This week, it’s answers about loyalty and being disowned by Scientologists, my take on critical thinking done by right-wing commentators, my take on the current scene in the Ukraine and a lot more. Enjoy!
(1) When Mike Rinder told the story of his defection from Scientology, he said that as soon as his wife found out she immediately wrote hate mail about him. How can not only a married couple but a mother and a father turn so quickly and possess the ability to write extreme vitriolic hate mail against her husband? Agreed we don’t know the state of their marriage at that time but not only did his wife do this but so did his son and daughter join in, with vitriolic hate mail disowning him in such a way that I found it to be shocking. How does this happen so quickly. Can you please shed some light on this situation?
(2) I was wondering what you make of some right wing personalities and political commenters that use logical arguments to make their point. The two that immediately come to mind are Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder. I find that I watch a lot of their videos online and while I don’t always agree with what they say (I often disagree), I find they can also have a very logical style of looking at things which I find it hard to disagree with.
Also, especially with Steven Crowder, he often puts himself directly in the line of fire with his “Change my mind” debates. While you don’t have to agree with his stance and they’re always on very controversial or hot button subjects, I’ve always found that he’s behaved professionally and calmly in these situations and seems to only present facts and logic. I think these are excellent as I feel it’s important to explain your side of an argument which in any other form, would just devolve into shouting or anger.
I find that these two get vilified in public and very often it’s because of their right leaning stance on things. That being said, both sides are as guilty as the other of refusing to listen to the arguments, because it doesn’t fit with what they want to hear.
(3) Regarding the current situation with Vladimir Putin and Russia, I am seeing some very familiar and very frightening patterns here. We are seeing flimsy or blatantly false reasons for military action. We are seeing a desire for territorial expansion or at least an expansion of a zone of influence, so to speak. We are seeing blame placed on and a blatant disregard for people of different ethnic backgrounds. We are also seeing praise, admiration or indifference to Putin from politicians here and in other countries not under the Russian sphere of influence. Are we in the beginning stages of something that we saw eighty plus years ago? Something that a lot of people vowed to never let happen again?
(4) I have a habit of viewing authoritarians as being middle to elderly age, I have this notion that authoritarians tend to skew old. Is the assumption wrong that as people age they become more authoritarian?
(5) (and other critics) have shown that David Miscavige is constantly micro-managing Scientology. Why does he go to the effort (at least publicly) to try and show that he is separate from the day-to-day running of the church and just “safeguarding the technology”? Do you think it makes a difference if in the minds of public Scientologists when they find out how heavily he has been involved in “updating” LRH materials or running the church contrary to LRH policy? (despite the fact that LRH “policy” is so unwieldy and contradictory).
Do the majority of Scientologists believe that international management and the Watchdog committee are actually working properly and doing their jobs? I’m sure that most public Scientologists don’t really care about the details of how it all works, but how important to them is it that those parts of the organisation actually exists? Most of us don’t care about the ins-and-outs of how the government works, but (at least in democratic countries) we know why it’s there and how it should (in theory) work to protect the rights of ordinary citizens. I’m sure that Scientology is set up more like a communist regime, where Miscavige can take all the credit but pass the blame for failure and hardships onto a faceless bureaucracy.
I understand that the separation of Miscavige from day-to-day management may also be for an external audience, much like how Hubbard went into hiding to avoid liability for criminal acts and lawsuits. However, is this more of a secondary concern for how the church is currently run?
(6) When you are trying to exorcise the body thetans in the upper OT levels, how do you know that they want to leave? What happened to them when they leave? Can they find a new body or do they just find someone or something else to get stuck to? All you could do is kind of shoo them away, they can’t be destroyed correct?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS