Loki said:
I don't care much for the lives of celebrities, but a friend told me Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are into a new "religion" called scientology. Something about a science-based religion just sounds horrendously dishonest. What I do know is that it was founded by a sci-fi writer called L Ron Hubbard and that it has something to do with science (duh).
I'd appreciate anyone's elaboration/opinion.
Thanks,
~ Loki
This website pretty much explains it.
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Scientology
[/QUOTE]
Scientology is a system of beliefs and teachings, originally established as a secular
philosophy in
1952 by author
L. Ron Hubbard, and subsequently reoriented from
1953 as an "applied
religious philosophy".
It is most prominently represented by the
Church of Scientology. The Church of Scientology is also claimed by its critics to be a commercial organization with a long history of defending its teachings by use of copyright and trade secret law, and sometimes using high pressure sales techniques to extract money from its members. Its history of using its full commercial weight in litigation against private individuals has attracted criticism as not being in keeping with the image of a religion.
Scientology as a religion Scientology is considered as a religion in the
United States and
Australia, and thus its practice enjoys the constitutional protections afforded to religious practice (
First Amendment to the United States Constitution;
Australian Constitution, s 116). Some
European countries do not consider the Church of Scientology to be a bona fide
religious organization, but a commercial enterprise, or a
cult. The nature of Scientology is hotly debated in all of these countries, regardless of the official position.
The
Church of Scientology has expended great amounts of time, effort, and resources in a wide-ranging public relations campaign to declare to the world that Scientology is a
bona fide religion. The organization has compiled a sizable number of sources that it points to as "proof" that it is a religion, and spokespersons for Scientology often waste little time highlighting them. As an example, the organization notes the following studies on the religious doctrines of Scientology conducted by prominent experts of religion from various faiths:
- Scientology - An Analysis and Comparison of its Religious Systems and Doctrines (http://www.bonafidescientology.org/append/02/index.htm) by Bryan R. Wilson, Ph.D., Emeritus Fellow, Oxford University England
- Scientology - The Marks of Religion (http://www.bonafidescientology.org/append/03/index.htm) by Frank K. Flinn, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor in Religious Studies, Washington University, Saint Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.
- Scientology - Its Cosmology, Anthropology, System of Ethics & Methodologies (http://www.bonafidescientology.org/append/04/index.htm) by R�gis Dericquebourg, Professor, Sociology of Religion, University of Lille III, Lille, France
- Scientology - An Analysis and Review of a New Religion (http://www.bonafidescientology.org/append/05/index.htm) by M. Darrol Bryant, Ph.D., Professor of Religion and Culture, Renison College, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
- Scientology - And Contemporary Definitions of Religion in the Social Sciences (http://www.bonafidescientology.org/append/06/index.htm) by Alejandro Frigerio, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Sociology, Catholic University of Argentina, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Scientology - A True Religion (http://www.bonafidescientology.org/append/07/index.htm) by Urbano Alonso Galan, Doctor in Philosophy and Licenciate in Theology, Gregorian University and, Saint Bonaventure Pontifical Faculty, Rome
- Scientology - The Relationship Between Scientology and Other Religions (http://www.bonafidescientology.org/append/08/index.htm) by Fumio Sawada, Eighth Holder of the Secrets of Yu-itsu Shinto
Critics usually dismiss these studies as biased, contending that the studies were commissioned by Scientology to produce exactly the results that Scientology wants the public to hear.
In the US, in October of
1993 the
Internal Revenue Service, after reviewing voluminous information on the Church's financial and other operations,
recognized (
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-news/ir-97-50.txt) the Church as an "organization operated exclusively for religious and charitable purposes". The Church is quick to highlight the tax exemption as proof that it is a religion. This subject is examined in the Wikipedia article on the
Church of Scientology.
In
1982, the
High Court of Australia ruled that the State Government of
Victoria could not declare that the Church of Scientology was not a religion (
Church of the New Faith v. Commissioner Of Pay-roll Tax (Vict.) 1983, 154 CLR 120 (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/154clr120.html)). The Court addressed the issue of belief, rather than possible
charlatanism:
"Charlatanism is a necessary price of religious freedom, and if a self-proclaimed teacher persuades others to believe in a religion which he propounds, lack of sincerity or integrity on his part is not incompatible with the religious character of the beliefs, practices and observances accepted by his followers."
