Do You think that Scientology is a cult

[Badbird]

Originally Posted by Flimmaker1473

Atheists make up only 2% of the U.S population. Not everyone who says they are not religious is an atheists. The number of people who say they have a religion is down. But the number of people who believe in an after life is up.

That's why a gave it a wide "give or take." Trying to nail down what people mean when they say "non-religious" is tricky. If you really pressed them, I bet most would say agnostic. It's one of those things that some people just haven't given much thought to.

[Bondgirl]

So what you are claiming is that in Americas religion values are down

I always thought that in certain American states there are towns full of church signs and churches

But l do know there are alot of religions saying that the world is going to end on Dec 12.2012

i wish they would stop thinking that the world is going to end and look at the good things instead of looking at the worst things

I cant beleive some religions can beleive in all this crap

[Bondgirl]

Umm please explain what you mean by your comment fixedmind

[Erroneous]

It hard to know what is truth or not, but one thing is for sure, a lot of the stuff you hear about them is pretty weird. It does seem like they make it really hard to quit them or talk about them and that is very cult like.


I don't know if this is true or not, but the media makes it seem like they keep famous people staying in by using their personal history against them.

[bantameant]

Please keep in mind that insulting other Schmoes is NOT TOLERATED.

Put on your big boy and girl panties and keep it about the topic, please.

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Flimmaker1473

GOOD GRIEF PEOPLE THERE ARE BAD ATHEISTS AND BAD RELIGIOUS PEOPLE!

That's my point and I knew some people on here wouldn't understand what I was posting. Its about intolerance and atheists don't hold a monopoly on understanding and tolerance.

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Badbird

Wow. Did you really just pull the "Atheist Atrocities" card? The fact that those were power hungry, totalitarian dictatorships had more to do with the atrocities committed, rather than the belief, or lack of belief, by any leader.

There is no dogma or set of principles that govern atheists. It literally means one thing: a lack of belief in gods. That's it.

So where's the Catholic army/police since you say there was no atheist army/police?

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Gordon

Basically what you are suggesting is that a correlation exists between the type of people who do not believe in the fundamentality of an objective transcendental metaphysical being and an amoral predilection towards using the state in a way which abuses human rights. But what you're doing is both a mix of ad ignorantiam and affirming the consequent.

So, for example, I am positing that for the last one hundred years invisible and untraceable infinitely powerful particles called bullshitons, which exist only in pudding, are what allows the sun to continue to exist. Should all the pudding of the world cease to exist, the sun would literally fall out of the sky, killing all life. Prove me wrong, motherfucker.

Now, quite amazingly, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pinochet, and Mugabe do not believe in the existence of these particles in pudding. Therefore, not believing in this is correlated with being a mass murdering fuckhead.

I'm just using the same logic. Intolerance is intolerance. Government is force and is bent to the will of popular demand. Whether that be enforcing religion on others or imposing against religion is no different.

[Badbird]

Originally Posted by Bondgirl

So what you are claiming is that in Americas religion values are down

I always thought that in certain American states there are towns full of church signs and churches

Don't get me wrong. America is still an extremely religious place. One need only look at the current issues of gay rights and gay marriage, abortion, and, sadly, contraception to see that. Hell, there are some places that still refuse to sell alcohol on Sudays. The general opinion Americans have toward atheists is still very negative. And I believe there is only one member of Congress who is openly atheist.

Originally Posted by creekin111

So where's the Catholic army/police since you say there was no atheist army/police?

Let's start with the Republican Party.

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by creekin111

I'm just using the same logic. Intolerance is intolerance. Government is force and is bent to the will of popular demand. Whether that be enforcing religion on others or imposing against religion is no different.

