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Current mood:  thoughtful
Category: Religion and Philosophy
Feliz Natal e Bom Ano Novo (Portuguese for Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year)! Let there be peace on earth!
Do you know what Christmas is? It's not about Santa Claus and stuff, just like Easter is not about bunnies and eggs. Christ was born in the City of David. He was born to save us from our sins. Christmas is also about giving. We give our hearts to Jesus on His birthday and we can also give presents to others on that day, so don't be a Grinch! Christmas is a special and jolly Holiday, so there is nothing to hate about Christmas, so don't also be like Scrooge, the old guy who kept saying, "Bah, humbug!" He actually did say, "Christmas is a selfish Holiday!" but it's not, because it's about giving, as you know. Well God bless you and peace to you! Warm regards in cold season!
John Park
 | Currently listening :
Emmanuel Has Come
By Don Moen |
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Current mood:  curious
Category: Religion and Philosophy
When I was in high school, the teacher told us to read the book Bless Me, Ultima. That book is about witchcraft. One Swedish student in class is a Christian. She told the teacher that her religion forbids her to hear and learn about witchcraft. Then the teacher sent her to some other classroom until the reading of Bless Me, Ultima is over. As a Christian and a pastor's son, I should have done the same thing.
One day, I was watching The Simpsons episode when the nextdoor Christian neighbor of the Simpsons, Ned Flanders, was reading the book to one of his sons, "... and then Harry Potter and his wizard friends went to hell for practicing witchcraft." Then he threw the "book of magic" into the fire. Then I noticed why my parents don't like Harry Potter. They said they shouldn't have bought those "books of magic" for my younger sister. They also said to stop reading those books and that they should get rid of them. Maybe we might burn those books. Ha! Ha! Those books shouldn't be "bestseller", since they're about witchcraft. Then I noticed that some other Christians are against Harry Potter.
"A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas."
Acts 19:19 NIV
 | Currently listening :
God Will Make a Way: The Best of Don Moen
By Don Moen
Release date: 13 May, 2003 |
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> > INSIDE Judaism & Jesus
By Isaac Surh (from JDM issue January 2006)
Jewish people see Him at best as a moral teacher and at worst as a lying fraud who tricked many people into believing myths He created about Himself.
Judaism, the religious culture and tradition of Jews (or Hebrews), is a complicated thing to describe. It doesn’t fit neatly into any one category. It is not simply a religion as Western society views religion. Nor is it just a culture or an ethnicity or tradition. It is a mixture of all those things that has lasted for over 4,000 years, much longer than our Western definition of religion, ethnicity and culture. In past Inside articles, we compared other religions to the teachings of the Bible to see where and how they go against the truth of God. But from the Christian perspective, Judaism is unique because it isn’t considered a “false religion” in the sense that other world religions like Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism are false. We worship the same God and believe in the same teachings as the Jewish people. So, to go to the Bible to show the falsehood of their teachings isn’t possible since their Bible is also our Bible and our truth is built upon their truth.
This month we’ll look at the key differences between Judaism and Christianity and where Christianity continues to develop the teachings of Judaism.
Different Standards Of Identity
One major difference between Judaism and Christianity is the way we identify ourselves. A Jew is anyone who is born of a Jewish mother (some modern Jews have begun to include fathers in this definition). Belief in God isn’t required in order to be Jewish because being a Jew isn’t only being part of a religion. It’s also an ethnicity, like being Chinese or Italian. So, even if a Jewish person doesn’t go to temple on Sabbath days or observe Jewish holidays, he or she is still considered a Jew as long as his or her mother is also Jewish.
Christians, on the other hand, cannot claim to be Christian just because their parents are. That’s like saying you’re a doctor because your mother is a doctor. Christianity isn’t an ethnicity; it’s a personal choice made out of faith that can’t be transferred to anyone else, not even your children. This difference in the way we identify ourselves plays an important part in the other differences.
Inward Vs. Outward Focus
Another big difference between Judaism and Christianity is that Judaism is focused inward and Christianity is focused outward. Jews don’t see themselves as the only way to get to Heaven. To them, they are simply a “chosen people,” meaning that God chose them and gave them special laws and requirements to observe. As a chosen people, they see themselves only as a model for other nations to follow, but as long as other nations put their trust in God, they can serve Him and follow Him any way they see fit. So, Jews see Judaism as a religion only for Jews (and Jewish converts), not for anybody else.
