After researching Scientology for awhile I have found that for the most part it is not as radical as nearly anyone believes, remember, EVERY religion has its radicals who are just crazy...
Here's the problem though - in order to advance in the religion you pretty much have to become more radical. Sure, new recruits won't be radicals. (they'll still be having their time and money taken away from them through the scam though) Seeing as the whole point is to advance from a state of pre-clear to the highest levels possible, most members who stay will eventually become radicals. They don't make you a radical overnight, but the end goal is to make you a loyal Scientology drone who will do anything whatsoever for the benefit of Scientology.
And now a few quotes from the founder of Scientology:
Never discuss Scientology with the critic. Just discuss his or her crimes, known and unknown. - L. Ron Hubbard
"Scientology is the only specific (cure) for radiation (atomic bomb) burns." - L. Ron Hubbard, ALL ABOUT RADIATION, p. 109
"Radiation is apparently enormously water-soluble as well as water removable. According to researchers, one merely has to take a hose to a building surface or a road to wash the radiation off of it. This factor is well known to defense trained personnel." - L. Ron Hubbard, Clear Body, Clear Mind, page 47
"In any event,
any person from 2.0 down on the Tone Scale should not have, in any thinking society, any civil rights of any kind, because by abusing those rights he brings into being arduous and strenuous laws which are oppressive to those who need no such restraints." - L. Ron Hubbard, SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL, 1989 Ed., p. 145 [The "Tone Scale" is Scientology's measure of mental and spiritual health.] (note, anyone who criticizes Scientology is considered below a 2.0, also homosexuals are below a 2.0 IIRC)
"The sudden and abrupt deletion of all individuals occupying the lower bands of the Tone Scale from the social order would result in an almost instant rise in the cultural tone and would interrupt the dwindling spiral into which any society may have entered." - L. Ron Hubbard, SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL, p. 170
"A Venezuelan dictator once decided to stop leprosy. He saw that most lepers in his country were also beggars. By the simple expedient of collecting and destroying all the beggars in Venezuela an end was put to leprosy in that country." - L. Ron Hubbard, SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL, p. 171
"Unfortunately, it is all too often true that suppressors to a creative action must be removed before construction and creation takes place. Any person very high on the Tone Scale may level destruction toward a suppressor." - L. Ron Hubbard, SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL, p. 159
"Somebody some day will say 'this is illegal.' By then be sure the orgs [Scientology organizations] say what is legal or not." - L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 4 January 1966, "LRH Relationship to Orgs"
"If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace. Peace is bought with an exchange of advantage, so make the advantage and then settle. Don't ever defend. Always attack. Don't ever do nothing. Unexpected attacks in the rear of the enemy's front ranks work best." - L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, "Department of Governmental Affairs", 15 Aug 1960
"The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly." - L. Ron Hubbard, A MANUAL ON THE DISSEMINATION OF MATERIAL, 1955
"In short a staff member can get away with murder so long as his statistic is up and can't sneeze without a chop if it's down. ... When people do start reporting a staff member with a high statistic, what you investigate is the person who turned in the report." - L. Ron Hubbard, HCO PL 1 September 1965, "Ethics Protection" (translation - if a member reports something bad about someone who makes a lot of money for Scientology, that person is against Scientology. Anyone high statistic person, the money makers, are considered above the law as far as Scientology is concerned)
"ENEMY SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed." - L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 18 October 1967 [SP = Suppressive Person a.k.a. critic of Scientology]
"A truly Suppressive Person or group has no rights of any kind and actions taken against them are not punishable." - L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 1 March 1965,HCO (Division 1) "Ethics, Suppressive Acts, Suppression of Scientology and Scientologists"
"The practice of declaring people FAIR GAME will cease. FAIR GAME may not appear on any Ethics Order. It causes bad public relations. This P/L does not cancel any policy on the treatment or handling of an SP." - L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 21 October 1968, "Cancellation of Fair Game" (This is a lie - critics have continued to be harassed constantly and every attempt is made to ruin their lives)
"When you move off a point of power, pay all your obligations on the nail, empower all your friends completely and move off with your pockets full of artillery, potential blackmail on every erstwhile rival, unlimited funds in your private account and the addresses of experienced assassins and go live in Bulgravia [sic] and bribe the police." - L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 12 February 1967, "The Responsibilities of Leaders"
Here's a lark - "There is no more ethical group on this planet than ourselves." - L. Ron Hubbard, KEEPING SCIENTOLOGY WORKING. 7 February 1965, reissued 27 August 1980
"They smell of all the baths they didn't take. The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks here." - L. Ron Hubbard's diary, 1928. (via Jon Atack, A PIECE OF BLUE SKY: SCIENTOLOGY, DIANETICS AND L. RON HUBBARD EXPOSED. Lyle Stuart/Carol Publishing Group 1990)
"A psychiatrist today has the power to (1) take a fancy to a woman (2) lead her to take wild treatment as a joke (3) drug and shock her to temporary insanity (4) incarnate [sic] her (5) use her sexually (6) sterilise her to prevent conception (7) kill her by a brain operation to prevent disclosure. And all with no fear of reprisal. Yet it is rape and murder. We want at least one bad mark on every psychiatrist in England, a murder, an assault, or a rape or more than one. This is Project Psychiatry. We will remove them." - L. Ron Hubbard, Sec ED, Office of LRH, Confidential, 22 February 1966, "Project Psychiatry"
"Now, get this as a technical fact, not a hopeful idea. Every time we have investigated the background of a critic of Scientology, we have found crimes for which that person or group could be imprisoned under existing law. We do not find critics of Scientology who do not have criminal pasts." - L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Bulletin, 5 November 1967, "Critics of Scientology"
"We're playing for blood, the stake is EARTH." - L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 7 November 1962
"THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CONTROL PEOPLE IS TO LIE TO THEM. You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody is to lie to them." - L. Ron Hubbard, "Off the Time Track," lecture of June 1952, excerpted in JOURNAL OF SCIENTOLOGY issue 18-G, reprinted in TECHNICAL VOLUMES OF DIANETICS & SCIENTOLOGY, vol. 1, p. 418
"Scientology...is not a religion." - L. Ron Hubbard, CREATION OF HUMAN ABILITY, 1954, p. 251
"This [Scientology] is useful knowledge. With it the blind again see, the lame walk, the ill recover, the insane become sane and the sane become saner. By its use the thousand abilities Man has sought to recover become his once more." - L. Ron Hubbard, SCIENTOLOGY: A HISTORY OF MAN, 1952
"Leukaemia is evidently psychosomatic in origin and at least eight cases of leukaemia had been treated successfully by Dianetics after medicine had traditionally given up. The source of leukaemia has been reported to be an engram containing the phrase 'It turns my blood to water.'" - L. Ron Hubbard, "Journal of Scientology," Issue 15-G, 1953
"Don't break your back scrubbing floors. Get yourself a n, that's what they were born for." - L. Ron Hubbard, in a letter to his 2nd wife
Some more here:
http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/quotes-by-and-about-hubbard.htmAlso, here's a good example of a family with kids raised in Scientology - their story is not unique, btw.
http://www.xenutv.com/interviews/woodcrafts.htmCultureKing, what you need to understand is that it's not the individuals who compose this organization that are bad - in fact most of them are good people who honestly think they're helping the world, even when they're doing terrible things. Rather, the real problem is that the organization itself is corrupt, with those at the top tricking decent people into doing terrible things and throwing away their lives and money.