A page for randomness

Like many Christians, he said grace before dinner and read the Bible before bed. Four years ago when he was deployed to Iraq, he packed his Bible so he would feel closer to God.

He served two tours of duty in Iraq and has a near perfect record. But somewhere between the tours, something changed. Hall, now 23, said he no longer believes in God, fate, luck or anything supernatural.

Hall said he met some atheists who suggested he read the Bible again. After doing so, he said he had so many unanswered questions that he decided to become an atheist.

His sudden lack of faith, he said, cost him his military career and put his life at risk. Hall said his life was threatened by other troops and the military assigned a full-time bodyguard to protect him out of fear for his safety.

In March, Hall filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, among others. In the suit, Hall claims his rights to religious freedom under the First Amendment were violated and suggests that the United States military has become a Christian organization.

“I think it’s utterly and totally wrong. Unconstitutional,” Hall said.

Hall said there is a pattern of discrimination against non-Christians in the military.

Read more: Atheist soldier sues Army for ‘unconstitutional’ discrimination - CNN.com

Professor Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University, said many more members of the “intellectual elite” considered themselves atheists than the national average.

A decline in religious observance over the last century was directly linked to a rise in average intelligence, he claimed.

But the conclusions - in a paper for the academic journal Intelligence - have been branded “simplistic” by critics.

Professor Lynn, who has provoked controversy in the past with research linking intelligence to race and sex, said university academics were less likely to believe in God than almost anyone else.

A survey of Royal Society fellows found that only 3.3 per cent believed in God - at a time when 68.5 per cent of the general UK population described themselves as believers.

Read more: Intelligent people ‘less likely to believe in God’ - Telegraph

The following is a true story.

Last week I walked into a local “home style cookin’ restaurant/watering hole” to pick up a take out order. I spoke briefly to the waitress behind the counter, who told me my order would be done in a few minutes.

So, while I was busy gazing at the farm implements hanging on the walls, I was approached by two, uh, um… well, let’s call them “natives.” These guys might just be the original Texas rednecks–complete with ten-gallon hats, snakeskin boots and the pervasive odor of cheap beer and whiskey.

“Pardon us, ma’am. Mind of we ask you a question?”

Well, people keep telling me that Texans are real friendly, so I nodded.

“Are you a Satanist?”

Well, at least they didn’t ask me if I liked to party.

“Uh, no, I can’t say that I am.”

“Gee ma’am. Are you sure about that?” they asked.

I put on my biggest, brightest Dallas Cowboys cheerleader smile and said, “No, I’m positive. The closest I’ve ever come to Satanism is watching Geraldo.”

“Hmm. Interesting. See, we was just wondering why it is you have the lord of darkness on your chest there.”

I was this close to slapping one of them and causing a scene–then I stopped and noticed the T-shirt I happened to be wearing that day. Sure enough, it had a picture of a small, devilish looking creature that has for quite some time now been associated with a certain operating system. In this particular representation, the creature was wearing sneakers.

They continued: “See, ma’am, we don’t exactly appreciate it when people show off pictures of the devil. Especially when he’s lookin’ so friendly.”

These idiots sounded terrifyingly serious.

Me: “Oh, well, see, this isn’t really the devil, it’s just, well, it’s sort of a mascot.”

Native: “And what kind of football team has the devil as a mascot?”

Me: “Oh, it’s not a team. It’s an operating– uh, a kind of computer.”

I figured that an ATM machine was about as much technology as these guys could handle, and I knew that if I so much as uttered the word “unix” I would only make things worse.

Native: “Where does this satanical computer come from?”

Me: “California. And there’s nothing satanical about it really.”

Somewhere along the line here, the waitress has noticed my predicament–but these guys probably outweighed her by 600 pounds, so all she did was look at me sympathetically and run off into the kitchen.

Native: “Ma’am, I think you’re lying. And we’d appreciate it if you’d leave the premises now.”

Fortunately, the waitress returned that very instant with my order, and they agreed that it would be okay for me to actually pay for my food before I left. While I was at the cash register, they amused themselves by talking to each other.

Native #1: “Do you think the police know about these devil computers?”

Native #2: “If they come from California, then the FBI oughta know about ‘em.”

They escorted me to the door. I tried one last time: “You’re really blowing this all out of proportion. A lot of people use this `kind of computers.’ Universities, researchers, businesses. They’re actually very useful.”

Big, big, BIG mistake. I should have guessed at what came next.

Native: “Does the government use these devil computers?”

Me: “Yes.”

Another BIG boo-boo.

Native: “And does the government pay for ‘em? With our tax dollars?”

I decided that it was time to jump ship.

Me: “No. Nope. Not at all. You’re tax dollars never entered the picture at all. I promise. No sir, not a penny. Our good Christian congressmen would never let something like that happen. Nope. Never. Bye.”

