r/SubredditDrama • u/zuriel45 • Mar 14 '16
Royal Rumble Is Scientology as valid as any other religion? /r/TIL attempts to find out!
/r/todayilearned/comments/4ae5oe/til_an_18_year_old_owed_350_for_a_scientology/d0zkw3f42
u/Blacksheep2134 Mar 14 '16 edited Mar 14 '16
I love how on reddit the morons who imply that scientology is crazy and worse than all other religions despite all the evidence to the contrary get upvoted while people who actually bothered to learn about religion and ask questions get downvoted. Never mature, reddit.
Warning: long post ahead
See, I think I can empathize with the idea that the beliefs of Scientology are no more crazy then those of other religious texts when read literally and without historical context. Let's narrow it down to the Bible for a second: if you were just given a Bible and never heard of Christianity before (but knew much of what we know now about science) the Bible sounds insane. That's not necessarily a knock on the Bible, and plenty of Christians square their holy book with modern science and reason just fine, but turn off everything you know about Theology for a second and think about this from the perspective of someone completely unaware of Christianity. In the first couple of chapters alone we've got a 7 day creation, support of outdated astrological models, people made out of mud, people made out of ribs, talking animals, magic-evil fruit and the godly being that created it all. But, given the culture and time in which it was written (and literally millennia of theology) suddenly it starts to become understandable why it's written the way it is. The astrological model it contains in particular was nearly universally accepted at the time, and anything else would seem as crazy to the people who were receiving the Bible as it's model does to us now. Many of the more fantastical elements probably draw parallels to other religions of the time, and wouldn't have drawn so much as an eyebrow raise from the people it was spreading among. Some argue we can even trace the origins of Yahweh back to earlier gods like El, giving us important insight into the people who were writing the Bible, regardless of your feelings on Christianity. For the time it was written, the first chapters of the Bible read as a perfectly sensible account of the universe, and the resultant theology has arguably kept the core of the faith intact when certain historical anachronisms start to bleed through.
To me, Scientology isn't like that. There aren't cultural points we can look to that explain it's founding. We can't trace L Ron's eventual creation of Scientology from previous gods or religions. There doesn't seem to be any historical explanation for it's founding besides a near death experience Hubbard had in the late 30's, and the occult and thelemetic groups that Hubbard had at least some contact with. In 1950 Hubbard created Dianetics, a bizarre little book whose main themes are not so much religious as psychological. He posited Engrams as the vehicle of psychological troubles, a term he seems to have borrowed from real psychologists and misappropriated into the quasi-spiritual bad memory its modern form takes. He wasn't appealing to common ideas of the time, he dug up and misappropriated semi-scientific terms to grant credibility to a fledgling spiritualist movement with a deep-seeded distrust of contemporary psychology. He was even trying to sell his patented new method of psychological cure-all during a brief window in the early 50s before it went bust. It's behavior that couldn't be more indicative of a snake oil salesman, its what homeopaths do when trying to justify their ideas: co-opt scientific terminology and misappropriate it. I don't think I even have to start going into the actual beliefs of the religion, it's founded on new-age psychobabble that Hubbard eventually transformed into a religion when his Dianetics business went bankrupt. If we consider the historical context of their foundings it's very clear why Scientology ought be afforded less credibility then a more mainstream religion (i.e. Christianity). That's also without going into the bizarre, cult-like behavior it displays when challenged in any way or the terrible way it treats its followers.
So while I understand where the notion comes from that Scientology is just as silly as every other religion, that point doesn't stand up when carefully scrutinized. It isn't explainable in the context of common beliefs of the time it was created and Hubbard's seminal work reads far more like new-age propaganda than prophecy.
TL:DR - Scientology only seems as silly as other religions if you don't take into account the historical context that explains them. Otherwise, it seems much, much sillier.
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u/Galle_ Mar 16 '16 edited Mar 16 '16
At the risk of making a fool of myself, I think the contextless person's perspective is actually more important than the informed one's.
Most religions make some sense in the context of their native time and culture. That's how they become widely accepted enough to be religions in the first place. But once they've solidified, they exert a normalizing effect on their own beliefs. Believers in a religion are raised not to see the "silliness" of it, and to try to justify its beliefs.
Established religions enjoy a number of unfair advantages over young ones. They have existing believers, who have been raised to accept its beliefs completely uncritically. They have a sense of venerability and respectability that makes it seem rude to point out how silly their beliefs would seem to a neutral observer. And they have a body of theology built up that allows them to ignore neutral observers as being "uninformed", portraying a clear-sighted perspective as an unsophisticated one. All of these things give these religions more apparent credibility than they actually deserve.
Now, Scientology actually does make sense in the context of its historical culture - specifically, science-fiction, occultism, new ageism, and ufology. Its obvious that none of these things make it even slightly more credible, of course, but why should the fact that, say, Christianity originated in the context of first century Judea make it more credible?
The silliness of Scientology is only transparently obvious to us because it's young. It hasn't had time to build up a body of theology it can use to dismiss criticism, or a sense of venerability that it can use to prevent criticism from seeming socially reasonable. In five hundred years, calling Scientology silly will be seen as just as ridiculous as calling Christianity silly.
