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Originally Posted by Nisses
They don't have anything to do with religion.
You just keep bringing up other things from the past that were done as if to invalidate other religions.
I did the same, outside of religion.
Scientology could become a religion, provided several conditions, but as it stands, it's a cult, and a dangerous one at that. That's what I said earlier when I stated that most religions start out as a cult.
Why is it a cult and not a religion? For one, it feeds on society, but gives nothing back. Second, it does nothing to further personal growth of the individual. Third, it actually harms the individual that wants to go back outside their influence.
Scientology is a cult that is trying very hard to fight for its continued existence be it scheme or something religious, at the cost of the individual. It's that fact that people find reprehensible.
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I'm not trying to invalidate other religions. Just trying to figure out why people see Scientology so different then all other mainstream religions.
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Third, it actually harms the individual that wants to go back outside their influence.
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What do you think shunning does to people? I know of several churches that engage in this practice. Leave them and lose all your friends and family. Sounds harmful to me.
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Second, it does nothing to further personal growth of the individual.
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How do you know what people get out of their experiences with Scientology? Lot's of well know people swear it's helped them to archive great success in their field. How can any other person know what someone else does or does not get out of anything? I've known people who saw counselors for years I'd swear the longer they saw them the worse they got. According to them they were making great progress.
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For one, it feeds on society, but gives nothing back.
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This is the one point I can't find any disagreement with. I can't find anything about what the Scientology church is doing that gives anything to communities they operate in, or any where else for that matter. Every other church I can think of operates some kind of out reach, food bank, feed the poor type program. Near as I can tell the Scientology church is batting a big fat zero on this account.
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Scientology could become a religion, provided several conditions
What condition or conditions would meet your requirements to make them a church and not a cult?