The workings and control of religion
I finished The Inquisitor's Key and needed something else to read. I wanted to read "The Witness Wore Red" about that nut in the FLDS church, but they didn't have it yet, so I got "Going Clear", Scientology, Hollywood, & The Prison of Belief. I like to read about contraversial religions and the people involved. This comes from things that happened when I was young. In Powellton, there was a holiness church run by a family (it has since moved out of the *holler*) who lived 3 houses down. I was in grade school and the son and I were best buddies and went through school together. At that time he had a sister and right before they moved, another sister was born. You could hear their religious music all up and down the street. They couldn't watch TV or listen to any other music that might take their mind away from "the Lord", go to carnivals, etc. I didn't care, they were my friends, though I did think it odd they swam in dresses.
I was out playing in the yard and there was a green snake on the fence, so I picked it up and was playing with it. I walked down to his house and called for him and he and his sister came out and we were all looking at it and all of a sudden his mother came out and started shouting how I was taking up the serpent (I didn't know what *serpent* meant) and she rushed the kids inside and told me not to come back. This broke my little heart, so I went home and asked my grandma about the serpent and all that and she explained that some people just believe different. I had been going to Sunday school with them for a long time, but now they wouldn't let me over that 6-inch long green serpent. I was allowed to go back at around 9. My mom got really sick with another bout of cancer at that time and I was sent to Ohio to stay with an aunt over the summer. My hair hit my tailbone. It was so very hot and thick (Indian hair) so she cut it up above my shoulders. When I got home I went back to see my friend and his mom and dad went off on me about how I couldn't come around because I'd cut my hair, and hair is a woman's crowning glory. Ok, no big deal, I just didn't go around. It was funny to find out years later the wife who had shouted so about the serpent had been having an affair with a family member, I guess that is different.
In my early 20s, my then husband went to the Jehovah's Witnesses. I can't blame him for going to get away from his nutcase mother, and she was and is. She was such a nut that he had a haircut as a teen and she made him wear one of her wigs to high school! She seriously messed up his head. But we went and all was pretty good, read everything on it and it followed the bible exactly. They were a nice and quiet religion, they taught, no shouting, flips in the aisle and all that. I liked it. My second son was born and he had tummy problems so when we went I'd go sit in the library with him in case he cried. I found out later they wrote in their notes on us that I didn't have control of my children. He was less than a month old! When we went to move to Dallas, the church made arrangements for us to stay with a member there until we got settled. They sent a letter for us to take to him, sealed of course. Now don't ever hand me anything sealed that's about me...nope nope nope. I opened it and read it and it chastised us for loving wordly goods more than G-d because I bought a new car. I reckon that money should have gone to the church. So I really started reading up on them and when I found out the guy who runs it is in New York in a penthouse with a 24-carat gold toilet (he had been on the news but refused to talk), I let them have it. So I got excommunicated. Made it easier when they came to the door through the years, tell them that and they run for the hills. No more contact with them as an adult except for at work running into the people who will let their child die rather than get blood, because taking blood intravenously is a form of "eating" it, which is forbidden. This was taken from the old cleanliness laws to prevent illness. But you get used to it, to each his own I guess.
So now I have this book on Scientology and L Ron Hubbard. All I had ever read about him is what a genious he was and an amazing writer. Come to find out he was the 3 stooges all rolled up in one, it's like a comedy of errors. Ever read something meant to be insanely serious that just makes you rofl? That's this guy. He started out writing pulp fiction. He was a serial womanizer and early in his journals writes about how serial masturbation damages the eyes (brought to mind the old joke of how people become Asian). He thought himself quite the explorer (turns out he was staying in a room the whole time, this from his own journals which the church translated into their version). He worked in New York a lot while his wife was on the west coast. While at a dentist, he claims to have died, left his body, went to the other side and found out the meaning of life. He went back to his apartment and wrote about it and had 3 publishers come to his apartment to read it, and it was so astounding, he claims mortal man couldn't handle it, one jumped out the window, the other 2 killed themselves he says (this seriously made me giggle - get up, straighten your suit jacket and jump out the window).
