I was watching a fellow on Youtube the other day. He was someone who is normally well-reasoned, a self-professed "philosopher" who typically goes after people whose political ideas he thinks are toxic. In particular, he tends to target those who are trying to remake our world into an Orwellian paradise.

In this particular video, he took a phone call from a young man who wanted to know what he thought about a theory this young man had about reincarnation. Full disclosure here: this young man, during his college days, had ingested a fair amount of marijuana and psilocybin, but had long since stopped using drugs. In any case, this young man forwarded a theory that people would reincarnate for the purpose of gathering wisdom. He proposed that each of us is a small part of a much larger God-intelligence, which had fractioned itself off into countless smaller intelligences. The aim of this scheme was for the smaller pieces to gather wisdom and knowledge and then at some point in the far distant future, to reassemble into a deity with all power and all knowingness. This, he imagined, was a scheme dreamed up by "God" to resolve the relentless boredom of being an all-knowing and all-powerful being.

Our caller had come to this conclusion partly from studies done by a researcher who worked to track down children, mostly from places where "reincarnation" was widely accepted, who could detail their past lives, and whose claims could be and were verified. The researcher had found that such recalls were rare if not non-existent in older people.

As the "philosopher" listened to the young caller detail this theory, he alternately took on an aspect of humor and frustration. When the caller was done, he began to ask him questions about how he came to adopt this theory. He asked him if had taken drugs, what kind, how much and when (including whether he was still taken them). He asked him questions about what brought him to this theory and what about it appealed to him.

After establishing some of this information, our philosopher started to ask our young caller some questions about the responsibility of the young man with respect to this theory. He asked him whether and how often he discussed this theory with other people. The lad rarely discussed these ideas with others, and only in contexts where they might be considered acceptable by the person he was talking to. The philosopher then expressed frustration and tried to get the young man to see that this theory exacted no obligation on the young man to spread it, and that, as such, the young man had done himself and mankind a disservice by not spreading the ideas more freely. He made the point that it was rather lazy and self-centered of the young man to keep these ideas to himself, and that such a philosophy seemed rather defective, if it didn't obligate its adherents to disseminate it in a broad fashion.

At this point, the caller somehow got "cut off" and the philosopher could now offer his full analysis without having to answer questions from the caller.

He began to rail at the caller, about coming up with his silly theory from a haze of bong smoke, and basing it on some goofy "reincarnation" studies the lad had accepted uncritically. He expressed his extreme frustration with people who perpetually came up with ideas like this, but then felt no obligation to spread them or actually do anything about the ideas.

As he spoke, he became more and more agitated. Finally, he decided to lay it out for the now-disconnected caller. There was no "disco-ball" God who dissassembled and then reassembled himself. There was no afterlife. There was only this lifetime and the NOW. And instead of wasting time coming up with silly, self-centered theories about God and reincarnation, we all needed to act in the present to reverse the direction of the world as it presently presents itself: on a rocket ride downward. By the end of the video, he was quite cross, and quite thunderous in his pronouncements.

Our "philosopher" was obviously an adherent of the religion of Science, and likewise a practitioner of the science of psychology.

I decided to leave him a comment. I expressed that, while I didn't agree with the caller's theory and that any "meaning" to life was not attributable to "God", but self-imposed. And I said that I, like our philosopher, was not inclined to believe that there were any deities who actively intervened in the world, neither in our favor nor against us. However, I pointed out that it was a massive piece of arrogance to simply negate our young caller's theory and then thunder on that there was no God, no afterlife and no future for someone beyond this life. I told him that for all he knows, when you die, there was a God that scooped you up and whisked you away to a heaven where you got to munch grapes off the bellies of attractive young females for eternity. He had no way of knowing this either way. Neither philosophy nor science could answer questions like this.

At this point, I suggested that perhaps it would be better if, instead of setting himself up as judge and jury for what was and wasn't true, he accept that there were things he couldn't possibly know, and that it might be best if he allowed others to follow what they considered was or might be true, even if it conflicted with his "scientifically religious" views. I also pointed out that he should know from his studies of history that the majority of humans will never stand up and do something about the world. That humans had never done this. That it was always left up to a vanishingly small number of humans to actually lead while the rest of mankind followed. And that some of those who lead were good, and some were dreadfully bad.

I tell you this story for this reason. This is a slice of life as it plays out today. There are a great many people who think like our philosopher, and have no patience with those whose faith or beliefs don't adhere to the doctrines of Science and Psychology. Who feel it is their job to set us all straight and who retain the right to thunder on from their ivory crow's nests about how we all should be proceeding. There are also a great many who are searching for some "meaning" in life, and/or some explanation for why we are here, and perhaps what we ought to be doing.

Of course, I fudged a little here. LRH proved you could know about what happens before and after this life, and satisfy yourself about the truth of such things, without resorting to "doctrine" or "belief" or anything of the sort. Scientology and its technology, and the millions of people who have seen their lives improve as a result of it are proof of this. But such facts would be lost on our aforementioned "philosopher".

Whether a person does or doesn't believe such things isn't the point. They have the absolute right to invest in whatever ideas or beliefs they wish, and it is not up to us to dissuade them or interfere in any way.

And it's true that a vanishingly small percentage of the human race are born to lead while the rest follow. This was pointed out by Ron, and is borne out by even a casual study of human history.

As we proceed forward, we will have to deal with a lot of these compassionless beings who believe we are doomed to one life and insist on you believing it as well. And they, too, are welcome to believe as they like. It would be best if we could at least convince them that compassion dictates they accept the beliefs of others, even if they consider them childish or adolescent. Whatever others believe, nothing precludes them from acting in the present to improve the world we live in.

As for those seeking "meaning", Scientology cannot provide that. But it can provide them with a more enlightened view of the game they are already immersed in. It can improve their ability to play the game. And it can help to eradicate false ideas about what this game consists of. And for a few of them, it can provide them with a purpose which will take them into all the rest of their lives.

(By the way. Take this for what you will. In my experience, at least as practiced in the last hundred or more years, Philosophy and Psychology are more or less interchangeable. The one dictates the other and vice-versa, and both are similarly toxic. This makes the "philosophers" of recent years every bit the menace that psychologists are. If you have any doubts, study the philosophies of philosophers who have emerged in the last 200 years or so. Some of their philosophies are enough to spin you in completely, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were conceived to do precisely that.)