The 2 examples you gave are completely irrelevant to Scientology being a religion and no one in their right mind would accept those as religion. But Scientology identifies itself as that. Im not going into the tax exempt status and whatnot, Im merely arguing from a moral point of view.
It shows that one person's strange belief is another person's religion. The big decider is the government. According to the German government Scientology is not a religion. After all Amway could declare themselves a church, worhipping Mammon. The society has to draw the line somewhere, between recognized religions (getting different treatment and even government help) and unrecognized groupthinking... Now that is debatable where the line should be, but we need a line somewhere, otherwise even stampcollectors will get taxexempt... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! (or for that matter, since religious practices are mostly protected, marihuana users could make up a church)
The economist covered this, can be found at economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10609174
