Mike Rinder addressed the question of whether Scientology meets the accepted scholarly and legal standards of what constitutes a religion in a presentation to the Philosophical Society at Trinity College in Dublin Ireland this week. While versions of this address have appeared in the comments section of this blog already, here is a version with better audio than those posted thus far. I recommend that anyone interested in the subject of Scientology listen to the entire presentation.
For those whose intellectual curiosity has been piqued here is the Australian High Court decision of 1983 that Mike referred to, Australian High Court.
For those who want to study the evolution of the establishment of Scientology’s religiosity, Justice Skelly Wright’s, of the D.C. Federal Appellate Court, 1969 opinion in the Food and Drug Administration’s case against the e-meter is essential reading, Founding Church of Scientology vs United States (1969)
Since 1983 many other legal precedents were delivered that further established the religious bona fides of Scientology offering constitutional protection to the practice of Scientology in other contexts.
Each one of those precedents was hard won by a lot of determined Scientologists over the past six decades. That David Miscavige has cynically used those protections to create a sort of immunity for his commercial, criminal operations cannot be allowed to wipe out that selfless work for humanity. The only thing that stands between Corporate Scientology’s avarice and the ruination of those Constitutional protections is a community of sincere, ethical, independent practitioners continuing to grow and communicate.
Please continue to grow and communicate.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 