Who’s to say which religion is better than the next? Most often a person ends up following a particular religion by location or by birth.

What are the chances that someone growing up in Afghanistan would attend a synagogue rather than a mosque? Would someone raised in Peru wager his chips for eternal life with anything but the Catholic Church?

In America it’s often considered shameful to criticize religion. We’re supposed to accept religions without question. Who would dare publicly highlight the flaws in Judaism? Many cringe at the dreadful risk of being called anti-Semitic even when discussing the role of AIPAC.

Who dares to criticize Evangelicals or Catholics? Mormons? What about those faithful to the Book of Mormon which Angel Moroni handed down to Joseph Smith as a revelation in 1830?

It’s widely assumed that we should reserve a special reverence and respect for religions, especially the mainstream, ol’time variety Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. We tiptoe around the so-called holy books the Koran, the Torah, and the Bible. We don’t dare question organized religions as if they were prickly and prone to furious offense. For religious people we mentally construct some thick fortified wall and grant asylum to members of the faith, as if they’ve ascended a step higher than the rest of us mere mortals.

In the US, after Christians, the second largest group is secular. We don’t hear from this group because they’re not organized and, unlike the Christians and especially Jews, they don’t lobby or bribe politicians for special demands. Despite the fact that a huge portion of the American population doesn’t pray, we bend over backwards to accommodate those who do, especially the Christians.

Hell, we’ve even begun to throw out scientific method in schools for the sake of “creationism” some half baked “faith based” explanations about how the world was formed and how humans arrived on earth. Why not teach other such concepts such as the Hindu version of Genesis, how a turtle carried the world into being.

Meanwhile, we freely mock Scientology. We taunt the celebrities who’ve hitched their faith to Hubbard’s alter. It’s all over the news, stories about Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and others who regularly attend the Church of Scientology.

Push aside whatever bias. It’s really a hip religion for our new world order. Founded by L. Ron Hubbard, a second-rate pulp science fiction writer of the 40’s and 50’s. Scientologists claim to captivate 8 million members. Hubbard wrote the book of Dianetics which explains the process of ‘auditing’ or clearing the mind of ‘engrams,’ those mental reactions to traumatic events that obstruct a person’s life. In the process of erasing engrams, an individual reaches higher levels of ‘clarity,’ the highest level, measured as an 8. Hubbard’s E-meter, an electronic device, helps Ministers to measure a person’s progress toward higher Clarity. Depending on a person’s wealth, Hubbard’s Church expects donations in thousands of dollars for auditing its members and erasing their engrams.

Other more traditional and well established religions the Abrahamic ones found in synagogues, mosques, and churches, might expect smaller donations or tithes, but then, they only offer the standard and vague prayer, blessings, atonement, and sins.

Meanwhile Scientology provides rigorous auditing of engrams with the use of sophisticated electronic E-meters, and clearing services that enable self-realization.

In Scientology we learn a whole new creationism, an explanation for how the earth was created and how humans found their home here. According to Hubbard’s prophetic visions, Xenu reigned as dictator over the “Galactic Confederacy;” and 75 million years ago, he brought billions of his people to Earth in DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes, and killed them using hydrogen bombs.

Scientology holds that the souls, or “thetans” of these aliens remained, and that to this day they gang up and attach themselves to human souls, causing us spiritual harm. The Scientology Church offers services to cleanse the souls of these aliens from us humans for a reasonable price uh donation.

What’s so far-fetched about that? Consider the alternatives.

The first five books of the Old Testament Book of Moses come from the Jewish Torah. The Christians and Jews believe in the same God, though they differ greatly in understanding that God. Genesis tells us to multiply and subdue the earth. We succeeded quite well in this task. With a rapidly growing population, we’re so numerous that the earth is subdued to the point of annihilation. But, then, God will save us, or so the belief goes.

Likewise, Islam recognizes the Jewish and Christian holy books, prophets, Mother Mary, and most of the other biblical characters. In many ways the beautiful poetry of the Koran reads like a convoluted reference book to the Jewish and Christian holy books.

Newsflash: Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the same God, but they have one hell of a time agreeing on what God is or does. Even though they can’t agree on God within their own congregations, they’re often at each others’ throats to defend whatever vague idea they have about God.

Human history bathes in blood for the deadly attempt to defend the one and only portal to eternal life. Religion often calls for inner peace, though it’s packed with raging emotions as if many believers were a little insecure about their guaranteed portals to eternal life.

For centuries, we took it ‘on faith’ that Moses wrote the Book of Moses. Alas, faith often ignores reality. For centuries anyone who made that claim risked life and limb by the Catholic Church.

Yet, reading the book of Moses, we can find many anachronisms things that Moses was supposed to have known but which didn’t exist in his time domesticated camels and peoples, like the Philistines

So, we have to ignore many facts as in history, in order to take things on faith. We have to accept blind ignorance for the sake of taking a nice story as the-word-of-God truth. Inconsistencies, anachronisms, and other such fallacies plague the holy books and beg for broad poetic license.

With low levels of literacy, many folks have to rely on one religion or another for hope in otherwise confused lives. In this way religion does serve some benefit in popular culture, a quick and ready-made explanation for the big questions. People often dash for quick, off-the-shelf answers to existential questions when disasters occur and shake up the routine of their lives.

Take the Koran. According to Islam, back in the 7th century Angel Gabriel whispered divine revelations into the Prophet Muhammad’s ear. Muhammad was illiterate but found good Arabic scribes to write down what Gabriel told him.

We also have to believe that Muhammad took an intense supernatural Night Journey, a mystical flight from the Kabbah, riding astride a winged animal, a Buraq, guided by Angel Gabriel. The beast delivered him to the former Temple of the Jews in Jerusalem, where he met and held discussions with celebrities like Abraham, Moses, and Jesus who prayed with him. He rose to the highest limits of heaven where divine radiance touched him. Once there, Moses advised him that Muslims should pray five times per day. The trip placed Muhammad on an even footing with the other prophets, so, believing his story is much easier.

In light of these options, though, if I had fifty grand, I’d pay to take the celebrity fast-track ride to spiritual freedom with the Scientologists. It’s a valid as most any of the mainstream religions.

Photo by Shane Pope via Flickr

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