L Ron Hubbard
 

Been reading some books on him and have some of his novels on the way. Quite an interesting man. He holds the World record for books published.

He developed his own ideas about mental health and wrote a book called Dianetics which would become the backbone of Scientology.

Fascinating guy. Anyone here a fan of his work?

Omg

Is fuzzyroes Karl Connor

Losing $50 stings. I put my money on Fuzzy falling into Law of Attraction instead of Scientology.

l ron hubbard and jack parsons summoned thelemic demons to earth in the 1940s. be careful fuzzy

we're not going to talk about judy in fact we're not going to talk about judy at all

I think the boat is the saddest part of the Scientology story.

fuzzy's too poor to be a scientologist

L Ron might be an interesting person from a case study viewpoint, but he created scientology out of thin air. he decided to be anti-psychiatry anti-therapy and then just created his own stupid therapy that consists of you telling your deepest darkest secrets while the therapist notes them down so they can use them later to blackmail you for more money. that is scientology.

.

joseph smith > l ron hubbard

Nixon and Jackie Gleason certainly won't, though they could

L Ron knew he was full of shit. Do you think JS knew?

good question. he was a swindler for many years before the angel moroni showed up. who knows. i often wonder that when i am around religious ppl.

The boat he used to avoid tax evasion right? iirc he told people the aliens could only communicate with him while he wasn't on land or something lol

Jospeh Smith seems a little more difficult to speculate about compared to Hubbard. I think it's more likely a guy like David Koresh had maybe actually convinced himself of his own BS though.

If it's one thing I've learned being raised around several different denominations, it's that regardless of their belief system they're always willing to bend the rules to their favor in the name of whatever spaghetti monster in the sky they believe is in control of their lives.

Oh, absolutely. Related, I can't find it but I read this article recently written by an abortion doctor in the 60s or 70s. How sometimes people who were protesting would come in for abortions, and somehow convince themselves that their abortion was the exception to "no exceptions." And that most of them went back to the picket line. One even called him a murdered right after he performed her abortion.

I think eating chicken is murder. And swatting mosquitoes.

I'm still down for both tho. Nor do I support laws prohibiting either.

I think Smith definitely knew. His associate's wife (Lucy Harris) eventually got sick of their shit because of how much time and money her husband was pouring into Smith's project. She hid their manuscripts, the ones Smith claimed were transcribed from the "golden plates" he was given by the angel.

Had these had been the true divinely inspired words of God, Smith would have been able to reproduce his earlier work. But instead, he wrote an entirely new work. He claimed that the angel specifically instructed him to write this new version, because the angel "warned" him that if he tried to reproduce the earlier one, "evil men" would alter the original manuscript in order to discredit the word of God.

I think his partner, Martin Harris, bought the bullshit, but I'd wager that Joseph Smith was always a self-aware and shameless con-man.

Fuck L. Ron Hubbard and fuck all his clones.

hell god baby damn no

The sad thing about Joseph Smith and his lies, is that heaps of Mormons are really kind, good people who are contributing a lot to the world... I've wanted to be a Mormon, so many times.

I guess it's just one step too many, for me. Like Catholicism.

Yes, I've been reading a little about Parsons too. I have his biography on the way to my library. I've heard it's a good read.

I think it kind of added to the allure of the situation. Members of the Sea Org at the time said the boat travel was quite the adventure.

I mean, you could just try being nice without becoming Mormon.

I can't speak to th personal character of most Mormons. I think, by and large, most people of any religion are fine people, and there probably isn't that large a correlation between religion and character.

In terms we a political force, whereas Evangelical Christians in the U.S. voted for somebody like Trump in droves, showing that their claims of highly valuing moral character have always just been a smokescreen and that identity Trump's morals for them, Mormons generally have been critical of Trump, and have actually stuck to their principles on the matter. Many Utahns voted for McMullin instead because they just couldn't get behind Trump.

But by that same token, the Church of Latter-Day Saints was instrumental in blocking marriage equality in California for a time, and has a pretty bad history of overt racism. Darkies were literally cursed in their theology.

To Hubbards credit, Psychiatry was an absolute scam and total quackery in those days.

it was immature and in a lot of cases needed ethical reforms, sure

but what L Ron did was not an improvement, it is and was purely a scam

Yeah, fair points.

I don't even know what to say about Evangelical Christians except that they are perhaps the worst sect of Christianity to be given the job of evangelism

even worse than religious fundamentalists are those that break away and turn into nihilistic douchebags dipshits like me.

i am sorry for being such a dick. everyone is nice to me and then i keep being an asshole. then i whine about neg rep.

Is that the guy from Better Call Saul?

Jfc the sea org was not “an adventure.” They literally threw people overboard.

He’s fascinating only in the way people like Jim jones were fascinating. He was a swindling self important dipshit and he and the people that followed him have ruined a lot of lives.

there's an audio recording of the final speech/murders. i don't refer to them as suicides, because many took it under threat of guns and those who didn't were brainwashed by the situation. but everyone knew if they refused it would be poured down their throat or they'd be shot.

the audio recording is one of the most surreal things i've ever heard. JJ is basically telling everyone suicide is the only way, one woman tries to argue with him but doesn't get very far. then he tells them to poison the kids first, and you can hear some kids crying and protesting during the whole thing. then it kinda goes to a fever pitch with JJ egging everyone on and people screaming in pain and some cases protest, and then his voice gets calmer and calmer and the protesting getting less and less until suddenly you realize no one is screaming anymore cause everyone is dead