Debating with a Scientologist.

Hi,

I'm a Philly Anon. I'm currently debating with a scientologist on www.phillyblog.com about the issues facing scientology today (which is obviously a lot). He claims to be a low level scientologist that goes to the philadelphia org. Whenever my friend (Baconator) and I (MrMarcab) present clear evidence, he simply either ignores it or denies it. While most of the members on the forum are in favor of us, how do we get our message across to a scientologist who refuses to listen?

http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/genera ... hilly.html

heres a link to the thread. I hope you can help.

A couple things to keep in mind:

In CofS, all communication regarding CofS and Scn is tightly controlled and filtered. As a result, outsiders - who rely on external, non-filtered means of communication - often know more about many aspects of CofS than those inside do.

That is clearly the case in that thread since the scnist was not aware of the OT III story for instance.

Also, lower level Scnists at first only get to see the more positive sides of CofS - who could object to learning communication? When you first run into negatives, like seniors screaming at their slaves - I mean juniors, it is easy to put it down to one time anomolies since it seems so at odds with what is initially taught to newbies.

The lower level orgs tend to be less abusive anyways.

So keep in mind that low level scn is most likely being completely sincere and is most likely mystified as to how anyone could also sincerely object to CofS.

To start opening their eyes some, you could try to gently point out some issues that even a newbie might have some vague knowledge of.

For instance, it doesn't take long to find out that the staff are generally dirt poor. You might ask if he's seen that yet. Let him know that it's the case in almost all orgs at any given time and has been the case without change for decades.

A newbie is also certain to be aware of the pricing of CofS. Ask if that seems at odds at all with the large amounts of $ CofS charges and has brought in during those decades. Shouldn't have some of that $ been used for medical benefits for the staff?

Can they understand how some could validly consider the near total abandonment of the staff as exploitation?

Gentle prodding like the above might get them thinking some. Be kind, be concerned about the Scnist as an individual.

Don't expect any huge, sudden breakthroughs. It can take a long time.

Best of luck.

Two choices really;

1) A tl;dr of what you've tried telling the guy, and he has dismissed, so far. So that the Ex Scientologists here can give your their insights on the topics and furhter ones to use.

2) Post the link on Enturbulation.org and say; "Debating Scientology with a Scientologist who won't listen to arguments", and basically swarm the guy. (Not always the best of ideas.)

I am in a private debate, reasonably polite (no attacks so far) with a low level Scientologist as a result of a comment I left on his Youtube video. He defends the cost of courses by discussing the cost of overhead the CO$ must carry to provide courses. I countered that all church's have overhead and costs, and asked why Scientology doesn't run itself on a volunteer donation funding model based on the willingness to give and not set rates. I offered that a fixed rate system is not fair to those, like himself, who cannot afford to go beyond OT2. I suggested that his church discriminates against the poor.

He also sent me a long post about the evils of psychology and I countered by asking that he send me a case study, published in a recognized medical journal, proving Scientology's techniques for increasing the serotonin levels in the brains of the clinically depressed. No response yet.

[Tru2form]

Haha, yeah, Scientologists have "studied the history or Psychiatry" in their little introductory What is Scientology? pamphlets. And I love that ever echoing argument from Scientologists that if you want to study something, you go to the source and study it.

Well, news flash: If a Scientologist starts reading Freud and Pavlov and Skinner and Jung, he or she is in for a nice big Sec Check!

Never forget that they've said "There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance."

[Tru2form]

[Tru2form]