But Christians see their faith as universal, meaning it is meant for all people, in every time and every place. As a result, Christianity is evangelical. We have to reach out to other nations because we believe that Jesus (Christianity) is the only way to God and salvation. Jews are children of Abraham biologically. Christians are children of Abraham spiritually. As such, Christians are outwardly focused on bringing people from other nations into the “new chosen people” of God.
Ideas About God
Most Christians and Jews agree that they worship the same God. We both believe that God is everywhere and can do anything. We believe that He lives in Heaven, but He is also present and active here on earth. But exactly how much He lives and works on earth is something we don’t agree on. Jews accept that in the past, God appeared to certain individuals like Abraham and Jacob in physical form resembling a human. But they believe that was a temporary form used only for an instant. They cannot accept that God could be both God and a human at the same time.
Obviously, Christians can and do accept these ideas as truth. We also believe in the Trinity, that there is one God in Three distinct Persons. Jews see God only as a single being with no separate parts.
Two things that help to understand these difficult ideas may help you as well. First, if God can do anything, He can also choose to take on any form He wants and to limit Himself for any period of time He wants. So, the idea that God came down to earth as a baby and was fully God and fully Man at the same time is not so farfetched. Besides, if we can believe through science that atoms are both particles and waves at the same time, why can’t we accept that Jesus was both God and man? Second, there are other trinities in nature. Water, ice, and water vapor are all made of the same substance, H2O, but take three different and unique forms. Imagine a foggy, half-frozen pond full of ice and slush or a storm cloud containing snow and freezing rain. It’s all made out of water, but there are three different forms of it existing at the same time. If something as common as water found in nature can exist as a trinity, why can’t God?
Human beings also exist as a trinity. Each of us is an individual being, but we each have a body, a mind (which is quite separate and different from our bodies), and a spirit or soul. If we can exist as a trinity, so can God. You can use these simple examples to explain the dual nature of Christ and idea of the Trinity to your Jewish and non-Christian friends.
Who Is Jesus?
Perhaps the greatest difference between our two faiths is the way we view Jesus. Christians see Him as the true Messiah, the Savior of all people and the Son of God. Jewish people see Him at best as a moral teacher and at worst as a lying fraud who tricked many people into believing myths He created about Himself.
Because of Jesus’ teachings about Himself, Christians see the Messiah as someone more than a political or military leader. But Jews see the Messiah simply as a human being, born from King David’s family line, who would restore Israel and bring peace and prosperity to the whole world. Jesus doesn’t fit into this picture, so Jews today reject Him as the true Messiah. Thus, they are still waiting for their Messiah to arrive.
Sin & Salvation
The last major difference we need to look at is the way Christians and Jews see salvation and how to get it. Christians believe that there is nothing we can do to earn salvation for ourselves. The only way to gain salvation is through faith, by believing in Jesus and accepting His sacrifice on the cross for us.
Jews, on the other hand, believe that faith alone cannot save you. To the Jew, it’s what you do that matters more than what you believe. In their way of thinking, what good is it to believe in God but not to live your life in a holy and righteous way pleasing to God? To Jews, salvation is more like an afterthought, something taken as granted. It is not the source of their hopes and not a goal that they strive toward.
Also, Christians believe that there is a Heaven and that there is a Hell. Our concept of Heaven and Hell are much clearer than the Jewish concept of them. While Jews do believe in the resurrection of all people, there is much debate over whether this resurrection is physical or spiritual or both. Also, there is very little information about hell in the Old Testament. So Jews don’t know exactly what it is, other than it’s not a nice place. The Hebrew word for Hell is Sheol, but this word can also be translated as grave or pit. So, some Jews even believe that there is no Hell, only death. Finally, for the Jews who do believe in some form of Hell, most of them believe it doesn’t last forever. They believe people in Hell remain there for only a year, and after they are purified, they eventually go to Heaven to be with God.
