Talk:Jesus in Scientology

Evaluation of this article - TNT in progress

My one prior edit to this article was merely to include citations which had been tagged as "citation needed" and clean up citation formats and links. I did not at the time read the article in whole in order to evaluate it. I did so today and it is a bunch of bunk. Cambial Yellowing was probably most correct when they turned this article into a redirect — though a paragraph should be written about Jesus/Christ/Christianity in the target article.

What is the purpose of this Wikipedia article? Hubbard did not believe in Jesus or Christ or Christianity and wrote nothing favorable about Jesus. Hubbard had nothing but contempt for all other religions. He repeatedly said Scientology drew from earlier religions such as <insert list of world religions here>, but he said that so people would think Scientology was an improvement on some ugga-bugga they could reject after getting into the 'scientific' Scientology. He wanted to categorize Scientology as a religion in the same manner that <insert list here> were considered world religions.

Basically, Hubbard had this to say about Jesus/Christ/Christianity:

1. Jesus might have been a real man; was no more than ordinary, if he existed; created hope in the populace; was revered by others (not Hubbard); and later Hubbard said Jesus was completely fictitious.
2. Jesus and the crucifixion was an implant (a fake event deliberately imposed into a thetan's memory by high power electricity and pain).
3. Christianity was cobbled together by men and the current version has no similarity to the original.
4. Hubbard had utter contempt for Christianity.

What Hubbard did not say, includes:

1. Scientology is/was based on Christianity, or has any Christian roots.
2. Jesus was a Clear.
3. Scientology is "the Western Anglicized continuance of many earlier forms of wisdom" (Miscavige's 2007 version is an alteration). Instead, Hubbard said "Scientology is, of course, a word which you might say is Anglicized. We know what science means. We know that science means "truth" or "wisdom," and we know what -ology means—anybody knows that. That means "study." "

I'll try some WP:TNT first, and re-write this article. If that doesn't really work, I'll write a paragraph for Scientology and religious groups and reset this to a redirect. There isn't enough stuff written on "Jesus" to maintain a standalone article titled this way. The entire 'Commentary' section is basically original research in its attempt to compare Scientology to Christianity. There is no comparison that can be made! I don't see anything of value remaining in this article, and this article gives an entirely incorrect perspective on the subject.

