Now it gets really hazy. So if I "look at the needs of people other than myself" by simply talking about my religion, doing a service for my deity through that regardless of whether this has any effect... this is still considered to "look after someone"? Even if, by doing this, I might hurt the person in case (like the eskimo)? This makes it sound like you should only "care for others", no matter what that might entail of good or bad things, for your
own sake.
What if my religion commands me to torture my slave so that he dies after a few days instead of outright killing him? This is also a religious dogma concerning social behaviour within the group. Is this still better?
I cannot wrap my head around the very, very positive light you shine on whether something describes relations to people other than yourself. Why is this inheritely a better thing? What if its a commandment to lead them, granting me the right to remove those that disagree with either my authority as leader or dogma; rule of law? This is, again, social commandment. That something concerns the structure or government of society does
not make it "looking after needs", unless you would argue that Im doing it for their salvation, so theologically I am helping them. Is that the case? Else Im confused. Also Jonestown.
And again, I still dont see how you define religion as to include "self-improvement-religions" like Scientology, but also exclude the concept of mysticism, the New Age spirituality, Martin Luther's theology etc etc etc. I am completely aware that defining religion is like pulling teeth, but this is very selective.
The reason Im riding on this is not that I like Scientology. I despise Scientology and everything about it. But what is being said in this thread is that Scientology is somehow the first and only religious movement to concern the self, which is a
millenia-old tradition. Scientology almost becomes a scape-goat to oppose in order to win legitimacy for all other religious conduct. And thats just too easy. And its very apparent through the pick-and-choose of texts here.
Did you know that Scientology has a massive program dedicated to the rehabilitation of criminals, both with the intent to help the criminal and to strenghten social stability? They are also vividly opposed to "drug-the-problem-away", something that can very reasonably be argued is an actual problem in areas of modern medicine. See how easy it is? If I look exclusively at these two facts, I can make Scientology look more favourable than Epicurus. And notice how I described their stated doctrines without looking at how its put in practice at all? Its that easy. You did it with ancient Buddhism. I did it with Scientology.
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