I purposefully imitated your logic to demonstrate the absurdity of it. I think what you are more accurately suggesting indirectly is that ideology can often lead to violence. I am definitely sympathetic to this view, but you're entirely missing the point of atheism. By defining atheism as a religious ideology you're rather arbitrarily setting the bar at received wisdom, and then we can fall into the previous logic I ran through. Atheism is simply the lack of a religious ideology. Now "intolerance is intolerance" sounds clever, but it is missing the point. Lacking a religious ideology is not a necessary and sufficient condition for being intolerant; only having a specific type of anti-religious ideology constitutes the type of intolerance you're talking about, and that is simply not synonymous with atheism as a concept, it is rather a subset of atheists.

Your other comment "Government is force bent to the will of popular demand" is just a complete misunderstanding of politics. Generally speaking, the governments which exercise force are by their nature uninterested in public demand, and the governments interested in public demand almost always have a mechanism to restrain the arbitrary use of force, e.g. constitutional republicanism. So yes, all enforcement of a religious ideology on others is equal (assuming equal force is used), but atheism, the lack of an ideology, is not the same as an ideology based upon conversion. It's simply an unequal comparison.

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Badbird

Let's start with the Republican Party.

Let's not and btw I'm not a Republican nor am I religious.

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Gordon

I purposefully imitated your logic to demonstrate the absurdity of it. I think what you are more accurately suggesting indirectly is that ideology can often lead to violence. I am definitely sympathetic to this view, but you're entirely missing the point of atheism. By defining atheism as a religious ideology you're rather arbitrarily setting the bar at received wisdom, and then we can fall into the previous logic I ran through. Atheism is simply the lack of a religious ideology. Now "intolerance is intolerance" sounds clever, but it is missing the point. Lacking a religious ideology is not a necessary and sufficient condition for being intolerant; only having a specific type of anti-religious ideology constitutes the type of intolerance you're talking about, and that is simply not synonymous with atheism as a concept, it is rather a subset of atheists.

Your other comment "Government is force bent to the will of popular demand" is just a complete misunderstanding of politics. Generally speaking, the governments which exercise force are by their nature uninterested in public demand, and the governments interested in public demand almost always have a mechanism to restrain the arbitrary use of force, e.g. constitutional republicanism. So yes, all enforcement of a religious ideology on others is equal (assuming equal force is used), but atheism, the lack of an ideology, is not the same as an ideology based upon conversion. It's simply an unequal comparison.

Not going to get into politics but government is force and it is also bent to the will of popular demand. We need government force to protect our individual property rights. Its still in the end force.

Also having a specific religious ideology is not a necessary and sufficient condition for being intolerant either only having a specific type of pro-religious ideology forced against the will of others constitutes the type of intolerance I'm talking about. Atheism and religion both can be intolerant and forced against the will of others.

[Badbird]

Originally Posted by creekin111

Atheism and religion both can be intolerant and forced against the will of others.

How can something with no dogma, no ideology, no guidelines, and no rules of any kind be intolerant? You're equating two things that cannot be equated. You either make rules based on religious ideals, or you don't. Laws based on secular morals and principles do not infringe on the religious.

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Badbird

How can something with no dogma, no ideology, no guidelines, and no rules of any kind be intolerant? You're equating two things that cannot be equated. You either make rules based on religious ideals, or you don't. Laws based on secular morals and principles do not infringe on the religious.

So what were they doing in the links I posted in the previous page? They were doing it in the name of atheism much like other country were doing similar things in the name of religion.

[Gordon]

Nah man, they were doing it in the name of a utopic political ideology which has nothing to do with religious ideology. If you want to claim not believing in a transcendental metaphysical truth results in amorality, you can do that, but that's a totally different topic.

[Bondgirl]

Originally Posted by Erroneous

It hard to know what is truth or not, but one thing is for sure, a lot of the stuff you hear about them is pretty weird. It does seem like they make it really hard to quit them or talk about them and that is very cult like.


I don't know if this is true or not, but the media makes it seem like they keep famous people staying in by using their personal history against them.

