MF Scientology

Slate has another post about Scientology, this time claiming that it isn't as bad as we all think it is. The JP tends to disagree, but hey, the First Amendment gives people the right to worship L. Ron. Hubbard if that's what glazes their gavels. There are just a few points in the article that trouble me:

Some Americans may consider Scientology perhaps a cult, maybe a violent sect, and certainly very weird. And, like many, I find the Church of Scientology odd, to say the least. But Scientology is no more bizarre than other religions. And it's the similarities between Scientology and, say, Christianity and Judaism that make us so uncomfortable. We need to hate Scientology, lest we hate ourselves.

I think it's in fact the notable differences between Scientology and other religions ("services" are expensive, for example) that make it seem more like multi-level marketing than religion that inspire singular dislike of Scientology. Ant, who participates in several pyramid schemes, is actually building his own Scientology church in his cookie-cutter white bread suburban backyard. Also, as a devout agnostic with atheistic tendencies, not hating Scientology wouldn't necessarily malign me to hating myself, as I think the confusing and internally-inconsistent last two sentences are trying to imply.

And what about the "Xenu" creation myth anti-Scientologists are so fond of? Scientologists have promised me that it is simply not part of their theology—some say they learned about Xenu from South Park. Several ex-Scientologists have sworn the opposite. Given his frequent conflation of science fiction, theology, and incoherent musings, I think that Hubbard may have taught that eons ago, the galactic warlord Xenu dumped 13.5 trillion beings in volcanoes on Earth, blowing them up and scattering their souls. But I'm not sure that it is an important part of Scientology's teachings. And if Xenu is part of the church's theology, it's no stranger than what's in Genesis. It's just newer and so seems weirder.

Yeah, but I feel like we can forgive the Christians and Jews for Genesis: We didn't even know what gravity was, what humans were, or what, if anything, was going on with those little dots of light in the sky. Not that we're omniscient now; I just think our information has improved to the point where postulating crazily-involved creation stories that slit Occam's own throat is something worth anyone's time.