So how do Jews believe sins are forgiven? In the past, the priests offered atonement sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem, but that temple was destroyed in the year 70 AD. Modern Jews now see good works and showing love and kindness to others as the way for atoning for sin and being forgiven by God. That’s why they put so much emphasis on doing good deeds here on earth and see that as the way to Heaven. To Jews, there is no such thing as Original Sin, the spiritual disease we call the sinful nature that all people are born with because it was passed down to us by Adam and Eve. To Christians, the only way to be cured of original sin is by believing in Jesus Christ. Only by being rid of our sinful natures can anyone be allowed to enter into Heaven.
Final Thoughts
Even though the Jewish people have failed to recognize Jesus as the true Messiah, they are still a people that Christians have to love and respect because they are our spiritual parents. They are the ones who passed down God’s truth and laws to us. Without their heritage, we wouldn’t be here. Also, as Paul says in Romans 11:25-32, all Israel will one day be saved. Just as we were saved through the truth they passed down to us, they too will be saved by the spiritual truth about Jesus Christ. We must remember that they are still God’s Chosen People, and that will never change. He still has a great plan for them and an important role for them to play in the Last Days. Please pray for your Jewish friends and continue to reach out to them with the Good News of Jesus Christ. Only then will they truly fulfill the teachings of the prophets and their identity as the Chosen People. 
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> > INSIDE Buddhism
By Isaac Surh (from JDM issue December 2005)
Buddhism is an ancient religion established about 2,500 years ago and recognized as one of the five major world religions today. It is practiced in every continent and has about 350 million followers. Buddhism is unique in that it is a religion that is not based around any gods. It is based on human teachings and practices, although it doesn’t deny the existence of spiritual beings. There are three major schools of Buddhism, each with many different branches contained within.
The Buddha
The founder of Buddhism was the Buddha, a title which means “Enlightened One” or “Awakened One.” His name was Siddhartha Gautama, the son of an Indian king or wealthy ruler. His father arranged a marriage for him and he had a son, but he became dissatisfied with his life. When he turned 29, his servant took him on four hikes or tours outside the palace where he lived, during which he saw the Four Sights: an elderly cripple, a sick, diseased man, a decaying body, and a wandering monk. Then, according to the stories, Gautama realized that life was full of suffering, that poverty and disease were everywhere, and that riches and wealth were pointless. So he decided to leave his home and his family and went off on his own to become a Hindu monk.
At first, he tried to get rid of his own pain and suffering through the study of yoga, but that didn’t work. Then he tried practicing painful rituals and putting his mind and body through difficult tests, like fasting for many days, but that didn’t work either. So, he turned to meditation. According to the legends, Siddhartha Gautama sat under a large tree near the Gaya River and vowed not to get up until he had learned the truth about how to eliminate pain and suffering. It was then that he attained Enlightenment and became “The Awakened One,” the Buddha.
Enlightenment
Afterwards, the Buddha started to teach his new philosophy, which is called the True Dharma, and gained some followers and disciples for himself. His aim was to show others how to find Enlightenment, which is called Nirvana and can be expressed as a state of freedom from all bad qualities, freedom from pain and suffering, but especially freedom from the endless cycle of rebirth. So if someone reaches Enlightenment, they will not be reborn after they die. What happens to people after they die remains a mystery in Buddhism.
The reason Buddhists believe we are reborn is because of the law of Karma, which is the balance of good versus bad deeds in one’s lifetime. If your good deeds outweigh your bad ones, you are born as a higher life form or in a higher class in your next life. But if your bad deeds outweigh your good ones, you are reborn as something lower. This cycle of rebirth is endless and can go on for thousands of years, causing much suffering to a soul. Enlightenment means the end of this and all other suffering.
Since Enlightenment is the final goal of a Buddhist, and since the dharma is the path a Buddhist takes to get there, the Dharma is often seen as a raft that offers temporary shelter from the raging waters, but the ultimate destination is Enlightenment, which gives complete and eternal shelter.
Dharma
The Dharma is the Buddha’s teaching. Although there is much variation and disagreement between the different schools of Buddhism as to what the Buddha actually taught, there is a central core of teachings that are common to all the schools. This core includes the Four Noble Truths, the Middle Way, and the Eightfold Path.
