Re: [Marxism] scientology

[Jon Cloke <copito61@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My favourite religion is Madonna's one, the Kabollocks. I mean, any religion
that can persude people to part with $20 for a piece of red string to wrap
round their wrist, on the pretence that it'd been wrapped round the tomb of
Rachel when in fact it got mass-produced in an EPZ somewhere in Shenzen
province, gets my vote. For perhaps the only time in his life L Ron Hubbard
was 100% right when he said that to make real money you had to start a
religion, wasn't he?

2009/6/19 bkelly <kellyr818@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

> Not to beat the Scientology horse to death, but.....
>
> One difference between Christian stories of the virgin birth, snakes in
> the garden, etc and Scientology's strange sci-fi theology is that
> Scientology attempts to keep these beliefs secret from new initiates.
> Scientologists progress through a series of levels. It is only after a
> lot of indoctrination (and many dollars) that the scientologist is
> considered "ready" to be introduced to the secrets of the sect. People
> start by working on problems in their own life via Dianetics, are moved
> gradually to working on problems from "past" lives, and by the time they
> are considered "ready", are working on problems encountered in the life
> of aliens from outer space called "thetans" who have landed on their body.
>
> I don't know very much about Falun Gong, so can't say whether it has the
> legitimacy problems that Scientology does. Scientology was born of
> expediency. Hubbard had gotten in trouble for basically practicing
> medicine without a license in the early days of Dianetics, and the
> "religion" of Scientology was created shortly after the Feds started
> looking at his operation.
>
> I worked closely with a couple of Scientologists at one time and
> couldn't figure out why these 2 bright guys were involved in it (they
> were high-level Scientologists...privy to the sects "higher" teachings.)
> So I read up on it. To be fair, I read Hubbard's Dianetics. It's junk
> and Hubbard is a /horrible/ writer. I also read some stuff from
> ex-Scientologists who speak about their experience in the sect. There
> were some real horror stories. I also found that the organization can be
> quite ruthless to its critics (especially ex-members). If anyone is
> interested, there's a website called Operation Clambake <www.xenu.net/>
> that has links to many critical articles.
>
> The killer for Scientology is that in recent years, its secrets have
> leaked out. That has hurt the organization more than anything any
> government has done to date. The "church" tried every legal trick in the
> book to prevent this from happening. They failed. Now the Xenu story and
> the rest of the space opera theology has shown up on the Comedy Channel
> among other places. My guess is the "religion" of Scientology is on the
> way to being  laughed out of existence. That's a fate it dearly deserves.
>
> Muneeb Sikander wrote:
> > i hope this does not offend any1...People think scientology is crazy but
> the virgin birth of christ,The talking snake thats all normal please...Its
> just that scientology takes things to the next level makes it even
> crazier...
> >
> >
> >> From: sabocat59@xxxxxxx
> >> Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:37:27 +0000
> >> Subject: Re: [Marxism] scientology
> >> To: muneebsikander@xxxxxxxxxxx
> >>
> >> Einde O'Callaghan wrote:
> >>
> >> n China the persecution of a new religion "Falun Gong" is considered to
> be religious persecution by Western governemnts, some of whom are beginning
> to behave in exactly the same manner with regard to Scientology.
> >> ____________________
> >>
> >> Any serious student of Chinese Martial Arts, or Wushu, knows that Falun
> Gong is simply a recomposition of ancient Chi Gong energy cultivation
> exercises which have always been a part of soft martial arts such as T'ai
> Chi Chuan, Bhaguazang, etc. They are a simplification and repitition of
> basic practice sets, and involve seated meditation as well.  What is new is
> the social network, but then Chinese history is replete with examples of
> secret martial arts societies which have posed challenges to the central
> Confucian authorities.  Nothing new here at all.
> >>
> >> Greg--from the Berkshire Woods
> >> Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
> >>
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