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Let's get this out of the way: I am a Scientologist.

OK, the interesting thing here is that not a SINGLE ONE of these posts has had a kind thing to say about the Church. I understand that people have problems with the way the CoS has their equivalent of thithing set up. But has no one ever had a positive experience when it comes to the CoS?

I'm a college student, and I have always considered myself a Scientologist. (My parents became involved with the Church before I was born.) And while I have not paid for any services in many years, I still find that there are basic Scientology principles that help me out on a daily basis. Things like the ARC triangle. The definition of an engram. The book Dianetics clearly spells out how the mind works in a practical way. And it makes sense! I can't hope to explain everything contained in the entire body of LRH's work in this post, but I can point you to the Church's website, and specifically the What is Scientology portion of it.

There are portions of LRH's writings that are not accessible to someone who walks in off the street. And, as people have pointed out, there is a fee required for those services. However, I have it on good authority (my parents', as well as many Scientologists I know who have taken these courses) that you do get a tremendous amount out of the training or auditing for the money that is invested. I myself have had many hours of auditing, all of which have been beneficial to me at a very personal level. It's difficult to explain how good it feels to examine experiences in one's life that are non-optimal to say the least and figure out exactly what's wrong with the situation and what needs to be done to handle it.

I alluded to this earlier, but I didn't explicitly state it: there are plenty of books that you can get which will allow you to learn about and apply Scientology principles. There are even some (such as the Way to Happiness pamphlet) that are routinely handed out for free. Scientology is NOT "all about the dollar signs". At least I have not experienced it to be so.

All this is completely off-topic with regards to the closing down of the website. I am personally of the belief that information posted on the Internet should not be censored in ANY way. I believe that the Church of Scientology has been and, in this case, continues to be guilty of free speech violations. In short, I have a problem with the Church's actions in this regard. This story should never have happened.

This is not to say that I agree with anything posted on Xandu.com. The resposibilty of the reader is implied by the very libertarian stance I articulated above: people need to be responsible for the accuracy of anything they read online.

My advice to you is this: check it out. Pick up a copy of Dianetics at a library and read it. There are many more books to read from there, including Science of Survival , Scientology: A New Slant on Life and more than a hundred others. Read what LRH has to say. Then make a judgement call FOR YOURSELF.

LRH has said that only what is true for you is true. While this logic may be cyclic, it makes sense: if something doesn't make sense to you, or if you don't believe it, you will operate under the assumption that it is not, in fact, true. Once you have emperical proof that it is true -- *then* it will become true for you. As with anything else, Scientology is this way. Scientology's underlying doctrines (also see here) make sense. Period.

This post is not being placed here as flamebait, although I may be attacked by someone. I am merely trying to balance the extremely one-sided view of the Church that the readers of the comments would have received without this note.

---Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?---

Let's get this out of the way: I am a Scientologist.

OK, the interesting thing here is that not a SINGLE ONE of these posts has had a kind thing to say about the Church. I understand that people have problems with the way the CoS has their equivalent of thithing set up. But has no one ever had a positive experience when it comes to the CoS?

I'm a college student, and I have always considered myself a Scientologist. (My parents became involved with the Church before I was born.) And while I have not paid for any services in many years, I still find that there are basic Scientology principles that help me out on a daily basis. Things like the ARC triangle. The definition of an engram. The book Dianetics clearly spells out how the mind works in a practical way. And it makes sense! I can't hope to explain everything contained in the entire body of LRH's work in this post, but I can point you to the Church's website, and specifically the What is Scientology portion of it.

There are portions of LRH's writings that are not accessible to someone who walks in off the street. And, as people have pointed out, there is a fee required for those services. However, I have it on good authority (my parents', as well as many Scientologists I know who have taken these courses) that you do get a tremendous amount out of the training or auditing for the money that is invested. I myself have had many hours of auditing, all of which have been beneficial to me at a very personal level. It's difficult to explain how good it feels to examine experiences in one's life that are non-optimal to say the least and figure out exactly what's wrong with the situation and what needs to be done to handle it.

I alluded to this earlier, but I didn't explicitly state it: there are plenty of books that you can get which will allow you to learn about and apply Scientology principles. There are even some (such as the Way to Happiness pamphlet) that are routinely handed out for free. Scientology is NOT "all about the dollar signs". At least I have not experienced it to be so.

