MERGED-> Tom Cruise and Scientology freak me out + Video protest

[U2isthebest]

I do, you don't.

dbs

Well, would you explain, please? I really am wondering how those particular Scriptures are relevant to the topic.

 

[maycocksean]

Well, would you explain, please? I really am wondering how those particular Scriptures are relevant to the topic.

For real.

I looked up the verses and I don't see the relevance.

 

[BVS]

Diamond does this all the time. He'll post some irrelevant scripture and never explain, even when kindly asked...

One would think that you would want to elaborate, explain, teach when it comes to scripture and not keep it a secret...

 

[fly so high!]

He must be a scientologist....if we want to know more we will have to pay for it. He has quoted Corthinians as a sign to his other scientologist buddies to hurry up and board the Xenu spaceship.

 

[coemgen]

Yeah, I'm sorry diamond, but using that verse doesn't really make sense. The verse talks about people who are not ready for the deeper spiritual talk, so, the argument could be made, that diamond, in using this verse, is saying nathan1977 doesn't see the light and that Hindus and Buddhists DO forcibly sequester their followers away from family, friends and loved ones, hide‘secret theologies' and force people to pay for higher levels of understanding, and stalk, harass and legally prosecute anyone who disagrees with them.

 

[indra]

Yeah, I'm sorry diamond, but using that verse doesn't really make sense. The verse talks about people who are not ready for the deeper spiritual talk...

I think it means diamond thinks all the rest of us are heathens because in his view we "are not ready for the deeper spiritual talk" (as coemgen put it) while he is.

* edited to add: I should note I think of someone such as diamond thinking of me as a heathen is a compliment, not a slur.

 

[Vincent Vega]

I do, you don't.

dbs

And I don't care. Obviously, you are the only one who sees a connection anyways.

 

[melon]

What do those verses have to do with anything being discussed here?

"Brothers, I could not talk to you as spiritual people, but as fleshly people, as infants in Christ. I fed you milk, not solid food, because you were unable to take it. Indeed, you are still not able, even now." - 1 Corinthians 3:1-2

The Corinthians desire a sort of wisdom dialogue or colloquy with Paul; they are looking for solid, adult food, and he appears to disappoint their expectations. Paul counters: if such a dialogue has not yet taken place, the reason is that they are still at an immature stage of development (cf 1 Cor 2:6).

Spiritual people . . . fleshly people: Paul employs two clusters of concepts and terms to distinguish what later theology will call the "natural" and the "supernatural." (1) The natural person (1 Cor 2:14) is one whose existence, perceptions, and behavior are determined by purely natural principles, the psyche (1 Cor 2,14) and the sarx (flesh, a biblical term that connotes creatureliness, 1 Cor 3:1, 3). Such persons are only infants (1 Cor 3:1); they remain on a purely human level (anthropoi, 1 Cor 3:4). (2) On the other hand, they are called to be animated by a higher principle, the pneuma, God's spirit. They are to become spiritual (pneumatikoi, 1 Cor 3:1) and mature (1 Cor 2:6) in their perceptions and behavior (cf Gal 5:16-26). The culmination of existence in the Spirit is described in 1 Cor 15:44-49.

So I guess diamond is claiming that he's a "mature" Christian, and the rest of you are too "immature" to get him?

 

[melon]

Go Maude

Why don't we start bashing Hindus and Buddhists next?

Because gay bashing is easier on your part?

 

[BVS]

So I guess diamond is claiming that he's a "mature" Christian, and the rest of you are too "immature" to get him?

But who he quoted, how he quoted, and the context is very odd, even for Diamond. Maybe he hasn't been of his right mind since Mitt quit...

 

[U2isthebest]

"Brothers, I could not talk to you as spiritual people, but as fleshly people, as infants in Christ. I fed you milk, not solid food, because you were unable to take it. Indeed, you are still not able, even now." - 1 Corinthians 3:1-2



So I guess diamond is claiming that he's a "mature" Christian, and the rest of you are too "immature" to get him?

When I looked up those verses, (because I'm not a mature enough Christisan to have them memorized ) I was really confused. The way I've always intepreted them is similar to that of the quote you posted, and I really did not see a connection to what was being discussed. I guess your conjecture is the one to go with at this point.

 

[neil c]

VIDEO: Worldwide Protest Against Scientology

http://www.dailymotion.com/SA-Anonymous/video/7313668

 

[diamond]

Because gay bashing is easier on your part?

I think it odd that some define their sexuality equivalent to their religious convictions.

I bash no one on their sexuality.

dbs

 

[BVS]

No, you just tell them they can be deprogrammed.

 

[VintagePunk]

One reporter's account of events that occurred during and after his time reporting about Scientology, as well as his speculations about Scientology's reactions to recent protests:

Bonokoski: Passing of Hubbard has mellowed Scientology
By MARK BONOKOSKI -- Sun Media
The Toronto Sun



"Spot who is attacking us. Start feeding lurid, blood, sex, crime, actual evidence on the attackers to the press. Don't ever submit. Make it rough, rough on the attackers all the way."

