QuoteupsidedownnewspaperDurham? Let me guess: We are unwilling to learn, right? . Well tell me you'd like to believe Scientology contains techniques to improve mental and spiritual wellbeing, learn faster and gain evidence of your own immortality. Tell me that you're willing to accept the critics could be wrong and that you want to make sure you've understood what Scientology
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QuoteAcid Reindeeryes, I realize that they have a larger agenda. to a degree I share in that agenda. their critique of psychiatry goes well beyond the use of psychiatric drugs. actually, so does mine. I would not want to live in a world where therapy and counselling got outlawed. however, we do live in a world where a police officer can get you put in a psych ward, where after a cursory exami
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QuoteAcid ReindeerI do not endorse Scientology at all but again I felt compelled to respond about SSRI's... ... again, though, to remove any ambiguity I don't in way endorse the Church of Scientology. Well thanks for the post Acid. I do endorse your viewpoint about SSRIs though.
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

Quote I have reached the conclusion that Scientology teaches a dangerous lore. In my mind, it preaches a dangerous, godless delusion. And I came here to be proven wrong. Boy you sure came to the wrong place! :lol: Seriously though - it is nice of you to be please Scientology works for me. I'm sorry you didn't get it - it isn't the easiest book to get on first reading, partl
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QuoteCosmophilospher My sister is a shrink. They are not evil people. Just smart people trying to do the best job they can and help people. I have relatives who are pyschiatrists. They aren't evil either, mind they're not too fond of prescribing drugs. Unfortunately this doesn't mean they're in the industry most aimed at helping people.
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

Quoteupsidedownnewspapernutrino wrote: Quote Actually that isn't true about Scientology - there are a lot of things that affect a person apart from engrams. what, then? What, then? WHAT THEN? I can see exactly what rr and nutrino are saying, durham. You refute without substance. You never say anything. I don't really see much point in saying anything. The first barrier to
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Quoteget_past_at_any_lengthI do have an issue when celebrities endorse a religious or spiritual group and begin to give their opionions such as Tom Cruise has on variuos issues (psychology, medications, ect). I feel that it is dangerous territory and needs to be handled by medical professionals. I understand that but it depends on the assumption that psychiatrists have the best method of making
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Quotenutrino Scientology will assign certain "projects" like your first project will be to sell one copy of the book Dianetics to a stranger on the street... that's from the level 1 assignment sheet, the one that also comes with your first loyalty oath. Well I've never taken a loyalty oath or seen a level 1 assignment sheet.
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Quotenutrino Where I then greatly diverge from the Dianetic/Scientology belief system, and I believe that it is fundamentally flawed, is that Scientology believes that reactivity ( body thetans notwithstanding ) is primarily caused by engram encoding during periods of unconsciousness caused by trauma, one assumes that head trauma would be the most likely candidate, where one "records" e
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Quoteupsidedownnewspaper I was attempting the socratic method of enquiry in this thread: trying to ellicit information from a Scientologist in order to be able to reject it. Turns out I did only half of the job: senior members and moderators can't be beat when it comes to rejecting the ramblings of a cult member. Well getting information from me isn't hard if you at least appear intere
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I supect that if I was saying "Steer clear of Scientology - I spent half my life as a staff member washing toilets for $3 per day then they told me I was suppressive because I told my friends that none of it made sense" you could listen to me all day. :lol:
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Well guys you're certainly responding with an overtly hostile attitude. Is that one of the ways you go about "rescuing" people from religions like mine? Seems to me you'd have more success if you weren't so hostile and tried to understand the other point of view.
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Anyway to summarize - as a Scientologist it can be frustrating to know there are a bunch of extremely useful non-religious techniques that society can benefit enormously from and at the same time so much resistance to really looking at what these techniques are. Then there are techniques that have to do with spiritual freedom that are utterly mind-blowing and very unbelievable because there is
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Well thank you all for your posts - it's been interesting to see people's reactions. :D
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rr, There are two ways to be "interested" in understanding something. One is to take one point of view and stick to it unless someone offers you enough evidence to make you feel wrong despite the emotional charge people have about being wrong and the fact that you are clinging to that point of view. Or you can try in earnest to understand the other point of view.
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Well communicating with you two is somewhat of a challenge. The most important thing in trying to communicate with someone is that the other person is interested in understanding. If that's not the case then it's nigh on impossible. Apparently I have no idea about scientology yet am already brainwashed. However I presumably know already how to brainwash people since I'm ac
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I think it was a bit of a mistake not to build more accomodation at Saint Hill. Mind he had a lot of other things to do.
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Anti-depressants are similar to cocaine and speed. Of course they have an effect - but they don't help out much long term. The fact that they have warnings about side effects such as heart-attacks, depression, increased risk of suicide amongst others tends to suggest they're a bit dodgy imo. Plus they are extremely widespread yet they have done little in the last 50 years in my o
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Quoteupsidedownnewspaper Sure. I suppose I mean that in the case of "raw meat" that has suffered a trauma and is "trying not to know", I see "trying not to know" as a natural human coping reaction. Specifically in the case of "raw meat" that has suffered a recent trauma, a visit to the Church of Scientology and a go at the e-meter and a 'diagnosis&
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Quoteupsidedownnewspaper Hundreds of thousands of people have experienced that psychiatry works, haven't they? Yes if you admit that hundreds of thousands have experienced that heroin, cocaine and speed work. They do have an effect. Not a good effect long term though. Despite the profits to be made from getting everyone on psychiatric drugs virtually no person who feels mentally fit would
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QuoteupsidedownnewspaperScientology works. People try it out and tell others about it. That's how it grows. But so does self-reflection, humility, personal religions, open-mindedness, therapy, massage... Are there people who don't need Scientology, durham? And what do you say to people who say they don't need Scientology: those that say last time they lost their wallet, th
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The experience I have of purification working is not "well maybe" - it was physical evidence (in additional to a mental improvement that was "well I feel better but i'm unsure this is permanent". Hundreds of thousands of people have experienced that purif works. I will also look up the scientific journal I've seen explaining why it works. That some scientists s
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Quoterrmoderatordurham: Re purif - I've seen Scientific journals proving it works and explaining why. Quote Hubbard was wrong. He had a limited education, and was neither a scientist nor a medical doctor. Well there's a fixed opinion. It's pretty irrelevant what you think of him if the techniques he researched work. QuoteYou can't seem to accept that Hubbard was wrong,
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answered in the tom cruse thread.
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

