“WHAT IS THE IAS?”
There’s a question I get asked quite often when I’m wearing my shirts that state I’m a member of the International Association of Scientologists, one I’m bound to get asked all the more often now that my family are all Patrons of the Association.
“What’s that?”
One fellow that I did web engineering with saw me wearing a shirt with a torch on it that said, “Crusader” and said, “Crusader – I think I’ve heard of those guys.” – thinking it was a vendor we worked with.
No, folks, I proudly sport those shirts because I’m a contributing member of theInternational Association of Scientologists – something I’m extremely proud of.
The IAS is the official membership organization of the Scientology religion, being made up of individual Scientologists who truly want to change conditions on this planet for the better. The purpose of the International Association of Scientologists is:
To unite, advance, support and protect the Scientology religion and Scientologists in all parts of the world, so as to achieve the aims of Scientology as originated by L. Ron Hubbard.
Now, in practical terms, here’s what IAS members do, and what the IAS as a whole accomplishes, which I’m very much a supporter of:
THE VOLUNTEER MINISTER PROGRAM:
One program that the IAS supports that I’ve been intimately involved in is the Scientology Volunteer Minister program. I’ve worked personally to get volunteers out to disaster sites like after the earthquakes in Haiti, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Chinese earthquakes, Hurricane Katrina, and others. Volunteer Ministers are known for their ability to calm down & bring order to disorderly surroundings, and to also thereby work hand in hand with disaster response forces to clean up these major disaster sites. But also, those same principles that make Scientology Volunteer Ministers effective in major upheavals also make them effective in smaller disasters – like kids with bonked heads, parents with upsets, or children needing to study better. It’s such an effective program that gets such excellent results, that I love supporting it.
TRUTH ABOUT DRUGS EDUCATION CAMPAIGN
The IAS also backs the Truth About Drugs education campaign, something that this world so vitally needs. No matter what your religious background or ethnic background, drugs are ravaging every culture and every society. So, of course a big reason I back up the IAS is to also back up this campaign which happens to be the planet’s largest non-government anti-drug education campaign. Name another anti-drug campaign that is on every continent and is translated into over 20 languages?
IDEAL CHURCHES OF SCIENTOLOGY
Another rather encompassing reason why I support the IAS has to do with the fact that the International Association of Scientologists also helps in the establishment of key Churches of Scientology around the world, such as the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, DC.
Ideal Churches of Scientology (also known as “Ideal Orgs”) are specifically constructed to be able to push forward all of the social betterment programs that the IAS supports – including the Volunteer Ministers and Truth About Drugs campaign above, but also our Human Rights Education Campaign, our campaign for imbuing morality in the Way to Happiness Campaign, our campaign to bring ethics and decency to mental health in the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, as well as all of the wonderful things that come from training individuals in Scientology itself.
The video above on the Grand Opening of my home church here in Washington, DC demonstrates a bit of the bandwidth such an organization cam provide, and I hope, sheds a bit of light on why I’m so proud to then back up the IAS.
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