Pharyngula

Posted by: JarrodB | October 27, 2009 12:08 PM

I don't know. But I'm agin it.

Posted by: Fishtank | October 27, 2009 12:10 PM

I read about this earlier this morning. From the last line in the AP article:

"Belgium, Germany and other European countries have been criticized by the U.S. State Department for labeling Scientology as a cult or sect and enacting laws to restrict its operations."

Why would the State Department be involved?

Posted by: Ewan R | October 27, 2009 12:13 PM

I'm guessing Lourdes brings in quite a bit of revenue from tourists, whereas the scientology money is ending up in California somewhere.

Fraud is no longer fraud when it generates tax Francs.

Posted by: Aratina Cage | October 27, 2009 12:14 PM

I'm so glad you said that. What is it with Catholics and other Christians who think their religions are so respectable and not out to fleece the gullible for every coin?

Posted by: Jebus is my Dog | October 27, 2009 12:22 PM

@arrakis #9
"A pyramid scheme is still a pyramid scheme, no matter what you call it."

So, are you trying to say that they aren't any better than Amway??? At least you get some soap or something for your money.

Posted by: daveau | October 27, 2009 12:30 PM

Prosecutors were going to call to shut them down, but the law changed quietly just before the trial, and now they have to be convicted of fraud several times before that's an option.

In related news, Russia was unable to close down 2 Scientology branches. Their law states that your religion must be established in the country for at least 15 years before it's legit, but that was ruled unconstitutional.

Posted by: akshelby | October 27, 2009 12:37 PM

Ewan R.

As a former Catholic, that is exactly why they leave it open. It brings in huge amounts of tourism dollars to France. So long as the country is making money off the fraud, it's okay.

Posted by: catta | October 27, 2009 12:44 PM

*sigh* it's been repeated sooo many times.
You can leave the catholic and just about any other church any time you want. Anytime. All that will be done to you is some feeble fist shaking in your general direction. If you want to join, you're given all the facts up front.
None of that is true for scientology.
Nobody will come after you if don't give money to the church. Even in Germany, where the state collects taxes for your church of choice, all you have to say is "I quit", and you're no longer paying a single cent.
And Lourdes? When's the last time catholics were forced to go to Lourdes, and pay for the trip? And by forced I mean physical force, threats of violence, etc.? Yeah, I thought so.

FFS. Yes, if you reduce religions to their belief systems, they're all ridiculous. But I don't think the comparison is at all fair here. It's a bit like hearing about someone having been convicted of rape and then saying "that's all good and well, but when will someone go after the BDSM scene?".

Any mention of Scientology always ends with someone making the same comparison, and it's generally made with little or no idea about the sheer amount of evil scientology does (I'm just shocked to see it in an actual post by PZ this time). I'll just leave this link for those who still think scientology is comparable to any mainstream religion, and bow out. Post'n'run, maybe, but we've been over this. Read into what scientology does, and you'll know very quickly what the problem is and why that problem does not exist with, say, catholicism -- at least not in an institutionalised, part-of-the-cult way.

Here's Operation Clambake.

http://www.xenu.net/

Posted by: HotShot | October 27, 2009 12:48 PM

Don't get it wrong, the trial against the CoS resulted in a fine not because it's a church or it's Scientology, but because as an organization they were found guilty of fraud. This time it's CoS, next time it could be GM or Coca-Cola for that matters... Not a win for reason, rather an epic fail for French justice.

Posted by: ChrisZ | October 27, 2009 12:52 PM

Thanks, catta, I don't have to go through and talk about all the differences between Scientology and other Churches.

I know we all like to make fun of religions around here, there are a lot of problems and stupidity abounds, but that doesn't mean that any religion is just as bad as any other, or that it is impossible to distinguish between a cult and a religion.

Posted by: Aratina Cage | October 27, 2009 12:53 PM

You can leave the catholic and just about any other church any time you want. Anytime. All that will be done to you is some feeble fist shaking in your general direction. If you want to join, you're given all the facts up front. None of that is true for scientology. -catta

Tell that to the 9-year-old Catholic girl who had an abortion.

