Friday, October 5, 2007

Prof Beverley interviewed on Scientology on the Drew Marshall Show

On Saturday September 29th I was interviewed on The Drew Marshall Show about Scientology.

Drew's show gets the best audience on spirituality in all of Canada. I was on this time in response to Drew's interview the week before with the President of the Church of Scientology in Canada.

You can hear my interview here.

For Scientology's view of reality go to their home site. For their site on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard go here. For extensive Scientology links go here.

For criticism of Scientology, go to Operation Clambake and the site of Tilman Hausherr. Other critic sites include the Facts about Scientology site and Exposing the Con. Kristi Wachter runs both The Truth About Scientology and Scientology Lies sites. F.A.C.Tnet is an important site. Check out The Secrets of Scientology and see the long list of links here. For the views of ex-members go here. Also, check out the site of ex-member Chuck Beatty.

I mentioned Scientology claims about Xenu and human origins in the interview. See this report for more info. You can also see data on Xenu here and here.

Jon Atak's book on Scientology called A Piece of Blue Sky is on the web here. That site also has Russell Miller's book Bare-Faced Messiah. For a scholarly overview of Scientology see J. Gordon Melton's book (published with Signature Press) and available at Amazon.ca.

Scientology's incompatibility with Christianity is explored here.

I also stated in the interview that Scientology has engaged in some heavy legal moves against critics. For an example of what I have in mind see the account by Paulette Cooper here.

Janet Reitman did an important piece on Scientology for Rolling Stone.

Important Note about my use of web sites

The listing of sites does not necessarily imply endorsement on my part of any particular claim or view. This needs special focus in relation to the battles involving Scientology. The critical sites noted above have very serious and important allegations on them. However, critics often--though not always--overstate things so the reader has to be very careful in sorting out claims.

I differ from many other critics of Scientology in my view that Scientology is a religion. Since it is a religion then the issue is to what extent it is a true or false religion. On this, Christians should be sad that Christ is not central in Scientology. Also, there are serious issues related to harmful practices having to do with litigation, health, and oppression of both members and ex-members. On these latter items, readers can look at the various sites and study to what extent critics are correct.

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