same boat whether they stayed with the church or not.

Granted, just like any Born-again, or new convert to any religion there are those folks out there that are nutsy extremists, but there is no official doctrine - at least for the ground floor everyday Scientologist - of cutting off non-believers or harrasing people into conversion. Granted, they may still try and share 'the good news' like any devout person, but even then, I was always taught the utmost respect for other peope's beliefs and that people within Scientology often still attended other mainstream traditional churches because no one says you can't keep those beliefs too. At least, thats what us laymen are "fed". It could verwell have been different as you took more courses and the like. I'm not here to defend the organization's authorities any more than a Catholic can the politic of the clergy. No one assaults everyday Catholics for what missionaries and clergy do.

As far as the helping at disaster sites goes - volounteers as asked for through bulletins and newsletters and the like - and the people who go are honestly interested in helping out people. Never have I heard anyone say that lying to ANYONE is ok (actually, its considered quite detrimental to your spiritual well-being). The "laying of hands", the nerve assist, is essetially just like the tenets of acupuncture - without the needles, just working on nervepoints and pathways. The people out at those sites just genuiley want to help - whether you view it as a misguided attempt is your perogative. And Thetan is just another word for soul - derived from the roman alphabet's theta.

Anyway, all I'm trying to say is that most Scientologists out there aren't nutjobs or militant Nazis anymore than a New Ager or Buddhist. Honestly, with the millions of Scientologists out there don't you think they'd do a better job of harrasing every single one of you - at least half as good as the Jehoava's Witnesses? The majority are just average well-meaning people.

Do I believe that the church is a money-grubbing organization? Dunno. Probably. Do I think most people involved have their hearts in the right place and are generally not any nuttier than many Pagan or New Age religions out there? Well, duh - haven't you been reading? Do I think theres anything to this Scientology stuff? Mostly, no. Much of the basics are pretty obvious ways to live a good and happy life - much like stuff you find in any self-help book. But it sure ain't the fix-it-all devout Scientologists like to think, you've still gotta work at being a good person everyday, you can't just do some reading and expect it to fix you. But Scientology, in many ways, has taken the scientific method to religion - and I don't think that was such a hot idea. But just like any belief system it still does have it's good ideas. And it's bad ones. And unfortunetly, LRH was influenced by his times regarding his views when it had to do with social values like homosexuality and psychiatry (which when he wrote much of whats read was the 50's and 60's and the best drug treatments were valium and electro-shock).

I looked at some of the links people have posted and was suprised to learn of these Freezone folks. They seem more like the people I grew up with rather than the crazy monsters that a lot of folks like to make them out to be - people with their heart in the right place. And I think that their mainpage quote from a Hubbard lecture back in the day (which is availible to anyone) sums it up quite nicely:
In 1952 L. Ron Hubbard gave the PDC (Philadelphia Doctorate Course) Lectures. In No. 20 of these lectures called "Formative State of Scientology" he says": (quote)

"Scientology will decline, and become useless to man, on the day when it becomes the master of thinking. Don't think it won't do that. It has every capability in it of doing that."(pg. 47 of the lecture transcripts)


Sorry this was so long. Hope some of you made it through. :)

So Jeb Bush likes Scientology? Did they donate to his campaign? Also, I wonder if the Church of Scientology has worked out the details of their corporate merger with the LDS yet?

minorshan:

Anyway, all I'm trying to say is that most Scientologists out there aren't nutjobs or militant Nazis anymore than a New Ager or Buddhist.

Except for the Xenu stuff, of COURSE. We can overlook that.

For those of you interested in getting information from the source and then have an opinion on it, read this book. Then bash Scientology all you wish. This heresay nonsense comes from people wildly more insane and stupid than any scientologist ever was.

My sister just moved to Tampa and works on the beach in CLearwater. Just driving to her work you are indoctrinated with these freaks. I have to tell her every day not to listen to a work they say to her.

whidbey
[...]
Hate speech? How about "it's a bunch of bullshiat" speech?

"It's BS" is massively different from "Do a Waco on them".

can someone give me a link to a site ABOUT scientology that ISNT by scientologists? I dont ever understand these jokes about "Become interested in that" and these alien sounding things? Even a biased page against scientologoy would be good because all the sites that I google are BY scientologists and they dont delve into any of the strange terminology.

TheJollyMunchkin:

can someone give me a link to a site ABOUT scientology that ISNT by scientologists?

Err, scroll up perhaps?


/or actually read a thread once in a while?
//I keed, I keed!

whidbey
Except for the Xenu stuff, of COURSE. We can overlook that.

