Scientology: Hubbard = Hitler?

Darth Rotor said:
Here is a thought, not completely fleshed out. Feel free to play with it, even though you Godwinned from the OP. :p
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I must admit, I don't feel like I'm truly knowledgable enough to give your post the credit it deserves, so I am afraid I'm going to have to postpone an adequate response. However, I will remark on the "Godwin" bit:

There comes a time where, quite frankly, Nazi Germany and Hitler become very very comparable to a situation.

In a dictatorship, where a cleansing of a certain population is called for, the comparison to Hitler becomes closer and closer to fruition. Now, I probably should have said "Big Brother", though one could say that that's even a worse Godwin, as Big Brother was worse than (arguably) Hitler; though only because he actually succeeded in expanding his empire and creating a stable government (in that it would stick around for a long long time, without any suitable threat available to knock it out).

Unfortunately, I feel that if scientology truly gained power, as scientologists do desire (though I agree in that they won't succeed), they would be comparable to Big Brother. If I am translating Hubbard's writings correctly (and I admit, I may be translating them incorrectly, though I'm not holding out much hope for that), then he is proposing a system that is very comparable to Big Brother's empire. An empire of ignorance, of control by the organization, of Thought Control (Knowledge Reports, anyone?), of liquidation of certain members of society to "better" society, and of oppressing "suppressive persons", or anyone who rebels or disagrees with those in charge. Not to mention the seperation of families, and the actions that result in keeping them ignorant.

In short...

An ignorant society, encourage to work for a pittance, to put their lives in the hands of an Org, seperated from anyone that could make them think differently... blah.

Do I really need to go on with this?

Thought Police. Surveillance. Editing of material, and control of media. There are samples of all of them, or at least hints, within Scientology groups.

I really don't feel like I'm godwinning the situation here. Godwinning would apply if I was talking about, say, a 10% tax hike on boating or somesuch. But to talk about a man that seems to have made a new Mein Kampf, that seems to be talking about how to better society by wiping out a certain amount of the population of people? I mean, that's how I translate it; even if I'm wrong, I stand behind the comparison of what I translated and the ideas of Hitler and Big Brother.
 
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I read those quotes during my own recent resurgence in interest in Scientomogy, but had read so much other nonsense, I didn't quite see them as being as telling as they in fact are. A world run by these people would be very scary indeed. Thankfully it will never come to pass.
 
Lonewulf said:
AndyAndy, did I miss something? There's no explanation for the claim that they "may level destruction toward a suppressor"?
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Yes - they are quite selective in their quotes aren't they :D

That was posted as the co$ response to the claim that Old Mother Hubbard advocated ethnic cleansing

"ANTI-SCIENTOLOGY MYTH #326: Scientology Advocates Genocide!"

I thought it was interesting to see how the co$ tried to wriggle out of the claim - which they try to do by only addressing a small part of the text, and even then not very succesfully...

In short they lie and misrepresent the facts, who'd have thunk? :D
 
Lonewulf said:
I must admit, I don't feel like I'm truly knowledgable enough to give your post the credit it deserves, so I am afraid I'm going to have to postpone an adequate response. However, I will remark on the "Godwin" bit:
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There was a :p in the post, which may have been a misunderstood bit of smiley use.

I don't think Scientology can scale up the way National Socialism did. There's a heck of a bottleneck at the entry point.

As to Germany, and Heidelberg, can you get decent Mexican food over there?

A band called Bowling for Soup, from UNT originally, used to have a lyric in the song "come back to Texas" that goes

"The Mexican food sucks north of here anyway!" ("here" = Denton County)

Heidelberg is north of Denton County, so . . . are you content with the Kraut, Wurst, und Bier? :D

DR
 
Now this is sort of outdated, but the Hitler comparison would have been even more apt back in the days when Hubbard wrote those things, since he also fitted homosexuals into the category of people below 2.0. At 1.1 to be exact, bunched up with "sexual perverts" and other "covert hostile" people. Of course, the world in general was not exactly friendly when it came to homosexuality back then, but along with the quotes above it certainly adds to the similarities with Hitler.

The COS has since adapted its policies and tries not to concern itself with the sexuality of its members. Hubbard probably figured if he wanted to compete with the other religions about followers, he better not persecute the same people... :rolleyes:
 
Darth Rotor said:
Heidelberg is north of Denton County, so . . . are you content with the Kraut, Wurst, und Bier? :D

DR
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And chinese food. And french food. And the greek food, too! Actually, I've only had one German meal so far. ;)

Not much mexican, but there's spanish.

