L. Ron Hubbard: The Myth and the Man

By Larry Short

L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction writer
and founder of the Scientology cult.

Okay, I just spent a very entertaining hour doing something I really didn't plan on doing. First, I followed a banner ad on a website (out of curiosity) which led to a campaign website for the Church of Scientology. I surfed around a bit, and wound up watching the biographical (or perhaps pseudo-biographical) videos on the cult's founder, L. Ron Hubbard. The church describes him in glowing, God-like terms. It seems almost impossible for a single human being to have accomplished so much, with such aplomb, in a single human lifetime.

Check it out for yourself, if you dare: http://www.scientology.org/l-ron-hubbard.html

Then I thought, "Wow, he seems way too amazing to be real. Perhaps I need to fact-check some of the statements they made. I wonder where I can do that?" And I instantly thought of Wikipedia. I know Wikipedia is not always perfect, but it frequently errs on the side of giving all the perspectives that are out there. So I went to Wikipedia and read their lengthy and very well-documented account of Hubbard's life.

I was astonished, as I think you will be, by all that the Church's website had omitted, or cast in a positive light, or twisted in a seeming desire to explain the same events away.

I'll let you form your own conclusion. But for me, based on what I read, Hubbard comes as close to the embodiment of a true pathological liar of anyone I have ever read about. This experience gives me a new respect, if you could call it that, for the demonic forces that are apparently so driven to deceive people and lead them astray from the truth of God's grace and mercy bestowed to us through Jesus Christ.

The fact that there are people out there who would create a false religion based on their own made-up ideas and fantasies, purely out of greed and lust, is sobering. Don't they know they are playing with people's souls? Talk about having to give an account.