[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
And why is there so little bashing of them in comedy- SNL for example has never done a skit on them, Simpsons, Family Guy, none have slammed them IIRC.
[/QUOTE]
As far as The Simpsons go, Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart), is a clam herself.
Cruise looked like he was drugged-he was incoherent! Seriously, you have to have MORE than a few screws loose to be attracted to this rubbish (Scientology). Cruise looks (and sounds) seriously fucked up!
Is this what hundreds of hours of auditing does to you? I thought Cruise (“clear”) should have an IQ>190 by now :smack:
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
And why is there so little bashing of them in comedy- SNL for example has never done a skit on them, Simpsons, Family Guy, none have slammed them IIRC.
[/QUOTE]
Not a comedy, but IIRC there was an episode of either Milennium or [url=]The X-Files that harshed pretty hard on Scientology - including the memorable line, “We don’t mention their name. They sue.”
And it seems to me that is the reason why there’s so little reference in comedy. Though it’s probably in addition to the other reasons mentioned.
Wow. I mean, wow. How can someone who is that abysmally stupid even remember to breathe? He can’t even put a damned sentence together.
[QUOTE=Baldwin]
Makes me wonder what’s going on in there – if Tom’s really gay, and part of him wishes he could come out and just live a gay life. What’s their official line on homosexuality?
[/QUOTE]
I know they disapprove of it-I can’t remember the exact beliefs.
As for him being gay, I don’t even know anymore-I just think he’s completely batshit, and was for a long time before he even joined the cult.
He’s not gay. Take my word for it. We gay folks took a vote and gave him the boot back to teh str8s.
[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
As far as The Simpsons go, Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart), is a clam herself.
[/QUOTE]
D’oh!
If anyone could have given the Cruise Clams a good, solid well-publicized whoopin, it woulda been The Simpsons.
I guess it’s all up to you now, Spiderpig.
Is that part of the “whatever a Spider-Pig does?” 
It really would have been out of character for the Simpsons to do a whole episode mocking one religion, even a stupid religion. Cartwright’s faith didn’t keep her from participating in the episode I mentioned, however, despite the jabs at Scientology.
$cientology HATES homosexuals. Hubbard’s son was gay and he ended up committing suicide.
[QUOTE=SisterCoyote]
Not a comedy, but IIRC there was an episode of either Milennium or The X-Files that harshed pretty hard on Scientology - including the memorable line, “We don’t mention their name. They sue.”
[/QUOTE]
It was Milennium, one of the funniest episodes ever.
[QUOTE=Garula]
Equipoise, Scientology is horrible and deserves mock and ridicule, but I think you may do more harm than good when you use instead of S's and use derogatory abbreviations. I know I'm not alone in glazing over or even dismissing people who refer to Microsoft as "M." If they’re able to produce glossy pamphlets while their opponents appear to be resorting to name calling, they may be able to gain ground with the uninformed. So please, show them more respect than they deserve, at least on this point.
[/QUOTE]
Uh, no. I refuse to say their name straight. They don’t deserve even a smidgen of respect. Anyone who looks more kindly on them even though they’ve got hours and hours of reading available to show how wacky and dangerous they are (not to mention Tom’s antics) just because I use $ instead of S when I type their name, deserves to get sucked in, brainwashed, and taken for every cent they own.
[QUOTE=Baldwin]
Makes me wonder what’s going on in there – if Tom’s really gay, and part of him wishes he could come out and just live a gay life. What’s their official line on homosexuality?
[/QUOTE]
Conflicted. Hubbard was against it but the current peeps in charge have lessened the hatred. (Prob’ly because why would they want to alienate any potential wallets?)
All that needs to happen is for Cruise to get half-loaded on asparagus juice or something and to have someone dressed in a sheet and half a dozen glow sticks tell him that no, he’s not a level-33 or whatever 'tologist, he’s really the most powerful and handsome incarnation yet of Vishnu, known in this life as Rama-lama-ding-dong, and destined to rule the world for a thousand years and then end it forever. The next day, 'tology’s most visible spokesman tells the world that Hinduism’s where it’s at, baby, and Xenu’s that much closer to eating our souls, or buying up our AM radio stations, our whatever it wants to do.
