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A Scientologist

adthelad

Member
Hi I'm new.
Luckily I have a prepared speech:

My Spiritual Research

Here are my experiences regarding how the way I perceived the world shifted:
Until just after I'd turned 29 I was an atheist. By this I mean that I was someone who believed that the universe was started by chance (if it ever had a start). I believed that we are bodies, nothing more and when we die that's it. I didn't recognise that this was a belief either totally - to me it was fact. My opinion was that virtually all reasonably intelligent and educated people knew this fact unless they had been indoctrinated into a religion as a child.
That I changed my point of view from this to something else is quite rare. This page explains how that happened.
JFK
The first thing of any note was watching Oliver Stone's JFK. "Interesting," I thought, "Is this point of view severely biased or based on fact?" It was certainly a different point of view to the one I accepted that LHO was the lone killer. A few months of research revealed there was obviously some sort of government/CIA/FBI conspiracy. This is hardly surprising really as governments all over the world in all countries have been found conspiring, even if it is for what they believe is best for their country. One interesting thing was that there appeared to be media collusion in the conspiracy, at least the media were very happy to print one side of the story (the official government version) and less happy to print the other. I didn't really have a lot of faith that the media would be a part of this but the idea that the media wasn't always interested in getting to the truth of a matter remained a possibility in my mind. (In the end I found out to my satisfaction how the conspiracy worked and who the killer was, which was nice for me.)
Discovery of Ghosts
A few years went by and I decided to get Discovery Channel. There were some interesting programmes on ghosts. I'd seen problems about mediums and the like on national TV before and though some of them seemed pretty convincing on the surface I'd always assumed there must be a rational (not spiritual) explanation.
However one programme in particular got my attention - a ghost had told a medium about some insignificant facts (though important to the ghost) which checked out after intensive research into old local records of the area. There were many witnesses in the programme, many people who'd never believed in ghosts before whose stories all agreed with each other. I still wasn't entirely convinced but was interested enough to start some research into the phenomenon.
Psychological Explanations?
One of the things I was interested in learning was were there any studies that explained why these people who seemed sane and respectable would think they had seen a ghost when they hadn't? I couldn't find many I felt were plausible - a few a long the lines of "some people just delude themselves in all kinds of ways", but the more plausible studies said that they couldn't really explain it and the examination of such people showed their experiences and memory of them were much more consistent with them being actual experiences rather than delusion.
Many Different Types of Phenomena
I continued this line of research and found a large amount of interesting phenomena. Astral-travelling, Out of Body Experiences, Near-Death Experiences, mediums, ghosts, religious experiences, telepathy, remote-viewing etc.
I found all the evidence I could looked at both sides of the story and bought about 40 books on the various subjects. I checked hundreds of websites and chatted to hundreds of people with paranormal experiences.
Real Life Evidence
I carried this over into everyday life and openly talked about it with people I knew or just met in the pub. I found that these experiences were much more common than most people realise. My grandfather told me he'd had an out-of-body experience and was sure he wasn't hallucinating though he didn't think there was much point in trying to convince others of that.
Formation of the Universe and Life
I also checked out the science of how the universe was created and how life formed on earth.
Even though I had become less sceptical of spiritual phenomena I expected science to prove there was no need to believe in anything of the sort. However I found plenty of scientists arguing that the chances of the universe forming in a way that allowed for even just the formation of planets to be infinitessimately small. Similar plenty of scientists argue that the chances of life forming on earth are infinitessimately small. Some even go further and say that although Darwinian evolution is a sound theory it doesn't account for the speed of changes. The idea of an irreducible biological unit is used to explain that some parts of the bodies are made up of thousands of tiny parts which would be useless if even one of the parts didn't work. The chances of all the parts forming together by chance are again next to nothing.
Finding a Universal Theory
So I can eventually come to the conclusion that we don't die when our bodies do. It was purely based on evidence, but second hand evidence. I wanted to understand more - was there any way of tying these theories altogether? Where do we go to when we die? I spent a lot of time on the net chatting to people about their experiences and asking questions. Eventually I came across someone who made pretty good sense and helped me tie a lot of the evidence that seemed sometimes conflicting together. She had many fantastic abilities herself and explained to me that anyone can get firsthand experience of their spiritual nature. She explained that Scientology was a good place to look.
Scientology
I investigated Scientology cautiously as I'd heard that it was a religion started for profit. I bought some books and read them. They made a lot of sense. It was clear that either LRH was the greatest conmen ever with a genius unmatched by people like Einstein, or what he was saying was true. I decided to investigate. At the very least I realised that I would gain an insight into the nature of brainwashing other people to believe something. I asked questions about all the areas I was worried about and found good answers to them. I tried Scientology out and got evidence that it worked! It is fantastic and helped me in many areas of life.
The Reaction of Others
Before I even started Scientology I told people I knew that I’d done some thorough research and found overwhelming evidence that we don’t die when our bodies do. I expected others to be intrigued and research the topic for themselves. To my surprise I found that most reactions ranged from disinterest to anger and contempt that I was peddling harmful ideas with no basis in fact. Many people acted as if I'd started a personal smear campaign against them! One guy even stopped being friends with me because he thought my new point of view was so dangerous. I found this very interesting – why would people react like that? I just wanted to share something that was fascinating and really made me feel better and more excited about life! I noticed that many of the people arguing against my point of view tried to say that it had no basis in fact, but had little interest in reading the data I presented to them and then ridiculed me for talking about it in the first place - as if that's a method of operation conducive to finding out about something! At least given that I have a very high IQ and my arguments were obviously well presented they couldn't ridicule my position on those grounds!
Help
The answer I figured was quite complex but to simplify it – some people are on some level scared of help. They may have harmed others in the past or been hurt by people with more power than them and they get the impression that the best way to survive is to prevent others from getting more powerful. This gets warped slightly to even include preventing others from feeling good about themselves (as they associate feeling good with being capable). You must have met people who frequently try to cut others down to size yourself. There are even people who feel guilty about feeling happy, and people who cause themselves physical harm to feel a little less guilty!
Challenge
I guarantee that I can convince anyone who thinks it would help them to believe that they live on after their bodies that this is the case. I can do this only by showing people the wide variety of evidence that exists. And there is a hell of a lot of it. I don’t even need to refer to any material from Scientology to do so either. Contact me at if you’re interested.
 

