"all religions, from Scientology to Catholicism"

spoken like a true Catholic :-)

I guess i should have said from Arianism to Zoroastrianism. But in my mind I was thinking: from fringe to mainstream.

i get exceedingly frustrated with cynics who lump scientology in with all religions -- as if they are all worthy of the *same kind* of cynicism. it's possible to be cynical and morally opposed to multiple things for different reasons!

scientology is a dangerous organization of brainwashing money-grubbing controllists. claiming (stupid voice) "well, so are religions!" is a petulant and simplistic attitude.

I think Maher is more interested in individual belief, rather than institutional corruption.

i wasn't aiming at him per se. but the phrase "he views all religions" had a duplicate effect; made me think he meant the institutions, and made me annoyed with you for lumping scientology in with "religion."

scientology = pyramid scheme with corrupt power structure.

catholicism = organized religion with oft-corrupt power structure.

One thing I'll say about Catholicism -- it certainly doesn't encourage people to climb the hierarchy.

"I guess i should have said from Arianism to Zoroastrianism. But in my mind I was thinking: from fringe to mainstream."

Which were you classifying as mainstream?

I'm with Bill Maher on the general principal (and against jbg) that there's no major theoretical distinction between Catholicism and Scientology (with the possible exception that the modern Catholic church is not so aggressive at defending itself as the modern Scienologist church is).

I still shudder/laugh at the story a relative told me about being forced out of his temple during the high holy days as a child because his parents couldn't/wouldn't pay the entrance fee. If money-grubbing-ness is a complaint about Scientology, it's certainly not the only organization to have that problem.

I was about to ask jbg to make the case for scientology being substantially more ridiculous than established religions, but then I realized that:
1. Scientology is even more nakedly about taking your money than other religions, and I don't think it says a thing about helping the poor.
2. At least there's scientific evidence that various Biblical figures existed once, even if they didn't do anything divine. The same cannot be said for Xenu or whatever it is.

1. I don't know, an extremely high percentage of American Mormons tithe, and Christianity has its history with indulgences -- don't forget that Scientology is young, and hasn't had a reform movement, something that took 1500 years to happen in Christianity.

2. I think you mean historical evidence, and there is indeed a lot that supports the bible -- but that makes sense, because one of the major purposes of the bible was to record the history of certain peoples. But the parts of the Bible that are the most well-known, the Garden of Eden, Noah, Jonah, and Jesus, among others, have little or no historical evidence.

Scientology is more ridiculous than other religions almost purely based on its youth. Maher tries to simplify things by saying: there's nothing inherently more ridiculous about Xenu the overlord than about a talking snake. But he never attempts parallel every single religious component. I.e., it would be a useless exercise to compare the biblical details about Nebuchadnezzar with details about thetans, or Scientology's theory of repressed memory with Jesus turning water into wine.

Of course, there are many faithful Christians who don't believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis. (We even discussed such possibilities in the classes I took before my Catholic confirmation as a teenager.) I'm not sure there are many sincere OT8's who don't believe in a literal interpretation of Xenu's Galactic Confederacy.

I don't know whether the tenets of Scientology talk about helping the poor, but the Scientologists themselves do some charity work:

http://www.scientology.org/world/news/goodwill/index.html

Please note I have nothing positive to say about Scientology at all, except that it may have indirectly led to the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004.

comparing the beliefs of faithful christians with those of sincere OT8s is not fair, because of the extreme difference in sample sizes. How about the beliefs of the college of cardinals? I imagine most of them literally believe in, e.g., transubstantiation.

Yes, I think you're right. But then it's probably not fair to bring up Xenu at all, since he's introduced only if you become an OT III.

At least some Mormon tithing gets put to a good cause. (OK, and I'm sure some of it goes into grain silos for after the fictional apocolypse.) Growing up with a Mormon girl whose family was poor taught me that some religions are good at taking care of their own. They had Deseret brand everything in their kitchen and they did not pay for it. I know there's a similar situation with Catholics.

Scientology is more ridiculous than other religions almost purely based on its youth.

What? Are you saying that if Christianity were only 40 years old, you'd judge its ridiculousness differently? Surely not. Literal transubstantiation is still hard to believe in, even if people believed in it 1500 years ago.

I was told by a friend that in her church, they would bless the wafer things ahead of time, or maybe had leftovers, and the ones that were blessed but not used had to be watched over 24/7 until they were used up. So there was a rotating volunteer job where you would go in for a two hour block and pray over the blessed bread by yourself. It sounded amazing.

"Are you saying that if Christianity were only 40 years old, you'd judge its ridiculousness differently?"

Of course. If Christianity were 40 years old, I could read more than four 1st person accounts of the events. Plus, we would know a lot more about the lives of the principal characters. It's only by virtue that he lived last century rather than two thousand years ago that we know that L. Ron Hubbard was a wife-beating, tax-evading maniac.

Hmm, got my terms wrong. I said transubstantiation but I meant the whole 3-in-1 thing. Eh, they're both equally silly (he says, as he notes that his circumcised penis gives him the inherent right to relocate to a pleasant little Mediterranean village).

i really find the argument that "scientology is no worse than any other religion" to be simplistic and dangerous.

while you can criticize many, many, MANY things about the institution of the catholic church, i will dismiss outright any claim that "catholicism" as a system of beliefs is downright *harmful* to those that subscribe to it.

for example, what's the harm in believing that there was a guy 2,000 years ago who embodied god's love, and wanted people to share that love with each other -- compared with, say, hooking a 6-year-old up to a lie detector and then asking that 6-year-old if he has ever destroyed a planet, murdering 8 billion of its inhabitants?