Rufo said:
Now this is sort of outdated, but the Hitler comparison would have been even more apt back in the days when Hubbard wrote those things, since he also fitted homosexuals into the category of people below 2.0. At 1.1 to be exact, bunched up with "sexual perverts" and other "covert hostile" people. Of course, the world in general was not exactly friendly when it came to homosexuality back then, but along with the quotes above it certainly adds to the similarities with Hitler.

The COS has since adapted its policies and tries not to concern itself with the sexuality of its members. Hubbard probably figured if he wanted to compete with the other religions about followers, he better not persecute the same people... :rolleyes:
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But that's just the thing. Scientology cannot just disregard the word of L. Ron Hubbard without committing a contradiction. Either he was the clear-minded leader, or he wasn't. It's only absolutes here; Scientology does not leave much room for doubt at all.

And, quite frankly, this book was published in 1989; Hubbard died 1986 (The cite says: "L. Ron Hubbard, SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL, 1989 Ed., p. 145" L. Ron Hubbard died 24 January 1986, according to Wikipedia). So this book was PUBLISHED AFTER HUBBARD DIED! That's not enough time for Hubbard to say, "You know what? Nevermind!" One of the major parts of being a scientologist is to listen to every word of Hubbard, to read his every word, to "understand" the dianetics system, and all of the things that Hubbard "uncovered" (including the Xenu bit, when you're much later on into the cult, and brainwashed to the point where it makes sense). You cannot disregard the word of Hubbard and call yourself a $cientologist.

Unless I'm mistaken on any particular part?

Unless you mean that it's only outdated on the homosexuality part (which I wasn't really focusing on anyways)?
 
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Darth Rotor said:
There was a :p in the post, which may have been a misunderstood bit of smiley use.

I don't think Scientology can scale up the way National Socialism did. There's a heck of a bottleneck at the entry point.

As to Germany, and Heidelberg, can you get decent Mexican food over there?

A band called Bowling for Soup, from UNT originally, used to have a lyric in the song "come back to Texas" that goes

"The Mexican food sucks north of here anyway!" ("here" = Denton County)

Heidelberg is north of Denton County, so . . . are you content with the Kraut, Wurst, und Bier? :D

DR
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Don't know about Heidelberg, but there's a really decent Mexican restaurant in Wiesbaden.
 
D'rok the Lacone said:
Scientology is the perfect expression of this. Humanity is in spiritual crisis, and the answer is technical. Hubbards "revelations" are supposedly the result rational scientific explorations into the spirit. In their own jargon, their rituals and scriptures are called "tech". Their nonsense is "applied philosophy". Hell their name says it all - "Scientific Ontology". It's a "scientific" approach to metaphysics, being, and Truth.
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Key to this are words like "supposed" and your very appropriate use of quotation marks. I certainly hope that this does not become mainstream...and, fortunately, science is around to oppose it.

Yeah, I agree that the whole "dispose of" everyone (we judge to be at) 2.0 or less on the Tone Scale (if we can't convert them) is very disturbing and makes me glad that I am a firearms owner.
 
D'rok the Lacone said:
We killed God and replaced him with science/technology/ourselves
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Tsk, tsk. We didn't kill Gunderscored. He's actually chained in my basement.

In their own jargon, their rituals and scriptures are called "tech". Their nonsense is "applied philosophy". Hell their name says it all - "Scientific Ontology". It's a "scientific" approach to metaphysics, being, and Truth.
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Doesn't "scientology" mean "the knowledge of knowledge" ?
 
Lonewulf said:
Here's a question... I've been researching into L. Ron Hubbard, scientology, and the works. I've been going up and down Operation Clambake, I've been viewing an interview with The Commodore himself, and have been going up and down Youtube viewing some interesting videos. I've also viewed the docudrama, The Bridge.

However, what struck me most was this page in the Operation Clambake website. I am going to quote what was quoted in there:



Now, this is probably known already to people on this forum. However, this part I've never seen quoted before:



He's talking about CLEANSING SOCIETY of a certain group of people (based on thoughts and deeds rather than heritage, admittedly), in order to make society better.

How is this different than Hitler? Or Big Brother? Big Brother especially seems to be the best example, thanks to "Knowledge Reports" (students in scientology schools are encouraged to spy on each other and act as "thought police"), and the desire to wipe out or "convert" anybody that thinks a certain way, or questions the practice of scientology.

How is this not scary? Seriously?

Scientology wants to take over the world, and I'm becoming more and more convinced that if they did, 1984 by George Orwell will become a reality, though not in the way that Orwell imagined it. But the same concepts are there: Thought control, brainwashing, thought police, and the liquidization of certain members of the populace.

Blah.

