Debbie Cook said in her latest email (the one she sent to the Tampabay Times criticizing the press coverage) that Scientologists "are truly good-hearted, ethical and caring people."

I have heard this over and over from people on this board and on ESMB and other places, and I have always accepted it.

But, I am starting to wonder what the heck this means.

To me, truly good-hearted, ethical and caring people would give you the shirt of their back. They would read a story about a family (strangers even) in distress and send money. They would support orphanages in India or Africa. They would support hospitals, homeless people, sick people, old people, children, etc.

According to Debbie Cook, "Scientologists are active in community service, with community clean-ups, Winter Wonderland, adopting streets, planting trees, working with the Fire Dept as emergency response. At pretty much any natural disaster anywhere in the world you will find Scientologists as Volunteer Ministers there on the scene helping in any way they can. These and many other incredibly good things that Scientologists are involved in are the reason we care so much."

And all I can say to that is BFD.

Every single one of the things she mentions is really just...nothing. Kids trying to get into college do more community service. Boy Scouts do more. Other churches do waaaaaay more. Adopting trees? Give me a break.

Furthermore, every single one of the things she names is totally self serving. Everyone knows that "showing up at natural disasters" is totally for PR purposes, and they don't seem to donate much in terms of food or medical supplies. Also, what is donated seems to come from the members, and not from the (wealthy) church.

In contrast, while I am not a Catholic and don't want to promote Catholocism, Catholics do seem to be there in the worst, poorest, sickest parts of the world. There are lots of Catholic hospitals and orphanages, and adherents who give their lives to living in these places to help people. Now that to me is "good-hearted" and "caring."

So, yeah, I am just getting sort of tired of hearing this without having seen any evidence.

I don't want to put down individual Scientologists by any means, as I am sure there are some wonderful people, just statistically speaking. But as a group I just wonder what this good-hearted, ethical, and caring business really means.

Debbie is apparently still a kool-aid drinking full blooded 100% believer, so, when she says:

translation: We are saving the world. We are the only ones with the only "right tech" who are capable of saving the world. We work ourselves to death and donate our selves to death in order to save the world with scientology and "solve it with scientology". There are no other "real" solutions for the world's troubles. This is who we are. This is what makes us "goodhearted, ethical and caring people". We are the only ones truly capable of making a difference. That makes us the best.

A scientologist's take on how to save the world is very different from most people's. Scientologists do not believe in "charity". Charity is considered "out-exchange". It is wrong because it produces criminals. Kind of like the idea of some people: that welfare only produces "welfare queens". They are vehemently against welfare states. Take that orientation and turn it into religion and you've got scientology.

Yeah, she's sincere about it. But she's wrong about it too.

The scientologist: They know. They just know. Ya know?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFBZ_uAbxS0

I have decided that Debbie didn't write this. It reads too much like a Sci-lawyer generated PR piece.

Scientologists are all about PR. So true I'm glib. In all my 29 years, I never was asked to help out anyone in need unless it was loaning another scientologist money for a course or auditing (then getting burned)

If a fellow member is ill, there is no help provided like other groups. Example: the members of a church helping a family by making meals because a famy member is in the hospital. Scientology would shun this person because they are PTS.

What she says, she believes. Sad.

Scientology in a nut shell! Within my community I have never heard or seen ANY scientologist giving back to or aiding the community. No way in hell would a scientologist miss the opportunity to garner praise and stats if in fact these supposed good deeds occurred!

Agreed, but accountablity for their churches actions via public lying to save face must be scrutinized.

To say that all scientologists are crooks because a few of them are indeed crooks is like saying that Jews are crooks because Bernie Madoff was a crook; Catholic Priests are pedophiles because a handful of them are indeed pedophiles or that physicists create weapons to destroy us all because a few of them did.

One can be caring, good-hearted, ethical and caring but still be misguided.

But if you really, truly follow the tech, you are behaving in an unethical manner and you only care about yourself. I don't know about the good-hearted part.

I think what Debbie was trying to say is that a Scientologist is "good people." That was all.

But her saying that reminds me of when you hear someone referred to as a famous singer or movie star. If they are really famous or really ethical, would you have to point it out?

This is how Scientologists see themselves, no surprises here.

However, I do not think that Debbie wrote this letter; most likely, it was handed to her and she signed it. There is a reason for that -- it is quite possible that Debbie was getting help and moral support from people who are not associated with CoS. If my guess is correct, then Debbie and her friends might have adopted an innocent-looking phrase signaling that she is trouble. The CoS handlers know that such possibility exists, so they produced the text of the second letter and told Debbie to sign it without adding anything to it.

In the PR Series (I believe that's where it is) Hubbard said, "Good works well publicized." I don't have the exact quote for the rest of it but the point he made was that there is no point in doing good works unless those works are well publicized so as to make $cientology look good.

By contrast, in Christianity, it is advocated that good works be done but, if possible, not made known. Almost by definition things that are done for publicity, reward or beneficial return are not charitable acts.

As to $cientologists being "good-hearted, ethical and caring," there is a great deal of truth to that but they are so isolated and disconnected from the rest of society that their good-hearted, ethical caring tends to only go around within the group.

By the way they're not all ethical, either. I have more things of value stolen from me by $cientologists than by any other sort of person, and that was when I was in and in good standing.

Hey, Wieber, can you give some examples?

“Scientologists "are truly good-hearted, ethical and caring” people duped to save the planet in danger, so they don’t have time to care about the worth of a human being!

I've been thinking this over and my cognitive dissonance on it is going full blast. I think I have to eat crow and withdraw my statement.

The people that I knew, including myself, gave lip service to being "good-hearted, ethical and caring" but when it came to actually doing something we didn't. The view that comes from L. Ron Hubbard and that is held by anyone who has been in for much time after their initial indoctrination is that people who are down on their luck, homeless, destitute, beggars on the street and so on are downstat, out exchange, unethical and most likely have committed extremely evil acts on their past track.

This type of statement was used on me over and over: "We are here to help the able become more able. Later on we can come back and pick those people (the hard luck types) up and help them."

The statement, "Help the able become more able," is used a lot in $cientology, almost as much as the statement, "the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics." Both of them, in a way, become justification for not helping people and for doing unethical acts.

In $cientology when a person is going through the transition from raw public to $cientologist; when a person's stats are up; when a person is giving money; when a person is doing what they are told, $cientology is the friendliest most caring place to be in the world, full of good-hearted, ethical and caring people. It's a different matter when any one of those things isn't the case.

Not all Scientologists wear their "truely good-hearted ethical and caring" nature on their sleaves. The guy volunteering at the homeless shelter may be a scientologist who forgot to put on their "Kiss me I am a Scientologist" button.

I have always attempted to help other people. Getting into Scientology was a misguided attempt on my part to do so. That is why I was so pissed off when after 10 years Scientology turned out to be a scam. I still havn't given up on doing my part as a citizen of earth.