(Also relevant is Mormonism, which is in a transitional period where it's recent enough that some people are aware of how silly it is, but old enough that it's rude to mention it)
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u/Garethp Mar 14 '16
This is actually a fresh perspective on my take on religion. I suppose it does make sense given the cultural and scientific viewpoints of the time. Nice post
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u/NorrisOBE Mar 14 '16
The difference is pretty much on price.
The average Muslim convert spends nothing on joining Islam.
Same with Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Paganism, .etc
However, you spend like 10,000 just to join to Scientology, followed by an extra 50,000 just to enter the auditing phase where you have to spend 100,000 just to enter OTII.
That's the difference between major religions and Scientology.
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Mar 15 '16 edited Mar 15 '16
In Judaism, and definitely Orthodox Judaism (I grew up Orthodox so I'm just speaking to them.), it does cost money. For two reasons:
Judaism is more like converting to a nationality, not a religion. Or, its becoming part of a nation. And taking a lot of classes on it and getting all your gear, making a kosher kitchen etc. costs money.
Jews don't really want you to convert to Judaism. So its one of the way (although less obvious than other ways) to make it very difficult to do. You're even discouraged from converting to Judaism if you marry a Jewish person. (Again, I'm only speaking to my experience in Orthodox Judaism here.)
But there's a definite beginning and end to the conversation process. You don't really get roped into paying up to higher "levels."
If you're talking about the more abstract it doesn't cost anything to believe in the Jewish concept of god, then no, it doesn't. If you show up to shul no one is going to throw you out if you show up for prayers or anything. You're just not considered Jewish.
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u/anubgek Mar 15 '16
That's not entirely fair. Tithing is common among many denominations of Christianity and sects of Islam (well I'm not actually sure about that but I knot IS has been collecting using that reasoning). That said, Scientology is damn expensive.
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u/OscarGrey Mar 15 '16
Tithing is common among many denominations of Christianity
True but I'm not sure how many exactly. I was raised Catholic in Poland. I had no idea what "tithing" was when I moved to USA. I just assumed that all Christian Churches made money through collection plates. donations by the wealthy, and tax exemptions like the Catholic Church.
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u/NorrisOBE Mar 15 '16
Yeah but in my entire life as a Muslim I have never paid more than 10 bucks in anything Islam or mosque related.
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u/TummyCrunches Mar 14 '16
"My unfounded beliefs are totally more sensible than their unfounded beliefs".
Lol yeah, because people's primary issue with Scientology is their belief in alien overlords or whatever the fuck.
Reddit is awesome. These people complain about censorship but as soon as you say something they don't like, out come the downvotes lol.
Xenu on a stick
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Mar 14 '16
To be fair, a lot of the criticism you hear about Scientology starts with "they've done and continue to do all this awful shit" and then typically ends with "and look at all the wacky shit they believe in. How could they buy into that nonsense?"
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u/syllabic Mar 14 '16
You dont even get to find out about all the ridiculous shit they believe until youve already forked over tens of thousands of dollars.
By that point youve already alienated everyone you know and given all your money to these scammers. It doesnt even matter how dumb it is because youre in too deep to care.
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u/flintisarock Mar 14 '16
Argument is that the wacky shit is part of a gradually ramping up, systematic, process of degrading someone's ability to make decisions for themselves and think rationally.
"Oh you're just describing an euphoric atheist's views."
Nar, I'm describing an abusive relationship.
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u/TobyTheRobot Mar 15 '16 edited Mar 15 '16
I think that a lot of people just use the silly beliefs as a pile-on because they really find the other shit abhorrent. It's like saying that Hitler is a bad person because he caused World War 2 and was the driving force behind the holocaust; he's a monster. And also his mustache looked stupid. I don't really care all that much about the mustache, if I'm honest, but he's Hitler and I want to kick him while he's down.
tl;dr Xenu is Hitler's mustache
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u/RacialNotRacist Mar 14 '16
Scientology is not a religion. It's a cult.
For 25 years it had no tax-exempt status in the US. It was only changed because of these actions - see the 4 bulleted items.
Many countries, such as Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Russia, the United Kingdom do not give it tax-except status as a religion.
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u/BolshevikMuppet Mar 15 '16
I like the idea that the true determination of whether something is a religion is whether is has tax-exempt status. As though the removal of tax exemptions for Catholicism would make it less a religion.
I'm an atheist, and that distinction is just bonkers.
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Mar 14 '16
Without looking at their user history, I would have guessed that person was an atheist trying to judge all religions to be equally bad rather than someone actually trying to defend scientology.
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u/Choppa790 Mar 14 '16 edited Mar 15 '16
Well, my catholic church won't send me threatening letters if I stopped paying tithe. They do charge a lot for marriage classes as my fiancee and I have found out...
Edit: In regards to the marriage classes, we actually have several things going on. We had a battery of questions ranging from finance, sexual compatibility, history of drug and alcohol use, parental or couple abuse, communication, and even personality information, etc. Those questions are gonna be the starting point for marriage preparation, like how to improve communication. We also have the option for a couple's retreat or a couple sponsor and we will be going through a workbook and discussing scenarios, or life events that might come up. We also have to take family planning classes. And finally after almost 9 months of preparations, we get married by the priest or deacon of our choice. Catholics don't fuck around with marriage.