All this is completely off-topic with regards to the closing down of the website. I am personally of the belief that information posted on the Internet should not be censored in ANY way. I believe that the Church of Scientology has been and, in this case, continues to be guilty of free speech violations. In short, I have a problem with the Church's actions in this regard. This story should never have happened.

This is not to say that I agree with anything posted on Xandu.com. The resposibilty of the reader is implied by the very libertarian stance I articulated above: people need to be responsible for the accuracy of anything they read online.

My advice to you is this: check it out. Pick up a copy of Dianetics at a library and read it. There are many more books to read from there, including Science of Survival , Scientology: A New Slant on Life and more than a hundred others. Read what LRH has to say. Then make a judgement call FOR YOURSELF.

LRH has said that only what is true for you is true. While this logic may be cyclic, it makes sense: if something doesn't make sense to you, or if you don't believe it, you will operate under the assumption that it is not, in fact, true. Once you have emperical proof that it is true -- *then* it will become true for you. As with anything else, Scientology is this way. Scientology's underlying doctrines (also see here) make sense. Period.

This post is not being placed here as flamebait, although I may be attacked by someone. I am merely trying to balance the extremely one-sided view of the Church that the readers of the comments would have received without this note.

---Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?---

Let's get this out of the way: I am a Scientologist.

OK, the interesting thing here is that not a SINGLE ONE of these posts has had a kind thing to say about the Church. I understand that people have problems with the way the CoS has their equivalent of thithing set up. But has no one ever had a positive experience when it comes to the CoS?

I'm a college student, and I have always considered myself a Scientologist. (My parents became involved with the Church before I was born.) And while I have not paid for any services in many years, I still find that there are basic Scientology principles that help me out on a daily basis. Things like the ARC triangle. The definition of an engram. The book Dianetics clearly spells out how the mind works in a practical way. And it makes sense! I can't hope to explain everything contained in the entire body of LRH's work in this post, but I can point you to the Church's website, and specifically the What is Scientology portion of it.

There are portions of LRH's writings that are not accessible to someone who walks in off the street. And, as people have pointed out, there is a fee required for those services. However, I have it on good authority (my parents', as well as many Scientologists I know who have taken these courses) that you do get a tremendous amount out of the training or auditing for the money that is invested. I myself have had many hours of auditing, all of which have been beneficial to me at a very personal level. It's difficult to explain how good it feels to examine experiences in one's life that are non-optimal to say the least and figure out exactly what's wrong with the situation and what needs to be done to handle it.

I alluded to this earlier, but I didn't explicitly state it: there are plenty of books that you can get which will allow you to learn about and apply Scientology principles. There are even some (such as the Way to Happiness pamphlet) that are routinely handed out for free. Scientology is NOT "all about the dollar signs". At least I have not experienced it to be so.

All this is completely off-topic with regards to the closing down of the website. I am personally of the belief that information posted on the Internet should not be censored in ANY way. I believe that the Church of Scientology has been and, in this case, continues to be guilty of free speech violations. In short, I have a problem with the Church's actions in this regard. This story should never have happened.

This is not to say that I agree with anything posted on Xandu.com. The resposibilty of the reader is implied by the very libertarian stance I articulated above: people need to be responsible for the accuracy of anything they read online.

My advice to you is this: check it out. Pick up a copy of Dianetics at a library and read it. There are many more books to read from there, including Science of Survival , Scientology: A New Slant on Life and more than a hundred others. Read what LRH has to say. Then make a judgement call FOR YOURSELF.

LRH has said that only what is true for you is true. While this logic may be cyclic, it makes sense: if something doesn't make sense to you, or if you don't believe it, you will operate under the assumption that it is not, in fact, true. Once you have emperical proof that it is true -- *then* it will become true for you. As with anything else, Scientology is this way. Scientology's underlying doctrines (also see here) make sense. Period.

This post is not being placed here as flamebait, although I may be attacked by someone. I am merely trying to balance the extremely one-sided view of the Church that the readers of the comments would have received without this note.

---Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?---

Let's get this out of the way: I am a Scientologist.

OK, the interesting thing here is that not a SINGLE ONE of these posts has had a kind thing to say about the Church. I understand that people have problems with the way the CoS has their equivalent of thithing set up. But has no one ever had a positive experience when it comes to the CoS?

