Introduction
In the recent past, conflicting arguments seeking to define and create a clear understanding of what religion is have been circulating all over the mass media. Compared to the ancient days, the modern society has assumed an open-minded approach concerning religion. This has led to the rise of the numerous religious systems hence creating a conflicting understanding of the real religious setting.
In addition, freedom of worship is wrongly being used to create many beliefs that have been taken in as religious systems. This paper seeks to define and elaborate the original meaning of religion in comparison to some modern beliefs that can be classified as cults. In this paper, the religion in question is the Scientology church, which in my opinion should not be considered as one.
The history of Scientology
Scientology was developed to replace an existing self–help system called Dianetics created by L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard’s Dianetics system was created and intended to be a psychotherapy that would later became a fundamental foundation for developing his religious principles (Kant, 2001). In its psychotherapy function, this system induced a memory of traumatic events in an individual’s life in the past.
This, according to Hubbard, would free individuals from being victims of their experiences (Kant, 2001). The church of Scientology is accepted in a number of countries as a religion and it has been rejected in some. Every authority has its own argument to defend their approach towards the church.
Foundation
The church is a product of a science fiction writer known as Ron Hubbard. He lived from 1911-1986 when he died aged 75. In 1953, Hubbard incorporated the first church of Scientology in New Jersey, Camden (Monaghan & Just, 2000). He was driven by the belief that human beings had forgotten their true nature and that they needed a spiritual rehabilitation to return to their original position of spiritual power.
The church of Scientology is one of the most controversial religions of our times. The controversy begins with the founder’s reputation in both social and academic circles. His academic background is not very impressive since he dropped out of college with failing grades (Derrida, 2001). He later joined the navy but left to begin his writing career through which he would launch a religion of his own.
He is quoted to have said that, “Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.” (Fitzgerald, 2012). In essence, it suffices to assume that his intentions in creating a new religion were not influenced by his quench for the truth and a better life for his followers.
Instead, the founder was clearly looking for opportunities to create wealth if his statement above is anything to go by. Although he presented his Dianetics as a mental health therapy based on intensive and a careful research, there was no evidence that the said research ever took place (Josephson, 2012). There are no copies of his research protocols retrieved to date.
Membership
Controversies surrounding the Scientology church notwithstanding, the rising number of memberships of the church are worth noting. Nonetheless, the statistics given by the church officials often contradicts other surveys conducted by credible and reputable region surveyors.
There has been a great disparity between the number of members that the church claims to have registered and the number of people confessing to belong to the religion. In 2005 for instance, the church claimed to have over 8 million registered members (Timothy, 2000).
However, the American Religious Identification Survey confirmed that in 2008 there were only 25,000 members confessing to be followers of the said religion.
The church in their defense maintains that the low record of membership is because members fear public stigmatization. Hence, they opt to confess to belong to a mainstream religion. They argue that the society is hesitant to associate with the religion since it is not socially acceptable in many countries.
Beliefs
In Scientology, scientific laws are the main doctrines. The church believes that Scientology is 100% in an individual’s life if applied in the correct way (Craig, 2000). In fact, the church does not concentrate too much on converting people from their faith to scientology.
Instead, their main interest is to encourage people to practice the principles of the region. The founder of Scientology once said that “For a Scientologist, the final test of any knowledge he has gained is, ‘did the data and the use of it in life actually improve conditions or didn’t it?” (Omoko, 2005). Interestingly, unlike all other religions that believe in a supreme creator, Scientologists have a different approach.
They believe in the spirit and supernatural ability of humans. Their beliefs are based on a misconception that a person is predominantly and intrinsically good, omniscient and has an amazing capability to create (Broadhurst, 2010). They believe that humans give the universe its shape and that the universe does not have its own independent reality.
Scientologists also believe that the universe derives its reality from the fact that human beings have agreed to its existence (Grim, 2012). They argue that we as humans have lost our power over the universe by allowing our own creation to rule over us. According to this religion, humans lost their original state of spiritual and creative power reducing their worth to mere embodied beings.
Popularity
Scientology has been identified as the fastest growing religion in the 21st century and a number of reasons influence this fact. It seems the demand for dianetics is rapidly growing all over the world judging by the increasing number of Scientology churches.
In 2004, the religion launched the ideal strategy to transform religion into physical structural churches where adherents would go for spiritual freedom (Grim, 2012). This is consistent with the goal that Hubbard the founder had envisioned in 1953. Globally, approximately 70 structures have been erected in major cities by the members of scientology church.
