Is Scientology a religion or a wierd fucked up cult

[storm rider]

Yes or No?

Is Scientology an actual religion or is it a cult?
Way back in the day L.Ron.Hubbard formed the "religion" of scientology.
Most likely the motive behind this was to evade taxes but now a few decades
later scientology is recognized as an actual religion...albeit a religion you have to pay for
and also a religion that if you choose to leave it anybody in your family or that is
in any way connected to you must dis-connect you from them if you leave scientology.

Being cut off from friends and family members by the religion's decree is not part
of any other religion that I know about....I am an agnostic catholic and I have not
been shunned by friends or family because I choose not to go to church on a
weekly basis.

Pretty fucked up that scientology practices this and enforces it...well besides it's
high level people such as tom cruise and the like.

Every time I have gone to church the "collection plate" is passed around and people
give what they can afford to give....yet with scientology you have to pay for
enlightenment and the costs just plain escalate and if you dont have the money
to pay the costs other family members are forced to pay them for you.


Sounds pretty fucked up to me.

SR

 

[storm rider]

Read your poll question again. Is is a religion or a cult, and you gave yes and no as the answers. That makes no sense. The poll choices should either be religion & cult or the question should be is Scientology a cult? Yes/No.

For the record, it is almost certainly a cult. You have to pay to play and they are incredibly militant about their practices.

That is what I meant to say.

SR

 

[sbill]

Actually South Park has had a fair bit of fun with Ronnie Hub n company over several episodes. Though they got pretty nasty with Isaac Hayes' character after the Scientos made him leave the series.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Hayes

 

[SamGomez]

Some of the born again christian churches i've attended. The pastor basically demanded us to give 10% of our net earnings for the year. Really depends on which place you go to. Some of these places they have people dancing like they are crazy,speaking in tongues, and acting all nutty.

Every time I have gone to church the "collection plate" is passed around and people
give what they can afford to give....yet with scientology you have to pay for
enlightenment and the costs just plain escalate and if you dont have the money
to pay the costs other family members are forced to pay them for you.


Sounds pretty fucked up to me.

SR

 

[Popoff]

No more or less than Mormonism and it almost made it to the White House. How fucked up is that?

 

[bcneil]

The difference between religion and a cult, is number of followers.

 

[HankQuinlan]

The difference between religion and a cult, is number of followers.

...and how long it's been around. If you invented it and created your holy book recently, it's a cult. If you invented it and wrote your holy book more than a thousand years ago, it's a religion.

 

[SamGomez]

It gets even worst than the shunning and non speaking. Read so many articles of not being allowed a blood transfusion. They'd rather let their child die than to have one

JW's are the same if you decide to leave the religion or you don't follow the rules of the religion the other members are not supposed to talk to you anymore. I have friends that come from a family of Jehovah Witnesses and she wasn't allowed to talk to a child hood friend anymore cause she left the religion. She has to sneak around behind her parents back at 26 because her mom and dad would not be okay with it.

Kisses Melina*

 

[the old maxx50]

I don;t think it is a religion or a cult Both usually have some head .. L Ron Huburt . is not the head , nor do they worship him ,, They practice ,, principal that he wrote in a few books .. That supposedly will make this life better , and the next life .. Now why they don't freely share all these ideas with none paying members i never real understand .. Christian all way wan t to share the good news .

Would members of Scientology all drink the cool aid if they were told to .. I don't think so .. They are all believers in the teaching because it supose to help them ge all the things they want .. and money seems to be a big one for most . as it is fo most of use also

 

[ReluctantPooner]

Hubbard started Scientology as a bet. He bet his friends that he could make up a religion and some idiots would believe it. Guess he won.

 

[Oldfart]

The difference between religion and a cult, is number of followers.

Very true. All religions are just superstitions.

 

[Oldfart]

Considering how much pain and suffering religions have spawned over the centuries, it's no wonder a wise man once challenged us to imagine how much better life would be without them.

 

[sevenofnine]

I'm not really an expert on scientolgy but I think most religion is b.s. and corrupt.

Lets face it religion is an institution created by man with all his ego's and insecurities and flaws.

Faith I think is a good think however.

Mother Therasa, the pope went to India to see her. She didn't have time to leave her people the sick and the dieing.

There was a french lady they wanted her to convert to being a catholic she wrote a lot on god and faith, they thought she was going to be a saint one day, I wish I could remember her name. But she never did convert, she never did join an organized religion, she didn't believe God was Catholic, and spoke through a priest or the pope, or anyone. She believed each person had to find God in there own way.
Religion tends to be crap, faith is not.

 

[LADY-VIA]

SCIENTOLOGY feels alot more like a cult to me... but you know ..... we all have to believe in something right !!!!!!!

 

[bcneil]

SCIENTOLOGY feels alot more like a cult to me... but you know ..... we all have to believe in something right !!!!!!!

No, thats not true at all.

 

[the old maxx50]

I wounder what bible your JW friend are reading MM

There were no blood transfusion 2000 yrs ago i doubt if it would be mention in the bible .. They just decided to interpret some passage to mean that ..

they are true in saying that transfusions have there problems but they all so have saved millions of lives of course those millions were not JW.

