I have no interest in defending scientology per se but, looking at the bigger picture, the difference between a cult and a religion is merely the passage of time and historical development.

Both Christianity and Islam, for example, were regarded as "cults" in their early years, having broken away from Judaism and having only a small numbers of followers.

Whether you believe scientology is a bona fide "religion" or not, it could eventually become one in the future. I'm not saying that would necessarily be a good thing but I doubt many First Century rabbis had anything good to say about Christianity, either.

Let's come back in a couple of hundrd years and look at the question again.

Religions and cults are the same thing only separated by connotations.

Scientology is also based on the belief that the family leader is the strongest member of the family. This member is required to take classes on being the strongest member, where he or she learns how to control his or her family. This makes it okay to control and abuse(sexually and physically)the other members of your family. I learned this from my friend who used to be a scientologist.

I haven't read everything in the thread but I have skimmed the entirety of it and I have to agree that the difference between 'cult' and 'religion' is not really important, as they are mostly divisions on the level of magnitude.

I will also agree that many religions have arcane knowledge- i.e., knowledge that is not imparted to the non-believer and for it to be imparted certain standards must be met. I have not looked into Scientology, but from what I have heard it does sound pretty much a profit-ended endeavor. However unfortunately, most institutionalized religious systems can be (and should be, in my opinion) seen in that light. One only needs to look back in history and see all the horrible ways of emotional blackmail through which insane profit was made on the part of the Church- whatever Church that was, from Hinduism to Buddhism to Islam to Christianity and all its variations. (It is also ironic, and sad considering the people who are being worshipped or idolized by these institutionalized religions and their lives)

So I suspect (though I'd need to research that and can't be bothered) that the whole ruckus about Scientology being a cult or a religion is a matter of legal stuff. I bet that being recognized as a religion grants them far more social and financial power and that is the only thing they are after.

I am saying all of the above because we are talking about institutionalized, organised religion. At the time of the birth of Christianity, Christians still counted themselves as Jews- just Jews with a different take on how to interpret the scriptures. They started calling themselves Christians when the dogma spread enough and more people than Jewish ones were included, through the Apostles. So there you have it. At the time of the birth of Christianity (and I don't touch upon the issue of who Jesus is, that is personal belief and not the point here) every other established religion saw it as a sect- and a highly dangerous, illegal one at that. (hence all the persecution/ witch-hunting done by the Roman Empire and many other governments against it)

However, I cannot help pointing out that at the time Christianity was a sect, they gave you money, supported you, included you only on the basis of moral behavior and declaration of belief. What you did with your money was your business (unless you used it to lie to others with it, I believe the scriptures teach... but that falls under 'manipulation' which was a no-no among Christians).

basic point? Scientology could qualify as institutionalized religion. It has all the ingredients: Excuse to make money and exploit people with the emotional blackmail of some sort of salvation that can be bought. :)

Now as far as dogma and call for belief are concerned, the discussion is probably one only Theists would be interested in, and I doubt they would manage to reach a conclusion without at least some indication of what the dogma is and what it is based on.

I believe that Scientology does have a large cultural influence. its sneaking in and influencing our lives without our realizing it. Namely because prominent members are celebrities. Movies have been the biggest propaganda machines in existence since the 1940s. Scientologists cannot have a serious debate about their religion because its precepts are so ridiculous. They believe that millions of year ago the president of the galaxy brought a bunch of criminals and political dissidents to earth and killed them by setting of a large nuke inside a volcano. Soon forward to modern day. The souls of the killed ones are somehow "infesting" human beings to feed of their life force. As well only by shelling out copious amounts of money a special machine will "cleanse" you. uh-huh. It sounds like a poorly written B movie to me, not the basis of a serious religion. That and the way you are required to pay large percentages of your yearly earnings just to attend smells stinky. I don't take Scientology seriously. To be honest though I'm not surprised to see some people are stupid enough to fall for it.
In the same way some people are stupid enough to fall for email scams. (i.e you won the english lottery so the executor of the nigerian prince's estate wants to send you money, etc.)

