Scientology is NOT a cult — it’s a scam.

Actually it’s both…

cult-: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents
4: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cult

Yes, it’s a scam. It charges dues for the sole purpose of letting their leaders live a cushy life…

Wait a minute…I need to read that earlier thread again…

Suck it Jeebus! and Tom Cruise too!

The emphasis I would prefer is that they are an organised criminal agency that not only deceives, defrauds and damages its recruits, but frequently commits crimes against individuals external to the agency. On top of that it is known to have committed crimes against the governments of the countries it is active in.

Yes, major religions are selling a non existent afterlife and an imaginary god to their sheep and they constantly beg for money to ‘carry on the good work’.

That’s not illegal.

From their Dianetics to their pseudo lie detector based ‘auditing’ courses, they are conning people out of their time and money and deterring people from getting real help elsewhere.

Their auditing and disconnect procedures are a form of brainwashing and personality modification. The damage continues with isolating people from friends and family and continues in their slave system called the Rehabilitation Project Force.

I have seen it alleged that ever since the organisation decided that protection under the First Amendment would be useful to it in the US, it has pursued a policy of appearing to be a religion, with ministers, etc. It was claimed that this was laid out in internal Scientology policy documents (Vol. 1 p.41) (Vol.1 p.196) (Vol. 2 p.238,239) (Vol.4 p.405).

It appears then that they are cynically simulating a religious organisation for financial and political advantage.

It appears then that they are cynically simulating a religious organisation for financial and political advantage.

Cone on! All religions are cynical simulators. Scientology plays the religion game as deftly as any other religion. If you want to see brainwashing, personality modification and isolation culling you don’t have to go further than your local evangelical church. Step inside sometime or go to one of their summer camps for kids where it gets batshit crazy.

Religions should not get special treatment in tax law.

I would amend that “tax law” to “anything at all”.
[Note that James Madison was absolutely against exempting churches from taxation: but he was voted down by his buddy founders.]

If you call Scientology a scam then you also have to call any other church a scam. I won’t object to this, in fact I agree.

L. Ron basically took a mishmash of various religious beliefs and added some Sci-Fi to come up with his own religion that he then milked for every penny he could get and for the resulting popularity.

Scientology has Thetans, other religions have the Soul.

Scientology has a death/rebirth cycle, much like many other religions, from wikipedia’s “Thetan” article:

When a person dies ? or, in Scientology terms, when a thetan abandons its physical body ? they go to a “landing station” on the planet Venus, where the thetan is re-implanted and told lies about its past life and its next life. The Venusians take the thetan, “capsule” it, and send it back to Earth to be dumped into the ocean off the coast of California.

These Thetans then attempt to invade the body of a newborn and are thus reborn as a Body Thetan.

Scientologists believe that the only way to remove these extraneous Body Thetans is by completing their ritual Auditing procedure and by removing any sources of “trauma”. This is strikingly similar to the idea of Original Sin and the use of prayer to free oneself from it and the idea that one must keep one’s body clean (admittedly a good idea).

Scientology also has a deity figure, albeit a particularly unpleasant one, the infamous Xenu.

So, they believe in an unsubstantiated mythology, they follow a rigid moral code, and they believe they benefit from all of this in some supernatural way. The only difference is that they charge by the hour.

The established religions have indeed carved out some nice perks for themselves. The wolves have noticed and have deliberately adopted some of the external characteristics of the traditional flock handlers.

A rigid moral code? Anything goes as long as it benefits the organisation per the wishes of the leadership is neither moral nor rigid.

It is precisely their immoral behaviour towards recruits and anyone who gets in their way that makes me view them unfavourably compared to the established myth spreaders.

I see the moral distinction that you speak of as significant in quality but insignificant in magnitude. The evangelical right came out in droves to support our war criminal president. The magnitude of the damage caused by the evangelical right dwarfs the quality of harm done by Scientologists. If Anonymous wants to do some actual good they should go after the Poop and the Baptists. Who wants to bet that major religions are not behind Anonymous?