"Reverend Murray Luther"
«It's not unusual for the Church of Scientology to attack their critics with accusations of slander, fraud, and various other ungodly deeds. Scientologists like to use words like "religious discrimination," when speaking about their critics. The Church is quick to label their opponents as "anti-religious extremists," and members of "hate groups." Because I now publicly oppose their rigid orthodoxy, I suspect that I might get similar treatment. Such is the price of dissent in Scientology. Such is the arrogance of its Church.» «In order to maintain their tyrannical hold over their members, the Church must constantly enforce upon the minds of its members the imperative of complete obedience. This is done through a technique called the "security check." The purpose of this process is to discover if a Scientologist is withholding any disagreements, incidents of policy violations, or any other sort of trespasses against the Church. The procedure involves an elaborate interrogation called a "confessional." It's used mainly to ensure that members never stray from the principles of Scientology.» «Friedman observes, "Christianity and Judaism struggled with this issue for centuries, but a similar internal struggle within Islam to re-examine its texts and articulate a path for how one can accept pluralism and modernity - and still be a passionate, devout Muslim - has not surfaced in any serious way." Much the same could be said about the current scene within the Church of Scientology. While Muslims battle with infidels, Scientologists do battle with theirs. Neither seems willing to coexist with those who disagree with them.» «Hubbard apparently had such a low opinion of the public at large that he didn't believe they had the capacity to make up their own minds. Therefore they have to be told what to do by overbearing Church Registrars who are trained to never take no for an answer. L. Ron Hubbard lays out his attitude towards the public in the Policy Letter, Handling the Public Individual. He arrogantly declares, "We have learned the hard way that an individual from the public must never be asked to DECIDE or CHOOSE."» «Certain Scientologists can get cut a lot of
slack, especially those who make meaningful contributions to the
Church. L. Ron Hubbard coined the term "Ethics Protection" to
describe this principle. He states, ". . .if a staff member is
getting production up by having his own statistic excellent,
Ethics sure isn't interested. . .
In short a staff member
can get away with murder so long as his statistic is up. . ." «Though some critics like to dismiss the Church of Scientology as just another UFO cult, Scientologists are different in one significant way. They don't like to talk about things like the Marcab Confederacy or implant stations, or how Earth is a prison planet that's been used as a dumping ground for interstellar riff-raff. So sensitive are they about their outer space material that they've designated some of it "confidential." You need to be specially qualified before you can learn about the "wall of fire," a great cosmic calamity of galactic proportion and far reaching impact. Revealing this secret knowledge to others will get you summarily expelled from the Church.» «When a Church of Scientology staff member finds himself in disagreement with some aspect of the organization, that person immediately receives "correction." It's a process that I imagine might have been similar to the sort of things that went on with political dissidents in the old Soviet Union. Soviet citizens who couldn't tow the party line always had the option of "re-education." The Soviet Union had re-orientation camps in Siberia; the Church of Scientology has the Rehabilitation Project Force.» «L. Ron Hubbard considered himself a consummate expert on any subject he touched upon. The subject of humor was no exception. In his Policy Letter "Situation Finding," Hubbard claims that humorists really don't have any idea of what they're doing. He said, "Even humorists have no real idea of illogic. Reading their ideas of the theory of humor shows them to be off the mark. They really don't know what is 'funny.'" I guess Hubbard, in all of his in-depth research, never got around to reading the works of Shakespeare, Mark Twain, or Oscar Wilde. And somehow he must have missed the work of two of his contemporaries, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, whose classic humor dates back to Radio and the Golden Age of Television. Hubbard's absurd claim that humorists have no idea of illogic is as unfounded as it is ridiculous. Comedians like George Carlin and Steven Wright can masterfully pit logic and illogic against each other in countless hilarious combinations. Hubbard might have been better advised to leave comedy to the professionals.» |
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