Kathy H., “Much love”, or its abbreviation, “ML”, is Scientology’s complimentary close of choice and promiscuously used irrespective of the purpose of the communication itself. A letter can be the most casual of notes or the most unpleasant and unwelcome news but no matter how inappropriate it is you’ll get “Much love” above the signature. Its a cult thing.

Ty for your reply.

I was aware that “Sir” was a gender neutral address in the SO, but I’ve never seen a Mr., who was anatomically a she referred to as “he” in any other previous SO documentation/communication posted on several websites similar to Mr. Rinder’s over the last few years. This normally would’ve jumped out at me. Or in any recordings of SO public or internal (but leaked on Internet) videos/recordings.

Perhaps I’ve just not seen nor heard the usage before this. I understand, I guess, about the Sir address as a military type usage but the pronoun usage is unique and odd to me.

Oh well, if that is their form of use, it’s their form of use.

Thank you for explaining.

Ty for your reply. Much appreciated. 🙂

How is it that is so hard for a group of 50-60 OTs to raise a few bucks if they are supposed to be the most able people on the planet? Just askin . . .

VWD to the person who keeps getting the minutes and passing them on.

Regarding the multiple entries question by Braveblogger, you’re quite correct in what you’ve spotted. In scio, one is to believe whatever is reported at that particular time. Confusions, repetitions, stats that cannot be possibly true, ALL are considered FACTS AT THIS MOMENT and the members are committed to believing them…at the possible cost of a round of expensive sec checks if one does not comply. 🙂

Aquamarine –

You’re right it’s an issue of responsibility. There are so many ways to approach it with words. Most people in the western world live their lives on an admin scale which only goes as high as one lifetime, then Heaven or nothing. The great value of religion is that it gives a sense of values. The great liability is that it can be altered in meaning. Religion is insight into life, parables if you will, extending the admin scale higher than just one lifetime. People follow because they themselves do not have that insight, yet we/they do trust, or have faith.

Eventually, if one studies it enough, a religion gives enough of the philosophy so that the individual can see the insights for himself. I’ve met Catholics at various levels who really impress me for their understanding and tolerance of others. Their faith paid off. But I have tried mentioning to two Christians, in a one-sentence simple statement, that many religions have many goals in common: spirituality, higher states, greater understanding of one’s fellow man, greater personal integrity; purposes of peace and harmony. And each of these two separate dedicated, church-going Christians shut me off like a disease.

That is the extent to which each relies on the teachings of their religion, or the extent to which ‘membership’ or ‘participation’ in a group-reality dominates their own thought. They are both good people, helpful, charitable, sociable. (Just dumb … “very interesting, but dumb.”) The guys who set up the religions recognized that that’s whom they were dealing with. In Rome, it was people who thought torturing people was entertainment – feeding them to lions, crucifying them, watching them fight to the death. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle meant NOTHING to those bestially stupid people. It was all about force, and slaves, and living by the rules of the society – REGARDLESS of what those were! “Noble cause” was slaying those who begged to differ.

Religions do ‘play’ on the group reality, it is part of life and cannot be avoided. But groups appoint leaders, naturally, I guess. Someone to set goals and run the upper portions of and admin scale with purposes and plans and policies. Those leaders then speak for the group at various levels and marshal agreement. That is a liability, as those group leaders do not have the same depth of insight, and indeed may not give a damn about such “fairy notions” as “insight.” (What a crock!) Some just see it as an opportunity to gratify their own material lusts – something all religions warn against, to my knowledge. Those appointed group leaders are not addressing or appealing to the principles of the religion, but to the group-think or group impulse, and they punch buttons of those in the group: fears, doubts, hatreds, angers, suspicions – and inflame them with we/they distinctions.

I thought Susie Meister is a very intelligent woman, beneath her lovely, breathlessly feminine jewelry of laughter and giggling, obviously very smart. “Gracious” is an under-appreciated word. Her understanding and what most refer to as “open-mind” and “objective viewpoint” impressed me. She has a doctorate in religion. I don’t know much else about her, never heard of her before, but if she has a viewpoint of religion which spans religions and looks for the principles of each and all, then that’s a valuable viewpoint more individuals might care to take a look at some day. What are the admin scales for religions? Me, I don’t look at the marketing of religion, but the marketing and packaging of philosophy into religion to reach the mass market. Religion one could say is philosophy with an exclamation point. But one should never subordinate the philosophy to the immediate gratifications of the group agreement.

I found that particularly jarring when I listened to Mike’s interview where he quotes LRH about vaccines and risk being greatest good for greatest number .

On the other hand , it IS the valley — one of the hot spots for anti-Vax nonsense.

I know of a guy upstate who has no telephone. If you want to talk to him, you do it the old-fashioned way, and go up to see him.

Just a perspective on things in our mad-rush modern day world. The whole country used to be like that.