Human Rights Day 2011: Church of Scientology Spearheading Human Rights Education

On the 63rd anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Church of Scientology urges mandatory human rights education as the key to its full implementation of the Declaration.

Human rights are the rights that belong to everyone without exception—to people of any color, creed, age, ethnicity or gender. But as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon pointed out in his Human Rights Day message this year, “…unless we know them, unless we demand they be respected, and unless we defend our rights — and the right of others — to exercise them, they will be just words in a decades-old document.”

To make the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights known to all, the Church of Scientology has undertaken a massive human rights education initiative, reaching more than 180 million people in 2011 with the information on human rights in 17 languages.

The United Nations estimates that 2.45 million people are trafficked each year, nearly a billion live in hunger, and almost half the world’s population subsists on less than $2.50 a day, making it clear any momentum generated this year must continue and that education and insistence on human rights has never been more vital.

In a global demonstration of support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its 30 rights, Scientology Churches and Missions marked Human Rights Day with seminars, rallies, concerts, round tables, forums and festivals, and helped organize more than 80 human rights walks in 26 countries to raise awareness of the Declaration and the need for its full implementation.

In 1969, L. Ron Hubbard wrote, “The United Nations came up with the answer. An absence of human rights stained the hands of governments and threatened their rules. Very few governments have implemented any part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These governments have not grasped that their very survival depends utterly upon adopting such reforms and thus giving their peoples a cause, a civilization worth supporting, worth their patriotism.”

For more than four decades, the Church has worked to make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights broadly known. The Declaration appeared in the first edition of Freedom Magazine, the Church’s human rights journal, in 1968. In 1998, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration, the Church carried out the first of five annual cross-European marathons, reaching an estimated 33 million with its message in support of human rights.

Ten years ago, the Church began publishing materials that present the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in terms anyone can understand. These booklets, award-winning public service announcements and human rights documentary videos are available free of charge to any individual or group.

“There are many examples in history of what individuals can accomplish by demanding their rights and insisting on the rights of others,” says Rev. Robert Adams, Vice President of the Church of Scientology International. “But a knowledge of these rights comes first. The United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, yet in many ways, despite advances, the violations of its articles are as abhorrent today as they were six decades ago. We work with many dedicated groups, organizations, agencies and government bodies to make human rights a reality. To achieve this goal, education in human rights must be mandatory, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights must be given the force of law.”

Since Human Rights Day 2010, through direct action and sponsorship of activities and materials, the Church of Scientology has reached hundreds of millions of people with humans rights information, distributing more than 2 million publications and providing educational materials to more than 45,000 human rights organizations and 4,500 educators and educational institutions.

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The Scientology religion was founded by author and philosopher L. Ron Hubbard. The first Church of Scientology was formed in the United States in 1954 and has grown to more than 9,000 Churches, Missions and affiliated groups and millions of members in 165 countries.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers Japan Disaster Relief Continues

Nearly eight months since the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Japan Disaster Response Team continues its work in the region.

Japan’s announcement today of plans to spend 19 trillion yen ($250 billion) over the next five years to rebuild after the March 2011 earthquake draws world attention back to the region. Northeast Japan where the magnitude 9.0 earthquake triggered a tsunami that killed more than 15,000, injured thousands more and destroyed more than 125,000 buildings across eighteen prefectures.

For the past eight months, teams of Scientology Volunteer Ministers have continued their work in the region, providing any assistance needed and bringing their own unique brand of help, based on the Scientology Handbook.

Case in point is Tagajo City in Miyago Prefecture, a town of 60,000 where 177 died and 1,811 were left homeless by the disaster. Scientology Volunteer Ministers have continued their work in the city. They visit those now living in temporary housing helping them with whatever they need, and providing Scientology Assists— simple techniques developed by L. Ron Hubbard that help the individual recover from stress, illness and injury. Wherever the go, they train staff and residents in the technology, so they can deliver Assists to one another.

One volunteer spoke of the experience.

“I spoke with a woman who told me about her childhood. She survived a tsunami when she was 4 years old. You could see how much better she felt because she was able to talk about it. The people I meet are very positive. They are strong and have the will to live. It is an honor to be able to help them.”

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The Scientology Volunteer Minister program was initiated by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard in 1976. There are now hundreds of thousands of people trained in the skills of a Volunteer Minister across 185 nations.

Meet a Scientologist—A Turning Point for Lisa Lindman

Many people have their own story about 9/11—what it meant to them. Lisa Lindman thought life as she knew it was over. In a way, she was right.

For graphic designer and Scientologist Lisa Lindman, 9/11 2001 marked the end of an era—and the beginning of a new life.

