Little Things That Irk You: The Hateful 08

[Neon Ignition]

Scientology
Not a new one but myself and the missus watched a light documentary about John Travolta and we were reminded about how this crock of **** is actually a thing. It remains nuts that it got its fingers into him at such an early point in his career given how plainly obviously invented the whole nonsense is, and how low the number of 'believers' are. The most interesting parts where the brief interview snippets from archives over the years which showed him to be a very quiet natured, intelligent and likeable character who seems very humble and self-aware. That doesn't come across in his films where he usually portrays confident characters and it's interesting to ponder what his career might have been like if it weren't weighed down by this parasitic guff that led him to do things like Battlefield Earth. That the likes of Cruise and Will Smith buy this BS says a lot about the needs of celebrities and also the real intent of scientology.

[Dogg Thang]

I would have told this story many times here over the years as the subject has come up a bit but, to give the short version, in my college years I went into a Scientology place with a bunch of mates and we were there for a couple of hours essentially for an argument (sounded fun at the time). As crazy as some of the nonsense they tried to push on us was, I came out thinking that if any of us had gone in alone, we would have come out a scientologist. They were that good.

[Brad]

I know nothing about it; how much crazier than christianity is it?

[wakka]

It's a completely different kettle of fish to Christianity, really - which is, quite literally, a broad church.

Scientology is instead a small, centrally managed, high control group where the emphasis is on continually extorting its members for everything in their bank accounts, run by a slave labour 'volunteer' force who don't get so much as a day off to go to a funeral in decades of loyal service, and who are forced to have abortions, to disconnect from family members, and so on.

The stuff that they actually believe is not any crazier or less crazy than Christianity (although it's wackier, cooked up as it was by a pulp sci fi writer with a drug problem in the 50s).

I've read numerous books about it over the years, attended talks on it and even keep up most days with news regarding the organisation. It's a bit of an odd hobby of mine

[Lebowski]

I know nothing about it; how much crazier than christianity is it?

It's all about evil space lizards ghosts spirits that cling to humans you can remove these through past life regression, and lots and lots of money.

if only xanu hadent dropped all them a-bombs in the volcanoes we wouldn't have these problems.

[Dogg Thang]

Well it's pretty crazy but they don't tell you just how crazy it goes when you go in to meet them because you essentially have to pay over the years to get to a point where you get that information. But there are touches of crazy you get right away. For example there was one thing, where if you hurt yourself, you can undo the pain by doing the same thing again to put the pain back to where it came from. So if you hit your thumb with a hammer, you can make it better by gently tapping your thumb with the hammer. I remember one of us asking if that worked if you get run over by a bus - simply have the bus drive over you slowly to remove the pain.

But mostly what they sell to you when you go in is like a self-help programme. It's all laid out like a business (they don't hide that - all their terms are business terms) and you do seminars and pay for access to materials depending on your rank. You grow in rank by paying more money over time. But what they promise is that you'll never be unhappy again.

There is a distinct lack of anything that sounds like a religion early on. But then, as comes out later, it's all tied in to aliens and so on.

[wakka]

The only reason that Scientology is a religion at all is because L Ron Hubbard realised it would be advantage to make it one. Its progenitor, Dianetics, was marketed as 'The modern science of mental health'. It was very much branded as a science, not something faith based.

After he lost the Dianetics trademark and restarted it as Scientology, he came under pressure from the FDA for his claims regarding the benefits. The most efficient solution was to make it a religion, which grants all sorts of legal protections and means you can say what you like as long as it's an article of faith.

I don't think Scientologists think of it as a religion or as their faith in the way that Christians or Muslims think of their faith. It's very much scientific, provable fact to them.

So it's a religion legally speaking, but ironically one created in bad faith (wahey).

[Neon Ignition]

That's what popped in my head with Travolta. He joined in 1975 and his partner died in 1976 of cancer meaning they got in his head during his youth whilst he was dealing with the deteriorating health of his partner, seems like a classic set up for them.

Just tried to look at his Wiki page to check that and it's been replaced by a swastika... the tired purile efforts of the internet never fail to depress.

[Cepp]

Been helping my mum fill out the PIP form as she's had to go on long term sick with no prospect of returning to work and I genuinely hope everyone involved in its creation suffers for the rest of their lives. You are ****ed if you need help with this thing and don't have anyone.

[Neon Ignition]

Man Utd: "We've really wound people up this last year but I have a plan to turn it around... rehire a rapist"

[QualityChimp]

My Xbox One has bricked after an update.

[endo]

Mine did that a couple of weeks ago. I started it in safe mode and managed to sort it out without losing game saves. etc. (at least, it pulled them out of the cloud afterwards).

[QualityChimp]

Mine did that a couple of weeks ago. I started it in safe mode and managed to sort it out without losing game saves. etc. (at least, it pulled them out of the cloud afterwards).

This worked a treat, thank you!

New irk: Reading Festival making me feel old by looking at the line-up and going "Who?!"

[Cassius_Smoke]

My wife has been sick for a couple of days so I've been doing most of the leg work. I don't mind, just part of life.
My mother in law is coming round later, but not to check on her daughter or see if we need help with the kids or anything, oh no, she coming because she needs help with her car.
What a person! I wish I could be that self centered.

[Neon Ignition]

The whole Pen Farthing fiasco. Everything I've heard about it so far seems to be people knowingly ignoring the facts in order to drag him over the coals for simply trying to do a decent thing.