Underground Exiles

So here’s a quick comparison between Christianity and Scientology:

1. “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” - Jesus, Matthew 5.38-39
2. “An enemy… may be injured by any means or tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.” - L. Ron Hubbard, Penalties for Lower Conditions, HCO PL 18 Oct 67
3. “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” - Jesus Christ, Matthew 5.37
4. “Handling truth is a touchy business … Tell an acceptable truth.” - L. Ron Hubbard, The Missing Ingredient, 13 August 1970.

Maybe it’s pointless for me to attempt a point by point comparison of the Bible with Hubbard’s blasphemous views on the subject. The shocking differences are all too obvious. It’s difficult to resist the temptation, when Scientology publications state that “you can be a Christian and a Scientologist at the same time”.

To your right is the Wittenberg Door, where Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 theses. This series of blogs is written in the same spirit, and to promote the scholarly study of the beliefs and practices of Dianetics and Scientology. The “Church” of Scientology is less than forthcoming in revealing its entire belief structure to the general public. Scientology publicly claims to be an “applied religious philosophy”, as well as being compatible with other religious belief systems. However, the private upper levels of Scientology introduce many concepts that stretch the definition of “compatible”, and L. Ron Hubbard says many uncomplimentary things about religion in general and Christianity in particular. This blog series explores the beliefs and practices of Scientology, then compares those beliefs and practices to those of Christianity.

Firstly, Scientology believes that God exists, but goes on to say “As to the form in which He exists, we do not know,”¹.

Although Scientology does not know the exact form of God (i.e., the Supreme Being), it does teach that there are “gods above other gods, and gods beyond the gods of the universes”². Scientology also states that each thetan (person) “has as far as we can see in the manufacture of energy, about the same capabilities as those which have been assigned to the Supreme being in the universe”³. All of these views should be problematic for Christians, especially when Scientology claims to be compatible with all religions. These views are certainly not compatible with Christianity.

Read more…

1. Scientology: A World Religion, p. 17: What is Scientology, p. 200 [↩]
2. Scientology 8-8008, p. 72 [↩]
3. Philadelphia Doctorate Course#9, L. Ron Hubbard [↩]

During the early 1970s the IRS “proved that Hubbard was skimming millions of dollars from the church, laundering the money through dummy corporations in Panama and stashing it in Swiss bank accounts. Moreover, church members stole IRS documents, filed false tax returns and harassed the agency’s employees.”¹

A US federal court in 1971 ruled that Hubbard’s medical claims were bogus and that E-meter auditing could not be called a scientific treatment. The Church of Scientology responded by “going fully religious, seeking First Amendment protection…counselors started sporting clerical collars. Chapels were built, “franchises” became “missions”, fees became “fixed donations”, and Hubbard’s comic-book cosmology became “sacred scriptures.” ²

After years of running the Scientology organization from aboard his flagship, the Apollo, in 1975 Hubbard bought the Fort Harrison Hotel and a former bank building in downtown Clearwater, Florida under the name United Churches of Florida, to hide Scientologys connection. He moved his crew to Clearwater, establishing the Flagship Land Base, a.k.a. “Flag.”

While the Church of Scientology continued to expand, its private intelligence agency known as the Guardian’s Office (GO) ran cloak-and-dagger operations against the mayor of Clearwater, various governmental agencies and anyone else perceived as in their way.

Read more…

1. Richard Behar. “Scientology: The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power,” TIME MAGAZINE, May 6, 1991. http://tinyurl.com/28nox [↩]
2. ((Ibid. [↩]

The more that I look around at the state of the church and the state of my nation, I’m coming to a few realizations that are all inter-related.

The first is that the United States is sliding further and further towards becoming a secular, post-Christian society. This statement, of course, is more true in the Northeast than the South, and is more true in urban, than suburban and rural areas.

Canada, our northern neighbor, gives me a pretty good idea of where the United States will find itself in 3 generations(give or take). In the census in Canada in the year 2000, what I found was that roughly only 8% of the population were evangelical Christians. To put it in plain speech, only 8% of the population believes that the Bible is true, hell is hot, and forever is a long time. In addition, the number of Catholics was down from the previous censuses, and Protestants were down from previous censuses. You can directly attribute much of this to the greater influence of Europe on Canadian society.

Interestingly, however, the number of people with no spiritual preference was up, paganism was up, witchcraft was up, and previously almost dead, the number of people practicing native Canadian Indian spirituality was also up.

Read more…

I’ve recently joined a discussion group on Paul’s Letter To The Romans at ccel.org, and right now the particular passage being tackled is Romans 1.18-32.

Here’s a interesting quote on idolatry from Peter Kreeft:

“The opposite of Christianity isn’t atheism, the opposite of Christianity is idolatry.”

Martin Luther had two interesting things to say on the subject of idolatry and false religion. The first one is that, according to Luther, if you never broke the first two commandments, you could never break the other eight. Luther also said that false religion was the default mode of the human heart.

Read more…