jrmarlin Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 Ever since Tom became a Scientologist, he has gotten more whacked than ever before. Does anyone else share this observation? Should churches use celebrity spokes people as a part of their 'branding' God? Do you lose respect for a celebrity when they whore for a particular religion? I have found I have lost all respect for Tom Cruise because of his whoring for Scientology. He makes the whole organization look like its whacked beyond belief. Not to mention what damage its done to his psuedo-girlfriend's career. Are the numbers that low in these organizations? Do they have to get these celebrity spokespersons to do their bidding for them? How much do they get paid? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lothartx Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 Ever since Tom became a Scientologist, he has gotten more whacked than ever before. Does anyone else share this observation? Should churches use celebrity spokes people as a part of their 'branding' God? Do you lose respect for a celebrity when they whore for a particular religion? I have found I have lost all respect for Tom Cruise because of his whoring for Scientology. He makes the whole organization look like its whacked beyond belief. Not to mention what damage its done to his psuedo-girlfriend's career. Are the numbers that low in these organizations? Do they have to get these celebrity spokespersons to do their bidding for them? How much do they get paid? To answer: Yes, he's definetely a couple fries short of a happy meal. Why not? Celebreties whore themselves out all the time. Just shows you church is a business with sales and marketing. Yes, don't respect many celebrities as it is right now. Clint Eastwood comes to mind off the top my head as fairly respectable. Numbers in the pews equals power and money. You should always want to grow the business (church). Dumb celeb gets more numbers in the pews, scientology gets more power and money.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ex-COG Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 Religions love it when a famous person converts. They lap it up, and use the poor soul for marketing purposes. So if a movie star, or sports hero, or litererary type converts, the religion puts them on the front page of every publication they can as an advertisement for their God. "See, so-and-so believes, why don't you believe too?"! Of course, if this same celeb left the faith, either nothing would be said out of fear of drawing attention to the situation, or the religious powers that be will denounce the person as being deceived and a backslider. Just like what would happen to regular people like us, only on a grander scale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Shiva H. Vishnu Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 He makes the whole organization look like its whacked beyond belief. The "Church" of $cientology IS whacked beyond belief. Tom Cruise is just a pathetic little side effect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taphophilia Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 I thought Scientology was the hot celebrity religion. I read an article about Christopher Reeve who tried Scientology for a while and he figured out it was only about money. He remained an Agnostic. According to Widepekia, these famous people are Scientologists: Kirstie Alley, actress Anne Archer, actress (her son, Tom Davis, runs the Los Angeles celebrity center) Lynsey Bartilson, actress Catherine Bell, actress Mary Bono, congresswoman Sonny Bono, artist and congressman (claimed Catholicism on campaign biographies) Rufus Buck, folk singer David Campbell, musician Nancy Cartwright, voiceover artist, most famous as the voice of Bart Simpson Sharon Case, actress Kate Ceberano, actress and musician Erika Christensen, actress Chick Corea, musician Tom Cruise, actor (formerly Catholic, according to Parade) Sky Dayton, founder and Chairman of the Board of EarthLink Jason Dohring, actor Jenna Elfman, actress, formerly Catholic, and her husband Bodhi, actor Brent Graber, voice of 'Otis' in movie 'Milo and Otis' Paul Haggis, director Beck Hansen, musician Isaac Hayes, musician, actor, and voiceover artist ("Chef") Katie Holmes, actress, introduced to Scientology by fiance Tom Cruise Nicky Hopkins, musician Mark Isham, musician Terry Jastrow, TV producer and director (married to Anne Archer) Mike Joubert, Bronson Pinchot's voice coach Cyprien Katsaris, musician Chaka Khan, singer Jason Lee, actor and professional skateboarder Paul Leland, magician Geoffrey Lewis, actor Johnny Lewis, actor Juliette Lewis, actress Peggy Lipton, actress Nathan Luksa, The Bus Stop Christopher Masterson, actor Danny Masterson, actor