Religious Beliefs

DeVry University

I was brought up a Catholic but as I grew older my views on how the church handled itself changed dramatically and made me question what they do and how the effect the people who attend faithfully. So for the assignment this week I wondered what pattern the Catholic religion and the Scientology religion actually fell into. I did notice that there are some major differences between the two religions, doesn’t necessarily mean that one is better than the other, just that certain people will find comfort in one and total confusion in the other.
The Catholic Belief System:
People who are Catholics will tell you they are first and foremost, Christians who believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The Catholic religion shares some beliefs with other Christian practices, but essential Catholic beliefs include: The Bible, Baptism, The Ten Commandments and the Holy Trinity.
The Scientology Belief System:
The Scientology church believes that a human being is immortal, spiritual being that is in a physical body. The spiritual being that has had numerous past lives and according to the advanced Scientology texts, those lives preceding their arrival on Earth lived in extraterrestrial cultures.
The Catholic Community:
Almost all the Catholic churches in my area do certain things for the community: they hold flea markets, bake sales, bingo nights to bring non-church goers together & experience things that the church may offer that they may not have been aware of.

The Scientology Community:
Many Scientologists work actively within social organizations that use the scientology technology in certain settings to resolve the problems within their society. Some of the problems scientologists try help out in are drug abuse, crime, failing educational systems and the decay of their communities.
The Catholic Central Myths:
There are many myths about being a Catholic but the biggest one I believe is that you have to go to church EVERY WEEK or something horrible will happen.
The Scientology Central Myths:
After doing some research on scientology, I found the biggest myth being that there is an over-lord called Xenu who, with the help of psychiatrists, brought a large number of the aliens from the planets in the galaxy he lived in to Earth seventy-five million years ago. Once they were on Earth and humans started arriving he killed all the aliens and their spirits were captured, memories erased and were inserted into the humans.
Now I am not saying this because I am catholic and some people who follow the scientology church are a little overbearing, but this is the craziest thing I have ever heard!
The Catholic Rituals:
One of the biggest rituals in the Catholic Church is that you must be baptized in order to remove the original sin that we are supposedly born with because Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden. Adam was told from God himself not to eat the apple, but he did it anyway. This is why in the catholic religion we are baptized because of this sin.

The Scientology Rituals:
Scientology includes religious ceremonies to recognize events of importance in the lives of its parishioners such as weddings, naming’s, and funerals, which is similar to the catholic religion. The religious ceremonies of Scientology impart a special quality to these occasions. (Patheos, n.d.)
Catholic Ethical system: The main basis of the Christian ethical system is the bible and specifically the Ten Commandments in the part of the bible called “The Old Testament”. (Mr. Hoyestok, n.d.).
The Scientology Ethical system:
The Scientology system of ethics is based wholly on reason. The founder and creator of the scientology religion L. Ron Hubbard defined ethics as a reason of the contemplation of optimum survival. Ethics may also be further defined as “the actions an individual takes on himself to ensure his continued survival across the dynamics.” It is