ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NOT...this seems familiar just as lame...right?

No. But I believe the bet that created it was.

Scientology is as valid as any other religion. None of them can be proven or disproven.

I don't think so, there is a lot of evidence of not only being fraudulent, but also abussive and harmful. check this link http://www.xenu.net/

It is something I just do not understand it seems like a giant scam but then if people want it and find comfort from it feel it is doing them no harm. They are selling a product that works and are successful

You've got to ask yourself why so many people continue to get personal benefits from it. If you took a personal improvement course and got no benefit from it, would you take a second one at the same place, a third course? Yet Scientology continues to grow and open new missions and churches. So people must be getting the benefits they want, and telling friends about it. And it's a huge mix of people. Forget the celebrities. I know Scientologists who are Pilates instructors, engineers, software designers, construction workers, dancers, business owners, office workers, writers, artists...whatever. They can't be type-cast.

Tom Cruise is higher then Jesus Christ when it comes to scientology, because he spent 300K on the religion. Thus he is at the highest level, and he is considered I kid you not, a "little god." "Scientology is a religion in the deepest and most traditional sense" Every religion claims that, it's amazing. The one who started Scientology was a science fiction writter, and you get a big sense of this the more you learn about it. Also, they claim that if you smoke, then in you past life you saw or were killed by a volcano blast lol, just that simple. You can go and check for your self about these things too. scientology is more of a calt then a religion though, and the only way to become high in the ranks of their church is to be rich (scam).

Hell no! Scientology was invented by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in one of his novels as the basisi for a story. There is simply nothing to believe in my opinion.

i actually forced myself to read right to the end one of l.ron hubbards books some years back ,just to give him the benefit of the doubt.what a waste of time,people can believe whatever they want,my copy went right into the garbage can.

I once took one of those free personality test at a Scientology center. Of course it revealed some imbalances. Then you have a one on one meeting to discuss your test results. I remember the guy asked me what my father did for a living. I told him that he was a psychiatrist. He said to me, "That's funny since psychology is a dead science." The part that bothered me the most was not what he said but the way he said it. He spoke as if this idea of psychiatry was common knowledge. I found it strange and unsettling. I was young, but I think even then I knew that if someone could say something so far out with such conviction than this may be a clue that this is not a group I want to join. I felt like that guy was brainwashed. I'm sure he didn't grow up believing that psychiatry is a dead science.

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Whenever Scientology comes up on AB, the questions and answers always immediately reveal the degree to which people revile and despise it. Clearly, Scientology has a P.R. problem at the very least. In my view, nobody is 100% wrong. I'm a Zen Buddhist, and so of course I think Buddhism is less wrong than other religions, but even within the spectrum of Buddhist traditions there are things I think are mistaken, harmful, or confused, and the further a religion gets from my particular flavor of Zen, the more I think they're mistaken, confused, harmful, or irrelevant. I'm sure this surprises nobody. But among all the zillions of views and religions I've listened to, I can't think of any that have met the criteria "100% wrong". Even in Scientology, I find things that I think are useful: for example, there is an emphasis on learning communication skills, on identifying and working with old personal traumas as a way to free oneself from the stored negative burden, etc. On the other hand, there are a lot of metaphysical and speculative beliefs about the nature of being and origin of man which seem pretty sketchy to me (the Thetan stuff, particularly). But many religions can tolerate a huge burden of fantasy and mythology without becoming entirely useless -- this is because those kinds of beliefs don't necessarily interfere with spiritual development, at least in the key early stages which are common to most religions. I don't think Scientology would have the success it has if it were providing no value whatsoever to it's practitioners. The problem as far as I can see is that they've done an absolutely horrible job in their organizational relationship with the rest of the world: being aggressive and mean-spirited, quick to resort to unethical tactics (the famous "fair game" policy, falsifying records, attempting to smear others, etc.) This aggressive posture has produced a lot of "bad karma" with those outside the organization: people distrust and dislike Scientology more than almost any other well-known religion. So back to your question: is it valid or a commercial scam? Strangely enough, I suspect bits of both -- as mentioned already, there are elements I think are useful. On the other hand, there does seem to be a lot of money changing hands, along with stories about what happens when it gets to the top of the pyramid. "Valid" and "Commercial scam" aren't entirely mutually-exclusive. It's an odd duck, that's for sure.

It's a pyramid scheme. Members join, pay for books and training, then go out and recruit new members and receive a commission for any 'donations' they make. The new members then pay for books and training and go out and recruit new members and the cycle just keeps going. Actual quote from a brochure advertising the above mentioned training: "Field auditors usually make a significant amount of their income from FSM [field service member] Commissions." And from a Scientology newsletter: "When you start 5 public onto the PURIFICATION RUNDOWN, in addition to your 10% cash FSM commission, you will receive $500 in FSM Training Awards for you to use on your own training!" Like I said, pyramid scheme.

I think the church of Scn soaks its members for what it can get and has a nasty habit of chewing people up and spitting them out (so to speak) broken and battered. I do think that Hubbard did mean to create a real philosophy, though. He put too much time into it when, if all he wanted was just the sycopants and the money (which mattered to him far more than they should have) he could have done far less and not worked as hard to make all the parts dovetail. I don't think that the church wants anything more than more money and power. I used to be in it, I was staff and I know many others who were. The amount of indoctrination and double speak and the fear there is palpable. I also want to say that there are offshoots and spinoffs - some of which use and refer to the Scientology and Dianetics names and some that don't. So there are "non CofS" (CofS abbrev for Church of Scn) Scientologists. But we're a pretty loosey goosey heretical bunch.