[Central Scrutiniser]

Well, you could say the same thing about every religion then, because none of us were there to witness it, and all the scriptures could be the L Ron Hubbard type writings of the day.

What is that old saying? The only difference between a religion and a cult is a thousand years of practice?

(putting on asbestos suit)

:-)

[muffaletaman]

Precisely...

The challenge is to filter out the BS from the truth, to discern the intent and effect of a belief or religion.

For example, a universe where the diety says that in dying on behalf of the religion, you get 72 virgins in "heaven" - that is clearly a system based on BS. It doesn't make any sense at all that this is a fundamental structural part of the nature of reality.

Likewise, blowing up trillions of individuals in volcanoes on some other planet to solve an overpopulation problem 75,000,000 years ago... need I go further?

Scientology and Islam prove that anywhere from 200k to 10,000,000, to 1.2 billion people CAN be wrong.

[AmishDude]

It's hard to say that a religion is a cult when its founders get themselves executed and work fairly hard to do so. A religion started by an individual and resulting in earthly benefits for that individual can be thought of as cultish.

I found it interesting that Scientology really didn't start up until the 25-year-old assistant to L. Ron (the current head) got it going. He's the caliphate, the Brigham Young.