Since South Park aired the Scientology episode, I have been doing a LOT of research regarding Scientology and what it's all about. I subscribed to this newsgroup and have been keeping up with it for about 2 weeks now. From reading things here and elsewhere (including sites that promote Scientology) I have to say that I think Scientology is the most dangerous "religious" movement on the planet. Heaven's Gate, Jim Jones, the branch Davidians, etc. were all dangerous. But those groups were extreme and most well-adjusted people wouldn't have been involved. Scientology, however, is much more mainstream. More pervasive into mainstream society because of high profile celebrities and therefore far more dangerous. People who are average everyday people can be sucked into it. That's frightening to me.

To me a blind faith in ANY belief is dangerous. That includes every religion. If you never question anything, then you have given up your free will completely and that's when they get power over you. If you are a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim or whatever, your faith should only be a PART of your life and not how you define yourself. Scientology preys on the fact that people do devote themselves completely to their beliefs and they have gotten very rich and very powerful from it. Scary.

As far as psychiatry and health care stuff goes, I'll give my opinion. People are overmedicated. I think doctors hand out pills like candy. When my doctor said I had high blood pressure, she put me on a pill. No discussion of change in diet, how much salt I ate, nothing. Just solve it with a pill. That made me mad and I changed doctors because of it. I also believe that kids are diagnosed with ADD too much and are zombies on Ritalin because of it. Kids are usually just being kids and their parents can't handle them so they medicate them. And I think all that is wrong. Not enough time is spent identifying the underlying issues whether it's psychiatric or physical and it needs to change.

BUT, there are people who NEED their meds. Those people can't be close to normal without them. And Scientologists would have people who can be dangerous without their meds not take them anymore and that's just as irresponsible as overprescribing them to people who may not need them.

This is long. Just an opinion of someone who's been paying attention. In my view, we should all do what we can to make sure people understand Scientology and how really dangerous it is.

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