L. Ron Hubbard invented Scientology as both a joke and a way to save his failing book sales. A rip on organized religion. He believed that if people could be swayed by stories of seas parting, worlds being created in seven days, and a giant man in space who loves you until you sin and then he makes you live with his douchebag former roommate downstairs; then people would buy the "humans don't HAVE souls, those are really DEAD ALIENS" bit. And then they'd give him money, because that's how he knew it worked.
And it did. And now it's becoming just like other organized religions with persecution complexes, scandals , wild attacking of it's critics, the murder of the wayward and creating their own territories.
It is not a church of acceptance, either. Not only does Scientology rabidly hate gays, it also believes that if you're sick, it's just your "thetans" and the best cure is a little rehab in the reeducation gulag/boiler room. Watch out for the roaches, though. Lisa McPherson didn't, and look where that got her.
In conclusion: Scientology may not be a real religion, but it's certainly attempting to LOOK like one for better or worse.
I will say this: It's nothing short of a miracle that The Unfunny Truth still exists at all =.
What Castor said. And yes, I'm aware of their views on things. Thats just another I said they're no different than any other mythos.
I didn't know it was ACTUALLY started as a joke though. Now THAT makes it funny, then it gets sad again when you realize noone got the joke.
~Rico
Yeah, yeah, I know off-topic. Actually, I don't think the Church was ever truly unified once Jesus died. While my knowledge of the makings of Church is very low, I do think that the Church in Africa was always very different from Europe in terms of construction based on the version of the Bible used.
And don't forget the Koran is largely the books that Christians didn't want in their Bible.
~Rico
**nods** Though, a lot of those books in the Koran were also part of the African (re: Ethiopian) version of the Bible that were rejected in the European versions.
wow, there is a whole lot to respond to...
The Koran (as well as the Hadith) was written after the establishment of the "modern bible" by the Third Council at Carthage in 397 (altho certain books are still disputed to this day), therefore the koran is not "The books that Christians don't want in the bible"
I realize that not everyone has a deep interest in religious history, but a quick check of the facts is in order to avoid repeating falsehoods.
More closely on topic, I only got halfway through "Dianetics" before I couldn't read anymore because it got too silly. The first quarter of the book came off as believeable, but the second quarter started going downhill fast. L. Ron Hubbards thoughts on hypnotism and psychotherapy were outspoken to say the least. Tom Cruise has done a good job representing the official scientology line and came across as a "nutjob" as some have so nicely put it.
The idea of maximizing human potential is central to scientology, just like it is central to Satanism (read the Satanic bible for more details). Of course one of the aspects central to both "religions" is that God and religion is a limiting factor in human potential instead of an enabling factor. This goes back to Nietzsche's quote "God is dead". Of course Nietzsche had a madman say that line.
I have seen no evidence that having faith hinders a person from achieving greatness. Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Ralph Bunch, Martin Luther King, Albert Schwiezer, the list goes on and on. The discipline of faith transfers over into other endevours.
This is not to say that faith is essential to maximizing human potential, only that it is bad logic to assume that God and religion are keeping the man down without supporting evidence. Karl Marx's observation that "religion is the opiate of the masses" are the words of a man who continually failed in business and blamed it on other people (also Marx never got to see the impact that TV has had on the "masses").
In any case, as a practicing Christian I don't find it silly that people will believe anything. After all, to an outsider I'm a guy who believes that God died and rose again and I celebrate that rebirth with symbolic cannabalism. There are all sorts of strange beliefs, from Voodoo to wicca you can pick and choose all sorts of strangeness. Burn a black candle to purify the negative energy from your house? Burn sage smudges to drive away evil spirits?
The "Prophet" Joseph Smith ring a bell? A man who had an arrest record for being a con artist? God could use such a man....
My point is that the basis of religion has little to do with it's popularity or effect on society. After all, the "Church of Star Trek" in "Futurama" makes a whole lot of sense to me.
Jimro
"Scotty, beam me up!"
Quote:
therefore the koran is not "The books that Christians don't want in the bible"
The Koran contains books that were rejected in the "established" Bible. That is the point of the comment. Mine futhered it along by acknowledging that different Bibles contained some of those books.
What Kat said on the Koran subject. And nice to see you back Jimmy. :3
~Rico
Red,
What books does the Koran contain that the Mainstream bible rejects?
It is my understanding that the Koran was "revealed" to Muhammed, it is not a collection of previously recorded scriptures such as the Tanach or the "New Testament", while many of the "characters" are the same the similarity ends there. Therefore the Koran cannot have books that were rejected by the "mainstream" bible simply because the "Mainstream" bible predates the Koran (by tradition a completely original work) by over two hundred years.
Christian theologians reject the Koran as inspired scripture because it rejects the divinity of Christ, the triumph over the grave, and many other facets of Christian belief. Jews reject the Koran because it claims the Jews corrupted the holy books (The Tanach) with which they were entrusted.
Sorry to be so long winded.
Jimro
Well, The Gospel of James for one. There were also some stories about Jesus as a kid that supposedly date from around 100AD that are in the Koran but weren't put in the Bible.
Yeah I remember that had something on one of those history channels about the Gospel of James. That was some interesting stuff. Proof that not even Jesus was good as a kid.
Probably threw those out because they couldn't threatened kids with stoning if they knew Jesus did it. XD
~Rico
The Gospel of James is about Mary, not Jesus. I'd heard about that one not being in the Bible at college along with stories about Jesus as a kid. I just don't remember what that one was called because I didn't find it as interesting a story. ^^;
Well there was something on about when jesus was a kid. They had the book about Mary too. I was only half watching it while writing something so I faded in and out. XD
~Rico
Red,
I get what you are saying, that the "Gospel of James" was put into the Koran (as Surah 3). However, if that is the case then the Koran is not an original work, divinely transmitted to believers through the prophet Muhammed.
I will also argue that the parallels between Surah 3 and the Gospel of James are not exact enough to retitle Surah 3 as "The Gospel of James".
www.earlychristianwriting...berts.html
www.geocities.com/interpr...fkoran/003
Just as in the Tanach we see the same characters in Kings and Chronicles, and later on during the restoration after the Babylonian captivity we see the same thing, the same characters from different authors (Ezra and Nehemiah).
Just because the characters in Ezrah were previously mentioned in Nehemiah does not take away from the originality of the latter work.
Kinda like Shakespeare had no qualms about stealing whole plots from other authors as well as from history. Richard the Third was an "original work" even tho there are many previous sources that went into it.
Hence my position that the Koran is an original work and not a collection of previous scripture. I am not saying that the Koran appeared out of a vacuum (after all, the Koran contains the ancestors of the intended audience), only that as a book it can be clearly dated.
Jimro
I expect some differences in part due to the fact that people will tell the same story differently and the religions in question have different conclusions about God, life, etc. regardless of overlap in some areas. Still, I can see why anyone can see it your way. Thanks for the links.
