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Isaiah 43:10
Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen:
that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me
there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. 11
I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.
In the
past couple of weeks Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have been in the news a
lot ... and so has Scientology. All of this is okay and would not
have gotten my attention except I glanced across and article where Tom
Cruise was quoted making two statements that ... were wrong. On
the "Today Show" Tom said to Matt Lauer:
"Scientology is something that you don't understand. It's
like you could be a Christian and be a Scientologist."
Obviously Tom doesn't understand Christianity ... Christianity and
Scientology are antagonistic to each other ... the only things they
truly have in common is that both are "man-made" ... and both
are religion. Scientology is a religion ... although few people
outside of Scientology would identify it as such ... but they went to
court and won their right to call Scientology a religion and to get all
the benefits that churches receive from the U.S. Government ... so it is
a religion.
The other statement that Tom made
that caught my attention was: "It is a religion.
Because it's dealing with the spirit. You as a spiritual being
......" This is not true ... Tom does not understand
spirituality as compared to religion. Religion "tells you how
to live" ... spirituality "lets you live" ... there is a
major difference.
Scientology is rife with moral codes and sociological and psychological
biases ... it even has its own Scientology-made vocabulary. This
is from a "Time Magazine" Special Report dated May 6, 1991:
Hubbard
wrote one of Scientology's sacred texts, Dianetics: The Modern Science
of Mental Health, in 1950. In it he introduced a crude psychotherapeutic
technique he called "auditing." He also created a simplified
lie detector (called an "E-meter") that was designed to
measure electrical changes In the skin while subjects discussed intimate
details of their past. Hubbard argued that unhappiness sprang from
mental aberrations (or "engrams") caused by early traumas.
Counseling sessions with the E-meter, he claimed, could knock out the
engrams, cure blindness and even improve a person's intelligence and
appearance.
Hubbard kept adding steps, each more costly, for his followers to climb.
In the 1960s the guru decreed that humans are made of clusters of
spirits (or "thetans") who were banished to earth some 75
million years ago by a cruel galactic ruler named Xenu. Naturally, those
thetans had to be audited. <>
Does
it seem credible that a Christian would be a Scientologist? Or,
that this is a spiritual teaching? When Lauer mentioned Cruise's
earlier criticism of Brooke Shields for taking anti-depressants, Cruise
told the "Today" show host he didn't know what he was talking
about. "You don't know the history of psychiatry. I
do," Cruise said.
The same "Time Magazine"
Special report (May 6, 1991) contains this: Today
the church invents costly new services with all the zeal of its founder.
Scientology doctrine warns that even adherents who are
"cleared" of engrams face grave spiritual dangers unless they
are pushed to higher and more expensive levels. According to the
church's latest price list, recruits -- "raw meat," as Hubbard
called them -- take auditing sessions that cost as much as $1,000 an
hour, or $12,500 for a 12 1/2-hour "intensive."
Psychiatrists say
these sessions can produce a drugged-like, mind-controlled euphoria that
keeps customers coming back for more.<>
Tom Cruise is one of the fortunate
Scientologists. He is a celebrity that gives Scientology lots of
"free advertising and publicity." Therefore, Tom is
probably not subject to the same "auditing" as
"non-celebrity" Scientologists.
"Non-celebrity" Scientologists must go through a
"Marriage Committee" in order to get married ... they can't
just propose marriage in the "thrill of the moment" like Tom
and know they will get married ... they must receive the committee's
approval. Would the committee approve the marriage of a
"non-celebrity Scientologist" who is twice divorced and 46
years old seeking to marry a 26 year old? Probably not ... but
that won't be a problem for Tom.
Scientology is a
choice ... just like everything else in Life ... neither good or bad as
Dr. Murphy states, "only thinking makes it so." And I
bless anyone and everyone who "chooses" Scientology to be
their religion ... but at the same time, I believe it is wisdom to be
aware of what it is that we are "choosing" to be a part of ...
and I don't think Tom Cruise is a very good spokesperson for the
"non-celebrity" who might be interested in Scientology.
And
So It Is!
Maximum Love,
Rev.
Hank Bates
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