You know perfectly well what the Romans thought about Judaism and then about Christianity. There are loads of sources, especially in Josephus' The Jewish War, about Jews who refused to recognize the Gods of Rome and the trouble that caused them. Especially once the emperors were considered divine. In a sea of Polytheism, you don't think that the Romans and Hellenistic peoples though that monotheism was an abhorrent aberration?

The goal of my earlier statement was to show that our present view of Scientology is truly no different than the Roman, Greek, and Jewish view of Christianity. A cult. And a bit of an odd cult at that, considering its stated monotheistic nature. But given the right conditions - economic or political or demographic - and a cult becomes a religion. Mormonism for instance is no odder or less odd than Scientology. And yet a century or so has passed and there is the faintest veneer of respectability surrounding it.