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Post by canuckcutie on Nov 3, 2015 20:26:05 GMT -4
I think Paul Haggis was the same though and never looked up anything negative about the religion until he had one foot out the door. I think the Sci's condition members to believe that the rest of the workd is out to get them and not to believe anything outsiders say. The religion itself is a form of brainwashing so getting members to accept what they are told and not look outside for answers is part of that brainwashing.
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Post by kostgard on Nov 3, 2015 22:13:33 GMT -4
Yeah, I don't know how curiosity doesn't get the better of them. Canuckcutie is right - Paul Haggis said the same thing. He didn't go online and investigate until shortly before he left, and he was a member since the 70s.
I know they encourage a lot of them to put a sort of "net nanny" on their computers that will block anti-Scientology sites and/or records their internet use, and then there is always the risk that someone will write them up if they find out that they were looking at forbidden websites and then they get sent to reprogramming. But it's still amazing how they are told to just not look and they don't. Haggis also noted that he had no idea that the CoS viewed homosexuality as a defect that needed to be cured and only found out once he started googling, and when he talked to his family about it, his two gay daughters told him that they had been mistreated because of their sexuality. I'm just amazed at the little bubble these people live in.
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eveschmeve
Sloane Ranger
Posts: 2,330
Mar 7, 2005 15:24:15 GMT -4
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Post by eveschmeve on Nov 4, 2015 10:36:24 GMT -4
People Magazine keeps dropping little stories from Leah's book every few days, it's great. Today's revelation is that Jennifer Lopez's father is a Scieno, so Leah was afraid Jennifer Lopez would end their friendship after Leah left. (I don't think it was a secret that he was a Scieno, it's just not well known.)
All this Leah Remini stuff is making me love Jennifer Lopez. I wonder how pissed the Scienos are that they never recruited her. Her dad and one of her best friends were Scienos, and they invite her to the "wedding of the century" and she's still like, "No thanks."
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Post by chonies on Nov 4, 2015 10:49:08 GMT -4
I can totally believe the non-googling. I see it every damn day. Generally, people don't want to Google things they feel or believe they don't need evidence for. Add to that, most people have a baseline understanding to not believe everything in the media or online, so even if they Googled, what is the point of Googling? It's probably wrong in the first place or put there by SPs!!! This is especially critical in the Scientology context, where knowledge and information has a literal cash value. Information behavior is something I'm interested in, especially since people marvel that I even have a job because Google was invented. I'm a little touchy on this.
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Post by caroleenamay on Nov 4, 2015 19:28:46 GMT -4
But you even see such attitudes with Christian groups. Like, anyone in those more insular churches would never be googling their leaders, even if there were reports on them being up to their ears in shady dealings. So it's not surprising and anyway if you're looking for something in your life and such groups give you the meaning you're looking for, it's hard to google anything bad about them because you want to believe that you've made a good choice and that these are good people.
I think I may end up buying this book actually because I do love gossip and this seems to deliver in spades about the shenanigans at the TomKat wedding which I read up on a lot as it was happening. I was housebound due to illness that year so celebrity gossip kept me very entertained and stopped me from going stir-crazy. Kinda.
I wonder if Katie Holmes' whole attitude about the knowledge report and the like was something she was strong armed into. She was very much under the control of her handler lady or under her watch at any rate. I'd say there was a lot of pressure there. The bit that Leah reports about Suri at the wedding being spoken to like an adult does fit in with how they say kids are usually treated in scientology. It sounds dreadful.
