Nice Guys Finish Last

I don't like Scientology.

I'm opposed to stupidity even when it's not evil.

@ShoggothOnTheRoof
I dunno, isn't it at least a little evil to trick the mentally challenged into giving you money?

@Steeeve I believe you have failed to get my point.

@ShoggothOnTheRoof I understood as steve : that you were thinking scientology was stupid but wasn't evil. To me it's implied that your second statement applies to scientology as I understand it as the justification of your dislike of it.

@Steeeve Shoggoth is opposed to stupidity in general, and even more if it does evil like Scientology.

@ShoggothOnTheRoof It's absolutely evil. It's a huge scam conning vulnerable people into giving away their life savings, and then trapping them for good measure.

@Dal Did you hear that whooshing sound? That was my point flying past you.

@ShoggothOnTheRoof but scientology is evil

Why does the state recognise *any* religion?

I'm serious. If in a given situation a person is allowed to wear a cross for religious reasons, they should be allowed to wear it for non-religious reasons too. The same applies to any other religious apparel or ritual. The state should not be allowed to judge which reasons for wanting to do something are valid, and which are not. There can be no justification for making windows into men's hearts.

As for tax benefits, every dollar of tax exemption given to religious organisations is equivalent to a subsidy to that organisation, which must be paid for by the rest of the population. Some of whom are nonbelievers. A Christian should not be forced to pay for a mosque, nor a Muslim for a church. Nor an atheist for either.

(And because I'm sure you've all jumped to a certain conclusion... no, I'm not an atheist.)

@Xaphan It's that a number of religious institutions provide services that the state otherwise cannot on a local level; In return, the Governments would give them tax breaks (with some limitations on their activities) in return for continuing to provide those services.

Not all do, though, which is why I just say 'a number'. There are always those who are going to take advantage of laws...

@Dena So do many companies. Or, to be less cynical, charities.

A religious institution may act indeed act as a charity, but in that case it should be treated exactly the same way as any other charity - and they aren't. They are allowed to get away with doing things that no charity ever would be.

If you can give me something that religions do, that charities could not, and that the state should be funding, I will concede the point. Otherwise, why should the two be treated differently?

@Xaphan There are several reasons, not all of them clean, but one of the main reasons to recognize a religion (not making it a state religion) stems from the legal standpoint of protecting religious freedom (you must know what you're protecting).

The issue is not that they are allowed religious symbols for religious reasons, but not for non-religious ones (and that has nothing to do with recognizing a religion), is that in many of the discord cases they are not allowed to wear them at all for any reason, except in a couple instances where they are allowed in strictly and clear non-religious ways (e.g. banning islamic female headgear, or banning crosses in public but allowing them as part of a gothic-esque image).

@Kemm I'm going to go through your comment backwards, because I have decided I hate the idea of time, too.

The thing about crosses I think is pretty clearly just the inverse of the case I gave - if crosses are allowed as part of gothic-esque images, they should be allowed for religious reasons too.

I mean, I do see the point in not allowing Christian symbols as part of the design of government buildings, but I'd be equally uncomfortable with, say, socialist ones. They give the feeling that at any moment someone is going to try and start legislating morality.

The burqa, on the other hand... I did think about it, but to me, if it is possible to make an exception to the general rule for someone who has particular religious convictions, it should be equally possible to make a similar exception for everyone. Or at least for everyone who wants to wear a burqa the whole time, regardless of motive. I mean, that would probably mostly be Muslims, but I personally support the right of Buddhists to wear burqas if they want to, even if it's not part of their religion.

Which is kind of my position on religious freedom in general - I'm not convinced it *should* be protected, or at least that it shouldn't be merged into a more general protection for freedom of conscience. After all, most religions can be described as simply a set of moral and factual beliefs.

Either a law is so important that exceptions to it cannot be allowed even for religious belief (no human sacrifice), or we *can* make an exception for religion, in which case said law is probably too strict in the first place.

I'd even argue that recognising religions can make protection of religious freedom weaker, since that also means that the state can decide what *isn't* a religion. All a state has to do to get around religious freedom is just refuse to recognise something as a religion. Like in the comic.

And sure, we all hate Scientology - but suppose some country were to decide that Islam is a cult? Because I can kinda see that happening. A wider protection doesn't prevent the possibility, but it might make things harder.

