Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes

[BetteDavisEyes]

Originally posted by Rudey
The Nation of Islam believes an alien scientist named Yakub created the white man. Beat that.

I have heard this before. Didn't he do it as a punishment for blacks?

[DELTAQTE]

Originally posted by AXiD670
Ummm....no sex?

Am I the only one who heard that Katie is a virgin? If she is, she'd probably have no problem with that, lol.

I kinda like Tom and Katie. Maybe cause she's in my age bracket, but I think she's cool.

I just can't picture Nicole Kidman being with a man for 10 years and not having sex, Penelope Cruz either.

[MysticCat]

Originally posted by sugar and spice
So you know how Rudey and I pretty much never agree, but I was just about to point out that exact same thing. Which viewpoint is more "legitimate" is pretty debatable."Aliens spiritually delivering you" is about as statistically probable as "some guy being born to a virgin and dying and then being resurrected and then spiritually delivering you." (Actually, statistically speaking, I'm pretty sure that aliens are more likely.)

In the abstract, I would agree with you. But not here.

What sets Scientology apart from other "belief systems" is, well basically, L. Ron Hubbard -- a science-fiction writer who put together the whole Scientology thing as a self-help-and-help-me-rake-in-money-in-the-process business. That Scientology is more a business than a belief system, that it exercises a great deal of control of its members and that those who got out of it definitely view themselves has having escaped from a cult is well-documented.

If you haven't read it before, this article, originally published in Time Magazine over a decade ago, is well-worth reading. (Yes, I know it is now mostly found on anti-Scientology sites on the web that have a definite bias, but it's still Time):

Scientology: The Cult of Greed

[kddani]

Originally posted by DELTAQTE
Am I the only one who heard that Katie is a virgin? If she is, she'd probably have no problem with that, lol.

She was with Chris Klein for like 4 or 5 years, they were engaged, maybe living together, definitely travelled together. I have a hard time believing she's still got her v-card. Might just be a PR thing.

[CarolinaCutie]

Did anyone watch Tom Cruise on the Today Show this AM?

Here is the transcript, although it doesn't come CLOSE to showing how agitated and angry TC looked.

Tom Cruise "Today" Interview

How in the HELL is he going to act like MATT FREAKING LAUER needs to get educated? I'll be damned if some movie star would be lecturing me on MY news show about ADD meds and calling me GLIB. Matt Lauer exercised a great amount of control and didn't pimp slap him. Tom Cruise is seriously insane. If I were Spielberg, I would be pissed that Tom is shooting off at the mouth about how he doesn't believe in chemical imbalances right before the opening of his new movie. As a consumer, I wouldn't boycott because of anything involving Katie Holmes, but he is really showing his ass with this Brooke Shields/anti-depressant stuff. Tom, where exactly did you attend medical school? Oh yeah, that's what I thought.

The interview will be continued on Monday.

[ADqtPiMel]

Originally posted by kddani
She was with Chris Klein for like 4 or 5 years, they were engaged, maybe living together, definitely travelled together. I have a hard time believing she's still got her v-card. Might just be a PR thing.

I know I read somewhere that she won't swipe the v-card until she's married. Looking for a link right now...

[Peaches-n-Cream]

Originally posted by ADqtPiMel
I know I read somewhere that she won't swipe the v-card until she's married. Looking for a link right now...

I googled Katie Holmes virgin and found quite a few gems.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7682150/

http://www.defamer.com/hollywood/gos...ion-101619.php

http://www.snarkywood.com/2005/05/katie_holmes_an.html

[sugar and spice]

Originally posted by MysticCat81
In the abstract, I would agree with you. But not here.

What sets Scientology apart from other "belief systems" is, well basically, L. Ron Hubbard -- a science-fiction writer who put together the whole Scientology thing as a self-help-and-help-me-rake-in-money-in-the-process business. That Scientology is more a business than a belief system, that it exercises a great deal of control of its members and that those who got out of it definitely view themselves has having escaped from a cult is well-documented.