Cult.

In truth, aren't most religions cults? How does one go from one to the other? Is it determined by the number of follows, or how "main stream" the media covers your religion.

Christianity started off as a "cult," being an off-shoot from the Jewish faith. Jesus was Jewish. The Jews persecuted him for his religious beliefs, and Christianity went away for a while. Technically, it was a cult - 13 people who believed something different from the rest.

Today, we have so many religions and off-shoots of religions, how does one define religion versus cult?

Scientologist and Catholic bump into each other on a busy sidewalk.


"You got your cult in my religion"
"You got your religion in my cult"

Two great dogmas that taste great together! Catholotology!

mapaghimagsik
Scientologist and Catholic bump into each other on a busy sidewalk.


"You got your cult in my religion"
"You got your religion in my cult"

Two great dogmas that taste great together! Catholotology!

DO you contribute anything valuable anymore?

imshard

mapaghimagsik
Scientologist and Catholic bump into each other on a busy sidewalk.


"You got your cult in my religion"
"You got your religion in my cult"

Two great dogmas that taste great together! Catholotology!

DO you contribute anything valuable anymore?

What a whiner. I provide levity.

I treat them with just the same rights I treat all other religions. Which includes my right to laugh. Though I haven't actually met any scientologists.
Comeon now imshard, maga... mandarin... mapso... That one person's comment was greatly funny!

Gordon CSA
I treat them with just the same rights I treat all other religions. Which includes my right to laugh. Though I haven't actually met any scientologists.
Comeon now imshard, maga... mandarin... mapso... That one person's comment was greatly funny!

I should be more generous. Perhaps imshard hasn't seen the Reeses' Peanut Butter Cup commercials.

And its Mapaghimagsik -- pronounced just as its spelled :)

Farnsworth
Oh, if only he had joined a mainstream religion, like Oprahism or Voodoo.

I don't think Scientology is either a cult or a religion. I see it purely as a tax dodge.

However, I firmly believe that people need to have the right to be wrong about anything. Cause, you never know, they may actually be the ones that are right.

More on topic, I think that there needs to be a line drawn between believer and hierarchy. Humans are dicks, nothing is going to stop humanity in a hierarchy from taking advantage of other people if they want. If someone ACTUALLY believes that this is what they need in their lives, and it's not hurting anyone else, power to them.

mapaghimagsik
Scientologist and Catholic bump into each other on a busy sidewalk.


"You got your cult in my religion"
"You got your religion in my cult"

Two great dogmas that taste great together! Catholotology!

Dammit, and I tried to google catholotology, too, thinking it was a real word.

On topic, they're all cults, according to the definition of a cult. However, "religion" is a nice, mainstream word that everyone uses.

Cult still has that negative connotation behind it, and so many people probably wouldn't want some cult in their religion.

I vote to call it a religion; it's mainstream enough now anyways that calling it a cult would just make all the non-conformists join.

Gordon CSA
I treat them with just the same rights I treat all other religions. Which includes my right to laugh.

Damn strait. Religious people are a great source of humor. We need to keep them around for the comic value of their wacky ideas.

horseboy
I don't think Scientology is either a cult or a religion.

Then I don't think you know what either of them are.

Cult, sect, religion, church, faith.....these words all mean basically the same thing when you get down to it. The only true difference between the words cult and religion is that in modern times cult is used to signify "bad religion" or in other words heretic, someone we don't agree with.

What it boils down to is: Do the 'members' of Scientology believe the tennants of their group. If they believe, then they are like the rest of the community.

I, myself, believe that ALL people should be free to believe and worship how and what they will. Scientologists have every right to be wrong. :D

I personally believe that my Church is the only true Christian Church/Church of God and that everyone else is wrong to some degree or other (yes, even other Christians) but I still think they have the right to believe and practice what they believe.