Origins of Scientology
Scientology was expanded and reworked from
Dianetics [1] (
http://www.neuereligion.de/ENG/Wolf/pg6.htm) an earlier system of
self-improvement techniques originally set out in the
1950 book,
Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Immediately prior to this work, Hubbard was intensively involved with the occultist
Jack Parsons in performing the occult rites developed by
Aleister Crowley. Some critics have pointed out the many similarities in Hubbard's writings to the doctrines of Crowley
[2] (
http://www.xenu.net/archive/lrhbare/lrhbare08.html).
By the mid-
1950s, Hubbard had relegated Dianetics to being a sub-study of Scientology, although it is still promoted and delivered by Scientology organizations. The chief difference between the two is that Dianetics is explicitly secular, focused on the individual's present life and dealing with physical and mental or emotional problems, whereas Scientology adopts a more overtly religious approach
[3] (
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/finsbury/124/last.htm) focused on dealing with spiritual issues spanning multiple past lives as well as the present day.
Hubbard was repeatedly accused of adopting a religious facade for Scientology in order for the organization to maintain
tax-exempt status and avoid prosecution for false medical claims; these accusations have dogged the Church of Scientology to the present day, bolstered by numerous accounts from Hubbard's fellow science-fiction authors that on various occasions he stated that the way to get rich was to start a religion
[4] (
http://www.bible.ca/scientology-1million-start-a-religion.htm).
The word
scientology has a history of its own. Although nowadays associated almost exclusively with Hubbard's work, it was coined by the philologist Alan Upward in
1907 as a synonym for "
pseudoscience".
[5] (
http://www.instinct.org/texts/bluesky/bs3-4.htm) In
1934, the Argentine-German writer Anastasius Nordenholz published a book using the word positively:
Scientologie, Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der Tauglichkeit des Wissens, or
Scientology, Science of the Constitution and Usefulness of Knowledge.
[6] (
http://www.scientologie.de/scientologie/index.htm) Nordenholz's book is a study of consciousness, and its usage of the word is not greatly different from Hubbard's definition, "knowing how to know". However, it is not clear whether Hubbard was aware of these earlier usages. The word itself is a pairing of the
Latin word
scio ("know" or "distinguish") and the
Greek λόγος
lógos ("reason itself" or "inward thought"). It seems plausible that Hubbard's meaning derived, like that of Nordenholz, from a simple translation of these root words.
Beliefs and practices
Main article: Scientology beliefs and practices
Scientology's doctrines were established by Hubbard over some 33 years from
1950 through to his death in January
1986, issued in the form of thousands of lectures, books, essays, and policies. Most of the basic principles of Scientology were set out during the first 15 years of its existence, with Hubbard devoting much of his later life to the more esoteric upper levels (or "Advanced Technologies") of the Scientology belief system. The church describes his actions as improving and expanding on the workability and use of these principles.
The central beliefs of Scientology are that a person is an immortal
spiritual being (referred to as a
thetan) who possesses a
mind and a
body, and that the person is basically good. The life one should lead is one of continual spiritual and ethical education, awareness, and improvement, so that he/she can be happy and achieve ultimate salvation, as well as being more effective in creating a better world. Scientology claims to offer specific methodologies to assist a person to achieve this.
Another basic tenet of Scientology is that there are three basic interrelated (and intrinsically spiritual) components that are the very makeup of successful "livingness": affinity, reality (or agreement), and communication, which equate to understanding. Hubbard called this the "ARC triangle". Scientologists utilize ARC to enhance their lives, primarily based upon the belief that raising one aspect of the triangle increases the other two.
In an attempt to clarify the concept of conscious, subconscious, and unconscious minds, Hubbard wrote that the mind of man is structured in two parts: the "analytical mind" and the "reactive mind". He described the analytical mind as the positive, rational, computing portion, while the "reactive mind", according to Hubbard, operates on a stimulus-response basis. Scientologists believe the reactive mind is the root of an individual's travail, as well as the root of mankind's inhumanity and inability to create lasting, prosperous, sane societies.
The central methodology of Scientology is called "auditing", (from the Latin root
aud-, to listen), which is one-on-one communication with a Scientology-trained "auditor". The auditor assists a person to have realizations about himself and unravel the reactive portion of his mind, ie, emotional "charge", specific traumatic incidents, his own ethical transgressions, and bad decisions of his past that tend to lock him into a life not totally under his own control.