If you haven't read it before, this article, originally published in Time Magazine over a decade ago, is well-worth reading. (Yes, I know it is now mostly found on anti-Scientology sites on the web that have a definite bias, but it's still Time):

Scientology: The Cult of Greed

The problem is that that doesn't prove that his intention with Scientology was to make money. Sure, the quote about "If I needed to make money, I would just start a religion" is telling -- but it happened earlier in his life and he could have had a change of opinion. Unless he speciifically said, "I made up Scientology completely in order to make money," we don't really know what his intentions were. The quotes by anti-cult movement leaders in the article are interesting but not exceptionally valid given that -- as religioustolerance.org points out -- most people who study the mind don't believe that "mind control" is possible, and those ACM leaders are a small and biased minority. Sure, it seems quite possible that Scientology uses unscrupulous means to make money or uses its money less than wisely, but at this point, there are few religions that don't.

It's more likely that unstable individuals (hello Tom Cruise!) are attracted to "cult-like" religions that require very deep commitments -- and thus are more likely to have problems with emotional development, mood or personality disorders, tendency to commit suicide, et cetera. Correlation (of emotionally disturbed individuals and Scientology -- or any religious group/"cult") does not equal causation. The stories I've read from family members of Scientology members who killed themselves (or allegedly killed themselves) usually paint pictures of individuals who were very troubled long before they became Scientologists. I'm not a professional or anything, but one might guess that they sought out a very involved, family-like religion because they felt like they were missing something at home. The story that opens this article bears that out, with a family that had no clue anything was "off" about their son until after he ended up dead. Sorry, but I don't buy the idea that Scientology was his only problem.

Not to mention that almost every religion, if not every religion, has been created or co-opted for the purposes of some greedy (or lustful, or power-hungry, et cetera) leader on some level or another. Joseph Smith?* Come on now. No religion is pure.

I certainly think there many things wrong with Scientology, a motivated-by-money factor being one of them -- but as Rob implied, if we're going to define Scientology as a "cult" than you have to put the LDS church in the "cult" category as well, along with a number of smaller sects of Christianity (and come to think of it, larger ones as well). And I don't think any of those groups deserve to be portrayed in the same light as, say, the Branch Davidians or Solar Temple or the People's Temple or whatever. And I certainly don't think "brainwashing" per se is at play in any form that even the most mainstream religions don't also use.



* I'm sorry to keep picking on the Mormons, but they are one of the religions I've read about in the most depth and I see many many parallels between them and Scientology, for better or for worse.

[sugar and spice]

MORE IMPORTANTLY!

Okay, so she made one pledge that she's not having sex until she gets married, and another one about not having sex WHEN she's married -- virgin for life?

Although I don't really think she's a virgin -- that last article posted basically implied that in high school, she promised that she would stay a virgin until she got married, and we all know how long those high school promises last. Ask GeekyPenguin about True Love Waits.

[KillarneyRose]

I'm just sad, that's all. I mean, Tom used to be The Shit as far as I was concerned. He was just yummilicious in Top Gun and my gaydar never stirred.



(I've been hoping since I "married into the Navy" to find a Navy pilot who actually looks like this, to no avail )

When did he go from being so hot to being, dare I say...a joke???

[KillarneyRose]

Originally posted by sugar and spice
Ask GeekyPenguin about True Love Waits.

Or ask Kristen Veyshtieksntuusjtyeeuyrjnvazier or whatever the hell her last name is.












oh geez, that was rude of me.

[starryeyed]

the tom cruise vs. matt lauer thing is on msn's videos. GOSH! HE'S A FLIPPIN FRUITCAKE!

[33girl]

Originally posted by KillarneyRose
Or ask Kristen Veyshtieksntuusjtyeeuyrjnvazier or whatever the hell her last name is.












oh geez, that was rude of me.

TRACY YOUR PICTURE IS IN THE DICTIONARY UNDER FRICKIN AWESOME.

[kddani]

see, i'm telling you guys, everytime something dies down, he does something else crazy to get back on the front page. Just recently... proposed in Paris... few days later got the water squirted at him... now he acted like a total idiot this morning. There's no such thing as bad PR in his camp. It's all perfectly strategized and timed

[starryeyed]

Originally posted by kddani
see, i'm telling you guys, everytime something dies down, he does something else crazy to get back on the front page. Just recently... proposed in Paris... few days later got the water squirted at him... now he acted like a total idiot this morning. There's no such thing as bad PR in his camp. It's all perfectly strategized and timed

Good point, but bad press isn't necessarily helping his career.