|
|
| |
Topic: Eyes Wide Shut:
Lawrence Wright’s Book on Scientology |
Eyes Wide Shut:
Lawrence Wright’s Book on Scientology
New York Times, by MICHAEL KINSLEY
|
|
Original Article
|
|
Posted By:Oblio, 1/20/2013 2:02:33 PM
|
| That crunching sound you hear is Lawrence Wright bending over backward to be fair to Scientology. Every deceptive comparison with Mormonism and other religions is given a respectful hearing. Every ludicrous bit of church dogma is served up deadpan. This makes the book’s indictment that much more powerful. Open almost any page at random. That tape of L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology’s founder, that Wright quotes from? “It was a part of a lecture Hubbard gave in 1963, in which he talked about the between-lives period, when thetans are transported to Venus to have their memories erased.”
|
 
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Northern Redman, 1/20/2013 2:13:40 PM (No. 9128386)
Not much different than believing in the physical existence of heaven and hell.
|
Reply 2 - Posted by:
calgrammy, 1/20/2013 2:35:49 PM (No. 9128423)
It´s a whole lot different than the physical belief of Heaven and Hell. I converted to Catholicism late in life,no money involved,didn´t have to treat my family as outcast,no one has ever followed me around to scare me. A whole lot of difference between Christianity and a SyFy cult.
|
| |
|
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Th-Gr-Sil-Majority, 1/20/2013 3:02:12 PM (No. 9128462)
...Hubbard´s goal was to set up a tax exempt money machine and nothing more, based on his science fiction writings...
...in the 60´s and 70´s when so many of the young were into "self-awareness", they would be on the streets of southern California, hustling you into their "reading rooms" to take personality tests to begin the process, giving free copies of "Dianetics"...
...my own experience and personal "radar" told me to stay far away. So many lives and families ruined by them...
|
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Guillermo Sepulveda, 1/20/2013 3:53:40 PM (No. 9128529)
Wackadooooodles!!!
|
Reply 5 - Posted by:
FLCracker, 1/20/2013 4:11:19 PM (No. 9128558)
Hubbard must have laughed his A__ off, watching people falling for this crap.
|
Reply 6 - Posted by:
GringoinQuito, 1/20/2013 5:24:03 PM (No. 9128663)
It figures that a lot of the Hollywood no talent trash are attracted to this madness.
|
Reply 7 - Posted by:
tennisbum, 1/20/2013 7:05:30 PM (No. 9128776)
So Tom Cruise is their god...the most illustrious one..oh, please. Those who believe this cult should remember Jim Jones and David Koresh..they were gods as well and how´d that work out!!
For all anti-Christians, there is a book called the Bible..goes back a ways so that scientists have validated much of the Bible. But to an atheist or agnostic no amount of proof matters and to Christians proof doesn´t matter....it is called faith. It is Ok to make fun of us, it won´t change our faith at all. So Redman, tiptoe thru the cemetery ´cause it´ll be your resting place for all eternity.
|
| |
|
Reply 8 - Posted by:
eorsc, 1/20/2013 9:42:51 PM (No. 9128946)
THAT explains it! My daughter-in-law and I rented the movie and then spent the whole time wondering what the point was. Once we decided while they were all lined up in their black clothes and masks, they were maybe going to start singing and it would be a musical. By the time it ended we were in hysterics. I deem it the absolutely worst movie of the 20th century and swore off Cruise and Kidman for life.
|
Reply 9 - Posted by:
bob913, 1/20/2013 9:53:50 PM (No. 9128958)
You have loons who are into Scientology and other cults (like democrats). That robotic look of Tom Cruise and John Travolta creeps out many.
|
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Charactercounts, 1/21/2013 5:19:07 AM (No. 9129334)
#8, I couldn´t get through the movie. What it was about, I can´t say, but I shut it off because it creeped me out.
|
Below, you will find ...
Most Recent Articles posted by "Oblio"
and
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
|
Most Recent Articles posted by "Oblio"
|
|
The Secrets of Princeton
|
|
New York Times, by Ross Douthat
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Oblio- 4/7/2013 8:08:09 AM
Post Reply
|
|
Susan Patton, the Princeton alumna who became famous for her letter urging Ivy League women to use their college years to find a mate, has been denounced as a traitor to feminism, to coeducation, to the university ideal. But really she’s something much more interesting: a traitor to her class. Her betrayal consists of being gauche enough to acknowledge publicly a truth that everyone who’s come up through Ivy League culture knows intuitively —
|
| |
|
Piercing the secrecy of
offshore tax havens
|
|
Washington Post, by Scott Higham, Michael Hudson*
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Oblio- 4/7/2013 7:06:15 AM
Post Reply
|
|
A New York hedge fund manager allegedly swindles $12 million from a prominent Baltimore family. An Indiana couple is accused of bilking hundreds of customers by charging for free trials of cosmetic products. A financial manager in Texas promises 23-percent returns but absconds with $33.5 million of his investors’ money in a classic Ponzi scheme.All three cases have one thing in common: money that ended up in offshore accounts and trusts set up in tax havens around the world.
|
Former News Corp President
Chernin bids $500 million for Hulu
|
|
Reuters, by Ronald Grover and Jennifer Saba
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Oblio- 4/6/2013 8:49:03 AM
Post Reply
|
|
Former News Corp president Peter Chernin has bid around $500 million for Hulu, the online video streaming service he helped create in 2007, according to two sources with knowledge of Hulu´s sale process. The website, jointly controlled by News Corp and Walt Disney Co, reached out to potential buyers in March after initially contemplating a deal in which one would buy out the other. It is not clear whether that transaction is still being contemplated.
