Technically this word is a mishmash of latin and greek:

Scient (from the latin scientia) meaning knowledge

and Ology (from greek) to talk about (implies studying)

Mr. Hubbard the all seeing should have known better than to mix the two languages in one word.

Other examples of well formed non-made up words of this type are:

Theology: Talking about God (both halves from Greek)
Biology: Talking about living things (both halves from Greek)

See sham, fraud, fake, or any word adjacent to those.

Basically its a falsetto 'religion' in which eternal happiness is attained by donating all of your money to the leaders.

Founded by L. Ron Hubbard as a way to scheme money and make a fast buck off his books. One of the 'holiest' days in this religion is Hubbard's birthday.

Because most celebrites such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta are too stupid to realize it, they belong to this group.

A cult founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. There core beliefs are as follows:

This area of the galaxy was once ruled by an alien warlord named Xenu. 65 million years ago his empire was overpopulated horribly, so to combat the overpopulation he had trillions of citizens called in for psychiatric evalutations and tax audits, where they were given paralytic drugs, loaded onto space planes, and flown to Planet Teegeeack. Once on this planet, their bodies were stacked in huge piles around volcanoes, while atom bombs were dropped into these volcanos, instantly killing trillions of galactic citizens.

To keep these people from reincarnating in the rest of the galaxy, Xenu set up a special trap. Powerful force-fields kept their souls (called "Thetans" in Scientology jargon) from escaping, and these thetans were then shown special holographic movies about the various lies they are supposed to believe, with characters like Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha. Over time, these thetans began to believe Xenu's lies about false gods, and began to reincarnate on Teegeeack (but the thetans called this world "Earth"). When intelligent life appeared on Teegeeack, thousands or millions of "Thetans" cling to every native soul (er, "thetan") and fill it's head with nonsensical thoughs and irrational beliefs.

The key idea of Scientology is to avoid tax officials and psychiatrists at all costs, while paying the church a large amount of money for special "counseling" (called "auditin...

A new-age religion thought up by ex-sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard. They try to recruit new members by offering them 'personality tests' to determine the 'root cause' of the person's unhappiness. Interestingly, the solution to this 'root cause' is usually paying lots of money to the Church of Scientology. Scientologists have been rightly satirised in several TV programmes, films and computer games, for example the movementarian cult in The Simpsons or the hubologists in Fallout 2, but despite this Scientology is still attracting a steady stream of new converts. The main reason for this is that people are idiots.

The science of making money. A pseudo-religion set up by a money grabbing black magician/adulterer/corrupt bastard called L. Ron Hubbard.

A religous cult who's beliefs revolve around an intergalactic warlord named "Xenu" who nuked a bunch of aliens here on Earth billion of years ago. The souls of these aliens, called "Thetans", now inhabit our bodies and make us unhappy. The only way to get rid of these "Thetans" is to pay a bunch of money to these con men for the rest of your life.

Scientologists give a lot more than their money. Scientology is a living hell once you reach the stage "Clear". You are then informed about "Operating Thetan III" whereupon you are asked to join "The Sea Organisation" or "Sea Org". Since they have you brainwashed by now, you eagerly except. The Sea Org is like a concentration camp on a boat. You are forced to undergo intense physical labor. If you displease the slave masters, or "Captains" in anyway, you are punished in a manner called "Ethics". You are subject to phsyical torture, sleep deprivation, things like running from 7AM to 9PM, or mopping the deck all day in the sun in a black jumpsuit. They put you in a "recovery group" if you are being punished, and they try to brainwash you further so that you won't act out again. In this group, there's no telling if or when you might eat, or how much food you get, and living quarters are dark, hellish, roach infested, and damp. If you act out again, you are either put in a second level of "Recovery", where most people perish from exhaustion. If you have done anything seirous, (Most reasons were as minor as improperly addressing a Captain), but if you have done anything that they consider serious (plans to leave, treason, mutiny), there is a book that shows level of ways to execute. The most common way is blindfolding the prisoner, tying the hands and feet together, and dropping them off the edge of the boat into the ocean.

Scientology is like some creepy science fiction mov...

The religion created by the minor Science Fiction writer, L. Ron Hubbard in 1952. Scientology teaches that you are an immortal "thetan" that is entrapped in the physical universe and your own problems by your thoughts (considerations and postulates). In practice, Scientology is the exact opposite of what it teaches. It claims to free you, but most people would say that Scientologists are brainwashed and enslaved. It claims to promote freedom of speech, but Scientology sues anyone who says anything bad about Scientology. It claims to want to improve the earth, but sues anyone who tries to use it's books and techniques without paying a license. It is a very schizophrenic and dangerous organization whose members actually infiltrated and spied on the U.S. government in the biggest ever case of its type in U.S. history.