Technorati Profile
Tom Cruise and Pseudo-science
Note: This is NOT an objective article on Scientology. If you got here by a search engine expecting one, or are easily offended, please read no further- I fully intend to poke fun.
My friends and I met up during the weekend and had a long chat. Hollywood idiots and their religions were one of our topics. Naturally the chat turned to the inimitable Tom Cruise, Scientology and Cruise's televised attack on psychiatry and psychology. For those who have been hiding on Pluto (or perhaps another planet in the Galactic Confederacy... you'll understand later), Cruise labelled psychiatry a pseudo-science and practically pooh-poohed postpartum depression, leveraging on his far-superior intellect and knowledge base.
Postpartum depression is not foreign to me: my mom suffered from both pre- and postpartum depression back in the early 1990s. I still remember the days and nights when either I or my father had to accompany her every moment, because even sleeping gave her nightmares and she would awake shaking and in tears.
Brooke Shields was right. Cruise has no clue about portpartum depression, and I daresay depression in general.
But I digress. As I was saying, my friends and I were laughing over Cruise and his beloved Scientology. When one friend asked if any of us knew the origins of Scientology though, we realized that none of us did. Oh I knew it was a religion with roots in philosophy created (if I were being snide, I'd say "invented") in the mid 1900s. But that was about it. It was always one of the things of which I largely ignored due to its high quack status. It ranked up there together with pyramid and multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes.
But, hand me a baton and I'll run. I've done research and calculations on pyramid and MLM schemes before, when a friend got clutched in their claws. Likewise, after the meetup with my buddies, I read up a bit on Scientology. As it turned out, Scientology took little effort to research. What it required was a huge suspension of disbelief, which is the really tricky part.
Allow me to present an outline of my findings: (snide remarks mine)
1) 75 million years ago, there was an evil ruler called Xenu (not to be confused with Xena, warrior princess).
2) Xenu ruled the Galactic Confederacy, of which Earth was part of (not to be confused with Galactic Republic or the Confederacy of Independent Systems, both from Star Wars).
3) The Galactic Confederacy was over-populated (guess condoms weren't invented yet).
4) Xenu, working together with psychiatrists, injected many citizens of G.C with drugs.
5) Xenu shipped these people to Earth, unloaded them around volcanoes.
6) Hydrogen bombs were lowered into the volcanoes and detonated.
7) Billions of people died and their souls (thetans, but not thezhangs, thelims, or thetays) were moved into a huge cinema (maybe that's why Cruise believes).
8) The thetans were made to sit through a motion picture which implanted misleading data (R6 implant) into the thetans' brains (somewhat similar to the movie-going experience nowadays).
9) R6 includes all religions including Christianity (but excludes itself... how else could Hubbard have all this knowledge?).
10) The thetans were released, and they grouped themselves into the remaining people who didn't die in (6) (thus engaging in the first mass orgy known on Earth).
11) Xenu was overthrown and exiled to a mountain on a planet, trapped by a eternal force field (powered by Duracell).
12) We are all of us afflicted with these thetans (but of course).
13) Luckily for us, we can learn about this and purge ourselves of these thetans, specifically though a series of Operating Thetan levels. Points (1) to (12) are covered in Operating Thetan Level 3, which lucky scientologists can reach by paying around USD$360,000.
This, I'm afraid, was my limit where suspension of disbelief was concerned. There are defenses and counter-arguments of course, but the fact that this "secret teaching" exists is good enough to debunk scientology as a pseudo-religion and pseudo-science for me. I guess I'm what scientologists call a "Suppressive Person". Lucky, lucky me.
Tom, Tom, Tom, you don't even-- you're stupid. I know, because my inner thetans tell me so.
Resources (Titles mine)
- Those who are still interested in scientology can find a list of resources in this wiki article. Links to sites both for and against scientology.
- Debunking Scientology 101, via Dsng
- Bad Science Fiction: Xenu Explained
- Debunking Scientology: The Whole Nine Yards
- Slate: Summer of Pseudo-science
Filed under: SF, Entertainment, Humour, Religion
My friends and I met up during the weekend and had a long chat. Hollywood idiots and their religions were one of our topics. Naturally the chat turned to the inimitable Tom Cruise, Scientology and Cruise's televised attack on psychiatry and psychology. For those who have been hiding on Pluto (or perhaps another planet in the Galactic Confederacy... you'll understand later), Cruise labelled psychiatry a pseudo-science and practically pooh-poohed postpartum depression, leveraging on his far-superior intellect and knowledge base.
