Trent: good call! I've actually considered that.
In fact, in another JREF thread about Scientology, I followed a link to (sorry I can't link yet) "askthescientologist.blogspot" and found this:
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Saturday, November 28, 2009
Understanding the "Scientologist Attitude"
As an inevitable result of the collapse of the Church of Scientology, there are lots of Scientology true believers appearing outside of the church. There will be more.
This means that non-Scientologists are going to have a lot more exposure to the Scientology true believer's attitude and statements.
And this will, inevitably, be quite annoying.
To be specific, I am talking about the Scientology dogma and beliefs such as:
L. Ron Hubbard was a genius and was never wrong.
Scientology is perfect and can and will solve all the world's problems.
Scientology works 100% on 100% of the people.
Scientologists are homo novis, existing at a new, higher state of existence.
Disputing these "facts" with a Scientologist is a waste of time as they are forbidden from moving one inch from this ideology.
But there is something about this dogma and about Scientologists that you should know. It may help you tolerate Scientologists a bit more.
They actually know that those precepts are not true. If you can talk to many of them in a trusted, off-the-record environment, they will easily admit exactly that.
But any Scientologist, even outside the church, who wants to have the image of being a true Scientologist must echo these absolutes with never a visible question or doubt.
Scientologists must say these things, and they must believe these things and they must think these things, even though they really do know they are untrue.
It may be a bit difficult to understand how one can make oneself "think" something that one knows is untrue, but that is a skill that can be learned -- and Scientology does teach it.
Anyone who has studied Hubbard, especially any of Hubbard's lectures knows, without a doubt, that he was a story teller. The stories he told were quite fanciful and wondrous. Too wondrous. I've never met an ex-Scientologist who was ever surprised to discover the proof that Hubbard was, let us say, less than honest in his story telling.
As for the perfection of Scientology and the all-encompassing solutions it allegedly provides -- every Scientologist has experienced the failures of Scientology technology. Yes, every single Scientologist.
Sure, Scientologists have experienced some workable stuff, which is what convinced them to become Scientologists, but every single one of them has been promised "higher states of being" which, when they have "reached that level", be it Release, Clear or OT, has turned out not to exist.
Every Scientologist has experienced some "bad results" and "no results" from Scientology. So every Scientologist knows that Scientology is definitely not 100% workable on 100% of the people, they know that it does not have all the solutions.
And they do know that they did not become homo novis.
While true believers still believe that Scientology is mostly good, they do know those absolutes, as stated above, are definitely not true.
But they will continue to make those statements as if it were true because believing, thinking and saying those things are required by Scientology dogma. You cannot call yourself a true Scientologist unless you adhere to those requirements.
Which, by the way, explains why Scientologists are so strident and defensive about these precepts -- they know they aren't true and therefore they know they cannot prove them true, but they are still required to claim they are true.
And so Scientologists are very, very annoying and confusing to non-Scientologists.
Just understand that, beneath all those words and insistence on their dogma, all Scientologists really do know that these absolutes they are claiming for Scientology are not true.
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...I think that "I know it's not real but I don't want to be a spoilsport" is big with the members of all religions. I think a lot of them (this is just what I think, of course) really know it's not true but don't want to say anything. In fact, I think a lot of these really outspoken apologists are that way because in the back of their minds they know it's all bunk but try to cover those feelings up and deny them by being over-the-top with the whole god thing. The way many of them get angered over honest questions about their beliefs is something I have realized is a hallmark of Woo-practicioners. They often get angry and feel persecuted I think (source: none) because subconciously they know it is all silly but they have so much invested in it emotionally that they just can't ever admit it. That is why people who have been able to be honest with themsleves no matter how hard it was, like DDan Barker and Bart Ehrman, are truly commendable people. In fact, just a few days ago, Pharyngula mentioned and linked to an article by the esteemed Daniel Dennet about just that: priests and clergy who have lost their faith/Woo; however, most of them continue to pitch the Woo to their victims because they just can not deal with admitting they had been had by that con-job known as religion so like so many victims of Woo-related fraud they actually cover for those whom have tricked them.
So I imagine a good book on that in particular might shed insight. Just my op.
