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.
It’s absolutely a cult. Ex enforcer Mike Rinder himself called Scientology an intelligence gathering organisation.
Religion, cult, intelligence gathering… none mutually exclusive.
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.
All religions are cults.