Scientology, the Sacred, and You
I just sent this letter to the Madhouse's listserv on kind of a whim after watching the South Park episode about Scientology for the first time (after the Aristides Connection sent the link). I figured I'd get as much mileage as possible out of my blathering by reposting it here.
Hi everybody,
I hope all your summers are going well--I just wanted to write in with some food for thought. If you haven't seen it yet, this is a URL with access to the South Park episode, "Tom Cruise in the Closet"
http://65.58.242.81/southpark_scientology.php
It has all the usual insensitivity of a South Park episode, but has gotten a lot of attention because of its treatment of its main subject, Scientology. Scientology, for those of you who don't know, is a religion started by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the 50's that has high-profile adherents like John Travolta and Tom Cruise. It's controversial for a number of reasons: its rejection of mainstream psychological and psychiatric practice, its claim to be able to cure everything from depression to arthritis without any scientific evidence to back it up, its secrecy about its doctrine, the high monetary cost of joining/advancing within scientology, its instructions to its own members to shun others, its willingness to ruthlessly sue its critics... the list goes on and on.
They also believe in aliens. Lots and lots of aliens. And an evil galactic emperor Xenu (or sometimes "Xemu") who committed genocide on other aliens 75 million years ago. He then brainwashed their souls and forced them to wander aimlessly on Earth until they could inhabit the bodies of Early Man, so says Scientology. This is a special doctrine that is only meant to be released to people who have advanced far enough through the official ranks of Scientology (reached "Operating Thetan Level III"), but has been leaked and admitted to be doctrine by the Church of Scientology.
For more information about Scientology, see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology
or, for their own take on themselves, try here:
http://www.whatisscientology.org/
http://www.scientology.org/
I digress. Why am I babbling about Scientology? Because the South Park episode, which exposes some of the weirder beliefs of Scientology (especially in the "THIS IS WHAT SCIENTOLOGISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE") and ridicules it, was nominated for an Emmy.
My question to you all is: how should we react to this?
Here are the three consistent positions I can think of:
1) "We ought to tolerate all religions and respect what they think to be sacred, and be dismayed when the secular mainstream holds such a crass treatment of a religion in such high esteem. There are Scientologists whose faith is as strong as that of the most faithful [whatever religion I'm most sympathetic to] and that faith ought to be encouraged and perhaps softly challenged, but not publicly ridiculed--we are all seekers of the Truth, and we each have our own Path. And those things that Scientologists hold sacred should not be treated lightly. You wouldn't, for example, piss on a [Bible, Torah, Koran, whatever] would you? That's just not right."
This is the truly pluralistic solution which I expect that maybe the most truly interfaith of the interfaith community will hold. Kudos to you if you honestly hold this view--it's a hard one to take.
My own personal problem with this option, though, is that Scientology just seems so obviously wrong to me. I mean, aliens in DC-8's? Mandatory payments for unproved 'auditing' rituals? Something is fishy about Scientology. Which leads to the second option:
2) "[My religion] and maybe some other set of religions are true religions--they really lead to spiritual fulfillment or God or happiness or whathaveyou. Scientology is not one of them. It is a false religion that misleads people, and so the South Park episode is doing a good thing by showing people how false it is. However, don't mess with MY religion. What I, and others who follow true religions, hold to be sacred is sacred and shouldn't be, for example, ridiculed in the media or pissed on."
I'm speculating, but I think that this is I think the most common position people, especially but not exclusively religious people, really take in their heart of hearts. Is it your position? I'm asking because it raises all sorts of interesting questions, most importantly: how does one distinguish a false religion from a true one? Is it a matter of personal faith? Is it a matter of choosing the proper revealed text? Are the true religions distinguishable from the false ones by reason or observation? Is it a matter of history? Organization?
When I've raised this issue before, the most common response I get from religious people is the claim that Scientology is not a religion. But I want to encourage you to investigate Scientology and other religions thoroughly before making this claim. Moreover, I'll make this challenge: I bet you can't come up with a good reason why Scientology should be discounted as a religion that can't be applied to other religions that you aren't as ready to reject.