Dude - auras, 7 levels of reincarnation, healing crystals? Different but the same. Weird and highly unlikely. Thats my only point.

Xenu.net is good read, JollyMunchkin...

Scientology has at it's core a very basic tenet. If you ever go to one of their Sunday services, you'll hear the chaplain say it...every time.

"If it isn't true for you, it's not true."

That applies to things within Scientology itself.

Bill_Wick's_Friend
Simply not true. Hubbard was very specific on who to treat as "Fair Game" and how to deal with SP. Although the term "Fair Game" is no longer used (the Co$ found it embarrasing) the practice continues.

Like I said. everyday non-zealot folks. I'm not defending the whole group. I'm just saying that the mass of people involved aren't told/taught this. Just like most christians don't know every line of the bible - nor do many believe every tenant or else we'd have killed all "the gays" and other fun fundie craziness. So, theres a sh-load of text out there. Most folks never read it - and I'm just saying that *I* never heard it uttered. *shrug*

It's important to ridicule and belittle Scientologists because it hurts their chance of being taken seriously by mopes too stupid to see through their crap.

Joining a cult, or any act that willfully abrogates your own independence and free thought, shouldn't be a crime, but it should cost you your friends, family and job.

the sexy: "If it isn't true for you, it's not true."

That little caveat shouldn't get them off the hook for bilking people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, though.

No matter what "religion" we're talking about.

What's the difference between C0$ and a phoney psychic who takes little old ladies' money?

Well, so far the difference is the phoney psychic gets charged with fraud.

wheeeeeeee!

nullportal, thanks for taking all the fun out of fark today and casting me as an ignorant youth and yourself as some sage expert on what qualifies as serious hate speech and what was meant only in the spirit of fun, time killing joke making.

You must be the most arrogant, humorless person I've ever read around here.

Please give it a rest. I endured enough college and grad school classroom shoutdowns on such subjects years ago from the likes of you. Fuel your paranoid sense of entitlement to expelling "wisdom" elsewhere.

Meanwhile, I will try to return to fark with a sense that not everyone has a silly self-righteous flame to shoot off in these threads.

Goodbye, and if you want the last word (as I'm sure you will), you should know that it's 5 in my time zone and I'm going home, where I won't be near a computer so I won't see whatever it is you pull together to insult me.

Feverdream is a scientologist.

Bill_Wick's_Friend

[QOUTING FROM MINORSHAN} but there is no official doctrine - at least for the ground floor everyday Scientologist - of cutting off non-believers

Simply not true. Hubbard was very specific on who to treat as "Fair Game" and how to deal with SP. Although the term "Fair Game" is no longer used (the Co$ found it embarrasing) the practice continues.

I first want to thank Minorshan for doing what I'm not willing to do - post a bio about her life growing up in Scientology. My story would be similar in many respects. Indeed for all the hype about "brainwashed" Scientologists, children raised in Scientology families are the best evidence that there is no such thing: we overwhelmingly don't continue on with the religion upon reaching adulthood, or at least don't continue with it in an orthodox fashion within the original Church of Scientology. The kid who was raised in a Scientology family and continues with it in the orthodox church on becoming an adult is the much less frequent case.

Minorshan's explanation of the REALITY of people's lives within the Scientology community is a factual report, compared to this academic, theoretical, and text-based criticism that is premised on "Hubbard said, therefore ..." This assumes that L. Ron Hubbard is the ONLY person capable of describing what life is like for a Scientologists, what principles they live by in their everyday lives, because what he writes is always believed and followed exactly by Scientologists. Well, bullshiat.

I am not going to add my bio to this thread, which would largely repeat many points Minorshan made, other than to say that I was raised within Scientology. I unmistakably dropped participation in it when I became a legal adult. I've found since then that an astonishing number of people who find out that I was raised in Scientology are ready to accuse me of all sorts of acts, beliefs, and et ceterea that have NOTHING to do with my beliefs or life, but is something they heard on the net so "it must be true". I'm too farking tired of that shiat to play along anymore. It's a little pointless to do this and then just have people say (without explicitly saying it) "Well L. Ron Hubbard's writings describe the only valid facts about the lives of Scientologists, therefore you're a liar and blah blah, rant rant..."

I've been getting shiat tossed my way for too long. At 23, I guess Minorshan just hasn't learned yet how pointless it can be to try to educate people who "know best" about what life is like for everyday Scientologists.

/ZOLTAN!

