Just Tom & Chris this time as we discuss the week’s news: abortion movies, circumcision updates, adoption agency issues, gay marriage; as well as a length discussion about the relationship between religion and law, and a quick update about the unfortunate and disgusting antics of Scientology. Thanks for listening and let us know what you think via the site.
Interesting podcast.
~Mooglets
Big news from the higher echelons of the Church of Scientology, where a leaked email from a senior member provides an indication of mutiny within the ranks of the Church’s secretive, military-style bureaucracy, the Sea Org.
Debbie Cook, who worked for the Church for three decades and led its Flag Service Organization (as many of you will know, this kind of jargon is standard Scientology fare) in Clearwater, Florida before leaving the post a few years ago, began the New Year by sending an email to 12,000 Scientologists criticising its notoriously uncompromising leader David Miscavige.
The email is long and jargon-filled (you can find it in full here), but, to summarise, it accuses Miscavige of mismanagement and failing to uphold the legacy of the cult’s founder, pulp science-fiction author L Ron Hubbard. In particular, Cook suggests that the Church’s vast wealth, accumulated through donations and the large sums required to take Scientology training courses, goes against the teaching of Hubbard, who wrote that lifetime membership should cost no more than $75:“Currently membership monies are held as Int [jargon for Scientology’s international management] reserves and have grown to well in excess of a billion dollars. Only a tiny fraction has ever been spent, in violation of the policy above. Only the interest earned from the holdings have been used very sparingly to fund projects through grants.”What’s particularly interesting about Cook’s email is that it is not the work of an ex-Scientologist looking to discredit the organisation, but rather someone who continues to firmly believe in the religion, as it was imagined by Hubbard before he died in 1986. Cook makes this clear at the end of her email, where she urges fellow Scientologists to protect Hubbard’s legacy by taking action against Miscavige’s mismanagement:“I […] know that I dedicated my entire adult life to supporting LRH and the application of LRH technology and if I ever had to look LRH in the eye I wouldn’t be able to say I did everything I could to Keep Scientology Working if I didn’t do something about it now.”While the Church’s organisational discord is fascinating, and welcome news for those who have followed stories concerning Miscavige’s hardline leadership (see, for instance,my interview with whistleblower Marc Headley from a couple of years ago), this persistence of belief among some of those who have rejected Scientology in its current, Miscavige-led form is of equal interest to cult-watchers. The former senior Scientologist Mark Rathbun has been criticising the Church in this manner for a number of years, even going so far as to regularly leak confidential documents via his blog, but he still professes his belief in Scientology. That those who have witnessed the abuses of Scientology at first hand, and have even gone so far as to publicly split with the Church, can nevertheless continue to hold beliefs that are widely dismissed and ridiculed in the world outside certainly provides an interesting case study in the resilience of religious belief.
It will be intriguing to observe how this apparent schism develops this year – could we be seeing the beginnings of a breakaway Church of Scientology, and if so how popular will it prove with those currently within Miscavige’s organisation?
A 2008 survey by Trinity College estimated there are about 25,000 committed Scientologists in the United States. As the study’s authors admit, their estimate could be off target. But even if the number of Scientologists were twice as large, Scientology would still be the smallest religion people bother to loathe. There are more Wisconsin Synod Lutherans than Scientologists—most likely by a factor of ten. There are more Hasidic Jews of the Bobover sect. There are more Wiccans. There are, I am certain, more people who thought the world was ending on May 21, 2011, than there are people who believe in this sci-fi religion of e-meters, thetans and a prehistoric cosmic warlord named Xenu. When I say “Scientologist,” half the time people think I mean “Christian Scientist.” L. Ron Hubbard, Mary Baker Eddy: what’s the difference?
