The weekly show where I answer viewer questions left for me in the comment section of my Q&A videos or sent to me by email at AskChrisShelton@gmail.com. This week, the questions I answer are:
(1) How would you explain the concept of “make it go right”? I’ve been a Scientology watcher for several years and I’ve consumed hundreds hours of entheta at this point, but while I feel I have a good grasp of what “make it go right” means, I don’t think I could effectively explain it. What’s the best description you can come up with?
(2) Hearing the story of you in the bathroom of the Santa Barbara Org yelling at ghosts to go and get a body got me thinking. If you could go back in time in a time machine for 30 minutes, where and when would you go? What would you say to yourself and how would it have changed your life?
(3) Could you talk sometime about the level of support and the kind of support you encountered when you exited Scientology. For example: were you able to find a good support group of ex-members that would give you emotional and psychological support? Do people who leave Scientology find support easily? And do you know if this is the case too for other destructive cults?
The reason I’m asking is because I think when people get out of an authoritarian church they can’t find, most of the time, people who understand what they are going through. I think just the opposite happens, they tend to be judged by pastors assuming that they are inconsistent people, that they are not committed; normally pastors blame the people getting out of the church, not the pastor of the abusive church. I don’t know in the U.S. but here in Spain people in general have no idea what you are talking about. There is no place or small community of people with whom you can connect and talk about what you’ve lived and get some understanding.
(4) What would a cleared planet look like? Would the Church of Scientology get involved in the political system of the world or just stay on the sidelines? Would they invest heavily in space technology in order to reach alien civilizations or Target 2? What would happen to the organisation itself?
(5) If you could pick one religion to be true, which one would you choose and why?
(6) As Scientology loses members and appears to be losing the PR war, do you think the Sea Org will allow for babies again as a way to grow the church?
(7) Is Dave Miscavige an OT8? If not, do we actually have good reason to believe he is not? What is the source?
(8) In a Facebook group I am in, Scientology came up in discussion, and one guy said he thought it would always be around “because there are always people who are at such a low in their life that they want to be constantly told what to do”. I think that may be the case for some cults or fundamentalist groups but I don’t think that’s true of Scientology as you and others have said people who get into it think they are helping themselves and others. What’s your opinion on that? Is that guy totally wrong when it comes to Scientology? I realise they do follow rules but don’t see it as them doing that just because they want to serve.
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I don’t know when it started. Maybe in the 21st century. But one of my pet peeves is the year zero. THERE IS NO YEAR ZERO! There is only BC and AD. BC standing for Before Christ; therefore 5 BC is 5 years before Christ. AD comes from Latin Anno Domini, i.e., the year of our Lord; therefore, when Christ was born was AD 1, or the year of our Lord 1. (If Jesus was supposed to be born in AD 1, why do scholars say he was actually born sometime between 4 and 6 BC is another question.) As the Western world has become more secular, BC and AD have been replaced with BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era). But THERE IS STILL NO YEAR ZERO! And yes that means the first AD or CE century was from 1 to 100, so for those who thought the 21st century started on January 1, 2000, they’re wrong. The 21st century started on January 1, 2001.
As to your concept of the Judeo Christian God – If you come to Cleveland, it looks like we will have to have many beers.