Scientology: The Weirdest Thing I've Ever Heard Of

There was recently a documentary on PBS about this "religion" called Scientology. I had never heard of it before, so I decided to sit down and watch what everyone was fussing about. Within the first few minutes, there was a scene of Tom Cruise saluting a painting of a man in a Nazi-like manner. Needless to say, I was intrigued. 

The leader and creator of this religion is a man named L. Ron Hubbard. He is the equivalent to a modern day Jesus in the eyes of the followers.

Hubbard holds the Guiness Book of World Records record for most books published, with over 1,000, most of them being science fiction. The following was insipred because of a work he later published called "Dianetics". He tried to get this work recognized by sociologists and for Dianetics to be referred to as a sociology textbook, but the community did not take kindly to the idea. 

Hubbard believed that there were humans that walked the Earth 65 million years ago that were similar to the ones that now walk the planet. They apparently dressed, talked, and acted the same. But, in a weird turn of events, everybody got frozen and put into space planes. They were frozen for millions of years while the planes flew around the solar system. Then, when the timing was right, the planes dropped the frozen humans into volcanoes to thaw them out. That's how Hubbard thinks we got here.

The fact that we even have to debate with these people about where we came from when their counter argument is this, is pure insanity. Scientific advances over the past 100 years have shown that there we have a pretty good idea of how we got here and what our ancestors were like. No where was there a mention of us being frozen 65 million years ago and then dropped back on Earth as bombs. The whole basis of the religion doesn't make sense, and this isn't even the worst part. 

The worst part is that the United States recognizes this group as a religion, and not a cult. The government only did this because the "church" had over $1 BILLION in unpaid taxes which they knew they were never going to see. They have weird conventions every year in LA celebrating what they do and so forth. The year that the IRS lifted the taxes on them, their slogan was "The War Is Over!". Give me a break. The organization didn't win anything, the government just got tired of dealing with their malarky all the time. 

My biggest complaint about this whole thing is that everyone is too scared to label this religion as a cult, when it clearly is. If you have ever studdied different cults in your life, then you would notice that there are some uncanny similarities. For example, if you were to talk bad about Scientology, then everyone who has ever known you would have to cut you out of their lives. No negative words are to be spoken about the religion. Gee, sounds a whole lot like theres no free speech going on over there. Also, the people are expected to do anything for their leader. Hmmmm, again, doesn't sound too normal over there in Scientology land.

I think the biggest hurdle that people have to get over in order to be able to call them a cult is to separate the famous from the "religion". Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Kirstie Alley are all active Scientologists, just to mention a few. Cruise is actually the poster boy for all things Scientology. Leaders gave him an award for spreading Scientology to an estimated 1.1 Billion people. Not sure how they came up with that number, but they believe that he is as important to Scientology as anyone. Which is kind of baffling because Tom Cruise kinda sucks, but that's not the point. 

My real point is I don't know how everyone is so blind to the fact that a well known "religion" is a cult. Plain as day. I guess I'm anti-Scientologist? I dunno. It's just too hard to call it a religion. Until I am proven otherwise, I'm gonna think it's a cult. As a side note, Cruise, Travolta and Alley are all pretty nuts so it didn't really surprise me that they were part of a cult without really knowing it. Weirdos.