Recognition
Scientologists have been battling with the legal departments seeking for a legal recognition of their religious system. After a long struggle, the church was ultimately granted full tax exemption by the IRS in 1993 (Broadhurst, 2010). Since then, the church has gained the support of the United States government, which criticizes other governments for lack of religious tolerance.
For instance, the United States has criticized Germany in its International Religious Freedom Reports from 1999 to date (Broadhurst, 2010). A letter sent to the German Chancellor in 1997 compared the discrimination of Scientologists in Germany to the treatment of Jews by the Nazi in the 1930s (Broadhurst, 2010).
On the other hand, the Italian Supreme Court recognized the church of Scientology as a religion in the year 2000 (Timothy, 2000). Over the past decade, Scientology has gained official recognition and a significant following in a number of European countries.
Nevertheless, there are still countries that have over the years declined to recognize the religion. These include Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Belgium and the United Kingdom (Timothy, 2000).
Defining religion
Many scholars define region as a set of organized beliefs, cultural systems and worldviews that give humanity an order or a system of existence. However, religion can simply be termed as faith or a belief system. A religion is different from personal or private belief because it is a general social agreement. Statistics have shown that women are more inclined to religion compared to their male counterparts.
Religion upholds the need for respect for things that are held sacred by a society or a community. According to Edward Burnett Tylor, religion is the belief of spiritual beings or a supreme deity (Timothy, 2000). Durkheim, a sociologist agrees with Burnett defining religion as a “unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things” (Timothy, 2000).
Categories of religion
Religion can be divided into three major categories, which are;
- World religions
- Indigenous religions
- New religious movements
World religions
These are spiritual beliefs that are shared on a global platform. Some perfect examples of this include Christianity, Muslim, and Hinduism among other ancient and worldwide-recognized religious systems.
Indigenous religions
Also known as ethnic religion, indigenous religions include official civic religions that are headed by an organized clergy. However, adherents are defined by a particular ethnicity, which means in the event that an individual wants to convert to the religion he or she must assume the cultural beliefs of this particular ethnic group.
New religions
New religions are normally abbreviated as NRM, which stands for New Religious Movements. These are spiritual groups of modern origin. Such movements include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, and the Shakers (Josephson, 2012).
Contradiction with religious beliefs
Notable contradictions with the mainstream religious practices can be seen in scientology. The most predominant disparity is the belief that individuals have the supreme power to guide and control their lives and create for themselves the universe, as they want.
Scientology does not support the notion of a supreme GOD or any kind of allegiance to a supernatural being. The supernatural abilities attributed to God in other religions are endowed to human beings according to the scientology’s beliefs. Scientologists claims to be consistent with other major world religions but in essence, this claim is farfetched.
The Greek Orthodox Church is a world religion and in its beliefs, it contradicts the Scientology church. Orthodoxy believes that an individual is made up of a body and a soul, which are both created by God, but the individual is not a god by himself.
The Church of England and the Roman Catholic uphold a similar worldview. The Scientologists believe that death is not caused by consequences since it happens time after time in an individual’s life. This is not a belief held by many of the international religions.
Scientologists also believe that an individual can be saved through a process of counseling and clearance of one’s Engrams. This contravenes the Christian belief that salvation is only through Christ and the Muslims who believe in salvation through the prophet Mohamed.
Most religions believe in a universe created by God but contrary to that notion, the Scientology church believes that the universe is influenced and crafted by human games and decisions (Josephson, 2012).
Why Scientology is not supposed to be a religion
Based on the above controversies and other reasons that will be discussed below, it is clear that Scientology should not be held as a religion.
This claim is controversial but solid evidence has proven that Scientology is a lot more than what it seems to be. So many people have accused this church of fraud. In some extreme cases, the church has been accused of assassination claims, character assassination as well as blackmails.
Controversies
One of the greatest controversies surrounding the Scientology Church is its demand that members should cut-off their association with anyone who expresses any kind of antagonistic behavior against the religion. This is irrespective of whether it is a family member or a friend.
The church also has had accusations where crimes have been committed on its behalf or directed by the church’s officials. Some of the most profound cases were the Operation Snow White and the Operation Freak-out (Josephson, 2012). As earlier mentioned, the founding father of the Scientology religion once mentioned that starting one’s own religion is the surest way of making millions in profit.
