What's more believable, Scientology or Christianity?

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Christianity is more believable because it requires a Hell that you cannot escape from, therefore that must be true, otherwise, life is meaningless without watching you suffer for all eternity.

LOL neither. But if I was forced to choose one to follow at gun point I would probably reluctantly choose being a christian.

CALVIN'S ARGUMENT, a.k.a. TERTULLIAN'S ARGUMENT
(1) If God exists, then he will let me watch you be tortured forever.
(2) I rather like that idea.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

That depends on how Scientologists understand the nature of their God. I think the Christian conception of God is literally contradictory, so I don't think it would be possible to be less believable than Christianity.

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Belief is more responsible to gullibility than validity. it's a toss-up.

I knew someone would point this out....

As a whole, there is a wide gulf of difference. I have issues against the Roman Catholic Church for its abuses and hording of wealth. Many Protestant denominations do not have anything close to the level of abuse seen in the RCC.

There are always those (mostly the state) that will use faith as a basis of control and exploitation, but that doesn't automatically invalidate the faith unless the whole purpose for the faith's existence is to control and exploit a group of people.

Scientology is clearly exploitative. Christianity's abuses can be tied to people who acted in clear contradiction to the teachings of Jesus.

So you're trying to rationalise the exploitation of one group, as if it's OK because it was against their teachings, and as if that somehow makes it better, yet still attack another group for it?

Don't get my intention wrong here, I am not defending Scientology at all, but I think it's always important to have perspective. It's easy to attack the dodgy guys who believe in aliens, but the mainstream religions aren't exactly too nice either when it comes down to it.

But, most importantly, their actual beliefs are all as ridiculous as each other.

Neither!
الله أكبر! الإسلام هو الطريق الصحيح! الإسلام هو دين السلام!

No. Every abuse you find in Christianity has the common factor(s) of someone distorting the teachings of Jesus for personal gain and/or followers who (for whatever reason) were ignorant of what the Bible actually said.

Scientology was quack science created by Ron L. Hubbard (a science fiction writer) that became a popular cult. He used it to become insanely wealthy in his lifetime, and the destruction this cult has inflicted on many of their followers (not the famous, high-profile ones) is well-documented. Does Scientology help people? For some, yes, but mimicking some sound psychotherapy practices means you're bound to get a few decent results in the mix.

The Bible doesn't say much at all. It is all interpreted. Unless you are a literalist, (and following the original Hewbrew and Aramaic First testament, and the Greek new testament) you are following a personal interpretation, which is therefore a distortion of the original. Arguably even those are a rearrangement (with additions) of the Torah.

And who is to say that even if you were doing that, that the truths "revealed" to those that wrote those texts are any more valid than those Hubbard "discovered"?

I hold this view, and am a Christian. This view encourages you to be careful when reading the bible because it's so easy to get it wrong and pushes you into the concordant camp where you attempt to fit the bible around science (e.g. God didn't create the world in literal 6 days, and so on). Fortunately, you can get the general gist of it (aside from some of the old testament stuff) by looking for the common theme. It's summed up in the commands "Love your neighbor as yourself" and "Love your God with all your heart".



And that's where faith comes in. The problem that I'm seeing with many of the atheist posters here is that you are trying to prove something that can't be proved or disproved. I accept that I can't know or prove it's accuracy. But I believe it, and that's enough for me.

As for Scientology, what can I say about it? While it maintains the level of secrecy that it currently does, I will never be able to take it seriously. At least with Christianity, you can walk up to a church and simply ask the local preist/pastor/insert title here to talk about God and they'll be happy to have an open discussion with you - no secrets. Of course, this doesn't apply to every church but that's the good thing about the vast number of denominations that we have, even if we don't all agree on everything. I'm not saying that this was always the case for Christianity (we had a few REALLY bad spots with the inquisitions, church of england only using latin and the crusades) but we've moved beyond that.

Basically this right here; I'm a Christian as well.

As for Scientology... even Hubbard thought it was bunk and didn't expect it to be popular.

Both religions rely on faith to validate their book.
Modern American Christianity is interpretive. The views amoungst the followers, even in the same church, differ.
Scientology has one book, and one way of understanding it.
Therefore Scientology is more believable. In the imaginary case of their higher powers actually appearing, Scientology one thing would happen, Christian only a handful of them would get their actual God, because between them their beliefs are fragmented and different.

Honestly as ridiculous as both of them are, Scientology makes more sense in a scientific standpoint than Christianity (which isn't saying much at all...) So Scientology is more believable than Christianity.

Scientology occurred even longer ago.

Even before Dianetics?