I'm a college student, and I have always considered myself a Scientologist. (My parents became involved with the Church before I was born.) And while I have not paid for any services in many years, I still find that there are basic Scientology principles that help me out on a daily basis. Things like the ARC triangle. The definition of an engram. The book Dianetics clearly spells out how the mind works in a practical way. And it makes sense! I can't hope to explain everything contained in the entire body of LRH's work in this post, but I can point you to the Church's website, and specifically the What is Scientology portion of it.

There are portions of LRH's writings that are not accessible to someone who walks in off the street. And, as people have pointed out, there is a fee required for those services. However, I have it on good authority (my parents', as well as many Scientologists I know who have taken these courses) that you do get a tremendous amount out of the training or auditing for the money that is invested. I myself have had many hours of auditing, all of which have been beneficial to me at a very personal level. It's difficult to explain how good it feels to examine experiences in one's life that are non-optimal to say the least and figure out exactly what's wrong with the situation and what needs to be done to handle it.

I alluded to this earlier, but I didn't explicitly state it: there are plenty of books that you can get which will allow you to learn about and apply Scientology principles. There are even some (such as the Way to Happiness pamphlet) that are routinely handed out for free. Scientology is NOT "all about the dollar signs". At least I have not experienced it to be so.

All this is completely off-topic with regards to the closing down of the website. I am personally of the belief that information posted on the Internet should not be censored in ANY way. I believe that the Church of Scientology has been and, in this case, continues to be guilty of free speech violations. In short, I have a problem with the Church's actions in this regard. This story should never have happened.

This is not to say that I agree with anything posted on Xandu.com. The resposibilty of the reader is implied by the very libertarian stance I articulated above: people need to be responsible for the accuracy of anything they read online.

My advice to you is this: check it out. Pick up a copy of Dianetics at a library and read it. There are many more books to read from there, including Science of Survival , Scientology: A New Slant on Life and more than a hundred others. Read what LRH has to say. Then make a judgement call FOR YOURSELF.

LRH has said that only what is true for you is true. While this logic may be cyclic, it makes sense: if something doesn't make sense to you, or if you don't believe it, you will operate under the assumption that it is not, in fact, true. Once you have emperical proof that it is true -- *then* it will become true for you. As with anything else, Scientology is this way. Scientology's underlying doctrines (also see here) make sense. Period.

This post is not being placed here as flamebait, although I may be attacked by someone. I am merely trying to balance the extremely one-sided view of the Church that the readers of the comments would have received without this note.

---Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?---

Let's get this out of the way: I am a Scientologist.

OK, the interesting thing here is that not a SINGLE ONE of these posts has had a kind thing to say about the Church. I understand that people have problems with the way the CoS has their equivalent of thithing set up. But has no one ever had a positive experience when it comes to the CoS?

I'm a college student, and I have always considered myself a Scientologist. (My parents became involved with the Church before I was born.) And while I have not paid for any services in many years, I still find that there are basic Scientology principles that help me out on a daily basis. Things like the ARC triangle. The definition of an engram. The book Dianetics clearly spells out how the mind works in a practical way. And it makes sense! I can't hope to explain everything contained in the entire body of LRH's work in this post, but I can point you to the Church's website, and specifically the What is Scientology portion of it.

There are portions of LRH's writings that are not accessible to someone who walks in off the street. And, as people have pointed out, there is a fee required for those services. However, I have it on good authority (my parents', as well as many Scientologists I know who have taken these courses) that you do get a tremendous amount out of the training or auditing for the money that is invested. I myself have had many hours of auditing, all of which have been beneficial to me at a very personal level. It's difficult to explain how good it feels to examine experiences in one's life that are non-optimal to say the least and figure out exactly what's wrong with the situation and what needs to be done to handle it.

I alluded to this earlier, but I didn't explicitly state it: there are plenty of books that you can get which will allow you to learn about and apply Scientology principles. There are even some (such as the Way to Happiness pamphlet) that are routinely handed out for free. Scientology is NOT "all about the dollar signs". At least I have not experienced it to be so.

All this is completely off-topic with regards to the closing down of the website. I am personally of the belief that information posted on the Internet should not be censored in ANY way. I believe that the Church of Scientology has been and, in this case, continues to be guilty of free speech violations. In short, I have a problem with the Church's actions in this regard. This story should never have happened.

This is not to say that I agree with anything posted on Xandu.com. The resposibilty of the reader is implied by the very libertarian stance I articulated above: people need to be responsible for the accuracy of anything they read online.

