Arkady
President
Has anyone seen the documentary "Going Clear"? It's an expose on Scientology, which portrays the religion in a decidedly negative light. It makes for some entertaining viewing, and it's hard to come away from it without the view that L. Ron Hubbard was a mentally damaged charlatan, and his spiritual heir, David Miscavige, is a totalitarian sadist.
However, as a outsider to religion, the enthusiasm with which Hollywood has embraced the take-down of Scientology seems strange to me. If you made a similar film about, say, Judaism, Islam, or Catholicism, it would be marginalized and denounced by most liberals. As Neil Degrasse Tyson said, summarizing the double-standard "If you’ve been around 1,000 years you’re a religion, and if you’ve been around 100 years, you’re a cult."
You can see a kind of middle-distance between the two extremes with Mormonism. It's old enough that we treat is as religious bigotry for someone to automatically dismiss its followers as brainwashed freaks and to openly ridicule them for their faith. Yet it's young enough that you can get away with making fun of those beliefs in an impersonal way in "polite company" (e.g., "magic underwear" jokes).
From the outsider perspective, of course the beliefs of Scientology look silly (Xenu chaining aliens to volcanoes and blowing them up with hydrogen bombs, releasing thetans that cause us spiritual harm unless we use our e-meters to audit them away.) So do the beliefs of Mormonism (Joseph Smith finding gold plates in New York detailing the adventures of Israelite Christians in the Americas a couple thousand years ago). And so do the beliefs of Islam (Muhammed's flight on a winged steed to Jerusalem to chat with long-dead prophets). And Catholicism (priests magically transforming bread and wine into flesh and blood for a cannibalistic ritual). And Judaism (a ninety year old woman having a child by a 100-year-old man).
In a sense, the older nonsense is more forgivable, in that it came from a more ancient time when people didn't know as much. In the same sense, a truly ancient myth like those in Theogony is a little less embarrassing than an upstart myth like the one of Jesus, coming from a much later and more sophisticated era, when people really ought to have known better. It's easier to see how people in the age before science could be taken in by a charlatan pushing a Zeus myth, but harder to see how someone living near the height of the Roman empire could be taken in by a charlatan like Jesus. So, I get why very recent vintage nonsense like Scientology strikes people as particularly silly. But if it had been around as long as those older tales, wouldn't familiarity have dulled that sense of goofiness?
Anyway, I worry that Scientologists will be genuinely persecuted and discriminated against, given the glee with which people have been tearing into the religion. I've even seen it on the job, with amused whispers about a coworker who is a Scientologist -- whispers that those people would never dream at directing against a Muslim, Jew, etc.
However, as a outsider to religion, the enthusiasm with which Hollywood has embraced the take-down of Scientology seems strange to me. If you made a similar film about, say, Judaism, Islam, or Catholicism, it would be marginalized and denounced by most liberals. As Neil Degrasse Tyson said, summarizing the double-standard "If you’ve been around 1,000 years you’re a religion, and if you’ve been around 100 years, you’re a cult."
You can see a kind of middle-distance between the two extremes with Mormonism. It's old enough that we treat is as religious bigotry for someone to automatically dismiss its followers as brainwashed freaks and to openly ridicule them for their faith. Yet it's young enough that you can get away with making fun of those beliefs in an impersonal way in "polite company" (e.g., "magic underwear" jokes).
From the outsider perspective, of course the beliefs of Scientology look silly (Xenu chaining aliens to volcanoes and blowing them up with hydrogen bombs, releasing thetans that cause us spiritual harm unless we use our e-meters to audit them away.) So do the beliefs of Mormonism (Joseph Smith finding gold plates in New York detailing the adventures of Israelite Christians in the Americas a couple thousand years ago). And so do the beliefs of Islam (Muhammed's flight on a winged steed to Jerusalem to chat with long-dead prophets). And Catholicism (priests magically transforming bread and wine into flesh and blood for a cannibalistic ritual). And Judaism (a ninety year old woman having a child by a 100-year-old man).
In a sense, the older nonsense is more forgivable, in that it came from a more ancient time when people didn't know as much. In the same sense, a truly ancient myth like those in Theogony is a little less embarrassing than an upstart myth like the one of Jesus, coming from a much later and more sophisticated era, when people really ought to have known better. It's easier to see how people in the age before science could be taken in by a charlatan pushing a Zeus myth, but harder to see how someone living near the height of the Roman empire could be taken in by a charlatan like Jesus. So, I get why very recent vintage nonsense like Scientology strikes people as particularly silly. But if it had been around as long as those older tales, wouldn't familiarity have dulled that sense of goofiness?
Anyway, I worry that Scientologists will be genuinely persecuted and discriminated against, given the glee with which people have been tearing into the religion. I've even seen it on the job, with amused whispers about a coworker who is a Scientologist -- whispers that those people would never dream at directing against a Muslim, Jew, etc.