@Xaphan I didn't mean the burqa, but hiyabs in general, which is the genric name of a bunch of clothes and headgears originally thought for life in deserts (to avoid heatstrokes, dehydration and sunburns) which theoretically all muslims should wear (men or women). In women fashion, the burqa is one of the extremes, while the opposite is just a kerchief that covers the whole hair - from the hairline to the tips.

About the crosses, I just mentioned it because the way you wrote it you seemed to imply that in places where they were banned, people asked to lift the ban for crosses used for religious purposes (keeping the ban on non-relious use), while that was the only purposes that have been banned.

In general, recognizing something as a religion is suppossed to serve the purpose of protecting people against harmful sects, as any prospective religion wold have to pass some safety standards to be approved; in practice, it all revolves around money and prejudices.

@Kemm Ah, sorry. This is stuff I should know, but I'm so used to people talking about banning the burqa that I jumped straight to it. My mistake. My point still broadly stands.

I think we may have slightly different experiences with crosses - I've encountered a few places which ban jewellery, but allow it if it's worn for religious reasons, which is what I was referring to. If that's less common than I thought, I apologise.

"In general, recognizing something as a religion is suppossed to serve the purpose of protecting people against harmful sects"

I'm aware I'm about to be somewhat extreme, but I'm not convinced that's the state's job. Holding a belief is protected by freedom of conscience - you can think 'I should kill the heathens' all you like, as long as you don't actually do it. And if the members of a religion do act on that belief, they can be punished under the appropriate laws against killing heathens. When you say "protecting people against harmful sects", it strikes me as the state judging people's professed beliefs before they act on them, and rewarding them for having 'good' ones.

I'm a little wary of the state, as you might be able to tell :P.

And yeah, the 'money and prejudices' thing is a bit of an issue too.

@Xaphan what I meant by "protecting people against harmful sects" was those congregations that serve only to brainwash people to become slaves to their leader, or to rip them off of their possessions, or to force them to suicide or to treat them as free goons and hitmen.

In this case, a better measure, from my POV would be to treat organizations as people (which they juridically are) and make them pay for their crimes according to the country's law. But since in most countries religion recognition is an inherited system, it will be very difficult to get rid of it.

@Xaphan I agree, mostly, with your first point about recognizing religions. I say 'mostly' because Kemm has a fairly good point about knowing what you're protecting.

The second point not so much, mainly because I see several valid reasons for giving tax-breaks to non-profits. Granted, not all religions are non-profits, so I agree that religions shouldn't get tax-breaks simply because they're religions, but they can register as non-profits and thus get tax-breaks. Now, if you're talking about the government *subsidizing* religions, which is quite different from not taxing them, then, yes, I agree.

@Brigid I'm actually fine with classing non-profits differently from for-profits, and subjecting them to a different tax structure, so I perhaps should have been less zealous in how I put my points - like you, my issue is with religious organisations getting tax breaks due to being religious, I'm cool with them happening to fall under other laws.

(However, I do stand by the idea that a tax-break is a form of subsidy. Wiki probably puts it better than me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy#Tax_subsidy)

@Xaphan We seem to be using different definitions of the term. When I hear 'tax break' I assume they just aren't being taxed on something or are being taxed less. 'Tax subsidy' is the government paying someone back some of what they already paid, which, honestly, doesn't sound so bad either, but I'd much rather go with the 'not getting taxed in the first place' option. Makes one feel far less beholden to the government.

@Brigid I agree with @Xaphan, on a fundamental level, a tax break and a state subsidy is the same thing : as everybody is subjected to tax, giving a tax break to someone or directly giving him money has exactly the same result for both parties.

@Isdaril Sort of. Except when the government gives the money back but puts conditions on what it can be used for. I'd rather the government just not take the money in the first place.

@Brigid Hmmmm... Tax-breaks are usually also subjected to conditions. I fail to see your point... If it is to say it's inefficient I would agree and on a practical level they are different because the state probably spends more money to take your money then give it back to you than just not taking it from you in the first place (well, you do need to fill papers for the tax-break and the state still needs to check it, so I'm not so sure about the significance of the efficiency gain but let's just say I agree on that point).
But I was not objecting on that, I was saying it is the same thing on a fundamental level : not losing money is the same as winning the same amount. Though it is considered differently by people probably because of some cognitive bias (my best guess would be "loss aversion" bias)

@Isdaril Yeah, the inefficiency and expense is a major part of it. There's also the cognitive bias point, too. Another thing is that the government is still taking the money, so even if you get part of it back there's still a period of time when you *don't* have it. This can lead to stressful situations for people in that little grey area where they make enough to pay taxes but don't quite make enough to maintain a significant emergency fund.

