More like a scam. In the same Readers' Digest article, I read where L. Ron Hubbard told some person that, for being over 40 trillion years old, he feels great.

A scam? I guess it is a religion then.

Well, okay: I'll say this about them and this is all I know.
They had a big church on campus (which is downtown, which is where I live) when I was a teenager, back in the 1990s. They would walk around offering to give people 'personality quizzes'. I wasn't old enough to take one, because you had to be 18, so they left me alone.
But a lot of my friends (older teens and early 20s, either broke or homeless) got involved with the Scientology Church because it offered them "jobs" (apparently whether they would hire you was determined by the result of your "personality quiz", but I never heard of them turning anyone down, including some total loser scumbags who wouldn't have been able to get a job at McDonald's).

After they got "hired", the Scientology Church would move them to another city; usually San Francisco or LA. There, it would put them in a small apartment with six or eight other "employees" and provide for their basic needs, but I don't remember if they actually got paid any cash or not. My recollection is that they didn't, or else it was an incredibly minimal amount (like, not enough to get back home with).
Their work apparently consisted of selling Dianetics books and distributing Scientology literature and possibly giving those personality quizzes on street corners, I can't remember. I only heard it second-hand, and it's been such a long time ago.
At the same time, they would receive some sort of therapy or something, free of charge; "auditing", I think it's called. Basically they'd discuss all their deep dark secrets with an "auditor" who worked for the Church.
One of my friends who went to San Francisco was gay (before he started working for the Scientologists), and then he wrote me a letter and told me he was no longer gay, as a result of these "auditing" sessions. But I saw him again a few years later; he'd broken with the Scientologists and made his way back to Texas, and he was gay again.

But anyway, this happened to several of my friends in the 90s and that's what I know. It was the same story for all of them. The Church would "hire" some loser who couldn't get any other kind of job, move them to a faraway city, put them in a shared apartment, and put them to work selling stuff for the Church, and subject them to these "auditing" sessions.

Like I said, all of them eventually broke with the Church (usually after less than a year) and made their way back; the general consensus was, "Well, that was a damn rip-off", but not that the Scientologists were abusive, coercive, threatening, or otherwise scary.

It did seem to me at the time that it was some sort of pyramid scheme; that it was all about making money. It did not seem to me at the time that it was a scary and dangerous cult that was kidnapping my friends, but in retrospect it does seem strange that the Church always moved them so far away from home and everything familiar.
But like I said, they all got out, they're fine, the Scientologists never shot them in the head because they left, or even tried to stop them, as far as I know. Of course, I was never real clear on whether "working" for the Scientologists meant you were a Scientologist; they were all required to do those auditing sessions so maybe they were officially members; I'm just not sure.

Anyway, that's my (vicarious, second-hand) experience with them; the only thing else I have to add is that the Scientologists now own the entire city block that their Church occupied twenty years ago. And real estate is not cheap in the area, believe you me. So I assume they're prospering.

I'd definitely wouldn't call it a Religion in the Traditional sense!

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The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow.
Ayn Rand

So if Socialism is so great...why does it have to be mandated and forced on people?

Thats why I voted it is a cult.

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

Just because Hubbard said it was a religion doesn't make it so.

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"There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation... One is by sword... The other is by debt."

John Adams 1826

Then give a different search of wikipedia like I did Joe Shoe.. See below and as daylight it tells the truth right off the bat.

__________________
"There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation... One is by sword... The other is by debt."

John Adams 1826

All it takes is for another backboneless government here to declare Scientology a religion, and then a jellyfish-like president (like GW did) will declare it is also a religion of peace of mind, or something like it.

If he were running against Obama, yes.

Well I read enough for me to believe they are a cult or group of people that are serching for God, but yet failed to find Him. They give up their $ to keep this scam alive.

So please the members involved keep it going as I am dropping out. I added a heck of a lot in 2 posts above.

I can't out do myself...

__________________
"There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation... One is by sword... The other is by debt."

John Adams 1826

If Mormonism is a religion, then so is Scientology.