I wonder if I'll be targeted as an "SP" just for making this post. When does logical fear turn into paranoia?

I know that Hubbard is dead and gone, but his followers worship him and his word more than even christians worship Jesus. And I'm serious about that. In all of the orgs, they even have an office (fully furnished) available for Hubbard should he "return again". Even Jesus doesn't get that much cred!

The fact is, this madman's organization is still operating based on this mad man's every word. They still label people as SP's. They still enact the Fair Game clause (though they deny it, naturally). They libel, they slander, and they have even caused the deaths of individuals (albeit discretely). They also use "psychoanalysis techniques" to crudely open wounds in individuals, drawing in individuals through "free personality tests", and then promising that scientology could take care of their opened psychological wound. They attempt to disconnect families if those families question scientology, either through disconnection or the "Good Roads, Fair Weather" acts. Blah.
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Yes, and these folks, Cruise, Travolta, Carr, think they're superior to the rest of us, don't you know. Their hubris is astounding.

The greatest con of all is how they're using psychological practices (without a license) yet dissing established (licensed) practitioners.


M.
 
Darth Rotor said:
Here is a thought, not completely fleshed out. Feel free to play with it, even though you Godwinned from the OP. :p

Consider the known/understood timeline: it took some 30-60 years for the followers of Jesus to emerge from their status as a small and rather marginalized group into a growing concern. This growth built on preceding institutions, and grew to the point that Constantine, over two hundred years after Christianity showed that it would not die on the vine, adopted it as his Imperial standard.

Scientology has only been around for forty years. The Disciples of Hubbard (let's call them DoH's :D ) are either headed for self immolation, or are building a foundation that in a hundred years will explode across the civilized world in a powerful movement. The disadvantage DoH's have is that the modern understanding of psychology and manipulation is better understood than a couple of millenia ago, and so objections to this approach/philosophy/religion is treated more skeptically.

For my money, to extend the comparison out onto the gangplank, I think Scientologists are too much like the Gnostics, as elitists, to succeed on a grand scale. This elitism (which you point to in your excerpt) is where the Scientologists are digging their own graves. The Church itself fell into the problem, as manifested by the Great Schism between the Greek and Latin churches: it became about "me" not "we" and broke a powerful common cultural bond. The Mohammedans benefitted from that immensly in the following centuries.

The message (besides being sent to illiterates in many cases) of Christianity was seductive by being all inclusive and to a certain extene, egalitarian. The Gnostics were much more elitist in approach, in that only certain perfecti could actually ever "get" the mystery. Paul's message was simpler: you can all come to God, as you are, if you accept God via Jesus. No need to become a mystic.

Rather simple.

The key similarities I see, from a structural standpoint, is that a prospective Christian had to accept imperfection, sin as a condition, as true and work from there. Hubbard's disciples use the egrams and "clearing" as a similar premise, "I enter flawed, and will be made less flawed by this regimen of ________ (fill in the blank.)"

Getting into Scientology is both complex and expensive, which was not the case in Christianity: the tithing tended to have practical limits. I see this critical difference, particularly in a world filled with literate people, as being a core flaw in the COS strategy to grow.

It is too easy to find out the downside, since it is based in the here and now, than it was/is to get around the more metaphysical downside if Christianity, particularly as it grew early on.

DR
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Good post, DR.


M.
 
D'rok the Lacone said:
Good stuff. What fascinates me is the fact that Scientology is perfectly adapted to life in the technological age. It's almost like it had to happen. We killed God and replaced him with science/technology/ourselves, so if we are to have a new religion, it must have a technological approach to spirituality.

Someone like Heidegger would see it as evidence of how technology "destines" us for certain ends. Everything we do requires a technological solution - even problems caused by technology. The answer is always more technology. We are "enframed" utterly by a technological approach to life - everything is system.

Scientology is the perfect expression of this. Humanity is in spiritual crisis, and the answer is technical. Hubbards "revelations" are supposedly the result rational scientific explorations into the spirit. In their own jargon, their rituals and scriptures are called "tech". Their nonsense is "applied philosophy". Hell their name says it all - "Scientific Ontology". It's a "scientific" approach to metaphysics, being, and Truth.

They have tuned right into the Geist of our times. Who knows? 100 years from now they may be as mainstream as the Mormons.
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Another good post.

I doubt they'll become mainstream -- rationality will overtake them (I hope!). I expect that the money-making aspect will appeal to others who will start similar/same scams in the years ahead. Eventually, there may be several "schools" of $cientology to choose from.

The whole thing will collapse in an orgy of litigation that will probably take more than a century to work its way through the judicial system. :)


M.
 
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