@Xaphan and that's exactly how Pastafarianism was born.

Re-posting this here rather than as a reply, in the hopes that more people will see it:

Cult is a subset of religion. The three earmarks of a cult are: layers of secrecy (the higher rank you are, the more secrets you know); encouraging isolation from mainstream society; and authoritarianism (questioning higher-ranking members is strongly discouraged).

A cult isn't always bad -- in the ancient world, there were often cults for particular social groups, and those cults were constructed to fit into their society.

The problem with cults now is that because of their secrecy, isolation, and authoritarianism, they may consider their own leaders' authority greater than that of secular authorities, and encourage their members to perform actions that break secular laws (such as abusing fellow cultists deemed insufficiently obedient).

@ShifterCat It was always a problem. Even the Romans had problems with them for those same reasons.

@Tzenker True.

@ShifterCat An informative and neutral comment.

@ShifterCat The only way in which your cult criteria differ from major religions is that the major religions have more people.

@ShoggothOnTheRoof Um, no? Many major religions have the authoritarianism -- which is the worst bit -- but not the other two.

@ShifterCat Sharia Law then? Pope and his abusive pedophile priests hiding in the Vatican?I do not know about you but that to me sounds a heck of a lot of cult behavior. Sure not all are of same degree and not all of them hold every and all aspects but they do not need to either.

There is a reason why most cults describe themselves as religious because religioins hold the elements of cults within them. It is easy to control people by claiming there is a being of surreal power and its saying is law and its will ought to be your will. Community reinforces another.

But people often think of cults in a linear fashion. In my field of studies, Psychology, we actually find out that even some governments previous (USSR) and current (North-Korea) could be classified as cults. Even some working environments lend heavy elements from cultish behaviors and modus operandi. Not everything is a cult, far from it of course, but there are more of them and not all of them call themselves as one. That is perhaps also why vulnerable people are vulnerable, because they may not perceive differences in healthy and unbealthy interaction and social environments. In other words they might be vulnerable because they seem familiar rather than unusual.

@BETAOPTICS I think you're confusing organizations trying to keep in power with religion. The pope thing, for instance, is like how the American police will hide and transfer bad cops instead of firing them, rather than the religion being at fault. As for Sharia Law, I can't say anything about that. Why is that whenever religious people are evil people blame the religion instead of the evil person? That's like saying black thugs are black because they're black. And before you say anything about people doing awful things in the name of religion like homophobic organizations or the crusades, 1) the crusades were about a lot more than religion and 2) you KNOW the pope isn't saying God wants his children to be molested. It's all about power, not the faith (at least in the pope and catholic pedos example.)

@Think_Tank Because religions give an outlet, a justification for people to live out their violent fantasies. It is no more different than say Communism or The Truth cult in China. What happens when you entertain and indulge a mentally ill person to not only in their dyscunctions but even going so far as to tell them their dysfunctions are exactly what they ought to do?

If religions were not naturally selfish, created from and for to serve the self-indulgent, if religions gave a flying damn about these issues then you would not still see the same scriptures that allow this venue. But they do, and they do because for all the marketing and speeches of grandiosity that is all in reality nothing more than pointless-, meaningless-, shallow lip service designed to satisfy ones emotions and flatter ones ego. Yet it insults the intelligence of an outsider observer as though they were either too stupid to understand what is right in front of them or then blind to it.

Your analogy is fallacious Conjunction fallacy and therefore not quite so applicable as you wish to use it for. A " black " thug is " black " because they are... drum sounds... " black ". They are not " white " because they are " black ", or " black " because they are " white ".

At least you could have tried to muddy the waters for your favor and say they are not thugs because they are " black " which is true, but even then that analogy is not very solid. There is no thug ideology or thug religion and yes in fact we do have law which adamantly proposes an opposition to crime from anyone. So you kind of shot yourself in your own foot with that analogy and now you wonder why your foot hurts.

@ShifterCat You just made up that definition of a cult.

@jmw150 Guess you don't read any anthropology.