These kinds of questions are, I think, important ones that we are constantly dodging within our Interfaith house and community. The desire to be tolerant and accepting and pluralistic becomes conflicted when we discover that our tolerance and acceptance and pluralism is not boundless and in fact cannot be given our commitments to our own beliefs. (This manifests itself even on the most basic level: should I tolerate the intolerant? Accept the unaccepting? If I do, does that compromise my commitment to tolerance? If I don't does that make me as bad as the one who I do not accept?) Those of you who have been involved in the community since the spring of '05 will recall a time when the incompatibility of two systems of belief held by two members of Interfaith house led to one of those members feeling that they were not being accepted and had to leave.
Was that a failure of Interfaith's pluralism? Or a necessary drawing of the line?
(I'm getting way off topic, but I wanted to bring this up to increase the urgency of this line of questioning. For those of us who are unable to be universally pluralism, the questions and answers about the limits of our pluralism can challenge the integrity of our Interfaith community or define it. One thing I regret about not having seen at my time living in Interfaith is a lack of engagement with those questions that seem to me to be the most important to it.)
But back to Scientology. There's a third way to react to the South Park episode that I wanted to mention, although I'll be brief because I've already rambled way off topic:
3) "The idea of admonishing people for making fun of religions--or any belief system--is misguided. Everything should be fair game to criticism and ridicule--those ideas that are worthwhile will be able to withstand laughter. Nothing is sacred, or if there is, we shouldn't think it wrong if people don't treat it with reverence. Or maybe what is sacred is a purely personal choice, and we ought to revere what we consider to be sacred, but not expect anybody else to abide by those rules."
Funny, I thought this was the view I would be able to articulate best, because I have a lot of sympathy with it. But I'm not sure how to distinguish it from options (1) or (2). I suppose it's a rejection of the very idea that there are such things that one should not laugh at in principle, a rejection of the very idea of--can I use this word?--blasphemy. But I don't know how this factors into the tolerance/pluralism points above, although I suppose to fall into step with (1) (where everything is accepted as true) and (2) (where only some things are accepted as true) it would be appropriate if option (3) were the same as declaring nothing to be true. Is that the case? I think I went in over my head on this one.
As I was saying, I've got a lot of sympathy with (3). But then again, I realize that part of the reasons for that are that I haven't had much experience with overt ridicule or ostracism because of my beliefs.
I've gone on much too long, and lost track of what I was originally trying to say, I think. But if any of you are interested in discussing any of the topics here, I'd be thrilled. I don't know if people will get pissed at us if we do it over the listserv or not.
Hope you are all having a wonderful summer,
Seb
Hi everybody,
I hope all your summers are going well--I just wanted to write in with some food for thought. If you haven't seen it yet, this is a URL with access to the South Park episode, "Tom Cruise in the Closet"
http://65.58.242.81/southpark_scientology.php
It has all the usual insensitivity of a South Park episode, but has gotten a lot of attention because of its treatment of its main subject, Scientology. Scientology, for those of you who don't know, is a religion started by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the 50's that has high-profile adherents like John Travolta and Tom Cruise. It's controversial for a number of reasons: its rejection of mainstream psychological and psychiatric practice, its claim to be able to cure everything from depression to arthritis without any scientific evidence to back it up, its secrecy about its doctrine, the high monetary cost of joining/advancing within scientology, its instructions to its own members to shun others, its willingness to ruthlessly sue its critics... the list goes on and on.
They also believe in aliens. Lots and lots of aliens. And an evil galactic emperor Xenu (or sometimes "Xemu") who committed genocide on other aliens 75 million years ago. He then brainwashed their souls and forced them to wander aimlessly on Earth until they could inhabit the bodies of Early Man, so says Scientology. This is a special doctrine that is only meant to be released to people who have advanced far enough through the official ranks of Scientology (reached "Operating Thetan Level III"), but has been leaked and admitted to be doctrine by the Church of Scientology.
For more information about Scientology, see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology
or, for their own take on themselves, try here:
http://www.whatisscientology.org/
http://www.scientology.org/
I digress. Why am I babbling about Scientology? Because the South Park episode, which exposes some of the weirder beliefs of Scientology (especially in the "THIS IS WHAT SCIENTOLOGISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE") and ridicules it, was nominated for an Emmy.
My question to you all is: how should we react to this?
Here are the three consistent positions I can think of:
1) "We ought to tolerate all religions and respect what they think to be sacred, and be dismayed when the secular mainstream holds such a crass treatment of a religion in such high esteem. There are Scientologists whose faith is as strong as that of the most faithful [whatever religion I'm most sympathetic to] and that faith ought to be encouraged and perhaps softly challenged, but not publicly ridiculed--we are all seekers of the Truth, and we each have our own Path. And those things that Scientologists hold sacred should not be treated lightly. You wouldn't, for example, piss on a [Bible, Torah, Koran, whatever] would you? That's just not right."
