(July 22, 2020 at 8:43 am)Porcupine Wrote: Scientology .... not sure it even qualifies as a cult .... let alone a religion. I'd prefer to use the word 'scam'.
And If you want a barefaced scam that leads to genuine enlightenment instead of loss of money---then go to Zen instead.
You call Scientology a scam?! So how then would you call Catholicism which has amounts of money Scientology leaders can only dream of?
Also calling Scientology a cult is your opinion. Scientologists are very honest in their beliefs, as are ISKCON members, Hindus, and thousands of others.
Besides, Christianity was once considered to be only a cult but it grew, so there's no reason to dismiss something just because you consider it a cult.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
