I've been feeling a little bad about my post making fun of Tom Cruise and his religion. I've fallen prey to the popular notion that it's okay to pick on Tom and Scientology. I should know better than that. Really, Scientology is no weirder than most religions; it's just a matter of the culture we grow up in that determines what is normal and what is not.
Sorry, Tom.
But Scientology *is* weirder than most mainstream religions. Not because of its mythology (which the church tries to hide for some reason) but because of its cult-like behavior and hyper-aggression. For those reasons I think it is eminently worthy of ridicule.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't Mormonism we're talking about which also has a very weird mythology (but maybe not too much weirder than Christian) but is much more open and tolerant organization (at least outside of Utah from what I hear) and much less litigious.