My advice to you is this: check it out. Pick up a copy of Dianetics at a library and read it. There are many more books to read from there, including Science of Survival , Scientology: A New Slant on Life and more than a hundred others. Read what LRH has to say. Then make a judgement call FOR YOURSELF.

LRH has said that only what is true for you is true. While this logic may be cyclic, it makes sense: if something doesn't make sense to you, or if you don't believe it, you will operate under the assumption that it is not, in fact, true. Once you have emperical proof that it is true -- *then* it will become true for you. As with anything else, Scientology is this way. Scientology's underlying doctrines (also see here) make sense. Period.

This post is not being placed here as flamebait, although I may be attacked by someone. I am merely trying to balance the extremely one-sided view of the Church that the readers of the comments would have received without this note.

---Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?---

Let's get this out of the way: I am a Scientologist.

OK, the interesting thing here is that not a SINGLE ONE of these posts has had a kind thing to say about the Church. I understand that people have problems with the way the CoS has their equivalent of thithing set up. But has no one ever had a positive experience when it comes to the CoS?

I'm a college student, and I have always considered myself a Scientologist. (My parents became involved with the Church before I was born.) And while I have not paid for any services in many years, I still find that there are basic Scientology principles that help me out on a daily basis. Things like the ARC triangle. The definition of an engram. The book Dianetics clearly spells out how the mind works in a practical way. And it makes sense! I can't hope to explain everything contained in the entire body of LRH's work in this post, but I can point you to the Church's website, and specifically the What is Scientology portion of it.

There are portions of LRH's writings that are not accessible to someone who walks in off the street. And, as people have pointed out, there is a fee required for those services. However, I have it on good authority (my parents', as well as many Scientologists I know who have taken these courses) that you do get a tremendous amount out of the training or auditing for the money that is invested. I myself have had many hours of auditing, all of which have been beneficial to me at a very personal level. It's difficult to explain how good it feels to examine experiences in one's life that are non-optimal to say the least and figure out exactly what's wrong with the situation and what needs to be done to handle it.

I alluded to this earlier, but I didn't explicitly state it: there are plenty of books that you can get which will allow you to learn about and apply Scientology principles. There are even some (such as the Way to Happiness pamphlet) that are routinely handed out for free. Scientology is NOT "all about the dollar signs". At least I have not experienced it to be so.

All this is completely off-topic with regards to the closing down of the website. I am personally of the belief that information posted on the Internet should not be censored in ANY way. I believe that the Church of Scientology has been and, in this case, continues to be guilty of free speech violations. In short, I have a problem with the Church's actions in this regard. This story should never have happened.

This is not to say that I agree with anything posted on Xandu.com. The resposibilty of the reader is implied by the very libertarian stance I articulated above: people need to be responsible for the accuracy of anything they read online.

My advice to you is this: check it out. Pick up a copy of Dianetics at a library and read it. There are many more books to read from there, including Science of Survival , Scientology: A New Slant on Life and more than a hundred others. Read what LRH has to say. Then make a judgement call FOR YOURSELF.

LRH has said that only what is true for you is true. While this logic may be cyclic, it makes sense: if something doesn't make sense to you, or if you don't believe it, you will operate under the assumption that it is not, in fact, true. Once you have emperical proof that it is true -- *then* it will become true for you. As with anything else, Scientology is this way. Scientology's underlying doctrines (also see here) make sense. Period.

This post is not being placed here as flamebait, although I may be attacked by someone. I am merely trying to balance the extremely one-sided view of the Church that the readers of the comments would have received without this note.

---Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?---

Let's get this out of the way: I am a Scientologist.

OK, the interesting thing here is that not a SINGLE ONE of these posts has had a kind thing to say about the Church. I understand that people have problems with the way the CoS has their equivalent of thithing set up. But has no one ever had a positive experience when it comes to the CoS?

I'm a college student, and I have always considered myself a Scientologist. (My parents became involved with the Church before I was born.) And while I have not paid for any services in many years, I still find that there are basic Scientology principles that help me out on a daily basis. Things like the ARC triangle. The definition of an engram. The book Dianetics clearly spells out how the mind works in a practical way. And it makes sense! I can't hope to explain everything contained in the entire body of LRH's work in this post, but I can point you to the Church's website, and specifically the What is Scientology portion of it.