Evaluation of all 15 citations, and a few excerpts reproduced here

As for the citations currently in today's version of this article, I will make comment. I will also include excerpts from these documents since not everyone has easy access to them. Any bold emphasis is mine; any italics are from the original source. [1] The Creation of Human Ability is a book cobbled together from the three lectures titled 'Scientology: Its General Background' (July 19, 1954). I have a copy of the book and the transcripts of the lectures. Nothing favorable about Christianity going on there, and no real comparisons between Scientology and Christianity. The excerpts show a bunch of pro-Vedic writings; Hubbard considered himself Buddha aka Guatarm Siddhartha and that the Vedic works were written by him in a past life. Excerpts from the lectures: Scientology, Its General Background, 19 July 1954 And we discover the civilized aspect of that religion, which we know of in the Western world as Christianity, taking place, of course, at the year 1. Now, we find that that's of no importance to us, except that everybody who writes a date out here is talking about the man we are talking about when he puts down A.D. and when he puts down B.C. We are dating our very calendar from this incident I am discussing here. And I'm not, by the way, now discounting even vaguely the work of Christ or Christ himself or anything like that. Traditionally, Christ is supposed to have studied in India-this is traditional. One doesn't hear of him until he's thirty years of age. And he was a carpenter, and so on-one hears a lot of things. But he also hears this persistent legend that he had studied in India. Now, the Hebrew definition of messiah is "one who brings wisdom"-a teacher, in other words. Messiah is from messenger. But he is somebody with information. Moses was such a one. And then Christ became such a one. He was a bringer of information. He never announced his sources. He spoke of them as coming from God. But they might just as well have come from the god talked about in the Hymn to the Dawn Child, who, by the way, is rather hard to distinguish from gods talked about later on. He's certainly not the Hebrew God, the God the Christians worshiped. He looks more like that one talked about in the Veda. He looks much more like it. Now, here we have a great teacher in Moses, we have other messiahs, and we then arrive with Christ. And the words of Christ were a lesson in compassion and they set a very fine example to the Western world, compared to what the Western world was doing at that moment. What were they doing at that time? They were killing men for amusement; they were feeding men to wild beasts for amusement. And we find the Buddhist principles of brotherly love and compassion, then, appearing two thousand years ago. Now, Christianity spread like wildfire throughout Europe, but it was necessary to achieve a certain agreement. And in order to achieve that agreement, many of the practices which you know of today were incorporated into this worship. Basic and early Christianity is not recognizable today in many church practices. It's just not recognizable; I mean, it is very clouded. And we find this incorporated into Christianity, and over there we find that incorporated into Christianity, and over somewhere else we find this one-each time a certain amount of superstition coming into the information line, until we don't know what was on the information line unless we go back to sources and trace it through clearly and purely. And when this Christianity was interpreted and imported into Europe, there was considerable speculation and resurgence and an enormous amount of hope. The Christian God is much better characterized in the Vedic Hymns than in any subsequent publication, including the Old Testament. As far as Scientology being a religion is concerned, it has more right to be a religion than the Catholic church has and could stand up and be proven in court to that effect. Anybody who would dare try to make religion into solely a religious practice would be neglecting the very background of Christianity. [2] This citation is sourcing the second half of an original research comparison in wikivoice. The Volunteer Minister's Handbook is an old book, not written by Hubbard, and no longer published by the Church of Scientology. (aka, it was deemed 'off source' and 'squirrel') [3] & [4] (I can't access Urban's document.) Wright's reference is to some early Ability magazines. I pulled those up, and they are just copies from the lecture and book in citation #1. So nothing new here, except that it's published by not-Scientology. By saying Jesus was 'a shade above Clear', the editor (note this is not Hubbard, but some unknown Scientologist writing this) he was implying that Jesus was more 'able' than the ordinary/average man at the time. This editorial is a promotional piece to get people interested in doing/joining Scientology. Excerpt from Lawrence Wright's book An editorial in a 1958 issue of the Scientology magazine Ability notes that “neither Buddha nor Jesus Christ were OTs according to the evidence. They were just a shade above Clear.” Excerpt from Ability magazine issue 81 (1958) We are here for a much broader purpose than to make a few Clears. We are here to Clear Earth. And Earth is the kingpin of a much larger game and a much wider front of attack. More on this later. Just now it is enough to say that the State of Clear was envisioned 2, 500 years ago by Gautama Sidhartha and was attained by a very few and then was seen no more. The state then was known as "Bhodi II since it was attained under a bhodi tree. Since then the tradition has grown dim. Man has sought to clear Man, first of demons, then of subconscious traumas. Ron, with a whole new look at this, has brought about a state in Clear higher than that regarded by Gautama Sidhartha since it is achieved in not only one lifetime but in a few weeks and is available to all men, not just a few. The implications are dizzying. None have realised fully yet just what has happened - - the impact it can have on Earth is too great. 2, 500 years ago a handful of Clears civilised a half a billion people ! What if we were all CLEAR? Operating Thetan has not before been known as a state of being on Earth. Neither Lord Buddha nor Jesus Christ were O. T .. 1s according to the evidence. They were just a shade above Clear. So be happy for a moment with Clear. After all, thousands of words of prediction in the 2, 000-year-old Pali Canons of Buddhism tell how and where it would come to pass -- to wit -now, in the Western World -- by us, from Ron. THE EDITOR [5] Atack's citation points to 'implant' and on page 383 Excerpts from Atack's book Despite its claims to be nondenominational, and to welcome members of all religions, Scientology is essentially anti-Christian. In confidential materials Hubbard attacked Christianity as an "implant," and said that Christ was a fiction. Hubbard's Scientology morality is opposed to Christianity. Certain basic Christian values are despised by the Scientologist, who considers them misconceived. In Scientology, there is no concept of God, nor of grace. The Scientologist is in every respect a self-made Thetan. Nor is Scientology compatible with the beliefs of other faiths. Atack continues on about this. [6] Corydon goes on to say that Hubbard stated that Christianity was invented by people observing others who were dramatizing the "R6 implant". Implants aren't real; this is sci-fi-religion stuff. Excerpt from Corydon book While on the confidential class 8 course in Scotland, listening to Hubbard's twenty lectures - taped just weeks previously on the Apollo in Corfu, Greece - I was exposed to, among other things, Hubbard's opinion of Christianity: "Somebody on this planet, about 600 B.C. found some pieces of "R6." I don't know how they found it; either by watching madmen or something. But since that time they have used it. And it became what is known as Christianity. The man on the cross. There was no Christ! The Roman Catholic Church, through watching the dramatizations of people picked up some little fragments of R6." Priests subsequently became objects of scorn in his writings. In a bulletin of that period he states: "Also the Christian Church used (and uses) implanting. They took over the Nicene Creed just before the year zero, invented Christ (who comes from the 'crucifixion' in R6, 75 million years ago) and implanted their way to power." [7] More Christianity = implants [8] & [9] More maligning of Jesus by Hubbard (describes pedophile, narcissist). Hubbard declares himself the anti-Christ. [10] Wakefield's "What Christians Need to Know about Scientology" is pretty much the whole shebang, comprehensive, and includes all of the above points. [11] through [15] are all religious-y books that are not about Scientology, but I suppose they are trying to compare various religions. [11] OL 22227195M talks about "The Scientology Catechism". No such thing. There is a chapter in the book "What is scientology?". That book is authored "Based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard", meaning Hubbard didn't write it. The 1993 version is "Compiled by staff of the Church of Scientology International" OL 16726573M, and the 1978 version is "Compiled by the staff of the Church of Scientology of California" OL 4749871M. This book has never been used as a basic book for Scientologists; it was created for public-facing PR purposes. What I mean to say is that "catechism" isn't something in Scientology. The 1978 book contains some PR-ish stuff about Jesus and Christianity. The 1993 book is devoid of all such mention; it doesn't exist in the 1993 version. The website whatisscientology.org (presumably based on some version of the book) only uses "jesus" one time, on e-page 34, but it doesn't tie in Christianity and Scientology at all; it's simply a Christianity history lesson for page upon page. I can only conclude here, that citation [11] is basing their inexperienced ramblings on some earlier/retracted version of a Scientology PR book. [13] OL 998562M merely says: "[Roy Wallis's (1987)] example is Scientology, which has no discernible connection to Christianity". [14] The wishy-washy content supported by non-internet-based citation #14 is some quote from some unknown Scientologist. Oh here it is, a prior president of Kirstie Alley's Scientology mission in Wichita Kansas, and CEO of Kirstie Alley's insurance-cum-diet-products company.

