So, what's the story with Scientology? Is it a religion? or just a science-fiction cult creation?

Question

Also, why does it seem like only the rich are Scientologists?

I read all the comments and came to te conclusion, that they are idiots. cultisits and separarists and egotists. None of it is based on the teaching of Jesus Christ, this is blashmony. Scientiologists are lucky they live in american the 21st century. If they were in the middle ages forget about it, all hanged for being blasphemous

Answer 1

It's most certainly a science-fiction cult creation. Here's an overview (in my own words) that I hope helps you better understand:

Scientology, which questionably calls itself a new "religion", is the brainchild of science fiction writer & occult enthusiast L. Ron Hubbard. The organization, by means of Hubbard’s self created psychotherapy technique called “Dianetics”, claims to be able to help rid members of any & all mental constraints including but not limited to emotional scarring (from this & "past" lives) due to "engrams" (past negative experiences stored in our unconscious mind), psychological disorders & chemical imbalances (the solution is to convince members that these things don't actually exist) & drug dependence (including legally prescribed psychopharmaceuticals which counteract the effects of psychological disorders Scientologists believe to be nonexistent).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianetics#Scientific_evaluation_and_criticisms
Dianetics review: http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/2005/06/28/dianetics/index.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,812852,00.html

The official Scientology organization is composed of a number of “levels”. One begins as a “preclear” & works their way up. One must purchase virtually every service crucial to advancement directly from the "church" & at staggering prices. "Auditing", for example, is purchased in 12½ hour blocks, costing anywhere from $750 for introductory sessions to between $8,000 & $9,000 for advanced sessions. Visit this link to see how $380,000 is a conservative estimate for the total cost of moving all the way up the Scientology hierarchal ladder: http://www.xenu.net/archive/prices.html
These are the total costs for auditing alone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_as_a_business#Costs
Here’s an explanation of what “auditing” is: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061224182319AA2nnd6

At level OT III (Operating Thetan 3), some very strange & fiercely guarded secrets are imparted upon worthy members who have paid enough money to advance to such a level (and no, this isn't a joke): The evil alien ruler Xenu killed millions of aliens (Thetans) from around the universe by kidnapping them, bringing them to earth in golden DC-8 “space-planes”, stacking them around volcanoes & blowing them up by dropping “h-bombs” into the volcanoes. Scientologists believe the souls of these aliens (these souls are "Body Thetans") were captured, brainwashed & released; they then attached themselves to our ancestors (and according to Scientology’s belief in Thetan immortality, they also attached to us during “past lives”) & cause many of our mental & physical ills to this day. Auditing is said to “clear” us of these Body Thetans as well as the “mental implants” they supposedly impose on our minds.
http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/spaink-ot3.html
http://www.spaink.net/cos/essays/atack_ot3.html
http://xenu.net/archive/leaflet/Xenu-Letter.pdf

Scientology has taken a very hostile stance towards psychiatry & psychiatric drugs irrespective of the fact that some people require medication to remain adequately functional during everyday life. It doesn’t recognize legitimate conditions like autism, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or ANY neurological disorder / chemical imbalance at all, and the “church” has been known to withhold prescription pharmaceuticals from members (often with harmful & deadly results). The “Church” blames the psychiatry for the Holocaust, as well as school shootings and even September 11th. It’s been suggested that Hubbard’s vehement opposition was born of the psychiatric community’s rejection of his “tech” as a valid treatment method, but it’s also possible that Hubbard chose psychiatry as a scapegoat. Organizations like Scientology are notorious for villainizing a specific out-group as it fosters cohesion within the organization.
http://www.anti-scientologie.ch/usa-scientology.htm
http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3137&IssueNum=136
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/07/01/sci_psy/index_np.html?pn=1
http://perkinstragedy.org

L. Ron Hubbard, the man behind the creation of Scientology, was & still is a controversial figure. Biographies and lists of personal accomplishments differ greatly between Scientology and non-Scientology publications as the “church” tends to exaggerate and outright lie about his early life, his education, his travels, his achievements etc, preferring to paint a distorted, flattering picture. Several books and articles present facts which flatly contradict these church-published accounts (links to free online copies of these books are provided below), showing conclusively that he was NOT the brilliant, accomplished figure revered by Scientologists. During his autopsy, the sedative Vistaril™ was present in his body, which several of his assistants would later attest was only one of many psychiatric & pain medications Hubbard ingested over the years. It had also been said by many who knew Hubbard personally that at the end of his life he was “a psychopathic insane person screaming about BT's [Body Thetans]….”
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/Bare%20Faced%20Messiah.pdf
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/atack/contents.htm
http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/mom/Messiah_or_Madman.txt
http://skull.piratehaven.org/~atman/factnet/lrhbare.txt

