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Criticism Of Scientology
Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by American author L. Ron Hubbard, and an associated movement. It has been variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious movement. A 2008 survey found that there were about 25,000 followers in the United States. The most recent census data indicate there were around 1,800 followers in England (2021); 1,400 in Canada (2021); and about 1,600 in Australia (2021). Hubbard initially developed a set of ideas that he called Dianetics, which he represented as a form of therapy. This he promoted through various publications, as well as through the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation that he established in 1950. The foundation went bankrupt, and Hubbard lost the rights to his book '' Dianetics'' in 1952. He then recharacterized the subject as a religion and renamed it Scientology, retaining the terminology, doctrines, and the practice of " auditing". By 1954 he had regained the rights to Dianetics and retained both ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cult
In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This sense of the term is controversial and weakly defined—having divergent definitions both in popular culture and academia—and has also been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study. Richardson, James T. 1993. "Definitions of Cult: From Sociological-Technical to Popular-Negative." '' Review of Religious Research'' 34(4):348–56. . . An older sense of the word involves a set of religious devotional practices that are conventional within their culture, related to a particular figure, and often associated with a particular place. References to the "cult" of a particular Catholic saint, or the imperial cult of ancient Rome, for example, use this sense of the word. While the literal and origin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Statistics Canada
Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in Ottawa.Statistics Canada, 150 Tunney's Pasture Driveway Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0T6; Statistique Canada 150, promenade du pré Tunney Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0T6 The agency is led by the chief statistician of Canada, currently Anil Arora, who assumed the role on September 19, 2016. StatCan is responsible to Parliament through the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, currently François-Philippe Champagne. Statistics Canada acts as the national statistical agency for Canada, and Statistics Canada produces statistics for all the provinces as well as the federal government. In addition to conducting about 350 active surveys on virtually all aspects of Canadian life, the ''Statistics Act'' mandates that Statisti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xenu
Xenu (), also called Xemu, is a figure in the Church of Scientology's secret "Advanced Technology", a sacred and esoteric teaching. According to the "Technology", Xenu was the extraterrestrial ruler of a "Galactic Confederacy" who brought billionsAs 109, or thousands of millions in Long Scale of his people to Earth (then known as "Teegeeack") in DC-8-like spacecraft 75 million years ago, stacked them around volcanoes, and killed them with hydrogen bombs. Official Scientology scriptures hold that the thetans (immortal spirits) of these aliens adhere to humans, causing spiritual harm. These events are known within Scientology as "Incident II", and the traumatic memories associated with them as "The Wall of Fire" or "R6 implant". The narrative of Xenu is part of Scientologist teachings about extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in earthly events, collectively described as "space opera" by L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard detailed the story in Operating Thetan leve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Incident (Scientology)
L. Ron Hubbard used the term Incident in a specific context for auditing in Scientology and Dianetics: the description of space operatic events in the Universe's distant past, involving alien interventions in past lives. It is a basic belief of Scientology that a human being is an immortal spiritual being, termed a thetan, trapped on planet Earth in a " meat body". Although said to be capable of occurring anywhere and at any time, Hubbard's writings described some incidents in particular, set in Earth's prehistory. Many of them first appeared in Hubbard's book ''What to Audit'' (later retitled '' A History of Man''). In his writings and lectures, Hubbard describes Incidents said to have occurred to thetans during the past few trillionBillion in Long Scale. years. Most of these followed a consistent pattern, wherein a hostile alien civilization captured and brainwashed free thetans. Often, instances of implantation are termed ''Incidents'', while the subject of the implants ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extraterrestrial Life
Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might range from simple forms like prokaryotes to intelligent beings, possibly bringing forth civilizations that might be far more advanced than humankind. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of sapient life elsewhere in the universe. The science of extraterrestrial life is known as astrobiology. Speculation about the possibility of inhabited "worlds" outside the planet Earth dates back to antiquity. Multiple early Christian writers discussed the idea of a "plurality of worlds" as proposed by earlier thinkers such as Democritus; Augustine references Epicurus's idea of innumerable worlds "throughout the boundless immensity of space" (originally expressed in his Letter to Herodotus) in '' The City of God''. In his first cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including '' The Chicago Manual of Style'', numerous academic journals, and advanced monographs in the academic fields. One of its quasi-independent projects is the BiblioVault, a digital repository for scholarly books. The Press building is located just south of the Midway Plaisance on the University of Chicago campus. History The University of Chicago Press was founded in 1890, making it one of the oldest continuously operating university presses in the United States. Its first published book was Robert F. Harper's ''Assyrian and Babylonian Letters Belonging to the Kouyunjik Collections of the British Museum''. The book sold five copies during its first two years, but by 1900 the University of Chicago Press had published 127 books and pamphlets and 11 scholarly journals, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operating Thetan
