Avoiding Evil

History:
Scientology started out with a guy by the name of L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard was an author who wrote books, magazines, articles, and movie scripts about different topics, searching all the while for the common ground that connected people. He was essentially look for what it was about people that was the same for all. While writing a book that was never published in 1938, he got an idea for another book that he published in 1950 called Dianetics. This created a small crowd of followers as people read the book and began to believe what he was writing. In 1951, Hubbart founded Scientology as a religious philosophy and three years later the first Scientology church was formed in 1954 in Los Angeles.

Belief:
Scientologists believe in a mind, body, and spirit that is separate from each other. We are essentially spiritual beings that are basically good from the beginning of our long existence (eternity). Christians believe that we are inherently bad and sinners by nature, Scientologists would disagree claiming that we are, by nature, good creatures.

Everything in the world has a life force living inside of it, known as Thetan. The ultimate goal and purpose of all life is for all beings to survive for eternity. How is this possible? The best way that you can survive is by doing the most good you possibly can through your individuality, family, groups, mankind, all living things, the physical universe, spirits, and God. If you do the most good for as many of these dynamics and relationships as possible, then you are well on your way to living forever.

If you have ever used or seen a tape recorder before then you will know exactly how Scientologists believe the mind works. The mind is like a recorder, constantly working in your life, recording moments, both good and bad, in this life and in your past lives. Because your mind contains short clips of data from your past lives, it is possible to search your mind to understand what is wrong with your spirit. Auditors are people who listen. They attempt to help you find the painful moments in your unconscious mind from your past lives and deal with them so that you can live a happier life.

A Scientologist believes that God exists but His identity is a matter of personal awareness and conviction. Jesus was one of many gret teachers. You’re on a search to understand yourself, others, life and God. Your job is to help others and make the world a better place.

A Scientology church is a meeting place for people to study and receive counseling. They are actively involved in their communities through things like drug rehabilitation, park cleanups, revitalizing neighborhoods, fighting AIDS and more.

Salvation: Scientology offers a path to spiritual awareness and leaves it to the individual to come to his or her own awareness of God.

Belief about Jesus: They believe that Jesus existed, but he wasn’t God, and the Bible isn’t the way to figure out who Jesus was.

Pantheistic: Members get to decide who they believe God is on their own, sort of make him up as they go.

Afterlife: Scientologists believe that your spirit is immortal; it never dies. But when you die you don’t go to heaven or hell. Instead, you are reincarnated on this earth over and over again for eternity.

Facts:
There are 8 million Scientologists worldwide with 3 million in the USA.

There are many celebrities who are Scientologists including John Travolta, Tom Cruise, and Jenna Elfman.

“Scientologists believe that Jesus was one of many great teachers, but they don’t believe that what He said was true. That doesn’t make any sense-how can you think someone’s a great teacher but think that what they said is false and worthless? If there is no one true God, no creator in church, then who decides if you’ve done enough good deeds? Who decides what your life will be like when you come back? And if you’re here on earth forever, what’s the point really?” - Why So Many Gods? by K. Etue

I’ve been busy working with my homework and have had very little time to post. A long time ago I started a category called Religion & Worldviews where I posted some info about different religions, cults, and worldviews. While I only posted a little information about each thing, there were always a lot of insightful thoughts and facts brought out about these cults and religions in the comment section. I think I am going to try this again, especially since I just finished writing apologetic reports for 19 different religions and cults.

Today I will start with Nihilism. Remember this is not a comprehensive study, but simply a short review. I am open to any thoughts or comments about the subject.

History:
“Nihilism” comes from the Latin nihil, or nothing, which means not anything, that which does not exist. It appears in the verb “annihilate,” meaning to bring to nothing, to destroy completely. Nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. Early in the nineteenth century, Friedrich Jacobi used the word to negatively characterize transcendental idealism. It only became popularized, however, after its appearance in Ivan Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons (1862) where he used “nihilism” to describe the crude scientism espoused by his character Bazarov who preaches a creed of total negation. The earliest philosophical positions associated with what could be characterized as a nihilistic outlook are those of the Skeptics. Because they denied the possibility of certainty, Skeptics could denounce traditional truths as unjustifiable opinions.

