Rarely have I seen an idea marketed as well as Scientology. And being in the direct mail marketing business, I have sensitivities for this kind of endeavor.

But more than that. Scientology is unique, in that it is one of the very few unique religions founded on american soil, along with Joseph Smith’s Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science Church. And of these, Scientology is the most unique. It came totally out of the consciousness of L Ron Hubbard, a less than noteworthy science fiction writer.

I think he came up with all this stuff in an effort to cash in through religion what he couldn’t accomplish in commercial writing.

Moreover, his copyrighting of whatever passes for the holy tenets of Scientology is just short of pure genius, along with the readiness of the current Scientology leadership to cash in even more by suing those of their detractors deemed to have deep pockets.

I also note that they grow stronger every time somebody generates more publicity for them by complaining about their shortcomings.

I may not believe anything. But I sure know winners when I see them.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

The problem with cult/religion distinction, I think, is that while a lot of the criteria on the list are helpful, many are just loaded terms. Having said that I do recognize the difference, I just didn’t necessarily want to get into it here and now. (Not saying no one else can!)

Basically, a cult does the same things as an abusive relationship— it cuts the member off from outside support networks, it takes control of the member’s money, and it watches over the member so closely that the member is not allowed independent thought.
This is an areligious checklist— a cult of personality (North Korea, anyone?) can fulfill the criteria quite well. And it’s interesting in that early religions tend to not meet its criteria.
Every cult can be defined as a group having all of the following five characteristics:
1. It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members
2. It forms an elitist totalitarian society.
3. Its founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has charisma.
4. It believes ‘the end justifies the means’ in order to solicit funds and recruit people.
5. Its wealth does not benefit its members or society.

isn’t paganism older or at least on the same order of elderliness compared with judaism? i guess that’s the problem with religion, though, is that it operates under a sort of “know it when i see it” delineation where everyone is using different guidelines.

In this “who are you to say?” society, it worked okay for about 200 years to have general consensus that, for example, paganism was not going to a religion that would have the audacity to insist on its own gravestones in military cemeteries. Now there is nothing like societal consensus, and on the one hand we have to make room in the public pantheon both for old religions (which Judaism achieved in some sad form over the last 50 years) and new “religions” with the inverted commas used advisedly.

I don’t know what to do about this.

The Dark Ages were dark not because they were Christian, but because a tiny elite held most of the power and felt empowered, even obligated to inflict their views on others.

Ordinary citizens could not own a bible, especially one written in a their own language. People could be spirited away to be tortured and executed without trial. And what about Pope Leo and his “we have the papacy so now let us enjoy it?” with indulgences?

How is it anti-Christian to deplore such travesties of freedom and justice that show more relation to the crimes of Fascism and Stalinism than anything that’s in the Bible?

Christian (or any other religious group, including Atheists) should not be given carte blanche just because of what they choose to call themselves and should be judged on their merits, not their religion.

Also, I might point out that the Muslim world had it’s own scientific stall later on, so lets not get too eager to praise their inquisitive spirit and openmindedness. And besides, let’s not forget Dhimmitude.

As far as freedom of religion goes, I take the Libertarian argument that consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want as long as they’re not hurting anyone but themselves.

uhh..see Inquisition, the Spanish and Galilei, Galileo.

Ron,

so what is your position on all of this, then? Clearly there are interesting questions here but do you take a stand on any of them? For example, at what threshold does a cult become a religion? If we accept that there is no such thing as a total freedom, and that freedom of religion needs to have some common sense restrictions (‘my religion allows me to kill whoever i want!!’), on which side of the divide does scientology fall?