In case you’re still lost as to what the heck is going on, a Scientology Run is when people film themselves charging into a Church of Scientology building to see how far they can get before being caught and booted out. It’s a notoriously secretive religion, so it turns the whole place into an action-movie set piece where the protagonist is trying to infiltrate a compound while fending off its legion of foot soldiers, clad in terrifying white button-ups with black vests.
I dunno. These are cracking me up for some reason and even though this article is a bit shallow, I think a decent point was made at the end: power charging religious buildings is kinda bad taste I think - even if Scientology is full of complete asshole weirdos.
reminder: scientology is not a religion.
It is, for tax purposes.
Reminder: all religions are made up and mental illness adajcent.
Yeah sorry this one is actually a cult and not a religion.
Fuck all religions/cults.
Leave the pastafaria a alone, ok?
No. No it’s not at all.
Religion is in bad taste. And before you come at me, go witness a few religious atrocities first. Like Gaza.
I won’t come at you at all with that statement friend.
On the other hand, all religions are complete weirdos and not a single one of them deserves special status or protections.
Scientology is not a religion
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One worships God (imaginary person), the other worships a human (real person).
inb4 “but Jesus was a man” yes. But he’s dead, and whatever remains is not “real” anymore
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It’s whether the person you’re talking to just happens to be a part of that religion or not, typically.
They are all cults to me. Some just have better pr.
Sounds like something a religious person would say to feel like their religion is more sensible.
Well the thing is, it’s a cult.
They all are though tbf
Well yes, especially given that the Catholic church is basically (for a given value of ‘basically’) a continuation of the Roman empire, a financial instrument clothed in religion. Same as Scientology.
There’s different types of names for a group depending on certain variables. Not all cults are religions.
I didn’t say that though did I? I said all religions are cults.
The difference between a cult and a religion is that in a cult the person at the top of the pyramid scheme knows it’s all a bullshit grift and everyone else is a true believer, it’s a religion when that person dies.
It’s absolutely a cult. Ex enforcer Mike Rinder himself called Scientology an intelligence gathering organisation.
Give it a few more generations, and it’ll look like Mormonism (originally an obviously scammy personality cult with a problematic founder, but now a respectable pillar of conservative society). Another century or two and it’ll be like Lutheranism or Episcopalianism: so much part of the background that people don’t even notice the weird stuff in its doctrines.
Scientology isn’t based on an already accepted mainstream religion and they’re losing membership. History rhymes, it doesn’t always repeat.
I mean, I get that but isn’t LDS considered still a cult? It certainly fits a lot of the criteria.
By who? Other Christian’s or religious people? Typical of them to accuse everyone else of being a cult.
Legally, no.
If you ask anyone sane, all religion is a cult.
Religion, cult, intelligence gathering… none mutually exclusive.
All religions are cults.
It’s pretty well documented that L. Ron Hubbard founded Scientology to serve as a financial tool. Hence the financial controversies and the IRS battles from the 70s-90s
I agree, but that doesn’t prevent a social club from being a religion, does it?
There’s a clear difference between an organisation intentionally created as a cult in living memory and one which, as far as we all know, arose organically from the sincere beliefs of people.
It doesn’t make the beliefs of one more true or something, it’s just a useful categorisation.
You just said the difference is time and the fact no one can remember the religions founding. Which is no clear difference at all.
Time tends to sand off the rough edges of any organization that wants to keep pulling in new members and that doesn’t need a framework of total control to protect itself from fizzling out early. It’s an evolutionary process, not just historical whitewashing. Though it’s also historical whitewashing.
Mentally ill people have sincere beliefs too.
calling exploitative cult a religion is quite bad taste imo
Which religion isn’t though?
They’re all exploitive and cult-like in my opinion.
There’s a difference, aside from size and social recognition?
Control. Generally speaking a religion and a cult are differentiated by how much they demand or control in members lives. Scientology, Mormons, and even a lot of Southern Baptists are generally cults or really cult like. For comparison Anglicans, Quakers, and progressive Neo-Pagans are on average not cults even if they are insane and playing with the dynamics at times.
So christianity was more of a cult in medieval times?
Plenty of sects cut you off still. Like Catholics.
Depended on region and what period of the medieval era, for example Iceland around 1000 absolutely not, but in France during the crusades absolutely was. Remember the medieval era lasted about a thousand years and was spread across Europe so there’s lots of nuance.
The hallmarks of cults is: separation from friends or family, a person or ruling body that delivers the one and true version, punishment for rule breaking, and a difficulty separating. Also, it almost always devolves into sex slavery and/or arranged unions.
Those things give you control of course, but they are the basic guidelines of cult like behaviour.
Fuck em they’re an organization built on kidnapping and abuse.