NationStates Jolt Archive

Who'd a-thunk it? But it's true! Lemme teel you a story...

There used to be a dynamite eatery on Yonge Street, here in T.O., on the ground floor of the building owned by the Scientologists, north of Wellesley. It was called "Brother's", and featured the tastiest classic 'diner' menu in town. Brother's had operated from the same location for over thirty years. One Saturday morning I helped a nearby friend move, and I was more tired and hungry afterward than I can remember. It was a cold, bright spring day.

My friend decided to take me to Brother's for lunch, but as we made our way onto Yonge St, we could see the sidewalk out front of the building was packed solidly with picketers, completely blocking off the entrance to the restaurant.

A man with a megaphone was shouting things about the evils of Scientology, peole were chanting, and nowhere was there a fast shortcut to the diner entrance. My protesting stomach made my mind up for me.

I waded into the throng, finding at its' center the megaphone man, and two frightened-looking women from the offices of the Scientology building standing just outside their front door. With no-one there to intercede, I waved down the protestors and actually managed to get them to quiet down, much to my surprise.

I said the the man with the megaphone, 'okay, what's the problem?' only to be met with a surprised look. I continued, 'look, it's obvious you've got a problem with the Church of Scientology. So what is it?' he lowered his megaphone, and said, 'Well, this is a fake religion - do you know what they actually believe in? ' and he waved a pamphlet under my nose. 'Besides, these Scientologists are ripping people off, taking their life savings!'

I motioned with my hand that I'd heard him, and said to the two Scientologist women, 'Okay, I hear what he's saying. And you don't agree with what he's saying, correct?' they both nodded in agreement. I thought for a moment, and then turned to the megaphone man and said, 'Alright, then. Point one: fake or not, they are a religion. It doesn't matter whether they worship lime-jello statues of Buddha, or chant rosaries while balanced on their heads. That's their religion, and you can't touch it.' A brief, grim silence ensued broken only by a snigger from the two Scientologists.

I pivoted on one foot and said to the Scientologists, 'Point two: Your organization HAS been known to rip people off, HAS bilked them of their life savings, and should at the very least address the concerns of the public if it can't own up to that fact.' A disjointed positive buzz wafted my way from all around the megaphone man.

I whirled back to the crowd and said, 'Point three: After all is said and done, there is such a thing as personal responsibility. Anyone can be a sucker or a dupe, it's unfortunate but true. But you've got to accept a certain amount of responsibility for fucking up and giving all your money away to ANY organization!' Much rumbling from the crowd on that point, even from the Scientologists.

I raised my voice, addressing no-one in particular, saying 'Point Four: cold hungry people want their lunch, please stop blocking the entrance to the diner!' That not only got a round of laughter from everyone, it actually worked, and my friend and I were able to get inside for roast beef au jus.

And that was the day I amazingly found myself defending Scientology.


Addendum:

Two years later, the Scientologists evicted Brother's in order to expand their first-floor bookstore. The owners (all brothers, as it happened) decided to fold and retire rather than move to a new location. The bookstore folded less than a year after that.

yay scientology

crazy space leaches

what was on the menu?

what was on the menu?

What, that day, or in general? The usual diner fare - club sandwiches, roast beef dishes, hamburgers, chicken, fish...but they had good cole slaw. They made excellent pierogies. Smoked meat sandwiches...homemade soups...man, I'm starting to drool, here - !

Salads were never their strong suit, though. Mostly tasteless iceberg lettuce topped with grim-looking shavings of carrot, MSG-laden 1000-island dressing on the side. You didn't go to Brother's for salads.

I pivoted on one foot and said to the Scientologists, 'Point two: Your organization HAS been known to rip people off, HAS bilked them of their life savings, and should at the very least address the concerns of the public if it can't own up to that fact.' A disjointed positive buzz wafted my way from all around the megaphone man.

Yo forgot to mention my favorite part of the cult of scientology, their litigiousness. Or perhaps my favorite part was the auditing process. Or maybe it was all those damnable movies that slow their website down to a pace that can only be described as between a snail's and a dead snail's. Or maybe it was the fact that they brought down the Cult Awareness Network and then bought them out of bankruptcy to create another talking mouth for them. Or maybe it was in this article (http://www.cultawarenessnetwork.org/dbase/clippings/anti-cult.html) wherein people are advised to blackmail those who talk out against them. Or maybe it was the fact that this entire "religion" was founded by L. Ron Hubbard, who also wrote Battlefield Earth.
I really don't know, with these lunatics it is so hard to choose.
Really, if you are winning to sell yourself for a sandwich, you should find a better bidder. I bet there is more than MSGs in that dressing.

