As I’ve said here before, I’m all for the clams being a religion. They have as much claim as any other sky-fairy worshipping loons.

However, don’t piss off the nerds, for they have skillz.

This massive article, seeded by some leavers,  is well worth ploughing through and might even encourage you to an anonymous protest.

Some choice nuggets:

Physical violence permeated Scientology’s international management team. Miscavige (current leader) set the tone, routinely attacking his lieutenants. Rinder says the leader attacked him some 50 times.

To prop up revenues, Miscavige has turned to long-time parishioners, urging them to buy material that the church markets as must-have, improved sacred scripture.

Staffers are disciplined and controlled by a multi­layered system of “ecclesiastical justice.” It includes publicly confessing sins and crimes to a group of peers, being ordered to jump into a pool fully clothed, facing embarrassing “security checks” or, worse, being isolated as a “suppressive person.”

But, as I’ve said before, Scientology, based as it is on totally made up stuff, ranks right up there with the rest and should therefore be recognised as a religion.

First, Wikipedia locked out Scientology IP addresses, and they’re up in court for fraud in France.

But! I have an assertion for you: Scientology is a religion.

There, I said it. Think about it though: something made up by a bloke, that scams money off people, intimidates them if they try to leave and is based on a ludicrous premise. Heck, a court in the UK says we’re even allowed to call it a cult.

Sounds like a religion to me.

So fine, let’s put it on an equal footing with other sky fairy stories. Worried about tax breaks? Easy, take the breaks away from the others and level the playing field. OK, so milking a few Hollywood nutjobs for millions isn’t going to put them in the Vatican league just yet but there’s plenty of time.