There was a recent article about Scientology, focusing on the bullying and domineering attitude that Scientology’s current leader, David Miscavige, injects into the religion. Here’s what I have to say about Scientology: whatever.

I maintain that the things Scientology have done, ranging from domestic espionage to extreme litigation to the death of church members due to negligence, are not acceptable. But I also maintain that they are not unexpected. Religions in their growth pangs often commit horrific acts in an attempt to establish themselves. You need only look at the violence, corruption, and manipulation of the Catholic church in the middle ages to see evidence of that. And the holy wars of expansion of early Islam are just as telling; no religion has a monopoly on such offenses.

Similarly, Scientology’s “wacky” beliefs, like the multi-trillion-year-old universe and Thetans and the like are no more bizarre than the base beliefs of the Abrahamic religions. The difference is that we’ve grown up in a civilization centred around Moses carrying divinely inscribed tablets dictating the rules of the faith, around Noah building an Ark that carried his family and every single species on the planet for 40 days and 40 nights, around Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt for the sin of looking back upon Gomorrah, around a man who was a god who was martyred and resurrected and ascended to heaven. These stories are not less outlandish, they are more familiar. They don’t carry the stigma of the Space Opera.

None of what I’ve written defends Scientology in any way, but I don’t attack it for doing exactly what countless other churches has done in our history. It’s a double standard that makes no sense.

I know you’re thinking right now that the crimes of other religions are in the past and that because they happened in the past either a) it was ok because it was moderate for the time or b) it’s useless to chastise them for acts they no longer commit.

The first point is wrong, in my opinion. Morals are morals. I don’t care if it was done in exceptional circumstances. Wrong is wrong.

The second point is more valid, and I agree with it wholeheartedly. But Scientology hasn’t committed domestic espionage in the recent history, so to attack them for it is equivalent to attacking the modern Catholic church for the Inquisition or the Crusades.

In the end, I think that, if Scientology survives this initial growth to become an actual religion, it will become less hard line, but that won’t happen due to external pressure. If anything, the continual attacks on the religion from the outside will allow the church to establish a line of defence, just as Iran’s Supreme Leader has for decades by invoking the spectre of American Imperialism. Over time, Scientology’s member will force the church to change. Or it will collapse on itself. And the rest of the world isn’t going to do anything to affect the outcome or its time of arrival.