IV. IS SCIENTOLOGY A RELIGION?(...)

The modern academic study of religion that emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries must be distinguished from the classical disciplines of theology. While the task of theology was the exposition of the faith of a particular community (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc.) -- this most commonly meant the Christian faith in the west -- the academic study of religion was concerned to offer a scientific description and analysis of all religious phenomena. Thus one of the first tasks of the modern discipline of the study of religion was to free the definition of religion from its typical identification with Christianity. Standard dictionary definitions of religion still reflect this tendency to identify religion in general with the characteristics of especially Christianity and other monotheistic faiths. Those definitions often indicate that the sole or central characteristic of religion is "belief in a Supreme Being." But scholars of religion knew of great and ancient religions that had no such "belief in a Supreme Being." The principal examples were Buddhism, especially in its Theravadin forms where such a belief was explicitly rejected, and Jainism, which also explicitly rejected this belief. Yet these religions were more than 2,000 years old. Moreover, the Confucian traditions minimized the emphasis on the Transcendent and maximized emphasis on proper human relations. And in Hinduism one encountered many gods and goddesses and not just a single "Supreme Being." Moreover, the very mystical traditions of the monotheistic faiths of the West were often critical of the very notion of God as a "Supreme Being" and insisted that the Reality of God transcended such conceptions. Thus it was seen as essential to have a definition or understanding of religion that was adequate to the wide variety of religious traditions found among human beings throughout history.

At the same time, there was a recognition that in the religious traditions of humankind there was a dimension that transcended the mundane. However, that dimension or reality was named in a wide variety of ways. While Christians might strive for "union with God," or Muslims seek "submission to Allah," Buddhists were more bent on achieving "inner enlightenment or satori," Hindus more directed to realizing the "eternal atman or Self," and Jains strove to cultivate a "good mind." Thus the definition of religion that emerged in the modern study of religion included some recognition of "a Beyond" understood broadly enough to include those religions that either did not have a notion of a "Supreme Being" or explicitly rejected such an idea in the name of another conception of the Ultimate. While every religion identifies a sacred dimension of life, not every religion identifies the sacred with a "Supreme Being."