I think the way that people only get given information is when they pay enough money and when they give them enough info to be blackmailed, it is very much a cult, and a relatively dangerous one at that.

__________________

Scientology is alien to me. lol

I don't think its a dangerous cult so much as it is a fraudulent organization.

not nearly as dangerous as many of the other cults out there...

it does not have nearly the bloody history of any of todays major cults, such as Christianity and Islam...

__________________
some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant

http://www.marchforbabies.com/chuck725 ... helping babies born prematurely and with birth defects

Well said, Chuck.

I think the only real difference between a cult and a religion is simply the size of the membership.

That will shock or at least annoy many members of major religions, because of the generally negative connotations of the word "cult" and the generally positive connotations of the word "religion."

But I challenge them to provide another explanation of the difference between the two.

Read "Dianetics", by L Ron Hubbard so you have some kind of an truthful idea of what the "religion" is about. It's not really that big of a book and does have some interesting concepts and ideas. I was so impressed by his book "Battlefield Earth" that I felt it necessary to check out his book "Dianetics". The wiki entry on Scientology gives a somewhat accurate summary of some of the ideas and the timeline and story of it. What I have noticed is that a great many of the people that follow the "religion" as also a great many Mormons and followers of other religions often called "cults" are usually highly successful and intelligent people so I do feel that some "cults" may be better for you than others. Perhaps it is their "success" that makes them the target of hatred that they often become. Schadenfreude comes to mind.

Speaking of "Battlefield Earth"which is a frighteningly big, long book; I need to recommend it to anyone into science fantasy/fiction. As I read it and got more and more into the story which bounces back and forth between the alien bad guys viewpoint to the earth born "savages" viewpoint I found I could hardly stop reading and as I approached the climax of the story I found myself shirking responsibilities in order to find out what happens next and as I reached the end I was actually cheering out loud as I read.

__________________
"Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively and without self delusion---In the long run these are the only people that count."Robert Heinlein

I also read Battlefield Earth in my late teens. I remember the copy I read had a big gold stamp on it saying that it was "Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture!" I was pretty interested in that, because I liked the book a lot.

It was a LONG wait for that movie, and it was pretty disappointing to me. In the time between the book and the movie, Scientology moved into the public consciousness and colored the novel as the work of a religious nut... which was too bad. It was a good book, and deserved a better movie treatment.

Dianetics, I remember seeing ads on TV for that book, talking about how it could change your life. It was sold as a self-help book. And I see over on wikipedia, it is just one of 18 books that make up Scientology's reference books.

If I felt more strongly about this issue, I would try to find time to read the book, but I'm just not that concerned about it. (Honestly, I didn't even read the whole wikipedia entry.)

Scientology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here is another bit from that wikipedia entry. It is just this sort of thing that makes me cognizant of the non-authoritative nature of that site. I have to take this with a grain of salt, because it sounds, well, crazy.

The organization says that it enforces confidentiality. Excerpts and descriptions of these materials were published online by a former member in 1995 and then circulated in mainstream media.[69] This occurred after the teachings were submitted as evidence in court cases involving Scientology, thus becoming a matter of public record.[73][74] In the previously confidential OT levels, Hubbard explains how to reverse the effects of past-life trauma patterns that supposedly extend millions of years into the past.[73]

Among these advanced teachings, one episode revealed to those who reach OT level III is the story of Xenu (sometimes Xemu), introduced as an alien ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy." According to this story, 75 million years ago Xenu brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together, stuck to the bodies of the living and continue to do this today. Hubbard called these clustered spirits "Body Thetans," and advanced-level Scientologists place considerable emphasis on isolating these alien souls and neutralizing their ill effects.[75]

Mainstream Christianity does not hold to the definition of cult. Perhaps you should bust out ol' Webster before making such foolish assertions.

...what was that? Oh, you weren't going for honesty so much as you were going for a needless hyperbole for shock value? Ok, well that makes more sense now.

Really, that looks like the very definition of Christianity... especially #1. So I broke out the old Miriam Webster, and perhaps you should try it before trying to correct someone who has made a valid point.

Have a nice Day

__________________
some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant

http://www.marchforbabies.com/chuck725 ... helping babies born prematurely and with birth defects

I don't know enough about scientology to vote in the pole. I only know Tom Cruise and some others have embraced it. As for it being a cult. The word cult got a bad rap when people had to send private detectives to get their children from a place that had brain washed them.
So looking at the word beyond and prior to that era, I don't take offence at Christianity being called a cult. In the strictest definition of the word (as long as the point is not to slander), it is a cult. Sorry, I may get some flack from this. And I already stated I know nothing of Scientology. If it a bad thing and you are trying to compare Christianity to it, then I would take exception.

__________________


________________________________________
Salty

THANKSGIVING MENUS AND TIPS

A GREAT PLACE TO SHOP