I'm sooo not ready for kids...

[Luke]

I need to ease my way into the EU.
First book suggestion?

Thrawn Trilogy. It was the first series after the big lull that came after Jedi and before the EU really surged in popularity, which was in many ways thanks to this book. The first book is Heir to the Empire, then comes Dark Force Rising and The Last Command. Also since it's the first the writing only assumes you've seen the original trilogy.

Thank you kindly. I'll put them on my library list.

[aaron]

I was raised a Scientologist by my family. Even went to a Scientology high school. Also, most of my friends and people around me were Scientologists. Like many other religious kids, I wasn't raised to think for myself. Scientology basically said "This is how things are. Do this or you are fucked."

Despite all of this negative influence on me, I always had some doubts about it. I never agreed 100% with Scientology but the times I would resist or try to quit, someone would pull me back in and convince me to continue. I wasn't fully able to think clearly back then so I was easy to control.

When I was around 20 years old, I was convinced by my mother to move into the Scientology hotel and spend most of my time working on "going clear" there. According to the mother fuckers at Scientology, we all have a bad portion of our mind that negatively affects us. The only way to remove it is to pay Scientology a fuck ton of money and undergo heavy counseling. It's basically brainwashing as far as I'm concerned.

So I gave them all my money (80k or so), moved into the hotel and starting working on going clear. I was serious about doing it and felt it would help my life but once I started, I began having more doubts.

This is when I first started to really think about what I was doing and if it was right or not. It was very difficult to consider that all the Scientology stuff I've learned throughout my life could be bullshit but I eventually determined that it really was. Fuck Scientology; I had gone "clear" without their help. I finally was able to think for myself and I never wanted to go back to being a mindless sheep being pulled along by others.

Now that I had finally come to this realization and had the ability to think rationally, of course I decided to quit Scientology. Easier said than done. When my family heard about this they turned on me. Without their support, I had no way to get out of that hotel since I had no money, no car and no place to live (my family called the hotel and had them turn off my internet connection as well!). That was the low point of my life and I started to consider suicide. I think there was one or two days when I didn't eat or do anything. I just stayed in bed and tried to stay asleep the whole time. Eventually my mother gave in and agreed to take me out of there and let me live with her.

If the people at Scientology learn that someone is smart enough to see through their bullshit, they label them as a "suppressive person" and ban them from Scientology. That's what happened with me, but on the positive side, I managed to get a good portion of my money back from them. My mother actually helped get the money back because she felt partially responsible for convincing me to give them all my money.

So after this ordeal, I started to look at the world with an open mind. What a massive difference! I could see things that were impossible to see before. This is why I tend to disagree with society on many subjects, such as marriage, children, laws, morals, being gay, religion, everything. The average Joe is unable to think rationally, so he cannot comprehend the truth, just like I used to be. If I met the current me back when I was a fool at age 19, I would have thought the same way most people think of me now.

So yeah, I hate religion with a burning passion. I hate how most kids are raised to be closed minded idiots. I hate seeing the state of the world we live in. Thanks to all of this bullshit being forced down everyone's throats, the world is fucked and so are the people. I can try to teach people to think logically and rationally but it never works. They end up using childish name-calling on me refuse to have a proper conversation with me. It's frustrating but at least I'm trying to help.

xenu thinks you are either a thetan in sheep's clothing or you are in need of a serious audit.

[ZeroAX]

xenu thinks you are either a thetan in sheep's clothing or you are in need of a serious audit.

who is xenu?

[aaron]

xenu thinks you are either a thetan in sheep's clothing or you are in need of a serious audit.

who is xenu?

christ, man, just roll with it.

http://tinyurl.com/yl3mnn4

[Hatta]

You need to watch the aforementioned episode of South Park. I believe this is it, but I can't check at work.

[MrPopo]

You need to watch the aforementioned episode of South Park. I believe this is it, but I can't check at work.

That is indeed it. And this is seriously what they believe. This isn't an exaggeration.

Wah wah wah wah wah wah!

[Inazuma]

You need to watch the aforementioned episode of South Park. I believe this is it, but I can't check at work.

That is indeed it. And this is seriously what they believe. This isn't an exaggeration.

Wah wah wah wah wah wah!

It's no more insane than believing stories from the bible, such as Noah's Ark. It's all a bunch of made up bullshit and equally bad.

I don't think it's fair to only pick on Scientology, when it's really not all that different than most other religions. Someone earlier said that Scientology isn't a religion but a cult. Scientology is indeed a genuine religion in more ways than one, and that's why everyone needs to avoid it like the plague.

In Scientology, the basic ideas for living your life are very similar to other religions. They have their own version of sin, heaven, hell, praying, etc. If someone bashes on one religion, but believes in another religion, they are a hypocrite.

Think of all the various religions as pieces of trash in a junkyard. They may appear to be different and you can prefer the used diaper over the maggot infested chicken carcass, but it's all trash.

[fastbilly1]

Except the guy who created Scientology stated that the easiest way to make money is to create a religion.

[the7k]

Except the guy who created Scientology stated that the easiest way to make money is to create a religion.

Yeah... while I'm not big on religion as it is (although without it, Atlus games would be a lot less interesting), there's a right way to go about it and a very wrong way. How anyone can put faith in Scientology, knowing full well that their founder said that...

I guess it takes more faith than I can possibly conceive.

[Hatta]

A cult is a small, unpopular religion.

A religion is a large, popular cult.

The difference is one of scale, not substance.