Scientology: Serious Business

I was recently asked to share thoughts on the cult that is the Church of Scientology. Despite the title, this isn’t about how Scientology is a business pretending to be a religion while really being a cult.

Links-a-plenty: The Wikipedia entry on Scientology; Operation Clambake, the definitive source of Scientology-related material; Bare-Faced Messiah, the most compelling biography I’ve ever read.

Maybe some day I’ll write about Sea Org, Scientology’s private navy, their billion-year contracts, the slave labor extracted from those who cannot pay for Scientology teaching, the way families are broken up and destroyed …. all the stuff I find most interesting about the cult. Today’s purpose is very brief education on Why Scientology Is Bad.

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I searched for “Scientology” on Google to see what the first page is looking like. It’s interesting to see what critical links pop up attacking a very powerful/evil organization like Scientology. Operation Clambake is always going to be there, but I was surprised to see a YTMND entry. I watched it, and it made a good point worth sharing.

By now, many people are aware of Scientology’s crazy beliefs – the space opera, Xenu, Thetans, volcanoes and hydrogen bombs. L. Ron Hubbard being a science fiction writer who is quoted by numerous people as saying “If you want to get rich, start a religion.” Warped Scientologists may think that Tom Cruise is their Messiah and doing a wonderful job spreading the Good News, but thankfully he is so batshit crazy that there’s no question his actions have kept many sane people from joining up who may have otherwise done so in a moment of weakness.

Now that the basics of Scientology beliefs are somewhat well-known, I fall into the trap of assuming that everybody knows everything about them that I do. The truth is, most people find out the back history and laugh – and that’s it. Most people don’t understand why there is such virulent hatred for Scientology. It’s because they are a cult, and they do destroy lives both metaphorically and literally. Scientology has killed, and this is an instance where I say “fuck the courts.” I don’t care about culpability, reasonable doubt, or any manner of legal loophole that Scientology lawyers have used to allow Scientology to avoid justice. Any rational person can look at the evidence on a number of deaths and say “no doubt, Scientology is responsible.”

Here is the Scientology YTMND I mentioned earlier.

Whyaretheydead.net is the most comprehensive database of deaths associated with Scientology.

It exists in our own backyard: a tax-exempt butcher hiding under the guise of religion and protection of the law. This is not a laughing stock, it is deathly serious.