Sorry for ranting, Scientologists are just one of the thing that piss me off the most.

Hey it's okay...yeah, I know it's all very weird, but I really wanted that roast beef au jus. I can't find a good one now, they're either too salty or too onion-y to my tastes.

The Scientologists? Well...people ought to know better...than to get mixed up with the wrong crowd. I think of it as a learning experience, a really shitty one, true, but unfortunately...sometimes...a necessary one.

When you really come down to it, all I wanted was my hot lunch and a soft seat to sit on. I just saw the whole scene as an obstacle to my desire to eat and relax. Sure I could have just tried inching my way along, or wandering into the busy traffic on Yonge St, but it seemed more to the point to go through the belly, and once there, how could I resist? I'm just a naturally-inclined muckracker, after all...

Meh, I think Hubbard should have stuck to writing books, Battlefield Earth wasnt half bad.
But yeah, Scientologists 'beleive' in some wierd stuff...EX: They reject the germ 'theory', diseases are caused by humours and such. At least, they did a few years ago when I looked into them out of curiousity.
HOWEVER, if you want a REALLY wierd 'religion' check this guy out:
http://www.timecube.com/
This guy makes no sense, but he is VERY entertaining.

EDIT:
Heres how great this guy is:
My wisdom so antiquates known knowledge, that
a psychiatrist examining my behavior, eccentric
by his academic single corner knowledge, knows
no course other than to judge me schizoprenic

What, that day, or in general? The usual diner fare - club sandwiches, roast beef dishes, hamburgers, chicken, fish...but they had good cole slaw. They made excellent pierogies. Smoked meat sandwiches...homemade soups...man, I'm starting to drool, here - !

Salads were never their strong suit, though. Mostly tasteless iceberg lettuce topped with grim-looking shavings of carrot, MSG-laden 1000-island dressing on the side. You didn't go to Brother's for salads.

A fellow Torontonian? Cool :cool:
I'll have to check this place out.

Meh, I think Hubbard should have stuck to writing books, Battlefield Earth wasnt half bad.
But yeah, Scientologists 'beleive' in some wierd stuff...EX: They reject the germ 'theory', diseases are caused by humours and such. At least, they did a few years ago when I looked into them out of curiousity.
HOWEVER, if you want a REALLY wierd 'religion' check this guy out:
http://www.timecube.com/
This guy makes no sense, but he is VERY entertaining.

EDIT:
Heres how great this guy is:

Man, it's so messed up it's almost Subgenius in scope! I love it, thanks!

A fellow Torontonian? Cool :cool:
I'll have to check this place out.

Sorry Das - it hasn't been there for a few years now.

Scientologists are weird people to talk to. My friend's girlfriend is one, and whenever I ask about what they believe in, she gives a vague overall description and then goes into deep details about why I should never trust or visit a psychiatrist.

Here's another pearl from that timecube guy:

Time Cube proves a 1 face god impossible,
due to 4 corner face metamorphic human -
baby, child, parent and grandparent faces.

Huh?

He also says your dad is a fish. Wierd.

All I can say on this matter is:

OhdeargodbattlefieldearthfuckingSUCKEDpleasestopallfuturescientologycultfilmthingiesfromeverentering mybrainwhatisjohntravoltathinkingallhailthegiantmysteriousorbforheshalltakeustofreedomandnotthisrand omworshipmecult

Ahh. Try it, it feels much better

What is scientology, anyway?

Letila, that's a question with a long answer. It's probably for the best if you just Google it. I don't feel like telling the history of somebody elses' religion...besides, if I get some finer point wrong, Tom Cruise might just beat me over the head with a copy of 'Dianetics'.

Letila, that's a question with a long answer. It's probably for the best if you just Google it. I don't feel like telling the history of somebody elses' religion...besides, if I get some finer point wrong, Tom Cruise might just beat me over the head with a copy of 'Dianetics'.
Whilst John Travolta stars constantly in awful scientology-based movies just for your eyes

AAH, the Pain!

What is scientology, anyway?
For a bit of research try:
The horse's mouth: http://www.scientology.org, but, as I have mentioned, their website is filled with crappy flash animatons, so it may take a bit fo time to load on a slow connection.
One of their bigger opponents: Operation Clambake (http://www.xenu.net/), they have some pretty useful bits and peices.
Some other guys who don't like them: http://www.daisy.freeserve.co.uk/stolgy_0.htm
The Watchman Fellowship has an article (http://www.watchman.org/sci/sci-time.htm)
Scientology Lies (http://www.scientology-lies.com/)
And, their own counters: The Cult Awareness Network (http://www.cultawarenessnetwork.org/) which used to be legit, before the scientologists trashed it with lawsuits (history of this affair detailed here (http://www.fact-index.com/c/cu/cult_awareness_network.html)). Since then they have used it as a front.
Essential Auditing (http://www.essentialauditing.org/) A site in favor of their "auditing" (or brainwashing) process.
What is Scientology? (http://www.whatisscientology.org/html/foreword/foreword.html) more pro-scientology propaganda.

I really don't know, with these lunatics it is so hard to choose.For me it's the disconnection policy. A religion that would assert a right to veto who I can talk to pisses me off. They are less than unique in this though :-(

Sorry for ranting, Scientologists are just one of the thing that piss me off the most.Scientology pisses me off. Scientologists ... well I don't really know any, but I suspect many are perfectly nice people.

The Scientologists? Well...people ought to know better...than to get mixed up with the wrong crowd.Torontonians do. The Toronto org looses money for Scientology (that's what I heard on alt.religion.scientology anyway), and that's practically a sin. But how are people to know that Scientologists are the wrong crowd? The "religion" probably isn't going to ask them to do anything bad until they're already members. And the social dynamics are such that quitting is going to be very hard.

What is scientology, anyway?They're a high-demand religion ("cult") known for litigiousness and slandering opponents. They're somewhat infamous on the net for trying to remove all copies of their texts from the net; which conflicted with the rather libertarian nature the net started out with and backfired pretty spectacularly. The beliefs of the religion are slowly revealed to a scientologist as zie takes courses. Opponents of scientology like to reveal what the high level courses teach, as some of those beliefs are pretty whacky. A favourite is OT III, which reads like bad sci fi (aliens, memory implantation, lots of spirits associated with every person).

OTIII is great, I read it a few years ago and I have yet to die of pneumonia.
Apparently some alien called 'Xenu' was an evil dictator of the galaxy, which suffered massive overpopulation 75,000,000 years ago. To stop this Xenu tricked people into thinking they were going to get tax audits, but drugged them, stuffed them into volcanos and dropped H-Bombs on them.
He then captured their souls and forced them to watch these wierd movies with subjects like 'God' "Jesus" and such religions thingummies.
SO now the souls all think theyre one person, and thus go about creating havoc for the population of Earth (which had some wierd long name at the time)

THIS is apparently the 'Old Testimate' of Scientology. Sounds like bad SciFi to me.

What is scientology, anyway?

Check out the links posted above.
Wikipedia's Scientology article is fairly good as well. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology)

The short simple version: It is that it is a cult founded by the pulp SF writer L. Ron Hubbard.

Hubbard wrote a self help book called Dianetics, published in 1950. It was marketed as a poor mans psychotherapy.

In 1953 the Church of Scioentology was founded. They lost their tax exempt status in the US in 1967 and sued the IRS. In 1993 it was restored.

Beliefnet (http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8057_1.html) has a neutral outline of their beliefs. However there are some secret esoteric doctrines that are fantastic or downright silly - the "OTIII" referred to above - Xenu and all that are a laugh. Some Scientologists claim that those are untrue, but the fact that the CoS has sued people for copyright infringement over posting that and other similar material lends credence to them.

There are also claims of abuse and even wrongful deaths.

L. Ron Hubbard is widely rumored to have said "The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion." not lonbg before writting Dianetics.

IMHO, Scientology is a ripoff cult, passing off a missmash of Eastern religions, Freudian psycology, simple lie detectors, the usual cult brainwashing techniques, and bad SF as helpful, while bilking their adherents.

