• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Is scientology a cult?

I've read various articles over the last few years to indicate that it has many cult-like qualities. Could you put in a link to whatever article you're talking about? Only because I'm too lazy to google it myself.
 
Of course it's a cult. But then, when Jedi has the potential to become a religion, what can't?
 
Scientology is the fat kid who gets picked last for the gym basketball games, while Christianity and Islam are always running around flexing and having the girls swoon over them, while Atheism is the rebel without a cause.

Yeah.
 
If you watch the Panorama documentary, I believe that's a link to it up there in Chris's post, you'll see that actually the outburst was completely understandable. The Scientologists came across as a bunch of total fruit loops and taken in context, after being spied on, ambushed, followed and verbally assaulted, that the reporter was so restrained when he finally snapped is a credit to him.
 
Two days ago I discovered that I have a book from this group;scientology, entitled The Pursuit of Happiness. I didn't who they were and since when they have reached Lebanon, but it's interesting to know.
 
Samerron said:
Two days ago I discovered that I have a book from this group;scientology, entitled The Pursuit of Happiness. I didn't who they were and since when they have reached Lebanon, but it's interesting to know.
Click to expand...

Have you ever read Dianetics? An absolute hoot. I'm amazed at how people can take such things seriously, then again, parking your brains at the door for such a belief system is easy for those who don't want to struggle with this life.
 
As with any cult, you aren't immediately exposed to the bonkers parts as soon as you walk through the door. You're met with kindness and understanding and, if you're alone and vulnerable, being surrounded by friendly faces can be a very powerful thing.

The people you'd meet in a Scientology book shop would be fairly lowly minions, not the evil masterminds rolling around in the filthy lucre. It's just a fancy pyramid scheme really. But with more rice.
 
Litany said:
As with any cult, you aren't immediately exposed to the bonkers parts as soon as you walk through the door. You're met with kindness and understanding and, if you're alone and vulnerable, being surrounded by friendly faces can be a very powerful thing.
Click to expand...

Do you think they make Cruise stand at the back of the room for this reason?

"No, Tom, you lost your greeter privileges when you pulled that ridiculous couch stunt. Go and warm up the psychiatrist-seeking missiles"
 
Litany said:
As with any cult, you aren't immediately exposed to the bonkers parts as soon as you walk through the door.
Click to expand...

Well, obviously. Being greeted with a huge sign saying "WE $CIENTOLOGISTS THINK YOU'RE DEPRESSED BECAUSE YOUR SOUL IS FULL WITH DEAD ALIENS BROUGHT TO EARTH 75 MILLION YEARS AGO IN UFO:S THAT LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE DC-8:S AND THEN BLOWN UP IN VOLCANOES" might actually scare off even those who are stupid enough to consider paying to join a cult in the first place.

If I were going to join a cult based on a sci-fi novel, I'd be a bokononist; it's a lot cheaper, plus you can dance to the scripture.
 
You know what...I've always thought of myself as being really open-minded religiously. I'm a Lutheran, but I have friends of several different religions and denominations that are drastically different from mine, and I have no problem with that. Other religions don't bother me.

But cults scare me, and Scientology is a cult. It's a cult because they have practices that go beyond odd and unusual, and they're secretive about everything. Also, I find them very hard to take seriously. The whole Xenu thing...it's so obvious if you read up on all of this that Hubbard couldn't sell enough books so he decided to turn his fiction into a religion. It's so ridiculous and they have all of their facts wrong. Like the bit about us being implanted with images of Christ millions of years ago...is this possible when Christ lived only two thousand years ago?

I think that they completely misrepresent themselves to those they recruit, and many of their methods--such as banning psychiatric help--are dangerous. (That incident only started after Hubbard had a dispute with psychiatrists a few years into his crusade.)

As for the video, I haven't seen the rest of the footage, but I definitely believe that there's a lot more than the youtube video linked to on this page lets on. It seems too random. Something happened before that was edited out of it for whatever reason. And it must have been pretty bad if they made a television reporter yell, because I understand that they are trained to control themselves very well in such cases.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top