Well you are right about that

We dont know the truth on hoe the Sceintology religion runs

But we will soon find out on July 17th when kate and Tom go to court

I am only going by reports but Katie got rid of every single freind who was associated with Tom cruise and they is sort of strange to do that even on the way she left in secret shows that she was very scared

Also there was reports that she was being followered by religious followers from the sceintology group

Which would have been scary if it is true

What l dont understand is why do people fall for these types of religions not only this one but others

if you are concerned wouldnt you act on it and try and get out of somethnig which is not right

I just can not beleive people are so stupid and if it was me l would not fall for it
But then just say you fell in love with a member think the world of that person you might get caught up in somethnig like this

[Badbird]

Originally Posted by creekin111

So what were they doing in the links I posted in the previous page? They were doing it in the name of atheism much like other country were doing similar things in the name of religion.

They were doing it because they were paranoid, power hungry dictators. If you want to rule a country with an iron fist, the first thing you do is wipe out any form of organization, including religion. Those guys wanted power, plain and simple. Atheism had nothing to do with it.

Watch this and see if it makes sense. (you can skip ahead to the 3:00 mark)

[The Postmaster General]

Originally Posted by Bondgirl

Do you think that Scientology is a cult?

That's a loaded question.

Originally Posted by Vong

I
Reason is the death of any religion.

Man, they really need to just make more philosopher's writings into Family Circus cartoons. It just goes down so much smoother. Fuck, I'll just go out and say that philosophy's biggest drawback is a lack of tracts. It's about the tracts, man.

Originally Posted by Badbird

There is no dogma or set of principles that govern atheists. It literally means one thing: a lack of belief in gods.

Fundaments are still fundaments.

And saying "lack of belief" doesn't qualify a paradigm not being a belief system. One could easily say that ancient man lacked a belief that the Earth wasn't flat. That doesn't mean they had a lack of belief, it just means they believed something different.

Originally Posted by Badbird

How can something with no dogma, no ideology, no guidelines, and no rules of any kind be intolerant? You either make rules based on religious ideals, or you don't. Laws based on secular morals and principles do not infringe on the religious.

Laws are dogmatic, ideological guidelines. You're just picking and choosing which laws you're cool with and which ones you're not, but then going that extra step of saying the ones you like are incontrovertibly better. It's actually a good example of intolerance.

[adamjohnson]

Originally Posted by creekin111

So where's the Catholic army/police since you say there was no atheist army/police?

Ok, but really, there have been catholic armies before.

[Vong]

Originally Posted by The Postmaster General

If something has no logic or reason to its perceived existence, ontologically it doesn't/cannot exist. When it comes to the metaphysical realm, to which man has set god and his homeboys in, there's no limit to it beyond our own imagination. But this realm has no governing laws, or proof of existing. We created it as a home for the unexplained phenomenon that science can never touch. However, the capacity of our minds cannot simply create something out of nothing. If I will in my mind a giant spaghetti monster that I believe rotates around our galaxy and controls our weather system by his own whim, does that mean it can exist?

[Badbird]

Originally Posted by The Postmaster General

Laws are dogmatic, ideological guidelines. You're just picking and choosing which laws you're cool with and which ones you're not, but then going that extra step of saying the ones you like are incontrovertibly better. It's actually a good example of intolerance.

Okay, let's look at two sets of laws:

A - This set of laws treats women and minorities as having equal rights with white men.

B - This set of laws treats women and minorities as having less rights than white men.


So is it really intolerant to say that law A is superior to law B? Law A is relatively new, while law B has been a long held system for centuries in Western culture. Does that even matter?

It doesn't take a belief in god to know that law A is a better law than law B. So we have demonstrated that we can make decisions that benefit society with purely secular reasoning, and thus it is the best system because it treats everyone fairly.

[The Postmaster General]

Originally Posted by Vong

If something has no logic or reason to its perceived existence, ontologically it doesn't/cannot exist. When it comes to the metaphysical realm, to which man has set god and his homeboys in, there's no limit to it beyond our own imagination. But this realm has no governing laws, or proof of existing. We created it as a home for the unexplained phenomenon that science can never touch. However, the capacity of our minds cannot simply create something out of nothing. If I will in my mind a giant spaghetti monster that I believe rotates around our galaxy and controls our weather system by his own whim, does that mean it can exist?

