I would like to present what I belive is a Christian viewpoint - first on "Scientology as a Religion?"
And I will then try to describe what I belive is the surprising outcome that we will see in a near future!




Scientology as a religion?
Lets put aside all of the bad things that CoS is supposed to have done - OK?

Then.... from the viewpoint of Simplicity CoS - and the work of LRH - is not only a flawed design, but it is an intentionally deceptive design!

First of all no divine creature would design such a complex pathway to enlightenment - this simply confirms that humans are not divine, and there is no indications or proof to me that we can be "more than human".

LRH's postulate is that humans are in fact divine somehow, but nobody(?) have yet seen any solid scientific evidence of that!


The real difference between LRH's "religion" and others is that you need to practice some kind of "technology" in order to understand the religion. This is indeed very different from all other major religions. In other religions you first belive - then practice. If you did present the entire religions mythology (Xenu/Thetans etc.) to anyone before they entered the Church then it is not very likely that anyone would enter.

The problem with the CoS practice is that it is based upon a very effective manipulation of the mind. Unlike many other new age systems the practice is a very systematic way of shifting the members mind towards a new age perception of the world. The technology is not exceptional but known as a special brand of "hypnosis" (the victim is however vide awake). In effect the victim is put at a state of chock/disorientation and then presented with a "religious explanation". In this state anyone will grasp any explanation no matter how illogical it seems. (In short auditing/clearing is physical manipulation, and have no place in a religion).

The next problem is that real religions do not need scientific understanding like that of CoS. Religion describes what we belive, and do not know, using mythical symbols! (Myths have not place in science or business!)

The basic problem is - this is important to understand - that all the new age movements intent to work divine miracles through physical manipulation - this is when you think about it (for a few seconds) a very materialistic viewpoint.

Conclusion
What I say is that Scientology is an (unsuccessful) attempt to mix science and religion. It is not religion in a any sense, and it is very cruel way of exploiting scientific knowledge about the human mind and body. Scientology is unsuccessful because its basis is science - and not non-science: Religion!


Science and Christianity?
Science exists to explore the conditions that humans live in, and from time to time science do influence our religious perceptions. Most religions have at some point attempted to prove the existence of Good etc., but please note that no one have ever been able to do that!!

Science do however led to reforms of religions - this is a fact. Each time there have been a major scientific discovery with moral or ethical implications it have lead to a reform of the western religions. This is a fact in the west, while eastern religions (and science?) did not develop that much!

But while the western religions did change according to science they were never based upon science! In fact Christianity do correspond with science in a very unscientific way. That is science do not require the existence of a soul, and likewise Christianity do not view the soul as a physical entity. (In fact the soul searching new age movement is materialistic, while Christianity is indeed non-materialistic).

Christians around the world are right now rethinking the basis of Christianity, but the outcome will be a huge surprise to the new age community.

Conclusion
It is very unlikely that Christianity will "move closer" to science. It is more likely that the next reform of Christianity will be that of a much more mythical nature!

The new age community will not find any materialistic proof of their "religions", but they will be in for the paradigma shift they have been talking about for so long.

Simplex

TO SIMPLEX
I answer your proposition here, regarding if Scientology is a religion or not?
You define religion and science as follow: Religion is our belief, and science describes what we know!

Scientologists believe in science fictions, and not in science as far as I know, thus it is only a religion because nothing is confirmed by science in it!

Religion is primitive science, since it is based on assumptions, and science is religion up to date, since science is verified by empirical experiments. http://www.esgs.org/uk/art/ak2.htm

Well Peter, I am not finished dealing with Korzybski yet - looking at my time it will take some time before it happens.....


You are debating on the assumption that Religion is more "primitive" that science. I belive that primitive is - in this case - of a higher order than science(!) - that is, not assumptions, but belief in a very primitive, simple and dogmatic form!

Try to look at it from two starting points:

- From science going towards religion
- From religion going towards science

You will see that some dogmatic religious knowledge is not and will never be of scientific value - and vise versa. (Say, the law of gravity tell us very little about religion, and science can never describe religion as anything but primitive - that is primitve (or simple!) is probably the correct scientifc term..... )

Outcome
If you look closely now, you will see that religion is more steady and solid than science! That is scientific knowledge is changed at a rapid pace while religion is (and should be) more stable - now again imagine what will happen if you mix the two: You would have a religion that change each time science make a new mistake!

