Voltaire's Child
Fool on the Hill
Recently, someone said to me "If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything." This was pursuant to my opting not to fall for the things this person was telling me. Kind of ironic, I think.
Now, anyone who knows me and has been reading my posts on this forum and other ones (and several people here have alleged to have been reading my posts pretty much since the beginning.) knows that I have always been most definite about standing for specific things. Just because I don't let myself get backed into a corner by those who aren't too happy with me doesn't mean I don't stand for anything.
So I'll say exactly what I do stand for, just in case there really is a genuine question in anyone's mind. It's freedom and honesty. That's it.
I was a supporter of CofS til I'd been on a.r.s. for about a year or two. I don't apologize for it. That was my frame of reference and I didn't figure out that I was being lied to until I got on the internet and started talking to people, both publicaly and back channel. Once I left CofS, I was upfront about it. I told everyone that OSA had been trying to make me stop posting, I told everyone that I used to think they were SPs and that now I knew they weren't. I wanted to be open and candid and honest. I could have used an anonymizer, I could have held back my real name- it certainly would have saved me a ton of hassle with the cult and spared me the implied threats they made to break up my marriage. But I don't go that way.
I could have, when I started posting regularly on OCMB, lied about my continuing interest in Scn (after having left CofS). But I didn't. Because I'm open about that stuff. But believe me, lying to the forum regulars there (some of whom are also here now) would have saved me a metric fuck ton of hassle. But I didn't do it. I won't do it now, either.
Because for me, it's about freedom of speech and of choice. That's why I insisted on my right to post to a.r.s. when the cult said I didn't have that right. That's why I didn't let some other contributors- some of whom are relatively high profile critics- intimidate me into saying things they thought I should say or leaving the forum- which seemed to be the main two choices some of those people were implying were mine to choose.
That's why, although I no longer consider myself to be a Scientologist (Yes, I still find some value in some of the things I studied in Scn. But I also find some value in things I learned as a young Catholic ball of fluff and I'm sure not a Catholic either.), I support people's right to practice Scn outside CofS. And I opt to disagree with elements of Scn at the same time.
I have a big problem with cultic abuses. When I see problems in the FZ or with any FZ practitiioner (which is probably a more accurate way to phrase it) I say so. Anyone who's read any of my posts in the last couple months would know it if they didn't know it before. So that's a definite thing, one of many against which I make my stand. There are other things I am against, some of which pertain to our topic here (Scn) and some of which, of course, do not.
But I never will cease to be against freedom of choice and of belief. This is not mutually exclusive with taking a stand against the unfair and abusive things Hubbard said and did in his lifetime and/or with the abuses that are going on in the cult now. It's also not mutually exclusive with taking a stand against any bad shit that goes down in non CofS Scn circles and with those who support it.
As it happens, I personally think one can separate out various beliefs and have them and not have it be part of a UFO cult. But, OTOH, I think that one can try to do that and fail miserably. It's going to depend on what the person does. I think going for a reformed CofS, for example, would probably cause the cherrypicking to fail and have things be like the old/current CofS, eventually. Because who's going to get everyone to agree on deleting godawful policies and which ones to cull? And even stuff that's "Red on white" that's unfair and draconian, right? Yep.
But, on the whole, I'm uber reluctant to paint all non CofS Scn'ists with a broad brush about how they're all conditioned and brainwashed and the dog ate their homework. I left a group that used and still uses that line of rationalization about people who don't dance to their tune. You may have heard of them. It's called "The Church of Scientology" aka "hubbard dianetics foundation" aka "Church of Spiritual technology" aka "CCHR" aka etc etc etc. So, no, I don't want to be like them. See? That's a definite stand.
In CofS, people are denied freedom of choice. It takes a while to notice and to feel it, but the noose starts tightening probably from about Day one. At first, maybe, it's just little ways. Can't skip course. Can't "natter". After a while, it gets to be big things particularly if one's on staff. And every single Scn'ist gets targetted for recruitment, right? And many of us go for it. Then the freedoms that are taken away are prominent and important ones.
I'm against that. I'm for freedom of choice and of speech. If CofS were as big on those things as they claim, they'd police themselves a whole lot better. Imagine if it were like a modern mainstream church where you could criticize the minister or report something to the bishop without getting in big trouble and maybe losing everything! Well, you can't do that in CofS.
You should always be able to speak out. That's what boards like these are for. You should be able to criticize the FZ or the indie scene and you should be able to say you like those things, if that's how you feel. Freedom of choice cuts both ways.
I'm for freedom of choice and discussion. Those things are actually more important to me than the actual philosophical beliefs themselves, some of which I happen to hold.
I think that if someone came to me and said they had the power to make me make a choice between either espousing freedom of personal choice (of ideology, in this case) and of speech but that I'd be philosophically cast rudderless if I did vs having some of the very special much cherished ideological beliefs I do have but with absolutely no freedom to rebut, disagree, support anyone else who might differ, I'd have to opt for the former.
