Why are people who believe in Scientology deemed "obviously insane" but believing in God is a-okay? Or, if you want to be picky about my words - why is Christianity more acceptable to you than Scientology or some other cult-y belief? What's the key difference?
What is fundamentally retarded about Xenu that can't be said of the same of other gods and deities?
I'm not advocating Scientology or anything, but I am just interested why Scientology is harder to swallow than other figures of worship (of which any in-depth historical documentation is contained within a single book).
Is it just because it's new?
12 comments:
"The Church of Scientology ..It has often been described as a cult that financially defrauds and abuses its members, charging exorbitant fees for its spiritual services. The Church of Scientology has consistently used litigation against such critics, and its aggressiveness in pursuing its foes has been condemned as harassment."
Lol wiki'd. But just saying that the way they conduct their religion puts me off a lot more than the actual beliefs they promote.
- shelley
I'm sure the Catholics have more than enough to be ashamed of, including Crusades, that thing where they forced Protestants to convert or die, and recent allegations about child abuse and stuff.
I'm not trying to pick on Catholics in particular but I don't have any goss on other belief systems :L
Glib answer:
The whole "alien tyrant" thing would be more convincing coming from someone who didn't spend the rest of his career writing science fiction.
I could give you a not-glib answer if you want, but I'd need to know what you think of Russell's teapot/Invisible Pink Unicorn first.
And who wrote the Bible?
And how can you prove that what he's documenting is actually the truth and not "just science fiction?"
How can you prove that the writers of the Bible weren't fantasy authors?
I just wiki'd the two - I have only heard the term Flying Spaghetti Monster to satirise religion. I like Russel's teapot in that it actually has a meaning and is logical, where Invisible Pink Unicorn is more craziness (like Spaghetti Monster) and then going "HA THIS IS TRUE. YOU CAN'T DISPROVE, ERGO IS TRUE"
Which I don't really care for - it's not in my interests to aggressively tell people believing in God is retarded by presenting my own satirical supreme ruler. I don't give a shit what they believe in as long as they don't "try to save me".
Russel's teapot has a more defensive feel, and I find it quite interesting =D
because scientology makes people pay for services to ascend the hierarchy, while to be a better christian is more a moral thing.
Firstly, I think if you've actually read the Bible, it's pretty obvious the ancient Israelites weren't trying to win a Hugo award (though the Yale school of theology might have something to say here). Whether or not it's an accruate historical record is a whole other debate, and there are secular critiques of the Bible aplenty if you want to look for them.
Secondly, given your endorsement of Russell's teapot, I think I can maybe give a better answer to your question. No offence, but I don't think you actually understand the nature of the Christian God. If S/He's conceived of as some super-powerful king in the clouds with magical powers, then well, theism is quite easily falsified. I sometimes wish all theism was like that, because then it would obvious who was right, but anyway.
The problem is that the theism the teapot analogy is trying to undermine, is a theism that any halfway-sophisticated theology would explicity reject. I don't deny that some believers would have a such a crude anthropomorphic theism, but traditionally, God hasn't been concieved in anything like a "sky daddy", as it's been said. Most theology does hold God to be personal, yes, but not a person in the sense we now would understand it. There are a lot of conceptions of God, most of which are rigorously argued for (successfully or not is another matter) and none of which even remotely resemble the caricature of God the teapot is attacking.
Some basic examples: Thomism's "simple being of pure actuality", Kant's "immanent source of morality", Anselm's "perfect being of which no greater can be conceived", Leibniz's "necessary being", Berkeley's "sustainer of the unobserved", Process Theism's "permanent entity" and "backdrop of order", and Paul Tillich's "ground of being". In none of these is God a superfluous postulate in the manner of the teapot/Xenu, rather, God is often seen as a crucial and central part of whatever metaphysical system S/He's in.
Consider the obviously exaggerated story of King Arthur (King Arthur may have been a real historical king), though Excalibur and Lady in the Lake and all that shit must've been made up glory-stories. There was probably a great king, King Arthur, who the people admired and wrote fantastical stories about.
Now correct me if I'm wrong - Christians worship Christ more than God, otherwise they'd just be like Jews and go "Jesus was just like any dude. Shut up and move along". They'd also not have most of the New Testament. Also they'd not be called "Christians".
Now, fair enough, I don't care enough, and haven't really read into it enough, to work out exactly what kind of relationship people have with God etc, nor how he is manifested in the Universe or its beyonds.
Though I'm hoping I can trust Bible stories. Or maybe these stories are meant as moral stories and are symbolic and not at all literal. In which case - what do I believe/not believe? More importantly - what do Christians believe/not believe?
I respect the ideas and morals that it conveys, and consider them a good guide for life, though I don't like the idea of attaching these ideas to one or two figures.
