Let's keep picking minor things to death while ignoring the large picture of several posters comparing adults voluntarily joining an organization that mistreats them and they can walk away from with their physical safety intact to people caught up in involuntary abusive situations where their physical safety is in danger.
Recent lawsuit. Scientology.
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Let's keep picking minor things to death while ignoring the large picture of several posters comparing adults voluntarily joining an organization that mistreats them and they can walk away from with their physical safety intact to people caught up in involuntary abusive situations where their physical safety is in danger.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Not only that, but many (if not most) current adult Scientologists are second generation.... their grandparents joined Hubbard's loony cult back when it was called The Dianetics Foundation. Their parents were Scientologists for all their adult lives. The current second generation have never known any other way of life.
Expecting everyone like that to suddenly wake up and go, "hey this is bad, I'm leaving" is just preposterous.
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quadraginta
Becoming Beth
Try again.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
We compare them because the are essentiality the same thing.
Does it matter whether the abused person is in the situation voluntarily or compulsorily? Arranged marriages aside, I would argue that a woman in an abusive relationship initially got into that relationship voluntarily, not knowing that her partner was going to turn into an abusive monster.
The same could be said of those who joined the Cult back in the 1960's and 1970s. There was not the wealth of public information back then. There was no internet and nothing at all like Google - the only source of information was radio, television and print media. Scientology was largely uncontroversial for the first 20 years of its existence. Those joining it could not have reasonably bee expected to know or understand what they were getting into.
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Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
Well, there was this story from a couple years ago:
Secret facilities in Tennessee closed after police find patients held against their will
(Weird. The story is not quite as I remembered reading it at the time and now has a big "Editor's Note" at the beginning. ETA: you can see what the story originally said here.)
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That is very weird. I wonder if it's true, or if they were badgered by the scientology lawyer machine to make the change, or both.
This article on heavy.com still asserts it was at least run by a scientologist using scientologist principles: https://heavy.com/news/2017/05/marc...-tennessee-cannon-county-teenagers-treatment/
If there are things like this going on, I wonder why they aren't mentioned in Remini's show or the Going Clear doc? I also kept waiting for mention of Lisa McPherson as well. Maybe they mention them in the book and not the movie?
Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
Just my guess, but I think the Scientology lawyers threatened to sue them and so they changed the story. The properties may not have been owned by the church itself and so they claimed that it had nothing to do with the church.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
I've spoken with an ex-Scientologist about their personal experience of participating in the involuntary detention of members. It was partially that experience that led to them becoming an ex-Scientologist.
Safe-Keeper
My avatar is not a Drumpf hat
With respect, you may want to do read up on the psychology of abusive relationships. Can't think of any good sources to give you, but in short, calling them voluntary that you can just walk out of greatly oversimplifies things. There doesn't need to be a threat of any kind to make it hard to escape abusive or otherwise unhealthy relationships. Heck, even "adults of sound mind" may not even recognise their relationship as abusive in the first place. Not because they're stupid or naïve, but because of various pretty complex psychological reactions you experience when you're in such a relationship. Physical threats don't even need to enter the picture.
Scientologists, just like many abusive boyfriends and girlfriends come to think of it, deliberately isolate you from your loved ones so that they are pretty much all you have. If you walk out on them, you are alone. You may not even be able to easily reconnect with your former friends and family if you've been manipulated enough by your partner to think too ill of them.
How many people do you think go into relationships thinking "hmm, it this turns abusive I'll just stay, that sounds like a plan"? It's so much more hard and complex than that.
Safe-Keeper
My avatar is not a Drumpf hat
I had no idea they did things like this. I thought it was just the shunning and the lawsuits. This is dreadful. Sounds more like a street gang than a church.
Then again, I don't know if it's that much worsen than many other churches throughout history.
I'd be very interested in hearing about that experience. I can't understand why things like that are not mentioned in the Going Clear doc or Remini's show. Remini especially seems on a mission to take it down, but none of her claims have that kind of bite. If people are held against their will and abused it would seem like that would be the main thing to expose.
I generally think it's bad taste to go into anything personal on this board, but since this keeps coming up: I grew up in a very abusive household. As an adult I've worked in rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters. I've worked alongside DYFS employees and social workers. I've also played in many rock bands and have witnessed many forms of addiction and the abusive relationships they are magnetically attracted to.
In the real world (as opposed to online) I've been told I'm overly sympathetic to abuse victims and overly vindictive to abusers. Part of getting victims out of their situations is getting them to realize their contribution to the abuse cycle. It took me a long time to be able to communicate that effectively because of my natural proclivity to side 100% w/ the victims of abuse.
Agreed. But comparing situations where there is threatened or actual violence to situations where there isn't is still apples to oranges. What I'm trying to point out - unsuccessfully apparently - is that there are levels to this stuff. This is a nuance that people who haven't been educated about abuse (either through study or personal experience, or both) don't often realize.
All abuse is bad, but they are not all equal in their badness.
Would you tell an ex-POW that his experience and Rinder's experience in Scientology jail (the one he literally walked out of) are on the same level? Even if the day to day interrogations/torture/labor/etc were exactly the same, Rinder still went in voluntarily and left when he wanted. And he thought he'd get magic powers that would put him way above the average person if he stayed w/ the group. No doubt him leaving had terrible consequences, but he had choices and his physical safety was not in danger.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
There's some information about it in the book Bare Faced Messiah by Russell Miller, but my interview with the scientologist in question (who had been an auditor with the Sea Org and at the time of my interview was listed as a Suppresive Person which is why I have always kept their identity private) is on a podcast that is no longer available, sorry. I'm sure there are other sources you could seek out if you're interested in progressing beyond that one.
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