You always were funnier than Penn…

“Not without cash up front, chucklehead.”

“Laughed out load”… oh, I’m just not going there.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_wright

Afterward he asked why he couldn’t join her and my Mom explained it was because we weren’t Catholic and it would be disrespectful. When we has asked why, my Mom explained that they believed they were eating the body and blood of Christ, which freaked out.

My Grandma protested, saying my Mom didn’t have to put it that way, but finally acknowledged that was her literal belief. It has always struck me as funny that simply stating a religious belief plainly can make it sound so goofy to someone who wasn’t raised to believe it.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20100308/scientology/

But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re talking about a religion invented in the mid-20th century by a science fiction writer who once said that inventing a religion is the best way to make money. Especially when that religion coincidentally charges great amounts of money of its followers and has been denied tax-exempt status in some jurisdictions for not being charitable (ie, for-profit).

Clearly their spin guy needs to start doing some spinning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7EEOMbBIO8

…which contrasts Davis’ denial of Xenu with audio of L. Ron Hubbard describing–wait for it–Xenu,juxtaposed with South Park’s accurate description of the tenets of Scientology.

I guess Davis thinks it isn’t lying to say he finds the tenets of Scientology to be “unrecognizable” (perhaps being so coming from the mouths of un-believers).

It’s not the religion, it’s the person practicing it, and what they actually live by.

I rather doubt that pointing out the absurdity of Scientiological beliefs is going to prevent people from joining it. After all, as you mention, mainstream religions have equally absurd ones and they have no shortage of adherents. What’s more of the issue is the financial and psychological victimization of non-celebrity scientologists in sea org and the like.

True, and people still become devout libertarians and/or tea baggers even after being told about the manufactured consent produced by the Koch Brothers… and people still continue to think things like single payer systems for healthcare are evil and wrong despite being told about Wendell Potter (the corporatist whistleblower who came forward and showed the “health” industry was manufacturing consent) and, meanwhile..

Then there’s the Americans who think wikileaks is a great evil and shun it instead of focusing on exposed war crimes and corruption.

There just NO reaching some fucking zealots no matter how many facts are put on the table, apparently.

Isn’t the Mormon Church still pretty tight about tithing? I remember seeing stories about members who were basically audited to verify that they had popped their 10%.

I was just Googling the subject, and found this:

“Having said that, it is true that agreeing to pay tithing is a prerequisite to initial membership in the church. So if, as you ask, one refused to pay tithing, one would likely not be offered baptism into the church at that time. Understand, however, that tithing is not about money?-Heavenly Father certainly does not need earthly money to conduct His affairs. It is a principle of faith. If one lacks sufficient faith in the promised blessings that come from paying tithing, that is indicative that perhaps one is not yet ready to join the church. ”

This was buried in a lot of verbiage that, to an outsider, sounds pretty much like the rationalizations I’ve heard from Tommy before.

http://bit.ly/gnmgrO

It’s amazing how idiotically Scientology handles it’s PR nightmare.

How can you say that? The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and if you look at the growth of their “religion,” I would say that the way they handle things is quite effective!

So is it that, like a depiction of Mohammed, this violates certain sacred tenets of Scientology? Or is it that publicizing these beliefs would diminish their ability to recruit new adherents? Since at no time does he simply refute the question, I’ll assume the latter. “No. We don’t believe that.”

A 3rd possibility is that the interviewer simply hadn’t paid enough to be let in on the secret.

When you post video of interviewers pressing Rabbis to say “Yahweh” and claiming the fact that they refuse is an indicator that they are attempting to deliberately disguise their faith I’ll have a fair bit more respect for your observations on other people’s religions, for their consistency is not their respectfulness.