Texas. What a country.

Source: Godless devil-worshiping evil computers [rec.humor.funny]

One in eight U.S. high school biology teachers presents creationism or intelligent design in a positive light in the classroom, a new survey shows, despite a federal court’s recent ban against it.

And a quarter of the nation’s high school biology teachers say they devoted at least one or two classroom hours to the topics, with about half presenting it favorably and half presenting it as an invalid alternative.

Those results are part of a nationally representative, random sample of 939 teachers who filled out surveys between March 5, 2007, and May 1, 2007 on questions concerning the teaching of evolution. The figures have a 3 percent margin of error.

The research, funded by the National Science Foundation, also revealed that between 12 percent and 16 percent of the nation’s biology teachers are creationists, and about one in six of them have a “young Earth” orientation, which means they believe that human beings were created by God in their present form within the past 10,000 years.

Scientists, on the other hand, agree that humans evolved from a common primate ancestor in a process that stretches back tens of millions of years. The theory of evolution on which this is based is one of the most well-supported theories in science.

Read more: Creationism Creeps into U.S. Classrooms | LiveScience

Nowhere is the opinion divide on gay marriage sharper than in the nation’s religious communities. And last week’s same-sex marriage ruling will do little to bring agreement on the definition of marriage, a social and religious touchstone that has torn apart families, congregations and entire dioceses.

“I don’t expect the picture in the religious community to change very much with this decision,” said Mary Tolbert, executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry in Berkeley. “As more and more gays and lesbians marry, it may become less of an issue, but right now I don’t expect much to change, maybe not for a decade.”

While clergy addressing Bay Area liberal congregations this morning, including pioneers in the battle to win legal recognition of gay marriage, are celebrating the decision, many others, including evangelical and Catholic pastors, are decrying the ruling that they say promotes a gay agenda and is at odds with their religious doctrines.

Thursday’s California Supreme Court ruling allowing state-sanctioned same-sex marriages, of course, has no legal consequences for organized religions. Still, the controversial topic has not stopped faith leaders from crossing into the political arena. Faith leaders on both sides of the divide are gearing up for the expected battle over a constitutional amendment, likely headed to the November ballot, that would attempt to overturn Thursday’s ruling and write a ban into the state’s constitution.

Read more: Gay-marriage ruling splits faith leaders - San Jose Mercury News

Programs teaching U.S. schoolchildren to abstain from sex have not cut teen pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases or delayed the age at which sex begins, health groups told Congress on Wednesday.

The Bush administration, however, voiced continuing support for such programs during a hearing before a House of Representatives panel even as many Democrats called for cutting off federal money for so-called abstinence-only instruction.

Read more: Experts say US sex abstinence program doesn’t work | Reuters

The following comes from humaneventsonline.com, a “conservative news” source. The page has the following to convince you to get a free book:

Dear Reader,

Thank you for signing up to receive HUMAN EVENTS’ new special report, Barack Obama: Exposed! If you are looking forward to getting the ugly facts about the Left’s new favorite poster boy, you’ve got to check out my bestseller Godless (which you can get absolutely FREE just for trying HUMAN EVENTS).

Though liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, this liberal hostility to traditional religion stems from the fact that liberalism is itself a religion — a godless one.

In Godless, I reveal (with the help of the liberals who dominate our courts, government bureaucracies, schools, and media) that liberalism is now the established religion of our country. I throw open the doors of the Church of Liberalism and show you:

• Its sacraments (abortion)
• Its holy writ (Roe v. Wade)
• Its martyrs (like Soviet spy Alger Hiss)
• Its clergy (public school teachers)
• Its churches (government schools, where prayer is prohibited but condoms are free)
• Its doctrine of infallibility (as manifest in the “absolute moral authority” of spokesmen from Cindy Sheehan to Max Cleland)
• Its cosmology (in which mankind is an inconsequential accident)
• And, of course, the liberal creation myth (Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution)

For liberals, evolution is the touchstone that separates the enlightened from the benighted. But I debunk the myth of the “rational” liberal guided by the ideals of free inquiry and the scientific method and expose the truth about Darwinian evolution that liberals refuse to confront: It is bogus science.

In Godless, you will see how liberals’ absolute devotion to Darwinism has nothing to do with evolution’s scientific validity and everything to do with their refusal to admit the possibility of God as a guiding force.

The tolerant liberal suddenly becomes very intolerant when their official religion is challenged.

So, call me intolerant! But, when have I ever cared about what a liberal thought?

You can get my new book Godless — absolutely FREE — when you start a risk-free trial to the conservative flagship publication HUMAN EVENTS.

