# Is Scientology a religion or a cult? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 2, 2012, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143 "2012-08-02T03:52:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/21 "2012-08-02T15:15:28Z")
Personally I’ve tended to regard the distinction between “religion” and “cult” and cultish behavior as the prevalence of fanatics in the group. The distinction between, say, Catholicism and something like the Jim Jones cult is that Jones could get everyone to drink poison, because there was a high enough percentage of fanatics that they could coerce the rest to their death. If the Pope ordered all Catholics to kill themselves, no doubt _some_ would be fanatic enough, but there aren’t a high enough percentage of fanatics for him to pull off some worldwide self-annihilation of Catholics even if he wanted to. In other words, I consider a cult to be a subset of religion, one with an extreme concentration of the irrationality that is the essence of religion. Distilled religion, basically. > [@DrFidelius](#): > > From what I have seen, it is now a cult trying to become a religion. Check in on it again two generations after the death of its founder and see which direction it had taken. > (My rule of thumb is that a cult relies heavily on its founder and those directly influenced by that person - if the belief system can survive or grow after the removal of the initiator, then it just might be a religion. And no, 26 years is not long enough to determine this.) That reminds me of a line I saw used on another forum IIRC; “A cult is headed by someone who made it all up. In a religion, that person is dead.” ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/22 "2012-08-02T15:27:05Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > One man’s cult is another man’s religion. Sorry, but the only difference I see between Scientology and Catholicism is the recently of their founding and the number of adherents. The core beliefs of both are equally silly and the leadership of both have a history of doing really awful things. Find a priest and ask him to explain to you the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church and he will give you a straight answer. An imam will be more than happy to explain all about Islam, a rabbi will explain Judaism to you and that nice Reverend Jackson down the street will tell you all about the African Methodist Episcopal church and their beliefs. Ask a high ranking Scientologist about his religion and he won’t give you a straight answer. It isn’t about having core beliefs that are silly it’s about hiding core beliefs from the outside world and from its own members. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/23 "2012-08-02T15:27:50Z")
> [@akennett](#): > > No, you really couldn’t. Religion is the abandonment of rationality and reason. Do you mean teachings like\* Do unto others\*… are an abandonment of reason? ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/24 "2012-08-02T15:38:02Z")
[Fallacy of composition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/25 "2012-08-02T15:38:13Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Do you mean teachings like\* Do unto others\*… are an abandonment of reason? No more so than saying that Jerusalem exists is an abandonment of reason. Let’s not get \* too\* silly when reinterpreting the words of other posters to suit your own needs, o.k.? edited to add: Thank you, **Patty O’Furniture**. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/26 "2012-08-02T15:38:39Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Do you mean teachings like\* Do unto others\*… are an abandonment of reason? Yes, considering how in practice that amounts to things like “Well, if _I_ was a godless heathen I’d like to be forced into the True Faith - it would be for my own good!” ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/27 "2012-08-02T15:42:22Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Do you mean teachings like\* Do unto others\*… are an abandonment of reason? Do unto others. . .because an invisible being in the sky will smile and reward your behaviour. . . ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/28 "2012-08-02T15:46:48Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Do unto others. . .because an invisible being in the sky will smile and reward your behaviour. . . Or because it’s a fair moral compass for those who had not otherwise given the idea any thought ? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/29 "2012-08-02T15:48:25Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Yep. Agreed. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/30 "2012-08-02T15:49:48Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Or because it’s a fair moral compass for those who had not otherwise given the idea any thought ? Needless to say, it doesn’t take religion to come up with that idea, so that probably is a bad reference on your part anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/31 "2012-08-02T15:51:41Z")
\*\*A religion is a set of beliefs. A cult is a specific group.\*\* You might as well ask if your office is a place of business or a multistory building. A cult is defined as a group that uses isolation tactics to become the only support group its members have. The Church of Scientology does this, but it’s possible to imagine practicing the religion of Scientology without doing that. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/32 "2012-08-02T15:52:09Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Needless to say, it doesn’t take religion to come up with that idea, so that probably is a bad reference on your part anyway. TY. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/33 "2012-08-02T15:56:37Z")
