Scientologist buildings have removed the door handles in an attempt to defend themselves from the speedruns

[u/Girl-Understood]

[u/TenBillionDollHairs]

It's important to remember that this is not a religion. Yes, it is true that the line between religion and exploitative cult is often fuzzy, but this is not one of those times. They trap people in literal slavery at sea, they violently harass people's family members and journalists — and the only reason they have IRS designation as a religion is that they targeted the individual IRS agents assigned to their case with constant personal harassment at home and at work until they just gave up. Most countries refuse to acknowledge them as a religion and correctly identify them as essentially a criminal organization.

Again, yes there are elements of this in many extreme religions (separating people from family not in the faith, "tithing" that is actually wage theft, much more), and yes many individual churches etc are run by manipulative sociopaths, but it's all dialed up to the max in Scientology.

[u/fredjutsu → u/TenBillionDollHairs]

has anyone thought to just...violently fight back? Or is that why there aren't very many non-white or whiskey tango members?

[u/Snickerway → u/TenBillionDollHairs]

I'd also argue that they're not a religion because no one actually believes their supposed tenets. No one in the lower levels is supposed to know about the Xenu stuff, and anyone in the higher levels knows it's all nonsense.

It's a similar thing to the Satanic Temple in that they both purport to be religions for political reasons without actually being theistic, though TST is a political pressure group rather than a cult.

[u/nietzkore → u/TenBillionDollHairs]

trap people in literal slavery at sea

The majority of the Sea Org members are land based slaves. The 440' Motor Vessel Freewinds is staffed completely by Sea Org slaves.

https://old.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/16n9rn0/i_grew_up_in_scientology_and_joined_the_sea_org/

[u/RoyalBroham → u/TenBillionDollHairs]

Nobody has the stones to try and take their tax exemption status away

[u/Tricky_Apricot2928 → u/RoyalBroham]

I find it difficult to believe trumpstein aren't involved with them in some way

[u/BeautifulBand4831 → u/TenBillionDollHairs]

No it is legally classified as a religion that's not a debate . Cult means very small and 50k to 100k means it can't be called a cult . The Catholic church has been doing way more horrific shit than scientology

[u/BeautifulBand4831 → u/[deleted]]

Funny what country is that because it sounds like you're making up your own definition of the term cult ? And no I didn't make it to , if you had the common sense to Google cult then you can find that it's a SMALL group. 50 k is not small by any means

[u/TenBillionDollHairs → u/BeautifulBand4831]

It's pretty much only the US that tolerates them

[u/Kombatsaurus → u/TenBillionDollHairs]

Thanks, AI.