The Church states that the goal of Scientology is a world without war, criminals, and insanity, where good decent people have the freedom to reach their goals.
The Church of Scientology
Main article: Church of Scientology
The
Church of Scientology was first
incorporated in the
United States as a
nonprofit organization in
1954. Today it forms the center of a complex worldwide network of corporations dedicated to the promotion of L. Ron Hubbard's philosophies in all areas of life. This includes drug treatment centers (
Narconon), criminal rehab programs (Criminon), activities to reform the field of mental health (Citizens Commission on Human Rights), projects to implement workable and effective educational methods in schools (Applied Scholastics), a campaign to return moral values to living (The Way to Happiness), an organization to educate and assist businesses to succeed (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises, or WISE), and a crusade directed to world leaders as well as the general public to implement the 1948 United Nations document, "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights".
The Church of Scientology has been, and remains, a highly controversial organization. Countries have taken markedly different approaches to Scientology. The United States government regards Scientology as a religion, and thus considers the activities of the Church of Scientology to be protected under the
First Amendment to the United States Constitution; other countries, notably in
Europe, have regarded Scientology as a potentially dangerous
cult and have significantly restricted its activities at various times, or at least have not considered that the branches of the Church of Scientology met the legal criteria for being considered
religion-supporting organizations. In Germany for instance, they are not seen as a religion by the government but as a financial organization. Scientology has also been the focus of criticism by
anti-cult campaigners and has aroused controversy for its high-profile campaigns against
psychiatry and psychiatric medication.
The many legal battles fought by the Church of Scientology since its inception have given it a reputation as one of the most litigious religious organizations in existence. (See also:
Scientology and the legal system)
Independent Scientology groups
Main article: Free Zone
Although "Scientology" is most often used as shorthand for the
Church of Scientology, a number of groups practice Scientology and Dianetics outside of the fold of the official Church. Such groups are invariably breakaways from the official Church and usually argue that it has corrupted L. Ron Hubbard's principles or has otherwise become overly domineering. The Church takes an extremely hard line on breakaway groups, labeling them "
apostates" (or "squirrels" in Scientology jargon) and often subjecting them to considerable legal and social pressure. Breakaway groups avoid the name "Scientology" so as to keep from being
sued, instead referring to themselves collectively as the
Free Zone.
Free Zone groups are extremely heterogeneous in terms of doctrine—very unlike the official Church. Some Free Zoners practice more or less pure Scientology, based on Hubbard's original (Church-published) texts and principles but without the supervision or fee system of the official Church. Others have developed Hubbard's ideas into radically new forms, some of which are barely recognizable as being related to Scientology.
Controversy and criticism
Main article: Scientology controversy
Of the many
new religious movements to appear during the
20th century, Scientology has been one of the most controversial almost since its inception. The Church of Scientology has come into conflict with the governments and police of several countries (including the
United States, the
United Kingdom and
Germany) numerous times over the years. Another point of controversy is Scientology's infiltration of the United States
Internal Revenue Service in what Scientology termed "
Operation Snow White". Eleven high-ranking Scientologists, including Hubbard's wife Mary Sue Hubbard, served time in federal prison for their involvement in this infiltration.
The ongoing controversy involving the Church of Scientology and its critics involves:
Scientology vs. the Internet
Main Article: Scientology vs. the Internet
Leaders of Scientology have undertaken extensive operations on the Internet to deal with growing allegations of fraudulence and exposure of unscrupulousness within Scientology. The organization states that it is taking actions to prevent distribution of
copyrighted Scientology documents and publications online; however, its critics (and many Internet users) claim the organization is attempting to suppress free speech. In January 1995 Scientology attempted to silence the discussions taking place on the
alt.religion.scientology newsgroup by issuing a control message intended to remove the newsgroup from all
Usenet servers, and started to sue people for posting copies of its scriptures on the group, acts that resulted in thousands of Internet users around the world taking a closer look at Scientology. From mid-1996 and for several years after, the newsgroup was subject to another form of attempted suppression, in the form of hundreds of thousands of
spam messages posted on the group. Although the church neither confirmed nor denied that it was behind the spam, some investigators claimed that some of the spam had been traced to church members. Scientology's response to criticism was to issue a statement insisting that their actions were actually an assault against
hate speech, making numerous claims about hate and violence directed against Scientology. [/QUOTE]
