idk christianity has this debt you can never repay called original sin, right
― mh, Friday, 7 February 2014 22:50 (ten years ago) link
Yeah, but that's made up.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 7 February 2014 22:52 (ten years ago) link
loads of religions have extorted money from their followers over the years, let's be real
― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 7 February 2014 23:00 (ten years ago) link
would anyone like to purchase some indulgences etc
― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 7 February 2014 23:01 (ten years ago) link
But they literally hand you an itemized bill at the end, sometimes in the six figures. What other religion does that?
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 7 February 2014 23:08 (ten years ago) link
u go to hell if you don't tithe 10% iirc
― mh, Friday, 7 February 2014 23:15 (ten years ago) link
every Christian denomination, even the Catholic church at this point, acknowledges that salvation is possible outside of its particular sect (except maybe not the JWs). comparing scientology to other faiths on an "eh, they all pull the same hokum" level is really simplistic thinking - all religions are interested in persuading their congregants to remain in the fold & to donate their money, no doubt. and all are interested in insisting on the veracity of their truth-claims. not all charge outright for access to higher levels of truth on a cash-for-truth basis, and almost none will actively make your life miserable if you speak out against them publicly. Catholics did this centuries ago, yes, in a very different way. the comparison is really, really surface-level though
― joe perry has been dead for years (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, 7 February 2014 23:33 (ten years ago) link
let's not pretend churches/religions are static things. I wasn't saying they are all the same at this current point in time.
― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 7 February 2014 23:56 (ten years ago) link
almost none will actively make your life miserable if you speak out against them publicly
Romans just fed you to the lions iirc
― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 7 February 2014 23:57 (ten years ago) link
if anything this stuff makes Scientologists look really archaic, resorting to outdated tactics and acting like modernity never happened
― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 7 February 2014 23:58 (ten years ago) link
I in no way intended that to be serious, I feel that scientology's economic and social debt scale isn't in any way comparable to any major world religion currently extant, at least to my limited knowledge.
I think the "eh, most religions are vicious and angry at the start, or are even vicious and angry" is a pretty poor lens for viewing Scientology. Yes, religious institutions have their abuses but it's generally seen as a good to route them out, for the most part.
― mh, Saturday, 8 February 2014 00:57 (ten years ago) link
tl;dr I meant that as a lazy zing against the idea, not as an endorsement of it
― mh, Saturday, 8 February 2014 01:04 (ten years ago) link
I read Going Clear and I thought it was great. I had a friend who (before I knew her) was involved with Scientology. She spent about $80,000 and was still on the very lower levels. She doesn't like to talk about it much because she's embarrassed about getting suckered. It's really expensive! And it did not turn her into a famous Hollywood rock star.
― DonkeyTeeth, Saturday, 8 February 2014 02:25 (ten years ago) link
Famous, like Kirstie Alley and Jenna Elfman!
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 8 February 2014 02:57 (ten years ago) link
Yeah, what exactly is the track record of Scientologists actually getting famous? I don't count Beck, because he only went back to the faith later in life. Do we just not know of them?
― DonkeyTeeth, Saturday, 8 February 2014 03:39 (ten years ago) link
umm the Romans fed Christians to the lions dude. (except that didn't actually happen, either. Not sure where you got the "Christians feeding ppl to lions" bit tbrr
― joe perry has been dead for years (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, 8 February 2014 04:10 (ten years ago) link
oh wait nm I don't know why I thought u said otherwise my bad
― joe perry has been dead for years (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, 8 February 2014 04:11 (ten years ago) link
I wonder what the deal was with Giovanni Ribisi and Cat Power, i.e. to what extent she got pulled into Scientology too when they were a couple. (She's always seemed somewhat psychologically unstable/ fragile, hence possibly susceptible to this kind of thing. Like other such religious/ cultic/ psycho-philosophical-lifestyle systems, maybe it even "helps" for a while. With addiction, etc.)
Don't Scientos usually mate-- pair up with-- each other? They may date outside the religion, but do they ever marry (or get into long-term relationships) with those outside it?
― drash, Saturday, 8 February 2014 09:06 (ten years ago) link
He's now married to Agyness Deyn and she's deflecting all the Sci questions people throw at her.
