I read an interesting article at BBC News by one of it’s reporters (John Sweeny) who had been doing a documentary on Scientology. During part of the documentary he ended up losing it and shouting at one of the scientologists (who, as he explains, had been goading him for days at this point). The article, though, goes into some depth talking about scientology, and how it’s somewhat akin to a cult.
First, lets talk about what scientology believes. L. Ron Hubbard, a Science Fiction author (famous for Battlefield Earth, which was later turned into a TERRIBLE movie) wrote in the initial documents for Scientology that 75 Million years ago, the Alien Lord Xenu kidnaped Thetans and brought them here to Earth, where they were put into volcanos and blown up by Atomic weapons. I shit you not, they actually believe this. Let me recap, here, this dude was a SCIENCE FICTION WRITER and he started a cult religion based on the premise that an intergalactic space alien lord came here to drop Thetans in volcanos and nuke them. Riiiiiiiiight…
What is interesting about scientology is that, unlike any other organization that claims to be a religion, Scientology requires it’s members to pay copious amounts of money to gain enlightenment. In order to learn more about “the incident” a scientologist would need to pony up at least $100k. Many have spent significantly MORE. Most religions are about spreading the word about them and their beliefs, philosophies , etc. With Scientology, that information is kept as a very tight secret, ostensibly to be able to funnel more money out of their members bank accounts. After all, who is going to pay $100k to learn about stuff that’s freely available?
Sweeny also reported on some interviews he had with family members of scientologists (and even fomer scientologists) who say there is a disconnect between scientologists and their non-scientologist family members. One lady said she’d only had two kids – one died. Her remaining daughter had been very close with her until she joined scientology. When that happened, she spent less and less time with her mother, until one day her mom got a ‘disconnect’ letter that cut off all ties – no christmas cards, no birthday cards, no mothers day cards, no phone calls no visits, etc. Many others reported similar incidents, where family members who joined scientology would completely cut off their family and friends.
So, lets see here – Scientology requires you to pay copious amounts of money, and cut yourself off from your family and friends…. that sure sounds like a cult to me.
Who in their right mind takes that stuff seriously?
[tags] Scientology, BBC, John Sweeny[/tags]
You knows it
Didn’t get to see it, but from what I’ve heard, it sounds like the BBC actually put something worthwhile together for once.
Yeah, I saw a clip later of the BBC Interviewer absolutely losing it and screaming on camera while talking to a scientologist. It was a shame he lost it, as it gave plenty of ammo for the Scientology community.
I bet L. Ron, when writing the founding documents of Scientology was laughing to himself thinking “hah, my grandest scheme yet – I will trick a bunch of n00bs into thinking this sci fi story I wrote is truth…”
what you also should have included in this article, is that L. Ron started the “church” of Scientology to acquire the tax-exempt status it enables. There is simply no way that any Scientologist could explain their “religion” as being anything other than very fancy and organized greed.
Xenu loves you.
and I hate Xenu.
Rolling Stone had a pretty sweet 10-ish page article on Scientology. I forget which issue, but we used it as a topic for an argument and debate class. Definitely some crazy stuff…but I mean Xenu sounds like a bad ass. Something tells me L. Ron got baked one night and just came up with all this shit. However, any religion that thinks Tome Cruise is the next messiah I try and distance myself from.
They think Cruise is the next messiah? Wow. That may just be the most retarded thing i’ve heard in a long time