V-V: The Top 25 People Crippling $cientology

[onager]

Tony Ortega at the Village Voice has been running this article series since August, with frequent updates. This sucker is LONG, but definitely worth reading...especially if you've been thinking you might benefit from a Free Personality Test.

And the gang's all here - from #1, El Ron himself, to #25, Xenu The Galactic Overlord. With fascinating side trips about Co$'s thugs and enforcers, Tom Cruise, and one of the main liabilities of the cult today - its own inept, Internet-deaf top leadership. a/k/a "Operation Bullet Foot."

:rofl:

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/09/l_ron_hubbard_top_25_crippling_scientology.php

[RZM]

1. LOL. Poor Xenu only number 25?

It's hard to blame Xenu, the mighty celestial dictator, for infesting our planet with innumerable hungry alien souls. I mean, what would you do if you were overseeing a galactic federation of planets so overpopulated, each world had something like 150 billion sentient creatures? Obviously, 75 million years ago, contraception was not well known. Or something.

:silly:

[LongTomH]

2. This Xenu dude sounds like really bad Juju!

Seriously, Scientology is a religion started by a science fiction writer and a bad science fiction writer at that! As a friend of mine said: "I wouldn't mind joining a religion started by someone like Kurt Vonnegut."

[pa28]

3. This hits a little too close to home.

My brother is mixed up with a Scientology group called the Sea-Org which is his job 24/7 while he lives in Scientology housing and probably earns little or nothing like he has for the first five years of his billion year contract (yes that's right look it up). My dad spends huge amounts of time and money working up toward "clear" because he treats the philosophy of Hubbard as his religion.

Church comes before family in Scientology and I'm here to tell you mine is badly broken because I had some critical questions and tried to point them toward some titles like "L. Ron Hubbard Messiah or Madman" for perspective. Now I'm "suppressive" and they seem to believe they'll get cancer or become seriously ill if they talk to me.

Whatever.

[snagglepuss]

4. That sounds like a dificult and painful situation. Have you ever checked out

the cult help website?


http://www.culthelp.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=8&id=71&Itemid=12

[hootinholler]

5. Didn't L Ron found this on a bet with Azimov?

That's the rumor I heard, they were at a con and a bet was made and scientology was born.

[edhopper]

7. Not a rumor

I have heard first hand accounts that it is true.

[onager]

6. I'm sorry for you.

Many of us have had friends or relatives who got snared by Co$.

As the V-V articles show, the cult seems to be losing influence rapidly. In the past few years, even some of its highest ranking officers have defected and started telling the truth about it. So there seems to be some hope.

[edhopper]

8. Why is it that religious folk

can see Cof$ for the scam it is and see that it has so many followers none the less. But fail to understand that we can see the same incongruities in their beliefs.

[cleanhippie]

9. I was wondering the same thing. What differentiates a cult from a religion?

The size of the congregation?


It is amazing how believers of one religion can laugh and mock others for being "suckers" and still look at themselves in the mirror.

[Nihil]

10. Historical perspective?

i.e., anything that was made up by people in the last century or so
is viewed as "fake" but once you get to over a thousand years ago,
it gets a veneer of "authenticity"?

:shrug:

Maybe it's to do with the known criminality & lifestyles of certain
"founders" when contrasted to the lack of facts about other "founders"?

:shrug:

Maybe it's down to being more judgemental of others than one should be
if one followed the precepts that one claims to?

:shrug:

Lots & lots of possible reasons but I suspect that the answer (if, in fact,
there is "an answer") is related to hypocrisy & selective justification ...