At the heart of christianity lies the need to reach for members. Belief is all it takes to attain salvation. Well, you also have to confess with your mouth. How utterly human. All it takes to be saved is believe in something that "chooses" to give you no evidence of his existence, and also be sure to tell other people about it. How else would a philosophy expand? You have to tell others.

Faith is in direct opposition to doubt and fear. To doubt is to lack faith. The guilt that comes with the christian philosophy is ingrained deeply. When somebody questions the existence of god or the churches authority the weight of the lack of faith slaps you in the proverbial face. How strikingly obvious. If it were a snake......

Thinking about this I drew a parallel to a movie favorite.

Four companions and a dog go on a journey to each find a certain thing. One wanted courage, one wanted a heart, one wanted a brain and the other one just wanted to be home. They went in search of these things by traveling down a road. The road lead them to the "god" of Oz. They all assumed they would find their answers in him. When they approached his throne room they were in awe, and very scared. Then it took a little dog to pull the curtain aside. They saw the god for who he was. An old man with a funny mustache.

What do you know, the tin man always had a heart and only needed a plastic representative to remind himself. The scarecrow always a brain. The lion had the courage inside of him as well. The only problem was that they didn't believe. The wizard wielded no power, he was nothing more than a man, or a thought process. Dorothy found the answer in herself as well. She had the power to go home anytime she wanted.

For thousands of years people needed answers. They didn't know how things worked. They didn't know how their wives became pregnant. They didn't know why their sons and daughters looked like themselves. They didn't know why the tides worked. They didn't know how the animals and plants evolved. God was a legitimate explanation to a world full of mysteries. The lollipop guild didn't know that they had the power. They followed the wizard because they didn't know better.

Among these advanced teachings, one episode revealed to those who reach OT level III is the story of Xenu (sometimes Xemu), introduced as an alien ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy." According to this story, 75 million years ago Xenu brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together, stuck to the bodies of the living and continue to do this today. Hubbard called these clustered spirits "Body Thetans," and advanced-level Scientologists place considerable emphasis on isolating these alien souls and neutralizing their ill effects.

Sounds weird. Sci-fi even. 2,000 years ago a god named Xenu pushed some dirt together and made it a living man. The man needed a companion so Xenu put the man back to sleep and pulled a rib out of him, put that rib into another pile of dust and it because a woman. Sometime later Xenu sent his son, who was actually himself, to a world to save it. He impregnated a woman w/o sexual relations and she bore the son of the god, who was actually himself. The man committed suicide without killing his father, who was actually him, and was resurrected in three days.