Scientologist to Reddit: I’ll Respect Your Beliefs if You Respect Mine

I’ve found Reddit to be a rough place for commentary, if you’re not either (a) an Atheist or (b) on some manner of antagonistic agenda against some religion or another.  Today, front-page on Reddit was a comic insinuating that it’s okay to bash Christians because Christians keep telling people they’re immoral sinners.   But what else is new – this sort of thing is basically always front page on Reddit, with around 1500 upvotes and hundreds of comments.

Today was another such “interesting” day on Reddit, one that I find tiresome, unfortunately.  Mostly because I keep having to answer the same questions over and over again from the same skeptical types of people who have the same bizarre misconceptions about my religion from similar off-the-wall sources.

I’m putting this on my blog now, so that hopefully I can just either refer to it in the future, or at least use it for copypasta.  Parts are vetted for the reading enjoyment of the user.

The below is from a Reddit Post I made simply to post an article on the ScientologyParent site detailing how Scientology is used to help pregnant mothers.

Commenter: What, do you hook the fetus up to an e reader so you can clear it before it is born?

Me: It’s usual practice to click on an article and read it, as that will many times save one from making ignorant and bigoted comments. Just as a tip. But then again, your recent comment history shows bigoted comments against Christians and Muslims as well as Scientologists, so I can’t hope for too much.

Commenter: I tried to read your article, it was meaningless drivel

Me: How to have a stress-free birth is meaningless drivel? Ever talked to a stressed-out mom?

Commenter: Do you have any clinical trials or evidence that “auditing” in any way helps a pregnant mother?

Me: Read the comments. You can believe them, or not. Doesn’t much matter to me.

Commenter: Comments by fellow scientologists is not valid evidence.

Me: Wow – that makes positively no sense at all. Someone uses Scientology, sees that it works for them, likes it and writes about it, and thereby is now invalid as evidence that it was helpful?

Commenter: Correct, look up the difference between anecdotal evidence and real evidence. Are there any clinical, science based trials that suggest that any e-reader or clearing has any benefit to pregnant mothers? And then look up the placebo effect while you are at it.

Me:

Well aware of the placebo effect. When Dianetics was originally in development, there was a massive set of test cases used, many of which were pregnant mothers. Do I have access to those results from where I am? No. But what is valid for me is (a) if I understand the theory of what’s being done, does it make sense that it would make someone better and relieve stress, and (b) what do people say who have done such a procedure.

Answer is (a) the theory does make sense to me (may not to you — such views are your prerogative), and (b) I’ve known scores of people to get such counseling when pregnant, and 100% say it was immensely helpful, one of which being my own WIFE.

So, again, if you want to downvote it, or voice your skepticism, fine. I’m just not down with the whole Reddit thing of “see how hard you can slam the other guy’s religious beliefs”. If you’re athiest or buddhist or spaghettimonsterist or whatever, I’ll respect that even if I don’t agree with it, I’d just ask for the same.