The Four Noble Truths
1. Dukkha: All life in this world is full of suffering and is unsatisfactory.
2. Samudaya: The cause of suffering is attachment or desire based on unawareness.
3. Nirodha: The end of desire leads to the end of suffering, which is Nirvana.
4. Magga: The path that leads to Nirvana is the Middle Way, the way in between living too easily and living too harshly.
What, then, is the Middle Way that leads to Enlightenment? It is a way of right living based on the Four Noble Truths and the Buddha’s teachings on morality and meditation. These eight paths are supposed to help Buddhists understand the Four Truths and test if they really are true.
1. Right Understanding
2. Right Resolution
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
In addition to all this, most Buddhists believe in the Five Precepts, which are like commandments but more like recommendations.
1. I will try to refrain from harming or killing any living thing.
2. I will try to refrain from stealing or taking what is not freely given to me.
3. I will try to refrain from any kind of sexual misconduct.
4. I will try to refrain from lying, swearing, gossiping or babbling.
5. I will try to refrain from using any substances that will alter my mental state.
The Spiritual Danger Of Buddhism
Buddhism is an essentially selfish religion, even though it seems very considerate of others on the surface. Buddha taught that “every man is an island,” meaning we are only responsible for ourselves and not for others. This teaching is based on the law of karma, which says that our lives and circumstances are a direct result of the things we did in our past lives. If we’re suffering now, it’s because we deserve it because we did many bad things before. If we’re prosperous now, it’s because we’ve earned it in a past life. This belief takes away any reason for Buddhists to show mercy or compassion to anyone, or do anything to help others. That’s why you see very few Buddhist volunteer groups and charity organizations.
Also, Buddhism was supposed to get rid of all the gods and idols of Hinduism. The Buddha’s teachings were a reaction against the millions of gods of Hinduism. Yet today, Buddhism is full of idolatry. Buddhism blinds people to the true and living God who cannot be contained in a carved piece of wood or stone. Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). 
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> > INSIDE Scientology
By Isaac Surh (from JDM issue November 2005)
Last summer, thanks to the rumors of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Scientology stirred a lot of interest in the media and curiosity among people. Of all the Christian cults in the world, Scientology is perhaps the most dangerous. While other cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons claim to have the truth and will take your soul, Scientology will go even further and take all your money as well.
L. Ron Hubbard
Scientologists say that their founder was a perfect human being who accomplished many amazing things during his lifetime. Of course this is far from true. The founder of the Church of Scientology (COS for short) was in fact, a constant liar who never did anything great and who made plenty of mistakes.
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was the founder of what became the COS. He was born on March 10th, 1911 in Nebraska, the son of a US Navy officer and a high school teacher. Although he claimed to have degrees in nuclear physics, applied sciences and civil engineering, he was a D student at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and ended up flunking out. He never earned a single degree.
Hubbard went on to join the navy like his father. In the early 1940’s, he was given an assignment in Australia but was sent back to the States when found “unsatisfactory for any assignment.” He later claimed that while he was in Australia, he was wounded in combat, but no military record shows he ever went there. He claimed he was given a ship to command in Boston called the USS YP-422, a harbor protection vessel. Hubbard later said that this vessel was a warship with a crew of a hundred men and that he took it to fight in major sea battles. But the truth is the YP-422 was a converted fishing boat with a crew of thirty and never went into combat, according to a former crewman (“Scientology Unmasked,” Boston Herald, March 1st, 1998). On top of that, Hubbard was again reported to be “not temperamentally fitted for independent command” by a superior officer and his ship was taken away from him.
Hubbard retired from the navy in 1950. He later claimed to have received 21 medals and awards including two Purple Hearts. The COS shows Hubbard to have gained many more awards than the military’s version, including medals that don’t exist, degrees Hubbard didn’t earn, and vessels he didn’t command.
He eventually became a successful science fiction writer who went on to publish his most popular book called Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health in 1950. With the money he made from this bestseller, he created the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation to teach the mental therapies he discovered. The foundation went bankrupt, but he built Hubbard College in its place. The college was renamed as the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International in 1952. And two years later, it grew to become the Church of Scientology.
While sailing around the Mediterranean Sea, Hubbard formed a military-like group of mostly young people called the Sea Organization that functions as a police force for the COS. They wear uniforms and enforce church law within the organization.
