guide to scientology birth..

[bundle]

\link{http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1741763,00.html#article_continue...as Tom n Katie await their very own little l ron hubbard..}
(favourite bit: "By the way, life in the womb is not the paradise it has been presented as. Instead "the womb is wet, uncomfortable and unprotected")

Caligula, you've taken to saying 'imagine my surprise' and it makes me larf every time!

It's weird because there is no ....well see all the things I raised yesterday when you lot were all asleep.

I don't know why I keep saying it!

Religious cults are weird by their very nature whether they are new, old or ancient. If scientology is still around in fifty years I will still think it is weird.

But it's no wierder than any other cult or relgion. For example, orthodox Jewish women having to go for a ritual bath after menstruation is wierd. But because it's an old custom, we don't object to it quite as much as we object to these new-fangled ones, and ridicule it as it deserves, because we're all supposed to respect religion.

Doubtless if the charlatan who had started the religion or cult had lived a thousand years ago instead of within living memory, lots of people would be scolding us for being narrow-minded bigots who aren't enlightened enough to have respect for other people's customs.

But Caligula, ritual baths aren't hurting anyone. This notion of how a woman should behave whilst in labour and the subsequent treatment of both mother and child sound like plain abuse to me, certainly refusing to allow a woman to bf her child on the grounds it isn't sufficient or whatever he said, is wrong, and stuffing sweetened barley water into a newborn is not slightly strange it's mean it's horrible. Not cuddling a baby when it's hurt, not allowing medical intervention, that's abuse imo, nothing on a par of ritual baths......

In many cultures, women are considered "unclean" when they have their periods, and when they've had babies. There are all sorts of exclusion rules.

I don't know of other religious rules about giving birth, but it's hardly like Western Medicine hasn't done enough to make giving birth difficult already! (Women must give birth on their backs, routine episiotomies, etc etc)

Some other religions do set limits on bf, or put rules around it. Granted, none as weird as Elron's, but still ...

True FW, I agree that these practices are abusive, but some would say that cutting a male baby's foreskin off at 8 days is abuse.

And imo ritual baths do do harm, in the view they promote of menstruation and therefore women.

Ooh yes I've just been reminded NQC - which religion demands that you don't feed a baby colostrum? How wierd is that?

Perhaps it's outlandish to you, I've always taken ritual baths (men have them too) as the norm. And circumcision too. But I still think this notion about how to treat a baby is incredibly cruel, I honestly am wondering what the infant mortality rate is for babies born and bought up to this method....

See that's the thing fuzzywuzzy. The abusive behaviour of the scientologists is normal to them.

Um, there's no religion that prohibits colostrum afaik. Many people say Islam prohibits it, but it doesn't! It's a cultural thing - certainly in Bengali culture.

(Of course, this isn't to say that even some Muslims believe that colostrum is haram or similar. Lots of cultural stuff gets passed off as religious, in many religions.)

NQC I have never come across that, I do know that bf is encouraged in Islam, and the rewards for both mother and benefits to baby are extolled. I'd never heard of colostrum being considered haram...how strange....

Well, it isn't haram, obviously. But it is culturally considered dirty or otherwise unacceptable, in some Islamic cultures.

just like to add that it is quite possible to feminist and christian, and i suspect, a feminist jew and a feminist buddhist and possibly a feminist muslim, so misogyny is not necessarily part and parcel of religion, though men throughout history have struggled to make it so.
Ron L Hubbard is an idiot. Even if you don't agree with/believe in other religions you'd be hard pressed [i think anyway] to call Buddha or Christ or Mohammed an idiot. And there is the question of spirituality and morality, neither of which seem to be present in scientology. But i'm sure you'll tell me I just don't know enough about it.
You see, I couldn't restrain myself!

I think that what is particularly strange about Scientology is that as a new cult it doesn't have any cultural/historical reasons to explain the oddness. Just L Ron's peculiar ideas. Brainwashing sorts of cults tend to stick together and not interface with the rest of the world, but Scientologists seem to be able to continue holding bizarre views despite living relatively normal (well celeb normal anyway) lives. I guess charisma comes in many forms, but I really can't see where the pull comes from, but clearly it does. Maybe it's like being a Freemason, and their are lots of hidden benefits from "joining the club"?

good point nooka.

I certainly wouldn't cut it as a Scientologist. I had ds2 at home whilst living at number 1 in our road. My friends and neighbours at number 9 said they heard me.

very good points ruty and nooka, the kind of questions that baffle me too

They can sonogram themselves all they want, they've bought their own machine - do they not realise that it is sound waves? Ie noise - ie, the very thing they are trying to avoid.

That milk thing sounds very dodgy - baby could end up a milk allergic, coeliac with no teeth. Never mind some vitamins will sort that out.

Oh, I think celebs who join Scientology get all the auditing etc free or cheap.

There are also interesting rumours about how people apparently confess all their inappropriate behaviour, which for some includes homosexual stuff that they'd rather not be public about (scientology is v. negative about homosexuality). Later, if the celeb wants to quit, they fear all this stuff will come out.

I googled a bit, and found some scientology stuff about \link{http://www.scientologyhandbook.org/sh9_1.htm\moral codes}. Looks like rubbish, but they do at least cover this area.

It is odd that scientology manages to be a relatively "open" cult. To be fair, though, they tried really hard to hide all the stuff about martian bishops, steamrollers, and intergalactic walrusses (walri?). They sued a lot of people, but finally, it all ended up in the public domain, because they used some of their religious books in a trial.

ha ha ruty knew you wouldn't be able to resist.

But in a five hundred years time, people will be hurrumphing about how offensive it is to call the spiritual founder of scientology an idiot.

I mean, Joseph Smith was quite clearly a crook. And Brigham Young was a total wierdie. But people express concern about you being offensive if you point that out nowadays.

i know caligula - moth to a flame!
but aren't both those involved in the Mormon movement? I would have thought Mormoms are few are far between outside certain areas of the USA and still regarded with a healthy dose of suspicion. The really old world dominant 'spiritual' faiths are a bit different and have helped our social evolution, I think anyway.

i know caligula - moth to a flame!
but aren't both those involved in the Mormon movement? I would have thought Mormoms are few are far between outside certain areas of the USA and still regarded with a healthy dose of suspicion. The really old world dominant 'spiritual' faiths are a bit different and have helped our social evolution, I think anyway.

My step MIL is an ex Mormon, and boy does she dish the dirt!

As a mormon you can be promeoted through 4 levels of heven (if you are a man, women only get into the lowest level of heaven) depending on how many Mormon ancestors and decendents you have. So they 'baptise' your dead relatives....a morman teenager stands in for them and they call out your relatives name. This is why they have such extensive family records. Step MILs mother who is still a practicing Mormon thanked me when I had my kids (no blood relation to her at all) as they had 'promoted' her dead husband in heaven.

All mormons are decended from one of two tribes of Iseal, and you are never supposed to tell anyone which tribe you belongto.

The lost tribes of Israel got to American in a disk shaped wooden 'submarine' type thing.