Therefore, for the church to claim to collect a fixed donation to help the poor is quite inconsistent with the founder’s goal. In addition, the death of a Scientologist that remains unresolved to date is one of the most tragic and the scariest events to be associated with the church.
Lisa McPherson died under the care of the church. After Her death, a lawsuit sponsored by Robert Minton against the church was filed. However, the lawsuit was settled in a confidential settlement between the church and the McPherson’s estate (Josephson, 2012).
The church also has been accused of litigious actions against its critics and perceived enemies. In a normal situation, a true religion does not conduct such actions against fellow human beings.
Confidentiality and Mental abuse
The high level of prudence in the administration of Scientology church raises more questions than answers. In January 1995 for instance, the church through its lawyer Helen Kobrin made an ambitious attempt to gag an online media company for supposedly publishing their copyrighted materials (Josephson, 2012).
While this seemed like an honest copyright fraud case, it was later discovered that the church was trying to protect its inside conduct which would have exposed its activities. The church has been accused by many websites for posting self-serving edits that were meant for self-victimization.
The church on the other hand collects vital and very personal information from its followers. In this case, it becomes almost impossible for the members to leave the church for fear of disclosure.
Cases have been reported where the church has used the personal information given by its members to abuse them psychologically when they become critics of the church. A normal religion will not take on a fight with its members regardless of the case at stake. With such kind of behavior, the Scientology church cannot pass for a religion.
Physical abuse
Former adherents of the church have come out in the public to expose the activities that normally happen in the background of the church’s front doors. Personal confession of former followers proves that the church practices forced imprisonment, coerced abortions and gross embezzlement of church funds (Josephson, 2012).
According to the former followers, physical violence and intimidation as well as blackmail are some of the activities that are used to keep the members from abandoning the religion. True religion does not coerce its members to subscribe to its principles.
Scientology as a commercial venture
The amount of money collected by the Scientology churches is huge throughout the world. Every organization under the church’s administration has to send ten percent of its collection to the headquarters. The administration always insists that the money is used for research but the research protocols have never been seen or availed financial interrogation.
Hubbard is said to have been auditing his followers at a rate of US$ 50 per hour (Josephson, 2012). Going with his idea that it is easier to get rich by unveiling a new religion, Hubbard proved his ideology through his venture in the commercial religion business.
The founder made millions of dollars from book sales. He used to publish a book on Dianetics every six months forcing his members to purchase the books as a sign of allegiance to their religion. He once boasted of having US$ 7 million in his two Swiss bank accounts.
No one knew where he was getting all this money from and how he the money was utilized was unclear. True religion and a true religious leader cannot be entangled in such financial controversies and uncertainties.
Freedom of worship
In as much as the church of Scientology has so many loose ends in terms of credibility, there is one fundamental right that we all need to respect. Just like any other religion, followers of the Scientology church have a right to believe in their system of worship.
Although there have been numerous confessions of the church’s negativity, we must also appreciate that other people also have confessed positively. A number of followers have gone public confessing about how the religion has transformed their lives and made them better.
Therefore, focusing only on the negative allegations without considering the positive confessions is not being objective. Scientologists must be given a chance to pursue their preferred beliefs without undue pressure.
Conclusion
This paper has generally compared religion and the scientology church to prove that the latter has no basis to be held as a normal and credible religion. The paper is very clear on identifying some of the characteristics that make the scientific church lose its religious meaning. To understand how the scientific church is far from becoming a religion, the paper has defined and elaborated the different categories of religion.
At the beginning of the paper, a background check has analyzed the difference between Scientology and other religions of the world. The Scientology church has prominent disparities compared to other religions and this has been well summarized in this research. Some of the popular controversial stories proving that the Scientology Church is a fraud have also been briefly narrated to emphasize the claim.
References
Broadhurst, N. (2010). Scientology Expansion. Web.
Craig R. P. (2000) Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity. NY: NYU Press.
Derrida, J. (2001). Acts of Religion. NY: Routledge.
Fitzgerald, T. (2007). Discourse on Civility and Barbarity. NY: Oxford University Press.
Grim, B. (2012). Rising restrictions on religion. International Journal of Religious Freedom, 5 (1), 17–33.
Josephson, J. (2012). The Invention of Religion in Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kant, I (2001). Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Monaghan, J. & Just, P (2000). Social & Cultural Anthropology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Omoko, M. (2005).The Invention of World Religions or, how European Universalism was preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Timothy, F (2000). The Ideology of Religious Studies. NY: Oxford University Press USA.