I'm really glad to hear Matt's side of things. Any chances we'll get a contribution from Lockheed?

"Scientists at the University of Kansas believe gamma ray bursts were responsible for a great mass extinction on Earth 450 million years ago"

And the creation of the Incredible Hulk!

Mike
~who thinks the Hulk needs to be referenced more in this post.~

AFRO> follow the link at the bottom of the post and there's a small magnifining glass icon on that page, next to Enlarge.

One of the most annoying things to happen on an increasing basis is for someone to come out of a film proclaiming it was 'The most original twist ever!!!' when I know for a fact that it happened in X-Men the animated series (R.I.P. morph!). I know, there's no such thing as originality... blah blah blah, but the truth is that I was dealing with more complex storylines aged 10 reading Clone saga spidey than I've been able to in the last five years as an adult.

Some notable exceptions include Lost, but that's just because Abrams's trying to mess with me.

Oh and if I hear someone say they didn't really understand Ocean's 11, there might be trouble.

:P
Mike

I profess ignorance on many subjects Al, please excuse my lack of coverage in regards to some of the other religions :D. However would you argue that my point is incorrect?

@ Manuel

1) Not sure what you mean by tactic. My arguement was that by excluding the poor, Scientology's belief system can be called into question. If their way is the right way, why not share it with all? A counter-argument could be made with homosexuality and catholicsm, however Catholicsm does not prohibit a learning of Biblical texts because you are gay.

2)I can not prove that any world would be prefect (although I would like more dinosaurs). However that's not the point. My issue is with *them* deciding for *us* without ever sharing their great plan, or asking our opinion. You've actually kind of made my point. Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists all share their plans and hopes for humanity and are open about their attempts to change the world. Scientologists are not.

3)The catholic church has a lot of power, but I find the Evangelical's much more scary. Check out Jesus Camp. But again this links back to 2. We know what most religions want, what their beliefs are, so we can predict/assume the actions they will take to that affect. We can also work backwards, from actions taken to motivations. Not with certainty but enough to raise flags on big issues. That is not the case with Scientologists, as we don't know what they want.

Re: Scientology being like other religions.
There's a few fundamental differences.

1)Scientology excludes the poor. It doesn't matter how much you believe, if you don't have enough cash to progress through the levels, you're in trouble.

2)Secrecy. All other religions are about spreading the word of God. This is not. This is about using their texts to create a world they see as preferrable. Whether that means informing others or not. Which leads to three.

3)Power. If this was just a secretive religion I would be less inclined to rally against it. However they are not. They are using their ties and contacts to influence Government policy, which means they are influencing our lives. Thus transparency is required.

====

For me one of the more concerning aspects is the confrontation and aggression. When talking to Parkinson, Cruise says that 'they might say that to you, they don't say it to me.' Clearly there is so much aggression behind him that people are afraid to question his belief and thus he is unwilling to doubt it. That scares me, and is echoed in the Panorama documentary that was shown a while back in the Uk, which also highlighted the intimidation tactics used by Scientology.

Mike