I just saw "Going Clear" Alex Gibney's documentary about Scientology. Yikes. It's not up to me to tell other people what they can or cannot believe or to whom they choose to give their money but let's just say that this religion gives credence to the notion that the tax-exempt status of churches is something worth revisiting. In this case, it seems that a religion may have been created for the purpose of sheltering money from the IRS.
It is a riveting tale about something I thought I knew a lot about already and realized I didn't know the half of it. This video they made after they finally achieved their prime objective, exemption from taxes, is just plain ... unbelievable. They literally proclaimed that they had "won the war" --- the war against paying taxes:
The Church teachings are very weird to my ears and seem to have obviously been directly lifted from L. Ron Hubbard's massive production of sci-fi stories in the 1930s. But then I have a hard time dealing with the idea of today's celebration of Jesus Christ's ascension into heaven too so I'm no proper judge of what supernatural religious teachings are normal and which ones aren't. Still, this is a very recent set of tales that were created by a person who made a living making up such tales so it's probably easier for many of us to see it as a cult. According to the movie, it's losing adherents left and right (even as it amasses billions from its tax-free holdings) so it's possible that it's going to end up being a historical artifact --- and one of the great scams of all time.
But the tax exemption story is very instructive. They beat the US Government by using the legal system to harass individual IRS employees. I'm a little bit surprised we haven't seen anyone else using this tactic and I have to wonder if the right isn't warming up to it with their crusade against Lois Lerner. Certainly, I would expect to see some billionaires try something similar. All this "religious liberty" stuff could have some very unexpected results if wealthy people and businesses figure out a way to use this precedent and the conservative courts take an expansive view of what constitutes religion and what constitutes liberty.
In any case, it's a fascinating story, truly a must-see if you're interested in these things.
Oh, and here's SNL last night actually taking on Scientology. This is not something anyone's been willing to do for a very long time since the leadership is vicious and unrelenting toward critics. It seems the genie's out of the bottle now: