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Anonymous defends his "GE = low-grade soul" theory:
1) Instead of a direct quote from LRH, we are served by a second-hand interpretation by Miller. I see no quote whatsoever from LRH saying that humans are descended from clams. This is mostly an interpretation by someone else, repeated by yet someone else. There is no teaching in Scientology whatsoever that Humans descended from clams, and no Scientologist belief such an absurd interpretation. Critics are the only ones believing such non-sense in their eagerness to reduce Scientology teachings to ridiculous straw men.
If one were to take Darwinian evolution theory, he too would start with cells, associating together to create ever more complex structures. That there has been many species, including nautical species that preceded the monkey (if one is to accept that Man descended from monkeys), is logical along this line. Say that one of these structures along the evolution line was a fish or an even lower life-form (and it is usually accepted that life appeared first in water). It would be ridiculous, or at least meaningless, to reduce Darwinism to the belief that human descended from fishes or from this lower life-form based. Yet, this is what critics are doing.
Another important mistake is to believe, like Don Carlo does, that the Genetic Entity is "the genetic line of descent, parent to child". This is false, and on this false belief, Don Carlo builds up erroneous conclusions. The GE has nothing to do with "parent to child". It is, according to LRH, a sort of low-grade soul located more or less in the center of the body. It doesn't have the self-awareness of the thetan, but it has its own evolution. Like the thetan, it goes through a series of incarnation in various forms. The GE and the thetan both share a human body, and therefore these can suffer of engrams from either of them. LRH claims that the GE enters the protoplasm line some two days or a week prior to conception, making it further evident that the GE and the cells are two different things. Furthermore, he also claimed that the GE carried its evolution "usually on the same planet", showing even more, if that was needed, that it is a sort of independent soul and not the form itself.
To claim that humans descended from clams, therefore, is doubly mistaken. First in the Darwinian sense, as above, and second in that the GE could incarnate in anything. Thus the GE was once "an anthropoid in the deep forests of forgotten continents or a mollusk seeking to survive on the shore of some lost sea". Though it followed the evolution line, it wasn't the evolution line itself. During its peregrinations along various forms, the GE received various "engrams". The clam incident was just one of these engrams received when the GE inhabited this form. To claim that human descended from clams on this basis is not only extremely far fetched, it also is plainly ridiculous and false - which is why it is believed only by critics (in their misinterpretation of LRH's writings) and not by scientologists.
2) You did quote Bernie, but you did not quote him saying ""the clam incident is remembered from a previous incarnation". Bernie said nothing about "remembering" the incident. What he did say was indeed: "Clam" is an expression used by critics to refer to Scientologists. It comes from a reference made by L. Ron Hubbard about a past-life incident involving clams."
This is quite different. The expression does come from LRH's reference, and it is a past-life incident involving clams. Your mistake was 1) to assume the "past-life incident" necessarily referred to the thetan's past life and 2) to assume that GE was "the genetic line of descent, parent to child" rather than a sort of primitive soul evolving from form to form.
3) By all means, your point is really nit picking and red herring, as it is totally irrelevant to the subject of the page itself. Even if you were right (and you aren't), it would change nothing to the subject of the page, which is about the use of this expression by critics, often in an extremely derogatory way. The short description Bernie provides aims to give a quick idea to newbies as to wherefrom the expression comes. In this context, his description is correct. Even if it wasn't, it would change nothing to the derogatory and obnoxious aspects of expressions like:
"It's not like we're talking about people here" or
"The clams are in snit because they weren't cavity searched", or
"Clam-cult dipstick whose foul and vulgar name will not disgrace this message", or
"Fuck the Clam-Scam Cult with a broken bottle!" or
"Whining sniveling woardly clam", etc, etc, etc…
What you are trying to do is to divert from the real meaning of the page by picking on some details that is barely relevant. And, to top it all, you are entirely w-r-o-n-g even on that. I hope you are big enough to admit it…
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I-Loki
Tuesday, April 09, 2002 - 11:45 pm
The entire argument about the genetic entity, the thetan, the spirit nature, the protoplasme, the genetic line, the whole track, the clam incident, the boo hoo, Piltdown man, and all the other salient features of The Cosmos According to LRH© depends utterly upon a basic belief in what Ron said.
Since it is almost universally known (outside the membership of CoS) that virtually everything that LRH said about his own life was either partly or wholly untrue, why should anyone trust his word about the origins of life on Teegeeack?
If you and the other anonymice want to fret over the finer points of Hubbardian dialectics, no problem.
But no amount of aiming barbs at Don Carlo will obscure the fact that it's nonsense, that the arguments in its favour do not parse, and that Bernie lacks the writing skill even to make it seem to make sense.
"...and HE not de only one, mon!"
Final Don Carlo comment:
First while Hubbard did not exactly say "people are descended from clams," he described evolution from clam to human as a fact, and that proves he meant that "people are descended from clams." Anonymous has a misunderstood word: evolution.
Second, It's true that the clam insults are just wrong. But every group needs a snappy nickname. The "Society of Friends" were mocked as "Quakers" until they accepted the name. The Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints are popularly known as Mormons. Scientologists have a five syllable, hard-to-type name, and some people just say "clam" for convenience. Someone please give CoS a nickname, and then the rest of you stop using it in a threatening and bigoted way!
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