HUMAN EVENTS is my editorial home and the only publication that I make sure to read every week. Why? Because, HUMAN EVENTS has helped bust the conspiracy of furious spin the liberals use to keep Americans misinformed, since 1944 — longer than any other weekly publication — and is the one paper to have published my columns through thick and thin.

Order today and you can get a free copy of my book, Godless, plus my weekly column delivered to your home with the unvarnished truth contained in HUMAN EVENTS.

My liberal critics won’t enjoy my book (the truth hurts), but I’m sure you will.

Smells like a heaping pile of bullshit to me.

The sign in front of a small church in a small town is causing a big controversy in Jonesville, S.C.

Pastor Roger Byrd said that he just wanted to get people thinking. So last Thursday, he put a new message on the sign at the Jonesville Church of God.

It reads: “Obama, Osama, hmm, are they brothers?”

Byrd said that the message wasn’t meant to be racial or political.

“It’s simply to cause people to realize and to see what possibly could happen if we were to get someone in there that does not believe in Jesus Christ,” he said.

When asked if he believes that Barack Obama is Muslim, Byrd said, “I don’t know. See it asks a question: Are they brothers? In other words, is he Muslim ? I don’t know. He says he’s not. I hope he’s not. But I don’t know. And it’s just something to try to stir people’s minds. It was never intended to hurt feelings or to offend anybody.”

Obama has said repeatedly during his campaign that he is a Christian and attends Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Despite some criticism, Byrd says that the message will stay on the sign. He took the issue before his congregation Sunday night, and they decided unanimously to keep it.

Byrd also said he doesn’t want it to look like controversy forced him to take the sign down.

Source: Small Church’s Obama Sign Causes Big Controversy - Greenville News Story - WYFF Greenville

Science does not reject religious or “design-based” explanations because of dogmatic atheism.
Expelled frequently repeats that design-based explanations (not to mention religious ones) are “forbidden” by “big science.” It never explains why, however. Evolution and the rest of “big science” are just described as having an atheistic preference.

Actually, science avoids design explanations for natural phenomena out of logical necessity. The scientific method involves rigorously observing and experimenting on the material world. It accepts as evidence only what can be measured or otherwise empirically validated (a requirement called methodological naturalism). That requirement prevents scientific theories from becoming untestable and overcomplicated.

By those standards, design-based explanations rapidly lose their rigor without independent scientific proof that validates and defines the nature of the designer. Without it, design-based explanations rapidly become unhelpful and tautological: “This looks like it was designed, so there must be a designer; we know there is a designer because this looks designed.”

A major scientific problem with proposed ID explanations for life is that their proponents cannot suggest any good way to disprove them. ID “theories” are so vague that even if specific explanations are disproved, believers can simply search for new signs of design. Consequently, investigators do not generally consider ID to be a productive or useful approach to science.

Read more: Six Things in Expelled That Ben Stein Doesn’t Want You to Know…: Scientific American

Local Nashvillian and host of The Remix, a popular Christian youth show, Azariah Southworth, announced today that he has come out.

“This has been a long time coming. I’m in a place where I’m at peace with my faith, friends, family and more importantly myself. I know this will end my career in Christian television, but I must now live my life openly and honestly with everyone. This is my reason for doing this,” Southworth says.

Southworth has been hosting and producing the popular Christian TV show, The Remix for a year and a half. It is in syndication and can be seen in more than 128 million homes worldwide. It averages more than 200,000 viewers weekly on one of three networks. It has featured major Christian acts such as Jars of Clay, Avalon, Superchick, Building 429 and Rachael Lampa.
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Southworth has been featured in national publications such as Charisma Magazine and many other national Christian media outlets. “I know I will be cut off from many within the Christian community, and if so, then they didn’t get the point of the life of Christ. I believe by me living my life honestly and authentically now, I am able to be a better person and a better Christian. We all know there are so many other gay people in the Christian industry; they’re just all scared. I was scared, but now I’m no longer afraid,” notes Southworth.

Southworth is scheduled to appear on a May episode of Out & About Today on NewsChannel 5 to talk about his coming out experience.

Source: Out & About - Religion: Popular Christian TV host comes out

Premise Media is a film production company based in British Columbia, Canada. According to its website, Premise Media “develops, finances, and produces independent films, books, and DVD’s [sic] for the domestic and international marketplace.” Its motto is “Producing world class media that stirs the heart and inspires the minds to truth, purpose, and hope.”

Premise Media’s top management consists of two men. A. Logan Craft is Chairman of the Board of Directors and an Episcopal minister from Santa Fe, New Mexico. He also produced a television show called “Church and State TV.” Walt Ruloff is Premise Media’s CEO. Prior to joining Premise Media, Ruloff was a salesman and entrepreneur who founded the software company ILTS in 1991, later selling it to Microsoft. Craft and Ruloff also appear to be the source of much of the funding for Premise Media and for Expelled.