― baked beings on toast (suzy), Saturday, 8 February 2014 09:16 (ten years ago) link
learned today that william s burroughs went clear in the 60s before being excommunicated for "treason"
― i want to say one word to you, just one word:buzzfeed (difficult listening hour), Saturday, 8 February 2014 09:42 (ten years ago) link
didn't he and someone else (gysin maybe?) go around disrupting scientology meetings in london by playing back prerecorded tapes of some kind while in the audience? guessing that was post-treason. i remember in ed sanders revised-revised edition of his manson book (grain of salt) there being some totally O_o connections drawn between some of the family and the disappearance of numerous scientologists.
― no lime tangier, Saturday, 8 February 2014 10:05 (ten years ago) link
as someone mentioned above one of the most fascinating details to me was the fact that top-level scientologists, even now, still speak in '50s slang because thats what hubbard did.
how crazy is that. its just the best.
― socki (s1ocki), Saturday, 8 February 2014 16:20 (ten years ago) link
that's swell
― kinder, Saturday, 8 February 2014 16:24 (ten years ago) link
― baked beings on toast (suzy), Saturday, February 8, 2014 3:16 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark
i was just wondering whatever happened to her and now i know. speaking of scientology & celebrities, i caught maybe 10 min of "can't hardly wait" the other week and saw the part where jenna elfman is this beleaguered smoking angel who tells that blonde dude about some opportunity she missed and then i stopped watching, but it reminded me that all of these people are actors too. i wonder how much faking it they do when they're talking with the sea org muckity mucks.
― we slowly invented brains (La Lechera), Saturday, 8 February 2014 17:30 (ten years ago) link
this is pretty trashy
― mustread guy (schlump), Saturday, 8 February 2014 17:39 (ten years ago) link
Trashy on my part? I like Cat Power, and I'm hardly an emblem of mental health/ stability myself (on the contrary), kind of identify with that. Just extrapolating from the Ribisi relationship, which always seemed strange to me.
On the other hand, won't deny that I sometimes take an interest in trashy celebrity gossip. Guilty as charged.
― drash, Saturday, 8 February 2014 17:50 (ten years ago) link
Finished Going Clear. What a ride, eh?
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 02:12 (ten years ago) link
― joe perry has been dead for years (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, February 7, 2014 6:33 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
After finishing the book and reading his epilogue, I don't think he was being as, er, eccumenical? even-handed? as Shakey suggested. He seems to more be comparing and contrasting different "new" religious movements. He notes that some share specific elements with Scientology but he doesn't make any of them out to be an exact fit. You've got mormonism, which goes full-on legit/mainstream, drops some of its more unpopular practices (bigamy) and fields presidential candidates, and then you've also got Jim Jones and mass suicide. And then there's the Amish, who are very cloistered and easily shun but otherwise seem relatively harmless, and the Branch Davidians who he seems a little more uncertain about. I think he reasonably calls psychotherapy Scientology's more respectable cousin or something, but he doesn't imply that psychotherapy is "just as bad" as scientology as an institution, as opposed to as a philosophy.
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 02:34 (ten years ago) link
Such a great book. And I agree it wasn't even handed--there's a bit of underlying astonishment overall. Then again, anyone that writes about Hubbard usually comes off that way.
― Pale Smiley Face (dandydonweiner), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 02:51 (ten years ago) link
― DonkeyTeeth, Saturday, February 8, 2014 3:39 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
they've gotten a few/several famous people when they were sorta kinda famous.
― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, 11 February 2014 02:54 (ten years ago) link
xp, sorry I didn't mean to suggest that Wright wasn't being "even-handed" in the sense of fairness. I think he's about as fair as a non-believing writer can be to them. I just meant that I didn't think the purpose of that epilogue was to say "See, all religions are like this at one time or another in their history."
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 02:55 (ten years ago) link
ah ok. lol non-believing writer. Who believes Hubbard at all?
― Pale Smiley Face (dandydonweiner), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 03:29 (ten years ago) link
i just meant as opposed to a member of the church
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 03:30 (ten years ago) link
Congratulations to Josh on completing his Clear Mitzvah!http://scontent-b-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/t1/264539_708179345882462_364104751_n.jpg
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 03:52 (ten years ago) link
So many great moments in the book. I really love the fact check scene at the end where Tommy Davis is giving the most absurd justifications/denials but you feel like you're going down the rabbit hole with him, just trying to imagine what it must have been like to actually sit through hours of that, going over fact after fact with those giant binders, the dunkin donuts sign in the background, etc.