-- L. Ron Hubbard, Founder The Church of Scientology

The passive response by the Church of Scientology to the so-called global protest launched against it over the weekend -- with 200 (mostly) masked pickets gathering Sunday outside the religious movement's Toronto headquarters on Yonge St. -- suggests one of two possibilities.

Either the church has become tame with its celebrity-drenched fame, or it is gone into strategic withdrawal in hopes that its latest critics, the Internet collective called Anonymous, will soon enough fade away.

For it is not the game it used to play when L. Ron Hubbard called the shots, and figuratively sent out the attack dogs on anyone with a disparaging word.

When Scientology first began to appear large on the horizon here back in the mid-70s, cult-like and secretive, I wrote a nine-part series on the controversial movement, with the many miles logged including the infiltration of a Scientology convention in California where L. Ron Hubbard, still very much alive but out of public view, turned down an interview request via a hand-written note.

STARTED IN FLORIDA

The series began its documentation in Clearwater, Fla., where the church has used a front organization to purchase, as its East Coast headquarters, the city's then 50-year-old, 272-room landmark, the majestic Fort Harrison Hotel, for $2.3 million in cash money.

In the early months, the church even posted guards dressed in black at virtually every turn -- each armed with Mace and a billy club.

As Clearwater's mayor, Gabe Casares, told me at the time, "My city has been invaded by aliens involved in psycho-terrorism.

"They can sue me to hell and back," he said. "I don't know of any religion that sanctions lying, cheating, and intimidation as part of its doctrinal tenets, (and so) I question them being recognized as a religion.

"And why would an organization that professes to be a religious organization based on love and trust require so many guards?

"It's an armed camp."

In the lead-up to the series, and in the wake of its publication, a number of strange things happened, and that's besides the church attempting to get a court injunction to stop publication, as well as the resulting lawsuits which had the church predictably suing the Sun for libel, and me suing the church for invasion of privacy.

The extensive Scientology file in the Sun's library suddenly went missing from its lock up, and so too did the Scientology file and Scientology-related documents at the Sun's law firm, Goodmans.

Then, a letter I had written to a reporter at the Clearwater Sun, who was also writing on Scientology, was intercepted by a Scientologist working as a plant in the Florida newspaper's mail room.

That letter would surface years later following raids by the FBI on offices of the Church of Scientology which were specifically carried out to search for evidence of conspiracies by the church to steal government documents and obstruct justice.

The intercepted letter, in fact, was part of evidence presented to a U.S. District Court in Washington in 1980, and quoted in a state's brief regarding an "eyes only" Scientology report giving props to one of its operatives for securing the letter from the Clearwater Sun's mail room.

"This was a letter incriminating of Canadian entheta (meaning critical) reporter Mark Bonokoski," the Scientology memo stated, noting that their operative at the Clearwater Sun had since been "pulled out" of the newspaper, and sent to lay low in Los Angeles in the event of a U.S. postal investigation into the theft.

It was the theft of that letter, in fact, that was the foundation of my invasion of privacy counter suit against Scientology -- the final result being, and this is after hours of discovery testimony, that they drop their libel suit against the Sun, and I drop my suit against them.

And that's just the short-form version of events.In Toronto over the weekend, it was a love-in by comparison.

The protesters -- many wearing the Guy Fawkes masks popularized in the movie, V for Vendetta -- were aggravated by Scientology's supposedly aggressive efforts to rid the Internet of a video of their most celebrated adherent, actor Tom Cruise, laughing like a an addled banshee while extolling the virtues of Scientology, although he was no more arrogant and self-righteous than some florid TV evangelist threatening hell and damnation to a captive audience of elderly shut-ins glued to his mail-me-the-money ministry.

Still, Cruise is the church's marquee player, while other Hollywood stars like John Travolta and Kelly Preston have tended to prefer a lower profile, remaining "somewhere in the vicinity of (their) body," as one of my favourite Scientology T-shirts used to read, and therefore away from the fray of public postulation.

LOW KEY

The Scientology response to the trashing of Cruise, and the weekend protest itself, was surprisingly low key. The protesters carried their pickets, and shouted out their slogans -- all as the Scientologists peered passively out their window of the Yonge St. HQ.

Rev. Yvette Shank, identified as Scientology's Canadian president, could only get herself worked up enough to call the protesters "bigots," and to accuse the Anonymous collective of engaging in "hate mongering" and "religious hate crimes."

"We do what we do and they do what they do," she said, indicating there was no point stepping outside to talk to the throng.

Why? "Because I don't think it is affecting anyone at all," said Shank.

L. Ron Hubbard's mortal body, but supposedly not his thetan or immortal spirit, cashed in its chips on Jan. 24, 1986. It was 74.

Back in Hubbard's day, however, the response to global protesters would not have been so muted, not if done by his book.

"I can make Capt. Bligh look like a Sunday school teacher," Hubbard once wrote to his adherents. "There is probably no limit on what I would do to safeguard Man's only road to freedom against persons who seek to stop Scientology.

"The world's ours. Own it."

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Features/2008/02/12/4841885-sun.html

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

In this clip, two members from the "Citizens Commission On Human Rights," an advocacy group established by the Church of Scientology, explain that psychiatry caused the 9/11 attacks.