So yes, I think Scientology is wrong, but I think they deserve the same rights as the rest of them just like Baptists, Catholics, Atheists, Wiccans, Satanists, etc.

Everyone can worship how they will. Labelling them cult or not is irrelevant. It does not help the issue by trying to label them as "bad", it only makes them angry. :)

horseboy
I don't think Scientology is either a cult or a religion. I see it purely as a tax dodge.

I think that's actually in most religious tracts, "Thou shalt not pay taxes for thy god."

Let's face it, it's really all about power, and tax evasion is just the most obvious wrinkle.

It always seemed confusing to me that a congregation full of lovers of god couldn't pass the plate an extra time to pay the property taxes on their church. Don't they love god enough to chip in on his expenses? Instead they send him hat in hand to me every april 15th.

Why do I have to pay extra taxes for someone I don't worship? You wanna prove your religious fealty to me, start paying your fair share. Bill Maher said it perfectly. That money goes to local essential services, so next time my house is burning, there will be fireman to put out the blaze.

How about next time a church is burning, god makes it rain?

bobhhh
How about next time a church is burning, god makes it rain?

And they call me the bad atheist...

Mister Mxyzptlk

bobhhh
How about next time a church is burning, god makes it rain?

And they call me the bad atheist...

Actually i think it was me who called you that!! ;)

ozoneocean
You see, belief is transitory. What matters is that these cultural institutions helped shape our civilisation, and to a learned person that deserves understanding and some measure of respect. I'll laugh right along with the rest of you at the ludicrous idea of the resurrection, creationism, miracles, and whatever other mad beliefs people hold, but I respect and understand history.

Respect? Why? The reason some religions had more of an influence on our culture than others is because they were adopted by people who had power and/or money. The end. That makes them important parts of their respective cultures, but it doesn't lend any more validity to their thought models and belief systems. I'm agnostic, and you can ridicule that viewpoint as "fence sitting" all you want (I know you didn't, this is just a preemptive statement), to me, all of these world views, including the kind of militant atheism people like Richard Dawkins propagate, are equally invalid. Choose one if you must, but it really all comes down to deciding you want an explanation for something that there is no explanation for. So no, I don't think Catholicism is more valid than Scientology.

However, just to make this clear, I do acknowledge the cultural importance of religion, and if I had kids, I would actually make them take religion classes (we have that here, dunno about elsewhere) because there's so much in our culture that you don't understand if you don't know the Christian mythology that it's based on. But that doesn't make the religion a more valid world view, it just means that it's good to know the stories and how it shaped our culture to understand it better.

spacehamster
Respect? Why? The reason some religions had more of an influence on our culture than others is because they were adopted by people who had power and/or money. The end.

Don't forget fanatical followers willing to murder to advance their religions goals. That was always the weakness of polytheism. It's too accepting of other ideologies. Very few polytheistic cultures evangelized their beliefs even if they were expansionist empires. Even the Romans let the Jews keep their religion, which in retrospect was a very bad choice on their part.

spacehamster
I'm agnostic, and you can ridicule that viewpoint as "fence sitting" all you want

What's fence sittingish about not accepting the gnostic mythologies? Heck, one could say catholics are a-gnostic too and they certainly aren't fence sitters.

http://www.gnostic.info/ [gnostic.info]

bobhhh
Actually i think it was me who called you that!!

You definitely weren't the first and you certainly wont be the last...

bobhhh
How about next time a church is burning, god makes it rain?

Sounds like the Norwegian metal scene.

bobhhh
I think that's actually in most religious tracts, "Thou shalt not pay taxes for thy god."

From what I remember, the reason that "churches" aren't taxed is because the government utilizes taxes as a means to establish behaviors. They wanted churches removed from said list. However, with the modern times, they are a changin'. Give it another couple of years, and they will be. In fact, the church my dad's a deacon at is moving twords it now. Something about I don't know. I don't listen to him when he carries on about it, I just smile and nod vaguely.