“I live in California, and what I went through that day was nothing compared with the tragedy that struck others personally,” says Lindman. “But I was completely overwhelmed when the attack took place. My boss didn’t make it any easier. I remember him saying ‘don’t even bother coming in to work. We’re going to war.’ I thought that was the end of life as we knew it.”

The fact was, life as Lindman knew it wasn’t that great. She was already having a rough time.

“Somehow, I used to specialize in attracting people who were bad for me,” she says. “I had too many ‘friends’ whose critical comments were ‘all for my own good’—people who put me down and made less of me and my work as a graphic designer.”

Lindman’s boyfriend was the worst of all. He was cheating on her, and although she knew that relationship was destructive, and wanted to break up, she couldn’t bring herself to do so.

With all this going on even before the terror attacks, Lindman was stressed out and started smoking pot because it numbed her to the way she felt.

Fortunately, just before 9/11, Lindman started reading Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard. The heightened anxiety she felt that September day prompted her to find out whether what she had learned from the book was true.

Lindman describes her first encounter with Dianetics as “remarkable.”

“With my first Dianetics session I found the source of my unreasonable attachment to my boyfriend,” she says, “why I would put up with his treating me this way. It actually had nothing to do with him—it was something similar that had happened much earlier. As soon as I spotted that, I started to laugh. What a relief! Next time I saw him, I told him ‘I’m breaking up with you!’ And boy, did that feel good.”

What’s more, as she carried on with her Scientology studies, she continued feeling and doing better and better.

“The problem was, before Scientology I didn’t really know who I was or what I was doing,” she says. “Now I do.”

In an ironic turn of events, it was not long ago that Lindman had the opportunity to help a couple embroiled in the same kind of dead-end relationship that was ruining her life 10 years ago—a cheating husband and bitter wife making each other’s lives miserable. Divorce looked inevitable until, at Lindman’s suggestion, they took advantage of Scientology marriage counseling and the “Salvaging a Marriage” course at a Scientology Mission and sorted everything out.

Now 32, Lindman is living the kind of life she only dreamed of before. Married for the past two years, she and husband David use Scientology to keep their relationship, which she describes as “amazing,” on the right track.

“I have a say in my life now,” says Lindman. “It's not life happening to me—I am the one making my life go the way I want it to go.”

View the Lisa Lindman video on the Scientology video channel at www.Scientology.org.

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The popular “Meet a Scientologist“ profiles on the Church of Scientology International Video Channel at Scientology.org now total more than 200 broadcast-quality documentary videos featuring Scientologists from diverse locations and walks of life. The personal stories are told by Scientologists who are educators, teenagers, skydivers, a golf instructor, a hip-hop dancer, IT manager, stunt pilot, mothers, fathers, dentists, photographers, actors, musicians, fashion designers, engineers, students, business owners and more.

A digital pioneer and leader in the online religious community, in April 2008 the Church of Scientology became the first major religion to launch its own YouTube Video Channel. The Official Scientology YouTube Channel has now been viewed by millions of visitors.

Scientology Video: L. Ron Hubbard: Founder

I love the video of L. Ron Hubbard on Youtube:

It's also featured on the Scientology website and the L. Ron Hubbard site.

Scientology Religion

Scientology holds in common many of the beliefs of other religions and philosophies. It considers Man to be a spiritual being with more to him than flesh and blood. This, of course, is a very different view to that espoused by prevailing scientific thought which views Man as only a material object, a complex combination of chemical compounds and stimulus-response mechanisms.

Scientology believes Man to be basically good, not evil. It is Man’s experiences that have led him to commit evil deeds, not his nature. Often, he mistakenly seeks to solve his problems by considering only his own interests, which then causes trouble for both himself and others.

Scientology believes that Man advances to the degree that he preserves his spiritual integrity and values and remains honest and decent. Indeed, he deteriorates to the degree that he abandons these qualities.

But because Man is basically good, he is capable of spiritual betterment. And it is the goal of Scientology to bring him to a point where he is capable of sorting out the factors in his own life and solving his own problems.

Other efforts to help Man have tried to solve his problems for him and, in this respect, Scientology is different. Scientology believes that an individual placed in a position where he can increase his abilities, where he can confront life better, where he can identify the factors in his life more easily, is also in a position to solve his own problems and so, better his own life.

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY FLIPS THE SWITCH ON 185,000-SQUARE-FOOT DISSEMINATION AND DISTRIBUTION CENTER

I really love this video. The music and the images are so well put together. It conveys real excitement and totally captured my interest.

I also love what it represents! I'm a Scientologist and for years I've wanted the ability to get the word out about Scientology on a really broad basis and this does it!