Posted by: ChrisZ | October 27, 2009 12:56 PM

@SEF #21

That's a stupid legal problem, not a religious one.

Posted by: pixelfish | October 27, 2009 1:39 PM

Catta @16: Sure, most legal adults in first world countries can leave the Catholic church. (See Aratina's point about the 9 year old South American girl who needed an abortion.)

And I guess you do get the facts up front....if by facts you mean lies about the body of Christ, the immaculate conception of Jesus AND Mary, a whole buncha crap about inerrant word of god, and nearly two thousand years of fucked-uped-ness. I bet one of the facts they don't share if you want to join is the Banquet of Chestnuts. Or the times when there were two duelling popes. Or the Magdalen laundries. Or ya know, ever admitting to the systemic abuse of children by their employees.

And if by "up front" you mean in the womb? Because the majority of Catholics were probably born to Catholic parents.

It's logically as much a scam as Scientology, if not legally, sadly. It's just an older scam.

"FFS. Yes, if you reduce religions to their belief systems, they're all ridiculous."

Yes, glad you caught up. That's what we're doing. They're all ridiculous and ALL SCAMS.

"...it's generally made with little or no idea about the sheer amount of evil scientology does..."

Actually, I've been reporting on the amount of evil Scientology does since seventh grade, when I chose it to make my report on for World Religions Class. It's just that I also happen to realise that Scientology has had under 100 years to perpetuate evil, whereas the Catholic church is working on two millenia at its next benchmark.

Posted by: bernarda | October 27, 2009 2:36 PM

Anyone who wants to see a good example of the Lourdes fraud should read Emile Zola's "Lourdes", written over a hundred years ago.

Posted by: ChrisZ | October 27, 2009 2:45 PM

@pixelfish #26

Come on, I really can't believe there are this many people who can't see the difference between the two.

First of all, social consequences or excommunication are not the same as financial consequences or public smear campaigns when leaving a church. Furthermore, ex-scientologists are pretty much always "excommunicated" when they leave the church, with friends and family instructed not to communicate with them. The Catholic Church, has no similar policy even if it does occasionally excommunicate someone for stupid reasons.

Second, fine you don't like the word fact. I think we could argue about how catta meant the word, but to do so misses the point. Scientology requires huge time and financial investment before learning their teachings. The Catholic Church does not. That's a big, qualitative difference.

Third, whether children are indoctrinated into any religion is not at issue here. Do I like it? No, but imparting your beliefs onto your children is irrelevant in this case. Furthermore, Scientologist children will not be given the beliefs of Scientology until they go through the same, very expensive, auditing and classes that their parents went through. Again, the lack of freedom of information is a qualitative difference.

Fourth, yes all religions are almost certainly wrong. Yes a lot of their beliefs are ridiculous. But it isn't a scam to tell someone something that is wrong, it's a scam to do so and then charge people money based on the false information given. And before you bring up tithes, yes there's a difference. The church doesn't withhold any services from you unless you tithe. It encourages tithing while still providing all help to all people. That's a very big difference, even if you don't like either method.

Finally, maybe you want to define a scam as anything that makes a claim that isn't true; that doesn't get rid of the real differences between the two churches, it just gets rid of your ability to semantically distinguish between them. Maybe both the Democratic and Republican parties become scams under your definition because both have put forth platforms based on false information in the past and encouraged people to act in some way on the information. Maybe you're okay with that, but I don't think that definition is useful nor is it a definition that you're likely to find many other people accepting (and they will accordingly tell you you're using the word wrong).

Posted by: Insightful Ape | October 27, 2009 2:48 PM

Once I told a friend, who happened to be a devout Lutheran, by way of conversation, that the Church of Scientology was on trial in France.
He's like: "Church? Some call it a cult".
Right. That's precisely what the Vatican used to call the Lutherans.

Posted by: Bethor | October 27, 2009 3:01 PM

Quick comment, as an actual french person.

As much as I would like to see the catholic church being held accountable for the large scale fraud that is Lourdes, there is an official and legal distinction in France between religions and sects. The latter are much more tightly controlled, mostly due to several high profile cases in recent memory (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Solar_Temple).

