Cattivo wrote:

I'm conflicted of this. Technically, it's a religion, so it should be protected by democratic rights. However, it is an obvious scam that needs to be ridiculed as a cult. Plus, I love it when people call a spade a spade. The more attention brought to the deceptive profit motive of scientology, and its dangers as a cult, the better, but I'm hesitant to deny basic rights, even if they're bogusly setup like scientology.

Well said. I respect people's right to practice what they will. If someone wants to purge thetans and hook themselves up to machines and take personality tests and worship Xenu, then God bless 'em (so to speak.) I don't look down on native cultures for praying to the sun or a volcano or animals, either.

However, the "church" itself is a crock of shit designed by a few rich and powerful people to take advantage of the gullible and well intentioned, and they do a damn good job of it. Its not all that far off from bullshit practices like indulgences. The way I see it, churches have the right to solicit donations fro their believers, of course. They even have the right to put something about donation in their doctrine if they like (tithing in Christianity for example). But Scientology doesn't do that. Scientology asks people to pay money to be purged of thetans (or what the hell ever it is they do.) The more you pay, the better service you get. That's trading goods and services for money, and that's called being a business.

People have the right to believe whatever they want. But some corporation isn't automatically protected by law just because it makes up a story that some people believe, and names itself a religion.