Close encounter at the Kent County Fair

[Belmit]

"I... am considerably holier... than thou!"

[Fayshun]

Originally Posted by Belmit

"I... am considerably holier... than thou!"

Because I pay more?

[divine]

A friend of mine made an interesting comment today.

The main difference between Scientology and a normal religion like Catholicism is that one is up front about wanting your money and the other takes it from you slowly hoping you don't notice.

Made me think about it a bit.

What is people's main problem with Scientology? The fact they ask for money?

Personally i'm hugely agnostic. I don't give a toss about these things any which way you care to look at them really. I've no idea what exactly it is about Scientology people take such massive exception to over and above other religion, though I wouldn't be surprised if most of the 'protesters' don't know either. All I ever see is "they're a cult, they shouldn't be allowed".

[Blighter]

Originally Posted by divine

A friend of mine made an interesting comment today.

The main difference between Scientology and a normal religion like Catholicism is that one is up front about wanting your money and the other takes it from you slowly hoping you don't notice.

Made me think about it a bit.

What is people's main problem with Scientology? The fact they ask for money?

Personally i'm hugely agnostic. I don't give a toss about these things any which way you care to look at them really. I've no idea what exactly it is about Scientology people take such massive exception to over and above other religion, though I wouldn't be surprised if most of the 'protesters' don't know either. All I ever see is "they're a cult, they shouldn't be allowed".

It's not the money that puts me off of them, it's the Tom Cruise.

[Garp]

Originally Posted by divine

The main difference between Scientology and a normal religion like Catholicism is that one is up front about wanting your money and the other takes it from you slowly hoping you don't notice.

The established churches encourage ideally 10%, but whatever you choose to give, and the large majority of churches don't talk about it very often and it isn't required to "progress" in your faith.

One lady I knew who wasn't a Christian at the time was taken to a scientologist church by her fiance, and it scared the bejesus out of her. The start of the service was fine, but seemed a very carefully built up emotional push, with a repeated reference to money. The latter half of the service was an extremely full blown heavy push for money, telling people how damned they were if the didn't and so on and so on, to the point it scared her badly, and presented a major emotional and intellectual barrier that took years to overcome before she came to faith.

Made me think about it a bit.

What is people's main problem with Scientology? The fact they ask for money?

The problems with Scientology go way beyond money, though money is the main one people seem to pick on. If it was just money, or their utterly bizarre Thetan Soul beliefs, I would hardly give two hoots. The problem is everything else, the thuggish antics, a history of illegal wiretapping of private and government agencies with the explicit purpose of blocking investigations, forceful divorcing of members from family (and blocking access), and so on.
About the best article I've read on them was by Time magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...972865,00.html

[Kitten]

I've been preached to by Christian ministers trying to encourage me to join their church, but generally that's been on their soil when I was at a christening/wedding/whatever. I know several people who are lay ministers or who regularly attend church and we have good discussions about the whys and the wherefores, but I've never really been actively pushed by them to get involved (maybe they don't want me and my heathen ways )

However the scientologists got me in the mid-90s by doing a street questionnaire and pretending it was about TV adverts (I was too young and foolish to run away fast enough and I had just started working in advertising so it was interesting to me) and it wasn't until I tried to leave the building that they started to tell me about the real reason they got me in there. They got my details from me under the premise of something which I can't remember and back then I was daft enough to give them out.

After that, they rang me once a day for over a year. They rang and harrassed my parents (who after attempting to politely ask them to stop eventually just started to hang up when they knew who it was) and they would pretend to be someone else to get them engaged in coversation "Oh hi, I'm a friend of your daughter's from work" etc etc.

Luckily my parents were pretty savvy and didn't buy it but they absolutely do engage in bullying tactics and harrassment to get people involved. Other than that I'd have no problem with them - who people choose to give their cash to is entirely their own affair, as is what they want to believe.

[Matblack]

The whole thing is very very odd, I did a lot of reading up on Scientology when the whole 'cake is a lie' thing kicked off because I was interested in why so many people suddenly got involved. The evidence regarding the unpleasent practices of these guys is pretty overwhelming and although there are some niche sects of the other religions who have restrictive practices Scientology is much more blatent about them and also about their recruitment; actively seperating people from their families and proventing contact, charging massive amounts to move up the Scientology grades, labeling psycology as 'evil' and some of the stories of brainwashing are pretty horrific.

Only once you get to the meat of what these guys actually believe and where the information comes from do you start to see the reason for the 'religions' existance.

To quote L Ron Hubbard the creator of Scientology

“If you want to make a little money, write a book. If you want to make a lot of money, create a religion.”

Have a nose around and see what you can find on the subject (i won't give links for fear of biasing your research) then make up your own minds whether you feels these guys should be recruiting at a family event.

MB

[Feek]

Actually, I have to say that my first thought when I read 'close encounter' was that you nearly saw some Morris Dancers

[Garp]

Originally Posted by Feek

Actually, I have to say that my first thought when I read 'close encounter' was that you nearly saw some Morris Dancers

That would be particularly cruel and nasty.

[Fayshun]

I nearly bumped into a Morris Dancer the other day in Banbury, he had his pewter "beer with twigs in CAMRA approved" tankard attached to his belt with a lanyard. Odd.