It is this distinction that keeps the judicial power at bay from "real" religions.

Obviously, this begs the question of the difference between a sect and a religion, apart from success at swindling more people !
In order to be officially classified as a sect, I believe an element of coercion and "brainwashing" has to be involved.
One might argue that this also exists in mainstream religions but you have to realize that, at least in the case of catholicism, they have greatly lost their power in France. Many people over here really couldn't care less what the church says or are openly hostile to it.

Really, I think a lot of you would like it over here ;) (although, don't worry, you'd quickly find a lot of other annoyances to replace religion, e.g. politics :D)

Posted by: daveau | October 27, 2009 3:04 PM

ChrisZ@31

There's a useful partial definition: If the "church" won't let you leave, it's a cult.

Posted by: Gregory Greenwood | October 27, 2009 3:14 PM

As much as it will doubtless annoy some contributors, it seems to me that the only real difference between a church and a cult is that churches possess an (often thin) veneer of respectability that is a product, more than anything else, of long standing power and wealth. Just because some theologies are nastier than others in the treatment of their adherents and other groups in society does not make even the most seemingly benign religion any less an exploitation of ignorance, fear and gullibility.

Just because something has stood for a long time does not mean that it is either right or socially beneficial. The modern Catholic Church no longer engages in armed crusades, but it continues to promote harmfull prejudice and bigotry toward women and homosexuals as well as covering up widespread child abuse and opposing the prudent use of condoms, thus directly contributing to countless deaths and unimagined suffering and poverty accross vast tracts of the world. You do not need armies to kill or to ruin lives.

I consider the actions of the RCC indefensible, which is also much the same way I feel about all Christians Churches, and Islam, and Hinduism, and whatever other flavour of woo you care to name. Just saying that they are not as openly nuts as Scientologists is hardly much of a defence.

Posted by: PixelFish | October 27, 2009 3:20 PM

See, I gotta quibble with your first point right there:

"First of all, social consequences or excommunication are not the same as financial consequences or public smear campaigns when leaving a church."

Except in places where the social consequences turn into financial consequences or public smear campaigns. Which has never happened with the Catholic church apparently. Except for when it did. Like all the folks who were pressured to keep quiet about molestation, or the girls who were pressured not to sue over the Magdalene laundries. Or the kid who was involved in WaferGate. Or Sabina Guzzanti, who was up on blasphemy charges for mocking the pope.

See, Pzed's point which Catta is quibbling with is that the Catholic church should be accused of fraud. They don't have the exact same TACTICS, certainly, but they do defraud their members of time and money nonetheless, while being willing to play the heavy if members get too obstreperous. See, it's one thing to merely leave the church, but when the church should owe you compensation/apologies/whatevs for the harm their employees committed AND they send lawyers and threats of excommunication and let the likes of Bill Donahue smear you and don't tell their congregations to stop sending death threats....well, it's hard to see how that behaviour is materially different than Scientology.

Yes, the average schmoe who just leaves Catholicism is let alone. So is Neil Gaiman, who left Scientology and notably doesn't discuss it. But as far as we know, the people with legitimate beliefs on both Scientology and Catholicism's patch have a tough row to hoe, and both institutions feel free to fling the crap.

Historically, the Catholic church has acted just like Scientology does now. They have been hobbled largely by secular laws...but obviously don't restrain themselves when they can get around those laws.

...

Don Sinclair: I don't know if I can use the head honchos level of belief as a metric for determining the difference between a religion and a cult. Arguably, I think almost all religions are just large privileged cults. But if I did want to differentiate between them, I'm not sure level of belief is accurate....because plenty of small-time delusionals believe in their particular delusion something fierce. I've seen the Heaven's Gate videos, and Marshall Applewhite or whatever his name is, seems pretty devoutly believing of his own crap. (Incidently, HG was pretty anomalous for two reasons: one, they didn't compel via threat people staying on--if you wanted to leave, by all accounts Ol' Marsh would let you leave, and in fact, let some of the group go just before the group suicide, and two, they didn't believe in letting children be members.)

