Posts tagged - L. Ron Hubbard

Blessed are the Peacemakers in a Time of Injustice and Violence

Posted on: April 24, 2019, in: , , , , , ,

Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.

The Dalai Lama by Christopher Michel CC 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

The Dalai Lama by Christopher Michel CC 2.0

On Sunday, April 21, 2019, the world reacted with shock and dismay at the news of more than 200 Christians killed and some 500 people injured by eight coordinated bomb attacks in Sri Lanka, most as victims celebrated Easter services. Islamic State claimed responsibility, and while conjecture focused on the Easter bombings as possible retaliation for the Christchurch murders of some 50 Muslim worshipers, evidence was still being gathered at press time.

The messages flowing from those horrific events were laden with anger, grief, and despair at the seeming inability to rein in mankind’s outbreaks of violence and cruelty. And while media focuses on “news” of inhumanity, death and destruction, others – known as the peacemakers – gather up the threads of mankind’s goodness and weave a tapestry of peace.

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called Children of God,” says the Bible. And humanity has been blessed with a number of peacemakers, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and others who provide inspired examples of how we may pursue justice without resorting to violence and cruelty.

One of those peacemakers, Tenzin Gyatso Tibet’s 14th Dalai Lama, was featured the same Sunday on Scientology.tv’s Documentary Showcase. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, was proclaimed leader of Tibet in 1950, as China rejected Tibet’s sovereignty and incorporated it into the People’s Republic of China. The Dalai Lama and 80,000 Tibetans were forced out of their country in 1959 by Chinese authorities and His Holiness has never returned, living as an exile in India, but traveling throughout the world bringing a message of peace and non-violence.

The documentary, “Road to Peace,” by Leon Stuparich, shows portions of many lectures and presentations illustrating the Dalai Lama’s sense of humor and joy of life, and the profound effects he creates on people of many faiths, dissolving the barriers which separate mankind, with love, “warm heartedness” and compassion. “Destruction of your enemy is destruction of yourself,” he said, carrying a message of “universal responsibility” for one’s fellow man.

Coming up on Documentary Showcase – “a platform for independent filmmakers who embrace a vision of building a better world” – a is a special presentation on April 26th of “Children of the Light,” about Nobel Prize winner Desmond Tutu who helped end South African apartheid and led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

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Scientologists Help Residents, Churches Recover from Hurricane Florence

Posted on: October 24, 2018, in: , , , ,

Wyatt in NCNow that hurricanes Florence and Michael have faded away, news cameras are switched off and reporters have departed. But as the floodwaters receded, thousands of residents stood in the mess, trying to reconcile what they remember of their homes, businesses and towns with the flood-damaged buildings, debris and mess left by the hurricane.

Now among the thousands of people pitching in to clear away the rubbish, remove damaged equipment and begin the task of rebuilding, are a corps of Scientology Volunteer Ministers. Volunteer Ministers (VM), who follow the principle “Something can be done about it,” were launched in the 1970s by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard to provide assistance wherever it was needed around the world. Since then Volunteer Ministers have answered the call in 9/11 the Haiti earthquake, the Japanese Tsunami and many other disasters.

Wyatt Brooks, an Emergency Medical Technician and new Scientologist, worked in June as a VM near Redding, California, sifting through the ashes of homes following the Carr Fire, helping residents find valuables and personal items that may have escaped flames that in some cases melted aluminum car wheels into puddles. Then he went to North Carolina.

Brooks left Sacramento – where he is a parishioner of the Church of Scientology Mission of River Park – on Sunday Sept. 23rd for North Carolina. Contacted by phone, he said that the 12 days since are somewhat of a blur, but that at latest count, he and his team had removed 147 trees and 80,000 pounds of tree branches. They also were mucking out flooded homes, removing furniture, ripping out carpeting and soaked drywall. His team – consisting of 35 Volunteer Ministers from Oregon, Florida, Tennessee, New York and elsewhere – had just finished mucking out the Mt. Rena Missionary Baptist Church in Rocky Point, N.C. His team also included a number of students from the Delphian School which  uses Scientology Study Technology, and Brooks said that a group of volunteers from the Nation of Islam were also en route to help.

Brooks said his team helped a disabled veteran who was trying to cut trees in her yard. She paid a contractor $1,500 to do the work, but the contractor cut down the trees and then left with the money, and her husband, also disabled had a heart attack trying to clean up the mess that was left. So the VM crew pitched in, and worked all day clearing away the trees. Everyone was very appreciative, said Brooks, the homeowner put them on Facebook and a restaurant in town fed them. “We have an unlimited supply of people in need,” said Brooks.

Meanwhile, the cleanup continues in North Carolina, Florida and elsewhere and Scientology Volunteer Ministers, residents and thousands of others continue the work of digging out from Hurricanes Florence and Michael. “We’re helping a lot of people,” said one volunteer.

 

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Yale Students Sign Petition to Abolish First Amendment

Posted on: December 21, 2015, in: , , , , ,

According to journalist Ami Horowitz, in less than an hour, 50 Yale students signed his fake petition to abolish the First Amendment to the Constitution. His video shows a number of students signing and voicing personal support for repealing the freedom of speech, freedom of peaceable assembly, freedom of religion, right to petition and freedom of the press. As a writer, I find it disturbing that some of the brightest most privileged young people in America could be so willing to throw out this most essential foundation of freedom.

And the right to free expression isn’t just ours, it’s everyone’s. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

But despite these principles, university students and faculty have become increasingly intolerant of divergent points of view over the last few years. While promoting civil rights, gender equality, racial tolerance, and other measures which rightly include and empower the disenfranchised, the campus reality has steadily moved to cut off communication which it finds offensive or distasteful. And political correctness has become institutionalized.

Greg Lukianoff head the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) said recently that university administrators actually believe they may be investigated by the U. S. Department of Education if they fail to censor campus speech that some may find offensive. According to Lukianoff, our society and our campuses are pushing the idea that people are fragile and need to be protected from upsetting words and ideas.

Reaction to offensive expression ranges from a dislike of profanity, to a decree of death against a cartoonist who published drawings of Mohammad.

I hear profanity when I ride public transit and I don’t like it. I detest political mud-slinging and celebrity gossip. But what can a person do when confronted with expression he or she finds offensive? There is some common-sense advice that offers a solution.

I should like to propose that universities, and those students and administrators and others who object to a free exchange of ideas and points of view, read: “Two Rules for Happy Living” by L. Ron Hubbard: “1. Be able to experience anything. 2. Cause only those things which others are able to experience easily.”

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