[QUOTE=ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]
… I’m beginning to wonder what it would take to “crack” the cult? How big of a disruption or investigation would it take to really put them under scrutiny and expose them for what they are?
[/QUOTE]
The Catholic church has been enabling the molestation of children for decades, maybe centuries for all I know. There is a certain point beyond which believers can’t be reached any more, regardless of the evidence. After that, it takes some kind of direct personal betrayal or abuse of believers to shake them out of their haze.
The rest of us can only hope Cruise retires from his film career to have more time to help traffic accident victims.
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]
The Catholic church has been enabling the molestation of children for decades, maybe centuries for all I know. There is a certain point beyond which believers can’t be reached any more, regardless of the evidence. After that, it takes some kind of direct personal betrayal or abuse of believers to shake them out of their haze.
The rest of us can only hope Cruise retires from his film career to have more time to help traffic accident victims.
[/QUOTE]
Agreed. I suppose it is the state of the apathetic and ambivalent masses that I find more sobering. It is still just an entertaining soundbyte to them.
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
He’s not gay. Take my word for it. We gay folks took a vote and gave him the boot back to teh str8s.
[/QUOTE]
Throw in Michelle Rodriguez and take OJ off our hands, and you’ve got a deal.
[QUOTE=Equipoise]
Uh, no. I refuse to say their name straight. They don’t deserve even a smidgen of respect. Anyone who looks more kindly on them even though they’ve got hours and hours of reading available to show how wacky and dangerous they are (not to mention Tom’s antics) just because I use $ instead of S when I type their name, deserves to get sucked in, brainwashed, and taken for every cent they own.
[/QUOTE]
You’re right, they don’t deserve even a smidgen of respect. They deserve to shunned by society and marginalized. But sometimes doing something good requires you to hold your nose, and in this case it’s important that people get the message of their vileness from a source that they cannot simply dismiss. There are a lot of ignorant and gullible people in this world, but they don’t deserve to be taken in by a group like that. It’s a horrible fate, and you should be ashamed for suggesting that they deserve that just because they aren’t as intelligent as you. Yes, using the $ is a minor thing, but if it leads to even one person falling into their clutches because they dismissed criticisms as “coming from some whackjob,” then that is a damn shame.
The key here isn’t to refuse to say their name. It’s to sufficiently discredit that name as to make it synonymous with “whackjobbery.”
[QUOTE=Garula]
Equipoise, Scientology is horrible and deserves mock and ridicule, but I think you may do more harm than good when you use instead of S's and use derogatory abbreviations. I know I'm not alone in glazing over or even dismissing people who refer to Microsoft as "M." If they’re able to produce glossy pamphlets while their opponents appear to be resorting to name calling, they may be able to gain ground with the uninformed. So please, show them more respect than they deserve, at least on this point.
[/QUOTE]
Hits Garula with his copy of “The God Delusion”
No, bad Garula! Religion doesn’t deserve any more respect than anything else, and maintaing that it does makes it harder to call bullshit on what they do and say. Also, I would point out the tautology in your own statement: “So please, show them more respect than they deserve, at least on this point”. If you admit they don’t deserve respect, why are we giving it to them at all? Shall we also shy away from calling Nazis evil on the grounds that it makes us appear morally simplistic and therefore unable to construct an argument because they can wave their copies of mein kampf at us?
I kind of agree with Garula, though not so much on the notion of respect, but just for the fact that it looks stupid to the point of making me cringe, and reminds me too much of other immature crap like Micro$oft, Bu$hCo, AmeriKKKa, etc.
The negative points of Scientology can stand just fine on their own without a not-so-clever, junior high school-looking, alternate spelling.
Honestly, I was under the impression that some people habitually spell it “$cientology” to avoid having it show up on a web search. Something about the church’s constant search for people to sue.
Considering the power of their legions of lawyers, they’re probably on to that trick by now.
Steve Martin made fun of them pretty directly and pretty harshly in Bowfinger.
With the cult of MindFu… I mean MindHead,