Notice: Fredric Rice may have removed segments of the replies given to
questions if they contained copoyrighted materials. After a very short
while, Scientology "experts" refused to answer questions and
started cut-and-pasting copyrighted cult propaganda. Additionally I
removed URLs in some of the replies, and left them in others. And it's
also important to note that eventually the unfortunate "Greg
Churilov" cultist was ejected from
askme.com for his typical Scientological behavior.
Anonymous apparently asked himself this question on 4/18/2000:
What's the difference between a minority religion and a cult?
Greg Churilov apparently gave himself this unmitigated whopper on
4/18/2000:
The word "cult" used to simply mean a group of people who
share the same form of worship and religious ideals.
It has the same root as the word "cultivate", to grow.
In the late 70s the word began to be used disparagingly (mostly to
badmouth Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini) by the press, to mean a group
with fanatic or zealot tendencies, with secret rituals, etc.
What's more relevant toward Scientology is that Hubbard created his
cult back in the 1940's and, though he first created his extrmly silly
pop psychology, built an organization that took on all of the classical
earmarks of a dangerous cult. Though his drug-induced book Dianetics
was a pop-psychology / self-help book in the 1970's, he and his cult
never lost the media's use of the derogatory application of the word - flr]
Nowadays the difference between "cult" a) Openness vs. Secretive
practices The Church of Scientology is a Religion, since anyone can walk
into any of our centers with no restriction. All services are available to
all, and all books are freely accessible. b) Legal Status The Church of
Scientology has been recognized as a Bonafide Religion by the U.S. Supreme
Court and as a Bonafide Non-Profit Charitable Organization by the IRS.
This lie seems to be what the Scientology cult's leaders are making
their current crop of rubes believe - flr]
Further facts
about this criminal empire may be found at
Operation Clambake and FACTNet.
Return to The Skeptic Tank's main Index page.
Subject: What's the difference between a minority religion and a cult?
[That's not quite true. There are actually three generally accepted
definitions of the contemporary word usage. In fact a "cult"
is nothing more and nothing less than a religion. All religions are cults
according to the primary, secondary, and terciary definitions of
contemporary word usage. The derogatory usage of the word is fairly
new, going back perhaps 200 years or so - flr]
[I wonder if the cult's ringleaders tell their followers that all words
that have the same sound all have a common root. Such an insane notion
would be in keeping with the rest of Scientology's insane notions - flr]
[And that's a lie. The derogatory application of the word can easily be
traced at least back to the turn of the century in 1899 in the United
States as there were end-of-the-world cultists groups that thought that
the year 1900 spelled the return of Jesus Christ and as such the end of
the world was some how near again.
[And that's absolute nonsense. The USSC has never and never will
dictate what is and what is not a religion. That's not their job. And
the IRS has never and never will describe what is and what it not a
religion. That's not their job either.
This web page (and The Skeptic Tank) is in no way connected with
nor part of the Scientology crime syndicate. To review the crime syndicate's
absurdly idiotic web pages, check out www.scientology.org or any one of the
many secret front groups the cult attempts to hide behind.
The views and opinions stated within this web page are those of the
author or authors which wrote them and may not reflect the views and
opinions of the ISP or account user which hosts the web page. The
opinions may or may not be those of the Chairman of The Skeptic Tank.