The power of the internet: exposing religious lunacies

“The internet has done for Scientology. Could it rumble the Christians, too?”

The above article from the Guardian points out that, thanks to the internet, including an embarrassing indoctrination video by Tom Cruise about Scientology available (despite the organisation’s repeated attempts to suppress it) on You Tube/Gawker, Scientology is on the retreat, the organisation and four of its officials having been found guilty of fraud (to be more precise, defrauding its members) in France.  The article points out that it is time that we exposed the more established religions to similar levels of scrutiny – I could not agree more.

Two choice quotes from the article, the second referring to scientologists’ apparent belief that our destinies are at severe risk from an alien called Xenu:

In France, Scientology was found guilty of defrauding its followers after a judge effectively debunked the idea of the church’s trusty e-meter, a crude polygraph whose readings are used to encourage Scientologists to purchase everything from books to extreme sauna courses.

Naturally, one’s initial assumption is that the everlasting battery which provides the force field which holds the intergalactic tyrant Xenu captive in an unspecified mountain here on Earth is not as everlasting as billed, or was perhaps commandeered when the battery went in some vast cosmic remote control.

Two quotes from Tom Cruise’s video (or click here for the entire transcript):

Being a Scientologist, when you drive past an accident, it’s not like anyone else, it’s, you drive past, you know you have to do something about it. You know you are the only one who can really help. That’s what drives me.

We are the authorities on getting people off drugs. We are the authorities on the mind. We are the authorities on improving conditions. Criminon [sic]. We can rehabilitate criminals. We can bring peace and unite cultures. That once you know these tools and you know that they work, it’s not good enough that I’m just doing Ok.

But is this really any more delusional than, for example, the following:

- the Christian belief that Jesus was born of a virgin, rose from the dead after three days, then disappeared again, but will reappear when we least expect it  (NB similar beliefs,  appeared in religions predating Christianity, e.g. see here re other virgin births, and here for other examples of belief in resurrection)

- the Muslim belief that Mohammed was the last prophet and the Koran contains the ultimate truth (since it purports to be the last word of God): pity that the book makes no mention of trains, aeroplanes, computers, keyhole surgery and other modern devices that were brought to us by scientific research.  It is a wonder that adherents of this religion can bring themselves to use such  modern equipment at all.

- the Hindu belief that cows are sacred, the Jewish and Muslim belief that it is wrong to eat pork?