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.
Reminder: all religions are made up and mental illness adajcent.
It is, for tax purposes.
calling exploitative cult a religion is quite bad taste imo
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?
Which religion isn’t though?
They’re all exploitive and cult-like in my opinion.
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
What’s the difference between a religion and a cult? It’s size and follower numbers?
Sounds like something a religious person would say to feel like their religion is more sensible.
It’s absolutely a cult. Ex enforcer Mike Rinder himself called Scientology an intelligence gathering organisation.
All religions are cults.
Religion, cult, intelligence gathering… none mutually exclusive.
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.
Mentally ill people have sincere beliefs too.
Well the thing is, it’s a cult.
They all are though tbf
There’s different types of names for a group depending on certain variables. Not all cults are religions.
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.