Simplex

The question of whether science can be fused with religion largely comes down to a question of how you define "religion", or more specifically, religious beliefs.

The definition of a scientific theory is unambiguous. A scientific theory is something which can be scientifically verified. Scientific verification means more than finding evidence which is consistent with the theory, but actual attempts to disprove the theory. A scientific theory must therefore be, in principle, disprovable.

Religious belief is not so clear. Some people would define a religious belief as being a belief in anything supernatural, or any belief of a spiritual nature. These definitions are not very practical though, as they can apply to pretty much anything you want.
A practical definition of a religious belief that I think most modern philosophers would accept as reasonable is "any belief that can not be scientifically verified or disproven". This definition is both clear and unambiguous.
The beliefs of most "mainstream" religions fall under this definition. On the other hand, one thing that many of the religious cults around the world, including scientology, have in common is the fact that they hold beliefs which have been proven false. Belief in something that has been proven false can only be described as irrational.

Scientology consists of a combination of beliefs which are untestable, ie the existence of Thetons and reincarnation, and theories which they claim to be scientifically proven, but which in fact are provably false. These theories are neither scientific, nor what I would consider religious beliefs. They are simply irrational nonsense.

As to whether Scientology should be considered a religion, what anyone here chooses as their definition of a religion is irrelevant. The real question is what is the legal definition of a religion under US law. I personally don't know, but I rather suspect that there isn't one. As long as the definition is ambiguous anyone who has enough legal clout can declare themselves a religion.

In any event, the question is legal, not philosophical.

Dr. Stupid

TO SIMPLEX AND DR STUPID
Both of you have raised good points, since we can define religion as belief whish cannot be proven or disproved. Science can be defined as something we know, and thus can be proven every time without failures, in short, an undeniable fact!

But what shall we do when some of our scientific assumption doesn't fit our orientation anymore. I mean, many theories have been revised from the Aristotelian age, up to date. For instance Newtonian "space" "time", and infinitely Velocity of light are to be found as fictitious labels, since there are no such things as isolated phenomenon, and light velocity is revised into something measurable by Einstein. Some of it can be found here, by Einstein-Minkowski space-time http://www.phy.syr.edu/courses/modules/LIGHTCONE/minkowski.html

Thus science has been proven to be "religion" every time in our history when it have been proven to be false to facts. It is quite many in our history hence science is religion up to date. Because it is as Einstein has said, that there is no absolute regarding space-time. Hence present time science will be proven false to fact, or religious, in the future because our notion about it is not absolute today either. Science as defined, as religion up to date will remind us about our notion is not absolute. Alfred Korzybski has solved this by indexing and dating his inferential, for instance "science 1933" or "science 1941", etc!

The bible theory of creation is disproved by science but it is still a religion, since Jesus is lord to many anyway http://riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/newindex.htm

DR Stupid, how can Christianity be a religion when its creation theory is disproved?

Science is when you can drop an apple in front of you, and concludes it falls on the floor every time under similar circumstances. Because it is gravitation at work, and you know it!

When your inference don't fit what is going on, in front of you, it can only be labeled as believe or belief!

Best regards

The points you have brought up have to do with the confusion most people have about scientific theories. Scientists don't "believe" their theories. A theory is accepted to be an accurate description of reality under the conditions that it has been tested. Take your example of Newton's laws. Throughout the 1800's Newton's laws had proven to be accurate under every condition that had been tested. I'm sure that many people, and even some scientists believed that they would prove to be universally true, but this belief had no scientific justification. Einstein, as well as many other scientists recognized that Gallalien relativity, on which Newton's laws are based, was inconsistent with electrodynamic theory, which had also been proven accurate in every experiment done thus far. He set out to unify the two theories into one self consistent theory, and although this new theory of special relativity agreed with Newton's laws under a broad range of conditions, it made different predictions about conditions that had not yet been tested. Subsequent test showed that special relativity was valid under conditions where Newton's laws were not.
Even Einstein did not believe that his theory of relativity was true though. Just accurate under a broad range of conditions. In short, science is not concerned with "truth" or "belief", just accurate models of physical reality.

As for creation theory, most "mainstream" religions accept that the bible is not the literal truth, but the word of God as interpreted by the human beings who wrote it. The notion that God created the Universe, and created man in his image, is not inconsistent with empirical fact. Who is to say that evolution was not the mechanism for the creation of man?

