Reference: What We Are Doing Here
Some people get mixed up in Scientology with its sometimes obsessive attempted attainment toward and assertion of ‘total certainty.’ It would seem such folk may have jettisoned some basic Scientology axioms and laws in pursuit of later claims and emphases. Consequently, I find a lot of former and independent Scientologists are mixed up on the Know-to-Mystery scale. They can’t seem to understand why it is that ‘Not Know’ is the second highest rung on the scale. This conundrum was addressed in an earlier post, What We Are Doing Here. Of late, we have been examining the subject of judgmentalism on this blog – most recently its relationship to sociopathy, The Psychopath Test. In reviewing one of the texts from the recommended reading section of this blog, The Sociopath Next Door, I came across a passage that sheds a little light on this subject of ‘total certainty’ particularly as it relates to judgmentalism. It gives some idea why it can seem untoward or uncomfortable or even anti-survival to obsess with attainment of total certainty.
From Chapter Five, why conscience is partially blind:
One of the more striking characteristics of good people is that they are almost never completely sure that they are right. Good people question themselves constantly, reflexively, and subject their decisions and actions to the exacting scrutiny of an intervening sense of obligation rooted in their attachments to other people. The self-questioning of conscience seldom admits absolute certainty into the mind, and even when it does, certainty feels treacherous to us, as if it may trick us into punishing someone unjustly, or performing some other unconscionable act. Even legally, we speak of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ rather than of complete certainty.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 