Grorp (talk) 03:03, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Yep. Cambial — foliar❧ 03:46, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Done. I took a chainsaw to that thicket and then planted some native trees. I've trimmed it down to what I consider the essentials... the relevant stuff. It's small enough now it could be put into another article, though now at least the article isn't as offensive as it was since the clutter, OR, and false information have been removed.

This article was called from a few other places which also contained some of the false information (which I excised). It remains mentioned in six articles. Three are navbars, which makes What links here useless.

Cambial, I'm curious what you think of the smaller article now, and whether you think it should still be merged into another article (which one), or just left where it is. Grorp (talk) 06:01, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I replaced Tony o with a scholarly source. I still think we should use a Feller buncher, not a chainsaw, as there's not sufficient RS out there to meet SIGCOV. We can put the content, much improved thanks to your work, into the relevant article (possibly Scientology beliefs and practices rather than the religious groups article? - because it's about the figure of Jesus rather than Christians as a modern-day group of people). Cambial — foliar❧ 11:48, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Whichever you decide, the only other academic output I can find that makes more than a passing mention of the article subject is the open access journal article here which you may want to take a look at. Cambial — foliar❧ 12:03, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

CY, at least I selectively cut instead of clearing. ;)

After looking at both articles, I think Scientology and religious groups is the better target, over Scientology beliefs and practices. My reasoning is that the beliefs article is about current beliefs and "the tech", and the whole Jesus thing in Scientology is rarely touched upon. It's more of a Hubbard belief than a Scientology belief. Whereas the religious groups article does discuss Scientology's incompatibilities with other religions, not just with other churches, and even touches on Jesus.

How about a new level-3 heading titled Hubbard's views of Jesus under the section Religious compatibility? Maybe add an anchor for "Jesus in Scientology" for the redirect. I would suggest yanking the Fishman two sentences; the first will be superseded by the text from this article, and the second should go because, well, MANDY. And the new section will be a perfect segue from the prior paragraph about Rothstein/Jesus.

Bigliardi's [sleep-inducing] Anomalous was mildly interesting, especially since I was able to locate a copy of Scientology and the Bible (1967). The current version of this article covers what Bigliardi has to say about Jesus. Maybe add Bigliardi as another citation for some of the content that he and some of the other book authors wrote about. It's funny that he wrote about those same authors that I've already cited.

Just FYI, I don't have access to most of the scholarly/academic sources that you have been citing. For example, Urban's Secrecy. So I rarely get to verify for most of those sources you tend to cite. If a source is not available through Wikipedia Library basic collection, nor copies available for read on Open Library, then I probably can't read it. Grorp (talk) 08:14, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree with your logic about the most appropriate new location for this article. As you say, in reality the subject is rarely touched upon in practicing Scientology today, and is really only ever mentioned to try to maintain the fiction that it's "compatible with all other beliefs" etc. Cambial — foliar❧ 09:00, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

 Done. Grorp (talk) 01:36, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

References