Additional staff listed on Premise Media’s website included several that are associated with Rampant Films, including Mark Mathis. Also of interest is Paul Lauer, who is listed as the “Grassroots Marketing Director.” Lauer is the founder of Motive Marketing, an entertainment marketing firm that specializes in promoting entertainment geared towards the faith and family markets. Motive Marketing was behind such grassroots marketing campaigns as Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, and Walden Media/Disney’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Lauer himself is described on the Motive Marketing website as “one of the most well connected entrepreneurs in the faith and family market.”

The connections between Premise Media and Motive Marketing, as well as the strong religious background of Craft, all point to a religiously motivated film. It is not surprising, then, to find that Expelled is not an unbiased documentary, but rather a movie with a clear religious agenda: to attack mainstream science, falsely presenting it as being anti-religious.

Of course, Premise Media has a free speech right to promote its views, religious or otherwise, and nobody is objecting to its exercise of that right. But its critics have a right to correct the record. And part of that record is the attempt to pass off to the public as a “documentary” a film that is clear propaganda.

Source: Expelled Exposed » What is Premise Media?

Wikinews has obtained Operating Thetan (OT) documents of the Church of Scientology which were leaked via Wikileaks. Although some portions of the manual have been leaked previously, this is believed to be the first time the full unedited version has become publicly available.

The 612-page manual for Scientologists written by L. Ron Hubbard contains instructions for the eight different Operating Thetan levels including ‘clear’ and OT8.

Most of the manual is typed from a computer, while the packet contains some hand written notes by Hubbard himself who also signed them. The manual also contains letters by Hubbard to individuals who have passed the according levels.

“A great many phenomena (strange things) can happen while doing these drills, if they are done honestly,” Hubbard writes in regards to ‘OT1.’ Hubbard then goes on to explain in hand written notes, the ‘drills’ one must do in order to become ‘OT1′:

“One: Walk around and counts bodies until you have a cognition. Make a report saying how many you counted and your cognition. Two: Note several large and small female bodies until you have a cognition. Note it down. Three: Note several large and several small male bodies until you have a cognition. Note it down. Four: Final a tight packed crowd of people. Write it as a crowd and then as individuals until you have a cognition. Note it down. Do step over until you do.”

Hubbard then goes on to explain OT2, but before he does so, he tells the Churches how to keep Scientology working. One way is to not divulge information on their “technology.” Doing so, says Hubbard, would result in “the complete destruction of all our work.”

“On the other hand there have been thousands and thousands of suggestions and writings which, if accepted and acted upon, would have resulted in the complete destruction of all our work. Our technology has not been discovered by a group. True, if the group had not supported me in many ways, I could not have discovered it either. But it remains that if in its formative stages it was not discovered by a group, then group efforts, one can safely assume, will not add to it or successfully alter it in the future,” states Hubbard in a confidential letter dated February 7, 1965.

Read more: Church of Scientology’s ‘Operating Thetan’ documents leaked online - Wikileaks

The pastor of my church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who recently preached his last sermon and is in the process of retiring, has touched off a firestorm over the last few days. He’s drawn attention as the result of some inflammatory and appalling remarks he made about our country, our politics, and my political opponents.

Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.

Because these particular statements by Rev. Wright are so contrary to my own life and beliefs, a number of people have legitimately raised questions about the nature of my relationship with Rev. Wright and my membership in the church. Let me therefore provide some context.

As I have written about in my books, I first joined Trinity United Church of Christ nearly twenty years ago. I knew Rev. Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago. He also led a diverse congregation that was and still is a pillar of the South Side and the entire city of Chicago. It’s a congregation that does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day, through ministries ranging from housing the homeless to reaching out to those with HIV/AIDS.

Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he’s been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.

Read more: Barack Obama: On My Faith and My Church - Politics on The Huffington Post

For a long time, I have been disquieted by the fact that many people want to give patently ridiculous ideas as much standing as reality. One problem with this is that once you open the door to fantasy, any and all flavors of it can walk on through, as in the example above. But it also elevates fantasy to the same level as reality, and that is simply wrong.

I taught a few classes back when I was a grad student. If someone had answered a question on a test saying the Earth was 6000 years old, I would have marked it as incorrect. That’s because — and sit down for this breaking news — that answer is wrong. The student could complain, they could take it to the dean, the president, the Supreme Court for all I care — I wouldn’t have backed down. Wrong is wrong.

I don’t care what your religious belief is, there are some things that are simple facts. An object with mass has gravity. A lump of lithium dropped into water will create heat and hydrogen gas. An accelerating charged particle will emit radiation. These are facts. It doesn’t matter what you believe: reality is that which, when you go to sleep, doesn’t go away.

