Can anyone explain Scientology to me?

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Acthung Bubba and 80s:
It's absolutely true, of course, that Christ did not cause any of the turmoil that followed. Though I am no biblical scholar--to say the least
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--I am aware that his views were peaceful, and I extrapolate that he would be as disgusted with the chaos that religion has caused throughout history. I have no issue with Christ himself (beyond that I think him slightly delusional). In fact I think I would agree with him on many points.

80s:

I don't take much stock in miracles, but I'd be interested to hear the essence of Flavius' views.

I thank you both for a respectful discussion--I do recognize the inflammatory nature of my question.
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[This message has been edited by mug222 (edited 01-22-2002).]
 
Anthony:

I apologize if that came across as a generalization (I meant to this nonbeliever). As I said before, I respect Jesus' views, and I believe that he would be as disappointed with many of the results of organized religion as I am.

Secondly, I only equated Scientology with Catholicism as an organized religion. Believe me, I recognize the differences between the two (I have been in closer contact with Scientologists than I would wish on an enemy!) However, I do NOT think the Catholic Church is about the "Love" anymore as much as it is about the money (though admittedly not nearly to the same extent as Scientology).
I've always called the Catholic Church the largest, longest running, and most successful multinational corporation in the history of the world.




[This message has been edited by mug222 (edited 01-22-2002).]
 
Originally posted by 80sU2isBest:
mug222, Jesus Christ is not the cause of these wars and deaths and you know it, if you know His teachings.
If you spent you life preaching about love, and later someone murdered someone and did it in your name, who is the cause - you or the person who claimed to be murdering in your name? Certainly not you, because yopu preach love. That's the exact same thing with Jesus. Just because someone claimed the name of Jesus when waging these wars doesn't mean the person is a real Christian, and it certainly doesn't mean Jesus is teh cause of the wars.

Precisely.



------------------
Love was never a single emotion

-ACROB@T
 
Originally posted by mug222:
Well, to a believer, of course.
rolleyes.gif
To a non-believer, his impact has been negative, being the source of more wars and deaths than perhaps anyone in history. (indirectly, of course. I need not cite many wars founded on religion to prove this point).
Yes, his impact has been more than a 2,000 year old carpenter, and far worse.

ABSOLUTE MYTH.

Now let's add up these figures: Mao killed about 72 million human beings from 1948-1976. When we add the 40 million that Stalin is responsible for we come to 112 million. Throw in Hitler's 15 million (not even counting the war that he started!), and we come to about 127 million. Add other killings by other athestic ideology and you come up with a number of more than 130 million.

If you were to add those dead from the wars of this century, the number would easily jump to 170 million; but in order to compare apples to apples we'll stick with the 130 million figure.

Using the most exaggerated critera and numbers, one could come up with no more than 17 million people killed by professing Christians "in the name of Christ" in twenty centuries of Christian history.

Thus, the number of those killed in the name of the secular state in this century alone is eight times more than our estimate of the number of those killed in the name of Christ in all centuries of the Christian era!


-An excerpt from "What if Jesus had never been born?"-

An excellent and eye opening book, I encougage you to read it if you ever wonder how influential Jesus was.
 
"What if Jesus had never been born?" is a piece of trash. Yes, I've read parts of it. Yes, if you consider Hitler's murders religion-blind you are mistaken. An Aryan nation is not an atheistic nation, and there's that conspicuous absence of Jews.

That book is not to be taken seriously.
 
Originally posted by mug222:
"What if Jesus had never been born?" is a piece of trash. Yes, I've read parts of it. Yes, if you consider Hitler's murders religion-blind you are mistaken. An Aryan nation is not an atheistic nation, and there's that conspicuous absence of Jews.

That book is not to be taken seriously.

A piece of trash? Not to be taken seriously? Care to elaborate on that? Your opinion of any book writen by a Christian author will be that it is biased and therefore inaccurate. Is that you reasoning?

So now that Hitler's millions of dead people don't count, the score is roughly:
Christianity-17 million
Atheism-115 Million
 
I pointed out the mistake on Hitler as exemplative of the constant gloss-overs of that book. Obviously I would completely disregard the entire book (just as you, a Christian, finds it "eye-opening") but even my Christian friends agree that the author takes far too many liberties with history simply in order to prove his thesis--of Jesus' profound beneficial impact on the world, from art (acceptable) to science (laughable). It honestly is a ridiculous book (in my opinion, of course.)

But honestly: you, as a rational human being, cannot seriously believe the total deaths in wars somehow related to Christianity is 17 million. Even Christians that utterly diagree with me on other points cannot truly believe that to be true, right? Right?

[This message has been edited by mug222 (edited 01-23-2002).]
 
Originally posted by mug222:
But honestly: you, as a rational human being, cannot seriously believe the total deaths in wars somehow related to Christianity is 17 million. Even Christians that utterly diagree with me on other points cannot truly believe that to be true, right? Right?

I don't know how many have died and I don't believe anyone was on the sidelines of every war that was involved with Christianity and tallied up how many were dead. The numbers are not all that big of a deal to me, if you want to double the 17 million figure for kicks, fine. 34 million in 2000 years compared to 115 million in 100 years.

The number themselves are not what I'm talking about, it is the fact that your claim of more people dying in the name of Christ than any other being false.

Does that make me 'irrational'? I don't really care, just don't expect to pass myths off as fact.
 
More people have died in the name of Christ than any other. To you it is a "myth", to me it is cold, sad, hard fact.

Can you argue with this statement, considering what you have said already (i.e. "Christianity-17 million"): People have died because of Christianity that otherwise wouldn't have.

