I'm happy to take off my skull necklace and wash away the woad warpaint if that helps with the commDon't let the tribalism in Anti-Scientology influence you.
Actually that is not something from the files, rather its something I observed in your posts on the old boards and on your blog. There is certainly a lot of controversy around you. Part of this is likely because some of your opinions tend to be aligned with the opinions that Marty suddenly started to exhibit after Monique dropped the court case. But some of that I think comes from your own personal style.If my tendency of 'being entangled in interpersonal squabbles with people who crossed" me are something you saw in my files - please let me know what you saw.
There isn't much more to say. I told you about the financial 80s one that I looked at as a marginal side-task, as your name came up while I was investigating a very different person some 12 years ago. That was, from my perspective at the time a dead end: Your case was decommited and had nothing that would help me with what I was doing.So for now - how about spilling EVERYTHING you know about me, publicly, and right here on ESMB2?
Well in my case those two sentences are correct, but probably not in the way you intended. I am 2nd gen, born into the cult. So by definition I couldn't have had a "pre-cult self" regardless if it exists or not.There is no "Pre-Cult Self". You were always you.
Is he a friend or your mentor? Just askin'.I know Allen is banned
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So this is my honest last reply. End of comm I guess.
I knew him from way back when he was at the Santa Monica mission. Certainly not a mentor, we never worked in the same parts of Scn, moreover he was already gone by the time I started doing serious things with the SO.Is he a friend or your mentor? Just askin'.
...and when questioned about his practice of skewering scientology critics, HE WHIPS IT OUT. Anti-scientology.Thanks, ITYIWT.
I only very rarely take down anything. I try to write about what I feel is important to write about.
Don't you?
Somebody asked me why I don't just stick to criticizing Scientology, and never criticize Anti-Scientology or AntiCultism.
Here's the best way for me to describe it.
To just stick to criticizing or examining Scientology, and never anti-Scientology, is like just criticizing Trump. Or Just criticizing Hillary.
You leave out criticizing or examining the Republican party, or the Democratic party.
You leave out criticizing or examining the corporate welfare/political donations system of both candidates and their parties. You leave out criticizing and examining the American Perpetual War machine and the iniquities of capitalism.
If you leave out examining all that and just focus on Trump, or just focus on Hillary, you'll never get to see the wider picture, and the wider causes.
You'll just spin around in a little squirrel cage, and you'll go crazy.
So yeah, where Exes do something worth criticizing, I criticize them. I praise them as well, but few see that.
You have to look at everything.
Or at least I have to.
Then comes out the word "Tribalism". As long as he can couch the criticism of what he is doing in this manner, and it appears that this is what he wants, he is golden.Reason is achieved on a case by case basis.
The truth about anything is BOTH the good and the bad. Not just the good. And not just the bad.
I've been out for 20 years. I can tell you that, at first, railing against all the bad in Scientology felt very good - especially after never being allowed to acknowledge any of the bad as a Scientologist.
But after a while of being out, as I've written in my bio, I began to see the same tribalism in Anti-Scientology that I saw in Scientology. And I also saw how Anti-Scientology uses some of the same tactics used in the Church against people who now and then mention the good in Scientology. Both being forced to say only the good, and being forced to say only the bad, begins to corrode your soul.
In both, you are not dealing with the truth.
There are no "sides" to the truth. Thus, the truth is NEVER tribal.
It was very bad for me to not be allowed to investigate, examine and write about whatever I wanted. I found that my loyalties to both Scientology as a scientologist, and my loyalties to Antis were making me blind and hysterical. And I realized that this is a very unsustainable way for me to live.
Just like in the story above, as a Scientologist, I tried to understand the Cult Awareness Network members in the bar. This led me to be called "worthless" etc by OSA personnel Carol Brookes and Randy Kretchmar.
Well guess what? I didn't give a shit then, and I don't give a shit now.
I try to be more loyal to the truth, than to any person or group.
I've learned that this is the most sustainable way for me to live my life - especially as an Ex-Scientologist.
Yeah I saw "tribal" and "tribalism" being thrown a lot recently, even C.Shelton used it and most of the time he's being a very rational and level-headed guy (well, unless he starts talking about far-left politics...)He has written over and over on his favorite term tribal. He is describing several cognitive biases and logical fallacies all at once with the word and when you describe something as much as he does with that one term you should really reference the research and evidence regarding it in my opinion.
Yeah he was behaving oddly... to say the least. I'm curious why he so strongly jumped at me when I mentioned I worked with continental ethics. Its as if some switch flipped in his mind and he started repeatedly asking me about that old stuff.So, Alanzo latches onto this one idea from psychology and hammered people into not using the term cult because it is a category and thinking of it as a category would make them subject to inaccuracies in thinking about Scientology. I didn't agree but accepted his framing. Okay.
Then he talks out the other side of his mouth and calls the people at the Underground Bunker "Tony Ortega's cult" right after explaining how you can never call Scientology a cult !
When I specifically laid out the whole issue to him on Facebook he replied that he laughs at the reaction he gets when he calls those people a cult and he does it for fun ! He wants to be a Scientology apologist and use a facade of being a crusader for critical thinking and intellectual purity to cover bashing people for calling the Scientology cult a cult but his facade is set aside when he can aggravate people by calling Scientology critics a cult !
When he did that I knew he lost any slim chance that I was gonna respect or trust him right there.
That was years ago. When I saw that he was here I thought about bringing it all up again but knew he would just blow me off, so I decided to focus on putting out what I wanted to and not wasting my time getting aggravated by him.
I am glad he is banned frankly, because I think he likes aggravating people and trolling to troll. He in my opinion doesn't talk to people in good faith.