Human Soul?

Question answered by honorarykid in Scientology

Mr_Rogers asked this question on 9/23/2000:

Isn't it true that some hategroups (not naming any), anti-christs and psychiatry deny the existence of the human soul, but not churches?

honorarykid gave this response on 9/25/2000:

I think you are really making an argument here, rather than asking a question.

Your argument implies that if someone does not believe in a human soul (or Thetan) that they must therefore be a hateful person.

This is a ludicrous argument, not supported by any data that I'm aware of.

In fact, some of the most violent and destructive hate groups in history have been religious or pseudo-religious in nature. I refer you to the Thuggee cult, the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the Nazis (who's main leaders were occult believers), the Klu Klux Klan and others.

While it's also true that secular memes, such as the totalitarian form of autocratic Communism, have also proved to be quite destructive, it does not follow that a lack of belief in a human soul leads to hatred of mankind.

A far better predictor of organized hatred is the quality of megalomania.

Megalomania, when combined with totalitarianism makes for a very deadly stew.

Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Jim Jones, Ashakara (of the Aum Shinrikyo cult) David Koresh and L. Ron Hubbard are all excellent examples of people who were megalomaniacal, and who built various forms of destructive, totalitarian political organizations around them in order to satisfy their own personal cravings for power. Of course, they each "succeeded" in attaining control of widely varied sized groups of people, and for a varied set of reasons.

Now I'm not equating the level of wrong-doing between someone like Pol Pot with that of L. Ron Hubbard. I'm only saying that these men were both acting on the same values, and using some of the same tools of mental coercion. They did not consider the risks to others of their drives to power, or else they had contempt for them.

But of course, one cannot compare the final degree of the resulting destruction between a political leader who led a campaign of murder against millions of his own countrymen with a a two-bit huckster like Hubbard, who just wanted to be worshipped and adored and made wealthy, and always had a captive, credulous audience for his made-up bullshit.

As far as I know, Hubbard didn't resort to murder, even though he threatened it in an official policy document at one time, coining the phrase R2-45 auditing in the process. R2-45 auditing was a euphemism for putting 2 .45 cal bullets into the backs of the heads of some people with whom Hubbard was angry.

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