Moving forward, wants in the military, unfit. He bugs the hell out of the Navy until they let him in the guard. He claims he was on a ship in Pearl Harbor when it went down, was the only survivor, swam to sore and went to the Philippines on a raft (the ship went down a year later and he was never on it). He and a buddy were going to take a dingy to Alaska from California because they were told it was too small. The engine went out as soon as they got there, so he wrote about all these missions he took off on while waiting on the parts.
As a child, his parents took him to China for just a few days and he wrote in his journal that the monks sounded like frogs. Church's version - he spent weeks with the monks alone, his parents were not involved with him at all, and he learned a great deal. This was another of his wondrous journeys. He comes back to the US and in California he gets to go on an escort ship. He has himself put in the paper standing in front, lists himself as a Lt Colonel (he wasn't) and is standing there in his P coat with a pipe talking about how important the escort ships have become in the war (WW2). The ship goes north on a training mission and he goes to sonar school, graduating 1 up from bottom of the class. On the way back to CA, sonar starts tinging, so he orders the crew to shell the sea in the direction with 20 mm shells. This goes on for hours and he calls for backup. Two ships arrive and all they found was a huge log floating. They leave, he shells for 80 hours and swears he sees a periscope and oil come up. Navy finally tells him to get to shore. His next trip is a training mission in southern CA, so what does he do? He shells Mexico. This made me rofl. They call him back and he goes before the military court. His writes in his journal how bad he feels for his crew. The official story is he single-handedly sunk 2 Japanese subs, but because he didn't wait for backup put his crew in danger, which put him in the hospital with ulcers. He comes out of the hospital and writes how he has been abandoned as a useless cripple because of his injuries and now he can't see due to optic nerve damage (refer back to what he said about wanking). His friend wrote how he alone survived 4 sinkings and numerous injuries. Now I'm not a quarter through the book!!! It literally makes me laugh out loud how you can take somebody like him (Bugs Bunny comes to mind saying *what a maroon*) and change around his own words and make him out the hero, when actually you wouldn't let him climb a ladder on your property! I don't read comedies, but this is by far the funniest thing I've ever read. By the time I get to the end I'll be bent over with laughter.
I was out playing in the yard and there was a green snake on the fence, so I picked it up and was playing with it. I walked down to his house and called for him and he and his sister came out and we were all looking at it and all of a sudden his mother came out and started shouting how I was taking up the serpent (I didn't know what *serpent* meant) and she rushed the kids inside and told me not to come back. This broke my little heart, so I went home and asked my grandma about the serpent and all that and she explained that some people just believe different. I had been going to Sunday school with them for a long time, but now they wouldn't let me over that 6-inch long green serpent. I was allowed to go back at around 9. My mom got really sick with another bout of cancer at that time and I was sent to Ohio to stay with an aunt over the summer. My hair hit my tailbone. It was so very hot and thick (Indian hair) so she cut it up above my shoulders. When I got home I went back to see my friend and his mom and dad went off on me about how I couldn't come around because I'd cut my hair, and hair is a woman's crowning glory. Ok, no big deal, I just didn't go around. It was funny to find out years later the wife who had shouted so about the serpent had been having an affair with a family member, I guess that is different.
