| Author |
Message |
Lexie_girl
Member
07-30-2004
| Tuesday, October 17, 2017 - 4:36 pm 
I've had family members who suffered from depression and a BFF who suffered from post-partum depression after she gave birth to her child. Treating either of them with vitamins and exercise isn't going to cut it.
Don't even get me started on Katie Holmes. I always felt like Tom Cruise and the CoS kidnapped her.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Tuesday, October 17, 2017 - 8:59 pm
Katie had to be quiet while giving birth.. That is the rule, clearly written by a man.
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Babyjaxmom
Member
10-20-2002
| Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - 10:33 am
Every time I see Nicole Kidman or Katie Holmes, I think how lucky they both were to get away from that awful cult.
Mental illness runs in my family. My dad suffered from depression (never treated, because of the social stigma), my older sister committed suicide in her 20s and her son (my nephew, who my parents raised and is more like a brother to me than my own brother) tried to follow in her footsteps in his 20s also. He's now 50 and is living a fairly "normal" life with his family, thanks to modern medicine. Tom Cruise and Scientology are full of sh*t. And LRH was a very evil man who's destroyed countless lives. I hope he's burning in hell.
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Jenjackso
Member
02-10-2009
| Monday, October 23, 2017 - 3:47 pm
I hope she does this:
http://ew.com/tv/2017/09/29/leah-remini-season-3-scientology/
JW's are not as dangerous as Scientology but they are destructive to families. And the quote that says they are powerful, I actually don't think they are really all that powerful. Over members, yes, they are, but not to the public. I love the idea of protecting people who may think they're just nice Bible students that come to your door to teach you. No, they find people with depression and promise them they never have to die and will live on a paradise earth, once God destroys the bad people. I always wonder if they've even slightly considered what a post-apocalyptic world actually looks like. The destruction to vulnerable people who need their families should be divulged, along with the hidden child molestation. I hope they get the green light on this!!
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Boberg
Member
10-04-2002
| Tuesday, October 24, 2017 - 3:54 am
Most everything said in that article Jenjackso posted about JW could be said about the Catholic church, they would just have to amp up the child molestattion if you substitute JW with Catholic.
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Jenjackso
Member
02-10-2009
| Tuesday, October 24, 2017 - 10:40 am
The Catholic Church is nothing on the level of JW's. Guess if they do the show you'll have to watch to see. The control over members is crazy. I lived it!
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Jenjackso
Member
02-10-2009
| Tuesday, October 24, 2017 - 10:42 am
Oh, and are you familiar with the child molestation situation within the JW's? Thank goodness the Australian Royal Commission is taking them on. The U.S. has not gone after them, for some reason, but Australia is on top of it.
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Sadiesmom
Member
03-13-2002
| Tuesday, October 24, 2017 - 11:15 pm
I think a lot of people find religion a great hiding place for pedophelia, You trust your religious leaders with your children and you don't question authority. I don't get religion which is probably why I am an atheist. I mean I understand the fun of rituals or some of them, but not the unbalanced trust of words that can have changed and twisted over time or is based on someone's interpretation.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - 6:46 am
I’m not a fan of Scientology. However, it’s not a lot odder than some other religious beliefs. The problem with Scientology (and to a degree with some other religions as well) is when they use coercion to force people to follow set religious beliefs and stay with the religion. The other problem with Scientology is the fees they require in order to progress in the religion. Makes it like a scam.
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Dipo
Member
04-23-2002
| Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - 11:18 am
What I find fascinating is that the whole religious thing is based on LRH, Diantics and Scientology, yet one of the shows I saw last night reviewed multiple documents that said they do not support the words of those references, they are only opinions.
I can't even imagine the Catholic church, just as an example, saying yes we are a religion but we don't support what the bible says.
It's mind boggling.
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Sadiesmom
Member
03-13-2002
| Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - 12:12 pm
maybe I am misremembering - but didn't dianetics come from a bar bet that Hubbard said he could start a for profit religion? That story sounds so familiar to me, I mean he stated he was going to found a religion and then he did and he said it would make him rich and it did.
Of course it is not like be jailed as a serial scam artist and found a religion based on reading stones in a hat with no witnesses.
or pretty much how any religion was founded. and yet some religious people think atheists are avoiding the truth.
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Irsnappy
Member
01-13-2009
| Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - 12:53 pm
IMO whenever a group, religious or otherwise, cuts you off from the rest of the world it is considered a cult. You can still be whatever religion you desire and be able to associate with people outside of that said group. Anything other than that is nuts....
