L. Ron Dingus

[QUALTHWAR]

Over a year ago, I interviewed at this place for a job and found out they were Scientologists who subscribe to the beliefs of L. Ron Hubbard. They have emailed me several times since then about a job, but I keep turning them down. They just don’t get the hint. So today when I replied to their email, I didn’t say anything, but I pasted some info I found on the internet for them to look over.

Let’s see if they get the hint now.

"THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CONTROL PEOPLE IS TO LIE TO THEM. You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody
is to lie to them."
-- L. Ron Hubbard, "Technique 88"

"Scientology...is not a psycho-therapy nor a religion."
- L. Ron Hubbard's "Creation of Human Ability" p251

"Better than 90 percent of what my father has written about himself is
untrue."
- Ron deWolf, son of L. Ron Hubbard

"Consider this officer lacking in the essential qualities of judgment,
leadership and cooperation. He acts without forethought as to probable
results... Not considered qualified for command or promotion at this time.
Recommend duty on a large vessel where he can be properly supervised."
- US Navy Fitness Report Reprimanding Lt. L. Ron Hubbard, 1943

"This volume probably contains more promises and less evidence per page than
has any publication since the invention of printing."
- Review of "Dianetics", Scientific American, 1951

 

[Nachimir]

They tend to focus lots of attention on anyone who criticises them publicly. I assume you've seen Operation Clambake?

Scientologists are absolute doofuses who are also one of the richest cults around. Tom Cruise, John Travolta and quite a few other celebrities are among their ranks. I think it snares some people because it's something akin to a highly weakened derivative of psychotherapy fortified with bullsh*t.

 

[QUALTHWAR]

Yeah, they're a fine group.

 

[Cat Fuzz]

Ask them about Zenu and the fire spirits, or something.

 

[QUALTHWAR]

If I understand the main concept of scientology, you are supposed to follow a path of self improvement. But this means everyone in the group doing basically the same stuff. If you take away individuality, you stifle the pool of creationism because you get a bunch of people thinking the same way. It’s like everybody walking the same path and no one seeing anything different.

Many great works of literary and visual art have been done by drunks. If those people had reached a higher plain through self improvement, those great works may never have happened.

 

[GMotha]

Alcohol could be the medium to guide us to real self-improvement.

 

[Frostblood]

I really wish that a scientologist would accost me in the street and try and convert me. He wouldn't get out of that with his beliefs intact...but sadly no-one has tried

 

[Nachimir]

If I understand the main concept of scientology, you are supposed to follow a path of self improvement. But this means everyone in the group doing basically the same stuff.

In the case of Scientologists, yes. Self-improvement screws up the moment it incorporates an ideology, because it's a highly individual thing. If a Maasai hunter, a real estate saleman and a social worker all decide to self-improve in their given contexts without a cult or some other ideology/organisation directing them, they're starting out with radically different different capacities and personalities, and will finish that way too.

A question that sometimes got asked within the Jehovah's Witness community I grew up in (where they supposed one day people would be "perfect like Adam and Eve") was "When everybody is pefect, won't it be boring because everyone'll be the same?". The question simultaneously misunderstands what it means to be "better", while saying something really significant about cults in general: on some level, I think those people understood that their individuality was being hoovered up by an ideology.

The drunks you cite were very good at their respective artistic pursuits, which in themselves are a form of self development. Often those creative drunkards were/are very tormented individuals who have trouble reconciling themselves with their surrounding culture (I think that's probably why their work attained greatness: it was right on the periphery of culture, and as such showed people things that were relevant but also new or unexplored). Not all such people turn to intoxicants. Great works of art aren't inspired by alcohol, though they can arise from altered states (Really bad works of art can too, and do so more commonly .

Art, fashion, the humanities, etc, are all often slagged off as dropout subjects, but pretty much everything about our cultures has been processed by them in some way. Also, they're often a far better path of self-development than, for instance, an office job, or sitting on a phone selling Scientology books

 

[Cat Fuzz]

I really wish that a scientologist would accost me in the street and try and convert me. He wouldn't get out of that with his beliefs intact...but sadly no-one has tried

Get filthy rich, then they'll want to recruit you.

 

[GoAt]

Self-improvement is masturbation.

 

[QUALTHWAR]

So much to say and I don’t feel like spending the time to type it. I think what’s most disturbing is that I agree with goat the most.

One way to see where something is going is to take it to the extreme. Let’s say you have this cult where everybody is supposed to follow the same rules. It’s not that they are “supposed” to follow the same rules that’s a problem, but that they “do” all follow the same rules in my example. They all decide to get together to live in the mountains as one huge community where they can live their lives without persecution. All of a sudden a huge meteor crashes down from the sky and kills them all.

They died because they went against nature and nature is too powerful a force to manipulate on the large scale. People weren’t meant to all be in the same place, or we wouldn’t have any legs. Nature wants the population to expand to increase the gene pool and reduce the affects of interbreeding. Nature wants DIVERSITY, and rules and structure can compromise this diversity, but it’s resilient enough as long as the rules aren’t overwhelmingly rigid. Enter the concept of a cult with a rigid structure.

I was once asked by a job interviewer what I thought about working in an environment where there is disagreement. It told him that if I ever found myself surrounded by a large group of people who all thought the same why, I was probably standing in the middle of a cult.

Scientologists like to consider themselves involved in a religion, why? Because religions are tax exempt in many cases; it’s business, pure and simple. If anyone disagrees with that, they are ignoring the fact that scientology leaders are filthy rich. They are ignoring the fact that the scientology members are supposed to give a great deal of valuable things to the organization. Not valuable in the sense that you donate your time, but you donate monetary stuff. That should send up a red flag right there. Want another red flag? L. Ron himself says that scientology is not a religion. (see quote in first post) I wonder if the amount of monetary donations influences your ability to move up the scientology tree. If so, there’s another red flag.

 

[Nachimir]

Self-improvement is masturbation.

Nothing wrong with masturbation.

 

[QUALTHWAR]

except that blindness thing

 

[Nachimir]

It's a lie.

So is the "getting arthritis from cracking your knuckles" thing.

 

[QUALTHWAR]

mmmm, must be some other reason why my eyesight is waning

 

[GoldenMouse]

Had to shave this morning. My hands were getting too fuzzy.

 

[Nachimir]

Funnily enough, if adolescents don't masturbate the development of sexual capacities is inhibited. Masturbation is indeed self-development.

I suspect Scientologists are only wankers in the metaphorical, pejorative sense though.

 

[Mister_Prophet]

I still dunno what scientology really is. I always fall asleep whenever someone tries to explain it to me.

 

[Balton]

I still dunno what scientology really is. I always fall asleep whenever someone tries to explain it to me.

A recent southpark episode explains scientologies' belief quite well... and manages to be funny at the same time.

 

[Mister_Prophet]

Leave it South Park. I must have missed that episode.