What's scientology?

Question

What is this and why are people so annoyed with it?

Answer 1

It is a religion that was established in 1952 by L. Ron Hubbard who is a science fiction writer.

Answer 2

Scientology is a religion created in the 50's by a man named Hubbard. People are annoyed with it because only rich celebrites are scientologists. You also need to be invited to be a member of the "church"

It's really just a bunch of bs, becuase you need to work your way up in the rank in the church to actually learn about the "secrets" of the religion. Most likely it's just a front for drug smuggling and child porn.

Answer 3

It's a religion created by L. Ron Hubbard, as others have mentioned. The reason he said he developed it was b/c religions are tax-exempt so, he said the best way to keep all the money he made from his Sci-Fi writing was to start his own religion.

Its basis is that an alien named Xenu brought a bunch of aliens to earth 300,000 years ago b/c his three planets were overpopulated. When he got here, the story goes, he dumped the aliens into a volcano where they blew up and became spirits which, nowadays, he said, they attach themselves to people.

To get rid of these mean spirits, Scientologists have to "audit," which means another person guides them to remember painful memories in order to cleanse their spirit of the bad memories.

Most of the people you hear complaining about the religion are people who are former Scientologists who were bilked out of hundreds of thousands of dollars and who, when they left the "religion," were no longer allowed to contact or be contacted by their family or friends who are still Scientologists.

It's a cult. They brainwash members and take their money.

Lots of good links on the web. One below.

Answer 4

Scientology is a belief system that the US government has identified and approved as a religion. It is based on the writings of L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer. Since one of its tenets of faith is Darwin's Theory of evolution, and since the constitution says Congress shall make no law promoting one religion over another, there has been a lot of discussion over what should be taught as the origin of man. Creationists have one belief, scientologists have another, neither is proven, but Darwinism is taught in the public schools while creation is left out. My stand, both or neither, but get over it.

Answer 5

It is a "pay as you go" religion founded in th '60s' by a science fiction writer, L Ron Hubbard as a way to make money when his writting skills dried up.

Answer 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology

I guess Tom Cruise has annoyed a lot of people with his antics---- I wonder why he didn't act like that when he and Nicole Kidman adopted those precious children???

Answer 7

The Church of Scientology was a cult created by L Ron Hubbard from the 1950's after he released a book called "Dianetics". This was a book which reported to overhaul mental health & the way medical practioners look at and heal the body. Needless to say the book didn't do this, and its methods don't work any more than a placebo would if at all. It is constantly referred to as a pseudo-science and sometimes just pure quackery!

Wikipedia has a good introduction to their beliefs
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/scientology
And doesn't just get caught up in Chuch propaganda but actually tells the truth based on the evidence available being a neutral site.

You have to understand that it is a cult and it uses mind/social control techniques to gain, keep & manipulate its members into doing whatever 'the group' wants them to. The also outright lie to new members to get them to join the group, before telling them the more wierd stuff of scientology.

Essentially though, if you didn't read wikipedia, they believe man has an immortal soul (a thetan), that reincarnates. They believe you get engrams when your unconscious (a sound or feeling lodged in your 'reactive' mind) that cloud your judgements and can even cause physical pain. Getting rid of your engrams by auditing will alleviate all your problems, and alongside learning all the Scientology Tech they tell you, you will become better at pratically everything in your life - but this has never been substantiated in 50+ years. The one study done said it did not benefit people.

Here is a small article on the methods used:
http://www.clambake.org/archive/techniques/

Here is the study done near the release of dianetics:
http://www.clambake.org/archive/fischer/

You do not learn about Xenu (the alien part) until you are fully indoctrinated into the Church, and by this point you will pretty much believe anything they tell you after repeated exposure to mind and social control techniques.
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/xenu

Xenu was a intergalatic space lord who had an overpopulation problem, so took many aliens from various planets and blew them up in various volcanoes over the earth. However the souls were all travelling upward and would have escaped and returned. Therefore Xenu took them all to implant stations and brainwashed them till they forgot who they were and filled them with issues, problems and contradictions. At this point the R6 Implant was also introduced which hubbards explanation for all religions, esp. Jesus - that it is an implant by Xenu and not real at all (despite telling new members it is compatible with their faith!).

The alien thetans were so confused they could no longer leave earth and were trapped, and came and attached themselves to mankind. So according to scientology we are literally covered in these Body Thetans as they are called. So the higher levels of scientology concentrate on this knowledge and removing the Body Thetans by auditing them. (if you think about this, that means they audit themselves, and talk to themselves the whole time, while believing they are talking to a little alien soul inside their body - now does that sound a healthy practise to you!)

Or here watch it South Park style:
http://www.xenutv.com/cruise/sp-closet.htm

It takes many years and a lot of money to reach this level, so people have to believe its true or admit they have wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars, admit they have been wrong for decades, and admit that all their friends are also duped in the same way. This is a massive realisation and is very hard to achieve for people who have been so thoroughly brainwashed. Lots still manage it, and this is why we know about the 'secrets' of scientology including Xenu...

You can see the secret library of scientology here or where it has been removed by scientology lawyers they normally post links where it can be obtained or at least summaries by courts or ex-members. http://www.clambake.org/archive/secret.html

You can find much information out on the web, including even whole books written by ex-members:
http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/apobs/
http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/isd/isd.htm
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/xenu/xenu.html

http://www.clambake.org is a great resource for critical information on the web, although there are many others as well... Here are just some.
http://www.lermanet.com/
http://www.suppressiveperson.org/
http://www.scientology-lies.com/
http://www.lisamcpherson.org

This is a website by a cult expert who is aware of the dangers of scientology:
http://www.freedomofmind.com/

For comparison, and in fairness, here is the link to the official Church of Scientology http://www.scientology.org

I always like posting this... It is what one critic thinks of scientology:
" The Church of Scientology is a vicious and dangerous cult that masquerades as a religion. Its purpose is to make money. It practices a variety of mind-control techniques on people lured into its midst to gain control over their money and their lives. Its aim is to take from them every penny that they have and can ever borrow and to also enslave them to further its wicked ends.

It was started in the 1950s by a science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard in fulfilment to his declared aim to start a religion to make money. It is an offshoot to a method of psychotherapy he concocted from various sources which he named "Dianetics". Dianetics is a form of regression therapy. It was then further expanded to appear more like a religion in order to enjoy tax benefits. He called it "Scientology".

Scientology is a confused concoction of crackpot, dangerously applied psychotherapy, oversimplified, idiotic and inapplicable rules and ideas and science-fiction drivel that is presented to its members (at the "advanced" levels) as profound spiritual truth. "
http://www.clambake.org/roland-intro.html

They also hound critics trying to discredit and ruin them in any way (even if illegally), pressuring with lawyers, etc in order to stop any criticism rather than tackling the points raised by the critic. The campaign against critics is a well documented one.
http://www.suppressiveperson.org/

But don't let me sway you follow the links, watch some videos, make up your mind...