Eeeraq

I believe this to ring the most true. Cults are religions that not that many people "follow" and religions are simply cults that have grown large enough to get people to finally say, alright, you're valid...

so I think the question in itself is a rather pointless one...

According to the government (of the US), to qualify for tax exempt status and be recognized as a church you have to give most of your money back to the public, or put it towards the advancement of science, religion, education, etc.

http://www.irs.gov/charities/churches/index.html

So I guess my main question is, being as all these self enrichment classes you take from the scientologists, which cost unbelievably large sums of money, are obviously generating an assload of revenue for the church of scientology, what are they doing with it to be recognized as a church and be tax exempt? well, check this out...

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Cowen/essays/nytimes.html

a crock, if you ask me. These bullshit strong-arm tactics that major corporations use in pissing matches with the government, (while having mixed emotions on the whole deal, being as I love to see the Gov take one, but I hate seeing fake arsed religions get any of my money) generally really piss me off. I can tell I'm not the only one:

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/stopscientology

but, being as the church and the gov are all buddy buddy now, I think I'll just go have a beer, or 10.

__________________
remeber that one time we partied all night?

me neither.