Talk:Doctrine of Exchange

"Ron Hubbard not his father"?

Since L. Ron Hubbard was the only Hubbard previously mentioned in the article, and since only infrequently is Harry Ross Hubbard mentioned at all in discussions of Scientology, I thought it went without saying that "Hubbard's maxim" meant the maxim of L. Ron Hubbard and not of L. Ron Hubbard's father. Why would it be otherwise? -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Quotes section

I'm wondering if we need the quotes section. The Hernandez quote is basic information about what the DoE is, which is material that really should be integrated into the article text, and pretty much has been at this point. The other quote is this:

"The Church selected the donation system as its primary funding because it is the most equitable method. Those who use the facilities of the church should be the ones who contribute most to its maintenance."

This doesn't actually have anything to do with the Doctrine of Exchange. The quote basically says "Parishioners pay for services because that's how the Church gets supported." The Doctrine of Exchange, however, says "Scientologists pay for services because paying is necessarily for spiritual balance." The quote implies that services would be free if the Church was so financially successful it never needed money again, but the Doctrine of Exchange says that Scientologists pay for their benefit, not to support the Church. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

The doctrine of Exchange is better understood with the Scientology maxim: “He who would receive must be willing to give” but it's just that I cannot put my hand on it but I'm pretty sure it is in the book Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought to which, as opposed to what say the article, there is no exceptions.

The church, with its ministers, in order to be able to stay there, also receives many services and supplies for its maintenance of the church. The church must also pay something back. Those quotations explain the Doctrine of Exchange when applied to the church since 3 references on this article are personal opinions from personal web sites that seek to tell that the church is a business. -- Jpierreg 09:45, 26 September 2006 (GMT)

References

Voluneteer ministers

Volunteer Minister give touch assists at disasters with no mention of exchange (though there is the potential of future services). I've read (but don't actually know) that the Church Ministers hand out bottled water at disasters, sometimes. Terryeo 22:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I remember making coffee and tea, in the local Church, for policemen who where guarding underground stations and roads in London after the bombing of July the 7th. Food was collected freely from local businesses and then the tea, coffee and food was given by the girls to the policemen. A day after The Way to Happiness was also handed out to bus drivers and voluneteers had come from East Grinstead (UK), France etc to help -- Jpierreg 10:25, 26 September 2006 (GMT)

The article's references [4], [5] and [6]

User:Wikipediatrix begin this article. Wikipediatrix' references included 3 personal websites whose information she felt contributed to the article. [4] [1] was her first reference. It is the personal website of Kristi Wachter. Kristi is apparently a Scientology critic and says on her site: "In addition to compiling this site, I picketed Scientology for a few years, beginning in April 1998." Kristi's uncited opinion on that page includes: Scientology conducts itself in ways that are more typical of businesses than churches. Due to Scientology's doctrine of exchange, services are not given away but must be paid for.

• WP:V#Other_comments states: "Just because some information is verifiable, doesn't mean that Wikipedia is the right place to publish it. See what Wikipedia is not. Just because information is true, doesn't mean that it meets our verifiability requirements — information has to be sourced from reliable sources"

A better reference for what the article is saying might be the Church's HCO Policy Letter of 10 Sept 1982, Exchange, Org Income and Staff Pay which states: One takes in orders and money and delivers exactly what has been ordered. Most successful businessses and activities work on the basis of "fair exchange." [2]

