This week, it’s answers about whether Scientology was destined to happen, whether Scientologists are atheists, connecting with the real world after leaving a cult and a lot more. Enjoy!
(1) Aside from David Miscavige, are there some Scientologists at the upper echelons of the Church of Scientology who are ‘in on the con’ to some degree and even outright fake believers, or is it simply limited to Miscavige? It interested me that former senior figures Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder practised independent Scientology for many years after exiting the Church, so they clearly did not view Scientology as an outright con. What do you think?
(2) Chris, are you familiar with the “great man” theory of history? Here is how it works: some people say that, if Hitler did not exist, someone else would have done the same thing, while others say nonsense, without him, Germany would have had a leader who would not have invaded Poland or started a holocaust, but merely retaken some lost territory and then signed a new peace deal with England and France. Here is how it applies to cults: people say that, if LRH never existed, those Scibots would have fallen for the next con man or cult leader who came by because they are so stupid and mentally ill. It is obvious to me, as a viewer of your channel, that they are not stupid or mentally ill, and if they had joined Naturopathy or vegetarianism instead of Scientology, things would have been different. What say you?
(3) Hi Chris – just watched your live stream today. Great stuff and I binge watch a lot of your previous Q&A vids and Sensibly Speaking podcasts). You talked about religion and atheism and I was thinking, since Scientologists don’t believe in nor worship a “God” and only LRH as “Source,” doesn’t that make them atheists by default? Would love to hear your perspective on this.
(4) I know there must be hundreds of answers to this but how hard is it to reconnect to non-Scientologists after leaving the cult?
(5) From your point of view as an experienced YouTube content creator, do you think the new rules and alleged fines and deletions coming in January are going to send everyone’s favorite free internet TV channel into the same garbage chute that MySpace went down or are we all just being paranoid and over reacting?
(6) I am a hard core gamer, I know that cults can be many things, but I have been wondering are there video game cults out there?
(7) How does Scientology try to record “evidence” that the actions people take are voluntary other than the non-disparagement contract?
(8) If, as you believe, Miscavige no longer believes in Scientology, then what’s stopping him from simply inventing new OT levels?