In Scientology's case, it's easy to say "Well, L. Ron Hubbard just made it up, so the guys at the top have to know it's all BS." But the same holds true for Mormonism and Lutheranism and Catholicism. Some guy showed up and made claims about the prior order of things, and then said his way of doing stuff was the right way. I tend to think that if you get that high up in a religion, you either know its not true, or you fuck your brain over pretty hard trying to justify it. (In the recent case of Haggis, I chalk him up to being a brain-contortionist who reached a breaking point and honestly couldn't go any further. But he's going to have a hell of a time unpretzelling himself.)

Posted by: ChrisZ | October 27, 2009 3:23 PM

Jesus I'm spamming this thread, my apologies.

@Gregory Greenwood #38

I think that the common distinction made between a cult and a religion is that the cult requires almost complete control over the lives of its followers. In a cult, you often have to (different from choose to) completely cut yourself off from the rest of society and almost everything you do is controlled by the cult and its leaders. That is not how most churches operate, and it is (I think) a distinction worth recognizing.

Obviously there is grey area in some cases, not everything is perfectly black and white and fits perfectly into our definitions, but that doesn't make the two ends of the spectrum disappear nor does it make it unreasonable to label the two ends as different things.

Posted by: Oldcola | October 27, 2009 3:32 PM

The bad news, because there are often bad news, is that an error in law voting made it impossible to dissolve the association as it was requested.

The error was corrected but too late for the right form of the law to be applied in this case.

Fucking stupid, isn't it? Well, next time maybe things will be done 'till completion.

Posted by: PixelFish | October 27, 2009 3:45 PM

ChrisZ - "I think that the common distinction made between a cult and a religion is that the cult requires almost complete control over the lives of its followers. In a cult, you often have to (different from choose to) completely cut yourself off from the rest of society and almost everything you do is controlled by the cult and its leaders"

See, both the Catholic Church and the Mormon church (the institution I'm most familiar with) are institutions that will let you leave....provided you play by their rules and pretend you never had anything against them personally and that they didn't damage your life and so on. The control issues are still there but they've been privileged to a degree by the longer history of the institution. Try to be honest about why you left, and expect them to come down hard on you. And if you happen to live in an area where they hold a majority (Italy, or Utah, respectively), you can really expect that your livelihood, reputation, relationships, and so on will be held over your head as hostages to your future actions.

The only thing is that compared to Scientology, both institutions have more respectability. (Mormons less so obviously, and particularly not with certain other groups.)

Posted by: tommorris | October 27, 2009 3:54 PM

Here's how I see it:

If everyone who was a Scientologist were to suddenly magically turn into Presbyterians, the world would be a better place. If everyone who was a Presbyterian were to suddenly magically turn into Scientologists, the world would be a worse place.

'Cult' is always going to be a blurry and contentious line.

What the Church of Scientology does wrong particularly is keep their actual scriptures and beliefs behind a big paywall. You don't have to be a Catholic to read papal encyclicals. You don't have to be a Muslim to read the Qu'ran. Denying the non-convert - or in Scientology's case, the non-customer - access to enough of the scriptures to understand what is going on is wrong. It's wrong because it's a deliberately designed move to stop critical scholarship and thought around the ideas contained in those books.

One thing Scientology tells people is that the doctrines of Scientology are compatible with their existing religion or with an atheist, agnostic or humanist position - that is, you don't have to change faith or adopt a new faith if you become a Scientologist. This is a scam - Scientology makes metaphysical claims that are incompatible with humanism/atheism, and it makes metaphysical claims that are incompatible with other religions. But if all you read is the PR and marketing material, you'll never learn that until you are in too deep.

Other religions preach this too - the idea that anything critical that anyone says about your faith is actually just a lie told by the Devil. That has the same effect also. But with Scientology, people are told that if they even hear the story about Xenu before they are adequately prepared (that is, before they have written a large enough cheque to the Church), their head will explode. That's an insane doctrine, and one that needs exposing.

