Re: [Marxism] scientology

[C W Sedley <cwsedley@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 3:42 PM, Einde O'Callaghan<eindeoc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>> The Church of Scientology considers the content of its sacred texts to
>> be a trade secret, and attempts to legally suppress any public
>> reporting of church doctrine. That's quite a big difference. I'm not
>> aware of any Christian sect that attempts to use trade and copyright
>> law to prevent widespread reading of the Bible, for example.

> So what? It sounds to me like it is a thoroughly capitalist religion
> right down to being an advocate of intellectual property rights.

I think that's an important point of distinction that justifies
viewing Scientology as more wilfully fraudulent than other religions.
All the major mainstream religions have pre-capitalist origins and are
amenable to reinterpretation by anti-capitalists. The Scientology
organisation was born in conditions of monopoly capitalism and has the
structure and outlook of an extremely repressive and superstitious
management training seminar, and exercises control over the
interpretation of its doctrines just as any firm controls the use of
its means of production. This makes it impossible to conceive of (for
example) a Latin American "Liberation Scientology" movement.

Cheers

CWS

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