Scientology Vs "The Real World" - alt.religion.scientology

Message from discussion Scientology Vs "The Real World"

Brent Stone

More options Oct 25 2000, 3:00 am

Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology

From: Brent Stone <bst...@kudonet.com>

Date: 2000/10/25

Subject: Re: Scientology Vs "The Real World"

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On Thu, 26 Oct 2000 01:14:36 -0400, <He...@No-spam-cotse.com> wrote:

...<snip>

>I know now and have known in the past people who did that. And either we drift
>apart beause we have no other shared interests, or we keep up our friendship
>because we do.

>However this situation _is_ different. If a former member was picketing a
>Christian Church as a satanist (or a butcher's shop as a vegetarian) and
>persuading people not to join it, it is entirely possible that the vicar (or
>the butcher) would instruct his or her flock (or staff) not to talk to the
>person trying to cause trouble. They would try and protect their group.

I know of no cases of this actually happening, and of no organizations with
this kind of ~policies~. In either of these cases, I would expect the people
to ~talk~ to the former member about their change of heart, and look at the
reasons for it long before they just stopped communicating with them.

In the case of the CoS the people leaving are not criticizing the ~beliefs~
of the organization, but the actions. I know of no critics who have taken
to belief in Xenu as the savior.

A closer comparison might be if a member of the Catholic Church started
protesting the abuse of children by priests, or if the butcher shop worker
were to protest against the shop handling the meat unsafely. In the case
of the Catholic Church, this has happened, and I know of no excommunications
for it. The Catholic Church has made changes in policies and actions to
change the way they do things. In this case, they thought that the critics
were correct. If they had thought that the critics were wrong, they would
have addressed the issues and tried to come to an understanding.

Do you think that any of the arguments of critics are valid?

>There are all kinds of Scientologists. Some like myself are quite interested in
>its public image and in the nature of the attacks. Others don't really care to
>know. They have other interests.

What do you think about the nature of the "attacks"? Is there any validity in
what the critics are saying?

>> >> Agreement is ALL that is holding the house of cards
>> >> together.

>> > In my opinion it would be agreement plus the applicability
>> > of the basic philosophy to real life and the workability
>> > of individual processes.

>> This is good, however I would caution against using the
>> workability of one process as justification for the
>> "realness" of another.

>Absolutely. I agree.

>> > Nothing wrong with asking questions.

>> According to HCO Policy Letter 5 March 1965:

>> "If it is not in an HCO Policy Letter, it is not policy."

>> What HCO Policy Letter or Bulletin authorises:

>> "Scientology Policy Directives"?

>This is away from the title of the thread. And I could answer it far better if
>I had access to a full Scientology library. If you want a good answer I would
>recommend writing a polite letter to the Executive Director International.

>However I'll tell you my opinion:

>We used to have isses that were junior to HCOPLs called Board Policy Letters
>but these were all scrubbed in the mid-80s. SPDs have a similar junior status
>and are 'directives" which direct rather than set policy. I've seen a few and
>they weren't very exciting. An interesting issue I did see was in the
>technical counterpart of the SPDs. I think they are called Inspector General
>for Tech bulletins. Anyway this issue reported that people were shaking their
>hands before doing a can squeeze - but that this was just something that had
>grown up out of tradition and there wasn't any LRH reference which advised
>doing this.

>(snip)

>Freddie T

- Brent

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