A friend of mine told me that he once explained the Xenu myth to a crowd of Scientologists while he was protesting - this was a few years before Anonymous got started with Chanology - outside one of their Orgs - a local Scientology group. The next day, the building was shut to the public, and an inside source told him that they had brought them all in to give them some kind of brainwashing session to counter-act them learning the "secret" dogma without payment.

Posted by: darvolution propononentsist | October 27, 2009 4:30 PM

Third, whether children are indoctrinated into any religion is not at issue here. Do I like it? No, but imparting your beliefs onto your children is irrelevant in this case. Furthermore, Scientologist children will not be given the beliefs of Scientology until they go through the same, very expensive, auditing and classes that their parents went through. Again, the lack of freedom of information is a qualitative difference.

Perhaps you should spend some time at the ExScientologyKids forums. You appear unaware of Study Tech, the number of Scientology schools, or the child labor used in the Sea Org ? If you think paying for "courses" (aside from joining the Sea Org where you "earn" them) is the only way one is indoctrinated or affected by Scientology teachings, I'd suggest you do some reading and rethink your statement above.

Posted by: MadScientist | October 27, 2009 4:43 PM

@Alverant #7: Scientology is a huge cult. It may be dwarfed by the catholic church but it dwarfs many other cults such as "heaven's gate" and it's even larger than many of the pentecostal cults. It is large enough and has enough money that it was able to bully the US government (the IRS to be specific) into classifying it as a religion.

Posted by: nastasie | October 27, 2009 4:55 PM

pixelfish @ 26 said:
"(See Aratina's point about the 9 year old South American girl who needed an abortion.)"

I wonder how long it will take for specific countries in the South American continent to be referred to, erm, specifically. How hard is it to say "Brazil", "Argentina", "Chile" instead of just throwing everything that happens here under the utterly meaningless umbrella term "South America". I'm sure it makes it much easier to condescend to an entire continent (which, by the way, contains vast cultural diversity even within a single country, you know?), but...maybe one might want to stay away from gross generalizations? Just a thought.

Back on topic: regarding the 9-year-old Brazilian girl who needed an abortion, she did get an abortion, which was a right she had, guaranteed by law. She also got psychological assistance, and was relocated along with her mother and sister, by government social services.
As for the Catholic bishops, archbishops, etc, who kicked and screamed about it, all they could do was, well, kick and scream about it, and excommunicate the mother - but not the rapist. I didn't go over well with the public, there was enormous backlash for the RCC in Brazil, including a public statement by the President basically telling them to mind their own business.

My point is that the RCC's political influence in certain countries in South America (I can speak specifically for Brazil, and maybe Argentina, but I'm not sure about other South American countries - there are many) is declining. Here in Brazil the laws concerning abortions have been made less strict, and we are close to approving civil partnerships for same-sex couples. Also, just in case you want to bring up South America in your next discussion about the RCC and the condom scandal in Africa, you might want to know that the government of the largest and strongest economy in this continent has sponsored campaigns in favour of condom use, as well as distributed and subsidised condoms, ever since the 80's, with complete disregard for whatever the RCC has to say about it.

Posted by: Aratina Cage | October 27, 2009 5:28 PM

If celibacy was not what you were talking about please explain. -ChrisZ

That is only a small part of it, isn't it? Don't such people have to give up their lives, not just their sex lives, to the church and accept almost total control? (Correct me if I am wrong. I was stunned by Crackergate.) The RCC plucks monastics and wannabe clergy from society and places them in its cabal. And if they should happen to give up their special positions within the RCC, they effectively get walled off from the people who remain, even those who may have been close friends or almost family.

Other ways the RCC controls less special members: married couples cannot divorce, gay couples cannot marry, couples cannot use contraceptives or birth control, and women cannot have abortions or be clergy. And no list would be complete without mention of RCC's theological stranglehold on Latin America and other New World native populations.

Moving on to other points of comparison, the RCC can expect tithing (much like U.S. restaurants expect guests to tip servers) so it doesn't have to charge for dissemination of its doctrine, sure. The RCC does practice sale of indulgences, however, with a heavy helping of sin that must be absolved. And it was only recently that you could hear the True Teachings™ in the common vernacular.