I don't think you understand the aphorism and as a result are just repeating your same talking point, except a longer version of it. For fucks sake, the quote came from one of the most quintessential, outspoken atheists of modern philosophical times, and you're arguing against it, in favor of atheism, by citing the pastafarian analogy as if it's your own.

Originally Posted by Badbird

Okay, let's look at two sets of laws:

A - This set of laws treats women and minorities as having equal rights with white men.

B - This set of laws treats women and minorities as having less rights than white men.

So is it really intolerant to say that law A is superior to law B? Law A is relatively new, while law B has been a long held system for centuries in Western culture. Does that even matter?

It doesn't take a belief in god to know that law A is a better law than law B. So we have demonstrated that we can make decisions that benefit society with purely secular reasoning, and thus it is the best system because it treats everyone fairly.

You sound like a guy who's never seen a Venn diagram, because surely you can't belie… oops, I mean… think that's the world only operates in black and white.

[Roy Batty]

The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a new religious movement or other group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre.

By this definition, every religion starts out as a cult and slowly, overtime, becomes defined as socially 'normal'. So to address the OP's question, yes, Scientology is a cult but just as much as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

[Badbird]

Originally Posted by The Postmaster General

You sound like a guy who's never seen a Venn diagram, because surely you can't belie… oops, I mean… think that's the world only operates in black and white.

It was a vastly simplified example to make a point. We can determine the better outcome between two examples, and thus, can extrapolate that out from there. Not everything is black and white, but a spectrum. And we can decide which end of the spectrum is better for society. But then there are plenty of things that are black and white that we can easily come down on one side or the other. And we can do all of it without god.

[fixedMind]

Originally Posted by Bondgirl

Umm please explain what you mean by your comment fixedmind

Did I say something in this thread? If I did I have absolutely no idea what it was, but it must have since been deleted. Sorry if I offended, I do post here after a night of spirits from time to time. Ill ask the mod what I said.

[Flimmaker1473]

Originally Posted by Jig Saw 123

[I]
By this definition, every religion starts out as a cult and slowly, overtime, becomes defined as socially 'normal'. So to address the OP's question, yes, Scientology is a cult but just as much as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

There are 3 billion Christians in the world. Hardly a cult.

[The Postmaster General]

Originally Posted by Badbird

It was a vastly simplified example to make a point. We can determine the better outcome between two examples, and thus, can extrapolate that out from there. Not everything is black and white, but a spectrum. And we can decide which end of the spectrum is better for society. But then there are plenty of things that are black and white that we can easily come down on one side or the other. And we can do all of it without god.

We aren't talking about god, right; we are talking about a concept of a god or gods. I mean to say, you and I aren't, because neither of us is speaking from the standpoint that we believe in god/gods.

I think too often we simplify things when they are convenient, but then complicate at other times. For instance, the basic fundament of many religions is simply "Be excellent to each other." Yet it's often complicated by both supporters and non supporters for the case of an agenda. That can be seen as the hypocrisy that exists in many gay marriage opponents - as they apply persnickety, random verses from the bible, but when it comes down to how they are being intolerant of others they'll simplify and revert to something like "I'm not hurting anyone" while ignoring the complications that have arisen in what essentially amounts to a linguistic quest to define a concept someone came up with long ago.

Bare with me, and I hope you can follow me in my slight hungoverness here because I know it's going seem like I'm shooting into left field…

Take the movie An Inconvenient Truth. This is a movie that was made to describe a concept of global warming. The movie contains factual inaccuracies. They don't really matter to me, because I think they are the result of overcomplicating the movie's message which was really pretty simple - pay attention to how we interact with the earth because not paying attention isn't working out and is looking like a bad choice.

Now, I think many of us would like to see someone watch that movie and be inspired to create laws or vote for laws to help combat global warming. Maybe you and I don't need the movie to understand why these laws should exist, but there are others who might. Even more so to the point I'm making, there are people who might see the movie and then go on to draft a more universal way to communicate the concept. Those are the people I'm most interested in and advocating in favor of.

