Thanks to
Tom Cruise, almost everyone not living under a rock has heard of the
Church of Scientology. I've heard it ridiculed, I've seen the "Free Stress Test" people, and I know a small amount about it (basically that it is based around the teachings of
L. Ron Hubbard - a former sci-fi author, there are some strange ideas and practices surrounding it, they don't condone psychological practices, and celebrities like to hop on the Scientology-wagon and then jump on couches).
Really, it all seems a little crazy and cult-like. However, before I totally made up my mind about the group, I decided I had to at least become more informed about what they are really all about. That's when I realized that it is almost impossible to find something written on Scientology that is impartial. There are either
sites sponsored by the Church of Scientology that are obviously not going to bring up any problems with the religion, and there are sites
extremely opposed to the religion and only talk about the negatives.
The site that comes closest to impartiality is definitely
Wikipedia. Whoever wrote
the article, at least brought up the church's denial of their stranger practices. But just for the sake of showing you something really interesting, here is a segment from the Wikipedia article that talks about advanced teachings that have supposedly leaked out of the church (although the church claims they have been taken out of context and distorted by the media and dissenters in order to make the group look bad). However, I'm not aware of a way that this could ever be
in context and not still sound crazy:
"
Xenu (sometimes Xemu) is introduced as an alien ruler of the "
Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling
Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together and stuck to the bodies of the living."
Say what?!
I'm not exactly a true-believer of everything in the Bible either, but Xenu and Friends goes FAR beyond the realms of belief suspension I can accomplish. If I have trouble believing that two of every animal on the earth sat on a giant boat for 40 days and didn't tear each other apart, the step in Scientology where I have to accept the teachings of the Galactic Confederacy might be a little tough for me too.
My other strike against Scientology is that the
list of celebrities who have left the church includes one
Charles Manson. You've got to be a little weary of a religion that is even too much for
that guy to handle.
I still recommend you research it on your own though, and come to your own conclusions. You never know, maybe Xenu is for you.