This is the truly pluralistic solution which I expect that maybe the most truly interfaith of the interfaith community will hold. Kudos to you if you honestly hold this view--it's a hard one to take.
My own personal problem with this option, though, is that Scientology just seems so obviously wrong to me. I mean, aliens in DC-8's? Mandatory payments for unproved 'auditing' rituals? Something is fishy about Scientology. Which leads to the second option:
2) "[My religion] and maybe some other set of religions are true religions--they really lead to spiritual fulfillment or God or happiness or whathaveyou. Scientology is not one of them. It is a false religion that misleads people, and so the South Park episode is doing a good thing by showing people how false it is. However, don't mess with MY religion. What I, and others who follow true religions, hold to be sacred is sacred and shouldn't be, for example, ridiculed in the media or pissed on."
I'm speculating, but I think that this is I think the most common position people, especially but not exclusively religious people, really take in their heart of hearts. Is it your position? I'm asking because it raises all sorts of interesting questions, most importantly: how does one distinguish a false religion from a true one? Is it a matter of personal faith? Is it a matter of choosing the proper revealed text? Are the true religions distinguishable from the false ones by reason or observation? Is it a matter of history? Organization?
When I've raised this issue before, the most common response I get from religious people is the claim that Scientology is not a religion. But I want to encourage you to investigate Scientology and other religions thoroughly before making this claim. Moreover, I'll make this challenge: I bet you can't come up with a good reason why Scientology should be discounted as a religion that can't be applied to other religions that you aren't as ready to reject.
These kinds of questions are, I think, important ones that we are constantly dodging within our Interfaith house and community. The desire to be tolerant and accepting and pluralistic becomes conflicted when we discover that our tolerance and acceptance and pluralism is not boundless and in fact cannot be given our commitments to our own beliefs. (This manifests itself even on the most basic level: should I tolerate the intolerant? Accept the unaccepting? If I do, does that compromise my commitment to tolerance? If I don't does that make me as bad as the one who I do not accept?) Those of you who have been involved in the community since the spring of '05 will recall a time when the incompatibility of two systems of belief held by two members of Interfaith house led to one of those members feeling that they were not being accepted and had to leave.
Was that a failure of Interfaith's pluralism? Or a necessary drawing of the line?
(I'm getting way off topic, but I wanted to bring this up to increase the urgency of this line of questioning. For those of us who are unable to be universally pluralism, the questions and answers about the limits of our pluralism can challenge the integrity of our Interfaith community or define it. One thing I regret about not having seen at my time living in Interfaith is a lack of engagement with those questions that seem to me to be the most important to it.)
But back to Scientology. There's a third way to react to the South Park episode that I wanted to mention, although I'll be brief because I've already rambled way off topic:
3) "The idea of admonishing people for making fun of religions--or any belief system--is misguided. Everything should be fair game to criticism and ridicule--those ideas that are worthwhile will be able to withstand laughter. Nothing is sacred, or if there is, we shouldn't think it wrong if people don't treat it with reverence. Or maybe what is sacred is a purely personal choice, and we ought to revere what we consider to be sacred, but not expect anybody else to abide by those rules."
Funny, I thought this was the view I would be able to articulate best, because I have a lot of sympathy with it. But I'm not sure how to distinguish it from options (1) or (2). I suppose it's a rejection of the very idea that there are such things that one should not laugh at in principle, a rejection of the very idea of--can I use this word?--blasphemy. But I don't know how this factors into the tolerance/pluralism points above, although I suppose to fall into step with (1) (where everything is accepted as true) and (2) (where only some things are accepted as true) it would be appropriate if option (3) were the same as declaring nothing to be true. Is that the case? I think I went in over my head on this one.
As I was saying, I've got a lot of sympathy with (3). But then again, I realize that part of the reasons for that are that I haven't had much experience with overt ridicule or ostracism because of my beliefs.
I've gone on much too long, and lost track of what I was originally trying to say, I think. But if any of you are interested in discussing any of the topics here, I'd be thrilled. I don't know if people will get pissed at us if we do it over the listserv or not.
Hope you are all having a wonderful summer,
Seb