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To: Edward Watson

Well that is special. He can word it any way he likes. It's a CULT!

And equating their position on psychiatry with the Catholic Church's stand on abortion is something I cannot get my mind around. Sorry.


93 posted on 07/07/2005 11:14:50 PM PDT by Fudd Fan (fiat voluntas Tua)
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To: Fudd Fan

"And equating their position on psychiatry with the Catholic Church's stand on abortion is something I cannot get my mind around."

Easy. Vehement opposition, diametric, irreconcilably hostile.

As for the word "cult", be careful when you use that word since it means different things to different people. Evangelicals and other Protestants have abused it into name-calling. They don't like a religion and it automatically is labelled a "cult." It became a short-hand for "beliefs that are new, false, strange or disgusting."

Christianity was a "cult" during the first century by being a minority religion, by being new, by having beliefs that were strange to outsiders. The Baptists were a "cult" in the 16th century just as the Pentecostals were in the early 20th century.

To this day, a narrow-minded Catholic (like many of my relatives) can view all Protestants as "cults" and false. The same with a narrow-minded Baptist - to him, all Catholics, Mormons, Greek Orthodox, Seventh-day Adventists, etc. belong to "cults." Can he prove they are and their beliefs are heterodox with his orthodox? No, since they all agree on the central tenets of the Bible with their difference being of interpretation and extra-biblical (such as the pope, papal infalliability, assumption of Mary, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, etc.).

While I personally believe Scientology is a false faith and is actually harmful to a person's mental health (just like I do concerning the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Filipino Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ); it would be remiss to blithely dismiss them as "cults" as if that single word explains everything.

Oh well ...


110 posted on 07/08/2005 5:47:23 AM PDT by Edward Watson
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