Feverdream is not a Scientologist. You Asshat!!!

lord greystoke
[...]
Goodbye, and if you want the last word (as I'm sure you will), you should know that it's 5 in my time zone and I'm going home, where I won't be near a computer so I won't see whatever it is you pull together to insult me.

No no, my King of Apes friend, YOU shall have the last word:

2005-04-05 04:51:07 PM lord greystoke

I agree that we should wipe these freaks out Waco style,...

What I find is you idiots that bash everybody need to be exterminated like the insects that you are.

Live and let die

F**KERS

I'm so very, very close to soliciting an assassination right now...

/WHY, WHY, WHY do our leaders have to be nutjobs?
//WHY?

Quex

I'm so very, very close to soliciting an assassination right now...

Well that's the Scientology goon squad of lawyers plus the Secret Service that Drew can expect a phone call from.

Sheesh! Give it a rest peeps!

/ Screw you guys, I'm going home.
/// No more posting to the Teegeeack.wide.web. for me for a few hours!

Anybody remember the whole 'Operation Clambake'/Slashdot debacle in the late 90s? That was friggin hilarious: IIRC, CoS went to court to stop Slashdot from doing...something (linking to some site, I believe). Anyway, Taco, et. al., had a fantastic response...in the form of another story on the CoS, replete with ass-loads of even more linkage that had started the whole pissing match to begin with...

Feverdream: Feverdream is not a Scientologist. You Asshat!!!

Why don't Scientologists ever want to admit the fact? Are they embarrassed?

Jeb Bush: "What if we took this one chance...AND FOUGHT!"

Lisa McPherson.

"Yeah I agree milk_plus I think that Scientology and Objectivism (Ayn Rand's followers religion) are on the same wavelength. Unapologetically capitalist, and very 70's empowerment movement. Kinda creepy over all."

There's a huge difference in the two of them. Objectivists don't parade around as a religion, and they are honest in their assessments. If you want unapologetically capitalist, take a look at the oil and health care industries. What's really creepy is the latters attitude of "how much is your life worth to you".

At least when you make a deal with an objectivist you know up front how much you'll get screwed.

Sliceablekitty
I wasn't hounded by them in any way.

Stop trolling! Thats outrageous, and nobody is going to believe that happened! You must be deluded to think that, and I'm sure Hitler would approve of your philosophy wholeheartedly!

I have Scientologist friends. They're cool, and normal people. Scientology has some interesting viewpoints and useful ideas. Some people go nuts while calling themselves Scientologists, and now the WHOLE organization is full supposedly of people exactly like that.

Seriously, ask a Scientologist about Lisa McPherson sometime.

You will immediately be branded a Supressive Person.

Ulyses

Any person in Scientology that believes that shiat is weak minded.

I've been reading this xenu.net stuff. It's great!

/I laughed out loud at the stuff "Scientologists aren't prepared to read!!" (the stuff on that page posted above)

Circuits! Implanting! H Bombs! Look at me, I know SCIENCE!!1!11!

it looks like the jehova's witnesses have 'oppressor' as a convienent label to lay on anybody that doesn't buy into their gig...

scientologists have 'suppressive person' for the same category..


what would be the mainstream christian equivalent? just plain old 'gay'?

> Ulyses
>
>>Sliceablekitty
>>I wasn't hounded by them in any way.
>
>Stop trolling! Thats outrageous, and nobody is going to
>believe that happened! You must be deluded to think that, and
>I'm sure Hitler would approve of your philosophy
>wholeheartedly!

/Godwin
//Did I win?

>mainstream christian equivalent? just plain old 'gay'?

Nah, mainstream christian equivalent is activist judges.

Ah, those wacky clams. Whenever there's a catastrophe or natural disaster, they show up and make a big production number of ostentatiously "assisting". It's all just for PR purposes, of course, so that they can then turn around and get lauded by pols like Jebby Bush, as evidence of their "credibility".

Wanna know what their Magnifico Education Tech is? (The one that helped Tom Cruise overcome dyslexia?) Here 'tis (TA DAAA!!!): "If you read a word, and you don't understand the meaning of the word, get a dictionary and look up the meaning of the word."

Gosh, I hope I don't get sued for a billion dollars for spreading their "trade secret" tech!

heap:

Unsaved.

But in that case, the undertones are slightly different.

Somehow I read that as unsHaved.

I'm like "how did they know I have a beard.../D'oH

So, i still dont get the thing "Become interested in that." that i have seen in a lot of photoshops? Is it what people tell people to do so they can "observe" other people becoming interested? Or what?