 

[bcneil]

I wounder what bible your JW friend are reading MM

There were no blood transfusion 2000 yrs ago i doubt if it would be mention in the bible .. They just decided to interpret some passage to mean that ..

they are true in saying that transfusions have there problems but they all so have saved millions of lives of course those millions were not JW.

Is a JW mother allowing a child to die, because she doesn't want a blood transfusion really that much different than christians doing anything they can to slow stem cell research?

 

[Elmore]

I wounder what bible your JW friend are reading MM

There were no blood transfusion 2000 yrs ago i doubt if it would be mention in the bible .. They just decided to interpret some passage to mean that ..

they are true in saying that transfusions have there problems but they all so have saved millions of lives of course those millions were not JW.

I am sure some of those millions were JWs as well. Just because they refuse a transfusion does not mean that it won`t happen

Doctors will step in and do what they need to do to save a child on the operating table. I don`t know so much about adults who do not want a transfusion...I imagine doctors respect their decision but it`s different with kids who have parents making that decision for them

 

[HankQuinlan]

All religions are whacky and have beliefs not based on rationality.

A bunch of Jewish priests took a bunch of scrolls from centuries before, deemed them the Talmud, and codified religious practice around them.

A bunch of other Jews centuries later made an addendum based on writings a couple hundred years before them about a preacher named Jesus, and added them to the Talmud as The New Testament. Persecuted as a cult, then gained official approval, formed councils and synods, split into Roman Catholics and Orthodox Catholics, split again centuries later into Protestants (Anglicans and Lutherans), which further split over doctrinal details into hundreds or thousands of individual churches, including Quakers and JWs and Christian Scientists among all the others, right down to the Unitarian Church, which believes hardly anything.

A separate bunch of Arabs took the Old and New Testaments, and wrote another called the Koran, and codified another religion based on that combination, which also argued over details and split into Sunnis and Shiites and Sufis and....

Centuries later, American Protestants dreamed up another addition to the Bible, and wanting to continue the Old Testament practice of polygamy, headed west to create a physical location for their church, spread out from Utah into neighboring states, and now have groups all over the world (along with their own subgroups and schisms).

Long before that, groups of people in South Asia took a bunch of creation myths and tales of gods and codified a loose group of related religions under the Hindu umbrella, decided a whole bunch of ancient texts were holy, broke into different groups with different codes of religious practice, carrying on to create what is now the world's third largest religious group. A Hindu named Siddhartha Gautama revised Hinduism with a bunch of esoteric teachings, and founded a new religion, which, again, has broken into a huge number of branches with their own specific practices to reach enlightenment.

What do these have in common? An answer to human desires that profits those who exploit that desire. Every single one of these Churches has a leadership who gain political, financial, social, and/or sexual power over their congregation -- whether it be million of adherents like the Roman Catholic Church, or a family or two like some backwoods bible-spouting polygamist.

L. Ron Hubbard and his scientology is just part of a long tradition, and simply more successful than some of the other recently invented religions like the ones that killed themselves when the aliens didn't come to take them away when scheduled by their leader.

I would love to start a religion, but need a charismatic type to front it -- and they are hard to come by (and would want too big a cut of the profits).

 

[connor666]

All religions are whacky and have beliefs not based on rationality.

A bunch of Jewish priests took a bunch of scrolls from centuries before, deemed them the Talmud, and codified religious practice around them.

A bunch of other Jews centuries later made an addendum based on writings a couple hundred years before them about a preacher named Jesus, and added them to the Talmud as The New Testament. Persecuted as a cult, then gained official approval, formed councils and synods, split into Roman Catholics and Orthodox Catholics, split again centuries later into Protestants (Anglicans and Lutherans), which further split over doctrinal details into hundreds or thousands of individual churches, including Quakers and JWs and Christian Scientists among all the others, right down to the Unitarian Church, which believes hardly anything.

A separate bunch of Arabs took the Old and New Testaments, and wrote another called the Koran, and codified another religion based on that combination, which also argued over details and split into Sunnis and Shiites and Sufis and....

Centuries later, American Protestants dreamed up another addition to the Bible, and wanting to continue the Old Testament practice of polygamy, headed west to create a physical location for their church, spread out from Utah into neighboring states, and now have groups all over the world (along with their own subgroups and schisms).

Long before that, groups of people in South Asia took a bunch of creation myths and tales of gods and codified a loose group of related religions under the Hindu umbrella, decided a whole bunch of ancient texts were holy, broke into different groups with different codes of religious practice, carrying on to create what is now the world's third largest religious group. A Hindu named Siddhartha Gautama revised Hinduism with a bunch of esoteric teachings, and founded a new religion, which, again, has broken into a huge number of branches with their own specific practices to reach enlightenment.

What do these have in common? An answer to human desires that profits those who exploit that desire. Every single one of these Churches has a leadership who gain political, financial, social, and/or sexual power over their congregation -- whether it be million of adherents like the Roman Catholic Church, or a family or two like some backwoods bible-spouting polygamist.

L. Ron Hubbard and his scientology is just part of a long tradition, and simply more successful than some of the other recently invented religions like the ones that killed themselves when the aliens didn't come to take them away when scheduled by their leader.

Awesome post, just want to thank you now as I am going to be stealing it and spouting it off drunk to some religious "friends", well more like associates and those damn second cousins who think their shit don't stink.