Straight off the bat, Creationism and basically anything else in the Old Testament I find hard to believe, unless the world actually started 200,000 years ago and we all knew how to keep records. Now reading the Adam and Eve story (of questionable authorship), I think you can see why God comes across as a "sky daddy", with his direct creation of animals and plants and light and water, and then actually making Adam, ripping a rib out of him, telling them not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, etc etc.
Obviously I am contradicting myself by relying so heavily on the Old Testament when clearly Christianity is about the New.
So I'll continue. (over the break, won't let me post a long comment)
I also find it difficult to believe that angels existed and regularly conversed with humans, Jesus healed lepers and blind people, turned water into wine, rising from the dead or anything else that had magical powers. It's very very improbable and this is probably a case of King Arthur.
Now I don't hate Christianity, nor am I certain that it's wrong. We could just as well be discussing Greek Mythology, though I doubt then that there would be much room for discussion. If I compared Greek Mythology and Scientology you'd probably have a more "yeah... so?" reaction.
I don't adamantly believe God doesn't exist - I'm sure he could exist outside our material world. I, however, do not believe that he can significantly influence my actions (I suppose he can influence morals), neither do I believe I can influence him through means such as prayer.
Fair enough, this lack of communication between me and a greater being could be because I have not accepted him/Jesus as a personal guide, and once I do, I may achieve said communication. In which case, this renders both religious and non-religious people correct within their own frame of reference, and we should move on.
In expressing my beliefs, I have not been smited from the heavens, and realistically there are no real advantages nor disadvantages of believing either for or against. Physically, the religious don't have different builds to the rest. Emotionally, I bet religious people get sad just as often as the rest of them. In society, apart from the extra friends you may make at church (which non-believers can easily make up in some extracurricular activity should they which), you won't be swimming in popularity. Financially, there are poor believers too. Spiritually, both believers and non believers are happy.
I've gone off on a little bit of a tangent, but firstly - are you from school? Unless you do SOR I'm amazed at how much time you are willing to spend on looking up both sides of the argument.
I agree that the simple teapot does not truly disprove God. It doesn't disprove anything; it is merely a counter, and it only counters the manifestation of God within our world (which happens a few times in the Bible through means such as actually talking to humans).
Now I read synopses on those examples you gave.
Apart from Berkeley's, which I could not find; Leibniz's logic crap (reminiscent of Godel's ontological proof) which went right over my head, except the conclusion which I just took for granted; I found them interesting. The problem I have with God is that the more fundamental and abstract he becomes, the more I feel he is possible, however, the more I feel that it is impossible to communicate with him, for him to affect us, and for us to affect him. As he becomes less fundamental and more manifested, I think it might be okay to "talk to him", although a more manifested God would be a "man in the sky" which is clearly not the case.
Sorry for wall of text.
Scientology doesn't have Christianity's social acceptability, authority and history. It makes things worse for itself by running its church without integrity and by having a founder who believes that making a religion is the easiest way to make heaps of money. I highly doubt that it's about the differences between the religions.
Apologies in advance if I'm wrong, but I'm getting the feeling that you view the Bible in a typically Enlightenment sort of way - good moral teaching, but clearly a product of human hands, being riddled with sexism and superstition, etc. That's fair. I'm not a biblical scholar by any means, and I don't get think that particular conversation would get very far anyway, so I'll concede that you're well justified in your current view of the Bible. I would maybe take exception the part of morality, where I would contend that you only think it's a good ethical guide because the morality of modern-day culture has had nearly 2000 years of being so strongly shaped and influenced by Christianity. But that's another debate entirely.
Regarding the eudaimonic situations of the believer and nonbeliever, I think most Christians would say they have a better life than the atheist, because of the nature of faith. Obviously, there's the afterlife to consider, but there's also the soteriological dimension - the life of a sinner redeemed compared to a sinner unredeemed. If people are only able to find true (objective, not subjective) fulfillment in God via redemption through Christ, then clearly the Christian has a better life. But ignoring this (which the atheist is perfectly entitled to, especially with the pluralistic considerations of modern society), then yes, neither the theist nor the atheist is privileged in any way.
Moving on, I'm not quite sure what you mean by a "more manifested God". I do think that if God exists, S/He would be have to be some sort of immaterial, transcedent entity, but I don't see how that conflicts with God being a relational God. I don't think S/He actually uses natural means to interact with the natural word, and as such God doesn't "manifest" in the world (excepting the Incarnation). But that doesn't mean S/He can't work with it. There might be a kind of interaction problem here - how does the supernatural and immaterial work with the physical - that should be addressed (I think Thomism and Process Thought have some advantages here) but I don't think that a lack of an account of how God works is tantamount to a disproof that God doesn't work. To continue the philosophy of mind analogy, just because we don't know how to explain consciousness in a materialist philosophy of mind doesn't mean we don't know that consciousness exists, or for that matter, materialism is true (assuming materialism is indeed true).
Or is it a kind of God of philosophy/God of faith distinction you're trying to draw here? I think that that doesn't work either, but I don't want to go off on an unnecessary tangent; this comment is getting ridiculously long already.
