December 30 - Freedom Day for Scientology

nPosted on December 30, 2019

Key Points

I guess it makes sense that a religion would have its own special holidays, but I never thought about the religion of scientology having them. Yet today is Freedom Day for Scientologists – it’s the anniversary of the official recognition of Scientology as a religion, by the U.S. government, in 1974.
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nScientology has at least 14 other holidays on its calendar, including the birthday of the religion’s founder, science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, and the anniversary of the 1950 publishing of Hubbard’s book Dianetics, which outlines ideas and practices that have become the religion (and is therefore probably Scientologists’ Bible?).

nHere are two contrasting statements about religion:

n(1) What people deeply believe about the world and cosmos and meaning and purpose of life – what people hold as sacred – the spirits or beings or gods (or God, singular) that people worship, and what people do in worship – is so important to them that these ideas and practices must be accepted and respected even by people who do not share them.

n(2) Religious beliefs and practices – just like all other ideas and actions – can be discussed, analyzed, criticized, and even ridiculed in an open society. Religious practices, just like all other actions, must hold to the laws of the land; if they cause harm to people or to others’ property, “it’s my religion” is not an acceptable excuse in court.

nI can see truth in both statements. All of us live in a gIobal pluralistic society (in other words, there are a lot of people with a lot of different cultures and religions and values and ideas), and we truly must tolerate one another and celebrate the diversity!
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Unfortunately, in both the past and present, some
people have been repressed for their religious beliefs
and practices. This has especially been a problem for
people of minority religions in a region or nation.

nHowever, obviously we cannot “accept,” “respect,” or allow ANY and EVERY behavior that is claimed to be a part of someone’s religion. For example, quite a few religions of the past ordered people to make human sacrifices – in other words, to kill other people! Yeah – that’s a big no!
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nJust as obvious, if a religious believer – even a religious leader – calls on followers to, say, kill people who are non-believers, or kill people of another religion, or kill people they claim disrespect their god, that’s a huge problem for a pluralistic society and cannot be allowed.

nThere are other religious practices that harm people or property, as well, and societies and courts/judges/juries have made tough decisions that attempt to find a balance between the rights of a believer and the rights of everyone else. For example, do parents have the right to deny their children basic medical care if it is against their religious beliefs? Do bosses who make a practice of paying for their employees’ health insurance have the right to deny health insurance coverage for a necessary medical procedure that is against their religious beliefs? Do city officials have the right to discriminate against the marriages of same-sex couples if homosexuality is against their religious beliefs?
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nFinally, there should be an assumption, in a free society, that ideas can be discussed and criticized, even if some people get upset about discussion and criticism.

nNow, why am I writing about the freedom to discuss and criticize religious beliefs today, of all days? Most of us have more automatic respect for religions that are ancient (although that might not be entirely reasonable), and all of us can see that ancient religions might reflect the bigotry and sexism of their very-different-from-modern times (for example), and so we might excuse bigotry and sexism in an ancient holy book as long as modern believers acknowledge that people of all races and genders are equal in value and dignity.

South Park Studios made a video
called “What Scientologists Actually
Believe.”

nBut Scientology is not an ancient religion. L. Ron Hubbard was born in 1911, and he founded the religion in 1953. He reportedly did so to make money (the sales of his science fiction and fantasy stories weren’t blockbuster earners). The origin story told by this religion – that the dictator of the Galactic Confederacy, Xenu, brought humans to the planet Earth in spacecraft, stacked the humans around volcanoes and then detonated hydrogen bombs inside the volcanoes – may or may not be any more silly than other religions’ origin stories (although it does sound more like an origin story a science fiction writer like Hubbard might write – and less like an origin story ancient people would come up with), but other origin stories have at least been normalized for us by centuries or even millennia of repetition.

Also, Scientology has been at the center of some disturbing claims about brainwashing and violence towards members who want to leave. In Germany, the “religion” is classified as an “anti-constitutional sect,” and in France it has been called a dangerous cult in parliamentary reports.

nI think it is crucial that people subject their religious ideas and values to the same sorts of critiques that, say, political ideas and values are open to.
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