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 04:54 (ten years ago) link
and then after all that there's like 2 lines mentioning how Davis blowed
― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 12:40 (ten years ago) link
I liked how the (earlier) New Yorker piece works in tandem with this. Iirc, it wasn't really an excerpt but really a expanded version of some parts of this, especially the St. Louis archives fact checking, with doctored photos and invented documents and the whole NYorker fact-checking process. Really one of the most damning things in here, again, is the so-called disputed Hubbard memoir, which Wright notes the church in the past submitted into evidence as a defense but now keeps a tight lid on, because 21st c. CoS clearly can't withstand the full batshit transparency.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 11 February 2014 14:18 (ten years ago) link
It was pretty amazing when Davis tried to argue that someone other than Hubbard had added the stuff about homosexuality to his writings, and that's why it had been taken out. This is the only book I've read where an account of its own fact-checking process was included and was in itself riveting.
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 14:46 (ten years ago) link
Just finished the Wright book tonight and basically everyone ^ otm. Hugely admire the people who were in deep but found the courage to blow and then speak out. Really does seem like scientology stands apart in its vindictiveness.
Apparently Louis Theroux is working on a scientology doc..
― sktsh, Wednesday, 12 February 2014 00:43 (ten years ago) link
Finished Going Clear. What a ride, eh?― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Monday, February 10, 2014 8:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
you should start a thread: Hurting Went Clear. Now Ask Him About It.
― espring (amateurist), Wednesday, 12 February 2014 01:03 (ten years ago) link
Had anyone read his Amish book? tempted to check it out, after he mentioned it in the text.
― the "Weird Al" Yankovic of country music (stevie), Wednesday, 12 February 2014 07:59 (ten years ago) link
Kind of want to read all of his books now.
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 12 February 2014 15:07 (ten years ago) link
we should start a thread for books that began as NYer articles/written by NYer writers
― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080), Wednesday, 12 February 2014 17:09 (ten years ago) link
good idea
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 12 February 2014 17:15 (ten years ago) link
I really like the Dana Goodyear Anything That Moves exotic food/foodie book. There were several chapters of that that stemmed from her New Yorker writing.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 12 February 2014 18:09 (ten years ago) link
David Remnick's Ali book is great
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 12 February 2014 18:39 (ten years ago) link
would really like to read his other non-fiction books. He was another NYer writer that always stood out to me well before he became editor
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 12 February 2014 18:40 (ten years ago) link
Y'all weren't kidding! I'm reading this book right now, it's great!
― iFrankenstein (latebloomer), Wednesday, 12 February 2014 18:59 (ten years ago) link
A conspicuous example of Dianetic processing involved John Brodie, the outstanding quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, who suffered an injury to his throwing arm in 1970 that threatened to end his career. Despite the best medical attention and physical therapy, his elbow remained sore and swollen. Finally, he went to Phil Spickler, a Scientologist and Dianetic auditor, who asked Brodie to tell him about previous incidents that might be keeping his arm from healing. Brodie related that he had been in a severe traffic accident in 1963, in which his arm had been broken. As he explored the incident with Spickler, Brodie seemed to recall one of the ambulance attendants saying, “Well, that poor sonofabitch will never throw a football again.” And yet Brodie was unconscious at the time. How could he have such a memory? Spickler told him this was all part of an engram that was keeping him from getting well. “The ambulance attendant’s prediction had been simmering in my unconscious for seven years, agitating all my deepest fears of declining ability or failure,” Brodie later writes. “It had finally surfaced as this psychosomatic ailment in my throwing arm. Phil made me tell the story again and again and again, until no charge showed on the E-Meter” (John Brodie and James D. Houston, Open Field, p. 166). The swelling on Brodie’s arm diminished. He went on to have one of the greatest seasons of his career, and was voted the National Football League’s most valuable player that year.
― Mordy , Tuesday, 18 February 2014 05:30 (ten years ago) link
http://i717.photobucket.com/albums/ww173/prestonjjrtr/Weather/volcano1b.gif
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Tuesday, 18 February 2014 05:38 (ten years ago) link