The UmBlog

I almost enjoyed Mark Galli's essay in Christianity Today called The End of Christianity as we know it . He wrote in response to a recent NYT article (proving that blogging is mostly a midrash of the NYT ) regarding medical use of hallucinogenics to treat depression and anecdotes of their induction of transcendent experiences. The NYT article probably was recycled from the 1950's. These aren't new assertions. Neither am I saying they are false assertions. Galli doesn't either. For the sake of his argument, he let's it lie, then proceeds to wonder whether the American church need exert so much energy on creating worship experiences so that people can encounter God. Perhaps he should ask that of all those cathedral builders. Perhaps he should have asked Solomon to reconsider building the temple his father David designed. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Galli writes, From the point of view of experience, it seems it's impossible to tell the difference between...

You made the mistake of forcing me to do research. In fairness I started at your church’s FAQ. It was nice, tedious, and, in some parts, offensive, i.e. using the cross of Christ as your religious symbol and depriving poor people of quality “auditing” (if you can’t afford the “donation” an auditor in training will practice on you). Then I started reading the critics . So I’m outraged. And I’m starting to understand why you have such difficulty with the historicity of the Bible. It doesn’t matter how many witnesses there are to an event, if it threatens Co$ disbelieve it. 500 witnesses to Christ’s resurrection isn’t enough. Ex-member testimony isn’t enough. FACTnet estimates 90% of people who start in Co$ leave. How do you spin that? And if the Sea Org isn’t the closest thing to Faust’s bargain I don’t know what is. A billion year promise to Co$ - sounds like hell to me. There is a difference between the sins of the church and the sins of Co$. When parts of the church are in sin other ...

my perspective is that an investigator of a belief system should know the "dirty parts" or have easy access to them. how else do you weed out crazy stuff a priori? i'm also appreciating the approach of "if it works, then perhaps the dirty stuff isn't that hard to swallow" and may even be true. alot of people experience this in non-religious situations. but this set up in abusive situations is standard. it's called partial reinforcement. the balance of positive reinforcement to negative tips over time to alot bad and little good. having my own abusive religious experience, i have a great appreciation for the baloney detector we all come with. and i encourage people to listen to their baloney detector if they don't have a theological or philosophical grid to evaluate religious claims. so my baloney detector would say to CoS, secret levels? incorrect history? big dollars? unverified claims? can never read all this stuff in my lifetime? it may work, but...

regarding comparative religions, or spiritual tour guide company evaluations, I hope your taste testing is fruitful. I hope you can whittle down your choices a priori since there are too many to test. Unfortunately, we all can’t be true. Actually, Scientology believes my experience is tied to a movie I had to watch under duress 50 million years ago. I think they may be victims of the power of suggestion, psychologically and/or spiritually, in this present time. I’m sure my spiritual experience conforms to the ultimate reality and I think there is enough data to verify that. Unfortunately, whichever you choose involves faith. An atheist has faith that he can prove a negative, “there is no God”, or an agnostic has faith that the question, “is there a God?” is unanswerable. I’m glad God has led you to this stage of investigation. I hope that soon you will say “I do” to God, the Creator. Faith is like getting married. Not knowing everything about a potential spouse, but knowing enough to s...

i belong to a public apologetics e-group that includes Scientologists as readers/commenters. back in 1999 i started some long dialogs with them. for me, finding these old emails is like finding old archaeological texts. they are somewhat piecemeal, but i think they were and still are valuable. the specifics for any cult change, but the general appeal can be molded around any group. a little glossary first JC - Jesus Christ LRH - L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's founder CoS - Church of Scientology Dear... Certainly experience is valid to a degree, but I expect people on this apologetics list will be defending their faith with more ammo than experience. Experience for the Christian is the icing on the cake, strengthening the argument for Christ, but not a leg the argument rests on. Perhaps the thief on the cross didn't go on an apologetic analysis before asking Jesus to save him while hanging next to Jesus. He had an experience with Jesus that enabled the faith to believe in Jesus....