Quoterrmoderatordurham: You say that you have "investigated" and supposedly "researched Scientology, yet as you have demonstrated here through your posts you actually know very little about the organization, its founder and history. No - as I've stated before I know all about the organization, its founder and history as I've stated. I've investigated both sides o
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Here is a page I created about my research in the spiritual realm: Here are my experiences regarding how the way I perceived the world shifted: Until just after I'd turned 29 I was an atheist. By this I mean that I was someone who believed that the universe was started by chance (if it ever had a start). I believed that we are bodies, nothing more and when we die that's it. I di
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I've talked about my experiences in Scientology with friends regularly on an internet forum since before I got involved. One guy who was a good friend of mine (real life friend to) really didn't like it. He got angrier when he realised it isn't based on faith. He kept arguing that it was rubbish and dangerous and eventually when he realised that I had logical arguments to counte
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Quoterrmoderatordurham: It's sad to read your responses, but perhaps helpful to people reading this message board regarding Scientology. Believe me - it isn't sad - I'm much happier than ever before. Quote What your responses demonstrate is that Scientologists are ignorant of their own religious teachings and that the church makes it so. I'm not ignorant at all about thi
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QuoteI have read Dianetics, and I don't understand. Maybe you should try Dianetics out then! Also there are some excellent study techniques in Scientology that help you understand what the author of any book really meant. That maybe sounds a bit patronising but I'd always been a straight A student yet improved a lot with the Scientology techniques. Quote I don't understand why Sc
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Quoterrmoderatordurham: It seems that you accept whatever Scientology tells you or Hubbard writes despite all the information available that has been published exposing Hubbard as a little more than a con man and the church as often destructive and responsible for serious personal injuries. I don't accept anything anyone tells me including LRH without thoroughly researching or experienci
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