Scientology texts written by its inventor, L. Ron Hubbard, claim that it is fully compatible with all existing major world religions, and that it does not conflict with them or their religious practices.
The major monotheistic religions and Scientology share the claim of Universality of their belief system, which precludes compatibility in the view of most scholars.
In its application for tax-exempt status in the United States, the Church of Scientology International states: Although there is no policy or Scriptural mandate expressly requiring Scientologists to renounce other religious beliefs or membership in other churches, as a practical matter, Scientologists are expected to and do become fully devoted to Scientology to the exclusion of other faiths.
Mainstream religions, in his view, had failed to realize their objectives: "It is all very well to idealize poverty and associate wisdom with begging bowls, or virtue with low estate.
In March 1954, he talked about mysticism, spiritualism, and "guardian angels and priests and all this sort of thing as the requirement to inquire from nothingness for direction".
[4]: 109–110 According to scholar Mikael Rothstein, just as Jesus is the sole object of religious devotion and source of salvation, and the church is seen as an "extension" of Jesus' divinity, "the entire fabric of Scientology is best understood as an expansion of the individual, L. Ron Hubbard, including the buildings currently emerge as physical manifestations of Scientological ideals and virtues".
[5]: 512 The Church of Scientology has capitalized on the religion's similarity to Buddhism to win followers in historically Buddhist-influenced countries like Taiwan.
[6] Hubbard discussed Buddhism in an early 1952 lecture in London, speaking about Buddhist reincarnation stories, about the Christian God and other religious topics.
According to religious scholar Aldo Natale Terrin, in Buddhism, adherents aim to the suppression of the mind which is in direct opposition to the Scientologist idea of "transparency to himself".
[7] Flinn called Scientology technological Buddhism, however, it can be differentiated from Buddhist asceticism as its aim is not the eradication of pain through the removal of desire or detaching oneself from the world.
and emphasizes certain traits of Hubbard that the editors of the publication said matched traits predicted by the "Metteya Legend," such as Metteya appearing in the West, having golden hair or red hair (Hubbard was red-haired), and appearing in a time of world peril, with the earliest of the predicted dates for his return being 2,500 years after Gautama Buddha, or roughly 1950.
[9] Author Richard Holloway writes that the underlying principle in Scientology is the ancient Hindu doctrine of reincarnation or samsara, but without nirvana.
Scientologists believe in the immortality of souls that travel from one body to another in a span of a trillion years, without final salvation or damnation.
Now, the same would be the aim of Scientology in seeking to dissociate the Thetan – equivalent to purusha (immortal, free, divine) – in the attempt to liberate the self from the MEST (matter, prakrti).
Martin highlighted Scientology's multiple-god and reincarnation ideas, Hubbard's concepts that the Christ story and hell were both legends, and repentance for sin is abhorrent.
[25] Maximos Aghiorgoussis, the bishop of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America in Pittsburgh, has stated that Scientology is not in fact a "church", but rather a gnostic or theosophical system of thought.
Calling upon what he describes as "unclean spirits", the inexperience of those who do auditing cause "hallucination, irrational behavior, severe disorientation, strange bodily sensations, physical and mental illness, unconsciousness, and suicide.
[26]: 44 In May 2001, the Russian Orthodox Church criticized Scientologists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Unificationists, and Mormons as being dangerous "totalitarian sects".
[30] New religious movement scholar Douglas E. Cowan compares the basic auditing session in Scientology to the Roman Catholic confessional.
Leah Nelson writes that Farrakhan "has been telling his followers to embrace Scientology in order to move closer to perfection in preparation for the end times.
Jacob Michael King states that both religions are "engaged in reframing traditional spiritual ideas, and both employ scientific language in an attempt to "modernize" elements seen as outdated."
"While self-knowledge in the NOI offers the believer an identity as part of a collective, auditing through 'locating areas of spiritual distress… and improving their condition' purports to free the individual to determine herself and to better author her own destiny," states Jacob King.
Scientologists have also worked with NOI-lead initiatives to reduce crime rates in the Los Angeles inner cites, using the Scientology-sponsored program The Way to Happiness.