What I find most ironic about this legislation — and there is a rich, rich field of irony to choose from — is that it was passed by conservatives, people who no doubt would rail against political correctness and relativism (for example, the bill’s primary author, Sally Kern, has spoken clearly about her being against “the gay lifestyle” — she even compares being gay to cancer), yet this is exactly what this legislation is all about. The problem here is that they are trying to legislate relativistic reality. And that’s simply wrong.

Read more: Bad Astronomy Blog » Oklahoma: One Step from Doom

It doesn’t.

Video by Pat Condell:

Video by Pat Condell:

Religion or cult? (Like there’s a difference)

Pat Condell talks about Scientology.

Science is not simply a database of knowledge. It’s a method, a way of finding this knowledge. Observe, hypothesize, predict, observe, revise. Science is provisional; it’s always open to improvement. Science is even subject to itself. If the method itself didn’t work, we’d see it. Our computers wouldn’t work (OK, bad example), our space probes wouldn’t get off the ground, our electronics wouldn’t work, our medicine wouldn’t work. Yet, all these things do in fact function, spectacularly well. Science is a check on itself, which is why it is such an astonishingly powerful way of understanding reality.

And that right there is where science and religion part ways. Science is not based on faith. Science is based on evidence. We have evidence it works, vast amounts of it, billions of individual pieces that fit together into a tapestry of reality. That is the critical difference. Faith, as it is interpreted by most religions, is not evidence-based, and is generally held tightly even despite evidence against it. In many cases, faith is even reinforced when evidence is found contrary to it.

To say that we have to take science on faith is such a gross misunderstanding of how science works that it can only be uttered by someone who is wholly ignorant of how reality works.

Read more: Bad Astronomy Blog » Is science faith-based?

In early February, the freethinkers group Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) debuted its 14 X 48-foot stained glass style billboard with the message “Imagine No Religion” in Columbus, Ohio.

The national campaign is an effort to let Americans know that there is room for reason and clarity of thought, free from the dogma that organized religion uses to keep its flock in line; as well as donating.

Dan Barker, Foundation co-president and author of ‘Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist’ said “Many of our members, including generous sponsors in Ohio, want to balance all that religion on the roadside with some reason on the roadside.”

According to the FFRF, one of the local Ohio donors to the new nationwide sign campaign said, “Gov. Ted Strickland apparently needs to be reminded that many wonderful, patriotic, hard-working Ohioans do not ’support churches.’ In fact, they believe that too much religious influence over state government is harming the state. In recent years, state officials have caved to the religious right on issues such as gay rights, the right of other consenting adults to live as they wish, and the display of Christian symbols on state property. These divisive actions have driven people from Ohio and distracted the state from the serious economic problems it faces.”

Read more: BBSNews - “Imagine No Religion” Billboards Sparking a National Controversy

Mr. McCain has 703 delegates so far, Mr. Huckabee, 190, and Mr. Paul, 42.

Mr. McCain is far enough ahead in the delegate race that his advisers have said it would be all but impossible for anyone else to win the nomination. His other chief contender, Mitt Romney, bowed to those odds when he suspended his campaign on Thursday.

But Mr. Huckabee, a pastor before he became governor of Arkansas, said, “I didn’t major in math. I majored in miracles, and I still believe in them, too.”

Source

PoliZine » 5 Reasons to be Very Afraid of Mike Huckabee

You might think that anyone who coaxes an endorsement out of Chuck Norris is nothing short of the greatest world leader of all time. In fact, if the only information you had to go on was the funny and entertaining ad above, you might be tempted to support Mike Huckabee.

Don’t let the Chuck Norris affiliation fool you, though - Huckabee is a total whack job. Why? Glad you asked! Here are five reasons not to heart Huckabee.

1. Animal rights may not exactly be a hot presidential issue for most Americans, but can you really trust a man who thinks it’s no big deal when his son lynches a homeless dog, and then tries to cover it up?

2. Huckabee says that he will turn America into an all-singing, all-dancing, all-Christian non-stop thrill ride if he is President. Except without the singing and dancing. In 1998, while explaining why he quit his job as a pastor to become a politician, he said:

“I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.”

He also sincerely hopes that all of you Jewish, Muslim, atheist, Hindu, Buddhist, and Pagan voters move to Canada.

3. This whole disaster:

“Well, what I’m simply saying, we’ve changed the Constitution 27 times in 221 years. But the Ten Commandments are still the Ten Commandments. We haven’t added or subtracted any of them, and that’s my point, is that the Constitution was created with the understanding that it could be changed, we could make changes.”

This great article very succinctly explains why this entire statement is a fallacy: there are actually several versions of the Ten Commandments, and they are rarely agreed on.

