No need to apologize for great posts! The Sift is all about exchanging ideas and learning about new stuff! Oh, and bacon and getting drunk on a Monday.

Cheers!

In reply to this comment by enoch:
In reply to this comment by ponceleon:
^


well,
there is a bit more to it than that.
"wicca" is an amalgamation of celtic,galic and druidic practices which were considered "pagan" which means (of the village),they were fairly small groups of villagers in northern europe who had to become very secretive with the advent of the papacy and the holy seat,which wielded immense influence and power before the reformation.remember the inquisition went on for centuries,and many pagans were killed for their beliefs and practices.
however it should be interesting to note how much of pagan rituals and practices made it into the christian theosophy:
christmas,easter,st patricks day..there are numerous examples,and all are derived from pagan,even the sacred geomancy you find in churches come from pagan symbols.
now "wicca" on the other hand was revealed by gardenier in 1951 and made its way into the americas via england,and draws almost all of its knowledge and practices from a myriad of celtic,galic and druidic texts and rituals,beliefs.
gardenier was ex-communicated for his revealing of so-called "secrets".
but "wicca" does have a fairly loose set of practices compared to old-world traditional paganism.
now..your definition is more in line with the semetic triad,and how the canonize "holy" text.there is more than one author,but it was by council,325 a.d nicea,and then in 1605 a.d concerning the bible,and its "holy" text.
which to me is a far better attempt than say joeseph smith and his magic hat,or L ron hubbard and his dianetics.
religions,all 4500 of them,range from the sublime,surreal to the absurd.
i..myself..enjoy poking fun sometimes at that absurdity.

just realized you were making a statement,and not asking a question per se'.
my bad..shame to delete this answer tho..
so im not gonna =P
till next time bud.
namaste

In reply to this comment by ponceleon:
^

To me I'm not sure there is any "real" wiccan, like so-called druids, it is composed mostly of hippies wanting to rebel against "established" religions. Their "texts" are just written by self-styled religious "leaders" who basically pick and choose from whatever sounds cool to them.

Then again, isn't all religion like this? When you think about it, some guy (and in rare cases girl) just decides God wants it a certain way, writes a "holy" text and viola! New religion is born.


well,
there is a bit more to it than that.
"wicca" is an amalgamation of celtic,galic and druidic practices which were considered "pagan" which means (of the village),they were fairly small groups of villagers in northern europe who had to become very secretive with the advent of the papacy and the holy seat,which wielded immense influence and power before the reformation.remember the inquisition went on for centuries,and many pagans were killed for their beliefs and practices.
however it should be interesting to note how much of pagan rituals and practices made it into the christian theosophy:
christmas,easter,st patricks day..there are numerous examples,and all are derived from pagan,even the sacred geomancy you find in churches come from pagan symbols.
now "wicca" on the other hand was revealed by gardenier in 1951 and made its way into the americas via england,and draws almost all of its knowledge and practices from a myriad of celtic,galic and druidic texts and rituals,beliefs.
gardenier was ex-communicated for his revealing of so-called "secrets".
but "wicca" does have a fairly loose set of practices compared to old-world traditional paganism.
now..your definition is more in line with the semetic triad,and how the canonize "holy" text.there is more than one author,but it was by council,325 a.d nicea,and then in 1605 a.d concerning the bible,and its "holy" text.
which to me is a far better attempt than say joeseph smith and his magic hat,or L ron hubbard and his dianetics.
religions,all 4500 of them,range from the sublime,surreal to the absurd.
i..myself..enjoy poking fun sometimes at that absurdity.

just realized you were making a statement,and not asking a question per se'.
my bad..shame to delete this answer tho..
so im not gonna =P
till next time bud.
namaste

Hey, No worries, I actually expected "someone" to make a comment, how could you not! I've never read anything else by him, and I'm not really making any plans to either, but I enjoyed this one!

In reply to this comment by EDD:
Hey, I'm not hating I haven't read it, I've merely heard Hubbard's stuff is sub-par from friends who are avid sci-fi readers. Personally I'm very much into sci-fi and fantasy movies, but very much NOT into those kinds of books. I'm just weird like that.

In reply to this comment by Sagemind:
Ya, I knew someone would say something about that! Hey, I like sci-fi and fantasy stuff. Battlefield Earth is a a great Sci-fi read. It's not not like I listed Dianetics or something. It is what it is - A "fun" read where the good guys, the humans win - Have you read it?? Perhaps you should!


In reply to this comment by EDD:


P.S. Oh and I think I speak for us all when I say - Sagemind - WHAT. THE. F*CK??

>> ^Sagemind:
I have to give two lists!

FICTION:
Clive Barker - Imagica
David Farland - Runelords
Dan Millman - Way of the the Peaceful Warrior
Frank Hurbert - Dune
John Fowles - The Magus
Alexander Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo
L Ron Hubbard - Battlefield Earth
Jack L Chalker - Lilith: A snake in the grass
Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel’s Dart
Jack Kerouac - On the Road

Ya, I knew someone would say something about that! Hey, I like sci-fi and fantasy stuff. Battlefield Earth is a a great Sci-fi read. It's not not like I listed Dianetics or something. It is what it is - A "fun" read where the good guys, the humans win - Have you read it?? Perhaps you should!


In reply to this comment by EDD:


P.S. Oh and I think I speak for us all when I say - Sagemind - WHAT. THE. F*CK??

>> ^Sagemind:
I have to give two lists!

FICTION:
Clive Barker - Imagica
David Farland - Runelords
Dan Millman - Way of the the Peaceful Warrior
Frank Hurbert - Dune
John Fowles - The Magus
Alexander Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo
L Ron Hubbard - Battlefield Earth
Jack L Chalker - Lilith: A snake in the grass
Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel’s Dart
Jack Kerouac - On the Road

Ya, I knew someone would say something about that! Hey, I like sci-fi and fantasy stuff. Battlefield Earth is a a great Sci-fi read. It's not not like I listed Dianetics or something. It is what it is - A fun read where the good guys, the humans win - Have you read it?? Perhaps you should!