The comparison I'm making is that both Al Gore's movie, and concepts of God, are more complicated communication attempts to describe relatively basic concepts. Being able to rip apart these attempts at communication doesn't mean that the initial intent is useless. I'm a guy who tends to feel that communication is best served when we are building on past failures, held concepts, ideas, etc, and not simply voiding these attempts people are making. I don't think we can say "Xtians say that a singular entity created the universe, but their singular entity doesn't make sense, so there's probably no singular entity." We can't say, "yeah they are right about governing that people shouldn't murder, but they are wrong about getting blow jobs on Sunday while drinking to excess, so they are simply just… wrong."

You and I can see that people who cite religion have many different intents in doing so. Some are doing it to swindle money from the poor but others are doing it genuinely because they want to do right by people. The point where I think this whole tangent we've taken of on here began, is that I don't think we can pick and choose, then simplify the another side based on whether or not it benefits us. But that's exactly what we do when we simplify these things for making a point. We are acknowledging the parts of the whole thing to serve our own intents, while ignoring the parts that don't. That's not very Scientific Methody, to say the least.

Religion has changed so much throughout the years that I think it is perfectly fine to view it as human experimentation in communicating concepts that we speculate exist beyond the world we can see. Even if scientific discovery has occurred and advanced through the attempt to disprove concepts of God, it's still all part of the melting pot of experience us humans collectively share, even the humans we might think have silly ideas in describing what they are talking about. That's another part of the problem I see and I'll only touch on it - when people speaking against religion they do it in such strict terms. They pick and choose which beliefs they are going to focus on, or more accurately, which metaphors don't make sense.

My point is that I feel it benefits us as a society to get out there and embrace, to some degree, pieces of the concept that makes sense before we can actually, and seriously, advance this communication/understanding. Simply ruling it out with words doesn't do anyone much good. You can say that you're shunning Xtianity by supporting gay marriage, but the truth is, to another person who describes themselves as Xtian, you may be embracing the tenant because you are simply "doing unto others." People say that this is picking and choosing which parts of the bible you want to go on, but I think that this is actually evolving the communication. Maybe in 10 years that latter version will be the standard Xtian, or maybe it will be another thing that labels itself as religion. I really don't think that it has much to do with science, disproving someone's current conceptual fundaments.

People say the bible is just a book, but what is the purpose of a book? It's purpose is to communicate ideas and so forth right. So why do people, when speaking against this book, treat it as more than a book? If they (the people who harm in the name of the bible) can't do that, then why should we? Do you follow me at all here? It's kind of like, Twilight might be a stupid book, but that doesn't mean there's no validation of the concept of teenage love. Or werewolves with six packs!!! Haha.

[Roy Batty]

Originally Posted by Flimmaker1473

There are 3 billion Christians in the world. Hardly a cult.

Correction, there is currently 2.18 billion Christians in the world. There's millions of people that believe in Santa Clause, ghosts, alien abductions, and all sorts of other imaginary figures/wonders, that doesn't make them any less crazy

[Flimmaker1473]

Originally Posted by Jig Saw 123

Correction, there is currently 2.18 billion Christians in the world. There's millions of people that believe in Santa Clause, ghosts, alien abductions, and all sorts of other imaginary figures/wonders, that doesn't make them any less crazy

2.18 billion is still alot.

So I guess the few percent of people who don't believe in God are the smart ones and almost half the world have it wrong huh? Gotcha.

[Badbird]

Originally Posted by The Postmaster General

Do you follow me at all here? It's kind of like, Twilight might be a stupid book, but that doesn't mean there's no validation of the concept of teenage love. Or werewolves with six packs!!! Haha.

I think you're still drunk.

[Roy Batty]

Originally Posted by Flimmaker1473

2.18 billion is still alot.

So I guess the few percent of people who don't believe in God are the smart ones and almost half the world have it wrong huh? Gotcha.

