Is Scientology a religion, a business, or is it about mind control?

Are they still looking for that guy's wife?? The head honcho's wife disappeared long ago....and no one can find her. All very mysterious. 🙄

Michele Diane Miscavige (née Barnett; born January 18, 1961) is an American Scientologist who was last seen in public in August 2007.
 

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According to the APA (American Psychological Association):

cult​



Updated on 04/19/2018
n.
  1. a religious or quasi-religious group characterized by unusual or atypical beliefs, seclusion from the outside world, and an authoritarian structure. Cults tend to be highly cohesive, well organized, secretive, and hostile to nonmembers.
  2. the system of beliefs and rituals specific to a particular religious group.
I guess that everyone has to make up their own mind, but as someone else posted, it's nothing that I'm interested in.
 

Paco Dennis said:
The Church of Scientology follows the teaching of Ron Hubbard. Does it include the teachings of Jesus Christ in the Bible? I don't think so but I am not sure.

I have heard that it costs money to progress in Hubbard's teaching. Eventually coming to the perfection of his teachings and know your own divinity.?
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Isn't he related to Old Mother Hubbard? 🤣
 
Della said:
L. Ron Hubbard quote: "You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion".

I'd say it's a business.
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Wifey and I had a $10 maximum challenge one Christmas. She gave me an unauthorised biography about L. Ron Hubbard, it was an interesting read and worth every one of the 50c spent. I forget the details as it was 35 years ago now. L. Ron bought a ship once, it didn't end well. 😜
 
IrishEyes said:
In the LDS Church there are ceremonies preformed that you promise never to disclose but nothing is signed, more like an oath to God.
When some leave the church they have spoken about them but I can't say it is a mind controlling thing. Some may prefer to say it is, to benefit their view. I have heard Scientology is much stricter on some things within the church.
Their are those pious self righteous personalities in all religious groups that get more focused on then those, just trying to find their fit/niche and lead a better life. I really take interviews the same way I take gossip, there are more than one side to a story and people will grab out of those stories what they want to believe. (I was a LDS member for 5 years. Then I changed wards due to a move and I learned not all wards are the same and that a church is only as good as the people in them.) I don't regret having been a member but I have my own personal reasoning for leaving.
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I am in absolute agreement with the words in bold.

Also, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", whether they belong to a church or to some other religious organisation, or to none at all.

I am also reminded that when we point a finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at ourselves.
 
Ron L. Hubbard was a genius. He started as a science fiction writer and started believing his own delusions and then started an organization that is worth billions. The only science fiction writer I know to convince people that he was saving the planet.

I tried reading his first science fiction book. It was one of the worse I had ever read. How he got anyone to believe his insanity, still baffles me today. Then that phony machine that was nothing more than an ohm meter.
 
Deya said:
Ron L. Hubbard was a genius. He started as a science fiction writer and started believing his own delusions and then started an organization that is worth billions. The only science fiction writer I know to convince people that he was saving the planet.

I tried reading his first science fiction book. It was one of the worse I had ever read. How he got anyone to believe his insanity, still baffles me today. Then that phony machine that was nothing more than an ohm meter.
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Proof positive of the truth of a quote often attributed to P.T. Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute."
 
Although many people may find it difficult to believe others with seemingly normal intelligence were manipulated so, I personally do not. Has been ongoing for centuries and in recent decades since the rise of science, telecommunication, and now social media, has actually become worse. I posted per below link, a short essay from a psychology communication website of how many people within groups tend to absorb ideas of groups instead of thinking things for themselves. Many people have trained themselves from the time they were in K12 school to be so. And even when many think for themselves, their mental processes are flawed because they have trained themselves to be...stupid. Read this whole link:

Can you believe anything any more?

Primed for poor thinking and bizarre group behaviors. The root cause of poor thinking lies in our evolution. Our ability to cope with complex information is limited, so our brains take shortcuts, such as confirmation bias — the tendency to notice things that match our preexisting beliefs and ignore those that don't. For example, we quickly forget waiting in a fast queue but remember how annoying a slow queue is, and ask, "Why am I always in the slow queue?"
 
There are many controlling religions out there. We have Hill Song here who has many churches throughout the land and overseas. Their aim seems to be recruiting young ones to pass around the plate and collect as much money to add to their coffers. One such church I took my sister to see was like looking at a booking office at a recital centre. There were hundreds
of C. D's all around the wall and videos of preachers telling the people how to live the good life, and here were some of the
"pastors" having a good time seducing recruits. I feel sorry for all the gullible people out there looking for answers to how to get into Heaven.

Oh, I must add, there was a Cash Machine at the entrance, in case you didn't have enough change.
 
oscash said:
There are many controlling religions out there. We have Hill Song here who has many churches throughout the land and overseas. Their aim seems to be recruiting young ones to pass around the plate and collect as much money to add to their coffers. One such church I took my sister to see was like looking at a booking office at a recital centre. There were hundreds
of C. D's all around the wall and videos of preachers telling the people how to live the good life, and here were some of the
"pastors" having a good time seducing recruits. I feel sorry for all the gullible people out there looking for answers to how to get into Heaven.

Oh, I must add, there was a Cash Machine at the entrance, in case you didn't have enough change.
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Yes, and who can forget the massive enterprise that Jim and Tammy Baker built from starting the PTL Club where they sold everything from soup to nuts, including $1000 memberships to their Heritage Club. The money just flowed in like a river and bought them a private Jet, a fleet of luxury cars, and just about anything else you could imagine. People believed they walked on water and were God's personal ambassadors.
 
David777 said:
Although many people may find it difficult to believe others with seemingly normal intelligence were manipulated so, I personally do not. Has been ongoing for centuries and in recent decades since the rise of science, telecommunication, and now social media, has actually become worse. I posted per below link, a short essay from a psychology communication website of how many people within groups tend to absorb ideas of groups instead of thinking things for themselves. Many people have trained themselves from the time they were in K12 school to be so. And even when many think for themselves, their mental processes are flawed because they have trained themselves to be...stupid. Read this whole link:

Can you believe anything any more?

Primed for poor thinking and bizarre group behaviors. The root cause of poor thinking lies in our evolution. Our ability to cope with complex information is limited, so our brains take shortcuts, such as confirmation bias — the tendency to notice things that match our preexisting beliefs and ignore those that don't. For example, we quickly forget waiting in a fast queue but remember how annoying a slow queue is, and ask, "Why am I always in the slow queue?"
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This is so true. I am very grateful for taking an introduction to critical thinking class in college where you learn about determining the validity of a premise, and how crucial that is for establishing a likely conclusion. Deductive reasoning only works effectively if you follow those steps properly. If you skip over the true premise, then the conclusion is flawed. Bayesian reasoning also works in a parallel manner.

As you correctly pointed out, so many will allow the belief to go unchallenged and it becomes a form of blindness. The more one has invested in the belief, the more the pattern is perpetuated.
 

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