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Already signed it. I have no issue with anyones religous beliefs. But this is a evil cult, that parades itself as a religion.
Do some online research. Bigoted, racist, evil cult. Baiscally just a Multi-level-marketing scam, that brain washes its members into spiritual serivtude.
Bigoted, racist, evil? sounds like many of the various Christian Churches I've visited. When I talked to Scientologists going into their bookstore, they seemed friendly and completely secular people and not cultish at all. My eyes were beginning to hurt from their founder's red-letter name on every of the many books that surrounded me, so I left quick. As a legitimate religion, however, they have been voraciously persecuted by the mainstream and caricatured based on some bad Scientologists and not the many good ones that there probably are.
Am I supposed to watch the "powerful documentary" movie, and then pretend that there aren't any good scientologists out there that deserve their religion to be respected and so allow the government to persecute them hypocritically? Where is the petition to end the foreign influence of the Roman Catholic Christian "non-religion" cult-marketing-scheme's tax exempt status?
The governmental qualifications for being a "specially-excempted" religion are already outlined by various levels of the government, and Scientology fits into the ones that it fits into.
Last edited by LuminousTruth; 04-08-2015 at 12:56 AM..
Listen to this interview. Yes, I'm sure there are good members. But the cult's structure is not so nice as more common religions. Giving support to a cult, so as to keep spiritual freedoms of so called more caring religions is just a cop out.
Just because you call yourself a religion does not make you a religion. $cientology is not a religion, its not even a real cult! its a money making machine. Multi-level-marketing at its finest! that's why I feel its tax exempt status should be revoked. Nothing to do with the case for other real? religions to have tax exempt status removed.
Just because you call yourself a religion does not make you a religion. $cientology is not a religion, its not even a real cult! its a money making machine. Multi-level-marketing at its finest! that's why I feel its tax exempt status should be revoked. Nothing to do with the case for other real? religions to have tax exempt status removed.
Who is to judge what a real religion is? Traditional Christian churches who demand 10% of each member's income, have preachers living in mansions and driving Mercedes, and who build flashy multi million dollar establishments are not money making machines also? Different religions, dressed in different clothes with similar underlying mechanics that make them tick.
I do understand the arguments for making Scientology either a special case or a soft target for particular revocation of religion - status and thus tax exemption status or as a first step in bagging 'them all'; and I shall be watching with interest to see whether such an effort can be made to stick, if it gets anywhere near an effort. I doubt whether it can but, I could be wrong and, if I am and Scientology is struck off the list of recognized religions (1) I shall also not be adding my name to a protest letter demanding its reinstatement.
(1) I shall have to track down Dan McClellan and let him know what the definition turned out to be
If this pertains to one church, it pertains to ALL of them. Down with hypocrisy and religious discrimination.
Like many others here I don't see Scientology as a religion or at least not as a relatively good religious "citizen" and thus don't see rescinding a flawed decision to grant them religious status as picking on either them, or religion.
On the other hand, what I will argue across the board for all religious organizations is that they should only have tax exemptions for charitable activities that benefit society and are free of proselytization or other forms of coercion or attached strings. So a tax exemption for running a soup kitchen or food pantry or a battered woman shelter is one thing; a tax exemption for a worship facility, no.
On that basis one could accomplish my desired outcome for Scientology, since virtually NONE of it would qualify on that basis for tax exemption. Whereas others would get partial exemption.
The problem of course is the endless touche-kicking contests about what constitutes "charitable activities", "proselytization", "benefit" and "coercion". and who gets to decide, etc. The current system has the elegance of simplicity and relative ease of enforcement. Any attempt to be more nuanced will be imperfect and will produce tremendous pressure for exceptions and in the end it will become just like the current tax system -- exemptions will abound, the law books will grow thick, and even experts won't be sure how to apply the byzantine rules to edge cases.
So then I'm willing to say, to heck with it, just invert the current system that gives blanket exemptions to religious organizations, and STOP doing it ALTOGETHER. That's am imperfect system too, but it solves way more problems than it creates and no one can claim it's not uniformly applied.
Which brings us back to what is doable politically, which is not such sweeping reform, and we are left with the question of what to do to counter the obvious harms of Scientology, and back to arguing (successfully I think) that it is so insincere and exploitive and lacking in transparency that it has lost the earned privilege of being granted religious status -- if in fact it ever earned it in the first place.
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