Let me use an illustration from the world of fiction to point out my problem with the “all CoSs are asses” theory.
In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel, “The Valley of Fear,” a Pinkerton detective named Birdy Edwards infiltrates a malicious organization called the Scowrers. Outwardly, they were a group of Freemasons, but in reality they were a group of outlaws who murdered, intimidated and robbed to maintain their hold over the coal-mining district.
Obviously, Edwards can’t announce who he is to anyone in the town, so he is vilified as a Scowrer. In fact, due to his organizational skill and personal charm, he quickly rises to a position of importance within the Scowrer organization. An ordinary citizen on the street would have considered him one of the worst of the Scowrers. In fact, one night a group of townspeople curse him and others.
And yet Edwards was secretly gathering information the entire time to completely destroy the Scowrers and bring them to justice. He eventually succeeded.
Now, this is fiction, but it illustrates a point. Just because someone belongs to an organization doesn’t mean they fervently believe everything the organization espouses. It’s entirely possible, given some of Scientology’s excesses, that one or two of the members are actually agents from the FBI or other agencies. They’ve been investigated numerous times for various activities.
If you questioned one of these hypothetical people, they would swear by the Scientology party line. And yet they wouldn’t necessarily believe a word of it. Does that make them an ass?
My point is, I prefer to look at people as individuals, rather than as members of a homogenous mass.
Again with the attribution of things I didn’t say. Where did I propose such a definition? Show me. Cut and paste.
People are gullible when they are easily conned into believeing untenable propositions. Scientology is obviously fraudulent. If you accept it as a valid system of belief, then yeah, I’m going to call you gullible, just as I would if you agreed to transfer unclaimed government funds from Nigeria.
If I don’t agree with it, do you expect me to praise it? And yes, it is pop psychology.
Well, Nazis are just such an obvious shorthand for absolute evil. Sorry.
How about this. Tom Hagen (played by Robert Duvall) is the consigliere for the Corleone crime syndicate. He is second-in-command of the entire organization after the Godfather. Now Tom has never killed anyone or committed any crime himself; he only handles legal matters, delivers messages, and handles negotiations for the syndicate. Yet can you say that he bears no responsibility for the family’s crimes?
People are treading a little bit close to the wire here speculating on certain named Hollywood stars and homosexuality.
I would recommend keeping it general.
Suffice it to say that while homosexuality is acceptable and legal, it can have an affect on a fan group - or certainly on the confidence of movie executives (rightly or wrongly) on a particular star’s potential to draw box office. It may be that the star ends up getting pigeonholed/stereotyped into minority gay roles only.
In addition to this: a star that has deliberately, persistently, maintained their heterosexual status to the public to the point of pursuing legal action over allegedly false claims of homosexuality is obviously going to be in far deeper water should they later be proved mendacious. Quite apart from the fact that they would face costly counter suits from the original defendants, as well as likely perjury charges. Witness Jeffery Archer.
What did they put him through? It’s helpful to know of someone specifically who went through it himself or herself. Is it as nasty as it’s been made out to be? (I suspect it is.)
And you say he worked for them for a while - how did he get out of it? I always pictured it as a sort of “job for life.”
Why? Nobody is fool enough to sue over mere speculation, else every male movie star would be suing every gossipy queen in America.
Tom Cruise has had rumors spread about his possible homosexuality; that’s a fact because rumors have been spread. He sued over one. Now is there any substance to those rumors? <shrugs shoulders> Don’t know, don’t care.
Frankly, I despise movie stars who hide their homosexuality. They get to have the success and money while paying zero cost of the freedom to fuck that their less well-off brothers have earned for them.
Really? You might want to tell Dan Butler, Ian McKellen or Rupert Everett.
Didn’t the London Daily Mirror run a leader after Liberace’s death from AIDS, saying that they wanted back the money they paid out to him after losing a defamation suit?
Sauron, this is fascinating. Listen, do you think you could take a moment and explain to me about the good KKK members out there?
My point is that when people have a voluntary association with certain organizations ( your “homogenous mass” from earlier ), it is quite acceptable to lable them based upon the stated beliefs and goals of that organization. Your Scowrers example is a total red herring because Birdy Edwards didn’t “join” the Scowrers in the sense that he embraced what they stood for and adopted it for his own, he only pretended to for the purpose of bringing the organization to justice, if anything he was an “Anti-Scowrer”.
KKK members are racist bigots.
Nazis are assholes.
Scientologists are idiots.
The only people who would argue differently are either nit picking semantics beyond any reasonable expectation or so obsessed with with being PC and not “labeling” anyone that they have become divorced from the real world.
I don’t recall gobear claiming that Scientology beliefs are incorrect, dangerous or just down right stupid because the Scientologists believe in them. In fact, he said that Scientologists are asses because they believe these things; the beliefs are damned stupid regardless of Scientology’s involvement with them.