There are portions of LRH's writings that are not accessible to someone who walks in off the street. And, as people have pointed out, there is a fee required for those services. However, I have it on good authority (my parents', as well as many Scientologists I know who have taken these courses) that you do get a tremendous amount out of the training or auditing for the money that is invested. I myself have had many hours of auditing, all of which have been beneficial to me at a very personal level. It's difficult to explain how good it feels to examine experiences in one's life that are non-optimal to say the least and figure out exactly what's wrong with the situation and what needs to be done to handle it.

I alluded to this earlier, but I didn't explicitly state it: there are plenty of books that you can get which will allow you to learn about and apply Scientology principles. There are even some (such as the Way to Happiness pamphlet) that are routinely handed out for free. Scientology is NOT "all about the dollar signs". At least I have not experienced it to be so.

All this is completely off-topic with regards to the closing down of the website. I am personally of the belief that information posted on the Internet should not be censored in ANY way. I believe that the Church of Scientology has been and, in this case, continues to be guilty of free speech violations. In short, I have a problem with the Church's actions in this regard. This story should never have happened.

This is not to say that I agree with anything posted on Xandu.com. The resposibilty of the reader is implied by the very libertarian stance I articulated above: people need to be responsible for the accuracy of anything they read online.

My advice to you is this: check it out. Pick up a copy of Dianetics at a library and read it. There are many more books to read from there, including Science of Survival , Scientology: A New Slant on Life and more than a hundred others. Read what LRH has to say. Then make a judgement call FOR YOURSELF.

LRH has said that only what is true for you is true. While this logic may be cyclic, it makes sense: if something doesn't make sense to you, or if you don't believe it, you will operate under the assumption that it is not, in fact, true. Once you have emperical proof that it is true -- *then* it will become true for you. As with anything else, Scientology is this way. Scientology's underlying doctrines (also see here) make sense. Period.

This post is not being placed here as flamebait, although I may be attacked by someone. I am merely trying to balance the extremely one-sided view of the Church that the readers of the comments would have received without this note.

---Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?---

There are a lot of things I could comment on, but I want to limit it to this (slightly off-topic) item.

Spend the money on paying teachers a respectable salary instead.

Right now and for many years past, our "schools" have not been schools, but "mental health" clinics under the domination of the Psychiatrists.

So, how about for the first several years, where students should be concentrating on the "three R's", teachers of those levels be paid entirely based on how well their students did in those areas in the previous year.

Last years students can't read, can't spell, don't know that 80 + 20 = 100? This year you teach for free (or maybe minimum wage) or you don't teach here at all.

Your third grade students last year all know their alphabet backwards, forwards and inside out (literally); know their phonetics; are able to use a dictionary by themselves (and like to use it, not like some students I had a decade ago who thought that being told to use a dictionary was punishment!); can read Kipling, Milne, etc as well as modern equivalents and enjoy doing so; are able to spell phonetically and have a good start on the special cases; are able to add and subtract numbers of any size "in their heads" and are able to (at least) multiply any pair of numbers both in the range 0 .. 20? Great! This year you get $100_000 for the year!

BTW, am not going to try to insert it into the above, but I neglected Grammar in the above exposition.

Of course, there are a few other things that should be taught at this level, like a little bit of Science, the ability to communicate ideas with pictures (no matter how poorly rendered, the point is the idea, not the rendering), some idea of music and musical structure (at least expose them to such things as "Peter and the Wolf", which in my experience most children love), and some idea of a discipline requiring formal body movement (doesn't really matter at this stage whether it is "Simon Says", ballet, Martial Arts, or Yoga. the idea is to build muscular coordination).

Concentrate on things like this in K-6, and you will have real students going into middle school. Then they can start learning how to really use computers as the tools they are.

What should not be done in the public schools is any attempt to indocrinate students with ethnic or cultural values. Nor, until the Psychiatrists are eliminated, should there be any attempt to teach morals or ethics. All recent attempts to do so have been harmful, as demonstrated at Littleton, and many other schools.

More to the point, a "computer on every desk" could be useful in the lower grades for such things as drilling (reading, spelling, arithmetic, etc). These machines need not be expensive (old i386sx boxen would do fine, with the right software). Maybe we should encourage High School students to write software for use by the lower grades and publish it to the Open Source community :=)

One other use would be for games that required the player to think .

Well, this got to be a little longer than I intended, and this is perhaps the wrong forum for it; but it needs to be said, and said often and loudly until these things happen; and on review I can't see anything that I could remove and still make my point.

== Buz :) Buz Cory -- New York NY USA
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