Seeing as we have been talking about Tom Cruise and Scientology earlier today, there is an interesting ruckus brewing on Gawker, who have posted a rather interesting (in a ‘huh?’ kind of way) video of Tom Cruise talking about Scientology. The Church of Scientology’s lawyers have demanded they take the video down and in response fearless Gawker VP Gaby Darbyshire politely invited them to go rotate, citing ‘fair use’ (Gaby is delightful and rather hot, by the way. I met her at Les Blogs in Paris a few years ago).
I take no conclusive view of the legal merits of the case (certainly if extracts of a proprietary video are used, it is a ‘fair use’ slam dunk… not so sure about using the whole thing), but I am much taken by Gawker’s sheer bravery going up against the deep pocketed Scientologists, who are prone on the slightest pretext to sue people who cast aspersions on, or even reveal the details of, their religion. Does that remind you of someone else?
The Scientologists deserve every brickbat they get for their strong arm tactics against detractors. However I do not really understand the intellectual animus directed at the Scientologists for their religious beliefs. Their key myths do not strike me as any more preposterous than those of other more mainstream religions. It seems to me that their only big mistake was going into too much detail, thus in their case it is harder to fog the issue with the ‘allegorical interpretations’ that help us avoid tears of mirth when reading the literal word of other holy texts, ones which were not written by L. Ron Hubbard but rather by his more time hallowed equivalents in antiquity.
I think it is more the way that scientologists break up families when they recruit individuals and prey on people’s vulnerabilities to get money and whatever else out of them. Not that other religions don’t do that too, on occasion, only that for scientology it seems to be there raison d’etre. Even if their behaviour cannot be justifiably legally sanctioned, it certainly deserves ridicule and contempt in a free society.
You have a point about the “detail” angle Perry, especially the space-faring DC-8s…
Is that more or less likely than a man returning to life on the third day? I don’t know (both seem incredibly unlikely to me) but that’s also a pretty specific detail as is the description of Christ’s death. Somehow though, whilst unlikely, the resurrection isn’t laughable.
And then of course there is Hubbard himself and the fact he was qute clearly a charlatan. Were Christ or Budda or Muhammed or even Joseph Smith charlatans? Well, hard to tell after so long. Smith seems most likely to be an out and out con-artiste and I suspect not co-incidentally that’s because he’s by far the most recent of the that bunch. Also, the LDS lot believe some very odd things about American history but that would be a digression too far…
Oh, BTW, it’s not just the detractors they strong-arm but also “apostates”. Remember the whole “auditing” process means they’ve got all your painful intimate details. Scientology is pyramid scheme blackmail masquerading as a “faith”.
Sure, it is behaviour likely to attract more than a little hostility.
But it is unusual intellectual scorn for their beliefs, not actions, I find puzzling. The Xenu and Intergalactic DC-8s stuff does not strike me much stranger than balancing the world on the back of a really big turtle or creating a woman out of a spare rib or the stream of consciousness babel found in the Koran ‘dictated by God’.
Somebody said on the previous thread that at least the Scientologists hadn’t murdered anyone. Well they’ve driven quite a few to suicide and bankrupcy.
But the Mormons certainly have. They had their military wing of armed protectors and asassins.
They massacred a wagon train back in the late 1800s, pretending, rather lamely, to be indians.
Doesn’t the Mormon gospel claim that they are the lost tribe of Israel, transformed into white skinned Native Americans?
RAB:
That would be the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
All scientology is missing (to make it a true cult) ia a charismatic leader in the Jim Jones or Rev’d Moon mold.
Lets not forget that Hubbard ripped off millions from his personal manufactured religion, and they went on as though nothing had happened.
Robert,
Well they had one. And before you say L Ron wasn’t charismatic… Well, charisma is in the eye of the beholder. Hitler allegedly had it though I’ve never seen it.
But, way I see it, Scientology has moved beyond that phase into an almost corporate model. As I said before it seems almost like a pyramid scheme.
Brendan,
Yeah, something like that. It’s clearly bonkers.
I dunno why is it though that certain irrational belief systems (mainstream Christianity, say) seem less bonkers than stuff like scientology? It can’t just be familiarity or can it?
All scientology is missing (to make it a true cult) ia a charismatic leader
Tom Cruise doesn’t qualify?
A short-arse, “heterosexual”, Jaffa who can’t act and was beaten to the Top Gun Trophy by Val Kilmer…
No, I don’t think so.
OR
Travolta. An overweight, hairy backed, lets-pretend airline pilot who’s eyes are too close together. OK, he can dance but then so can Wayne Sleep.
OR
Err…
Familiarity probably has a lot to do with it. And Longevety.
Scientology and Mormonisn are so obviously made up the day before yesterday and easily seen throughable,
but the mainstram myths and fairy stories have shaped civilisation for thousands of years in its moral directions and even down to the Art Music and Poetry.
I wonder what Scientology music sounds like?
Brian Eno beware!
Cults like Scientology are dangerous pod collectives.
And we dont like dangerous pod collectives, do we boys and girls??
Did they speak Yiddish?
I think that the ancient religious tales don’t sound as ridiculous simply because they don’t contain references to modern technology and science. Think of Jesus as having been ‘beamed up’, rather than ‘resurrected’ – sounds much less majestic.
I think that the reason the Scientology’s core beliefs attract so much ridicule is that Ron himself pretty much admitted that is was all a pile of horse doings:
Readers Digest Reprint, May 1980, p1 (From operation clambake(Link)).
Scientology exists purely to make money form the poor people they indoctrinate, that is is sole purpose and it always has been.
Maybe the difference is that the Bible and Quran are public domain. Anyone can read them and make up their own mind. Operating Thetan Level 3, on the other hand, is esoteric “knowledge” sold at high cost, by the church, which they say must not be revealed to ordinary mortals because it’s so dangerous it may make their heads asplode.
That deserves quite a lot of ridicule.
Imagine that Christians had to pay thousands of groats to discover that Jesus ascended to heaven, rather than that information being freely available at your nearest bookshop, and that senior Christians told their high level initiates not to reveal the truth about the Ascension in case it caused people to die- from spontaneous pneumonia(!) It’s a significant factor against Scientology that the “truth” about Xenu and DC-8 spaceships only came out through leaks.
The old religions have stood the test of time. The last couple of thousand of years have probably seen hundreds of “new” religions that came and then disappeared.
I guess you’ve never sat through a televangelist in full flow calling in Dollars for Jesus… I did once purely for the anthropological value. Faskinatin’ stuff, I can tell you! There was some serious groatage changing hands there!
Yes, but that’s the point Perry. Christianity is Open Source. You can pay for support if you like, but you don’t have to. Scientology is proprietary.
Yes…free market religion! America’s biggest export.
Gee, I’m just a salary schlub. I need to invent a religion and start raking in the big bucks.
Ooh, I smell the sulfur now!
Well,
I’ve made enough pointed jokes at my own religious upbringing that I feel justified in poking a little fun at others’. Well, that and the fact that I tend to look a little askance at any religion that recruits in subway stations (Yeah, I include “Jews for Jesus” in that one too).