Is Scientology a cult?

A young demonstrant got arrested in the UK this week. What did he do? He had a banner that said that "Scientology is no religion, it is a dangerous cult". Well, whats wrong with that? It is the truth.

Oh god, now i said it. Now they'll come for me. 

Seriously, if any of you guys who know me can't get a hold of me in the next weeks, please call the cops and let them know I've been kidnapped. Or murdered. Or brainwashed.

Now, you might ask why Scientology is a dangerous cult, and you should - question everything is my motto. So let me tell you a little story about them:

When I studied religion in high school there was an assignment that meant we had to visit a church or other religious place and make an interveiw with a preist or other leader of that religion. Me and a friend choose, for reasons I can't remember, Scientology.

The Scientology church in Hässleholm, where I went to school, was an appartement right next to the cinema. So we went there and this guy in his 30s met us. He was very friendly, showed us in and we started asking questions. Now we were good students, we had tried to do our research and read up on scientology, but we'd found nothing, except that my mother at one point or another (she did some soul searching in her early 50s) bought one of their books. (I won't name it, then you'd just go out and buy the crap:). But that book was so confusing that we couldn't make much sence of it.

The guy told us the general stuff - some celebrities was in with them (he even had a silly board in the hallway with famous scientologists), the general goal of the members was to "rise" in "spiritual awareness" and very vague stuff like that. He told us about the different steps, but when we asked him about the specifics he wouldn't tell us because "one have to learn this in the correct order, or it would sound incomprehesible or even silly". 

Then he wanted us to try one of their instruments that they use in their courses to achive greater minds. The thing is a regular current meter and the subject hold the two ends. The leader then asks questions and tries to interpet the readings on the meter. The guy said that he could tell if we lied with this thing, so we gave it a shot. Of course I always thought the opposite from the truth when he asked us to think of something - and I lied to him about wether or not his predictions were true or not. He didn't get anything right, of course.

Now, all well and done. We also learned that the courses that you have to take are very expensive and that there are very many of them. We did our report and all was well. The class, as I recall, had fun with our lying and tricking of the guy.

One thing struck me as odd, the guy told me that the founder was one Ron L Hubbard, and I thought that I had heard that name before. Of course, it turns out I had, I had read one of his earlier works, a low budget pulp sf book whos name I forget. Let me tell you, it is no good. (On a side note, he has written Battlefield Earth, filmed later with fellow scientologist John Travolta, that too was no good.)

Skip ahead a few years, a person who had gotten out of scientology sued the cult for money and thus all their materials became available as public material in court here in Sweden. Some students managed to read the material before scientologist litteraly occupied the building and took turns in checking out the material and read is, thus blocking all other intresents.

Those students published the material on the newly discovered internet, and I managed to download it, read it, and was completeley baffled. I mean it is just so stupid! But then again, I guess I didn't read it in the intended order...

Well, from what I remember, you can pretty much get the details from reading Hubbards sf works - there is a galactic empire, it has dumped it's criminals under the earth, then evolution happened and man came into the world. But the criminals, or their spirits, are escpaing and possesses us and makes us do bad things. When we do scientology courses we cleanse ourselves from them and thus become better people. When enough of us are clean enough we will become a part of the galactic empire and live happily ever after. It's really not that different from other belif systems if you ask me.

The problem, and what makes scientology a cult, is it's secrecy, it's overall goal of making money, it's hierarchical system and the methods they use to make people stay in line.


The amazing way of swedish governement

It is rather amazing, after a very slow start people are finally realizing the power of protest against the opressive rule of the Deomcratic republic of China during, before and after the Olympic Games are to be held there this year.

As you know it all started with the brave Tibetan munks, who it seems, got beaten down quiet rapidly. By then it had spread to many other parts of China (there are munks all over, and Buddism seems to be one of the few philosophical points of view that encourages political movements today). But nobody outside of China seemed to react very much.

Only with the symbolic torch traveling through eurpoe - London and Paris suddenly bursted out in a long over due manifestation. And our leaders, who are supposed to be guardians of morallity and so on and so forth, even they have begun to react: Prime minister of Britan will not attend the opening ceremony, nor the German equvivalent, Sarcoci in France, ever the brightest of the three, will not attend if Chinese governement doesen't improve their behaviour when it comes to human rights, and even the totally inapt IOK-chairman complained yesterday, reminding China about the promised they made when they got the Olympics a few years back.

But what does prime minister Reinfeldt, Sweden, do in that situation? He definitivley closes the door, saying "We will defenitly attend the opening ceremony." And this in a country where there is a long tradition of fighting for human rights (not from his party, thats true, but still). It seems the liberal governement in Sweden is very eager to please the communist governement of China, now isn't that an odd turn of events?


