Scientology vs other religions vs people
There is a big difference between Scientology and other religions in that its founder started it as a money-making exercise, which meant that Scientology was from the beginning an extremely efficient business operation in which revenue generation is indivisible from participation.
Other religions had at least an initial phase of genuine belief. When they gained enough followers, they became a money-making opportunity, and then the businessmen moved in. They had to bolt on the revenue generating part to the existing structure, hence the rather clumsy donation/tithing model compared to Scientology's requirement that you pay for courses to move up. Christianity would be much more efficient if they charged for entrance to the church service and premium amounts for baptisms etc, but if they tried they'd be condemned as ungodly.
Turning a cult of a few hundred members into a religion of millions also creates inevitable conflict with the original holy doctrine. It's so difficult to reconcile the existence of a multinational political and financial powerhouse like the Catholic Church with the more personal philosophy of Jesus that Jack Chick's case for the Vatican being Satanic, based on Biblical verses, is actually quite convincing (or no less convincing than any other interpretation of the Bible). Scientology has no such problem because the organisation was built alongside the doctrine, rather than after it. El Reg's IT audience should have no trouble understanding how superior this approach is.
So the religions are very different - by which I mean Scientology is better, for its purpose anyway. (The sole purpose of a religion larger than a few hundred members who all know each other is to make money and wield political influence. Salvation, if it exists, can be done in small groups just as well as large ones.) But the religions are exactly the same in terms of followers. Scientologists aren't any more extreme or more gullible than other religious folk. Tom Cruise's weird-sounding comment on stopping at accidents is reminiscent of the large number of Christians who believe that atheists are inherently immoral or amoral.