To be blunt, Scientology is a cult. It employs semi-legitimate psychotherapy & self-help methods to keep people loyal & convinced of its merit while it simultaneously sucks them dry financially & attempts to keep them far away from ANYONE, even friends & family, who would dissuade them from remaining in such a harmful situation. It’s a particularly greedy as well as manipulative & dangerous cult that takes its anti-psychiatry fanaticism to deadly limits. See these links for more information: http://www.lisamcpherson.org/
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/24/Tampabay/The_unperson.shtml
http://www.factnet.org/Books/SocialControl/scs.html#toc http://www.xenu.net/archive/personal_story/funkydonny.html

Answer 2

Scientology started off as some kind of psychotherapy organization and registered as a religion after they were about to be put out of business for practicing psychology without a licence.

Becoming a religion made it harder for the law to touch them, gave them some added credibility and provided tax benefits as well.

If you and I were to get enough people together and file all the legal paperwork, we could have our own religion as well and it could be anything we want and believe anything we want. Just because something is legally registered as a church does not make them right and neither does it mean they are speaking for God.

Scientology appeals the the rich because they can buy their way to the top and the wealthy are used to buying whatever they want rather than having to work for it - so the instant salvation (if buy all the courses and treatment sessions) really appeals to them.

Answer 3

Yes, it is a religion. Yes, it is a science fiction cult type thing. Yes, you have to be rich because you have to buy their over-priced lessons. That explains why the catholic religion has done so well. They only expect their marks to kick down 10% of their income, whatever it should be. Hubbard's crew expects big bucks from the get-go....

Answer 4

It's an offshoot of OTO.Hubbard and Parsons were in direct contact with Crowley for years prior to Hubbard writing sci-fi novels and Dianetics.One has to be really dumb or very much into the occult to buy into that horsepuckey.

Answer 5

l ron hoover founded a thing called diantecs which is some dumb thing thats supposed to make you "healthy" and all that.

basically it was one of those self help scams.

but since those type of things are taxed hoover claimed it was a relegion.

and from then on it diantecs was know as "scientology"

how stupid can you be to practice a relegion called "scientology" by a guy who wrote fiction all his life?

anyway it is an untaxed corporation to take advantage of those with no common sense.

Answer 6

I "feel" the bible will have to be our authority in all concerns. God is flawlessly competent and has succeeded in giving us His phrase which solutions questions such because the evolution. I can recognize why a few could think within the evolution "conception" as I did for over twenty years. But the extra I quite started to appear on the proof and the validity of Gods phrase, I started to peer that the Creation tale as written within the Bible is proper. I have debated many at the area and I've but to encounter any of them who can present extra "medical evidence" of evolution than construction. Here are a couple of scriptures from the Bible that took technological know-how years to trust and so they reassure me guarantee me of the Bibles authority. Genesis two:7 "And the LORD God shaped guy of the grime of the bottom, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lifestyles; and guy grew to be a dwelling soul." In 1982 scientists from the Nasa Ames study core discovered that clay and earth include EVERY unmarried detail within the human frame. They had been seeking to DISPROVE this truth, seeing that technological know-how then notion there was once no hyperlink. Job 26:7 "He stretches out the north over the empty position, and hangs the earth upon not anything." Science then (1500BC) notion that the earth sat at the again of a enormous elephant, and the Greeks notion that a legendary god referred to as atlas held it on his shoulders. Just over a century in the past the medical group believed that a "thick substance very similar to both" held the celebrities and planets in position, however once more the Bible says "it hangs upon not anything." Isaiah forty:22 "It is he that sits upon the circle of the earth, and the population thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to live in:" Here we see that the bible says the earth is round 2400 years earlier than Columbus sailed. Science at the moment notion it was once rectangular with corners. Ecclesiastes one million:6 "The wind is going towards the south, and turns approximately unto the north; it whirls approximately continuously, and the wind returns once more in keeping with his circuits." Science then notion air currents blew immediately around the earth, however Solomon discovered or else. Genesis one million:one million-two "In the opening God created the heaven and the earth. two And the earth was once with out style, and void; and darkness was once upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Science expresses the universe in five phrases, those are...TIME "within the opening", POWER "God created", SPACE "the heavens", MATTER "the earth", and MOTION "the Spirit of God moved."