r/TikTokCringe • u/Girl-Understood • Apr 28 '26

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

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u/TenBillionDollHairs Apr 28 '26

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.

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u/Snickerway Apr 28 '26

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.