[quote]cap’nsalty wrote:
vaughn5000 wrote:
PGA200X wrote:
Love him or hate him, Cruise has delivered some of the best performances. That cannot be denied.
Are you fucking joking?
He was good in a number of films, but I can’t say that I was blown away by any of his performances. He also hasn’t demonstrated any range as far as I know.[/quote]
Agreed He’s played some cool characters like in Top Gun. He’s been in some good movie. Nothing I thought that required serious acting ability or where I was really impressed by him.
[quote]spamme wrote:
The only educated people in it must be crooks who think they can rise in it and make money. But your not going to find many doctors or lawyers in it, nor for that matter, many college grads. [/quote]
You’re completely wrong. There are plenty of college educated people in the church, if for no other reason then they have the money to pay for all the courses and auditing services. Essentially the church markets to these types of people through Dianetics and the other self-help books it sells.
Most people don’t realize what they are getting into until they have been in it for awhile, and by then they may have been indoctrinated enough that the nutty stuff they start to hear doesn’t sound so nutty.
And nobody gets rich from Scientology except for the folks who run it. The higher you rise the more your courses and auditing cost. It is designed to separate you from your money, and if you don’t have any you’re not worth much to the church.
[quote]vaughn5000 wrote:
PGA200X wrote:
Love him or hate him, Cruise has delivered some of the best performances. That cannot be denied.
Are you fucking joking?[/quote]
Are you?
Color of Money
Outsiders
Top Gun
Rain Man
Born on the Fourth of July
A Few Good Men
Risky Business
Last Samurai (havent seen it going on peoples opinion)
Ok, you know what, Tom Cruise was in a couple good movies and played a few roles decently. The only Cruise movie I can think of off the top of my head that I really like is A Few Good Men, and that’s probably only because Nicholson was in it.
And, for the record: TOP GUN SUCKS!! It’s a chick flick with airplanes, and not even a good chick flick like Grease or As Good As It Gets. It’s no better than The Wedding Planner or Must Love Dogs. It’s a horrible movie and I’d rather watch the Garbage Pail Kids Movie over and over than watch “Maverick” and “Iceman” prance around.
[quote]brushga wrote:
spamme wrote:
The only educated people in it must be crooks who think they can rise in it and make money. But your not going to find many doctors or lawyers in it, nor for that matter, many college grads.
You’re completely wrong. There are plenty of college educated people in the church, if for no other reason then they have the money to pay for all the courses and auditing services. Essentially the church markets to these types of people through Dianetics and the other self-help books it sells.
Most people don’t realize what they are getting into until they have been in it for awhile, and by then they may have been indoctrinated enough that the nutty stuff they start to hear doesn’t sound so nutty.
And nobody gets rich from Scientology except for the folks who run it. The higher you rise the more your courses and auditing cost. It is designed to separate you from your money, and if you don’t have any you’re not worth much to the church.
[/quote]
Perhaps the college “educated” who went through college without actually listening. And if anyone reads those books and takes them seriously, I would question how they got their diploma with such poor critical thinking skills. And until someone shows me some numbers by an independent source, I am going to go by what I have read, that the majority are poorly educated.
But I was primarily aiming my statement towards the claim of primarily physicians and attorneys. According to surveys (not the scientology claim of 8 million members), there are about 500,000 to 1 million practicing scientologists. So I assume if he is correct then one could list several hundred MD’s and attorneys that are in it.
[quote]marijuology wrote:
I don’t see how any reasonably intelligent person could fall for scientology.[/quote]
You’d think so wouldn’t you? They draw a lot of their members from what many would consider the intellectual elite however.
You might be familiar with the phrase “some ideas are so stupid only an intellectual could believe them?” That’s what’s so insidious about Scientology, for the first 8-10 years you don’t get to hear about the alien conspiracy, you just get a bunch of pseudo-scientific jungian psychobabble about negative engrams and how regresion therapy can help strip you of negativity, stress, psychosomatic illness etc.
Once you’ve dumped (on average) $50k or so into the church and been through enough auditing sessions then they take you out on a cruise on one of their private boats and for another $100k they put you through some sensory depravation drills then lay the ‘big secret’ on you. So, for the rank and file, Scientology is less a religion than it is an alternative to religion and to therapy. Problem is, they make you ‘better’ by literally, applying cold war era russian brainwashing techniques on you so that by the time you find out the truth about the religion, you’re willing to buy into it or they’ve got so much dirt on you that you don’t dare expose them.
[quote]spamme wrote:
Perhaps the college “educated” who went through college without actually listening. And if anyone reads those books and takes them seriously, I would question how they got their diploma with such poor critical thinking skills. And until someone shows me some numbers by an independent source, I am going to go by what I have read, that the majority are poorly educated.
But I was primarily aiming my statement towards the claim of primarily physicians and attorneys. According to surveys (not the scientology claim of 8 million members), there are about 500,000 to 1 million practicing scientologists. So I assume if he is correct then one could list several hundred MD’s and attorneys that are in it.
[/quote]
Let’s not forget that you also made the allegation that the only educated people involved in it are crooks looking to make money, which is total bullshit. They’re just people looking for answers like everyone else. Unfortunately for them and their wallets they get involved with Scientology. Most of them leave when they figure things out.
