Scientology-Cult or Religion?

The lunatic fringe that we sane people are forced to deal with every day manifests itself in a number of interesting ways. One of those ways recently made its way into the news. It’s the Church of Scientology. After a fair amount of research and observation, I have concluded that Scientology is a cult-pure and simple. Note I said ‘cult’ as opposed to religion-even though the Church of Scientology (COS) enjoys tax exempt status. The news item I referred to is about a young lady who has left the church and decided to come forward and reveal the COS for what it is-a mind-altering, money/power grabbing group of lunatics. Scientology was created by a science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard. When you read through its official website you get the sense that you are indeed in the middle of a science fiction novel. It’s full of stuff about aliens, past lives and altered mind states which are measured with the famous E Meter by people called Auditors. Interestingly, there’s very little mention of God, the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit and, incredibly, nothing about Jesus. After reading through their website I realized that what they’re really all about is behavior/mind control. How on earth did they get tax exempt status? They must have had great lawyers. There are a lot of celebrities who are Scientologists. The two that come to mind are John Travolta and Tom Cruise. Travolta keeps it pretty much to himself but Cruise, as we all saw when he was interviewed by Matt Lauer of the Today Show, is vocal and forceful about it to the extent that he sometimes appears to be somewhat deranged. No, Scientology is not a religion. It should be paying taxes on the considerable sums of money it raises. Where’s the justice?