The News-Gazette (Champaign, IL)
25.4.2000 Church founder not an ideal family man This letter is in response to the March 31 article, "C-U Scientologists resume Sunday services."

As the article stated, many critics consider Scientology to be a cult, but not necessarily because it was "founded on the ideas of one modern man." I can't speak for other critics, but I consider it to be a cult because of the character of that one modern man.

L. Ron Hubbard has been proven to have lied about virtually every area of his life, and the Church of Scientology perpetuates those lies. Hubbard was never a war hero, nor a nuclear physicist, nor a medical doctor, nor any of dozens of other distinctions that he claimed.

The Church of Scientology also lies about things Hubbard did do, like denying that he abandoned his first wife and bigamously married the second before he was legally divorced. It also denies that he abused both of those ex-wives, and when the second filed for divorce, that he kidnapped his infant daughter and fled the country.

His eldest son, L. Ron Hubbard Jr., testified that his father drugged him repeatedly, and after Ron Jr. left the church, Scientology harassment drove him to change his name. Eventually, Ron Jr. collaborated with Bent Corydon to write the book "L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman?"

L. Ron Hubbard's third wife was in charge of the church's "Guardian office," who older readers might remember as the Scientology organization which, among other illegal acts, broke into federal government offices to steal documents. When these operations resulted in their arrests, Hubbard "hung them out to dry," letting his wife and other followers take the blame for actions he had ordered. Yet the Church of Scientology still holds L. Ron Hubbard up as an "ideal family man."

MICHAEL CRICHTON
Urbana

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