Wikipediatrix' references also included: [5] [3] and [6] [4], both pages are part of the personal website, [5] which appears to be a personal website. [5] presents a personal essey, written by Jeff Jacobsen and dated July 19, 2001. No indication is given within the essey that Jacobsen's essay has ever been reliably, verifiably published. The page just starts in with Jacobsen's personal essey. Which is perfectly fine for a personal website, but falls below Wikipedia's stardard set out at WP:V which requires; previously published by a reliable source. The reason for Wikipedia's standard is that the internet provides very cheap publication. Almost any person on the planet can publish a personal website for very little cost. Any information from, "Bush is an asshole" to the finest presentation of a new mathmathical proof might be found on a personal website. But Wikipedia prevents the clog of articles which would stultify it by placing a bar, a standard. References must be at the bar or above before they can be used as secondary sources in Wiki's articles. If Jacobsen's essey is of sufficient merit, some newspaper or book or other reliable source will publish it and then it can be included as a secondary source of inforamtion. Until that time, it needs to be removed as a secondary source of information, referenced from within the article to an "exterior links" or "further reading" section of the article. Besides which, since July of 2001, governments have granted the Church Tax Exemption, so his essey isn't current and doesn't reflect what seems to be the growing trend. Zimbabwean grants tax exemption Then [6] brings up another personal essey which is not even attributed. WP:V requires attributed (not anonomous) information. That link should never have entered the article, though it might be used as a "further reading" link, an exterior link.
What can an editor do when finding a poor secondary references such as these which falls below Wikipedia's standard? WP:V#Burden_of_evidence directs such an editor and states: Any edit lacking a source may be removed. In these cases the sources are of insufficent quality to be used in Wikipedia articles because the information has not been previously published by a reliable source but is opinion stated in essays on a personal website. Terryeo 19:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The whole article is mainly unsourced. However, the topic seems to be fairly important so I will not make an issue of it. Steve Dufour 16:16, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Paragraph removed

I took this out:

Critics have noted that Scientology's Federal tax-exempt status violates this Doctrine, because the Church members use roads, police, the military, the fire department, and many other Federal and municipal tax-supported services.

This doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. Individual Scientologists, like (almost) everyone else, pay taxes that support these things; even if the CoS, like other religious and educational institutions, does not. This doesn't seem like a very effective criticism of the CoS and distracts from the topic of the article, IMO. Steve Dufour 21:53, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it is perfectly on-topic, since it deals with the doctrine of exchange. --Tilman 07:13, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

If you like it I will not remove it again. However, I think it makes the "critics" look stupid and petty if they make such an argument. Steve Dufour 07:28, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Steve, you may be unaware of the issues involved. Yes, individual Scientologists pay taxes. No, the CoS doesn't pay taxes, which is similar to other religious and educational institutions which do not pay taxes. The reason this is controversial is that in order to stay tax-exempt, those other religious and educational institutions are barred from certain types of transactions which are less in the nature of a religious or educational institution and more the transactions of a business. If the Roman Catholic Church suddenly put a price on the sacrament of confession and published fixed fee schedules based on the length of a confessional session, it would look a lot less like a religious institution in the first place and a lot more like a business trying to borrow the appearances of a religious institution solely in order to gain tax benefits, and the purchasers of those services trying to deduct them look like tax evaders.

The "Doctrine of Exchange" is what the Church of Scientology presents as the reason why it, unlike any of those other religious or educational institutions, should be allowed to engage in these transactions more common to openly profit-motivated enterprises without losing the special privileges of a religious institution. The Church says that it is insisting on quid pro quo payments on these services which are considered the central practices of Scientology, but not because it wants the money; rather, because there is some benefit which accrues to the payor in the transaction and helps them avoid "spiritual decline". The Church says "anytime a person receives something, he must pay something back" -- and this is why the Church should not sacrifice its privileged tax-exempt status despite practices that would end any other religious institution's tax-exempt status. Except... that's what taxation is. The Church, and the individual Scientologists who frequent it, all receive many things from the community such as the use of publicly-supported roads and the protection of publicly-supported police and emergency services. Yet the Church and individual Scientologists alike are trying to avoid paying back as much as members of similar religions would in exchange for what they receive. That's a legitimate point of criticism. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Some other religious institutions also ask for fees or set donations for some services and/or membership. There can be different opinions on if that is a good or bad thing. As far as taxes go, Scientologists play by the same rules as everyone else. People pay taxes on their income, including ministers and other church employees. Religious and educational institutions do not. The presentation of this criticism, which is uncited BTW, distracts from the topic of the article, or so it seems to me. Steve Dufour 01:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

References