From: nistuk@unixg.ubc.ca (Richard Nistuk)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Validity of Scn revisited
Date: 20 Nov 1992 06:25:33 GMT
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: unixg.ubc.ca
Summary: Wouldn't you rather have your tongue pulled?
Keywords: tongue pulled

In article <1992Nov19.040649.16011@lds-az.loral.com> jerry@lds-az.loral.com 
(J Barbera) writes:
>
[deleted: I said that I believed that 10000 people have be audited, 
and that I would believe that 1000000 peopl have been audited.  BUT...]
>>	Why should I beleive that these x number of people are any better
>>for the auditing?  Why should I beleive that these people regularly
>>perform "miracles", such as the ones that Holifield claims.
Jonathon says:
>There are *a lot* of personal success stories published and made available to
>the public.  These are attests to the workability and positive results of
>Scientology courses and services.  Your local Scn church will have some these
>posted on a bulletin board.  Others have been published in various materials
>such as the new edition of What is Scientology?

Jonathon, Jonny, Jon, Jo, J... :-)  What must I do to get through!  

"*a lot* of personal success stories" don't cut it.  Publications
from the CoS don't cut it.  In one of my previous posts I show 
that it was perfectly possible for the CoS to have HUNDREDS OF
THOUSANDS of personal success stories, but the CoS only CLAIMS
tens of thousands,  that's ONE order of magnitude out!  Only a
TEN PERCENT success rate!  I certainly wouldn't go to a doctor
that has a ten percent success rate!  Here is my logic:

	the church claims tens of thousands of success stories.
say 50000 cases
	the CoS has 450 orgs worldwide.
	Jonathon, you bring up a figure of ten years in a previous
post
	cases/year/org = 50,000 cases / 10 years / 450 orgs
        cases/year/org = 11 cases / year / org 
	
That's only 1 case per month, Jonathon!  With a whole month off!
If this is the amount of successful cases then Scn better shut 
down a few Orgs!

	You *must* get my point now!  The CoS must produce _ALL_ of
the cases, not just the successes.  I want to see all of the screwed
up cases, all of the complaints, all of the unhappy customers.  In short 
the whole thing!  Not _just_ the successes that have been filtered out!

	BTW, your use of the word "attests" is incorrect. 

>>>>	Has the church of scientology published _any_ unsuccessful stories?

	J (can I call you that?), buddy!  Here you should have "just
said NO"!  Instead you go nuts and say:

>>>If someone was dissatisfied, the source of the dissatisfaction is found and
>>>handled.  It doesn't happen too often, but when it does there are several
>>>things that they check (the Case Supervisor can double-check the PC folder
>>>to see if anything was missed, etc.)...



[deleted:  my stuff: why should I believe the CoS bulletin board?  
 A PC has a lot to lose.  peer pressure, etc]


Jonathon says:
>>>Ha ha ha!  No one is ever disciplined because something like exteriorization
>>>or the existence of "spirits" (souls?  huh?) isn't real to them.



>>>It's okay for something not to be real to someone.  I know a Scientologist
>>>in particular who mentioned this to me ... he's been on staff for about
>>>twelve years and there are some whole track (past life memories) which
>>>aren't real to him.  That's okay.  No one is disciplined or pressured to
>>>believe something like this.

	Well, others have travelled this ground better than I, and have
given evidence to cause me to doubt the truth of this.

>>>"What's true for you is true."

	IMHO, this is not true!  If this were true I could get 100% on 
_ALL_ of my physics exams!  

>>from above :
>>">If someone was dissatisfied, the source of the dissatisfaction is found and
>> >handled.  It doesn't happen too often, but when it does there are several
>> >things that they check (the Case Supervisor can double-check the PC folder
>> >to see if anything was missed, etc.)..."
>>
>>	"handled"?  Sounds pretty ominous to me.
>>
>>	It sounds a lot like the blame would be put on the PC for any
>>dissatisfaction.

>No.  Nothing ominous and the PC is being blamed.  
                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	
     Is it _ALWAYS_ the PC's fault?  Of course it must be, because
Scn is NEVER wrong!  :)


>                                                  As I stated a couple
>paragraphs back, the Case Supervisor double-checks the PC folder to see
>if the auditor missed anything or if something was improperly handled.
>Once the problem is found, it is handled by a little more auditing.

>The end result: the PC is satisfied with the service.

read: "The end result: the PC is _made_ satisfied"

>>>I offer case histories and you dismiss them without a glance.  You ask
>>>for this data ("proof") and then refuse to confront it.  How am I suppose
>>>to take you seriously?
>>
>>	_Selected_ case studies are not proof!
>>
>What do you need as proof then?  Did you want to browse through someone's
>confidential PC folders?  

	_I_ am the wrong person to do this.  _I_ have as much training
in this field as, Oh I don't know, L RON HUBBARD, that is to say little
to none!  I would want a TEAM of professionals to browse through _ALL_
the "confidential PC folders".  Needless to say, they would have to
be independant from the Church.

	This is quite a common practice, the place where my wife works
is being reviewed at this moment by an provincial review team.  It
seems to me that the CoS would not be to happy if they were subject
to such reviews.

>                           Or if selection is the only problem, why not
>find some people who have received a lot of auditing and ask them what
>they thought of it all.  

	Again(sigh), anecdotal evidence doesn't cut it.  These 
people may be afraid to say bad things about the CoS!
 
>                         Or do some research thing: train as an auditor and
>audit people.

	This is certainly not research!  To carry the car dealer analogy
a bit further:  Do I need to become a Ford dealer to learn how good a car
is?


O.K. here would be _some_ of what research _may_ entail:

	a detailed disection of the CoS.  This would include
looking at every aspect of the church individualy to asses the
viability.  Here an INDEPENDANT, TRAINED research TEAM would look
at:
	the CoSs' finances and business practices
	each training course
	each piece of Scn tech: E-meters, etc...
	each Scn "medical type" treatment ie: the purification rundown
 	(please add more...)

as well another team could do a statistical study of, say, three
groups of people:

	people who are taking Scn courses
	people who are taking other self help courses
	people who would rather have their tongues pulled than
take a self help course.  (a control group, if you will). 



>Jonathon
>Barbera



ps.  My apologies to Mary K. Kuhner, in a previous post I had
identified her has Mary H(?).  

	SORRY MARY.

-- 
Richard Nistuk               4th Yr Physics at U.B.C.
nistuk@unixg.ubc.ca