Scientology is not a bona fide religion - it is a cult, and a dangerous cult, at that, in that it messes with its members minds, even moreso, I think, than the other cults.
I've had a little experience with scientology in that when my oldest daughter was young, she met a young man who was everything any parent could want for their daughter. She started going to his church near Buffalo, NY. The name of the "religion" was scientology. What kind of religion is that, I asked her.
The next thing I knew, my daughter had moved to Buffalo with him and was working caring for children of scientologists, and her boyfriend had been sent to Clearwater, Florida, for intense "training."
That's about the time the Reader's Digest came out with an expose' on Scientology. I did some more research and said enough. She's coming home. My husband and his sons went to where they had her stashed (they kept her from accepting our phone calls) and physically moved her things out and brought her home. Her "keepers" didn't give them much guff - they would have gotten their heads knocked off if they had.
Even in the short time she had been there, her head was messed up. It took us a while to snap her out of it ("snapping" is a legitimate term used by deprogrammers, BTW). Cults take the brightest and the best, the prettiest and the most handsome, and the ones with the most money. What we are seeing with Tom Cruise is the result of brainwashing by the cult and maybe one too many "clear" sessions.