Rog, you are a relic from some bygone era. 🙄 🙂

Thank you for your comment. Due to my charitable nature I limit myself to how much low-hanging fruit I will pluck in one conversation. Your generosity has been abundant on this tour so I give you the last triumphant word. (insert smiley face and a photo of a box of chocolates)

“Your comparing Hubbard-criticizing to Tom Campbell’s reference to ineffectual ranting, grumbling and ‘kicking the dog’, is a regrettably false analogy. Mr. Campbell is describing a frustrated person. ”

Wow. You missed the whole point, or at least the major one. It wasn’t just that ranting is ineffectual. It was that the “quality of consciousness” (as Tom Campbell describes it) of “many people” is no different from those the consider to be the most evil. He said:

“…the major difference between them [the “evil” ones] and the average guy, or at least if not average then the one-in-ten man or woman in our population, it isn’t that they were exceptionally evil in their makeup. It was that they, for one reason or another, ended up with power. Because of the lack of growth, the lack of love, and the fact that they were driven by belief, fear, and ego, they had the ability to spread that lack of growth far and wide. They had the ability to do huge amounts of damage. The guy in the little shop in the alley who’s an old curmudgeon, who fusses and bangs his fists down all the time, he doesn’t have any power. The only thing he can do is maybe kick his dog when he gets home. That’s all he can do. Maybe all he can do is just fuss, grumble, make a lot of noises, and rant and rave.”

marildi, the Buddha says tenacity, however misguided, is supported by a great virtue. Having gotten that out of the way, you remind me of a mother defending her spoiled bratty child any possible way she can. “My baby-shnookums didn’t burn down that awful school and if he did I’m sure he had a good reason for after all who among us is perfect???”

You fault NOT my criticisms but the fact that I am making them. You argue that nobody’s mind will be changed. Fair enough but that objection is not an impersonal analysis but a COMPLAINT from a butt-hurt mommy! My criticisms need have no utility but to please me. You may of course, and SHOULD, object to my factual and logical errors.

Your comparing Hubbard-criticizing to Tom Campbell’s reference to ineffectual ranting, grumbling and “kicking the dog”, is a regrettably false analogy.

Mr. Campbell is describing a frustrated person. Hubbard-criticizing demonstrates a celebration, a liberation from frustration. The frustrated one is you. You, who are defending the spoiled baby-shnookums, are angry and are kicking the proverbial dog. Mr. Campbell’s comment applies to you, not to me.

Hubbard believed he was at war – and to him, it was a “holy war” no different from what many of the earlier Christian church leaders and the prophet Muhammed believed – except that they had the means to carry it out literally, and did so.

You say: “It is for the sake of those who remain enthralled by him to their detriment and as a catharsis to assist people in their healing whereby they may rehabilitate their critical thinking skills.”

Regardless of how much the it gets dressed up with fancy words, anyone who is “enthralled” by Hubbard isn’t going to be convinced otherwise by the level of criticism that goes on – especially the posts that are mean and childish and thus don’t lend themselves to any credibility whatsoever. (You are one of very few who at least attempt a rational discussion.) Even the comments about the church itself that might ring true for church members who are lurking are the ones that stick to the facts without all the over-the-top exaggeration.

The ranting and raving that goes on about Hubbard is not unlike what Tom Campbell described about the average person, who is also caught in the trap of ego and fear. He wrote:

“The only thing he can do is maybe kick his dog when he gets home. That’s all he can do. Maybe all he can do is just fuss, grumble, make a lot of noises, and rant and rave. But that’s all he can do.”

Hubbard “did what he could do,” and in that respect he was no worse than many people – unfortunately.

You are not done with me. You have announced countless times over the years that you are done responding to me. That you are not responding anymore to my irrational case.

Because you have announced it so many times over the years, that you are done with me yet continue to respond is evidence of something is there that you are not aware of.

You can have the last say. It’s important to you.

You see “Ron” as a typical human being? marildi, EVERYBODY is a typical human being. Indeed. There is a bit of all of us in everybody. If our assessing of Mr. Hubbard is in the spirit of gossip, then certainly, it behooves us to be mindful of our own shortcomings and exercise charity in our judgements.

But if we are discussing the man for the purpose of bringing him down from the high alter where he has been worshipped to the detriment of many…then it is an obligation, a duty, to strip him of his medals in public! That’s the price all TYPICAL people pay for their abuse of power.

It isn’t a matter of punishment, the man is dead. It is for the sake of those who remain enthralled by him to their detriment and as a catharsis to assist people in their healing whereby they may rehabilitate their critical thinking skills.

I accept your concession of defeat. 🙂