All religions are cults. Some are big enough they can push countries around. And Scientology is no more stupid than the Abrahamic religions. Space planes and volcanoes are weird, but remember talking snakes and three-headed, seven winged angels and a world flood. We’re used to the nonsense that the Abrahamic faiths spew. Scientology is still new enough that it sounds like a middling talent sci-fi writer came up with it in a drug-fueled weekend. That said, Scientology has vile practices. But consider that the Catholic church has systematically covered up sex with children. People are pissed at Penn State, but shrug their shoulders at the same crimes committed and covered up a thousand times by the church. I guess what I’m saying is… mote… beam… something or other. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/34 "2012-08-02T16:05:13Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Needless to say, it doesn’t take religion to come up with that idea, so that probably is a bad reference on your part anyway. Apparently it did. It seems to be a teaching common to most, if not all, religions. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/35 "2012-08-02T16:11:38Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Apparently it did. It seems to be a teaching common to most, if not all, religions. Treating others as you would be treated is basic cooperation strategy. We’re apes that live in communal societies. We’re designed to help each other because if we killed each other and betrayed each other every chance we got we wouldn’t be very good at survival. Religions teach this because we already know it. They just assume that their mythological father figure on the other side of the clouds caused it. When in fact it is the result of us _mmm…boppin’_ across the savanna sharing some tasty grubs. That many religions teach this isn’t evidence that religions made up the idea. It’s evidence that the idea is common. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/36 "2012-08-02T16:12:15Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Apparently it did. It seems to be a teaching common to most, if not all, religions. The person you quoted originally wasn’t talking about that particular isolated phrase but religion as a whole, and you are making a pathetic attempt to divert attention. It’s as if I said that clown shoes are funny, and someone responded with “Are you saying that eyelets are funny?” ---
**Author:** ![Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prelude_to_Fascination)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/37 "2012-08-02T16:14:10Z")
It’s nearly forgotten, but L. Ron Hubbard, Jr (aka Ron De Wolf), gave an interview to _Penthouse_ magazine in 1983. [Here’s](http://www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/scien240.html) a link. It makes for fascinating reading, giving an accounting of what Scientology is. > [@](#): > > Penthouse: What exactly is Scientology? > Hubbard: Scientology is a power-and-money-and-intelligence-gathering game. To use common, everyday English, Scientology says that you and I and everybody else willed ourselves into being hundreds of trillions of years ago --just by deciding to be. We willed ourselves into being ourselves. Through wild space games, interaction, fights, and wars in the grand science-fiction tradition, we created this universe --all the matter, energy, space, and time of this universe. And so through these trillions of years, we have become the effect of our own cause and we now find ourselves trapped in bodies. So the idea of Scientology “auditing” or “counseling” or “processing” is to free yourself from your body and to return you to the original godlike state or, in Scientology jargon, an operating Thetan --O.T. We are all fallen gods, according to Scientology, and the goal is to be returned to that state. Bullshit and a scam, in other words. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/38 "2012-08-02T16:26:18Z")
What makes a “cult” isn’t doctrine, or beliefs, or theology. A religion is a cult when it deliberately isolates its members from others, when it manipulates the members for the financial, sexual, social, or emotional benefit of the leaders, when the workings of the group are not transparent, when there is a mismatch between the public goals of the group and the private goals of the leadership. So a Christian group can be a cult, most of the so-called cults in America have mainstream Christian theology. It’s how a group is organized and the relationship between leaders and followers that make it a cult. By this reckoning lots of groups that aren’t ostensibly religious could be classified as cults. And there’s no hard and fast divide between cult and non-cult, groups can have more and more behaviors that tip them farther and farther toward the cult side. And groups can change to become more cultish or less cultish. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/39 "2012-08-02T16:26:33Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > The person you quoted originally wasn’t talking about that particular isolated phrase but religion as a whole, and you are making a pathetic attempt to divert attention. It’s as if I said that clown shoes are funny, and someone responded with “Are you saying that eyelets are funny?” Actually, you’re analysis is wrong. The poster said this: > [@akennett](#): > > No, you really couldn’t. Religion is the abandonment of rationality and reason. I pointed out that his statement was false by showing a simple exception to his statement. If this is a pathetic attempt to divert attention, why are you participating in it? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143/40 "2012-08-02T16:36:44Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Actually, you’re analysis is wrong. The poster said this: > I pointed out that his statement was false by showing a simple exception to his statement. If this is a pathetic attempt to divert attention, why are you participating in it? I don’t think that follows. The individual tenets of a religion can allow you to lead a reasonable life. That doesn’t mean that the initial acceptance of the supernatural nonsense isn’t an abandonment of reason. There is no evidence for the supernatural claims of religion, so accepting it as true is an act of irrationality. Every time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scientology-a-religion-or-a-cult/630143.md?page=3)