I'm not sure how that can be argued with, when we are already discussing the ridiculous discussion of whether 17 million or 34 million or 100 million have died because of Christ. 1 dead because of organized religion, in my eyes, is bad enough.

This will be my last post on the subject, so as not to rile anyone more up. Feel free to take the last word.
 
Originally posted by mug222:
More people have died in the name of Christ than any other. To you it is a "myth", to me it is cold, sad, hard fact.

Can you argue with this statement, considering what you have said already (i.e. "Christianity-17 million"): People have died because of Christianity that otherwise wouldn't have.

I'm not sure how that can be argued with, when we are already discussing the ridiculous discussion of whether 17 million or 34 million or 100 million have died because of Christ. 1 dead because of organized religion, in my eyes, is bad enough.

This will be my last post on the subject, so as not to rile anyone more up. Feel free to take the last word.

I just wanted to know why you consider it fact? Is it a gut feeling? Or do you have actual sources/facts or documentation that
says so?

And as for wars that were started "In the name of Christ", were started by people. Sinful, mortal, selfish, imperfect people. I am no better than those people, but I never have started a war for my own gain and masked it as a cause for Christ. To hold my behavior against God wouldn't really make sense.

Answer me if you like, I'm done.
 
Originally posted by mug222:
Yes, if you consider Hitler's murders religion-blind you are mistaken. An Aryan nation is not an atheistic nation, and there's that conspicuous absence of Jews.

There's also the conspicuous persecution of Catholic priests in Poland, among other pieces of evidence that Adolph Hitler was not, in fact, a Christian.

Either way, you still insist that more people killed in the name of Christ than in any other name. I'm willing to concede that point, if you can tell me why it's relevant.

If what you say is true, it could simply be the result of the great coincidence that the Roman Empire adopted his teachings as faith (see Constantine), and that the Roman way, a ruthless version of Greek enlightenment, conquered the world through its descendents, the nation-states of Western Europe.

It could be the result of the severe corruption of the Great Commission, that Christians are to preach the gospel to the rest of the world.

It could be the result of a great war between God and Satan - in this case, Satan corrupting God's church the way God used the traitorous Judas to His advantage.

In other words, it could mean ANYTHING! Again, those who killed in His name corrupted the message when they did so. Reminding the world that more people wrongly killed in His name DOESN'T invalidate the man or the message.

So, why harp on it?

[This message has been edited by Achtung Bubba (edited 01-23-2002).]
 
Originally posted by kobayashi:
i would agree with you but from an 'end user' perspective, someone can thoroughly enjoy the religion and find solace and happiness or whatever within it, and not want anything more to do with it.
i feel for everyone here who has been 'pursued', i have as well but by a different religion of which i believe some individuals on this board associate themselves with(i am not a part of any sort of religous organization).


Sorry this reply is so late, I meant to respond earlier before this thread turned into a "Christianity is the root of all wars" debate.

Anyhow, for the record, I don't care what people want to worship, or how they choose to worship, or what church they choose to worship in. To sound like a complete hippie, I say live and let live and keep on keeping on.

I don't know if I speak for the majority or the minority here. But I do think many (or at least the ones I have come in contact with during my years) people don't have a problem with the teachings of other faiths, it just the fan club they can't stand.
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What I do have a problem with is the invasiveness of religious recruiters. I don't like them on my doorstep, as I find nothing more insulting and invasive to my privacy and self worth. Let alone most of them overlook the mezzuzah hanging next to my doorframe. I don't like to be approached in a way where it feels like I am being pressured. I don't like to be lied to - as I felt that I was being lied to by the Scientologists that have aprroached me, since their actions were underlined with a serious alterior motive that I found insulting not only to my intelligence, but to my spirituality, and my spiritual heritage.

As I'm older now, I have come in contact with people of many faiths, and people who have no faith at all. They are no less human than the next, and a great deal of them that are secure with their spirituality have found peace and happiness within their faith. That is all fine and good for them - but when it comes to anyone who wants to shove religion down my throat I'll calmly shut the door. The path they have chosen for themselves may not be the path I am ready to walk down yet, or ever. If I have a question, I know where to look for an answer. If I want to pray, I know where to go. I simply don't want or need invasive tactics to fear me into a religion - that is not the fault of the religion itself, but of it's followers even though a lot of the time they have the best intentions in mind.
 
In my personal experience, Scientologists and Moonies are very reluctant to admit who they are, and you have to know what to look for. The Mormons and Jehova's Witnesses (there, I said it) I've met are pushy and annoying too, but at least they stand up for what they believe in.
 
Originally posted by Klodomir:
Moonies are very reluctant to admit who they are,

A college class I took in college visited a Unification Church ("Moonie") compound as part of our study of "New Religions in America."

Of the groups we visited, they were the most pushy; we were scheduled to meet with them mid-morning and stay trhough lunch. However, as none of us had converted by the end of lunch, they decided to extend their information session, even to the point of their head guru asking "so what part of this are you people rejecting?"

And as Klodomir says of them being reluctant to admit who they are, they kept emphasizing themselves as part of Christianity in its final stage.

We had arrived at about 9 in the morning, and by the end of the day, they had kept us there until about 6 p.m. in our sock feet (we had to leave our shoes at the door) and they only fed us some soup and a cookie the whole time. Much to their dismay and surprise, none of us converted.

~U2Alabama
 
Originally posted by Klodomir:
What's the name they also go by, Bama? CARP or something?


I don't recall, but I can tell you that the tactics this guy was using were full of "crap."

The only "CARP" I know of is a large, boney, trash-eating fish that frequents ponds and rivers of the Southern U.S., a holdover from the prehistoric eras.

~U2Alabama
 
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