Frankly, the way I judge religions is, so long as your beliefs actually make you a better person, so long as your beliefs instill upon you a sense of ethics and duty, love and compassion for others...you're in pretty good shoes.

Whether you're Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, you're supposed to follow teachings and instructions that have the potential -- if correctly interpreted -- to promote very good behavior and contribution to society. I'm Christian myself, but I'd rather hang out with a Buddhist or a Muslim who took his faith seriously and virtuously as opposed to another Christian who reeked of corruption or immorality. In any such faith, you'll find individuals who are honorable and heroic because they truly get what their religion is really all about, and you'll find jerks who try to usurp their tenets to justify immoral behaviors.

The same cannot be said for Scientology.

I cannot honestly profess ever having a conversation with a single Scientologist who I could deem a terribly good person.

Why might this be the case?

I'd argue it has a lot to do with the tenets of the so-called 'religion' itself. Our other modern faiths are based around the general notion that religion and spirituality, in and of itself, serves to connect us, both to a higher power but also to others. Hence, why most good Christians, Jews and Buddhists alike practice charitable activities and generally value being a member of society. As Brian himself alluded to, the idea of most these religions is that you're supposed to become a better person around others, nonbelievers and fellow believers alike. You're supposed to transcend the pettiness of the material world and work towards something greater.

Scientology, on the other hand, is a religion that is based off petty individualism and greed. Period. You're paying exorbitant funds to get the thetans out of your body. You're putting limitations on acceptable behaviors not just for your fellow community of believers, but also upon others. You're threatening to destroy your opposition, and if anything, you're preaching a message that attempts to convert on the basis of greed and hatred, not love.

Scientology is a cult. No doubt about it. Any 'religion' that actually requires you to pay exorbitant fees in order to achieve salvation is not a religion. A relationship with higher existence, should you choose to believe in it, is something inherently spiritual; most major world religions I know of treat it that way. It's not something you can merely buy or sell.

Scientology is most definitely a cult. Wiretapping, seizing government documents, blackmail, barratry, 'Fair Game' and 'Suppressive Persons'... the list goes on. Although I always knew Tom Cruise was loony bin material for a while, he's gone and taken it to new heights with this 'silent birth' he's gonna put his wife through, his debate with Matt Lauer over psychology and medications, and yeah.

Goddamn. If I had a wife and the thought of putting her through that without the option of an epidural so much as crossed my mind, I'd kill myself. On the spot.

What's he gonna do if she needs a C-section?

You know, I just get that itch that someone's going to bring up the idea of olden-day "Pay the church - or we'll send you to hell!" propaganda.

Well, that kind of bullshit was backwards from scientology. Scientology was made with the idea of scamming people and their money - ancient catholicism and protestant religions in old England were manipulated to force people to pay money for said salvation.

So, having said thus, yeah. Sientologists are dicks, or idiots.

I think I pretty much said my part.

Hmm. I thought I had made it clear in my previous post, Mirai, that I was well aware that some treacherous-minded Catholics and Protestants -- and Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Buddhists, too -- had proven more than capable of manipulating the tenants of their religions to make profits and condemn others.

My point, I believe, mirrors yours; that while the major world religions can be corrupted through such practices as the selling of indulgences, the original messages in every world religion are outright benevolent and genuinely worthwhile. Like it or not, Judeo-Christian principles have given us much of our modern day ethics. The same could be said for similar impacts of other religions on other societies. Generally speaking, I'm definitely in the camp that most the major world religions have done considerably more good than harm. It's only when they're bent beyond their intentions to fit the desires of extremists that religions can become malevolent forces.

Bottom line is, Scientology is different from these other major world religions. As I noted before, most world religions are all about connecting people, interweaving individuals with each other and with their Creator(s). Most world religions promote laws and codes of conduct and spirituality and optional charitable donation and these are all pretty good things. Scientology promotes greed and an individualistic notion of superiority; there is no notion of societal promotion or charitable acts, because the emphasis is on cleansing one's own thetans and impurities. This gives Scientologists their kooky mandates regarding members paying exorbitant funds for salvation, as well as their equally idiotic notion that they have the right to bully the majority of nonbelievers into their submission with tactics of hate, as opposed spreading a message of compassion and love.

Wow, thank you for saying that, I was afraid to. Iron balls my friend.
But seriously folks, Christianity is a cult, a fairly succesful one, but still by definition a cult. scientology is lunacy. I get visions of kids wrapped in bubble wrap, calling out to some dude named ZOLTAN. Zoltan the almighty, rescue me from this place!

*plus those fuckers think that we are just mind and our body is just a body, well shit, then remove your brains and hook them up to electrodes, there is your "perfect existance"

Oh joy, a (mostly) one sided thread about religion. Who could have seen it coming?

This is one of the very very very very very rare instances that I will use LOL. But I shall for this one.

LOL

Hooboy, I cannot express how much I love the game fallout 2 for their complete and utter mockery of Scientology, named Hubology in the game.

Great thing is you can go to the where Hubology is held and either A) join and shell out all the money you have or B) kill 'em all in an orgy of blood and violence!
I often opt for the latter. But back to the subject...

A little taste of what is to come from reading more
We were founded back before the Great Deluge by an author and visionary of great promise, a man named Dick Hubbell. He saw the failure of the medicine of that time, and of the failure of religion, and of the failure of government. He knew that the world needed something new...the world needed Hubology. Inspired by music of the time and hs own personal experience with extraterrestrial beings, he set out to show us wheels in the sky, to keep them burning, and to understand the Great Wheel of Life

Again: I LOVE FALLOUT 2!
link: The great wheel in the sky, it keeps on turning.

Truly truly delicious mockery

Then you are wise, and truly deserving of the title Grandmaster. I never read that particular Pipboy entry, and never knew about Scientology last time I played through so I didn't get the Hubology reference, but that entry you linked to highlights just why for many years, Fallout was MY religion. In fact, I'm about to root frantically through my desk drawers and scour my room for my copy of Fallout 2, and if I can't find it I'm going to go to all the game shops in town until I find and copy for sale. This would be about the fourth retail copy I've bought, but I don't care dammit, it's just SO AWESOME!

edit: a little context
You know what Archibo? Everyone (at least me) respects your belifs, and we all (at least me) have our own, so chill dude. No one is attacking your belif structure, nor would we want to, again, we are having some fun at the expense of scientologists, who have strange and funny belifs to us. We are probably wrong in doing so, because I am sure there are those out there that have a problem with your and/or my belif structure or think that it is silly, or strange. While I assure you that I am not one of those people, they do remain. My point is, that we all have different belifs, and nothing roots my convictions further than hearing the people that believe differently than I call into question my belifs. It is a welcome opportunity each day to reconnect with my faith. I really don't think off handed, possibly meant to be witty, remarks in a thread that is a joke, make any real connection with anything. You are a smart person, but I found out long ago that it is no use trying to make people believe differently than they do, we are too stubborn. So kind of lay off the activisim, (which I am sure that will be misconstrued as an attack, when it is not, merely advice.) and try not to incite flames to yourself, or a thread where we are all trying to have a good time. You are just asking for one of the people that believe differently than you to start an argument. I for one don't want to hear it, so fourimites, if you choose to respond to archibo in any kind of negative way, then piss off, just quit! I'd like to have at least one thread that religion is brought up in that we don't get all pissy and start getting into some kind of deity contest. PLEASE. Just for the children.

oh, and scientology sucks.