Questions

Question answered by honorarykid in Scientology

skyview1 asked this question on 9/27/2000:

Are we taking about the beliefs of Scientology or the actions of their church? There has often been a vast difference between the religious beliefs of a faith and the actions of it's church. What are the basic beliefs?

honorarykid gave this response on 9/28/2000:

Here on AskMe.com, critics are more prone to talking about behaviors and politics of the church, than about the beliefs of Scientologists.

The beliefs of Scientologists are amorphous, taking lots of different shapes as one progresses up the bridge.

When one is introduced to Scientology, it's mainly a self-help, therapy cult. Practice Dianetics auditing techniques, and you will allegedly become a more able person, with a higher IQ, more heathy. These increased abilities are used as psychological "collateral," used to justify the extremely high monetary costs of the training. People are told they'll earn it all back, and more.

Of course, Dianetics auditing focuses on the removal of happiness-restricting "engrams." Engrams are negative mental pictures we all (allegedly) have stored in our memory banks, created at times when we were traumatized while not conscious. When all your engrams are gone, you're said to be "Clear." Before your engrams are gone, you are a Pre-clear, or simply a 'PC.' Clear Scientologists are told they will be perfectly healthy, extremely intelligent, have perfect eyesight, and more.

Also, notice above that I said "memory bank," not brain. Newbie members might presume their memory banks are actually located in the brain. Scientology let's them believe this, even though they will be disabused of this belief at a later time.

As adherants' loyalty and obsequiousness grow, they are introduced to the beliefs in an immortal spirit (called Thetans). These Thetans are not a part of our bodies. They are separate, immortal beings, Godlike in their true abilities. Thetans only borrow human meat bodies and use them to get around, like we use our cars.

I've seen many Scientologists say their bodies are just a vehicle to get around in. Now some will admit that the brain helps the body to run and breathe and function. But the brain does not house the consciousness. The consciousness is separate, and could leave the body and still function just fine, according to Hubbard. Scientologist often claim to "go exterior" or leave their bodies to astrally travel around.

Now these beliefs are very similar to the fatal (body-wise) beliefs of the Heaven's Gate cultists, who killed themselves in order to free their spirits to float up and meet the mothership, which was allegedly trailing in the Hale-Bop comet wake. In fact, Christianity also went through similar periods of relative contempt for the body, with respect to the soul. In Europe, this dangerous belief justified the killing of 100s of thousands of innocents during the Inquisition. Kill the body to save the soul.

I digress. According to Scientology, there is one main impediment to freeing ourselves from our delusions that we are made up of meat. We are brainwashed. And we have other brainwashed Thetans stuck to us.

How did this come to be? Well, according to Hubbard, about 75 million years ago, we were cooking right along, behaving however immortal spirit Godlike beings behave, when an evil ruler by the name of Xenu (a ruler of Gods, whats up with that?) rounded us up and froze us in ice cubes made of glycol! He kidnapped us! Then he brought us to Earth in space ships that looked just like DC-8 aircraft. He put us in volcanoes, blew up hydrogen bombs, vaporizing our bodies, thereby freeing our Thetans (question: if we were free, unfettered Thetans back then, why did we have bodies?).

Then he caught us Thetans with electronic rainbows in the sky. He held us captive in these electronic fields, and forced us to watch movies for three days, in order to brainwash us (just like in the book "A Clockwork Orange").

Through this intentional, evil brainwashing, Xenu confused us so badly, that we started clumping together in groups, in what Scientology calls "clusters" and "masses." According to Hubbard, it was these brainwashing sessions which cause us to be sympathetic to ideas which form the basis of Christianity and Islam, and other world religions, to this very day. Hubbard actually taught that Christians are sympathetic toward the images of a crucified person, because Xenu brainwashed them to be that way, millions of years ago.

Anyway, Scientology advanced training claims to teach the Thetan how to regain the lost, immortal, Godlike abilities.

They can astrally travel around the universe, travel forward or backward in time, move matter with a thought, create new universes, whatever they want.

In short, we're all God! Question: if Scientologists are working toward becoming Gods, why do they all act like obedient sheep?

Anyway, these are really and truly the fundamental beliefs that Scientologists hold. Be aware that the lower level members don't know about the Xenu story, as this is kept as a big secret from them. Indeed, they are told they will get sick and die if they hear these "truths" before they are adequately prepared. But if you're immortal, how can you die? If being inside a body is a bad thing, why is the bodily death a bad thing? These are paradoxes for which Scientology offers no explanation.

By the way, it would cost about $350,000.00 US to take the training required to learn about the Xenu story. I may have just saved some people a lot of money. ;-)

Of course, SOME PEOPLE might say the huge amounts of money and the ability to control people are really the main belief, and the rest of this stuff is just fluff and window dressing in order to fool people into believing they were getting something of value in exchange for their money, their labor, and in some cases, a lifetime of zealous obedience.

What do you think?

skyview1 rated this answer:

Un-bee-leev-able!!

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