In my early 20s, my then husband went to the Jehovah's Witnesses. I can't blame him for going to get away from his nutcase mother, and she was and is. She was such a nut that he had a haircut as a teen and she made him wear one of her wigs to high school! She seriously messed up his head. But we went and all was pretty good, read everything on it and it followed the bible exactly. They were a nice and quiet religion, they taught, no shouting, flips in the aisle and all that. I liked it. My second son was born and he had tummy problems so when we went I'd go sit in the library with him in case he cried. I found out later they wrote in their notes on us that I didn't have control of my children. He was less than a month old! When we went to move to Dallas, the church made arrangements for us to stay with a member there until we got settled. They sent a letter for us to take to him, sealed of course. Now don't ever hand me anything sealed that's about me...nope nope nope. I opened it and read it and it chastised us for loving wordly goods more than G-d because I bought a new car. I reckon that money should have gone to the church. So I really started reading up on them and when I found out the guy who runs it is in New York in a penthouse with a 24-carat gold toilet (he had been on the news but refused to talk), I let them have it. So I got excommunicated. Made it easier when they came to the door through the years, tell them that and they run for the hills. No more contact with them as an adult except for at work running into the people who will let their child die rather than get blood, because taking blood intravenously is a form of "eating" it, which is forbidden. This was taken from the old cleanliness laws to prevent illness. But you get used to it, to each his own I guess.
So now I have this book on Scientology and L Ron Hubbard. All I had ever read about him is what a genious he was and an amazing writer. Come to find out he was the 3 stooges all rolled up in one, it's like a comedy of errors. Ever read something meant to be insanely serious that just makes you rofl? That's this guy. He started out writing pulp fiction. He was a serial womanizer and early in his journals writes about how serial masturbation damages the eyes (brought to mind the old joke of how people become Asian). He thought himself quite the explorer (turns out he was staying in a room the whole time, this from his own journals which the church translated into their version). He worked in New York a lot while his wife was on the west coast. While at a dentist, he claims to have died, left his body, went to the other side and found out the meaning of life. He went back to his apartment and wrote about it and had 3 publishers come to his apartment to read it, and it was so astounding, he claims mortal man couldn't handle it, one jumped out the window, the other 2 killed themselves he says (this seriously made me giggle - get up, straighten your suit jacket and jump out the window).
Moving forward, wants in the military, unfit. He bugs the hell out of the Navy until they let him in the guard. He claims he was on a ship in Pearl Harbor when it went down, was the only survivor, swam to sore and went to the Philippines on a raft (the ship went down a year later and he was never on it). He and a buddy were going to take a dingy to Alaska from California because they were told it was too small. The engine went out as soon as they got there, so he wrote about all these missions he took off on while waiting on the parts.
As a child, his parents took him to China for just a few days and he wrote in his journal that the monks sounded like frogs. Church's version - he spent weeks with the monks alone, his parents were not involved with him at all, and he learned a great deal. This was another of his wondrous journeys. He comes back to the US and in California he gets to go on an escort ship. He has himself put in the paper standing in front, lists himself as a Lt Colonel (he wasn't) and is standing there in his P coat with a pipe talking about how important the escort ships have become in the war (WW2). The ship goes north on a training mission and he goes to sonar school, graduating 1 up from bottom of the class. On the way back to CA, sonar starts tinging, so he orders the crew to shell the sea in the direction with 20 mm shells. This goes on for hours and he calls for backup. Two ships arrive and all they found was a huge log floating. They leave, he shells for 80 hours and swears he sees a periscope and oil come up. Navy finally tells him to get to shore. His next trip is a training mission in southern CA, so what does he do? He shells Mexico. This made me rofl. They call him back and he goes before the military court. His writes in his journal how bad he feels for his crew. The official story is he single-handedly sunk 2 Japanese subs, but because he didn't wait for backup put his crew in danger, which put him in the hospital with ulcers. He comes out of the hospital and writes how he has been abandoned as a useless cripple because of his injuries and now he can't see due to optic nerve damage (refer back to what he said about wanking). His friend wrote how he alone survived 4 sinkings and numerous injuries. Now I'm not a quarter through the book!!! It literally makes me laugh out loud how you can take somebody like him (Bugs Bunny comes to mind saying *what a maroon*) and change around his own words and make him out the hero, when actually you wouldn't let him climb a ladder on your property! I don't read comedies, but this is by far the funniest thing I've ever read. By the time I get to the end I'll be bent over with laughter.
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