Christianity isn't the only pack of lies (or, as I tend to think of it, pack of rather interesting philosophy and human psychology masquerading as revealed truth.) Other religions are as screwed up or even more so.
For those of you who haven't seen the South Park episode "Trapped in the Closet," (watch the full episode here) the so-called Church of Scientology believes that (quoted from ExScientologyKids.com, this is a paraphrase of the "OTIII" materials from the CoS. As such, this material is not copyrighted by the Church of Scientology.)
"75 million years ago, an evil being named Xenu decided to solve a population problem on his galactic colony by exiling a bunch of people to Earth. Xenu then did a ton of horrible things to these people, like drugging them, placing their bodies around a volcano, and blowing them up with H-bombs.
But that really only took care of the physical problem - Xenu didn't just want the bodies gone, he wanted to make sure the 'thetans' (spirits / souls) of those people didn't come back and reincarnate on his colony. So when the souls started leaving the bodies, he captured the souls and forced them into a huge implant station that was kind of like a movie theatre. There, he made them watch movies that 'implanted' them with false pictures of Christ, and other historical events that Hubbard says didn't actually happen.
The souls were so screwed up from this implanting that they roamed aimlessly around Earth for millions of years. When human beings started evolving, the thetans started entering their bodies and inhabiting them, and thus these thetans are called 'body thetans'. And body thetans, says Hubbard, are the source of all human misery.
But that's just the theory portion of OT3. The practical portion of OT3 involves getting rid of these body thetans. The PC uses the Emeter to locate body thetans that are stuck to his body, and talk to them, auditing them until they blow (go away)."
The volcano on the cover of the Dianetics book (above) refers to Xenu using volcanoes in his reign of terror.
I generally think of religions as interesting philosophy and very clear insights into the human condition, and Scientology is no exception. This is an excellent example of the old saw that it is possible to make people believe absolutely anything.
When one is trapped in an echo chamber of wild beliefs, acceptance is common.
In my novel about to be published, Callous: A Novel, I explored the problem of belief echo chambers and the freefall of logic. Callous will be published in May, 2008.
No comments:
Post a Comment