EnhancedSpirit

High Priestess
oh welcome, welcome. I have long awaited a scientologist to come into our midst. . .

I look forward to your input on our discussions. I think you will find that many of us hold the same beliefs as you, as we have found the same truths by other means. For instance, many of us believe in reincarnation and life after death, despite the fact that Christianity does not teach it.
 

michel

Administrator Emeritus
Staff member
Hi again adthelad!

As with Enhanced Spirit, I am looking forward to seeing your posts. I hate to admit it, but I don't actually know that much about your religion (I guess I can quickly remedy that though:D ).

I hope you like it here, and if you need to know anything, Just ask!
 

turk179

I smell something....
Whoo Hooo! Finally, we have a Scientologist! Welcome to RF! I hope that you will stick around and participate in some of our discussions. I am definitely looking forward to your input. Enjoy the Forum.
 

Revasser

Terrible Dancer
Welcome, welcome!

It's about time we had a Scientologist here! It's great to see you've decided to join us!

I have a question, if you wouldn't mind. Are you a member of the Church of Scientology or a member of the Free Zone (as I've heard it called)?
 

Feathers in Hair

World's Tallest Hobbit
Namaste and welcome!

I'm glad we have a Scientologist here! (I think you're our first one.)

If you wish, we have a guide for our newer members. (And please feel free to ask questions at any time!)
 

Feathers in Hair

World's Tallest Hobbit
Hehee, we try to be! Naturally, this being a debates as well as a discussion forum, things can get kind of heated at times. But I think that the majority of people here are friendly. :)
 

michel

Administrator Emeritus
Staff member
Hi adthelad,


Welcome to ReligiousForums from (as far as I know), our first scientologist member!


Please feel free to check out our guide for our newer members, from which there is also a link to the Forum rules with which you need to acquaint yourself (and there is a pretty good guide on what is not forum etiquette).


I hope you get to enjoy your time with us; please feel at home, and if there is anything about which you are not sure, please don't hesitate to ask.:)
 
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