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L. Ron Hubbard started the Church of Scientology. I was just wondering if they claim to be Christian in any event?

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I recall reading that L. Ron Hubbard wrote some highly slanderous things about Jesus's character, and proclaimed himself the Antichrist, saying that that was a good thing. But I don't have any source for that and it could have simply been anti-Scientology propaganda. Can anyone substantiate this? – Mason Wheeler♦ Feb 3 '12 at 18:56
I just realized it was Tom Cruise I was thinking about. I was waiing for someone to say something snarky about Tom Cruise never being on topic. Lame attempt at a little levity. – Affable Geek Feb 4 '12 at 0:16
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It's interesting to me how many prominent Scientologists used to be Roman Catholics. A partial list includes: Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, John Travolta, Catherine Bell, and Jenna Elfman (and those were just the ones I could find quickly). I know the Catholic Church has had issues since Vatican 2 but this seems disproportional. – Audio Sancto Feb 4 '12 at 16:13

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According to Scientology, Jesus Christ was part of the "implant" that Xenu imposed on the thetans. That is, he is a fictional character that people were brainwashed into believing in.

Scientologists believe that 75 million years ago the leader of the Galactic Confederation, Xenu, decided that many planets in the galaxy were overpopulated, and to solve this problem he killed hundreds of billions of people, captured their "thetans" (i.e. souls) in a mixture of glycol and alcohol, and transported them to the planet Teegeeack to imprison them there. (Which we now call "Earth".) He placed all these frozen thetans around volcanos and blew up these volcanos with hydrogen bombs. The thetans were gathered on "electronic ribbons" where they stuck together in "clusters". Xenu took these thetans to Hawaii and Los Palmas where he subjected them to a kind of brain-washing called "implanting" for 36 days, in which false memories were implanted in their minds to make them servile. Scientologists call this event "Incident 2". Modern humans are these thetans in bodily form.

A small part of the "implant" was belief in Christ. Another part of the implant was that if anyone tried to learn the truth, they would die of pneumonia. That's how things stood for 75 millions years until L Ron Hubbard came along and somehow managed to survive and break the implant.

That's what Scientologists believe, anyway.

So no, they're not Christians by any reasonable definition of the word.

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These are some grand claims you're making. Do you have a source to back it up? – El'endia Starman♦ Feb 3 '12 at 23:05
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@El'endiaStarman also: "In the relatively few instances in which it has acknowledged Xenu, Scientology has stated the story is a religious writing that can be seen as the equivalent of the Old Testament—in which miraculous events are described that are unlikely to have occurred in real life, assuming true meaning only after years of study" – Marc Gravell♦ Feb 3 '12 at 23:22
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This is a good primer for me in re: Scientollogy! Thanks (and +1) – Affable Geek Feb 3 '12 at 23:43
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Sources please. – Flimzy Feb 4 '12 at 5:23
Google "scientology" and you'll get many sources for this. I don't claim it's original or ground-breaking research. You can start with the Wikipedia entry for "xenu", xenu.net, //altreligion.about.com/od/mythologicalfigures/a/xenu.htm, etc. – Jay Feb 10 '12 at 5:07
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From Wikipedia:

Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986), starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics. Hubbard characterized Scientology as a religion, and in 1953 incorporated the Church of Scientology in Camden, New Jersey.

Nothing about Christ here; I'll answer no.

From Scientology.org:

DOES SCIENTOLOGY HAVE A CONCEPT OF GOD? Most definitely. In Scientology, the concept of God is expressed as the Eighth Dynamic—the urge toward existence as infinity. This is also identified as the Supreme Being.

Again, nothing about Christ. I think the answer is no.

And for good measure, L. Ron Hubbard says:

"The great religious civilizing forces of the past, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and others, have all emphasized differentiation of good from evil and higher ethical values."

That sounds to me like someone speaking of Christianity as an outsider.

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As I understand it -- and I don't claim to be an expert on Scientology by any means -- Scientology's concept of God is as an impersonal force and not as a being with a consciousness and a personality. More like "the Force" of Star Wars than the Christian, Jewish, or Moslem idea of God. – Jay Mar 23 '12 at 21:14

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