Well I think I've got a terminology issue here. In french the word 'culte' has only one sense and it is the ritual behaviour that one may use to worship their god (well it can be used figuratively to ascertain a certain's person inclination to be worshiped) according to their own faith. But in english it also has a meaning that would be closer to "sect" (which we use in french to qualify that kind of unorthodox faith), and I'm not quite sure what the differences between a sect and a cult are.

Scientology is stupid!

That went well. Let us go forward and demand money from more religions while insulting them

I’m all for it!

@ComputerDweeb So am I.

@Horsi It's not a religion, it's a cult.

"In a cult, there's on person at the top who knows it's bullshit. In a religion, that person is dead."

L. Ron is dead, but Miscavige still knows it's bullshit.

@VictorMortimer Cult or religion let us claim the money.

Personally I don't care for either religion or cults.

@Horsi Count me in!

@ImportViking Perhaps we can make an international tax force ;)

Seen several comment saying it's not a religion, it's a cult.
But if I remember correctly so is every religion a cult, but not every cult is a religion. Cult is the bigger word here. And while I do not remember what the requirement was for a cult to be a religion, I do have a faint memory of a program or book mentioning that Scientology checking enough boxes to qualify as a religion. Not 100% sure thought.
And excuse my spelling if I made any major mistakes, writing on Phone with no english spellcheck.

@Aztetos I've said for a long time now that the only difference between a religion and a cult is time. The more generations a cult can hang on and not get broken up, the more likely they'll be accepted by society.

@Aztetos The difference between a cult and a religion varies person by person but some of the more common differences are that cults will generally be more secretive about their practices and certain beliefs than religions, some cults will withhold teachings behind paywalls or expect you to sign away your material possessions to them, finally cults tend to recruit by intimidation, indoctrination and brainwashing whereas religions are generally inherited

@Aztetos People tend to use 'cult' in the sense of "a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious" when the original sense is closer to "great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work," "a system of religious beliefs and ritual," and "formal religious veneration."

Christianity, for instance, started as an Eastern mystery cult. Specifically an offshoot of Judaism.

'Religion,' on the other hand, now means (boiling down Merriam-Websters various definitions) "a set of institutionalized beliefs and practices related to the supernatural," but originally meant something closer to "scrupulous conformity." So, yeah, if you take the original definition of 'cult' and the modern definition of 'religion,' they're pretty much the same thing.

@Aztetos Cult is a subset of religion. The three earmarks of a cult are: layers of secrecy (the higher rank you are, the more secrets you know); encouraging isolation from mainstream society; and authoritarianism (questioning higher-ranking members is strongly discouraged).

A cult isn't always bad -- in the ancient world, there were often cults for particular social groups, and those cults were constructed to fit into their society.

The problem with cults now is that because of their secrecy, isolation, and authoritarianism, they may consider their own leaders' authority greater than that of secular authorities, and encourage their members to perform actions that break secular laws (such as abusing fellow cultists deemed insufficiently obedient).

@Aztetos When I was in school I was told that a cult has to exist for 100 years before it can be considered a religion, though I can't find any reference to that specific distinction on google today. There are several sources I found that say that the difference is that a religion has been established by time and acceptance by society, but none that give specific time frames.

Scientology, while certainly bonkers, isn't really more bonkers than other religions. It's just newer and their greed is more obvious.

Operation Clambake (http://www.xenu.net/) is the best online resource for learning about the Church of Scientology. Not only does it detail the cult's secret beliefs, but it also has a thorough cataloging of their many cons and abuses (including several deaths), and stories from former members who escaped.

Yep, Sweden recognize Scientology as a registered community of faith. Just like the Missionary Church of Kopimism. Not sure if Sweden have an official position on what constitutes a Religion though.

This does not mean a community of faith are allowed to perform marriages or get any benefits except their name is protected and that they might get help from the government to collect their membership fee.
You can read more how to apply and what it entitles here:
https://www.kammarkollegiet.se/en/registration-religious-communities

Scientology are not getting any grants from the government as far as I can see however:
http://www.myndighetensst.se/om-oss/regelverk/forordning-om-statsbidrag-till-trossamfund.html

Neither do I think they get any specific tax-deductions.

Unfortunately I could not find a official list of registered communities of faith in Sweden, but it is really easy to do and gives no real benefits except for protection of the name.

@NorenH If I remember right, the "checkbox" you definitely need to check is that there has to be a religious "target" (like a god or a concept or something) and regular religious practises and/or ceremonies.

Thank you, Denmark!
Now... what would you want for taking our Mormons too?

@the1dragon please