Yet we can’t ignore Scientology, if only because the Scientologists won’t let us. You can go a lifetime without being invited to a Roman Catholic Mass, but sooner or later, especially in urban areas, the Scientologists will find you. They open recruitment centers all over the world. They place leaflets beneath windshield wipers, invitations to take free “stress tests.” They brag of sending missionaries to disaster areas like Ground Zero and post-earthquake Haiti. For many years, the church relentlessly harassed journalists, sued critics and fought the Internal Revenue Service over its tax status. Its proud Hollywood adherents include, besides small fish like Jeffrey Tambor and Jenna Elfman, box office whales like John Travolta and Tom Cruise, both quite vocal about their love for the church. Other celebrities express their support with money. In 2007 Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson, was reported to have given $10 million to the church.
Scientology is, in other words, aggressively evangelical, and how one reacts to an encounter with it says a good deal about how one views religious freedom generally. We tend to think that freedom of speech and freedom of religion both live in the American soul, but the truth is that most of us value free speech far more than we value freedom of religion. Ask yourself: Should practitioners of Santería be allowed to sacrifice chickens? Should Native Americans be permitted to ingest sacramental peyote? Would you let Catholics send their children to parochial schools to learn their faith, or allow fundamentalist Mormons to take multiple wives? At various times, Americans have answered no to these questions. Even liberals for whom “tolerance” is a sacrament will find reasons consenting adults may not ingest harmless plants or enter plural marriages.
One danger of what might be called Abrahamic ecumenicalism—the idea that Protestant, Catholic, Jew and Muslim can all get along—is that it sets the bar for tolerance rather low. In the United States, where by the third generation every immigrant family succumbs to the English language and a pop-culture religion that venerates Angry Birds, Lady Gaga, Wiz Khalifa, Harry Potter and Entourage, most followers of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad can find a way to get along. Eventually, they locate a moderate mosque, a Reform temple or a prosperity-gospel megachurch. After worship, they agree by text message to meet up at Mickey Dee’s.
But what does the United States say to religious people who remain resolutely weird? That they may practice their beliefs but must expect to face bigotry and harassment? That they deserve legal rights but should also keep their distance—staying in Clearwater, Florida, a major seat of Scientology, but steering clear of our beach communities? Or do we, just maybe, fully accept these religious outliers, knowing that they are not just the price but the fruit of true toleration?
Continue to read this article here
~Mooglets
A former Church of Scientology member has alleged the organization ran background checks on people it believed to be friends of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The investigations followed the 2005 screening of the South Park episode ‘Trapped in the Closet,” which lampooned both the church and, specifically, Scientology follower Tom Cruise.
Yesterday, former church executive Mark “Marty” Rathburn published on his website a report allegedly written by Scientology’s Commanding Officer, Office of Special Affairs, which, according to Rathburn, reveals the organization investigated the public records of non-Scientologists the church thought might help in getting a “direct line” to Stone and Parker. These included John Stamos, his ex-wife Rebecca Romijn, and South Park consultant Matt Prager.
Both Trey Parker and Matt Stone declined to comment on the subject. The Church of Scientology failed to respond to requests for a reaction to Rathburn’s allegations.
From Inside TV (Found via Goodreasonnews) Of course they did. This is in no way surprising. Scientology is one of the more toxic religions/cults (depending both on your personal view and the official view of the country you are currently residing in) - they’re extremely litigious and so paranoid it puts, well, any other paranoid on the planet to shame. They’ve very likely looked into the backgrounds of every single person they are aware of who has said even the slightest ‘bad thing’ about them. Remember, they have a rule in their church: Fair Game Which basically means, anyone not of the Church is an enemy, and Church members are allowed to take any means they deem necessary to hurt - physically, emotionally, financially, legally - them. So. I’m not surprised. ~Mooglets
The Church of Scientology is a notoriously difficult subject for journalists. The press has long been considered an enemy of the church, which was founded half a century ago by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. (To give but one example, in the 1950s, Hubbard wrote that TIME’s purpose was to “cause riots and disaffection.”) In a new book, Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion, author Janet Reitman tells the fascinating history of the mysterious organization and its members. “I have sought to understand Scientology: not to judge, but simply to absorb,” she writes. “What I have found defies expectation, and even definition.” TIME spoke with Reitman about what she learned.
From Time US
