E. L. Doctorow

It’s January 28th, 1986, a cold day at Cape Canaveral as we are ready to launch the 25th space shuttle mission. Space Shuttle Challenger sits there on the launch pad, like a huge giant ready to take on its journey to space. The crowd goes silent and the countdown begins: 3, 2, 1 . . . lift off! Challenger begins its ascent to the most unforgiving place: outer space. Carrying aboard the first teacher ever to go into space, the crew soars higher than the heavens. All of a sudden, tragedy unveils…

SCIENTOLOGY “You take on a matrix of thought that is not your own”, actor Jason Beghe and former scientology believer (video BBC Panorama the secrets of scientology documented by). L. Ron Hubbard was an author of pulp/science fiction and creator of Scientology in 1954. Many of us have heard about Scientology, something that sounds to most like a religious cult, which seemed to take on a new level of focus when the famous actor, Tom Cruise, touted its benefits. Through the media, Cruise told…

Do you know what Scientology is? Most people have recognized instances of the word but have no knowledge of its meaning. Its founder, Mr. L. Ron Hubbard, defines it as “the study of knowing how to know” (Going Clear: …). Seventy percent of Americans do not believe Scientology is a religion, and eighteen percent either don’t know or don’t care, according to a poll taken by 60 Minutes (Groh). In 2015, Oscar-winning director and narrator Alex Gibney made Going Clear, a documentary based on…

There’s No Place like Oz Caroline lived in the midst of the great North Carolina piedmont with Jamie, who was her mother, and Alex, who was her older brother. Their house was made of brick, and sat upon a tall, grassy hill overlooking the road below that no one ever drove on. When Caroline stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray small town on every side. Neither a Starbucks nor a Forever 21 broke the broad sweep of mountainous country that…

When we talk about a social product we must define the word as best as we can. Social then means a learned product in which is related to a society or its organisation. A social product then is part of the construct of our brain and the indoctrination that comes with it. For us to succumb to a constructed “western” social group, we must be taught from a young age on the social relationships and norms of our society. The best way to teach these relationships are a debate in itself, however many…

On January 28, 1986 a disaster that was never thought imaginable happened, during the launch of the space shuttle challenger there was a “malfunction”, one that would lead to the death of 7 brave crew member and leave the nation in fear. Ronald Reagan emotional speech addressing the space shuttle challenger tragedy calms the people of the nation and helps them understand that the best course of action is to move forwards and continue the space program in honor of the fallen heros. Reagan uses…

Turkey experienced a coup attempt in July 15th, 2016 and that is not the first time that the military interfere the government in modern Turkish history. Three coup took place in 1960, 1971, 1980 and the prime minister was forced to step down in 1997 by the military (Aljazeera). However, the last coup attempt failed and it seemed uncoordinated compared to other coups. As a result of the coup attempt, more than 290 people dead and 1,400 people injured and, also more than 6,000 people were…

Comparison of Scientologists and Manichaeans A constant through much of the known history of human civilization has been the attempt to understand and explain the unknown. This ranges from what lies underground to the vastness of the universe that lies behind the sky and even explores how the world came to be as well as what happens after a person dies. A common explanation for these questions have been rooted in different religions throughout time and different regions of the world.…

The “whys of conformity” demonstrate why the Church of Scientology has been so successful in gaining new members and keeping indoctrinated members. Specifically, they help explain why people are motivated to conform to the church’s ideals. The group locomotive hypothesis, consistency theory, and the hedonistic hypothesis provide reasoning to understand how the church gains and keeps its members. I will examine how each of these theories/hypotheses play a role in “Going Clear”. The group…

the United States, therefore if Scientology is not found as a religion it should then lose its tax exemption once again. This grey line could be eliminated if religion was taxed in the separation of church and state. Scientology was created by L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer, in the 1950s. The Church of Scientology has a substantial amount of science base…