not obvious cults/grifts founded in the last 100-200 years
at least with older religions there's centuries of people who were born and died legitimately believing. even if they started off as cults, they have accumulated huge amounts of cultural history independent of their origins. I would not like to see people in 500 years treating scientology and falun gong with the same level of respect as, say, Christianity or Buddhism.
I already gave my thoughts on this elsewhere in the thread. People asked good questions and I gave them the best answers I could.
But yeah: not much. I think the difference is not in the construction of the religious hierarchy itself, but in how historically established the traditions are among the people. There is a point where a cult becomes a culture. That point is admittedly arbitrary, but I think there's a significant difference between trying to snuff out a modern cult before it becomes too powerful and trying to snuff out a ~2000 year old religion with tens of millions of adherents.
not scientology
not obvious cults/grifts founded in the last 100-200 years
at least with older religions there's centuries of people who were born and died legitimately believing. even if they started off as cults, they have accumulated huge amounts of cultural history independent of their origins. I would not like to see people in 500 years treating scientology and falun gong with the same level of respect as, say, Christianity or Buddhism.
what's the functional difference between the Vatican and the Scientology HQ?
I already gave my thoughts on this elsewhere in the thread. People asked good questions and I gave them the best answers I could.
But yeah: not much. I think the difference is not in the construction of the religious hierarchy itself, but in how historically established the traditions are among the people. There is a point where a cult becomes a culture. That point is admittedly arbitrary, but I think there's a significant difference between trying to snuff out a modern cult before it becomes too powerful and trying to snuff out a ~2000 year old religion with tens of millions of adherents.