In 1979, Hubbard’s wife Mary Sue was found guilty of planning to overthrow the United States government. Because of all the attention from the media, Hubbard decided to give up his leadership position in the church and go into hiding. But even in retirement, Hubbard made an enormous amount of money—up to $40 million a year!
In 1983, his son, L. Ron Hubbard, Jr., said “99% of what my father ever wrote or said about himself is totally untrue.” He went on to say that his father once tried to perform an abortion on his mother with a coat-hanger and that he was “only interested in money, sex, booze, and drugs.” If Hubbard’s own son, someone who knew Hubbard’s private life well, had such a bad opinion of him, why would anyone else see him as a messiah or the savior of the world?
It wasn’t only the son who spoke poorly of this man. Hubbard abandoned his wife and children after leaving the Navy and married another woman named Sara Northrup whom he had met earlier in 1946 while messing around with witchcraft and black magic. The problem was, he was still married to his first wife, so technically, Hubbard had two wives. Both wives eventually claimed that he physically abused them, and just as Hubbard abandoned his first children, he also abandoned Alexis, the daughter he had with Sara, claiming he wasn’t her real father. He also abandoned his third wife Mary Sue after she went to jail.
After living a deceitful and abusive life, Hubbard died on January 24th, 1986 from a stroke. Not surprisingly, the COS told the media that their glorious founder died of natural causes like any other man. They claimed that he left his body on purpose to do “higher level spiritual research.” Is this the kind of man any normal person would follow? Is this the kind of church anyone would want to give their life and money to?
Dianetics
In his book Dianetics, Hubbard said that the creation of Dianetics (the form of mental therapy he created) was as important as the discovery of fire and more important than the invention of the wheel! But what is Dianetics exactly?
There is some confusion between Dianetics and Scientology. There are often thought of as two names for the same thing. But Dianetics is not a religion; it’s a form of psychotherapy that became the seed that Scientology sprouted from. The word Dianetics comes from the Greek word dia, which means “through” and nous, which means “soul.” Together, they mean something along the lines of “what the soul does to the body.”
The goal of Dianetics is to get rid of harmful emotions and mental illness by removing engrams through a process known as auditing. An engram is “a moment of unconsciousness containing physical pain or painful emotion and all perceptions,” in other words, a hidden bad memory that gives you emotional or mental problems. Auditing is when you sit down with a Dianetics therapist one on one, and he or she asks you a series of questions and leads you through some mental exercises to help you deal with the engrams, removing them from your mind. The auditor will make a patient recall painful memories over and over again until the memories feel as real as they did when they first formed, making the patient worse off than they were before. The patient will then feel the need for more therapy, and will probably give more money to the church for more sessions. Eventually, the patient will “get better.” Auditors often use a machine called an “E-meter,” which is similar to a lie-detector.
Once someone is “freed” of all his or her engrams, that person is called “Clear” and is considered free of all emotional and mental illnesses. Hubbard said that through Dianetics, a Clear person can even become more creative and intelligent. But what do mental health care professions have to say about this?
In the August 1951 issue of Consumer Reports Magazine, it said that Dianetics didn’t show the credibility that every other major medical or scientific discovery had. Recent critics have said that Dianetics fails to be a science since science is based on theory and experimentation, while Dianetics is based on the untested assumptions of one man. Dianetics does not follow any scientific method.
Beginning in 1952, two years after the first publishing of the book, Hubbard began remembering his past-life experiences and started to write about them in other books. This period is when he started to expand Dianetics from a form of mental therapy to something that also included the spirit, and so Dianetics became a religious philosophy which he called Scientology. That is how the COS was born.
The Beliefs And Practices Of Scientology
While the goal of Dianetics is only to make someone Clear and free them mental problems, the goal of Scientology is to rehabilitate not only the mind, but also the spirit, allowing people to get to their full potential and even gain supernatural powers. High-level Scientologists believe they can control anything in the universe, even time, with their minds.
Hubbard created a whole new set of words for his new religion. He called the human spirit the “Thetan,” the true person which is separate from the mind and the body. The teachings and techniques taught by the church are called “technology.” Through this technology, they believe they can restore their original abilities to control all matter, energy, space, and time, which they call MEST. But in order to do so, a Scientologist must go through what is known in the church as the “Bridge,” which is a series of levels that must be paid for and mastered one by one through auditing.
