How Do You Deal With Scientology?
You know… I try to stay out of the religious beliefs of others.
And whatever you or I feel about Scientology, the people who believe are true believers… and if you want to say they are crazy, you can start lining up people who think that Judaism and Christianity are equally dubious.
The one thing that struck me, however, about both the 2-night Nightline coverage and the BBC Panorama coverage is that I have real concerns about any organization that seeks religious standing with the US government and refuses to speak about their beliefs.
When a publicist/believer explains that he won’t speak about, either to confirm or deny, the basic positions of the faith, something is wrong… really wrong. And I am saying this as someone who deals with people who cannot tell the truth, as a matter of business course, every day. I am not even talking about lying with a straight face, which some do and some do not.
Can you imagine if Christians decided that Jesus rising was not to be spoken of publicly, but was still at the center of the idea of Jesus as the third part of the holy trinity. Can you imagine if priests stormed out of interviews if asked about whether the faith believed that Jesus had risen?
Would anyone be able to take them seriously?
Like I said, what you have faith in is not my call… but when you refuse to acknowledge what you believe, it suggests a lack of true faith and by the very lack of transparency, it calls your beliefs into question.
Me? I have no problem with Tom Cruise being anti-psychiatry. That’s his right, just as it’s Jenny McCarthy’s right to be anti-vaccination. These are opinions and we should all be allowed to express ours without fear of being called “crazy” simply for having them. And we should be willing and able, to a reasonable degree, to defend our positions… or at least exclaim our faith, no matter how blind.
In any case, here is the Nightline Package –
Nightline Day 1
Nightline Day 2
And here is a channel on YouTube where you can see the BBC’s “Scientology & Me”
Also, this little bit on Paul Haggis… who seems to remain one of the sober individuals of this industry, even when we disagree on ideas profoundly. How could anyone ask more of someone’s principals?
Decide for yourself.
Jenny McCarthy’s stance on vaccination is more of a problem than Tom Cruise’s stance on psychiatry. When your beliefs are a risk to yourself, that’s fine. When your beliefs put others at risk (in this case by jeopardizing what the experts call “herd immunity”), it’s a problem for everyone.
Part of it is that no other religion uses COPYRIGHT to protect their “beliefs”. That’s why Tommy Davis walks off of Nightline. He can’t mention Xenu because that shit is copyrighted.
Okay and because he’s seriously fucked in the head.
Hubbard was a con man. How gullible do you have to be to fall for his con decades AFTER he fucking died?
Agreed, Eric. McCarthy is a menace (who would’ve thought anyone would ever say that about her, unless it came to her acting?). Why Oprah, of all people, gives her a platform is beyond me.
It’s impressive that the left-leaning wilds of Brentwood are where a lot of the anti-vaccine hostility can be found… it’s, um, SCIENCE. Don’t put anyone in harm’s way with your stupidity.
Let’s be real. If you take health advice from the cohost of MTV’s Singled Out you deserve to get sick and die.
Go Phillies.
unfortunately people like McCarthy have turned their misguided impressions based on unsupported science into a “faith”. I hope it makes them feel better.
the causal link between the MMR vaccine and autism reported in 1998 (which started the backlash against vaccinations by dopes like McCarthy) was retracted by the authors of the original report. It isn’t left wing people Mr F–it is STOOPID people who think they are smarter than ~16 national health services worldwide who have tested vaccines on over 2 billion people.
The Copyright thing with scientology is amazing yet it makes sense. money money money.
people following Hubbard makes about as much sense as following James Warren Jones (Jonestown/People’s Temple).
…and Jesus rising from the dead makes sense?
COPYRIGHT….MONEY makes financial sense, I didn;t mean any tenets of a religion make sense, most don’t to me.
In many religions, the bit about being nice to each other is a good thing to do.
faith doesn;t bother me but religion does due to all the very un-nice things that human beings have done to each other in the name of their religion.
The problems with Scientology aren’t odd beliefs or not discussing them. The problems are Disconnection, Fair Game (which they claim doesn’t exist), and the way they withhold critical medical treatment from some members who need it.
Also they make people sign billion-year contracts. Seriously.
wow LYT
i do not think that you will make it to the bridge to total freedom!
[consider yourself lucky]
I live right by their big blue building. Always wonder what’s going on behind those windows.
I don’t know, I think that if a religion doesn’t want to discuss its beliefs that’s their own business. Just because a Muslim can’t draw me a picture of Mohammed doesn’t mean I can’t take them seriously on that subject.
I don’t know what’s wrong with people.
All these “stories” about David Miscavige just make him sound EVEN MORE AWESOME TO ME.
And that Tommy Davis guy? RUUUUUUUUUULES; HOLY SHIT is that FUCKING AWESOME, and he is TOTALLY IN THE RIGHT, in that interview with the BBC guy.
I’m not a Scientologist, but it is STAGGERING the lack of respect these people are afforded.
AND CRUISE IS DEAD-ON ABOUT PSYCHIATRY.