4. He believes that women should submit gracefully to the leadership of their husbands. Granted, it was nearly ten years ago…but when questioned about it recently, Huckabee’s camp wasn’t in any hurry to distance him from the full-page USA Today ad encouraging women to be submissive to the wishes of their husbands.

5. He (seemingly sincerely) believes that God has chosen him to be the next president. Sound familiar? For all we know, he could be one of the top guys behind the craziest website in the world.

By all appearances, Noah Lottick of Kingston, Pa., had been a normal, happy 24-year-old who was looking for his place in the world. On the day last June when his parents drove to New York City to claim his body, they were nearly catatonic with grief. The young Russian-studies scholar had jumped from a 10th-floor window of the Milford Plaza Hotel and bounced off the hood of a stretch limousine. When the police arrived, his fingers were still clutching $171 in cash, virtually the only money he hadn’t yet turned over to the Church of Scientology, the self-help “philosophy” group he had discovered just seven months earlier.

His death inspired his father Edward, a physician, to start his own investigation of the church. “We thought Scientology was something like Dale Carnegie,” Lottick says. “I now believe it’s a school for psychopaths. Their so-called therapies are manipulations. They take the best and brightest people and destroy them.” The Lotticks want to sue the church for contributing to their son’s death, but the prospect has them frightened. For nearly 40 years, the big business of Scientology has shielded itself exquisitely behind the First Amendment as well as a battery of high-priced criminal lawyers and shady private detectives.

The Church of Scientology, started by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard to “clear” people of unhappiness, portrays itself as a religion. In reality the church is a hugely profitable global racket that survives by intimidating members and critics in a Mafia-like manner. At times during the past decade, prosecutions against Scientology seemed to be curbing its menace. Eleven top Scientologists, including Hubbard’s wife, were sent to prison in the early 1980s for infiltrating, burglarizing and wiretapping more than 100 private and government agencies in attempts to block their investigations. In recent years hundreds of longtime Scientology adherents — many charging that they were mentally or physically abused — have quit the church and criticized it at their own risk. Some have sued the church and won; others have settled for amounts in excess of $500,000. In various cases judges have labeled the church “schizophrenic and paranoid” and “corrupt, sinister and dangerous.”

Source

Scientology doctrine states that a person who has achieved the state of Operating Thetan is essentially a being able to operate free of the encumbrances of the material universe. This state is represented by a symbol consisting of the letters OT with the T inside the O and each of the points of the T ending at the O’s circumference.The secrets of attaining the Operating Thetan states are taught in a series of courses called “levels”, numbered with Roman numerals and starting at OT I. Operating Thetan levels up to OT VIII have been released by the Church of Scientology. Hubbard claimed to have written OT levels up to OT XV.

After having removed one’s own reactive mind and thus attaining the state of Clear, one may then go on to the levels above OT III which were later replaced by New Era Dianetics for OTs. L. Ron Hubbard wrote on September 15, 1978: “There is a special handling for OTs who have been run on Dianetics since Clear. It is called ‘NED for OTs’.”

The Fishman Affidavit contains much text from the old versions of the Operating Thetan levels. The versions of OT I to OT VII in the Fishman Affidavit are considered authentic as the Church of Scientology has brought copyright lawsuits over their release on the Internet.

Note that the claimed OT VIII in Fishman, which refers to Jesus as “a lover of young men and boys”, is not considered authentic — not only has the Church stated it is inauthentic and not brought suit over it, but ex-members who reached OT VIII have come forward and concurred. The Church claimed it as a copyright violation in the suit against Arnaldo Lerma, but later said this was an error. Fishman stated that he had obtained his copy of OT VIII from a different source than his copies of the other OT Levels, purchased from a fellow Scientologist.

Operating Thetan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An E-meter is an electronic device manufactured by the Church of Scientology at their Gold Base production facility. It is used as an aid by Dianetics and Scientology counselors and counselors-in-training in some forms of auditing, the application of the techniques of Dianetics and Scientology to another or to oneself for the express purpose of addressing spiritual issues. The device is formally known as the Hubbard Electrometer.

A 1971 ruling of the United States District Court, District of Columbia (333 F. Supp. 357), specifically stated, “The E-meter has no proven usefulness in the diagnosis, treatment or prevention of any disease, nor is it medically or scientifically capable of improving any bodily function.”

The E-meter measures changes in the electrical resistance of the human body by inducing a tiny electrical current through the body. The device’s primary component is an electrical measuring instrument called a Wheatstone bridge, functioning much like a galvanometer, that indicates changes in the subject’s resistance. According to Scientology doctrine, the resistance corresponds to the “mental mass and energy” of the subject’s mind, which change when the subject thinks of particular mental images (engrams). These concepts have no recognition among scientists outside of Scientology; the action of the E-meter is more commonly attributed to galvanic skin response, an effect used in polygraph tests.

