Sun Jan 18, 2009 7:06 pm by DRE
Here's a quote for you.
"He who fights monsters should take care that he does not become a monster. When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes back at you."
Being against Scientology in its totality has as much potential to corrupt as Scientology itself. I have seen so many critics who dehumanize Scientologists, label them "clams", call those who disagree "clam-lovers" or some equivalent, and in general treat people like dirt that I want to throw up. Is there not a better way to act? Is it a sin to hope people will take seriously the following words:
"We of the Church believe:
That all men of whatever race, color, or creed were created with equal rights;
That all men have inalienable rights to their own religious practices and their performance;
That all men have inalienable rights to their own lives;
That all men have inalienable rights to their sanity;
That all men have inalienable rights to their own defense;
That all men have inalienable rights to conceive, choose, assist or support their own organizations, churches and governments;
That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others;
That all men have inalienable rights to the creation of their own kind;
That the souls of men have the rights of men;
That the study of the mind and the healing of mentally caused ills should not be alienated from religion or condoned in non-religious fields;
And that no agency less than God has the power to suspend or set aside these rights, overtly or covertly.
And we of the Church believe:
That man is basically good;
That he is seeking to survive;
That his survival depends upon himself and upon his fellows and his attainment of brotherhood with the universe.
And we of the Church believe that the laws of God forbid man:
To destroy his own kind;
To destroy the sanity of another;
To destroy or enslave another's soul;
To destroy or reduce the survival of one's companions or one's group.
And we of the Church believe that the spirit can be saved and that the spirit alone may save or heal the body."
I know the CoS is not following this creed I took off their site. I deplore them for such hypocrisy. And yet I do recognize that some people follow the creed. I hope their numbers will grow. I pray they will be accepted and allowed the right to exist. Why am I wrong in doing this?
If history proves you right, and Scientology is destroyed by its own mistakes the way the USSR was, or put down the way apartheid and Nazism were, I will accept your view as correct. But that ain't happening, and I have friends I want to get along with. So that is why I hold the view I do.