How can any one really believe this?

Question

My personal belief is that all religions are based on people's needs to believe in something above and beyond themselves.

Scientology takes the cake however! How can people really believe this stuff? It's just too fantastic and too much to list.

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

Answer 1

It IS really crazy, isn't it? I see you've taken a look at the Wikipedia page... did you look into the "Xenu" alien part of their belief? If not, check out these links:
http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/spaink-ot3.html
http://xenu.net/archive/leaflet/Xenu-Letter.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061124162841AAdJv3F

Did you know about the crime and violence that Scientology has been responsible for over the years? Here are just a few examples (and this isn't copy/pasted from a website, I put this together):

• Operation Snow White – Under this program, Scientology operatives committed infiltration, wiretapping, and theft of documents in government offices. This program constituted the single largest infiltration of the United States government in history. Among the 11 prominent Scientologists convicted of this conspiracy was Mary Sue Hubbard, the wife of Scientology’s “prophet”.
http://lisatrust.freewinds.cx/scientology/snow-white/index.html

• Operation Freakout - Their campaign of sabotage and violence against Paulette Cooper, the writer who published her research and findings on several cults, including Scientology. Scientology’s official plan: to frame Paulette, ruin her career and reputation and get her sent either to jail or psychiatric confinement.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Krasel/cooper/frk1.html
Here's the book they don't want anyone to read (this is the entire book available to read online for free):
http://www.factnet.org/Books/ScandalOfScientology/sos.html

• Fair Game - the Scientology policy detailing how the organization may confront and handle critics and perceived enemies. Here is a direct quote: "Enemies may be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.”
http://www.xenu.net/archive/disk/fairgame.htm

• Violent Kidnapping - Lisa McPherson was a Scientologist, was involved in a car accident and resultantly became mentally unstable, was kidnapped by agents of Scientology, held against her will, refused proper psychiatric treatment and was allowed to STARVE TO DEATH.
http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com/

• Jeremy Perkins - A CBS “48 Hours” special on the mentally disturbed son of Scientologist parents who refused to put him on the anti-psychotic drugs that would have stabilized him & prevented him from killing his own mother.
http://www.scientomogy.com/jeremy_perkins.php

Answer 2

It takes so many kinds of people to make a world. Each will experience life in a unique way. You are correct in your assessment of some of the population however, there are many other explanations for the remainder.
We are able to see what we want to see most of the time:
believe as we know how to understand at any given moment;
we are able to learn, then grow in ways that we allow ourselves to grow.
Here in America we can because we are free to do these things.

In many areas of the world, including here, folks do not have freedoms to explore these concepts but are limited to whatever conditioning persuades them is true.

I believe in one God, a supreme being who is looking for individuals who will give worth-ship to him. This is a simplistic explanation though it is based on a vast knowledge base in comprehending Scripture, Physics, the Sciences. Hearing from those people familiar with other Great Religions proves that all the world's Scripture tells the same basic stories.
Scientology may not be included as one of these "Greats".

Answer 3

well, a lot of famous people buy it (literally) - and everyone knows celebrities know everything about everything. Besides that, once folks have spent all the time and energy and major amounts of money to get to the levels where they finally learn what they believe, they often feel like they're in too deep to back out. And the Scientologists have a bunch of really smart, really well paid lawyers that they're not afraid to use.

Thank goodness for the Internet (and Wikipedia) - now people don't have to spend all that time and money to find out the truth. I can only hope that the half-life of this cult is cut short by technology and education.

Answer 4

I dont know how people can ascribe to that kind of thing... I checked out the link you provided and its actually kind of disturbing... gives me the creeps. I really hope in the future religion becomes obsolete and a thing of the past.. the world would be better off without all these religious fanatics.

PS ben j... Pluto is NOT a star... lol the sun is a star, it gives off its own light. Pluto is now not a planet, as the parameters of size that define a planet have changed and Pluto is not large enough now to be considered a "planet" by science. Also it was science who changed Plutos status, it wasnt "wrong" our definition of pluto in science just changed. and the comment about pluto has absolutely nothing to do with the question!!

Answer 5

This is hardly surprising in a country where 58% of the adult population believes that people from outer space are visiting here.

There is no shortage of people desperate to believe in something. This is why, anywhere you go on the planet, at any time period you live in, you will find people who have some "save the world" philosophy to peddle.

It alsways looks great on paper (at least to some), but the world and its people are the same before and after.

Answer 6

how can you disagree with this?

Among these advanced teachings, one episode revealed to those who reach OT level III has been much remarked upon: the story of Xenu and his Galactic Confederacy. Xenu (sometimes Xemu) is introduced as an alien ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together and stuck to the bodies of the living. The alien souls continue to do this today, causing a variety of physical ill-effects in modern-day humans. Hubbard called these clustered spirits "Body Thetans," and the advanced levels place considerable emphasis on isolating them and neutralizing their ill effects

Answer 7

If people can believe that all the animals were saved from a global flood by being stuck, by pairs, in a gigantic wooden boat, then by all that is holy, they can believe that L. Ron Hubbard is the messiah!

Answer 8

There are a lot of religions, but religion doesn't save anyone.

Faith is the key

Faith defenition: faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
(hebrews 11.1)

Faith in God, and the obidience to His Words (Bible).
That is the truth

Answer 9

They don't tell believers this stuff until after several years and hundreds of thousands of dollars after they sign up.

Read "the road to xenu" - http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/xenu/ - an account of a girl who escaped scientology after 12 years!

Answer 10

My answer is simple and I mentioned it one time before on this site.

They believee in what they believ, because they have their own reason for such a belief. You do not believe in what they believe, because you have your own reasons for such a disbelief.

On the other hand, they do not believe in what you believe, because they have their own reasons for such a disbelief. You believe in what you believe, because you have your own reason for such a believe.

Did it ever occur to you to ask the believer why they believe in what they believe, instead of wondering and giving yourself the right that you are the one who is right.

Give me a break and let this issue REST in peace. Nobody is twisting your hand to believe in what they believe. This a free country.

PS: If you find my answer kind of zigzagy, it is because you are a WORM.