E-meter sessions are conducted by church employees known as auditors. Scientology materials traditionally refer to the subject as the “preclear”, although auditors continue to use the meter well beyond the clear level. The preclear holds a pair of cylindrical electrodes (”cans”) connected to the meter while the auditor asks the preclear a series of questions and notes both the verbal response and the activity of the meter. Auditor training describes many types of needle movements, with each having their own special significance.

The meter has two control dials. The larger dial, known as the “tone arm”, adjusts the meter bias, while the smaller one controls the gain. Auditors manipulate the tone arm during an auditing session to keep the E-meter needle on a marked reference point.

E-meter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scientology Awards Show Video Tom Cruise - Putfile.com

Suppose I said, “There’s a great-looking girl down the street. Let’s go look through her window and watch her undress, then pose for us naked, from the waist up. Then this girl and her boyfriend will get in a car and have sex – let’s listen and watch the windows steam up!”

You’d be shocked. You’d think, What a pervert!

But suppose instead I said, “Hey, come on over. Let’s watch Titanic.”

Christians recommend this movie, church youth groups view it together, and many have shown it in their homes. Yet the movie contains precisely the scenes I described.

So, as our young men lust after bare breasts on the screen, our young women are trained in how to get a man’s attention.

How does something shocking and shameful somehow become acceptable because we watch it through a television instead of a window?

In terms of the lasting effects on our minds and morals, what’s the difference?

Yet many think, Titanic? Wonderful! It wasn’t even rated R!

Every day Christians across the country, including many church leaders, watch people undress through the window of television. We peek on people committing fornication and adultery, which our God calls an abomination.

We’ve become voyeurs, Peeping Toms, entertained by sin.

Normalizing evil
The enemy’s strategy is to normalize evil. Consider young people struggling with homosexual temptation. How does it affect them when they watch popular television dramas where homosexual partners live together in apparent normality?

Parents who wouldn’t dream of letting a dirty-minded adult baby-sit their children do it every time they let their kids surf the channels. Not only we, but our children become desensitized to immorality. Why are we surprised when our son gets a girl pregnant if we’ve allowed him to watch hundreds of immoral acts and hear thousands of jokes with sexual innuendos?

But it’s just one little sex scene.

Suppose I offered you a cookie, saying, “A few mouse droppings fell in the batter, but for the most part it’s a great cookie –you won’t even notice.”

“To fear the LORD is to hate evil” (Proverbs 8:13). When we’re being entertained by evil, how can we hate it? How can we be pure when we amuse ourselves with impurity?

God warns us not to talk about sex inappropriately:
“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity… because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place” (Ephesians 5:3-4).

How do our favorite dramas and sitcoms stand up to these verses? How about Seinfeld and other nightly reruns? Do they contain “even a hint of sexual immorality” or “coarse joking”? If we can listen to late night comedians’ monologues riddled with immoral references, are we really fearing God and hating evil?

Jesus, the radical
Consider Christ’s words:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell” (Matthew 5:27-30).
Why does Jesus paint this shocking picture? I believe He wants us to take radical steps, to do whatever is necessary to deal with sexual temptation.

Now, the hand and eye are not the causes of sin. A blind man can still lust and a man without a hand can still steal. But the eye is a means of access for both godly and ungodly input. And the hand is a means of performing righteous or sinful acts. We must therefore govern what the eye looks at and the hand does.

If we take Jesus seriously, we need to think far more radically about sexual purity.

Doing what it takes
The battle is too intense, and the stakes are too high to approach purity casually or gradually.
So … if you can’t keep your eyes away from those explicit images, don’t ever go to a video rental store. Come on. Everybody goes into those stores.

No. If it causes you to sin, you shouldn’t. Period.

Do your thoughts trip you up when you’re with certain persons? Stop hanging out with them. Does a certain kind of music charge you up erotically? Stop listening to it. Do you make phone calls you shouldn’t? Block 900 phone sex numbers so you can’t call them from your home.

If these things seem like crutches, fine. Use whatever crutches you need to help you walk.

Some men fall into mental adultery through lingerie ads, billboards, women joggers in tight pants, women with low cut blouses or short skirts, cheerleaders or dancers, movies, TV shows, and commercials of the beer-and-bikini variety. Some men’s weakness is the Sunday newspaper’s ad inserts or nearly any magazine.

So, stop looking. And then stop putting yourself in the position to look!

If you have to get rid of your TV to guard your purity, do it.

If it means you can’t go to games because of how dancers or cheerleaders dress and perform, so be it. If it means you have to lower your head and close your eyes, so be it. If you’re embarrassed to do that, stay home.

Tell your wife about your struggles. Or if you’re single, tell a godly friend. If you need to drop the newspaper because of those ads, fine. If you need your wife to go through it first and pull out the offending inserts, ask her.

