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Scientology has every right to be considered a legitimate religion
Scientology is not respectable because it is intrinsically coercive and unethical.
And Catholicism isn't?
"If you don't believe what we do, you will be tortured forever in Hell" sounds pretty coercive to me.
No, of course the RCC has done terrible things. I regard them as the inevitable consequence of any person or organization, religious or secular, acquiring too much unrestrained power.
Then what on earth is the point of giving the special distinction of "religion" and all of its benefits to any organization, versus just calling all of them cults?
If the RCC and the CoS are destined to act in the same manner, as you say here, then that further shows why the making a distinction between them is splitting hairs.
John Travolta flies medical supplies – and volunteer ministers – into the earthquake-hit Port-au-Prince
By Kim Sengupta in Port-au-Prince
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
The "phenomenon" has landed to bring relief to the dispossessed of Haiti. John Travolta was in the pilot's seat of his Boeing 707 flying in doctors, medical supplies, ready-to-eat military rations – and Scientology ministers.
Travolta's visit – which the star called Operation Phenomenon – is not the first Scientologist trip to Haiti since the shattering earthquake a fortnight ago: there are already 150 members in Haiti, as well as 250 medical staff. Soon the group hopes to have 400 of each in place.
"Our volunteers are coming from all over," said Frank Suarez, one of dozens of yellow T-shirt-wearing members who have set up a camp at a gym in the capital, Port-au-Prince. "The need is huge."
Whatever the intentions of the volunteers, Travolta's trip has reignited controversy over the management of supplies into the airport, and Scientology's broader aims in Haiti.
Critics point out that while the actor was able to fly in 7,000lb of medical supplies, aid groups have been forced to wait because of congestion. Doctors Without Borders say the priorities decided by US military controllers have led to deaths. At least 800 relief planes are currently on the waiting list.
But Travolta was adamant about the trip yesterday. With his actress wife, Kelly Preston, at his side, he said: "We have the ability to actually make a difference in Haiti, and I just can't see not using this plane to help."
On the ground in Port-au-Prince, the situation remained desperate. Hours before Travolta's flying visit, a mini riot broke out in front of the collapsed presidential palace where food was being distributed.
The jostling 4,000-strong crowd took no notice of the 18 Uruguayan UN peacekeepers waving pepper spray under their noses or firing rubber bullets into the air. Asked why they were not trying to calm people by talking to them, one soldier cried: "Whatever we do, it doesn't matter – they are animals."
Medicine was not in much greater supply than food. But a group of Scientologists working in the hospital courtyard shrugged off the shortages, saying they were healing patients through "the power of touch to reconnect nervous systems". Sylvie, a French woman, said: "We are trained as volunteer ministers, we use a process called 'assist' to follow the nervous system to reconnect the main points."
One 22-year-old whose leg had been amputated, Oscar Elweels, received the touch treatment on his remaining damaged leg. What did he know about Scientology? It was, he responded, a French charity.
Doctors were sceptical. "I didn't know touching could heal gangrene," one said. L Ron Hubbard, founder of the group, once wrote about a technique called "casualty contact", which sought to exploit disasters as recruiting opportunities, but warned his followers against portraying them as such to outsiders.
The Scientology spokeswoman Linda Hight said yesterday that such an attitude was unduly cynical. "They're definitely not there to talk about Scientology," she said. "The volunteer ministers have tremendous organisational skills, they haul water, they build latrines."
'Casualty Contact': The Hubbard method
L Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, said the following about recruiting followers in times of tragedy:
"Every day in the daily papers one discovers people who have been victimised... [The Scientologist] should enter the presence of the person and give a nominal assist, leave his card which says where church services are held with the statement that a much fuller recovery is possible by coming to free services... Handling the press he should simply say that it is a mission of the church to assist those in need."
February, 1956
"Casualty contact is very old, is almost never tried and is almost always roaringly successful... This is a pretty routine drill really. You get permission to visit. You go in and give patients a cheery smile. You want to know if you can do anything for them, you give them a card and tell them to come around to your group... Your statement, 'the modern scientific church can cure things like that. Come around and see' will work. It's straight recruiting!"
September, 1959
Interesting how he's managed to jump straight to the front of the queue and fly a massive plane in at the expense of other charities, including RCC ones.
Is Scientology more powerful than the Roman Catholic Church!?
I can't say for certain, but I'd wager that a lot of Haiti's medical infrastructure is there because the RCC put it there. In a sense, we've been there for centuries.
Of course, being responsible for the past few centuries of Haitian medicine isn't something to write home about.
Most people on this forum, including the religiously afflicted, scoff and make fun of Scientology as if it is not a real religion. I don't understand why this is, because I honestly don't find it any less plausible than one of the so-called major religions, such as Christianity, or Islam.
After all, no one has conclusively proved that Dianetics less believable than, say the Bible?
Well, neither was jesus driving a hummer - it all depends on when an religion is invented
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Scientology is not a religion like any other. It is a predatory cult. It actively harms its followers (except for the Hollywood baits). The purpose of the Catholic Church is not to bleed you of all you money. That is the purpose of the Church of Scientology.
How many people would continue to believe in Scientology if there were no money involved?
Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...
Scientology is not a religion like any other. It is a predatory cult. It actively harms its followers (except for the Hollywood baits). The purpose of the Catholic Church is not to bleed you of all you money. That is the purpose of the Church of Scientology.
I'd say that the Catholic Church has proved itself more than capable of bleeding people of all their money (or land!) in the past - so I don't think that argument holds up.
How many people would continue to believe in Scientology if there were no money involved?
So, are you saying that if the Church of Scientology didn't ask people for money, they wouldn't believe in it...!?
I think you need to join CoS and tell us what it really is like, as we have no representatives here
Socrates: "Good is That at which all things aim, If one knows what the good is, one will always do what is good." Brian: "Romanes eunt domus"
GW 2013: "and juistin bieber is gay with me and we have 10 kids we live in u.s.a in the white house with obama"
if you do, I will be the second member, and hopefully it will inculde some sort of pyramid scheme to collect the funds...
Socrates: "Good is That at which all things aim, If one knows what the good is, one will always do what is good." Brian: "Romanes eunt domus"
GW 2013: "and juistin bieber is gay with me and we have 10 kids we live in u.s.a in the white house with obama"
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