That stuff can still have an affect on your body regardless of what you’re wearing. High level Chess, for example, is as hard on a person’s blood pressure as playing a football game. Ask the grandmaster who got up from the table and almost immediately had a heart attack during a high stakes game.

I’m with him.

Yeah I’m not sure it’s about him getting paid so much as its about the fact that he got paid as much for one speech (to wall street) as 6 working poor families might make in a year. It’s just a bad look at a time when the democratic party doesn’t need any more bad looks. And you know, he made something like $20…

I’m working from graduate history courses. I got my M.A. studying Anglo-Saxon saints lives and monastic libraries. I understand, for instance, that indulgences were initially created for people like fishermen who could reasonably expect to die without last rights, my only point regarding them was that there was a…

“But the issue is the religions as they exist now. Scientology does all the stuff people are objecting to now.” - You. I’m responding to a common criticism I’ve received, which is that, because Scientology was founded in the 20th century it should have all this hindsight that the other religions have. Well, even the…

I’m just trying to point out that even after centuries, hell millennia, of being grafted deeply onto the many and varied cultures of the world the major religions still produce their share of weirdos and dangerous people.

Still the best bass player face in the business.

I also know that indulgences were originally intended for people like fishermen who might die at sea without their last rights. My overarching point was that there were financial costs involved in those religions too, not that they were as coercive as Scientology is.

At least the concept as conservatives have warped it in their minds. As for what they really are, a professors office where someone can speak freely about the issues they face as an LGBTQ person for example, what’s wrong with that?

Not anymore they aren’t but they were at one point.

And today some Catholics abuse children while some muslims blow themselves up in markets while some Jews run a racist apartheid state in the Middle East. The minute we give up the idea that any of these is perfect or even good we can begin to confront and change them more effectively, Scientology massively included.

Okay. What percentage of Harvard professors are adjunct and what is the average annual salary of an adjunct professor?

No, that it doesn’t.

Jesus Christ you have no idea what you’re talking about.

I never argued it was the same. You said you can be a Muslim for free. I responded that you actually can’t. Simple as that. I make no equivalency between zakat and the financial vampirism that scientology inflicts on its members. I’m not a Scientologist and you’re a fool for thinking so, but if it makes you feel…

I have, and I read the book as well. Great stuff.

I am actually not. I find it abhorrent and a cult along the lines of Jonestown, the Branch Davidians, etc. I just think that if you go far enough back in history you see pretty obvious similarities to what we consider major religions today. If you want to get really specific, I’m an areligious Jew, but go ahead…

I’m not making that comparison, you are. You said you can be a Muslim for free. And you can’t.

Well, I think you’d be surprised there. I don’t think that people in the SeaOrg would put themselves through most of that shit if they didn’t sincerely believe it.

You did though. I mean keep in mind that if you put most of these books in front of the people, whether they bought them or not, they couldn’t have read them. All they had was the word of whoever was preaching that this is what the book says, and they paid tithes, they paid for indulgences (not just for rich people,…