I really don't enjoy being around kids or babies, and I don't see anything wrong with it. Babies just gross me the fuck out. They make me physically uncomfortable, like the guy in the sketch. I feel like it's Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Almost every friend I've got has now settled down with a nagging girl, who has shit out an annoying little turd, that has become the centre of their existence. It's like if I took a dump and carried it around for a couple years expecting everyone to fawn over it. Every single guy comes to me and says how great it is, how the baby's given their life some kind of meaning... but they're different, like they've been taken into a dark room for the introductory Dianetics film. To a man, they are buying into the Hallmark bullshit that is being shoved down all our throats. Maybe I would like kids more if I could be a father in the fifties when a man was entitled to ignore kids, and allowed to discipline them as he saw fit. Nobody will admit it fucking sucks. Nobody will admit it was like Alien when an eight pound hairball squeezed out of his wife's vagina and asked for the car keys. God, the horror. The worst part is when you have to stand there watching some little punk run up and down the hall, or listen to them repeat the same inane phrase over and over while you're trying to retain your sanity by poking yourself in the balls with a salad fork under the table. Then you gotta act like the little bugger's antics are the most precious thing you've ever seen. Oh puke! I'd rather the guy's wife show me the last interesting dump she took, for all I care!

Stop drinking the Kool-Aid, motherfuckers!

/Merry, Merry Christmas!

It is the year 2438.

In the early 21st century, riding on the back of the popularity of our Eternal Martyr, St.Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, who was brutally assassinated in 2012 by the evil terrorist group Anonymous, Scientology experienced some sky-rocketing numbers, converting people by the millions. By 2100, Scientology had over 1.4 Billion adherents worldwide. Today, with its 3.5 billion followers, it is the second largest religion in the world, only slightly behind Mormonism.

In many countries, Scientology is the vastly dominant religion, with up to 95% of the population identifying themselves as scientologists. Some critics say Scientology is little more than a money-making scam cult, invented by a second-rate science-fiction writer in the late 20th century, but most people have a much more nuanced view, they argue that it is the extremists scientologist that are the problem, and Scientology is a peaceful religion, its been over 60 years since the last Suppressive Person was hanged, for instance, and some countries even have basic psychiatric treatment facilities, where only part of the treatment is Dianetics, many hospitals now even have psycologist, people who used to be executed on the spot if caught red-handed asking personal questions without a qualified e-meter operator nearby.

Today, most people dont really spend that much time on reaching OT III, some who identify themselves as scientologists, say they dont even believe in thetans, but Scientology is part of their culture, they say, and its not just about denying psyciatric treatment or harassing SP's. Its so much more than that, it roots back to the laws and customs of many countries, and many people live good, happy lives as scientologists, so why cant these critics just leave them alone? Why would anyone seek to demonize all scientologists as if they were criminals, isnt this just hate-mongering, designed to spark fury among the extremists?

I thought it was alright. It doesn't have anything to do with Scientology though. The movie Battlefield Earth is based on some of L. Ron Hubbard's earlier works. Granted, Hubbard is also the founder of Scientology (which is just crazy), but the two have nothing to do with eachother. Being a scifi author, he wrote the stories that were the basis for Battlefield Earth well before Dianetics. So, what does Battlefield Earth and Scientology have to do with eachother? Except for the fact that they were authored by the same person, nothing.

Just to clarify:
Scientology is laughable.
L. Ron Hubbard was a conman (but a pretty good one considering how much money he made off lying to people).
I didn't think Battlefield Earth was such a bad movie.

For the record, I'm an atheist, and while I personally believe religion is a hateful and damaging institution (in all forms), for the subject of internet forums, people (on all sides)need to learn to grow thicker skin. If this offends you, I hope you never find 4chan or browse slashdot at -1...

A parody, not intended for the promotion of anything, but to hopefully give those on the pro-religion side a different prespective to think about.:

This message was received from [anonymous] at [anonymous]@yahoo.comscientology.org:

I've enjoyed visiting VideoSift for some time now. But even though I've considered joining the community, there's something that I find quite disturbing--the level of harsh, hateful language directed towards religious beliefs the peaceful church of scientology in the posts and comments.

The comments on this post are absolutely shocking in their rabid, nearly psychotic intolerance. They call our legitimate religion a cult! I would ask you to make similar strict guidelines to discourage videos or comments that talk about religion or spirituality scientology or dianetics in ways that are intolerant, prejudiced, and hateful. Discussing religion in a frank, probing, and respectful carefully controlled, profitable way is vital in the world we live in to our profit margins, and I have no problem with videos or comments that encourage me to think critically carry our party line dogma about these issues. However, the kinds of comments I've seen on this website only degrade the VideoSift community and discourage visitors like me from joining encourage lawsuits from us. Please consider taking steps to ensure that VideoSift will be more welcoming and as a result more successful I won't have to send our lawyers after you for betraying our scams. Thank you.

Dianetics is, in short, the mental health ideas that Scientology was designed to support. Written by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard around the 1950's.

Was going to post a scarier clip, but this one is interesting... mostly since its, you-know, a book,... and possibly also the act of being 'audited' by some random jag-off.

I just learned that Dianetics (the program that Scientology was designed to promote) has sponsored a NASCAR car this past year! I find this hilarious.

(search google images for 'dianetics nascar', to see the car driven by driver Kenton Gray)

Bi-polar whack-job, or fun loving all-American, let Cruise be his own, Dianetic embolism.