Incidentally, Berkeley's argument is basically "everything is mental, and observation of things makes things real. However, things continue to exist even when unobserved, ergo something must be observing them, ergo God exists." That's my mangling of the argument, and I know it probably sounds retarded, but Berkeley has a city named after him for a reason.
As for Leibniz, sorry, I should have clarified there. I meant his argument from contigency, where God is established as a necessary as opposed to contigent being, though ontological arguments are interesting as well.
Lastly, yeah, I'm a Ruse student. I don't do Studies of Religion (I get the feeling it's more a demographics/history thing, though I'm open to correction) but I do waste a lot of time reading up on pointless things like this. And as for the wall of text, I should be the one apologizing.
I don't actually know the definition of the term "Enlightenment" wrt Bible-interpretation, but from your description, I think that aptly describes it.
When you said "product of human hands", though, I want to clarify that - the people who wrote the Bible didn't write it for the sake of funzies or for making money, but that they actually believed that stuff as fact, or at least the most logical explanation for phenomena they observed. From my point of view, whether that stuff is actually fact, collective hysteria, or just poor scientific observation skills leading to flawed conclusions, is not clear. So I'm not condemning it as a book of lies, but also there's no way that I could believe every word. So basically I'm not an atheist in the traditional definition of the term - I don't hate, nor actively believe there is none. I think that if a god existed, my attempts to interact with it will be misguided, and that life will work in a more "do good things to reward yourself, because a god will maintain the probability that if I help a person, that person will be a friend form then on" (I suppose it's karma-esque) as opposed to "do good things to make God happy so he can reward you".
And post hoc ergo propter hoc, going with the 7 deadly sins, I think humans knew it was wrong to be wrathful, greedy, lazy, proud, lusty, envious and gluttonous a lot longer than 2000 years ago. Knowing what's wrong, as we know, is a far fling from acting what's right. It would be an unfair call to say all religious people are good people.
With the stuff about saving + not saving - The Christian cares about saving, the atheist does not. Clearly in the Christian's eyes, their "saved" status outranks the atheists "non-saved". However, the atheist thinks it's all bullshit anyway and finds better things to do with his/her time (as you stated). If we want to make the argument contrived, the atheist would gain some (more) materialistic time to spend with family and friends or maybe work, whenever the Christian (or any religious person) is doing anything that being a member of said religion entails (such as praying or attending church or reading the scriptures). Of course, the Christian will not see it this way, and it may not even be true. But then again, the atheist could say the same of whole Salvation business.
I'll stress here that I don't believe God doesn't work for everyone. I just think that God wouldn't work for me. I can't imagine some greater being talking back to me, possibly if I pray hard enough he may take some time off to medically aid my loved ones, then end up thanking the wrong person if a surgery is successful.
My current view of the world does not allow me to accept a transcendent being who can manipulate the physical at its whim, and I can henceforth influence this being through prayer. Of course, this doesn't stop anyone else's view of the world from letting God work for them. I understand that religion is a personal thing, and that one's relationship with God is unique and infallible. No atheists sweeping logical deductions can shake that. And I think that the lack of presence of (a) God in my life is a personal thing that really can't be affected by any sweeping deductions neither.
And if my understanding of ontological proofs + your summary of Berkeley's thesis is correct, as soon as an individual has maybe not "perceived" as much as "believed" in God, it renders God true and necessary. Which I am fine with, but not everyone has overcome that first hurdle. Here I assert again that everyone's relationship with God (Christian or not) is personal, even if it is non-existent.
And really, do you read up on any other human society topics or is it just religion?
I'm not convinced by your point about the seven deadly sins - a quick reading of the Old Testament alone would reveal a multitude of atrocities that the Israelites obviously thought were fine to include in the Bible. The concept of human rights has quite a short history, and marital rape was an oxymoron for a long, long while. And we only just begna to recognize war crimes - the chance to plunder and rape was part of the incentive for a lot of soldiers until quite recently. I could go on listing them how our moral attitudes have changed so radically and so quickly, but my point is basically that morality is constantly in flux, and mainstream (secular) culture's acceptance of the Bible as a good guide to morality seems to me a very question-begging stance.
About salvation, I'm pretty much in agreement with you, I just think your prior post was a little too glib.
I'm seeing a lot of postmodernism in your attitude to religion, the relativism comes through quite strongly. I'm sorry if I'm reading you wrong, but that's what I'm getting. In which case I'm not quite sure how to continue a dialogue from there, and I'll be happy just to have answered your question about Xenu (if I have actually answered your question). cloudier's comment is actually much better for a cultural analysis, my wall of text about metaphysics is from a more intellectual, scholarly sort of viewpoint.
Lastly, I'm not really interested in human society, more philosophy, and that leads me (mostly through de Beauvoir) to stray ocassionally into gender theory, but that seems to be about it.
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