On Religion

Anyone who's been on digg for the past two weeks knows about the battle "anonymous" has declared on scientology.
My stance on scientology is that it is a joke. It is so much of a joke that I go against the will of firefox spellcheck and refuse to capitalize it. It is not a religion. It is a cult, plain and simple. It blackmails, tortures, and harasses its members. I don't need to list every single reason to hate scientology because you probably browse digg and hate scientology as much as I do.
You may be wondering, then, why this post is entitled "on religion". This is because on nearly every scientology story, there is a comment akin to
"While we're at it, why don't we just kill all religions? What separates Christianity from Scientology except that it's more popular and its been around longer?"
Now, I'm not a terribly religious person. However, comparing scientology to Christianity is, in my humble opinion, completely ridiculous.

Scientology was invented by a lunatic comic book writer who was quoted as saying that "if you want to make a million dollars, start a religion". It does virtually nothing that actually contributes to society. It charges its followers thousands of dollars (each) for "auditing", a sort of spiritual cleansing. It has yet to be scientifically proven that auditing actually does anything, but scientologists claim that it both increases IQ and "improves personality". Scientologists believe that a woman should not make any noise whatsoever while giving birth. etc,etc,etc.
People who compare scientology to Christianity, or indeed discredit the bible (stay with me), or say that all Christians are evil seem to forget the fact that it is called "Christ"ianity for a reason. Those who have read the new testament would know that Jesus taught only love, peace, and tolerance. He promoted feeding the sick, giving to the poor, and loving all of mankind. He seems like a pretty good role model.
I believe Gandhi puts it best, however: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
The members of the Westboro Baptist church are the most hated people in the world. They picket the funerals of fallen soldiers because they claim that the war in Iraq is God's punishment for America's tolerance of the gay community (a topic for another post). This is because they are idiots, not because they are Christians. People like them would be assholes even if they weren't Christians. People like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jean Paul II would still be awesome people if Christ had never been part of their life. Religion is just a platform on which people base their opinions and actions. Whether one chooses to use it for good or bad is unaffected by the fact that it exists.

This is why I believe that scientology is not a religion. Scientology doesn't inspire anyone to do anything. Good people who are/become Christians generally do good things. Good people who become scientologists either become corrupt, or try to get out and are killed. The CoS stifles dissent and encourages people to disassociate themselves from their non-scientologist families. These and other actions are those that one can only associate with an extremist cult. No church of Christ does any of these things (presently, I should say- ie the spanish inquisition, crusades, etc. They used to be pretty screwed up).

I hope with all my heart that anonymous destroys scientology. I hope that everyone realizes that not all Christians are crazy. If I were to say some of the things mentioned in this post in a comment on a digg story, I would have as many negative diggs as the guy who bashed christianity would have positive diggs. The problem isn't a lack of people who think reasonably- the problem is the abundance of diggers who bury those who do.