Why is the Church of Scientology opposed to the study and application of psychology?
2007-11-01 03:55:56 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Dear Mose,
Fact: John Travolta and Kelly Preston have a teenage child who is autistic. Depite the fact that his autism is mild and could be treated with medication (which would allow him to have a better quality of life), the Preston/Travolta's choose not to medicate him based on their belief in Scientology.
Scientology is publicly, and often vehemently, opposed to both psychiatry and psychology. It offers itself as an alternative to psychiatry, which Scientologists believe to be a barbaric and corrupt profession. According to the Church of Scientology, this opposition is focused on what they say are the practices of psychiatry:
"What the Church opposes are brutal, inhumane psychiatric treatments. It does so for three principal reasons: 1) procedures such as electro-shock, drugs and lobotomy injure, maim and destroy people in the guise of help; 2) psychiatry is not a science and has no proven methods to justify the billions of dollars of government funds that are poured into it; and 3) psychiatric theories that man is a mere animal have been used to rationalize, for example, the wholesale slaughter of human beings in World Wars I and II." (From Wikipedia).
The "church" has started several organizations (under different names of course) investigating the idea that psychiatry/psychology is a civil rights abuse.
Note: When is the last time you heard of someone getting electro shock therapy?
Fact: Hubbard regarded psychiatrists as denying human spirituality and peddling fake cures. Definition of irony: A failed sci-fi writer who experiments with Satanic rituals and performs at home abortions (based on anecdotal evidence from his children) decides to start a religion based on the fact that aliens once invaded the earth. Yet he thinks that medicine peddles fake cures.......
Hubbard eventually came to believe that psychiatrists were behind a worldwide conspiracy to attack Scientology and create a "world government" run by psychiatrists on behalf of the USSR.
At this point, I probably don't even need to bother pointing out that several people have indicated that Hubbard experimented with some pretty heavy drugs during his time....
2007-11-01 04:08:27 · answer #1 · answered by Kate the Great 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
They are not opposed to the study and application. They are all for cures of any type.
But I guess it depends on your idea of a cure. If someone has a problem inside them then it needs to be worked out in therapy. They are against treatments that are not cures. Even the doctors themselves use these terms, they will say "its a treatment of the symptom but not a cure". Examples would be things like
A) removing part of the brain to make someone more manageable even if it removes all chances that they will be exceptionable (very robotic)
B) electro-shock to see if it causes a change
C) drugs which mask or depress the symptoms, change the mood, or worse yet cause forgetfulness. Often with possible side affects that are worse than the original symptom
D) hypnosis to remove a visible reaction without curing the cause
Those are not cures. They are not even efforts at cures. They have nothing to do with getting at the root of a problem. Psychoanalysis would be an effort to cure. Medicines are an effort to cure. Not treatments and drugs.
2007-11-01 05:28:56 · answer #2 · answered by Gandalf Parker 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋
As I understand it....
Scientology is largely based on psychology and even psychoanalysis; it's not the study of psychology they oppose but only certain aspects of psychiatry.
The reason is that L. Ron Hubbard taught that psychological traumas we have suffered can only be cured if we locate them within and and then cleanse ourselves of them therapeutically. Detox for the mind, as it were. They see the use of external mood-altering substances for the purposes of achieving emotional health as hiding and therefore reinforcing the things that actually eat us up inside while turning us away from the actual experience of being alive.
2007-11-01 04:09:01 · answer #3 · answered by ledbetter 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
"We want at least one bad mark on every psychiatrist in England, a murder, an assault, or a rape or more than one. This is Project Psychiatry. We will remove them" ..(qoute).L. Ron Hubbard
This is a statement by the founder of Scientology, of course like most religions, its followers BLINDLY follow their leader.
2007-11-01 04:10:00 · answer #4 · answered by MotherB 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because psychology is the study of the mind and the individual, and most cults want the focus to be on the "group" or the revered leader.
2007-11-01 03:59:04 · answer #5 · answered by . 7 · 4⤊ 0⤋
Does this mean that mental illness and chemical imbalance do not exist and are merely the result of a lack of spirituality?...That they can be cured by eating brocolli?
This seems purely ignorant.
2007-11-01 07:05:20 · answer #6 · answered by ThisAndThat 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Because Scientology is just another Cult just like Christianity, Judaism and all the rest.
2007-11-01 03:59:02 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 4⤋
Well, if you were a member of a religion formed by a hack SciFi writer, would you want anybody poking around your noodle?
2007-11-01 03:59:08 · answer #8 · answered by annarborisatramp 2 · 7⤊ 0⤋
Church of pseudoscience would be a more appropiate name.
2007-11-01 04:00:15 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
because everybody in the church of scientology is crazy.........except for tom cruise.......he is CRAZY COOL!!!
2007-11-01 03:58:39 · answer #10 · answered by B-MOC 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