By Larry Judkins
Glenn County Observer
Have you seen any of those TV commercials that end with the URL, “thewaytohappiness.org”? There are several different ads, but they all end by showing that particular URL.
I have seen four of the commercials, but I have reason to think there are more – perhaps as many as 17 more. The four I have seen promote the following messages:
“Take Care of Yourself”;
“Safeguard and Improve Your Environment”;
“Respect the Religious Beliefs of Others”; and
“Honor and Help Your Parents”.a
In and of themselves, I have no serious complaints about any of these ads, but the last one, “Honor and Help Your Parents”, got me to wondering. The commercial features a teenager talking to his friends. One friend asks the teen how things went, and the teen answers that it made his mom cry.
Another friend asks the teen, “What did you do?” Viewers then learn that the teenager unexpectedly cleaned up his parents’ house while they were away. As I said above, the ad ends with the URL, thewaytohappiness.org.
I asked myself, “Self, what is this ‘Way to Happiness’ organization?” Since the wording of “Honor and Help Your Parents” is similar to the biblical commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother”, my initial thought was that the commercial is probably from an evangelical group employing what is known as “Stealth Christianity” tactics to promote their religious beliefs without being obvious about it. I was wrong, however.
Upon visiting “The Way to Happiness” website, I learned that the themes of the four ads are from what the website calls “The 21 Precepts”. “The 21 Precepts of whom? Or what?” you ask.
After checking out the 21 Precepts, I moved my cursor to “About Us” at the top of the page. One of the five options that was offered under “About Us” read, “L. Ron Hubbard”. I immediately knew who was behind the 21 Precepts and the TV commercials based on them. For those who don’t know, the late L. Ron Hubbard is most famous as the inventor of Dianetics (generally considered to be a pseudoscience by mainstream psychologists); author of the 1950 book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health; and, in December of 1953, founder of the Church of Scientology.
Taking a closer look at the 21 Precepts page, I found the following near the bottom of the page:
“The Way to Happiness Foundation is a purely secular charitable organization, coordinated by the Association for Better Living and Education (ABLE), an organization dedicated to resolving the major societal ills of drugs, crime, illiteracy and immorality. The Church of Scientology and its parishioners proudly sponsor ABLE and each of its social betterment groups.”
Okay. The Way to Happiness Foundation and its TV ads are ultimately sponsored by the Church of Scientology. So what?
Actually, I fully accept – even support – the right of the Church of Scientology and its affiliated groups to advertise their beliefs – which in no way means that I necessarily accept or support any or all of the beliefs themselves. There is a huge difference between respecting the right to express a particular belief and respecting the belief itself.
However, I am also a big supporter of “full disclosure.” Before anyone connects with the Way to Happiness Foundation, he or she should know about not just that it is affiliated with the Church of Scientology, but also the church’s core beliefs. For example, even according to my very broad and inclusive definition of Christianity, the Church of Scientology is not a Christian denomination. By my definition, to be a Christian, one must believe the following three things:
(1) The God of the Hebrew Bible (the so-called Old Testament) is at most the one and only God and at least the supreme God among a pantheon of gods; and the God of the Old and New Testaments are (somehow) one and the same deity.
(2) Jesus was/is, if not God or the Son of God, at the very least the greatest and most morally perfect human being who ever lived.
(3) The souls of some number of human beings, perhaps as many as the entire human race or as few as 144,000, are destined to achieve immortality.
Thus, according to my definition, committed Scientologists are not Christians. Besides some difficulties with belief number 1, they “flunk” belief number 2, that Jesus was at the very least the greatest human being who ever lived. In his early writings and lectures, L. Ron Hubbard maintained that Jesus was simply a teacher for humanity, one of many such teachers and not the greatest. Later, Hubbard is alleged by some of his followers to have claimed that Jesus was essentially a historical fiction, implanted into our collective minds as a false memory.
Scientology is said to be a blend of a variety of sources, including Buddhism, Hinduism (for instance, Scientologists believe in reincarnation), science fiction, and Thelema (the religion invented by occultist Aleister Crowley, 1875-1947, inspiration for heavy metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne’s 1980 song, “Mr. Crowley”).
There you go. Now, if you want to check out thewaytohappiness.org, you should be well-enough informed to know who and what it is with whom you are getting involved, even if you just plan to keep the involvement very brief.
The Glenn County Observer 