In Scientology, Operating Thetan (OT) is a notional spiritual status above Clear. It is defined as "knowing and willing cause over life, thought, matter, energy, space and time ( MEST)." According to religious scholar J. Gordon Melton, "It’s basically a variation of the Gnostic myth about souls falling into matter and the encumbrances that come with that" with the exception in that instead of Divine intervention, there is Alien intervention. The Church teaches Operating Thetan doctrine in eight separate stages, or Levels; however, the Church claims there are actually fifteen Levels, and critics argue the Church uses the missing Levels to incentivize believers into giving more money to the Church in order to be able to experience them once they are finally released. Sometimes the Church requires believers to retake, and therefore pay again for, previous courses in the meantime as they await the missing Levels. Each course costs a considerable amount of money, often thousands ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thetan
In Scientology, the concept of the thetan () is similar to the concept of self, or the spirit or soul as found in several belief systems. The term is derived from the Greek letter Θ, theta, which in Scientology beliefs represents "the source of life, or life itself." In Scientology it is believed that it is the thetan, not the central nervous system, which commands the body through . Thetans have been described in the Applied Religious Philosophy of Scientology in a number of ways. * A "thetan is an immortal spiritual being; the human soul." * "The being who is the individual and who handles and lives in the body." * "A thetan is not a thing, a thetan is the creator of things." * A thetan is "the person himself—not his body or his name, the physical universe, his mind, or anything else; that which is aware of being aware; the identity which is the individual." According to Scientology, the concept for the thetan was first discovered in the early 1950s by the science fic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Immortality
Immortality is the concept of eternal life. Some modern species may possess biological immortality. Some scientists, futurists, and philosophers have theorized about the immortality of the human body, with some suggesting that human immortality may be achievable in the first few decades of the 21st century with the help of certain technologies such as mind uploading (digital immortality). Other advocates believe that life extension is a more achievable goal in the short term, with immortality awaiting further research breakthroughs. The absence of aging would provide humans with biological immortality, but not invulnerability to death by disease or injury. Whether the process of internal immortality is delivered within the upcoming years depends chiefly on research (and in neuron research in the case of internal immortality through an immortalized cell line) in the former view and perhaps is an awaited goal in the latter case. What form an unending human life would take ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Marburg
The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the world. It is now a public university of the state of Hesse, without religious affiliation. The University of Marburg has about 23,500 students and 7,500 employees and is located in Marburg, a town of 76,000 inhabitants, with university buildings dotted in or around the town centre. About 14 per cent of the students are international, the highest percentage in Hesse. It offers an International summer university programme and offers student exchanges through the Erasmus programme. History In 1609, the University of Marburg established the world's first professorship in chemistry. In 2012 it opened the first German interactive chemistry museum, called '. Its experimental course programme is aimed at encouraging young people to pursue careers in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marburg Journal Of Religion
The ''Marburg Journal of Religion'' is a peer-reviewed online academic journal that publishes articles on empirical and theoretical studies of religion. The first issue having appeared in April 1996. The original concept was developed by Michael Pye together with his assistant Richard Böhme, who was the first Web Editor. The editorial team was broadened in 1999 to include Peter Antes (Hannover) and Andreas Grünschloß (Göttingen) and in 2007 Edith Franke (Marburg). Doreen Christen became Web Editor in 2002. The first separate Reviews Editor was Monika Schrimpf (from 2001) and this role was taken up by Katja Triplett from 2003. Papers published in the ''Marburg Journal of Religion'' are documented and abstracted in the bibliographical journal '' Science of Religion'', now published by Brill Publishers in Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Church Of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious movement. The movement has been the subject of a number of controversies, and the Church of Scientology has been described by government inquiries, international parliamentary bodies, scholars, law lords, and numerous superior court judgements as both a dangerous cult and a manipulative profit-making business. In 1979, several executives of the organization were convicted and imprisoned for multiple offenses by a U.S. Federal Court. The Church of Scientology itself was convicted of fraud by a French court in 2009, a decision upheld by the supreme Court of Cassation in 2013. The German government classifies Scientology as an anti-constitutional sect. In France, it has been classified as a dangerous cult. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