Shall we play a game of pretend?

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We could be heroes

What would you do if you suddenly were given the opportunity to rule the world for some time, say five years? What could you do? I know what I would try to do. One thing would be to put the lid in the chimneys of the world, so to speak, to severly lessen the CO2-outlet and to try and do something about global warming. If I, in my capacity as world ruler, would try to do such a thing, I can assure you that very large ammounts of people around the globe would protest, they would try to over throw me, they would wage wars against me, they would, in short, not do as I said. Only with a very large army could I depress these attempts at rebellion.

The same is true, but in a slightly lesser scale, of all nations, communities and other groupings of people, in order to actually change something on which a lot of other things are built you cannot simply change it, you have to get people to want to change it first, and then a slow but steady process begins, to adjust all the dependant system. Boring huh?

Anyway, this borders on the theories put forward by John Stuart Mill, the old 1700s brittish social/political philosopher and liberal spokesman, and he really ought to know, he learned classical greek by the time he was eight years old and studied logics by the time he was twelve. I'm not sure with what degree of success though, although he reportedly was a very intelligent man. He was of the opinion that every change in society should be to remedy a specific problem and that those changes should be made gradually.

This, however, is not what I mean. What I mean is that we, yes we, all of us, or rather each and every one of us, have the chance to change something we want to change. Not by being world rulers, or even leaders of men and women in general, but simply by making up our minds. Just imagine, we could be heroes. All of us.

Does it sound like a bad cliché? Probably, but to prove you wrong, check this out!

Sick tired and waiting

Time crawls, so much to do, yet I do nothing. People passing by like shadows, no place to rest my eyes and no escape.

Will there be serenity?

Rediscovery

I have spent a lot of time lateley correcting papers, which, to be hornest, isn't my favourite ting to do in the world. Still, it usually gives me a good excuse to listen to music, and to play games that doesen't need my complete attention all the time.

Two old dear things have I rediscovered this time: The beautifully terrifying music of Delerium, particulary the album Stone Tower, and the old but still very good game Fallout.

Not bad for 50 papers.

CO2

They finally managed to get a deal in Bali. I'm very surprised. This challenges my whole outlook on the world, perhaps everyone isn't a bastard? But no, that can't be it. It would have been it if they'd done this 20 years ago, but now? Now it's just egocetered survival instinct.

No matter. They did make a deal, though it sure is a watered out one. Of all nations the United States seem to be the one with least survival instincts, which is hardly surprising since it is also the nation with most fanatics in the world. So they stopped the deal from containing actual percentages that we in the old industrialised world should cut our outlet of CO2 with. They obviously don't care about the future.

But there are other candidates to the title of least survival oriented nation. China and India for instance. These countries fall in the general category of "Under-developed" countries, alongside Bangladesh, Somalia and countries that really belong to the third world due to the explotation of them from the colonists and world wide inustries like Coca Cola Company. Yet their part in the CO2 problem is very large indeed, and will soon be bigger than that of the US and european countries. They talk of historical debt, that is a suspicious concept indeed.

Do europe have a historical debt? It is true that we have a history of not caring what our industries do. It is true that from a historical standpoint we and the US have let a very very large portion of the now present CO2 out into the atmosphere. But a debt? Ok, if it implies that we did it, so we have to make it go away, then I'm there, but if it implies, as it does when you listen to the negotiators from China, that they (China and India) should be allowed to increase their CO2 outlet however much they want, then I do not agree at all.

Analogy: I kill someone, does that give everybody else the right to kill as many as I did? No, but it leads to my getting a punishment. I let out 1 ton of CO2, does that give everybody else the right to let out 1 ton of CO2? No, but it is my responisbility to stop what I'm doing and try to plant as many trees as I can to help reduce the damage I caused.

Again though, they did make a deal out of necessity, and maby the will actually stick to it and save the world. But probably not...

The test

Disclaimer! The below piece does not expresss any of my views!!! I simply want to see if the governement really is listening. It will be fun to see how many agnecies mail me. Oh, and to see if some extremists also mail me.

This is my free speech corner, don't mess with it! I have an extremists belif in free speech!

Lynch mobs, death squads, babies being born without brains...

Communism rules! George Bush is a wanker! IB-scandal IB-scandal. Extremism sucks! Fuck Al-Qaida! Fuck Ulf Ekman! Planning a robbery. Planing a robbery. More women priests! Less Priests! Let the west feel the wrath of our terror! This is the white mans magic. FBI CIA SÄPO. Governement intelligence is on the down. Lets bomb something! Why? It's in the good book.

Chaos is the future and beyond is freedom!

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