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Dipo
Member
04-23-2002
| Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - 12:54 pm
Agree, Irsnappy.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - 1:32 pm
FWIW, that bar story has been largely discredited. There are other contemporaries of Hubbard who claimed that religion was the "best way to make money," but memory being what it is, (ie, not reliable) I wouldn't consider that proof.
More importantly, it clearly has become all about making money today.
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Grooch
Member
06-16-2006
| Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - 1:59 pm
I always heard (like 30 years ago) that he wrote the books as science fiction. He never meant it to be a religion. That people who read the books started turning it into a religion. When that happened, it was like, why not make money off it, type of thing.
This isn't a very reliable story either.
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Sanfranjoshfan
Member
09-17-2000
| Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - 2:35 pm
Back in the day, L Ron said a lot of things about starting a religion. I heard that many years ago, but just now did a quick search and found these quotes on Wiki:
L. Ron Hubbard
<snip>
Quotes
<snip>
"You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.
Response to a question from the audience during a meeting of the Eastern Science Fiction Association on (7 November 1948), as quoted in a 1994 affidavit by Sam Moskowitz.
This statement is similar or identical to several statements Hubbard is reported to have made to various individuals or groups in the 1940s. Variants include:
[too many similar quotes made at different places and times to post here - they are at the link below]
<snip>
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard
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Babyjaxmom
Member
10-20-2002
| Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - 3:48 pm
Makes it like a scam.
I think you could easily take the word "like" out of that sentence, Jimmer, and it would be even more true.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - 4:34 pm
Thanks, Sanfran, but again, it's just not proof. The same affidavit you quoted has two contradictory witnesses (two science fiction authors who were in attendance) who signed affidavits that he said nothing like that at that talk.
The thing we have to be wary of is that human memory is not eidetic but is constructive. That is, we remember things not as they happened but as they make sense to us later.
In fact, the original source of that quote "(I'd like to start a religion, that's where the money is.") is George Orwell (1938).
That said, it's certainly possible that was his intent, but like the bar bet story, we don't have reliable proof that any of that happened.
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Sanfranjoshfan
Member
09-17-2000
| Thursday, October 26, 2017 - 1:18 am
"Thanks, Sanfran, but again, it's just not proof. "
I agree. I get your point.
Now I am making an observation from a different perspective.
I get that there is no actual "proof" he said those words, (just "he said/he said" witnesses) but that's pretty much true of anything that anyone has ever said before the invention of recording equipment and or forensics. All of history before such inventions is basically hearsay, isn't it?
Whether L Ron said those exact words or not, he did act on that idea. I see it as a case of the proof of his intent being in the pudding, not in video evidence of whether or not he told others the recipe.
So maybe he didn't say it...but from my perspective, it doesn't really matter because we all know he did it...and I just don't think he could've done it without planning it or without intent.....unless of course the aliens in the volcano and all that crap were actually real.
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Boberg
Member
10-04-2002
| Thursday, October 26, 2017 - 2:44 am
I am loving and learning from this great discussion you all are having here...I hope it continues as I will keep checking in to read your findings and thoughts on the subject. Thank you.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, October 26, 2017 - 9:05 am
L. Ron Hubbard was speaking during the age of recording, and there are no recordings or writings of him saying it that are extemporaneous - that is, at the time he supposedly said it.
He doesn't deserve any defense. I just know that we live in an age where facts matter less, so I wanted to get the facts out.
What he founded was fantastical, and damaging, and it has only gotten moreso over time. Whatever his motivation, we can judge him on the results. And that verdict is in.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Thursday, October 26, 2017 - 10:39 am
It is not a religion, but a business and cult.
The IRS inexplicably overrode the courts and exempted them from taxation. Crazy.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, October 26, 2017 - 1:24 pm
Well, it is a religion by the legal/IRS definition.
Whether it is a *legitimate* religion is a different story.
I don't know that it has been tested in US courts? There was a fake news story running around a few years back saying that the SCOTUS had ruled they weren't a religion, but it WAS fake.
The UK Supreme Court and a few others internationally have ruled it on and determined it was a religion.
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Sanfranjoshfan
Member
09-17-2000
| Thursday, October 26, 2017 - 2:00 pm
"Well, it is a religion by the legal/IRS definition.
Whether it is a *legitimate* religion is a different story."
If it's a "legal" religion doesn't that make it "legitimate" by default? Doesn't "legitimate" basically mean it's lawful?
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Grooch
Member
06-16-2006
| Thursday, October 26, 2017 - 2:21 pm
Didn't the Kardashians start their own religion, also?
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