Those 2.18 billion of Christians who believe Jesus is their lord and savior and ultimately is the only path to salvation are wrong. And it's not even about intellect, well, not completely.

[Flimmaker1473]

Originally Posted by Jig Saw 123

Those 2.18 billion of Christians who believe Jesus is their lord and savior and ultimately is the only path to salvation are wrong. And it's not even about intellect, well, not completely.

Were wrong huh are you are right? Explain.

Thanks for enlightening me on what I believe in is a lie. For a second I thought that atheism was ridiculous.

[adamjohnson]

Originally Posted by Flimmaker1473

Were wrong huh are you are right? Explain.

Thanks for enlightening me on what I believe in is a lie. For a second I thought that atheism was ridiculous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTgwC...eature=related

[Flimmaker1473]

Originally Posted by adamjohnson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTgwC...eature=related

Just because it is posted on youtube doesn't make it so. There are so many flaws with that video.

[The Postmaster General]

Originally Posted by Badbird

I think you're still drunk.

Hardly. By saying I was hungover, I was extending an olive branch as a means to lighten the mood and preface that I was going to be saying stuff that may sound unusual in comparison to what's been stated so far -- Essentially main stream philosophical questions surrounding the invalidity of god's existence.

Little did I know that you would jump on your own lack of humor as an easy answer behind avoiding a discussion that isn't complimentary to your fundamental belief system.

Whether or not modern philosophy has shown that god is dead, it sure as hell as shown that originality is.

[Erroneous]

Originally Posted by Flimmaker1473

2.18 billion is still alot.

So I guess the few percent of people who don't believe in God are the smart ones and almost half the world have it wrong huh? Gotcha.

While I am not taking one side or the other on this, at one point less than a few percent thought the world was round.

To quote Kay from Men in Black, because I am in a quoting mood today, "Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."

[Erroneous]

Originally Posted by Jig Saw 123

Those 2.18 billion of Christians who believe Jesus is their lord and savior and ultimately is the only path to salvation are wrong. And it's not even about intellect, well, not completely.

What you said is wrong. You are not one to question anyone's beliefs and to tell them they are wrong. Can you prove they are wrong? You can not anymore than they can prove they are right.


BTW I was just in Baltimore yesterday. Fucking hot! Went to the National Aquarium. Ate at Jimmy's Famous Seafood. Great crabs!

[Roy Batty]

Originally Posted by Flimmaker1473

Were wrong huh are you are right? Explain.

Thanks for enlightening me on what I believe in is a lie. For a second I thought that atheism was ridiculous.

Before I address your question let me ask you two. 1. Have you ever read the bible in its entirety? (And when I say bible I'm not referring to the King James or the one created by Joseph Smith) 2. Do you know the history of Christianity?

Originally Posted by Erroneous

What you said is wrong. You are not one to question anyone's beliefs and to tell them they are wrong. Can you prove they are wrong? You can not anymore than they can prove they are right.

You're right, it's the job of that particular group/organization to prove their beliefs, not the other way around. It's equivalent to someone claiming there is a giant shoe somewhere in the middle of the universe. Clearly, it's the person that makes the accusation to prove there is a giant shoe in the universe. It's not the duty of 'doubters' to prove them wrong.

Originally Posted by Erroneous

BTW I was just in Baltimore yesterday. Fucking hot! Went to the National Aquarium. Ate at Jimmy's Famous Seafood. Great crabs!

And you came on the worst day. It was 111 degrees, but the Baltimore Crab can't be beat.

[adamjohnson]

Originally Posted by Flimmaker1473

Just because it is posted on youtube doesn't make it so. There are so many flaws with that video.

Well, just because someone believes in Christ, doesnt make it so. There are so many flaws in that book.

[Roy Batty]

Originally Posted by Flimmaker1473

Just because it is posted on youtube doesn't make it so. There are so many flaws with that video.

Just because it's found in a 2,000 yr. old book, doesn't make it so. There are so many flaws with that book.