Followup post below. --- In [email protected], Sal Sunshine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "Our summer of Tom Cruise's madness and Katie Holmes' creepy path > toward zombie bridedom has been a useful reminder of how truly strange > Scientology is. By now those interested in the Cruise-Holmes saga may > be passingly familiar with the church's creation myth, in which an > evil, intergalactic warlord named Xenu kidnaps billions of alien life > forms, chains them near Earth's volcanoes, and blows them up with > nuclear weapons. Strange as Scientology's pseudo-theology may be, > though, it's not as entertaining as the life story of the church's > founder, L. Ron Hubbard." > > > http://www.slate.com/id/2122835/
I didn't read the article, but enjoyed a few posts from readers. Here's a good one for those of us who take issue with religions in general: Subject: Media Hypocrisy From: Arkady Date: Jul 15 2005 7:49PM I have no problem with the media bashing L. Ron Hubbard and the absurdities of Scientology. What I have a problem with is this double standard in the media whereby L. Ron Hubbard is the only major religious founder it's OK to bash in polite company, and whereby we're all supposed to pretend Scientology is the only religion built on a pack of absurdities. Are L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology any weirder than Joseph Smith and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints? It'd be nice to see the media take the license they feel when going after Scientologists and focus it on Mormons. "Gee, what do you know, I just found a whole new Testament, from the Angel Moron... errr, make that the Angel Moroni. It says we should have lots of wives.... errr, forget that one, let's pretend I never said that, shall we?" One thing's for sure, there's nothing in Scientology history to compare with Mountain Meadows. Or how about the Seventh Day Adventists? That whole movement got started with some hilariously off-base predictions about the coming of the end of the world. Over a century later, they're still waiting, but it sure hasn't dampened enthusiasm for their false prophets. They just conveniently transitioned from waiting with bated breath for the end of the world to selling corn flakes to keep the sexual urges down. Don't think I'm just picking on Johnny-come-lately religions, either. Look at Christianity. The orthodox theology of Christianity is downright hilarious. God is three beings at once, one of whom got himself crucified in the early first century of the common era, then his corpose made like a zombie and wandered around frightening people and taunting them to stick their fingers in its wounds. And let's not forget the Adventists hardly have the market cornered on ridiculously false prophecies. The Nazarene Rabbi Jesus is reported in the Gospels to have said that the end of the world would come in the time of his own generation. Roughly 2000 years after that generation passed away, the Christians STILL haven't wised up to the fact that their guy was just another cheap shyster revivalist, preaching impending apocolypse to get the knickers of the credulous in a twist. Or how about Judaism? That's such a fundamentally evil religion that they celebrate Passover! Passover, in case you're one of the few people still blissfully ignorant of the barbaric tradition, was a mythical act of horrifying terrorism, when the super-powered being Yahweh went door to door mericlessly slaughtering innocent first borns in order to try to try to force a political solution on the government of Egypt. For some reason, the Jews think that's worth celebrating, even though their own conception of that same Yahweh would tell them that he could have teleported their ancestors right out of Egypt without having to spill untold amounts of innocent blood for his entertainment. Nor is that an isolated event act of evil for the loathsome Yahweh. The same "God" ordered the genocide at Jericho, tortured his own follower Job for the sake of a petty bet, and once threw such a tantrum about his seriously screwed-up creation that he drown nearly every living thing on the planet. Or how about Buddhism? The meaning of life: getting reborn enough times that you don't have to be reborn again and you can go back to the state of one-ness with the universe you were in before getting born in the first place. Yeah, that's efficient. Or Islam: "You know, Judaism's pretty cool, but what it needs is a few more senseless rules and empty ceremonies.... the thousands already in the Torah simply aren't burdensome enough." Or Hinduism: "Hey, stick a few more arms on that deity, and we'll really have something!" With such a rich pageant of disgusting absurdities to draw on, the media tendency to pick on Scientology while treating other religions as above question just strikes me as incredibly small-minded. http://fray.slate.msn.com/?id=3936&m=15141027&; To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