Postpartum depression is not foreign to me: my mom suffered from both pre- and postpartum depression back in the early 1990s. I still remember the days and nights when either I or my father had to accompany her every moment, because even sleeping gave her nightmares and she would awake shaking and in tears.
Brooke Shields was right. Cruise has no clue about portpartum depression, and I daresay depression in general.
But I digress. As I was saying, my friends and I were laughing over Cruise and his beloved Scientology. When one friend asked if any of us knew the origins of Scientology though, we realized that none of us did. Oh I knew it was a religion with roots in philosophy created (if I were being snide, I'd say "invented") in the mid 1900s. But that was about it. It was always one of the things of which I largely ignored due to its high quack status. It ranked up there together with pyramid and multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes.
But, hand me a baton and I'll run. I've done research and calculations on pyramid and MLM schemes before, when a friend got clutched in their claws. Likewise, after the meetup with my buddies, I read up a bit on Scientology. As it turned out, Scientology took little effort to research. What it required was a huge suspension of disbelief, which is the really tricky part.
Allow me to present an outline of my findings: (snide remarks mine)
1) 75 million years ago, there was an evil ruler called Xenu (not to be confused with Xena, warrior princess).
2) Xenu ruled the Galactic Confederacy, of which Earth was part of (not to be confused with Galactic Republic or the Confederacy of Independent Systems, both from Star Wars).
3) The Galactic Confederacy was over-populated (guess condoms weren't invented yet).
4) Xenu, working together with psychiatrists, injected many citizens of G.C with drugs.
5) Xenu shipped these people to Earth, unloaded them around volcanoes.
6) Hydrogen bombs were lowered into the volcanoes and detonated.
7) Billions of people died and their souls (thetans, but not thezhangs, thelims, or thetays) were moved into a huge cinema (maybe that's why Cruise believes).
8) The thetans were made to sit through a motion picture which implanted misleading data (R6 implant) into the thetans' brains (somewhat similar to the movie-going experience nowadays).
9) R6 includes all religions including Christianity (but excludes itself... how else could Hubbard have all this knowledge?).
10) The thetans were released, and they grouped themselves into the remaining people who didn't die in (6) (thus engaging in the first mass orgy known on Earth).
11) Xenu was overthrown and exiled to a mountain on a planet, trapped by a eternal force field (powered by Duracell).
12) We are all of us afflicted with these thetans (but of course).
13) Luckily for us, we can learn about this and purge ourselves of these thetans, specifically though a series of Operating Thetan levels. Points (1) to (12) are covered in Operating Thetan Level 3, which lucky scientologists can reach by paying around USD$360,000.
This, I'm afraid, was my limit where suspension of disbelief was concerned. There are defenses and counter-arguments of course, but the fact that this "secret teaching" exists is good enough to debunk scientology as a pseudo-religion and pseudo-science for me. I guess I'm what scientologists call a "Suppressive Person". Lucky, lucky me.
Tom, Tom, Tom, you don't even-- you're stupid. I know, because my inner thetans tell me so.
Resources (Titles mine)
- Those who are still interested in scientology can find a list of resources in this wiki article. Links to sites both for and against scientology.
- Debunking Scientology 101, via Dsng
- Bad Science Fiction: Xenu Explained
- Debunking Scientology: The Whole Nine Yards
- Slate: Summer of Pseudo-science
Filed under: SF, Entertainment, Humour, Religion
4 Comments
We had a patient who, the day after delivering her baby, was squatting on the head of the bed telling everyone she was owl. As in "hoot, hoot."
A Thetan manifesting itself as an owl, maybe?
Scientology is an amazing success story for a totally made-up pile of crap. Just mix religion with tax-exemption and off you go.
L. Ron Hubbard died about 20 years ago but he is still churning out "best-selling" novels.
E@L
Maybe the Thetan thinks it's an owl.
This is as bad as the Heaven's Gate cult and Falun Gong. There are really a lot of dumb nitwits in the world. It's like they are legions of them waiting to be fleeced. Maybe I should start thinking of something to stake my claim to a portion of this lucrative mountain of the "fool's gold" hehe.
MLMs(and their kind) really suck. They are only good for destroying relationships. Pui!
MLMs are good... if you're in the top 3 tiers and don't have a conscience. :)
Post a Comment
<< Home