shakran

go here for the background:

French court tries Church of Scientology - Yahoo! News

Long story short, France is saying Scientology is full of crap and is defrauding its members, and is trying to get it taken off of the "real religion" table.


OK, good for France. But let's shift focus to the USA. Separation of Church and State. How far should it go? Could something like this happen here? Should it?

There's all sorts of made up religions in this country. Some admit they're made up (Church of the Sub Genius which worships the Almighty Bob, the Pastafarians, etc) and some deny it despite their founder having detailed his idea to invent a religion and get rich a few years before he actually did it (Scientology.)

Where this gets interesting, of course, is that religious organizations are exempt from certain taxes. Should Scientology enjoy the same benefits as the Catholics do? What about worshipers of the Flying Spaghetti monster? Should they, too, be exempt from many taxes? Should they be exempt from fraud investigations if, as Scientology does, they claim they can cure your unhappiness if only you give them enough money?

I think you can tell from the tone of my questions what side of this particular fence I fall on. What's your opinion?

(Bonus points: If Scientology should not have the same tax breaks as the Catholic church, why? There is no more scientific evidence for the legitimacy of Christianity than there is for Scientology. At what point does faith in a certain belief system fail to meet the test of "religion," and instead becomes a "bunch of loonies who have to pay all their taxes?")

Plan9

My personal feelings on religion being like mental training wheels aside, I'm divided on how to approach this situation.

I'm all for freedom of religion and expression, even to the point it causes disorders, because it is crucial to maintaining liberty.

...

I'm interested to see how the "greater social harm" angle is going to play into this mess with Scientology / France.

...

Indeed, it seems age is the only thing that lends legitimacy to world religions.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Derwood

If half of the stories one hears about Scientology are true, one would think that there are plenty of things they could get nailed on outside of defrauding people. Extortion, blackmail, threats, harrassment, etc., etc. The question is: will the FBI ever launch a full investigation on them? Conspiracy theorists say no, as they think Scientology has deep ties in the government (a 21st Century version of the Freemasons)

roachboy

france classifies scientology as a cult, not a religion.

once you make that move, the fraud dimension becomes more obvious.
there was a transcript of some really damning testimony in le monde yesterday on the topic of financial fraud--i have a meeting, but will try to dig it up later on, if i have the time.

edit:

http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/articl...ens_id=1197411

http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/articl...ens_id=1197411

here are a couple background pieces from le monde (in french)....

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

cellfactor

Scientology is frightening and wicked. They are threatening to terminate poor internet groups(in a message on youtube) who said they will fight scientology because it is misleading and robbing people(300,000$ for full course)!

Its dangerous they have 100s of millions and power in US government, they will silence whoever defies them. They wanted to go against south park or stop it because it showed an episode on the subject. They killed a woman once by locking her in a room until she died from thirst because she changed her mind and wanted out of Scientology. They are killers with money and without mercy. Its a very dangerous organized gang in my humble opinion. It should be stopped.