I think the only way you can not look on the RCC with disrepute is by selectively avoiding all the horrible things it has done and continues to do to people.

Posted by: Steven Mading | October 27, 2009 6:30 PM

Catta, you are correct that the CURRENT Catholic Church is not as bad as the CURRENT Scientology Church. But remember that with Scientology what you are seeing is how religions get started in the first place. In the history of the Catholic Church, you DID have all these cult-like practices that you currently see in Scientology. The only difference is that they're not STILL doing them.

Posted by: PixelFish | October 27, 2009 7:04 PM

Sorry, nastasie. I apologise for not being more complete with my information there. I was pretty certain she was from Brazil, but punted for South American instead, which as you point out was too general of information to be relevant to the topic at hand.

I personally am pleased that the RCC's control is declining in Brazil, and that the Brazilian government is embracing reality-based solutions to real problems.

Posted by: black-wolf72 | October 27, 2009 8:11 PM

Mike,
I see a problem with waving sin and hellfire with one hand and selling figurines of protective saints and magic water with the other, do you?
Saying "we're not threatening you, but God might decide there's a problem, just sayin', but here's some magic stuff that has worked in the past and might work for you" doesn't make it better, does it?

Posted by: nastasie | October 27, 2009 11:29 PM

PixelFish @ 60

I think if you want to consider the role and influence of religion, specifically the RCC, in certain places, then referring to entire continents is always going to be too general, no? I'm not a social scientist, though, so I could be wrong and that could be relevant in some way.

I guess that rant had been building for some time. I've been following discussions about the RCC's campaign against condom distribution in "Africa", and I'm always left wondering where exactly in Africa the RCC's words actually resonate with governments. I'm sure some research could answer that question for me, and I plead guilty to any charges of laziness there. But every now and then - more often than you'd think - I see a comment along the lines "the RCC's nefarious influence in places like Africa and South America"...I'm sure that's not what you were implying, but you can see where I'm coming from.

Posted by: Aratina Cage | October 28, 2009 12:18 AM

ChrisZ #66,

Thank you for clarifying that. I am afraid I misconstrued your position about the Catholic Church in my fury over Catholic hypocrisy, apologies for that. You and the others who agree with you have good points about distinctions between Scientology and Catholicism; I don't think those distinctions let Catholics off the hook (and I take it you don't either).

My bottom line is that Catholics should not be laughing at this legal conviction, though you are quite likely very right that what Catholics do could not be considered organized fraud with regard to treatments for illnesses in France. As for the conviction of Scientology, I applaud it and only wish it could be extended to all the religious and spiritual woo peddlers.

Posted by: ChrisZ | October 28, 2009 1:12 AM

@aratina cage #66

I could have been a little more clear about what I was saying, or more clearly distinguished the points I was trying to make. That, sadly, is almost always true of things I write on the internet.

Posted by: DLC | October 28, 2009 8:15 AM

While I agree that Scientology is worse than the Catholics, I do not exempt the RCC from their role as a social ill and grand-scale con-game. There is no Xenu, and there is no Yaweh.
There's no Zeus, Zoroaster, Bob, FSM or Cthulhlu either.
Or more to the point, there is no compelling evidence to prove any of the above exist. With that in mind, any organization that exhorts its adherents to give money to "the cause" because Xenu/Zeus/Bhaal/Asmodeus said so are committing fraud and obtaining money under false pretenses.

Posted by: phantomreader42 | October 28, 2009 10:25 AM

hurricane @ #69:

FYI, true scientists use scriptural passage AS scientific evidence,

No, idiots drunk on communion wine, the mentally ill, and pathological liars use scriptural passages as "evidence".

Scientists have ACTUAL evidence.

Posted by: Bill Dauphin, avec fromage | October 29, 2009 1:16 PM

After scanning the comments thread here, it seems to me that the tension between the Scientology-is-different and all-religions-are-evil-cults factions rests on what I see as a misaprehension: That singling Scientology out for special criticism as a fraud and mind-control cult implies some exoneration of mainstream religion for its own evils.

