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Thursday, July 07, 2005

Cult Cage Match: Scientology vs. The Church of Blood!

Despite the fact that MG3 referred to me as "Limbaugh, Jr." a few weeks ago, I think of myself as fairly liberal, especially when it comes to religion. I consider my own beliefs about spirituality to be a pretty personal thing and rarely discuss them (except, of course, when it comes to the half-hour Christian radio drama Adventures in Odyssey), so I'm generally cool with whatever you want to worship.

That said, Scientology is fucking insane.

Now that's not some big revelation that I'm dropping on you or anything. I think that it's something we all know instinctively, like how we know not to touch fire or stick things in our eyes. But for some reason, a lot of folks have gotten the notion that it's not at all bat-shit nuts, and so I decided as a public service to put Scientology to the test by comparing it to one of my favorite cults, the Church of Blood!

The Basics
Scientology is a religion started in 1952 by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who was famously quoted as saying: "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion." The basic principle seems to be that you've got--in addition to your physical body--an alien soul, or "thetan" rattling around in your head. The thetan can remember its past lives, wherein it was run over by a Martian bishop riding a steamroller, and that's the reason you're not happy.

The Church of Blood is a messianic cult started by a fallen missionary named Brother Sebastian in the 1300s outside of the nation of Zandia. He found what may be a cape that belonged to Jesus and declared himself Brother Blood, the title which his eight successors have taken as leaders of the cult. Details are a little sketchy, but mostly it involves rivers of blood and fighting the Teen Titans in an effort to bring about the end of the world.

Pretty even so far, although in actuality the Church of Blood was created by Marv Wolfman, who is by all acounts a really nice guy.

The Good Guys
Both of these groups have an incredible amount of reverence for their leaders, they key difference being that one of them has a sweet George Perez costume, and the other wrote Battlefield Earth and uses words like "ideafyingness."

Advantage: Brother Blood

The Bad Guys
Here's where it gets good. When you reach Operating Thetan Level 3, (OT III), you find out about a guy called Xenu. Xenu, according to Wikipedia, is " galactic ruler who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of people to Earth, stacked them around volcanoes, and blew them up with hydrogen bombs." So that's a tough customer. He also made the folks he blew up (the thetans) watch "three-d super collossal motion picture" for a month to rob them of their free will.

In the Church of Blood, however, the cultists worship Trigon, the demon-king of another dimension who fathered a child on Earth with a human woman. Unfortunately, she was spirited away to the peaceful dimension of Azarath, whose sorcerors kept Trigon in check until he gathered up the soul-energy of his dimension to destroy Azarath and come to earth. He was only stopped when the Titans killed Raven and used the soul of Azar to blast him out of existence.

Advantage: Xenu

Criticisms
Scientolgy is widely criticized for being a nonsensical, transparent scam that serves only to brainwash its adherents and vilify those who genuinely want to help people with their psychological problems. Membership pretty much requires exorbitant donations. All that stuff about Xenu up there? You guys owe me about $360 grand, bucko.

The Church of Blood is widely criticized for being, you know, an evil cult that's dedicated to bringing about Armageddon. If you join up, you're probably going to get kicked in the face by Cyborg.

Criminal Record
The Church of Blood, by its nature as an evil organization, tends to do things like kidnapping infants to raise as worshippers and using sleeper agents to infiltrate the media and turn public opinion against their enemies.

The Church of Scientology, though, was implicated in what they called "Operation Snow White," where eleven high-ranking Scientologists (including Hubbard's wife) infiltrated the IRS in the largest incident of domestic espionage in the history of the United States, which they all served prison time for. They've also been implicated in attempts to frame people for stuff like bomb threats, and Hubbard said in 1966 that "we want at least one bad mark on every psychiatrist in England, a murder, an assault, or a rape or more than one."

(By the way, when Tom Cruise told Matt Lauer that he knew the history of psychiatry, he's referring to how psychiatrists are actually time travelers who invented pain and sex as a way to suppress the thetans. Also, I hated Collateral. Also, he eats babies.)

I've got to say, the biggest act of espionage in the history of the country? That makes Brother Blood's attempt to impregnate Raven with the anti-messiah look like chump change.

Well played, Hubbard. Advantage: Terl.

10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I saw a headline on an online news service the other day that said, "Tom Cruise Believes in Aliens." "No shit," I thought, "he believes he has one in his head--it's a part of his effin religion!" I was hoping that the next informative headline from this new Bob Woodward would be "Pope Believes He Can Transform Wine into Blood."

By the way, how would you compare each religion on their treatment of women? In one, the leader gets his wife put in jail; in the other, the current head keeps killing women he thinks are his mother. Who comes out ahead there?

7/08/2005 3:42 AM

 
Blogger Chris Sims said...

I'd give the Church of Blood the advantage on the treatment of women, if only because they've got a gal named Mother Mayhem.

7/08/2005 4:00 AM

 
Blogger Mark W. Hale said...

ALL HAIL XENU!

Wait, what...?

7/08/2005 11:34 AM

 
Blogger Kevin Church said...

I'm sorry, but I'm already a Galactologist, so your prattling means nothing to me.

7/09/2005 12:12 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, this is Kirstin a friend of Alex and Brandon. We spoke on the phone once. Your blog is awesome!

7/09/2005 6:47 AM

 
Blogger Phil Looney said...

What abou tthe whole "eat a baby" thing?

7/10/2005 12:32 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And let's not forget the punishments involved in not being a good Scientologist (ie a Scientologist not properly espousing the religion and not having massive amounts of cash to donate to the cause) -- scraping the barnacles off the bilge of ships. There were other punishments that neither Steve or I can remember. Note:This information comes from a book by a former Scientologist who felt he was harmed by his involvement in the cult.

7/10/2005 10:03 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That is some of the craziest whacked out crap I have ever heard.

7/14/2005 10:22 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hrm, yes Southpark did a good episode about Scientology wherein they had to flash the disclaimer that they really weren't exaggerating and this was actually what scientologists believed.
Which is why everyone should join us at the Church of Shadow Jesus (see link supplied as my webpage).

5/04/2007 5:38 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon gear.

ZERO profit. Just to support the cause.

Spread the word. Anon Delivers!

1/25/2008 6:56 PM

 

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