Eye Believe
Einstein
- #1
Scientology
What is scientology? Scientology teaches that people are immortal beings who have forgotten their true nature.[7] Its method of spiritual rehabilitation is a type of counselling known as auditing, in which practitioners aim to consciously re-experience painful or traumatic events in their past in order to free themselves of their limiting effects.[8] Study materials and auditing courses are made available to members in return for specified donations.[9] Scientology is legally recognized as a tax-exempt religion in the United States and some other countries,[10][11][12][13] and the Church of Scientology emphasizes this as proof that it is a bona fide religion.[14] In other countries, notably Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, Scientology does not have comparable religious status.
The Church of Scientology was founded in 1954 by L. Ron Hubbard, a former science fiction writer. It is perhaps best known for its celebrity adherents, among them Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Leah Remini.
Whether Scientology is a "religion" is a matter of debate. Scientology presents itself as a "technology" that leads people to "true spiritual release and freedom." It does not emphasize particular beliefs about God or other traditional religious topics, yet it calls itself a "Church" and presents many of its teachings in spiritual and religious terms. Scientology is also highly controversial, with many regarding it as a dangerous cult or financial scam.
It is not the job of ReligionFacts to present our own opinion on these issues, but only to provide facts about the group's history, beliefs and practices. We have included Scientology on ReligionFacts simply because it meets our basic criteria of including teachings about the meaning of life and some set of rituals. The Scientology Links page leads to both critical and supportive arguments on the controversies of Scientology.
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Religion
What is religion? Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.[note 1] Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature.The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system, but religion differs from private belief in that it has a social aspect.[1] Many religions have organized behaviors, clergy, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, congregations of laity, regular meetings or services for the purposes of veneration of a deity or for prayer, holy places (either natural or architectural), and/or scriptures. The practice of a religion may also include sermons, commemoration of the activities of a god or gods, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture. However, there are examples of religions for which some or many of these aspects of structure, belief, or practices are absent.
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Evolution
What is Evolution? Evolution is any change across successive generations in the inherited characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.
Life on Earth originated and then evolved from a universal common ancestor approximately 3.7 billion years ago. Repeated speciation and the divergence of life can be inferred from shared sets of biochemical and morphological traits, or by shared DNA sequences. These homologous traits and sequences are more similar among species that share a more recent common ancestor, and can be used to reconstruct evolutionary histories, using both existing species and the fossil record. Existing patterns of biodiversity have been shaped both by speciation and by extinction.
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Atheism
What is Atheism? in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1][2] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[3][4][5] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[4][5][6][7] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[8][9] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.
Arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to the social to the historical. Atheists tend to be skeptical of supernatural claims, citing a lack of empirical evidence for deities.[12] Other rationales for not believing in any deity include the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, and the argument from nonbelief. Although some atheists have adopted secular philosophies,[13][14] there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere.[15] Many atheists hold that atheism is a more parsimonious worldview than theism, and therefore the burden of proof lies not on the atheist to disprove the existence of God, but on the theist to provide a rationale for theism.
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So which way do you lean? After voting, place your comments on your beliefs.
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