Scientology similarities with mainstream religion?

Question

Are there any similarities between Scientology and a mainstream religion (ex. Judaism, Christianity, Islam etc)? Like does Scientology take any ideas from a mainstream religion, and just "extreme" it?

Answer 1

From what I understand, Scientology has some beliefs that are pretty "mainstream," like an afterlife, etc. It also isn't the only religion to reject psychiatry. There are *some* Christians who reject medical treatment in general, including psychiatric, in favor of prayer and exorcism.

But of course Scientology stands out since mainstream religions don't make claims about spaceships, Thetans, or the evil Xenu who has brainwashed us all... Most mainstream religions also don't hold people individually responsible for their own mental illnesses in the same way Scientology does...

Answer 2

Scientology is 90% philosophy, 10% made-up stories. I would say alot of the philosophy of Scientology does overlap with monotheism, but Scientology (being created by one person) is a lot more internally consistent and I think its philosophy is actually more well thought out.

I speculate that the reason Scientology has some weird stories about Xenu, the evil alien overlord, is that in order to be considered a religion, there has to be some kind of weird mythology.

Answer 3

Scientology is similar to eastern religions (such as Buddhism, Hinduism), though not similar to Christianity or Islam. The similarity is with regards to the belief of the spirit and its enlightenment, versus a God or Jesus Christ.

Mr. Fumio Sawada, the 8th Holder of the Secrets of Yu-Itsu-Shinto, did a religious comparison between Scientology and other eastern religions, which you may find helpful.
http://www.scientologytoday.org/experts/eng/sawada01.pdf

Answer 4

Buddhism would be the closest mainstream religion.
The biggest difference is that while Gautama Buddha, Siddhartha, did a lot of thinking about the spiritual nature of man, and wrote many things down about it, he unfortunately never gave us a workable method of achieving the state of "bodhi" or "buddhahood" although he did attain it himself.

Scientology is simply a fully researched and developed way to attain spiritual freedom. A way to reverse the dwindling spiral of spiriual deterioration and rehabilitate native spiritual potential ability and awareness.
This creates a positive effect across all spheres of life since we are all responsible for the conditions that exist in our lives and can become more causative, rather than simply "effect".
There is a similarity with all religions in that the hope of man is basically spiritual salvation. Religion is the only subject which addresses this concept regarless of what form it takes.
Moses, Buddha,Jesus, Mohammed were all teachers or messengers. The word Messiah means messenger.
All religions and religious philosophies are similar in their goals and purposes if you study them, tho their roots and dogmas may be different.

Answer 5

Not to my knowledge except one : Scientology like Christianism and Islam promises you eternal life in some sort of mythical Paradise.

Answer 6

to perfect answer your question ought to require rationalization of the time period 'ridiculous'. ought to you concentrate on an elephant headed god more advantageous 'ridiculous' than some vacationing alien? How ought to you evaluate claims made with techniques from distinct religions, many of the Christian claims must be recent in previously worship of Mithra, Dionysus, Horus etc? Is the 'trinity' more advantageous or a lot less 'ridiculous' than the pantheons of multiple religions? ought to you concentrate on the inspiration(s) of the non secular conception to be major? Is the visitation of angels and golden plates of the Mormons more advantageous or a lot less 'ridiculous' than the visitation of extraterrestrial beings of distinct 'cults'. Leaving aside my concerns about a thanks to guage competing claims, i ought to ought to assert that the Scientology beliefs about Xenu, his galactic warfare and Thetans is going to be up there with the 'perfect'.

Answer 7

Unlike other religions, you have to pay to be a Scientologist. When you first join, you don't have to pay, but then they want you to do all of this bs that you have to pay thousands of dollars for. They have a hierarchy in which the higher up you go (or if you want to get higher up) you have to pay more and more money. In other religions, they accept monetary donations, but don't make you pay to be a part of them.

Answer 8

Scientology has many common priniples with Buddhism and the Veda.

THIS IS SCIENTOLOGY

1. What is true for you is what you yourself observe to be true.

2. Man is his spirit not his mind or his body.

3. The spirit creates his own mind. Please, do not confuse the mind with the brain that is a physical thing. The mind is composed of mental image pictures as explained in Dianetics. These pictures serve the spirit to give him knowledge and experience. These pictures are composed of energy. The energy in the picture can affect the spirit. You can feel better by remembering something that you like or angry by remembering something else. These emotions are actually energy waves emanated by the picture. You can actually feel pain by remembering a pain memory. Sometimes these pictures are accompanied by ideas or considerations. Lets suppose that you father beat you mom up in front of you. Your father was the dominating figure so you might conclude that you have to act like your father in some situations. This is what we call on Scientology an aberration (a conclusion that is imposed to you by a mental picture). This picture is what we call a engram (a pain memory that affects your judgment and free will).

4. You can discharge the energy in these pictures through communication. This is Dianetics Auditing and is the oldest of hundreds of Scientology techniques used to improve the individual.

5. The Spirit creates his own emotions. Are you happy? Are you sad? Are you depress? Maybe you think that something external of you is creating your emotions. Maybe you believe that you are sad because you had a bad day or maybe you believe that you are happy because you had a great day. And this might be true. But who made the decision that you had a good or bad day? You did. You decided if life was good or bad, and adjusted your emotions to respond to your own consideration. You created your own emotion.
Some people are born with everything they want and are still unhappy. And others are born into humble means and are happy. What's the difference? The only real difference is each person's ideas and considerations.
Scientology uses hundreds of processes in order to help a person get a better understanding and a better outlook in life by using his own observations.

6. Scientology Ethics. Ethical people take full responsibility for their actions. Un-ethical people blame others for their actions. "Wrong doings" diminish and deteriorate the freedom of the spirit because the need to justify the "wrong doing". So the spirit is enslaved into repeating the "wrong doing" in order to justify the original "wrong doing". The road to freedom lies within taking full responsibility for your personal condition and actions, past, present and future. Scientology provides the tools to help the person able to be fully responsible over his life thus rehabilitating his ability to be good and self determined.
Also Scientologist base their conduct on a non-denominational code of conduct. http://twth.org/eb/?id=16664j

7. Scientology and God. Scientology acknowledges the supreme being and promotes the individual search for closeness to God trough religion.

8. Scientology vs Psychiatry. Psychiatry believes that self awareness, feelings, love and faith is merely cellular activity. Basically they think that you are your brain and you are not in charge of your behavior but your cells are.This is a totally materialistic point of view that denies the spirit and God. Psychiatrist is a pseudo science because it is based in principles that are false. Psychiatry have never proven that any "mental illnesses" (like they call it) has any connection with a physical illness. Any Neurologist will tell you there are no medical test to identify a "mental illness". All Psychiatrists base their diagnosis on opinion and opinion alone.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3895596783332855545&q=Psychiatry+is+fraude&hl=enhttp://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8443414209115892468&q=scientology&hl=en
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?p=cchr&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&b=1&oid=12085d1e6c58d04e&rurl=video.yahoo.com&vdone=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fvideo%3Fp%3Dcchr%26toggle%3D1%26cop%3Dmss%26ei%3DUTF-8
Happiness, exhilaration, depression and psychosis are states of mind, not diseases. All what you have to do to stop being depress is change your state of mind. How you do that? By changing your ideas and considerations. Scientology provides the tools to achieve a better state of mind in accordance with your own point of view.
Also Psychiatrist excuse the most horrendous crimes as mental illnesses. This is actually creates a sense of irresponsibility in society because it tells people that they are not responsible for their actions. Second they promote that drugs are the answer for your problems. This message promotes the use of drugs to find release from life and creates the current drug addiction problem in society. Drugs will only give you temporary false release but will never solve the source of your problems.And actually drugs will keep you away from finding a true spiritual release.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4437051883726295326&q=psychiatry&hl=en
Note: Scientology doesn't have anything against Psychology or Neurology. Also the mere awareness that you are a spiritual being and not a body makes you better person.

9. Scientology is a force for good in society. Scientologist fights Psychiatry, http://www.cchr.org/ the drug companies, criminality, http://www.criminon.org and drug addiction. http://www.narconon.org Also Scientology fought and won against the FDA and the IRS. And Scientologist initiated the social reform group "Youth for Human Rights" http://www.youthforhumanrights.org and the movement "Say no to drugs and yes to life". http://www.notodrugs-yestolife.org
Scientologist are some of the more intelligent, able and successful people in this planet. Including Jenna Elfman, Kelly Preston, John Travolta, Priscilla Presley, Sofia Milos and Leah Remini. Even Danny Masterson from the that's That '70s Show is a Scientologist.

10. Scientology is the only church that doesn't ask for donations from their parishioners during their Sunday Services. All chapel services are 100% free (marriages, naming ceremonies, ect). Scientology earns it's money by delivering courses and auditing. Courses and auditing are optional. You do not need to take courses and auditing to be in Scientology. All you need to do to be a Scientologist is to read the books and apply Scientology to your life (like I do). But if you want auditing there are many alternative and economical ways to achieve this.
a. You can do volunteer work in your local church and get your services for free.
b. You can study to be an auditor and perform all your auditing with a fellow student. This way you can also provide free services to your friends and family. This is actually the preferred way to become clear because you learn how to helps other. Scientology isn't about you going clear but taking responsibility across all your dynamics (self, family, group, humanity, life, ect).

11. Scientology and aliens. The story of Xenu is just a fable like the story of "Jonah in the Whale" in the bible. Fables are not intended to be taken seriously. The story of Xenu doesn't have any significance on Scientology beliefs.

12. Anti-Scientology propaganda is just that, propaganda. If you wanna know about this propaganda machine see my blog: http://www.myspace.com/129727315

References
http://www.neuereligion.de/ENG/index.html
http://www.bonafidescientology.org/
http://www.chaplaincare.navy.mil/Scientology.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/scientol.htm
http://www.scientology.org/
http://www.beliefnet.com/sem/scientology-religion.asp?source=YAHSCT&campaign=096&medium=PPC&nopop=1&WT.mc_id=YAHSCT&WT.srch=1