Romans 13:14 instructs us to “make no provision for the flesh” (NASB). It’s a sin to deliberately put ourselves in a position where we’ll likely commit sin. Whether it’s the lingerie department, the swimming pool, or the workout room at an athletic club, if it trips you up, stay away from it.

Proverbs describes the loose woman meeting up with the foolish man after dark (see Proverbs 7:8-9). We must stay away from people, places, and contexts that make sin more likely.

If it’s certain bookstores or hangouts, stay away from them. If cable or satellite TV or network TV, old friends from high school, the Internet, or computers are your problem, get rid of them.

Just say no to whatever is pulling you away from Jesus. Remember, if you want a different outcome, you must make different choices.

If you can’t be around women wearing swimsuits without looking and lusting, then don’t go on vacation where women wear swimsuits. If that means not going water-skiing or to a favorite resort, fine. If it means being unable to go on a church-sponsored retreat, don’t go.

Sound drastic? Compare it to gouging out an eye or cutting off a hand!

“But…”
But there are hardly any decent TV shows anymore. Then stop watching TV. Read books. Have conversations.

But all the newer novels have sex scenes. Then read the old novels. Read fiction from Christian publishers.

But I’ve subscribed to Sports Illustrated for thirty years, back before they had the swimsuit issue. They have it now. So drop your subscription. And tell them why.

But it’s almost impossible to rent a movie without sex and offensive language. There are Christian movie review sites that can help you make good selections for family viewing. There are also services which offer edited movies, television adaptors which edit profanity, and DVD software that cuts offensive scenes from movies.

But suppose there were no decent movies – what then? I enjoy good movies, but the Bible never commands us, “Watch movies.” It does command us, “Guard your heart.”

It’s a battle – battles get bloody. Do whatever it takes to walk in purity!

A friend wrote a daily contract that asks these questions: “Are you willing to do whatever’s necessary to protect your sexual sobriety? Ask God for help? Call on others? Go to meetings? Read literature? Set boundaries and not cross them? Be brutally honest?”

Too radical?
But you’re talking about withdrawing from the culture. What you’re saying is too radical.

No, what I’m saying is nothing. Jesus said, “If it would keep you from sexual temptation, you’d be better off poking out your eye and cutting off your hand.” Now that’s radical.

Many claim they’re serious about purity, but then they say, “No way; I’m not going to give up cable TV,” or “I’m not going to have my wife hold the computer password.”

Followers of Jesus have endured torture and given their lives in obedience to Him. And we’re whining about giving up cable?

When Jesus called us to take up our crosses and follow Him (see Matthew 10:38), didn’t that imply sacrifices greater than forgoing Internet access?

How sold out are you to the battle for purity? How desperate are you to have victory over sin? How radical are you willing to get for your Lord? How much do you want the joy and peace that can be found only in Him? Purity comes only to those who truly want it.

Controlling the Internet
• Use family-friendly Internet service providers. Install a pornography-filtering program on your computer, realizing it can’t screen out everything. Ask someone else to hold the password. Ask someone to regularly check your Internet usage history.
• Use family-friendly Internet service providers. Install a pornography-filtering program on your computer, realizing it can’t screen out everything. Ask someone else to hold the password. Ask someone to regularly check your Internet usage history.
• Move computers to high-traffic areas. Unless you have a proven history of going on-line safely, don’t log on to the Internet if you’re alone. Be sure the monitor always faces an open door, where others can see what you’re looking at (1 Corinthians 10:13).
• If you’re still losing the battle, disconnect the Internet — or get rid of the computer.

Taking charge of the TV
• Consult a schedule to choose appropriate programs. Channel-surfing invites temptation.
• Keep your television unplugged, store it in a closet, or put it in the garage to prevent mindless flip-on.
• Use the “off” switch freely. Use the remote quickly when temptation comes. Have a safe channel ready to turn to.
• Don’t allow young children to choose their own programs. As they get older they can choose, but parents have veto power. Avoid multiple TVs that split the family and leave children unsupervised. Don’t use television as a babysitter.
• Spend an hour reading Scripture, a Christian book, or participating in a ministry for each hour you watch TV. Even when television isn’t bad, it often keeps us from what’s better.
• Drop cable, HBO, your satellite dish, or your TV if it is promoting ungodliness in your home. (This isn’t legalism — it’s discipleship.)
• Periodically “fast” from television for a week or a month. Watch what happens; see if you like what you can do with all that time (including feeding your passion for Christ).
AFAJournal.org - Randy Alcorn

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The radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal.

- Mike Huckabee, Republican presidential hopeful, defending his view of marriage
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I am 100% pro-life, unless we’re talking about capital punishment, in which case I am 100% pro-death.

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