Lisa McPherson, died at Fort Harrison Hotel Peter Medak, director Jim Meskimen, actor and improviser Sofia Milos, actress (CSI: Miami) Elisabeth Moss, actress Floyd Mutrux, writer, director and producer Haywood Nelson, actor Corin Nemec, actor Marisol Nichols, actress Judy Norton, actress and musician Eduardo Palomo, actor, and his wife Carina, actress and musician Don Pearson, 'Management by Statistics' consultant Michael Pena, actor Bernadette Peters, actress and singer (source: Bergen Record 3/10/1985, may be an ex-member) Jeff Pomerantz, actor and founder of Hollywood Says No to Drugs Lisa Marie Presley, singer and daughter of Elvis Priscilla Presley, actress and wife of Elvis Kelly Preston, actress and John Travolta's wife Leah Remini, actress Giovanni Ribisi, actor Marissa Ribisi, actress, wife of Beck Hansen, sister of Giovanni Ribisi. Carina Ricco, singer, actress and composer Michael D. Roberts, actor Mimi Rogers, actress Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Congresswoman Gloria Rusch-Novello, singer, writer and actress Pablo Santos, actor Meghan Schlinder, swimsuit model Kristin Schwing, actress Jeffrey Scott, writer for TV cartoons Billy Sheehan, rock bassist David Singer, chiropractor, 'Management by Statistics' consultant Reed Slatkin, criminal ponzi scheme perpetrator Michelle Stafford, actress Ethan Suplee, actor Patrick Swayze, actor Greta Van Susteren, host of On the Record with Greta Van Susteren on FNC John Travolta, actor Josh Wiener, actor Edgar Winter, musician David Wittig, CEO Bryan Zwan, founder of Digital Lightwave, inventor of fiber-optic testing equipment Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Shiva H. Vishnu Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 these famous people are Scientologists: Famous is such a relative term.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrmarlin Posted March 17, 2006 Author Share Posted March 17, 2006 Well, Churches being a business should be taxed on their income - i.e. tithing from all the congrugation. Business is business.... and all businesses are taxed by the IRS. Promote Taxation for all churches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evelyn Posted March 19, 2006 Share Posted March 19, 2006 My husband's uncle, now in his 80s, got interested in Scientology back when it started. I was surprised to hear about this as the uncle, a retired rocket scientist (really!) has no tolerance for what he perceives to be silly ideas or silly people. He did some study about it and almost joined until one of his co-workers, who had joined and was fully into it, suffered a psychotic breakdown one day. Then he thought better of it. A friend has a cousin who has been a Scientologist for many years. The celebrities may get all the attention and glory but the average member, or at least this cousin, doesn't seem to have much of a life. She can't afford to attend the occasional family reunion because she gives all of her money to this "church". Rumor has it the celebrities aren't financially bled dry or maybe they can afford to give lots of money to the church and have some left over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RankStranger Posted March 19, 2006 Share Posted March 19, 2006 Some scientologists tried to recruit me back when I was 18 and really stupid... lucky for me, I wasn't quite THAT stupid. I read their book and showed up at their place a few times- they immediately tried to get me to sign up for some expensive "auditing sessions". I wasn't too convinced and didn't have any money anyway, so I didn't pursue the matter any further. They pursued ME though. They mailed me stuff and called regularly for amost a year (I"m told), and even showd up wanting to 'talk'. Lucky for me I had moved shortly after losing interest, and moved three times within the next year (for reasons having nothing to do with scientology). The basic premise of the 'religion' is that every single problem in your life (and in society on a large scale), can be solved through their version of hypnotic therapy (they call it 'auditing'), which of course is expensive. I've since read some websites and stuff about scientology, and I'm glad I didn't take the bait. From what I've read, the celebrities are treated well so that they'll make good advertizement for the religion. Proles like myself are financially bled dry when possible, but their kids get the worst of it. Lots of their kids are recruited for scientology 'schools' and such, which I'm told basically amount to being locked in a building and made to work fixing it up for no pay (room and board only, and not very good room and board at that). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scepticjoe Posted March 19, 2006 Share Posted March 19, 2006 The most interesting website about scientology is http://xenu.net/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Sage Nabooru Posted March 20, 2006 Share Posted March 20, 2006 Scientology is worse than Christianity and Islam. If a priest kills someone with a quack remedy, you can expect that the feds will close in on him. If a Scientology "care center" kills somebody, they get away with it. No religion is more based around money. No religion has a more rediculous dogma and creed. No religion breaks people down into mindless drones worse. These days, most Christians can develop the decision to leave the faith on their own; in Scientology, it's not just your friends not talking to you anymore, or your mother crying over your soul - it's PIs taking pictures of you while grocery shopping and illegally searching out every record of you they can find so they can vilify you in the press and ruin your life. Scientology loves celebrities, and celebrities love Scientology because Scientology has set up special perks for them. Their "celebrity centers" are basically all-day luxury spas and clubs celebs can use for free. And no, regular little people need not apply. You're just not good enough a salesperson to be deserving. Even Scientology's "humanitarian efforts" amount to little more than handing out single-page pamphlets detailing how life will be so much better in their Church, rather than actually helping people in hurricanes' and tsunamis' wakes. They preach about religious freedom, but only for themselves. All other religions are just in the way, so they don't deserve that freedom. Scientology has regularly sunk low enough to commit huge national crimes, such as breaking into government offices. It keeps a regular list, which can be found online, of "fair game" organizations and persons, promoting the open attack of these people by followers of the One True Faith. And, of course, let's not forget the absolute paranoia about psychiatrists. The museums and "lectures" run by Scientology tell how since the beginning of all time, psychiatrists have been responsible for every ill and bane on Earth. Holocaust? Psychiatrists. Inquisition? Psychiatrists. Slavery? Psychiatrists. The fact that the entire field of psychiatry didn't exist under the nineteenth century is of little importance. It's unbelievable that L. Ron Hubbard could convince that many people to hate psychiatrists, especially considering that he did out of a childish hate for them after they dismissed his quack theories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dianka Posted March 20, 2006 Share Posted March 20, 2006 Anyone interested in learning about Scientology's effect on people can look up an article in the Chicago Reader called "Death of a Scientologist," by Tori Marlan. I couldn't link to it because it's an old article. You have to buy it for $2.00 to read it, but it's a great story (also incredibly sad). This guy spent about $200,000 dollars on auditing, became completely fucked up, and killed himself. From beginning to end, he was an accomplished journalist who went into substantial debt and ruined his life. When they guy needed psychological help, the Scientologists excommunicated him and intimidated him into silence. Scientologists are notorious for squelching and bad press by sicking a team of rabid lawyers on anyone who speaks up against them. Months after the story ran in the Reader, letters were coming in from pissed off followers and, of course, anyone and everyone involved with the story was sued and harassed. One more thing about the guy who killed himself: while he was active within the community, he achieved clear, which is their ideological peak. So, ugh, this is what happens to people who reach the goal of this retarded religion? No wonder Cruise is fucked up - he's been clear for a while now. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Did anyone listen to Hellbound Alleeeeeeeeee's show on vegetarianism? She and Franc were talking about homophobia in Scientology. Pretty interesting that a retarded cult could thrive in affluent regions with large G&L communities while claiming that they can fix them. L. Ron Hubbard in his book Ethics, Justice and the Dynamics "It must be noted...that promiscuity, perversion, sadism, free love,homosexuality and other irregular practices fall far below an acceptable level of ethics. A society which falls into this category can be expected to abuse sex, to misuse and maltreat children and to act, in short, much in way that the current cultures are acting...People who are at this level on the second dynamic are intensely dangerous in the society since aberration is contageous...." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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