OTIII is great, I read it a few years ago and I have yet to die of pneumonia.
Apparently some alien called 'Xenu' was an evil dictator of the galaxy, which suffered massive overpopulation 75,000,000 years ago. To stop this Xenu tricked people into thinking they were going to get tax audits, but drugged them, stuffed them into volcanos and dropped H-Bombs on them.
He then captured their souls and forced them to watch these wierd movies with subjects like 'God' "Jesus" and such religions thingummies.
SO now the souls all think theyre one person, and thus go about creating havoc for the population of Earth (which had some wierd long name at the time)

THIS is apparently the 'Old Testimate' of Scientology. Sounds like bad SciFi to me.

That sounds like an awesome story. He should serialize it for a magazine or something.

Check out the links posted above.
Wikipedia's Scientology article is fairly good as well. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology)"Fairly good"? That article r0x0red! Thanks for the link, I was unaware of it.

That sounds like an awesome story. He should serialize it for a magazine or something.Unfortunately it's a secret. Seems if you here it without the proper training you'll get pneumonia and die. But there is a fair amount of Hubbard's SF in the bookstores, not to mention the execrable Battlefield Earth. (I haven't seen it myself, but the reviews were vicious. Not Gigli level though.)

[QUOTE=Dobbs Town]And that was the day I amazingly found myself defending Scientology.
QUOTE]

Wow, I'd have loved to have done something like that. I'm not keen on scientology either, but to fight in the name of freedom and lunch? That's gotta be good. You seem to have handled it brilliantly, you're a class act. :)

Mikorlias of Imardeavia

Here's another pearl from that timecube guy:

Time Cube proves a 1 face god impossible,
due to 4 corner face metamorphic human -
baby, child, parent and grandparent faces.

Huh?

Huh? is right. What if you dont have any kids? :confused:

Huh? is right. What if you dont have any kids? :confused:

I guess that'd leave you with

imperfect triangle head
metamorphic time tetrahedron
uncle cousin grandad
err,...thingy.

Or something.

But there is a fair amount of Hubbard's SF in the bookstores, not to mention the execrable Battlefield Earth. (I haven't seen it myself, but the reviews were vicious. Not Gigli level though.)

Just to defend some things. L. Ron Hubbard actually was a fairly decent writer.

Battlefield Earth the movie was 4 times worse than Gigli. In my list of all time bad movies, this comes in at number 2 with The Creeping Terror coming in at number 1.

Personally, I don't think Hubbard bought into any of this Scientology crap. I think he said, "I wonder if a sucker is born every minute or if it's down to every 30 seconds now. Brilliant! I've an idea that will test out the theory. I'll just rehash a failed novel that no publishers were willing to pick up and call it a religion. Next I'll throw in a bit of elitism and it'll be magic!"

I guess that'd leave you with

imperfect triangle head
metamorphic time tetrahedron
uncle cousin grandad
err,...thingy.

Or something.

I laughed so hard I almost wet myself.

Just to defend some things. L. Ron Hubbard actually was a fairly decent writer.

Battlefield Earth the movie was 4 times worse than Gigli. In my list of all time bad movies, this comes in at number 2 with The Creeping Terror coming in at number 1.

Personally, I don't think Hubbard bought into any of this Scientology crap. I think he said, "I wonder if a sucker is born every minute or if it's down to every 30 seconds now. Brilliant! I've an idea that will test out the theory. I'll just rehash a failed novel that no publishers were willing to pick up and call it a religion. Next I'll throw in a bit of elitism and it'll be magic!"

Well, I've read labels on fine imported cheeses that stink less than L. Ron's work, sorry to disagree.

The Scientologists kept getting into trouble in the 80s and 90s where Mr. Hubbard's fiction goes, though. I read several reports of purchasers at major book outlets coming across their own store's anti-theft devices already emplaced in the shipments of books they'd receive. That played in perfectly with further reports of Scientology books being entirely bought off the shelves by their organization, in order to skew the best-seller lists.

Wow, that's willfully losing money in order to remain in the public eye, A whole lotta money. But it's tacky, besides.

One thing I don't understand is their name.
How can they call themselves "Scientologists" when as one of their core beliefs (from what I can gather) is that all science for the last thousand years is lies.