Scientologists choose to believe their insane claptrap; they choose to accept alien warlord origins for themselves; they choose to live with the oppressive, maniacal rules coming down from the Scientology hierarchy. These things makes them asses.
And if one or two chooses to finally get free from the organization? Great! They’re on the road to improvement, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that they were asses for believing the crap in the first place. And if they are coerced into staying? Sure, I have sympathy for them, and I would be more than willing to help a friend out, but once again, it doesn’t take away from the fact that the friend was an ass in the first place for getting involved with these guys.
I have to disagree with those who are speculating coersion in getting Cruise to cooperate on this matter and push it forward.
With the way that they kiss celebrity ass it’s more likely that he believes that the corporation is nothing but good, and filled with helpful, kind, more advanced human beings.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if he didn’t pay for his “sessions,” they pander so much to Hollywood stars.
That’s not to say that they don’t have any dirt on him, they probably do, I just think he’s totally misled on their true nature.
Also, I tried to post yesterday but it didn’t take. About his dyslexia: in an interview early on in his career he said his mom worked with him extensively to help him learn to compensate for it. (I seem to recall that she was a teacher, but don’t quote me on that.)
Of course with the amount of cognative dissonance that goes on with cults, I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually is convinced that his dyslexia was “cured”.
This is fascinating, Weirddave. Since I’m a Southern Baptist, I must therefore be a gay-bashing fundamentalist, right? I mean, that’s the stance of the Southern Baptist Convention. Oddly, I’m not. Hmm. Wonder why? Could it be that I’m actually an individual, not a drone marching in lockstep with a voluntary association?
As information, while I’m speculating about the FBI or other groups infiltrating the CoS, I KNOW various law enforcement agencies have infiltrated the KKK at different times. So, yes, there have been “good” KKK members, that for all intents and purposes belonged to the KKK. To say that “all KKK members are evil” is to smear the name of those individuals who have worked to take down a bigoted, evil organization.
Sure Birdy Edwards was pretending. My point is, that wasn’t obvious. So someone just examining his affiliations would think he was evil. In fact, the woman he fell in love with in the story said she believed he was the worst of the whole lot.
Similarly, I don’t believe it’s possible to automatically assume all the members of any group fall directly in line with the group’s outlook, theology, teachings, habits, whatever. Do many members do so? Undoubtedly. Do most? Probably so. Do all? I think the benefit of the doubt should be given before using a word as strong as “all” in those situations.
Sauron, this isn’t about you, so get over yourself. WeirdDave was critiquing your analogy, using the same point I had brought up. He said nothing about you or the SBC, so chill. If a person joins an organization with the intent of destroying it from within, you can’t say that he was ever a real member of that organization.
Again, your analogy is flawed. The infiltrators never shared the KKK tenets in the first place, thus their membership was a sham, a fraud, a fake.
Well, that’s the whole point of being a fraud, to convince other people you are bona fide.
Look at my analogy of Tom Hagen in the Godfather. Was Hagen a “good” mobster in that his hands were never directly bloody?
I don’t think you can successfully make the case that those people, as in your example, who pretend to be members are in fact actual members. They’re acting for a specific purpose; they’re not actually convinced the Scientologists (or KKK) are correct.
Once their acting stints are over, they’re out of the organization (not that they were ever really “in” if you define a member as someone who actually accepts the stated beliefs of that organization).
Is it? Is it the only thing the SBC is all about? If so, then yes, you are a gay-bashing fundamentalist. What’s that you say? The SBC is about other things? Well, then, I guess it would be wrong to call you a G-BF, wouldn’t it? I know your feelings were hurt in the other thread, but don’t let stiff necked pride compel you to defend a foolish position. The KKK is all about racism and nothing else. You have to be a racist to join the KKK.( I’m leaving out your strawmen about FBI infilterators and the like. Since they don’t share the views of the KKK and are infilterating to do their jobs, they aren’t really “members” of the KKK. They don’t buy the phiolosophy. You’re defending an absurd position because you don’t want to be seen to “give ground” in the other thread ( MHO only, of course ). Stop it, it makes you look foolish )
Back towards the OP…
One of the things that has always worried me about the Faith Based stuff; sure, churches get money. It’s not like that’s a be-all, end all. What it is, however, is a way for the government to fund education / services with a particular moral slant. Again, not terrible in my eyes- I think a little basic morality re-inforcement would be a good thing in the US right now (and yes, I know I’m gonna get flack for saying that.) What -does- bug me is that it seems to highly favor certain organized religions. Thus, we’re funding -certain- moral viewpoints to be reinforced to kids. I honestly don’t know what the answer is. Morality, to me, is a good idea. State-sponsored selective morality… Isn’t. Just my two rambling cents.