Any cool spiritual material...

[Niobe]

I want to respond, but I'm aware not everyone here is over 18!

[fluffy]

yeah..........he'd make a good electric toothbrush

fluffy

[Niobe]

*titter titter*

[fluffy]

.......heheheheheheh

fluffy

[carreyd away]

OK, I'm chiming in here. I normally don't discuss religion as I find each person's spiritual journey is their own, my feelings on what I believe should not be imposed on others if they are not asking for guidance. If you think climbing a high mountain will bring you closer to God, than climb that mountain! And if you see a vision in a piece of cheese, than do what you got to do. Who am I to judge?

But recently, the Scientology thing has resurfaced due to Tom Cruise's promotional machine. I was curious to find out what the secrecy was behind Scientology and my friend showed me this little satirical short video on Scientology. Although the view is slanted, it did answer some of my questions.

If you don't have a sense of humor about it, please don't watch it.

http://media.idleriot.com/flash/22e797c ... a7ac03.swf

[Niobe]

Oh my goodness, my sides are aching with laughing. That was hilarious. Especially the little slug with his signs. Thanks for that.

Of course, I'm a heathen and will laugh at anything.

[fluffy]

Scientology according to Southpark......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30BDmxjXQEc

fluffy

[Niobe]

That was funny too. Stan's face at the end.......

I feel like I've had a Scientolgy education this evening. Not sure I'm ready to convert yet though.

[fluffy]

omg........i just saw the first film.........lol.........that was funny......and wow!!!.....what a bizarre belief the whole religion is founded on..........

fluffy

[mav]

OH dear, it looks like Tom Cruise and John Travolta are paying to make people miserable. I wonder if they feel their 'ethics' are purified by this.

The Scientologists and Me
[Sidebar, page 57]
Strange things seem to happen to people who write about Scientology. Journalist Paulette Cooper wrote a critical book on the cult in 1971. This led to a Scientology plot (called Operation Freak-Out) whose goal, according to church documents, was "to get P.C. incarcerated in a mental institution or jail." It almost worked: by impersonating Cooper, Scientologists got her indicted in 1973 for threatening to bomb the church. Cooper, who also endured 19 lawsuits by the church, was finally exonerated in 1977 after FBI raids on the church offices in Los Angeles and Washington uncovered documents from the bomb scheme. No Scientologists were ever tried in the matter.
For the TIME story, at least 10 attorneys and six private detectives were unleashed by Scientology and its followers in an effort to threaten, harass and discredit me. Last Oct. 12, not long after I began this assignment, I planned to lunch with Eugene Ingram, the church's leading private eye and a former cop. Ingram, who was tossed off the Los Angeles police force In 1981 for alleged ties to prostitutes and drug dealers, had told me that he might be able to arrange a meeting with church boss David Miscavige. Just hours before the lunch, the church's "national trial counsel," Earle Cooley, called to inform me that I would be eating alone.


Church attorney Cooley
Alone, perhaps, but not forgotten. By day's end, I later learned, a copy of my personal credit report -- with detailed information about my bank accounts, home mortgage, credit-card payments, home address and Social Security number -- had been illegally retrieved from a national credit bureau called Trans Union. The sham company that received it, "Educational Funding Services" of Los Angeles, gave as its address a mail drop a few blocks from Scientology's headquarters. The owner of the mail drop is a private eye named Fred Wolfson, who admits that an Ingram associate retained him to retrieve credit reports on several individuals. Wolfson says he was told that Scientology's attorneys "had judgments against these people and were trying to collect on them." He says now, "These are vicious people. These are vipers." Ingram, through a lawyer, denies any involvement in the scam.

During the past five months, private investigators have been contacting acquaintances of mine, ranging from neighbors to a former colleague, to inquire about subjects such as my health (like my credit rating, it's excellent) and whether I've ever had trouble with the IRS (unlike Scientology, I haven't). One neighbor was greeted at dawn outside my Manhattan apartment building by two men who wanted to know whether I lived there. I finally called Cooley to demand that Scientology stop the nonsense. He promised to look into it.

After that, however, an attorney subpoenaed me, while another falsely suggested that I might own shares in a company I was reporting about that had been taken over by Scientologists (he also threatened to contact the Securities and Exchange Commission). A close friend in Los Angeles received a disturbing telephone call from a Scientology staff member seeking data about me -- an indication that the cult may have illegally obtained my personal phone records. Two detectives contacted me, posing as a friend and a relative of a so-called cult victim, to elicit negative statements from me about Scientology. Some of my conversations with them were taped, transcribed and presented by the church in affidavits to TIME's lawyers as "proof" of my bias against Scientology.

Among the comments I made to one of the detectives, who represented himself as "Harry Baxter," a friend of the victim's family, was that "the church trains people to lie." Baxter and his colleagues are hardly in a position to dispute that observation. His real name is Barry Silvers, and he is a former investigator for the Justice Department's Organized Crime Strike Force. (RB)

[quirky]

I understand Scientology "audits" people and then uses these confessionals as collateral against them.

But I've been thinking...if we continuously and continuosly search and wonder, without ever "choosing" a religion or spiritual path...well....

It's kind of like having to do all the driving yourself.....

[fluffy]

thats true.........it does feel like swimming upstream sometimes......i'm hoping one day it'll all click and i'll go with my chosen tide.......

fluffy

[quirky]

When one is a victim of sexual assault as a child....the memories will deny themselves..then bury themselves and then they come up later.
The brother who abused me used to sit right next to me in church. He would throw Cherios at me when I was just minding my own business drawing on the program.
Getting to spend 2 weeks with my Godmother "Tante" who was a lounge singer when Mom and Dad chose her and her husband "Papa Ray"...was such a great memory when I was 12 or so. We ate in Carmel and I had my first experience of ocean waves. We did a lot, but unburying one memory has been great...because I forgot nearly ALL the good things about my childhood.

Rambling....pardon....

[mav]

Yes, it's difficult to forget negatives in our lives, especially if we feel violated in any way. When someone has been needlessly cold and ununderstanding. When we are young, we lack the tools to deal with it, and are also not independent enough to stay away from it all. It's a rejection of the worse kind.
I know a girl whose brother used to rag her as a kid. She is trying to let it be now but it's a passive truce, a hurt that hasn't found healing. Every now and then he still makes insensitive comments that makes her burst into the raw anger.
I think we should not take people for granted and value the ones we have around us. Without conscious effort it's easy to cross the line of respect and space. But there are people who have issues and are unable to make the conscious effort. The wheel keeps turning.
-

[mav]

This quote is from another thread about Martin Luther
http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/western/bldef_luthermartin.htm

the idea that a person cannot be justified before God though works but instead solely through faith

This is interesting, somewhat parallel to the four yoga ways to reach liberation.
1. Knowledge (Jnana)
2. Faith/Love (Bhakti)
3. Physically (Raja yoga, commonly also called yoga)
4. Work (Dharma)
-