Confessions of an Ex-Scientologist
Our first Sunday of the month meeting will take place on Sunday June 2nd, at the Quay Co-op Meeting room starting at 12.00 noon. The talk is by John Duignan, ex-Scientologist and author of The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology.
About The Speaker: John Duignan (born 1963) grew up in both Stirling in Scotland and in Carrigaline County Cork. He had a difficult and troubled childhood thanks in part to a mentally ill father, an ill and abused mother and the chaotic home life that resulted.
Following the untimely death of his parents in 1974, he and his siblings were fostered by family members on his mother’s side in both County Cork and Wicklow. He left school at the age of 17 and joined an American Christian Evangelical drama group and spent three years traveling Europe and North America forwarding this unique brand of Christian ministry. In 1983, he was operating a branch of this ministry in Vancouver Canada and came to see that much of the Christian message simply did not add up. He moved to Halifax Nova Scotia to live with a group of atheist humanists and to work on an old North German built schooner. About a year later, he found himself in Stuttgart, Germany and during a period of dark depression was recruited by The Church of Scientology.
In 2008 he wrote and published The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology. In this non-fiction book he describes his 22 years in the organization and his eventual awaking partly as a result of attending an event where actor and Scientologist Tom Cruise was given the award of “Most Dedicated Follower”. Duignan began to examine the organization more closely and had doubts about remaining. He left the organization in 2006, after taking measures to avoid investigation by Scientology’s intelligence agency the Office of Special Affairs.
The Church of Scientology responded to the publication of The Complex by sending legal letters to several bookstore retailers that were selling the book, claiming the book contains libelous statements about a member of the organization. His publisher Merlin Publishing, “emphatically denied” these allegations, and an editorial director at the publishing company called Scientology’s claim “vexatious”. The United Kingdom branch of Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, stopped selling copies of the book after receiving legal letters from the Church of Scientology through internationally feared libel firm, Carter Ruck; booksellers Waterstone’s and W H Smith and Borders Books were “warned off” selling the book as well. However the book remained in broad publication here in Ireland and has been stocked in all Irish retailers for a number of years.
Following the publishing of The Complex, John returned to education completing a BA in English and Italian Literature and Italian language at University College Cork.
John counts Christopher Hitchens, Bertrand Russell and A.S. Byatt among his most important intellectual influences. He no longer considers himself to be a religious person
About The Speaker: John Duignan (born 1963) grew up in both Stirling in Scotland and in Carrigaline County Cork. He had a difficult and troubled childhood thanks in part to a mentally ill father, an ill and abused mother and the chaotic home life that resulted.
Following the untimely death of his parents in 1974, he and his siblings were fostered by family members on his mother’s side in both County Cork and Wicklow. He left school at the age of 17 and joined an American Christian Evangelical drama group and spent three years traveling Europe and North America forwarding this unique brand of Christian ministry. In 1983, he was operating a branch of this ministry in Vancouver Canada and came to see that much of the Christian message simply did not add up. He moved to Halifax Nova Scotia to live with a group of atheist humanists and to work on an old North German built schooner. About a year later, he found himself in Stuttgart, Germany and during a period of dark depression was recruited by The Church of Scientology.
In 2008 he wrote and published The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology. In this non-fiction book he describes his 22 years in the organization and his eventual awaking partly as a result of attending an event where actor and Scientologist Tom Cruise was given the award of “Most Dedicated Follower”. Duignan began to examine the organization more closely and had doubts about remaining. He left the organization in 2006, after taking measures to avoid investigation by Scientology’s intelligence agency the Office of Special Affairs.
The Church of Scientology responded to the publication of The Complex by sending legal letters to several bookstore retailers that were selling the book, claiming the book contains libelous statements about a member of the organization. His publisher Merlin Publishing, “emphatically denied” these allegations, and an editorial director at the publishing company called Scientology’s claim “vexatious”. The United Kingdom branch of Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, stopped selling copies of the book after receiving legal letters from the Church of Scientology through internationally feared libel firm, Carter Ruck; booksellers Waterstone’s and W H Smith and Borders Books were “warned off” selling the book as well. However the book remained in broad publication here in Ireland and has been stocked in all Irish retailers for a number of years.
Following the publishing of The Complex, John returned to education completing a BA in English and Italian Literature and Italian language at University College Cork.
John counts Christopher Hitchens, Bertrand Russell and A.S. Byatt among his most important intellectual influences. He no longer considers himself to be a religious person
May Monthly Meeting
For our May Meeting we are proud to have Colm Ryan as our guest speaker. Colm co-founded the Cork Skeptics in 2010, a group dedicated to promoting skepticism, science, and rational thinking in Cork City, Ireland and beyond, and which on the third Friday of each month hosts a talk at Blackrock Castle Observatory.
Colm will be speak on the value of skepticism, a review of his recent trip to the QED meeting in Manchester and some of Cork skeptics recent talks.
This event will take place in the Quay Co-op Meeting room on Sunday May 5th at 12 noon.
Colm will be speak on the value of skepticism, a review of his recent trip to the QED meeting in Manchester and some of Cork skeptics recent talks.
This event will take place in the Quay Co-op Meeting room on Sunday May 5th at 12 noon.
April Think & Drink
Our last Think & Drink session was a great night out and everyone seemed to like the new venue.The next of our Think & Drink meet ups will take place on Thursday April 11th at 7:30pm.
The venue again will be the Porterhouse craft bar which is a part of the Mardyke complex on Sheares St. The subject of this meet-up will be 'A world without Religion.' To find out what that's all about see our Think and Drink webpage. The facebook event page can be found here. Twitter
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You can find us here @CorkHumanists April Film Club & Social Evening
For our next screening We are going to be showing 2011's 'The Ledge' a movie that mix genres, part psychological drama, part philosophy debate, part thriller, and part love-story, opening with a man contemplating jumping to his death. The screening will again take place in the function room above the Roundy Pub on Castle Street and will take place on Monday April 29th at 7:30pm. Afterwards we will be holding a social event in the same room so feel free to pop along late and meet your fellow godless Corkonians. More film Club info here and the facebook event page is here.
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April Book Club
This month marks the return for our book club! The chosen book will again be Alain De Botton's Religion for Atheists. The book has been making waves, and ruffling feathers, over the past few months in non-religious circles so we're sure it's going to lead to a very interesting discussion indeed. The meeting will take place on the top floor of the Quay Co-op on Wednesday April 17th at 7:30 pm
If you think you might find it difficult to find the location of the book club see here. If you would like to meet up with someone before hand you can contact us to avail of our Buddy Programme. Blog Post - Bryan Wall discusses Islam and the West
Bryan Wall discusses the relationship between Islam and the west; he argues that the non-religious should be careful to keep a healthy criticism of religions free from the stains of racism and imperialist discourse.
Buddy Programme
As we mentioned in last months email, the Buddy Programme is for people who are considering coming along to a Cork Humanists event but would prefer to meet up and have a chat with someone one on one before attending an event. If you would like to be a Buddy simply reply to this email with your contact details. Preferably we would like a diverse bunch of Buddies so that when someone emails in we can put them in contact with a Buddy they have something in common with such as age, gender or whether they have children. For more information see our Buddy Progamme web page.
New Videos Section
If you missed the last monthly meeting which featured a simply wonderful talk by Patrick Semple you can check it out, along with four other of our past events on the brand new videos section of our website. Special thanks must go to our members Michael and Tom for taking the time to edit the videos and uploading them.
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