As for those religions that believe that the world was created, as is, several thousand years ago, like the Jehovah's Witnesses. Yes I would say that this is an irrational belief, and not a religious belief according to the definition I gave above.

Note that I am not claiming that anyone who holds such beliefs is irrational or insane. I think that most people, when faced with incontrovertible evidence that their beliefs are untrue, would abandon them. They just don't realize that what they believe is provably false. That's one reason why cults try to shield their members from the rest of the world. Until they have been thoroughly brainwashed to the point of being completely out of touch with reality the cult can't risk that they will find out that it's all crap, and leave.

Dr. Stupid

TO DR STUPID
You have raised very good points again. It is true that Newton's laws are valid, still to day. It works under its own conditionals, as every branch of science does. As exemplified by my " drop an apple on the floor relations", it still work since time immemorial, up to date. However, our scientific outlook, and inferences about it, has changed a lot from Aristotelian age up to date. I mean, I know that my apple is a four-dimensional abstracted object, and it consists of electrons in a ever changing continuum, and every geometrical point (apple) has a date, since our earth are rotating, and moving around our sun, etc! In short, what we can conclude regarding the "apple" today, is very advanced, compared with what people in the Aristotelian orientated age, 350 BC, could do!

Institute of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics
http://www.swan.ac.uk/compsci/Institute.html

Current Searches for non-Newtonian Gravity at Sub-mm Distance Scales
http://gravity.phys.psu.edu/mog/mog15/node12.html

Non-Newtonian system, these views adopt a quantum description from the start. The classical world is a special case of the quantum world. We live in a quantum universe, so that everything should be described by quantum mechanics, although in special cases it may reduce to the more easily handled classical mechanics.
http://www.maths.soton.ac.uk/~cjsc/nonloclat/node10.html

A non-Aristotelian system and general semantics as a consequence!
http://www.general-semantics.org/

Peter: A non-system is not anti-system, since it includes and bring up to date, the aims and formulations, and updates our general outlook. I mean shall we deal with scientific methods of 350 BC, or shall we deal with scientific methods of today?

Best regards

For all you dueling philosophers on this thread and also Peter and Harald
who seem to be having the same duel on I AM A HAPPY SCIENTOLOGIST when neither of them is a Scientologist!

Here's some new amunition transferred from a.r.s. So stick it in your popguns, holster your weapons, take 30 paces, TURN, AIM, FIRE! May the dueler with the most sensible logic
prevail. (And please clean up the blood before you leave the GRASSY KNOLL.

Tigger, wh0 faints at the sight of blood.

Group: alt.religion.scientology Date: Tue, Feb 20, 2001, 2:05am (CST-2) From: laotsu_@hotmail.com (PhineasFogg)

Perhaps a few ancient mystics stated that only the heart, not logic, can find truth and wisdom, and perhaps there were right.

However, logic can certainly weed out that which is BS.

A good logical process for this purpose was created by Carl Sagan.

I advise the would-be Scientologists out there to apply any dogma afforded by Scientology against the following:
CARL SAGAN'S BALONEY DETECTION KIT
Based on the book "The Demon Haunted World"

The following are suggested as tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent arguments:

Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts
Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.

Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities"). Spin more than one hypothesis - don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.

Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.

Quantify, wherever possible.

If there is a chain of argument every link in the chain must work. "Occam's razor" - if there are two hypothesis that explain the data equally well choose the simpler.

Ask whether the hypothesis can, at least in principle, be falsified (shown to be false by some unambiguous test). In other words, it is testable? Can others duplicate the experiment and get the same result?

Additional issues are

Conduct control experiments -
especially "double blind" experiments where the person taking measurements is not aware of the test and control subjects.

Check for confounding factors -
separate the variables.

Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric

Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.

Argument from "authority".

Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an "unfavourable" decision).

Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).
Special pleading (typically referring to god's will).

Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased).

Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses).

Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes).

Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence!)

Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they are not "proved").

Non sequitur - "it does not follow" - the logic falls down.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - "it happened after so it was caused by" - confusion of cause and effect.

Meaningless question ("what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?).

Excluded middle - considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities (making the "other side" look worse than it really is).

Short-term v. long-term - a subset of excluded middle ("why pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?").

Slippery slope - a subset of excluded middle - unwarranted extrapolation of the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile).

Confusion of correlation and causation.