Larry Byrnes, the host of the "No Drug Show," and his guest David Figueroa, claim that psychiatrists knowingly turn people into "killing machines" using drugs, and that in Bin Laden's case it was Ayman al-Zawahiri, his second in command, who led him astray as his psychiatrist. In fact, Ayman al-Zawahiri is an eye surgeon.

YouTube - Scientology bullshit: PSYCHIATRISTS Caused 9/11 and Other Suicide Bombers!

 

[BVS]

I thought it was called the "no drug" show? That dude's high as a kite...

 

[purpleoscar]

I think Scientologists hate psychiatry because they look at it as competition.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Crack is whack

He doesn't even have his facts straight but he believes it all the same

 

[diamond]

Well at least theyre not saying the US Govt did it.

And he is correct terrorists are brainwashed amd evil.

<>

 

[purpleoscar]

YouTube - Scientology: Inside a Church of Scientology

They just rip off Buddhism/Christianity/Psychoanalysis/Philosophy

The reactive mind is just what psychologists call schemas which are internal inhibitions and self-talk that limits your choices. These are based on habits. Aristotle already talked about habits way before LRH. With meditation (which is free YAY) you can do self-therapy. In fact some psychological therapy methods are simplified meditation techniques without the "B" word.

The human mind has fight or flight responses when dealing with people and those who can control it better can stay in the present moment (Eric tolle is another rip-off artist). Our minds can habitually replay bad scenes from the past in our lives over and over again interfering with your concentration. Our concentration can be interfered with when we imagine what negative things can happen into the future as well. Since we live in the present moment we can train, AKA create new habits, to change our lives so we pay attention to our choices in life and react less. This could be called self-discipline. All you would do is think of a healthier habit and force yourself to do it repeatedly until enough repetitions and time make it second nature. I'm sure ex-smokers to teach people a lesson or two.

When you practice meditation one of the basic methods is to stay in the present moment with attention is to follow your breath. Normally your mind will daydream onto other topics based on habits. By non-judgmentally bringing your attention back on the breath you are practicing concentration. This naturally over time will help you deal with emotion and recurring negative self-talk. When you make choices in life it's in the present moment and being less emotionally reactive and improving your attention span you can create a new habit of thinking before reacting to things. This of course is very helpful and can create feelings of peace with yourself. If you take those pleasant feelings and attribute them to magical powers or religious superstition you can see how people don't give themselves enough credit for their self-discipline efforts and how ego-maniacal cult leaders would love to take the credit for you. If you believe that you are infected by alien personalities and attribute your negative self-talk to other beings inside you that must be one hell of a mindfuck.

The best thing is to get a library card (much cheaper) or go to bookstores and read non-fiction books covering the humanities. Especially general books when you are starting. If you are curious you should have the motivation and energy to study different points of view in philosophy, science, and politics. This will give you the ability to COMPARE points of view so when a religion comes along you aren't so ignorant as to fall into it. Ignorance is a large challenge for all human beings, and we all look to each other for help. Many humans love conformism and to join groups that purport to solve your problems or to have the magic bullet to relieve pain. Like with any desire there are many people who would like to make money off of your weaknesses/desires. If you are well read you will naturally be more skeptical of some of the wild claims that are made.

YouTube - Scientology: Inside the Cult

YouTube - Egomania - Documentary [part 1]

It's good to study narcissism if you want to understand cult leaders. L. Ron Hubbard was a cult leader. Narcissists would love a job where they can do "auditing" and tell you whats wrong with you and manipulate you. Narcissists have big egos and to be able to "audit" someone would give them ENORMOUS narcissist supply and sadistic pleasure. Since hollywood stars have big egos it's no surprise that they would be attracted to something like Scientology. Narcissists often will use the excuse of unrelenting standards that they put on themselves and then push on others. Look at Tom Cruise's Scientology video interview and he'll admit to that. Egotistic people have grandiose opinions of themselves and any criticism must be destroyed. I would never criticize Tom Cruise in front of him for fear of some backlash and private investigators causing trouble for me.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

The controversial Church of Scientology is reportedly under investigation by the FBI. According to an article in The New Yorker, the church is being investigated in connection with human trafficking and enslavement allegations. The article also includes an interview with ex-member and Oscar-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis.

Paul Haggis Vs. the Church of Scientology : The New Yorker

 

[Canadiens1131]

The controversial Church of Scientology is reportedly under investigation by the FBI. According to an article in The New Yorker, the church is being investigated in connection with human trafficking and enslavement allegations. The article also includes an interview with ex-member and Oscar-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis.

Paul Haggis Vs. the Church of Scientology : The New Yorker

It's an excellent interview, worth the read.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I wanted to read it but my printer ran out of black ink last night (I think Tom Cruise might have been behind that..hmmm) and it's just way too much eye strain for me to read that much off my computer screen.

I do want to read it asap.

 

[nathan1977]

The New Yorker article is excellent. So is this expose in Rolling Stone:

Inside Scientology | Rolling Stone Culture

As well as this (archived) story from Time:

Scientology: 'Religion' a Thriving Cult of Greed, Power - TIME