Now, anyone who knows me and has been reading my posts on this forum and other ones (and several people here have alleged to have been reading my posts pretty much since the beginning.) knows that I have always been most definite about standing for specific things. Just because I don't let myself get backed into a corner by those who aren't too happy with me doesn't mean I don't stand for anything.
So I'll say exactly what I do stand for, just in case there really is a genuine question in anyone's mind. It's freedom and honesty. That's it.
I was a supporter of CofS til I'd been on a.r.s. for about a year or two. I don't apologize for it. That was my frame of reference and I didn't figure out that I was being lied to until I got on the internet and started talking to people, both publicaly and back channel. Once I left CofS, I was upfront about it. I told everyone that OSA had been trying to make me stop posting, I told everyone that I used to think they were SPs and that now I knew they weren't. I wanted to be open and candid and honest. I could have used an anonymizer, I could have held back my real name- it certainly would have saved me a ton of hassle with the cult and spared me the implied threats they made to break up my marriage. But I don't go that way.
I could have, when I started posting regularly on OCMB, lied about my continuing interest in Scn (after having left CofS). But I didn't. Because I'm open about that stuff. But believe me, lying to the forum regulars there (some of whom are also here now) would have saved me a metric fuck ton of hassle. But I didn't do it. I won't do it now, either.
Because for me, it's about freedom of speech and of choice. That's why I insisted on my right to post to a.r.s. when the cult said I didn't have that right. That's why I didn't let some other contributors- some of whom are relatively high profile critics- intimidate me into saying things they thought I should say or leaving the forum- which seemed to be the main two choices some of those people were implying were mine to choose.
That's why, although I no longer consider myself to be a Scientologist (Yes, I still find some value in some of the things I studied in Scn. But I also find some value in things I learned as a young Catholic ball of fluff and I'm sure not a Catholic either.), I support people's right to practice Scn outside CofS. And I opt to disagree with elements of Scn at the same time.
I have a big problem with cultic abuses. When I see problems in the FZ or with any FZ practitiioner (which is probably a more accurate way to phrase it) I say so. Anyone who's read any of my posts in the last couple months would know it if they didn't know it before. So that's a definite thing, one of many against which I make my stand. There are other things I am against, some of which pertain to our topic here (Scn) and some of which, of course, do not.
But I never will cease to be against freedom of choice and of belief. This is not mutually exclusive with taking a stand against the unfair and abusive things Hubbard said and did in his lifetime and/or with the abuses that are going on in the cult now. It's also not mutually exclusive with taking a stand against any bad shit that goes down in non CofS Scn circles and with those who support it.
As it happens, I personally think one can separate out various beliefs and have them and not have it be part of a UFO cult. But, OTOH, I think that one can try to do that and fail miserably. It's going to depend on what the person does. I think going for a reformed CofS, for example, would probably cause the cherrypicking to fail and have things be like the old/current CofS, eventually. Because who's going to get everyone to agree on deleting godawful policies and which ones to cull? And even stuff that's "Red on white" that's unfair and draconian, right? Yep.
But, on the whole, I'm uber reluctant to paint all non CofS Scn'ists with a broad brush about how they're all conditioned and brainwashed and the dog ate their homework. I left a group that used and still uses that line of rationalization about people who don't dance to their tune. You may have heard of them. It's called "The Church of Scientology" aka "hubbard dianetics foundation" aka "Church of Spiritual technology" aka "CCHR" aka etc etc etc. So, no, I don't want to be like them. See? That's a definite stand.
In CofS, people are denied freedom of choice. It takes a while to notice and to feel it, but the noose starts tightening probably from about Day one. At first, maybe, it's just little ways. Can't skip course. Can't "natter". After a while, it gets to be big things particularly if one's on staff. And every single Scn'ist gets targetted for recruitment, right? And many of us go for it. Then the freedoms that are taken away are prominent and important ones.
I'm against that. I'm for freedom of choice and of speech. If CofS were as big on those things as they claim, they'd police themselves a whole lot better. Imagine if it were like a modern mainstream church where you could criticize the minister or report something to the bishop without getting in big trouble and maybe losing everything! Well, you can't do that in CofS.
You should always be able to speak out. That's what boards like these are for. You should be able to criticize the FZ or the indie scene and you should be able to say you like those things, if that's how you feel. Freedom of choice cuts both ways.
I'm for freedom of choice and discussion. Those things are actually more important to me than the actual philosophical beliefs themselves, some of which I happen to hold.
I think that if someone came to me and said they had the power to make me make a choice between either espousing freedom of personal choice (of ideology, in this case) and of speech but that I'd be philosophically cast rudderless if I did vs having some of the very special much cherished ideological beliefs I do have but with absolutely no freedom to rebut, disagree, support anyone else who might differ, I'd have to opt for the former.
