11 yr old asks: What is Scientology?

[Revoltingest]

So you are just presenting a fabricated persona ? What offensive opinions are you editing out ? Suddenly, I wonder if I really know you.

My brain is all spiders, broken glass, & radioactive waste.
My persona is just me exercising some control over the carnage within.

 

[apophenia]

My brain is all spiders, broken glass, & radioactive waste.
My persona is just me exercising some control over the carnage within.

This is not the Vogon poetry thread. But that was quite beautiful.

 

[Revoltingest]

Oh, gosh....thanx, with feckled bingleworms!

 

[danieldemol]

Totally understand what you're saying here, and yet I don't see all religions as equals. In the first place religions are really the worst when the leaders aren't believers themselves, and that is how I see Scientology. E. Hubbard told his friends that he was going to invent a religion, supposedly. I've never heard of any religion that has a record of its founder saying something like that. A lot of Christian ministers believe their own religion. A lot of Imams believe in Islam, and a lot of Hindu priests believe in the Vedas.

The thing is (and you may find this hard to accept) that you aren't actually the revoltingest.

Is there proof that Jesus & Muhammad didn't once sit around a table with
buds & brewskis making a bar bet about the success of their latest invention?

Lol, that is not how the burden of proof works.

 

[Revoltingest]

Lol, that is not how the burden of proof works.

Hah! Just look closely at some religious beliefs, & then tell me that they weren't some
guy's practical joke on the masses. Any other, less than obvious, origin needs proof.

 

[Sunstone]

Well, Christianity doesn't refer to a single organization, nor can it be said to have definitely been created as a scam.

It is almost certainly true that more than one major branch of Christianity began as a scam. But what would you expect to find, given human nature?

 

[Aquitaine]

My 11 year old mathematician and science freak son left his extension studies course today asking me, "what is scientology"?



I gave him a vague answer based on my (limited) understanding of Scientology along the lines of: Scientology is an American religion started by a writer of science fiction about 100 years ago...they believe amongst other things that all inhabitants of Earth are descendents of aliens that crash landed in volcano at some time in the past.


I didn't have time to explain to my son reasons why I don't think Scientology is a proper religion, which is what I think.



It seems from the information from Wikipedia below that I was somewhat accurate in my description of Scientology today.



Although I personally consider Scientology as not qualifying as a religion, why is Christianity considered any more a religion than Scientology?


In fact, what is a "religion"? Does any personal belief system that may be held qualify?





"The Church of Scientology holds that at the higher levels of initiation ("OT levels"), mystical teachings are imparted that may be harmful to unprepared readers. These teachings are kept secret from members who have not reached these levels. The church says that the secrecy is warranted to keep its materials' use in context and to protect its members from being exposed to materials they are not yet prepared for.[102]

Scientology cruise ship Freewinds


These are the OT levels, the levels above Clear, whose contents are guarded within Scientology. The OT level teachings include accounts of various cosmic catastrophes that befell the thetans.[140] Hubbard described these early events collectively as "space opera".
In the OT levels, Hubbard explains how to reverse the effects of past-life trauma patterns that supposedly extend millions of years into the past.[141] Among these advanced teachings is the story of Xenu (sometimes Xemu), introduced as the tyrant ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy". According to this story, 75 million years ago Xenu brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and detonated hydrogen bombs in the volcanoes. The thetans then clustered together, stuck to the bodies of the living, and continue to do this today. Scientologists at advanced levels place considerable emphasis on isolating body thetans and neutralizing their ill effects"

Simple - Scientology is a religion.

 

[no-body]

Except for the alien story reaching "clear" sounds suspiciously a lot like enlightenment is described by a lot of mystics, Hubbard just borrowed a bunch of stuff from other religions and framed it as a science fiction story.

The fact that you have to pay to get that material and invest your entire life to the group is what makes it a dangerous teaching. You can pick up a bible or any other holy book for free, Scientology won't even let you near any of their writings for free without suing you.