AUTHOR
Rodger Clark
Contractor, history buff, compulsive learner, currently in recovery from authoritarian education.
SCIENTOLOGY RELIGION
Though I grew up Catholic, I’ve been into many churches of different types and one thing I’ve always noticed is the same sense of relief from the world and the safe space a church can provide.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
I grew up around horses. My family raised them, cared for them, rode them, bred them, trained them, bought and sold them. Back then it was even still legal to go out and catch wild horses and bring them home.
ANTI-RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDA
The tabloid media regularly employs an old tried-and-true technique upon the public known as the “seed of doubt.” It is probably the most powerful tool of unsettling or controlling the mind of anyone from a single person to large groups. It’s the suggestion of something invisible—often an absurdity so incongruous with reality that our minds fixate upon it in an attempt to prove or disprove it.
SCIENTOLOGY RELIGION
The philosophy of facing and handling life requires things like responsibility, courage, self-reliance, the ability to reason well, character, and many other characteristics considered desirable in the individual. The philosophy of avoiding and escaping involves the opposite: irresponsibility, fear, dependence, lack of resolve, emotional reaction, dishonesty.
MEDIA & ETHICS
Have you ever noticed that when someone has entirely mastered a skill or subject they are usually very calm, unemotional and matter-of-fact? And the fewer accurate facts someone knows about a thing the more emotional they tend to be? Well, a master knows the precise truth of the subject. The other one doesn’t.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
That Scientology is fun is one of those things that’s so obvious and normal to those who actually know and practice it that it almost goes without saying. But my last blog on the subject seems to have struck a chord with readers, so I thought I would do a follow-up and use a little contrast.
SCIENTOLOGY RELIGION
In just about every society on earth, we humans are handed nothing but limits from the time we are born. The limits of popular opinion, culture, and thought along with authorities to appeal to, permissions to ask, expectations to meet.
MEDIA & ETHICS
I actually saw this question in an online forum the other day: “If I wanted to start my own cult, how would I do it?” Now to begin with, the word “cult” is simply a pejorative word for some group the person using it doesn't like.
SCIENTOLOGY RELIGION
Recently, I've found myself fielding numerous questions about what Scientologists “believe,” so I'm going to address the subject of belief in Scientology in a way you're probably not expecting. Bear with me. First of all, no one is expected to “believe” anything in Scientology.
SCIENTOLOGY RELIGION
It takes a very humble person to admit that, compared to the truth, they don’t matter.
