I think we have come to agreement that the beliefs of Scientology aren’t inherently crazier than the beliefs of any other religion; they’re all objectively absurd. The world’s largest religious group claims to engage in magical cannibalism every Sunday. It doesn’t get a lot crazier than that.
The question, however, is not whose beliefs are crazier; the question asked by the OP is why the Scientologists get most of the flack. I think it’s been partially answered a number of times but basically comes down to three things:
Scientology is simply a different kind of crazy. Half of the people in the world at least nominally fall under two religions, Christianity and Islam, that have the same origin and worship the same God, plus a less popular but very famous religion, Judaism, is in the same family. As nutty as Catholicism is, you’re used to it. As nutty as Judaism is, you’re used to it. Most of the rest of the world is either Hindu or Buddhist, which are different but at least they’re distinctively spiritual in nature. (I realize some Buddhists claim it is not a religion.) Scientology, however, is not in any way related to any of the world’s major religious traditions, and isn’t even really spiritual in nature. Its sci-fi basis is the antithesis of what most people consider “religion.”
Scientology is, openly, a scam. Other religions are full of scam artists, as you can see every Sunday morning on church shows, but the religions have a basis in genuine faith. Scientology, it would appear, was and is organized to steal people’s money. It was founded by a guy who admitted he was doing it to make money and likely didn’t believe any of it. It’s as if Christianity had been invented by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.
As Sam Stone has pointed out, Scientologists have a record of acting in an extraordinarily appalling, vicious fashion. There appears to be no good intent that comes out of it at all.
With all due respect, I don’t think those are much competing for Tom Cruise and John Travolta, among others, who are VERY public with their views. Cruise draws more ink for his religious views on any given Tuesday than Jon Heder ever has, and Travolta made a spectacularly expensive and boring Scientologist movie. Mittens Romney is very understated by comparison.
Many people do think Mormon beliefs are odd, if they know anything about Mormons, but a lot of people don’t know thing one about them. Compared to Scientology, at least, the LDS mostly keeps it to themselves. I know they do a lot of missionary work, but it’s primarily overseas as I understand it. They’re not giving people stress tests and trying to recruit in the subway stations around Times Square. I think the fact that the LDS is centered in the Mountain West area (not in Hollywood) keeps it out of the media eye a little, too.
I was with you until this point - I grew up in an area with a reasonably high percentage of LDS (not Utah high, or even Idaho high, but noticeable minority high). Almost every single one of the boys went on mission for a while after high school. They proselytize - a lot.
Still the first part of the paragraph was dead on.
At its core the LDS church doctrine has Jesus Christ as a supernatural figure playing a major role. Despite the bizarre back stories and their outlandish views regarding Native Americans it’s a Christian faith. Many Christians will disagree with that statement, others won’t. But they all reject Scientology because it doesn’t even pretend to acknowledge Jesus. In fact, given Scientology doctrine AFAIK, Jesus and all worldwide religions are a false memory implanted onto your thetans.
Perhaps this is enough topic for a separate thread, but Jehovah’s Witnesses are the scourge of so many neighborhoods – I put a permanent sign on my door in L.A. that said, “Jehovah’s Witnesses not welcome” – but I don’t think I ever had a visit from a Mormon missionary person or group. Why is that? Is it simply the numbers (fewer Mormons, more Witnesses)? Or do they target other (non-USA) countries?
No, there are lots of LDS missionaries in the US. Even Utah. There are undoubtedly some missionaries in your area–the easiest way to find them is to send an email through www.mormon.org or look up your local LDS chapel in the phone book and call the bishop. The LDS Church sends missionaries out to every country that will accept them, which these days is nearly everyone except the Middle East and China. We don’t send out stealth missionaries, only legal ones.
LDS missionaries do engage is street contacting and door-to-door proselyting, but not when they have anything better to do. Going door-to-door is the least effective method of finding investigators, though it does happen every so often. Missionaries spend most of their time teaching basic lessons about the Church to anyone who is interested, trying to find people to teach, and doing service. Some are on full-time service missions. Single young men and women are most of the missionaries, but there are also many retired couples or single people on missions; they mostly do service work.
Should a pair of missionaries knock on your door, and you don’t want to talk with them, it’s perfectly fine to just say “No, thank you.” They will probably thank you for being straightforward and honest. They don’t want to waste their time or yours if you’re not actually interested.
I believe that was Scarlett Johanson, and it was even worse than that. They had dinner alone together, although Cruise rambled on about the great god Xenu thru the whole thing. Johanson continued to smile politely until Cruise opened a set of double doors revealing the gaggle of Scientology grand-high-exalted-mystic rulers. At which point she sort of freaked and asked to leave.
Plus, the point of the date was Cruise was offering her the femme fatale lead in Mission Impossible 3, a role which would have earned her over $10 mil and shot her to super A-list status. She turned it down solely because of the Scientology nonsense!
I guess I should have said ‘aggressively proselytizing’. I didn’t really mean they don’t go on missions. The way I see it, Mormons tend to spread the faith through example. They believe that by becoming pillars of their communities and doing good works they’ll attract people to the faith. That’s pretty much what a lot of Christians do.
Or maybe that’s just the Mormons in my neck of the woods. I do remember a few standing on streetcorners handing out literature when I was a kid, but I haven’t sen that for years.
“Cult” and “sect” aren’t exactly scientific terms, but I think we can safely assume that the LDS faith has moved from the latter to the former by now, regardless of what fundamentalist Christians say.
Sam, I won’t disagree with the gist of your post, but I think some of your specific statements don’t hold up.
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Mormonism is the top (or perhaps the second) fastest growing religion in the world and almost all that growth is through proselytizing. In order to become a full member of the church, a Mormon man must go on a proselytizing mission.
Perhaps this is generally true, but I seem to recall cases in which church critics were not just “forgiven.”