Belief:
Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. Nihilism holds that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and without truth. Nihilists usually deny that there is any intrinsic value or meaning in human life. Many believe that the prevailing values of their society are so bad that it would be best to destroy them.

Belief about God: If God exists, He cannot be known or communicated to us.

Belief about Life: There is no intrinsic value or meaning in human life.

Values: All values are baseless and worthless because they cannot be known.

There is my quick overview. Now it’s your turn. Hit me with more thoughts and facts about Nihilism!

Pressed

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg! Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe… Amzanig huh?

Prsesd

Part of the day Monday and all day today I spent the majority of my time working on my bedroom. The walls were getting scraped up and dull looking, and the last people who lived in this house had put up some pretty nasty looking wallpaper that just needed to come out. As I began dragging things out of drawers, pulling furniture out of my room and getting ready to paint, I noticed a common theme. Large clumps of dust had developed on shelves, in cabinets, and in drawers. In the dark corners of the room and behind the furniture was a nice place for large amounts of cobwebs to accumulate. Since my room is in the basement of our home, even though it is fully finished, it still collects bugs and lots of them. Under the bed, desk, shelf, TV, dresser, and nightstand, hidden in the darkness, was a huge bug graveyard filled with hundreds upon hundreds of dead bugs. The funny thing is, before I began moving furniture and digging in drawers I never noticed it was this dirty. In fact it looked really clean and nice on the surface, but it was filthy and dirty deep down.

Thinking about it now I believe the condition of my room reflects the condition of the heart of Christians. Over time our heart accumulates a lot of junk and filth that slowly seeps in and hides in the deepest crevice it can find. At first glance we never know it is even there, but if we take the time to search our own heart, what we may find is unclean and impure areas that we never noticed. What dust, cobwebs and bugs have accumulated in your heart?

Acts 28:26-27 “You will listen and listen, yet never understand; and you will look and look, yet never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown callous their ears are hard of hearing and they have shut their eyes…”

Psalm 24:3-4 “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not set his mind on what is false and who has not sworn deceitfully.”

Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, because they will see God.”

Knowing that God looks at the heart of man, we must constantly seek to remain pure before him, asking and pleading with God to search us and remove what is impure in us.

Psalm 26:2 “Test me, Lord, and try me; examine my heart and mind.”

Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.”

Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

2 Timothy 2:22 “Flee from youthful passions, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”

Is it time for you to do a little cleaning down deep? I believe for me it is. Even though I am finished with my room, I still have a lot of work left to do in my heart. So what do we use to cleanse the heart? With my room I had a vacuum cleaner, dusting materials, paint, and other things to clean out the dirt, but what do we use to clean the heart? The Word of God!

Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any two-edge sword, penetrating as far as to divide soul, spirit, joints, and marrow; it is a judge of the ideas and thoughts of the heart.”

Pressed

Right now my room is going through a little remodeling, which means it is in a tremendous mess. We are ripping out some old ugly walpaper and then painting the walls which means my huge desk, my monsterous queen size bed, and my 47 inch TV all have to be moved out from the wall. Impossible in my little confined space, which means I have been spending a whole lot of time removing large peices of furnature and electronics from my bedroom in order to paint. The good thing is everything is getting a good cleaning as I am doing this, the bad part is I have ten tons of stuff thrown about the house in different piles hoping that no one comes downstairs and disorganizes my piles. I will be glad when this stuff is over.

Anyway, that is an update on what I am doing. I don’t have much time to post in the midst of this, and my computer will be out of commision for a while during the time I am painting and moving my desk. Even so, I will do my best to get a post up for tomorrow.

Pressed