Since Scientologists believe most of our problems come from our past-lives from billions of years before, they also believe that humans suffer from problems they experienced even before they evolved into humans. Only, instead of believing that we evolved from monkeys as most atheists do, they believe we came from clams. Why? Because L. Ron Hubbard said so, of course! An example of one of these past-life problems was written by Hubbard in his book A History of Man in 1952: “[the person] is about to be hit by a wave, has his eyes full of sand or is frightened about opening his shell because he may be hit.” This is supposed to explain why some people have a hard time crying or letting out their emotions, because they used to be clams hit by waves in their past lives.
Xenu And Space Opera
Scientologists have their own scriptures too. The book Dianetics is considered “Book One.” But most of their beliefs are based on stories so ridiculous that no normal person would believe them.
Xenu was the ruler of the Galactic Confederacy 75 million years ago, which included 26 stars and 76 planets including Earth, which was called Teegeeack at the time. All the planets were overpopulated and looked exactly like Earth from the 1950s and 60s. The people blamed Xenu for all the problems in the galaxy and were about to overthrow him as leader. But he defeated the people’s army, called the Loyal Officers, with the help of renegades. Then, with the help of psychiatrists, he fooled billions of people into reporting to Teegeeack (Earth) for mandatory income tax inspections, but had them all drugged and tied up instead and placed around large, active volcanoes. He then blew them all up with hydrogen bombs, according to Hubbard.
The disembodied souls, called thetans, flew into the air and were captured by Xenu’s forces using an “electronic ribbon” and sucked into “vacuum zones” where they were forced to watch a huge, 3D movie for 36 days. During that time, their minds were implanted with many false ideas, including God, the Devil, Christianity, the Crucifixion of Christ, and every other world religion. After the 36 days, the thetans were released but they lost their sense of individuality and fused together into clumps of thousands. They attached themselves to people’s bodies on Earth, causing them emotional and mental problems and making them believe the things they were shown in the 3D movie. Hubbard explains that the Passion of the Christ was a result of Xenu’s influence on the body thetans (Scientologists believe Jesus was a homosexual child molester, nothing more).
Xenu is said to have been captured by the Loyal Officers in the end and thrown into an eternal prison made of a force field and an everlasting battery. But the body thetans are believed to be still clinging to people today and causing most of humanities problems. Only through the secret processes and techniques taught by the COS can one become free of these body thetans. Most Scientologists do not believe in this story. But still, the story of Xenu is a central part of Scientology belief.
Space opera is a term Hubbard used to describe the thousands of alien planets and cultures, the wars and interactions that took place in the galaxy over the past few billions of years. The absurd and often hilarious material that he came up with fills up many books, and all of it is said to be the holy scripture of the COS.
The Fair Game Policy
You might find it tempting to go into a Scientology center and talk with the people there, just to see how crazy they are or to argue with them. But that’s a bad idea. Never talk to a group of Scientologists alone, and never give them any information about yourself. They have a policy created by L. Ron Hubbard himself called “Fair Game.” It divides non-Scientologists into two categories: Doubters, who only reject Scientology, and Enemies, who actively fight against it. Doubters are simply ignored or avoided; Scientologists are told not to have anything to do with them. But Enemies are considered what they call “Suppressive Persons” (SPs) and therefore they are “fair game” for any kind of bad treatment, including having their property or possessions stolen, being injured, lied to, tricked, harassed, or even killed!
This policy was created in a memo sent out by Hubbard on October 18th, 1967. It caused such a controversy that Hubbard had to send out another memo three days later. In it, he said that they would no longer use the phrase “Fair Game” but that everything else still stands, including the treatment of SPs. The COS describes itself as a friendly place where people just want to help you. Don’t believe this lie. If you don’t join them or agree with everything they have to say, they will do everything they can to hurt you.
A Cult Of Money
Hubbard tried hard to have Scientology recognized as a religion only so that they wouldn’t have to pay taxes because churches count as non-profit organizations and so they wouldn’t have to pay taxes. He basically wanted to make more money from Scientology. One of Hubbard’s most famous quotations is from an article in the May 1980 issue of Reader’s Digest. “Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous,” he said. “If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.” And that’s exactly what L. Ron Hubbard did. 
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