CRUISE = GOD.
PSYCHIATRY IS A PSEUDO SCIENCE.
BEFORE POLAND DROPS THE BAN HAMMER,
BELIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVE THAT.
THERAPY IS FOR CHUMPS.
I was going to post something but then saw it would be following today’s Lex mini-rant. Why bother.
Scientology is essentially a blackmail operation for gay celebrities, right?
And does anyone else remember that story in some women’s magazine where new mom Amanda Peet basically told Jenny McCarthy – who had earlier aired her anti-vaccination nonsense in the same mag – to STFU?
While I don’t have a single positive thing to say about Scientology, I do have to say I find Martin Bashir to be somewhat disingenuous in those interviews.
“Tell me about the volcanoes…”
“That topic is offensive to Scientologists”
“I don’t mean to be offensive, I just want to ask questions. That happen to concern volcanoes.”
“Seriously, if you keep bringing it up I’m going to walk out”
“Okay, I understand… but volcanoes: yes or no?”
While I agree with David that any religion which deliberately obscures its core tenets has problems, just rewording the same question over and over and trying to defend it as your “burden of journalistic responsibility” makes you sound like a pompous jackass.
They had one of those anti-vaccination moms who runs a non-profit about it on NPR not long ago, but also brought on reps from LAUSD, the CDC and the editors of the L.A. Times whose paper had run an exhaustive study on why anti-vaccination folks are loons. The mom bravely gave it her all as expert after expert tore her beliefs to shreds. It was kind of piling on after awhile, but she simply didn’t have answers to the questions at hand and tried time and time again to obfuscate that truth behind strings of bullshit.
The countering experts, particularly those from the LAUSD, weren’t having it due to the danger it poses to children and just let her have it until it sounded like she was going to cry.
wow. after reading that from Paul Haggis, I am impressed if all that is for real as written.
“Can you imagine if priests stormed out of interviews if asked about whether the faith believed that Jesus had risen?
Would anyone be able to take them seriously?”
The question should be, why are they taken seriously now?
Not really trying to defend McCarthy, but people have severe allergic reactions to peanuts, right? I mean, they go into anaphylactic shock and die.
So…isn’t it possible that a small number of children could have what amounts to an allergic reaction to some vaccines?
I have a friend whose son had what seemed like autism and, I swear on a stack of, um, Dianetics that when he was diagnosed with celiac disease (and gluten removed from his diet), he was “cured.”
Again, couldn’t it be the same with a vaccine? Couldn’t each person’s unique DNA interact slightly differently with the vaccine?
I am NOT arguing against the vast majority of children getting vaccinated (I did my kid). But it’s not this OR that; it can be this AND that (vaccines are safe for the majority AND unsafe for a small minority).
And, when I think of how, say, the company that markets Gardasil, the cervical cancer vaccine, rushed it to market, paid off the governor of Texas to make vaccination mandatory for all girls 9 & up, well…don’t forget the major profit motive of all pharmaceutical companies.
They have not let a generation of women go through early childbearing years with this vaccine and we have no idea the unintended consequence. Thalidomide, anyone?
The number of severe reactions is extremely low and sad when it happens with vaccines; may be unavoidable if there is some unknown condition. Most metabolic/genetic disorders don;t show until some time in later toddler years which stinks for those poor kids.
I’d be the last person to defend Pharm companies, but they are very slow to get things to market now due to fear of class-action lawsuits etc. They had to be flogged to get the HIV vaccines/treatments out.
thalidomide was a sedative and was a little different in that doctors really didn;t know in the 1950s that drugs taken during pregnancy or even alcohol or cigarette toxins could cross the placental barrier
Evidenced by the show Mad Men, when pregnant women were still smoking and drinking like men at a poker night out, yikes.
I love that show full of evil people…and you wouldn;t think you’d notice the alcohol and cigs so much but they NEVER STOP consuming.
having also researched the MMR – autism link before my boy’s vaccines, i think it’s too early to say definitively one way or another that the MMR vaccine doesn’t have any link to the onset of autism in a very small % of the children who are vaccinated.
the triggers for autism, which is a developmental brain syndrome rather than a disease, are still unclear, but appear to have a probable genetic link. it’s possible that the MMR vaccine or even more likely by-product chemicals in the vaccine itself may trigger this gene in a small % of children; autism is still not fully understood nor are the triggers, so my impression is that conclusive studies on the MMR link aren’t really possible until autism itself is more fully understood (autism rates appear to be on the drastic rise since the 70’s & 80’s when the introduction of the first and second doses of the MMR came into use and subsequently proliferated to the vaccination rates of today, but whether that is just a coincidence is a matter for interpretation; some experts say more time is needed to study the possible links and genetic triggers. in the end i had my little guy vaccinated because the risks of the other diseases appeared to outweigh the low probability of autism)
that should be the very low ‘possibility of autism’
Related: Wired does a cover feature on the anti-vaccine movement and produces their first issue worth reading in, geez, I dunno, I lost track of the years