Straw man - caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack..

Suppressed evidence or half-truths.
Weasel words - for example, use of euphemisms for war such as "police action" to get around limitations on Presidential powers.

"An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public"

Phineas Fogg

Tigger here: How weird. Smiley faces appear on the preview post. No, it can't be B.T.;s. Return to the Land of Logic. It has to be all those combinations of () etc. The only smiley faces put there by Tigger are in the part she wrote.

Electrons are negative, hence a non-system, general semantics is a branch of psychophysiology. They are jointed together because it is a non-elementalistic point of view, since "psycho" and physiology can't be split empirically, nor can "time" and "space" be either, hence space-time non-Newtonian system.

General Semantics consider non-elementalistically, an organism-as-a-whole-in-an-environment!

Steven Lewis is a biology teacher at High school, and a Scientology critic evident in his link to Scientology audited. His site is aimed to educate or inform on an introductory level, the mathematical and scientific methods of general semantics in daily living!

http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/pennvalley/biology/lewis/gs.htm

Read general semantics point of view regarding critical thinking!

It would seem that Carl Sagen had a fairly good understanding of the scientific method.
By the way, the scientific method did not come about until about the 1500's. Throughout history research into the nature of the physical world was lumped into the catagory of Phylosophy. Many empirical observations were made, and theories were devoloped and even tested based on those observations, but such theories were not considered to be any more valid than those based on superstition and fantasy.
The understanding of an apple was much different in 350 BC than it is now, but the nature of the apple has not changed.

I'm not sure what the point of your last post was. When we refer to an electron as being "negative" that is just a label to distinguish between two types of electric charge. We could as easily say that an electron is blue, and protons are red. It is just convenient to use the terms positive and negative because it simplifies the quantification of charge in dynamical equations.

Dr. Stupid

To Dr. Stupid /Peter,
The observation about negative/positive charge is very important. Fritjof Capra have made a huge mistake, in that he saw an analog between this and the concept of Tao. (The Tao of physics)

In fact the labels could just as well be red/blue and then the analogy is no longer valid. (in fact White is NOT the opposite of black and the concept and Tao does not stand a test!)

The labels are concepts that we use to form an understanding - they are not real! So the labels tells us more about how our mind works that it does about the world that we observe.....


Likewise science and religion are labels. And we need a way to see the difference between the two concept if we want to make clear communication about the two. The definitions are "legal" and not to debate......


Peter:DR Stupid, how can Christianity be a religion when its creation theory is disproved?
It is religion because its creation theory is disproved!


Peter it seems to me that you are still trying to deduct religion from Science - is that an impossible task?

Simplex

TO SIMPLEX
Science is something we can prove, for instance "space" and "time" can't be proven by science, and thus it is routed out by Einstein-Minkowski, Space-time can be proven real, and have been done so by them. I think in the future, something more will be proven as fictitious or religious in science, and thus routed out!

If someone can define religion, as something we can't prove or disprove the bible theory of creation is thus not a religion anymore, since it is disproved by science.

I can't make a sharp discrimination between, fiction, mythology, religious, belief, etc!

A scientific theory is not one that can be proven, it is one which can be, at least in principle, disproven. A scientific theory which is proven not to be universally true is not a religious belief, because it was never a belief to begin with. Granted, many people "believe" that various scientific theories are "true", but this belief has nothing to do with science. In fact, the nature of a scientific theory is that it can never be proven to be absolutely true. A scientific theory is simply a description of reality that is accurate under a prescribed set of circumstances. Any additional beliefs or philosophical ideals that arise from such theories are not themselves a part of science.

I agree with your statement about the bible. Belief that the events described in the bible are the literal truth is IMO irrational, because many of those events have been proven to not have occurred.

I should point out that the definition of a religion that I proposed above was an attempt to distinguish between the relatively harmless religions that simply believe that there is something out there that is beyond the realm of empirical observation, and the dangerous "religious" organizations that abandon the notion of objective reality in favor of a set of unrealistic beliefs that are verifiably false.

Dr. Stupid

TO DR STUPID
An atomic nucleus consists of protons labeled as positives and neutrons labeled as neutrals, and they are not naked, as they are in our sun. Electrons are labeled as negatives, and are circulating around its nucleus. What kind of pole energy relations will these electrons have to its neighbors of electrons? Will it be positive or negative, or will it be an infinitely possibility of variations?