Scientology and science

Scientology is considered by its members as “an applied religious philosophy offering a clear, bright insight to help you blaze toward your mind’s potential.” The religion teaches that all humans came from “a race of uncreated, omnipotent gods called Thetans, who have their powers to enter the Material-Energy-Space-Time (MEST) world of Earth. The goal of scientologists is to remove mental blocks called “engrams” in order to awaken the Thetan, and “realize their true personhood, achieving total power and control over MEST.”
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard originally claimed and insisted that Dianetics was based on the original scientific method. He taught that “the scientific sensibilities carried over into the spiritual realities one encounters via auditing on the e-meter.” Scientologists commonly prefer to describe Hubbard’s teachings with words such as knowledge, technology and workability rather than belief or faith. Hubbard described Dianetics and Scientology as “technologies” based on his claim of their “scientific precision and workability.” Hubbard attempted to “break down the barrier between scientific (objective, external) and religious (subjective, internal) forms of knowledge.” Scientology’s epistemology is “radically subjective:” Nothing in Scientology is true for you unless you have observed it and it is true according to our observation,” said Hubbard. Donald A. Westbrook asserts that this type of self-legitimation through science can also be found in other traditions such as Christian Science, Religious Science, Moorish Science Temple of America, etc.
Despite not possessing a cultural continuity with the Judeo-Christian tradition, Scientology claims to possess continuity with science. William Sims Bainbridge, a sociologist well-known for his work on religion, cites Scientology’s origins in the subcultures of science fiction and “harmony” with scientific cosmology, to be more precise. Science fiction, viewed to work for and against the purposes of science, has contributed to the birth of new religions, including Scientology. While it promotes science, it distorts it as well. Science fiction writer A.E. van Vogt based the early development of Dianetics and Scientology on a novel based on General Semantics and a pseudoscience created by Alfred Zorbynski for the purpose of curing personal and social issues.
Members of the Scientology church believe that Hubbard “discovered the existential truths that form their doctrine through research,” thus leading to the idea that Scientology is science. Hubbard created what the church would call a “spiritual technology” to advance the goals of Scientology. According to the church, “Scientology works 100 percent of the time when it is properly applied to a person who sincerely desires to improve his life.” The underlying claims are that Scientology is “exact” and “certain.” The Scientific American says that Scientology’s creation story is no more scientifically untenable than other faith’s origin myths, thus putting it in the same realm as “astounding science fictions.”

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu