Mike, no truer words were ever spoken! Thank you.

So, Al. What might you want to convince me of?

Al, I’m not going to parse out your post here line by line, or, really, much at all. Mike has asked that we not continue in this vein. The foundational fallacy is right at the beginning and I believe it is obvious to you. Get a book of some “technology” – say, “auto repair”. Put it on a shelf in your house, and wait for it repair your car. No? Your car doesn’t get fixed? OK, then automotive tech doesn’t work, right? Sure, that’s an extreme example, there are always gradients of understanding and ability to apply. But that is how your argument reads to me. It is basically unsound, when added to the fact that many “scientologists” did in the past and are now today applying scientology tech, it is working well for them and the people to whom they are applying it.

So what do you hope to accomplish by continuing to spread absolutist statements that are false on their face?

I am genuinely curious.

Mike wrote:

But equally as faulty in my view is the idea that no benefit can be derived from anything in Scientology. It is ALL bad and anyone who says otherwise is a dupe. That is an untenable position.

I know very few people, even the staunchest critics, who hold this position. It is certainly not my position, although people try to assign this position to me all the time.

This idea that Scientology works 100% of the time when correctly applied and when it does not work it is the fault of the Scientologist was developed by LRH after he had some spectacular and very public failures of the tech in the 1950’s. Over the years he developed ways to get Scientologists to apply these thought stopping slogans to any challenge to what he wanted them to think and believe.

He got very good at these rhetorical tricks and manipulations. They act like standard Scientology ser facs that make the tech right and everyone else wrong, while also explaining away failures, dominating and escaping domination:

“We build a world with broken straws” can be used to distract from any Scientology failure.

“Scientology works 100% of the time when correctly applied” was used to install an article of faith in the tech which then blamed every Scientologist for Scientology’s technical failures – never ever blaming the tech for anything bad and always blaming Scientologists.

There are many of these. And I believe it is important to challenge them in the simplest and clearest way I can whenever they arise.

I know that I am never going to convince Valkov of anything. I hope I never do. Because that means he’ll stop with the Scientology think, and I would have fewer and fewer foils.

So shhhhhhh!

Alanzo :>

Alanzo — you may find this difficult to believe, but I agree with your fundamental premise, though I think in trying to assert yourself you become the other side of the “tech works 100% of the time if applied” and start trying to argue “the tech works 0% of the time now matter how it is applied.”

You are not going to win any arguments with people frequenting this blog with that sort of debate tactic. You and Valkov will just go back and forth until I call a halt to it.

But I hold the view that the argument that “the tech works all the time if standardly applied” is the hallmark of a fundamentalist “believer.” The only thing you have to do is “Keep Scientology Working” and all will be well is just not supported by any FACTS, most notably that nobody has been able to do so and the subject is becoming a footnote in history. The “great breakthrough” of Scientology was supposed to be “Qual” and that it is self-correcting. LRH looked down his nose at the “temporary” organizations that had only lasted a couple of hundred million years. The Church of Scientology is not going to last a century. So, this is clearly an erroneous premise. And I know there are people who will argue that this is the organization, not “the tech” but it cannot be proven to work 100% of the time or there would not be so many SP’s who had made it to the top of the Bridge. But then there is an excuse for that because that is misapplication of ethics tech and not “tech tech.” Ok, so how about the fact that regardless of what “powers” they have, there are a ton of Clears who have not progressed on to OT III or OT IIIs who have not progressed on to OT V etc etc. And the fundamentalist will argue that “they didnt have standard tech applied to them” so in fact there will NEVER be “standard tech applied” because there are always SP’s around etc etc. The explanations go on forever.

But equally as faulty in my view is the idea that no benefit can be derived from anything in Scientology. It is ALL bad and anyone who says otherwise is a dupe. That is an untenable position. ANd what is funny is that the proponents of both sides of this argument become MORE certain of their position the harder they push against the opposite.

But people were supposed to be improved by Scientology technology, and so all those broken promises they made were never fixed by the Scientology technology that was being applied to them and all around them in Churches, and throughout the organization they were in – which was dedicated to applying the tech correctly.

So Scientology technology did not work to make better people in Scientology who would keep their promises.

So again, by saying that it was Scientologists who misapplied or did not apply the tech, you are saying that the tech did not work.

Can you see that by blaming the people for the tech not working, you are avoiding the fact that the tech does not work?

These are the two contrary data that you are shifting back and forth from, avoiding seeing the truth:

The tech does not work

Scientologists can’t make the tech work

You can see only one, while having to block out the other.

Remember, cognitive dissonance is NOT holding two contrary data in your mind at the same time, it is reducing one of the data in various ways so that you will not consider it while holding on the datum you are most invested in.

Cognitive dissonance is intolerable to a human being. The dissonance (disharmony, inconsistency, chaos, “entheta”) has to be reduced by denying the existence of the data that conflicts with your existing beliefs.

By blaming Scientologists for fucking up the application of the tech, you never have to confront the times when the tech itself did not work.

For how many more years are you going to do this to yourself before you finally just confront the truth?

How many more years are you going to try to punish people who present this data to you?

Aren’t you sick of it by now?

Don’t you want it to just stop?

All right then. Just look at it: The tech does not work like L Ron Hubbard said it did.

Alanzo

There are explanations other than “the tech doesn’t work”.
For example, it is well-known that admin staff in orgs often get very little training and or/auditing, despite it being a ‘guaranteed’ part of their contracts. The original intent was for staff to have daily study time so they could go up the Bridge, yet in practice that often didn’t happen. Right there is the case of ‘tech’ being misapplied or not being applied at all, or possibly ‘quickied’.

Hiatus wrote:

Typical Misduplication as usual.

The Tech does work but it is rarely applied correctly in or out of the Church.

If the tech works but it is not applied correctly, then what about the Scientology technology, like word clearing and false data stripping and Qual and Hatting and training – ALL THE SCIENTOLOGY TECH TO GET SCIENTOLOGY APPLIED CORRECTLY?

You are saying that that Scientology technology does not work.

Can you see that your own statement:

The Tech does work but it is rarely applied correctly in or out of the Church.

Contradicts what you are saying to me?

Here, look at your logic:

If the tech works

Yet it isn’t applied correctly either in or out of the Church

Then the Scientology tech to make Scientology applied correctly does not work.

So you are saying that the tech DOES NOT work.

Can you see this?

Alanzo

Typical Misduplication as usual.

LRH said people never have trouble with Scientology, only Scientologists.

The Tech does work but it is rarely applied correctly in or out of the Church.

As for the last Sea Org member dying I couldn’t care less. If any person is prepared to watch a loved one suffering and do nothing about it they deserve what they get.

I watched a Staff member in London Org rolling about in agony in reception while the half trained MLO kept ordering Yoghurt and vitamins.

Myself and one other staff member took him to the Hospital round the corner where he was rushed in AT ONCE and was operated on the next day to remove the blockage in his bowel and he made a full recovery.

He almost died if not fot myself and one other .

So bollocks, I have done my bit and save at least one life what have you done?