was created as a bar bet between Robert Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard.

Heinlein had just finished a short story *The Sixth Column" about a group of scientists at a secret research lab who invented some amazing technology... and the "communist Pan Asians" have invaded the US and set up an authoritarian government... but the "Pan Asians" allow USA to have their own religion. So the patriotic scientists invent a religion to foster a revolution, spreading their new secret weapons into the hands of "believers" to attack the Pan Asians and take back America ( a very "Red Dawn" type story).

Heinlein was postulating that everyone would see that his "fake" religion would be ridiculous to the people that live in the USA... but L Ron was arguing that it was perfect, that people would really fall for the most insane bat shit wrapped up in religion that you could imagine... alien demons that lived in volcanoes around the world, etc.

The story goes that they made a bet. And each gave the amount of the bet to Harlan Ellison ( who was sitting with the titans of SciFi as a young author ) to hold the money. Scientology is the result.

I heard this story at least 50 years ago... and it makes sense.

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/2671/is-there-any-evidence-for-the-bet-between-robert-a-heinlein-and-l-ron-hubbard

"It is widely believed that the creation of Scientology was the result of a bar bet between L. Ron Hubbard and Robert A. Heinlein. The story says L. Ron Hubbard dared that he could create a religion all by himself. According to Scientology critic Lindsay this is "definitely not true", no such bet was ever made, it would have been "uncharacteristic of Heinlein" to make such a bet, and "there's no supporting evidence". However, several of Heinlein's autobiographical pieces, as well as biographical pieces written by his wife, claim repeatedly that the bet did indeed occur."

We have people drinking their own urine to cure a virus... believing in the bat shit insanity of Scientology is not beyond reason and as a result of a bar bet in the late 1940s or early 1950s would fit my sense of humor.

A more likely venue was John Campbell's office at Astounding Stories -- at least *IF* I remember correctly what I read in "The Early Asimov", which included short biographical asides.

Not too long ago I read the very absorbing "Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction" by Alec Nevala-Lee. Unfortunately, it was just long enough ago that I've forgotten most of the details, but the origin of "Dianetics", which became Scientology, is described in great and convoluted detail in that work. Campbell was deeply involved in the affair, at least at the beginning, and it (like his involvement with the infamous Hieronymus Machine) does not reflect at all well on Campbell. He was evidently a very bright man who felt he could pass expert judgement even in areas where he was quite ignorant, if not outright misinformed. None of it, of course, reflects well on Hubbard, who was clearly after the happy buck from very early on.