As far as the exact percentages of college educated members, there’s no way to know. But Scientology is all about money, and markets to those who have it. They do have their share, probably a majority, of middle to lower class members, but those folks can only get so far because they don’t have the bank to afford the ridiculously expensive courses and auditing.
So I don’t know how many doctors or lawyers are in the cult, but there are plenty of wealthy, educated folks who get caught up in it. And I’d argue they’re not bad or stupid people, just folks looking for answers that end up getting screwed over by Scientology.
[quote]Xvim wrote:
You’d think so wouldn’t you? They draw a lot of their members from what many would consider the intellectual elite however.
You might be familiar with the phrase “some ideas are so stupid only an intellectual could believe them?” That’s what’s so insidious about Scientology, for the first 8-10 years you don’t get to hear about the alien conspiracy, you just get a bunch of pseudo-scientific jungian psychobabble about negative engrams and how regresion therapy can help strip you of negativity, stress, psychosomatic illness etc.
Once you’ve dumped (on average) $50k or so into the church and been through enough auditing sessions then they take you out on a cruise on one of their private boats and for another $100k they put you through some sensory depravation drills then lay the ‘big secret’ on you. So, for the rank and file, Scientology is less a religion than it is an alternative to religion and to therapy. Problem is, they make you ‘better’ by literally, applying cold war era russian brainwashing techniques on you so that by the time you find out the truth about the religion, you’re willing to buy into it or they’ve got so much dirt on you that you don’t dare expose them.
[/quote]
This is a great recap of how they operate. I have a college educated, financially successful relative that went through almost this exact same scenario.
[quote]Xvim wrote:
marijuology wrote:
I don’t see how any reasonably intelligent person could fall for scientology.
You’d think so wouldn’t you? They draw a lot of their members from what many would consider the intellectual elite however.
You might be familiar with the phrase “some ideas are so stupid only an intellectual could believe them?” That’s what’s so insidious about Scientology, for the first 8-10 years you don’t get to hear about the alien conspiracy, you just get a bunch of pseudo-scientific jungian psychobabble about negative engrams and how regresion therapy can help strip you of negativity, stress, psychosomatic illness etc.
Once you’ve dumped (on average) $50k or so into the church and been through enough auditing sessions then they take you out on a cruise on one of their private boats and for another $100k they put you through some sensory depravation drills then lay the ‘big secret’ on you. So, for the rank and file, Scientology is less a religion than it is an alternative to religion and to therapy. Problem is, they make you ‘better’ by literally, applying cold war era russian brainwashing techniques on you so that by the time you find out the truth about the religion, you’re willing to buy into it or they’ve got so much dirt on you that you don’t dare expose them.
[/quote]
Could you post a reference for your statement that they are the intellectual elite. Or are you referring to the actors with the high school educations.
Worldwide there are an estimated 500,000 practicing scientologists. See reference:
So you are starting out with about 50,000 idiots in the USA. Now read several of the sites that have been critical of scientology (google scientology). You can read many testimonials of ex-scientologists, and they all have something in common, they sound like idiots out of a bad B movie. They also list the ~40 “famous people”, the majority of whom have only a high school education.
I have no doubt there are a few intelligent people with mental issues in it, but by and large the ones I have seen, including the actors, are poorly educated or idiots or both.
Now lets have your list of all those brilliant intellectuals that are in scientology.
[quote]Xvim wrote:
marijuology wrote:
I don’t see how any reasonably intelligent person could fall for scientology.
You’d think so wouldn’t you? They draw a lot of their members from what many would consider the intellectual elite however.
You might be familiar with the phrase “some ideas are so stupid only an intellectual could believe them?” That’s what’s so insidious about Scientology, for the first 8-10 years you don’t get to hear about the alien conspiracy, you just get a bunch of pseudo-scientific jungian psychobabble about negative engrams and how regresion therapy can help strip you of negativity, stress, psychosomatic illness etc.
Once you’ve dumped (on average) $50k or so into the church and been through enough auditing sessions then they take you out on a cruise on one of their private boats and for another $100k they put you through some sensory depravation drills then lay the ‘big secret’ on you. So, for the rank and file, Scientology is less a religion than it is an alternative to religion and to therapy. Problem is, they make you ‘better’ by literally, applying cold war era russian brainwashing techniques on you so that by the time you find out the truth about the religion, you’re willing to buy into it or they’ve got so much dirt on you that you don’t dare expose them.
[/quote]
Except that everyone today knows about the alien theory. Or could if they wanted to.
[quote]chinadoll wrote:
It happened around the time he dumped Nicole Kidman, so I thought maybe he had his first gay experience and he’s gay, hence the sudden Metrosexuality. And giving any kind of postpartum advice without being an Obstetrician, that is NOT the manly guy thing to do. That’s like a guy giving advice about which shoes and handbag to wear with a red dress, or which sanitary pad to wear on day #3-- with or without wings, extra absorbent, etc… Big No-No!!!
But then he hooked up with Katie Holmes, someone with 1/100th the hotness factor of Nicole Kidman[/quote]
What’s day 3?
Katie Holmes is hot. Hotter than Nicole Kidman in my opinion.