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Post by Martini Girl on Nov 5, 2015 0:38:43 GMT -4
I think I mentioned this tidbit earlier this year. I was at a dinner party in February and met a guest who's obsessed with Co$ and is also a therapist. She's had friends in C0$ (she is also an actress and doesn't tell these people that she's a therapist as well) and had some stories to tell. All of the stories made me feel like "church" members are dumber than a box of rocks. She believes that the church is one of the most dangerous and manipulative organizations in the country. Apparently news outlets ask her to comment on Co$, but she refuses out of fear that the church would go after her and ruin her life. She said people like TC are never left alone; never use email/the internet and never read newspapers. His handlers do all of that and tell him what he needs to know. It's a total bubble existence of their making. So according to her, Tommy Boy wasn't really aware of any of the negative stuff being said about him. She said most higher-up celebrities have handlers of some sort and are told not to search out Scientology stories on the Internet. According to her, they are really fearful of the people telling the stories (and they aren't aware of the asinine responses the "church" doles out). When I tried playing devil's advocate with her, she said they are so paranoid about being caught, and the punishment so severe that most people don't even bother. She then told me I was thinking about this logically, and church members don't do that, so I -- as an outsider -- would never be able to fully understand where these people are coming from. She also doesn't think the church is going to go away any time soon. I do know that they are one of the biggest land holders in Los Angeles - they own practically all of Hollywood, Los Feliz and Silver Lake. She said they are masters at praying on the desperate, and as long as there are people out there who would sell their souls to make it in Hollywood, Co$ will be around.
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Post by kostgard on Nov 5, 2015 2:48:20 GMT -4
Yeah, unfortunately they aren't going away for a while. The best to hope for is they lose their tax-exempt status (I don't see that happening any time soon, either).
But seriously - the fact that they are tax-exempt is ridiculous. Non-profits aren't supposed to have profits because they are supposed to use all their funds helping the needy. According to the documentary, the CoS got around spending their money on helping people by buying up all their real estate. And even with that, the forms they do have to submit to the IRS still indicate that their coffers are overflowing.
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Post by Mugsy on Nov 5, 2015 8:51:32 GMT -4
When I'm told not to read/see/research something, my first instinct is to say eff you, and do it at the first opportunity. Especially if my church did that, which it thankfully does not. I guess I'm a rebel at heart.
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Post by chonies on Nov 5, 2015 9:45:16 GMT -4
When I'm told not to read/see/research something, my first instinct is to say eff you, and do it at the first opportunity. Especially if my church did that, which it thankfully does not. I guess I'm a rebel at heart. I think most of the people on this board would have the same instincts*, but the problem with Co$ (and by extension, a lot of very deeply religious people who aren't in the "open to interpretation" strains of their faith) is that they already think they are persecuted or know the truth, and everyone is out there to keep them down or spread lies and misinformation because they know the truth. So, they're not even starting at the same place as someone hearing "don't Google," they already know that they know things others don't because they're smarter/gifted/anointed/connected, etc. It's also the same patterns as a lot of conspiracy theorists, where they believe what they believe and then decide everything is a lie and part of either a charade or a persecution. *this is actually an occupational hazard. I recently observed an argument between two librarians about the limits of looking shit up.
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Post by GirlyGhoul on Nov 5, 2015 11:03:44 GMT -4
Yeah the super fundieChristians will whip out the Satan Card for anything that doesn't match up to their beliefs- or their orders in some cases. The Devil is in everything and so you have to be very VERY careful not to go exploring lest the Devil seize hold of your mind and lead you astray.
With the Clams, I guess its the SP's who have their hands in everything. Or Xenu if you're that high up on the bridge. Click on that Google icon and all your thetans will spring back into your body! NOOOOOOOOO!
Plus, they use that same 'Us' vs 'Them' lingo that the fundies use. I have fundie family members who have laughed in my face whenever I've brought up a point about something I learned in Physical Anthropology (which deals with the study of Evolution among other things) because I'm soooooo misguided and unenlightened in my thinking. Silly me, with all this scientific evidence!
So when everyone with an opposing viewpoint is labeled 'Them' and is either EVIL or better yet STUPID, it's very easy to stay in that bubble- where you're one of the RIGHTEOUS and the SMART.
I would like to believe that anyone who Googled some of the worse of the Clams human rights abuses would be moved to break out of their bubble. And some have been. Paul Haggis is the obvious example, as well as Jason Beghe and now Leah Remini. But others will tell themselves that it's just SP propaganda- or else the abused deserved it for not being evolved enough or something. Anything that separates the 'Us' from 'Them'.
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