gisambards wrote:Personally, I would define Mormonism as a cult - the only reason it's seen as more acceptable is because people are born into it, and that's a big difference: almost every Scientologist chose Scientology, while most Mormons were born into it.
And I believe this was Neil deGrasse Tyson's point. Mormonism has been around a while, long enough for people to have raised their children as Mormons. Therefore, it's seen as legitimate. What makes it a cult though? We certainly can't use subjective standards like, their beliefs are crazy. Some Mormon groups shun those who leave the church, which, if we're going by Sunglasses definition of a cult (a cult is determined by how it treats members who want to leave), might be enough to qualify. Other Mormon groups are just as welcoming to non-believers and former members as they are to current members. I wouldn't qualify Mormonism as a whole as a cult, but certainly some Mormon groups exhibit cultish behavior. However, I could say the same thing about every religion in the world, so it's fairly meaningless.
I think the point Tyson misses, and granted, he admits that he hasn't even seen the documentary that was the basis for the question, is that Scientology (like, the actual organization, not just extremist members) has a long history of harassing former members and suing everyone in sight. These are not the practices of a legitimate religion.
gisambards wrote:And the whole Elijah thing at Seder's is a tradition - no-one expects Elijah to physically come in, that's not the point, it's just supposed to just represent him being there.
And Tyson also addressed that, noting that some members just treat it as a ritual. But again, we don't want to go down the rabbit hole of which religion has the crazier beliefs, and making value judgments based on that. Militant atheists would consider the term 'legitimate religions' an oxymoron for those exact reasons, so arguing that Jonah getting swallowed by a whale was just a parable while say, mocking the belief in Xenu, just becomes a waste of time.
gisambards wrote:And while I don't begrudge anyone purely for their religious beliefs, given that Scientology is so clearly a scam (and, as sunglasses points out, a cult), it's hard not to be a little critical of anyone who falls for it.
I have had relatively intelligent friends fall into these kind of traps, though not specifically Scientology. It was usually due to emotional vulnerability coupled with ignorance of the group. Most of the members of these cults deserve more pity and support than criticism.