Not so, and least IMHO... but I believe there is a difference.

During my long, strange trip, I've joined and left several different Christian churches, including formally converting to Catholicism as a young adult. Though I was encouraged to donate to those churches and their charitable operations, such donations were never mandatory, and at no point was I ever required to pay for religious instruction¹, services, or access to any sacrament. I was also never harmed, harrassed, or threatened in any way when I left any of those churches. Finally, every pastor, bishop, or lay leader I ever conversed with gave every impression of being an earnest and sincere believer.

None of that means I think mainstream religions are true, or that I deny the immense social harm they cause. But there's a difference between an invidious institution embedded in social history, on the one hand, and a conscious fraud on the other hand. Recall that fraud requires more than just falsehood, and even more than just falsehood that leads to material gain. Fraud requires a deliberate, knowing falsehood committed for the purpose of material gain.

AFAIK, nobody sat down and wrote the Christian scriptures from whole cloth, for the specific purpose of passing off as truth a conscious fiction. Indeed, the chaotic textual history of the Bible mitigates fairly strongly against the existence of any such Christian analogue to L. Ron Hubbard or Joseph Smith.

It's easy to understand traditional religions as historical accretions of myths and legends in almost evolutionary terms: We have fossils of extinct religions (and perhaps some religious coelocanths, as well), and examples of bizarre specimens from isolated "ecological" niches, along with the major religions that have thriven and filled the Earth with adaptive variations. The variety and complexity of modern theological beliefs no more requires or even implies an Original Fraudster™ any more than the variety and complexity of biological life implies an Intelligent Designer®.

Of course, some individual Christians certainly are engaged in fraud and deception... but I don't see any evidence that Christianity, per se — false and harmful as it indisputably is — is a fraudulent enterprise, nor that most Christian leaders are anything other than sincere (albeit deluded) believers.²

Scientology, OTOH, clearly is the product of one human mind. If it is a falsehood — and what rational person could possibly think otherwise? — it is necessarily and obviously a deliberate one. And it's not hard to see that it is, as an enterprise, specifically designed to generate money. Not voluntary contributions or charitable gifts, mind you, but fees, charged for training and services and materials that are knowingly false. It's hard to know for sure from the outside, of course, but I'm guessing the real secrets revealed to those who've spent the tens or hundreds of thousands required to reach the highest levels of the organization are not phoney-baloney sci-fi theology, but rather initiation into the "business" workings of the enterprise.

From my POV, Scientology appears to be distinct from both traditional religion and "real" cults that are centered on a crazy belief (even compared to the ordinary craziness of mainstream theology) or a megalomaniacal individual: Rather than irrational commitment to an honestly held false belief, Scientology appears to be a cynical exploitation of a consciously constructed falsehood, for the sake of money and power. It looks to me like Scientology has more in common with Amway, or with organized crime, than it does with any "real" religion, regardless of whether the latter is traditional or obscure.

Again, nothing about this in any way exonerates religion for the social harm it causes: In many ways, a deluded True Believer™ can do vastly more harm than even the most ruthless con-man... especially when the former has millennia of historical tradition behind him/her.

¹ I did have to purchase a textbook for my conversion class, but not directly from the church, and it didn't cost any more than an ordinary book (and considerably less than a typical college textbook).

² I imagine you could say much the same about all the historical/traditional major religions, but I don't have as much personal awareness of them.

Posted by: Walton | October 29, 2009 1:26 PM

Bill @#74: Well said.

Posted by: lance | November 28, 2009 1:04 AM

Neil Gaiman hasn't left Scientology. He is in the grip of Scientology, that is why there are recent photos of him at Wealden House. The money trail is undeniable, he’s been named a Patron with Honors and a Founding Patron and has given $100,000.00 to the CULT. Neil is a second generation Scientologist stuck deep in the cult and every person he is associated with in public is either approved by Scientology or is a connection who brings in work and money. Mark Headly testifies in his book Blown for Good that Scientology reinstated David and Neil Gaiman and apologized to them for an earlier disconnect (Guardian office coup), so Gaiman is a scientologist in good standing.