|
After Pentagon investigations, three
Army generals censured for misconduct
|
|
Washington Post, by Craig Whitlock
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Oblio- 4/6/2013 8:08:11 AM
Post Reply
|
|
After lengthy investigations, the Pentagon has determined that three Army generals committed misconduct in separate incidents, adding to an unusually long list of senior military commanders who have been censured over the past year.On Friday, defense officials confirmed that Army Maj. Gen. Ralph O. Baker, the commander of a strategic counterterrorism force on the Horn of Africa, was fired March 28 on charges of sexual misconduct. Two officials familiar with the case said Baker was investigated for allegedly groping a female civilian employee after he had been drinking.
|
Diplomacy downplay: Obama administration
minimizes latest North Korean nuke threat
|
|
Washington Times, by Guy Taylor and Shaun Waterman
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Oblio- 4/6/2013 7:02:06 AM
Post Reply
|
|
The Obama administration appeared eager Thursday to downplay the North Korean military’s latest threat that it has the final authority to carry out “cutting-edge, smaller, lighter and diversified” nuclear strikes on the United States.“This is just the latest in a long line of aggressive statements,” (Snip)the recent tension between Washington and Pyongyang “does not need to get hotter.”The remarks were the first public reaction from the Obama administration since Wednesday’s claim by the North Korean military that the “moment of explosion is approaching fast” with the possibility of war breaking out “today or tomorrow.”
|
Why Obama´s ´Best-Looking Attorney
General´ Comment Was a Gaffe
|
|
The Atlantic, by Garance Franke-Ruta
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Oblio- 4/6/2013 6:51:15 AM
Post Reply
|
|
President Obama´s biggest gaffe yesterday when speaking of California Attorney General Kamala Harris was not in flirtatiously complimenting her as "the best-looking attorney general," but in introducing an observation from the system of beauty into a forum that was about the system of power.What´s that, you say? Irin Carmon does a great job in Salon in laying out the bounds of propriety for when it´s appropriate to talk about a woman´s looks as a general matter. But I´ve long felt we lack a solid theoretical underpinning for easily discussing these issues, and why precisely it is that
|
| |
|
|
Charles Murray´s Gay-Marriage Surprise
|
|
New Yorker, by Jane Mayer
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Oblio- 3/17/2013 5:00:38 PM
Post Reply
|
|
Political scientist Charles Murray has never backed away from controversy, but usually his opponents have been liberals. Friday, however, he managed to upset conservatives at the annual conference known as CPAC, where thousands of bewildered Republicans gathered to figure out the way forward after their party’s 2012 electoral defeat. Murray ditched his prepared remarks on “America Coming Apart” in favor of an impromptu admonition to fellow conservatives to accept the legalization of both gay marriage and abortion.
|
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
|
Anthony Weiner announces NYC mayor run
|
|
Politico, by Kevin Robillard
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Scottyboy- 5/22/2013 6:06:40 AM
Post Reply
|
|
Former Rep. Anthony Weiner, whose career in public life came to an abrupt end when he sent lewd pictures to a college student on Twitter, jumped back into politics on Wednesday by announcing a bid for mayor of New York City. “Look, I’ve made some big mistakes and I know I’ve let a lot of people down,” the Democrat said in a 2-minute video announcing his bid. “But I’ve also learned some tough lessons. I’m running for mayor because I’ve been fighting for the middle class and those struggling to make it for my entire life.
|
A Crack in the IRS Dam
|
|
Power Line, by John Hinderaker
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Dreadnought- 5/21/2013 10:50:44 PM
Post Reply
|
|
The dam protecting the IRS scandal began to crack today when Lois Lerner, the IRS official who announced, and apologized for, the improper singling out of conservative-leaning organizations by IRS employees under her command, announced through her criminal defense lawyer that she will not testify as scheduled tomorrow before the House Oversight Committee. Rather, she will assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. This marks an enormous milestone in the IRS investigation. It can now be taken as more or less established that crimes were committed by Obama administration employees. Lerner’s lawyer tried to minimize the significance
|
Man questioned in Boston Marathon
bombing shot, killed by FBI
|
|
WCBV-TV [Boston], by Staff
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: earlybird- 5/22/2013 7:21:44 AM
Post Reply
|
|
One of two men allegedly being questioned in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings was shot and killed by an FBI agent in Florida on Tuesday, (Snip)A friend of Ibragim Todashev said he and Todashev were being investigated as part of the Boston bombings. He said Todashev, 27, knew bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev because both were MMA fighters. The man claims he and Todashev were interviewed by the FBI for nearly three hours on Tuesday. The friend said he left the interview, and when he came back to the apartment he found that there had been a shooting.
|
Leaks turn to deluge
for reeling White House
|
|
New York Post, by John Podhoretz
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: StormCnter- 5/21/2013 4:49:13 AM
Post Reply
|
|
The wheels came off the Obama administration yesterday. We learned of a startling assault on freedom of the press by the Department of Justice, following the revelation last week of the unprecedented information-gathering foray by that department against The Associated Press. Then, a few minutes later, the Justice Department’s inspector general released a report declaring that the US attorney in Arizona used the leak of a confidential memo to try to discredit a whistleblower in the notorious “gun-walking” scandal known as Fast and Furious (which got two federal agents killed). The leak was called “egregious.”
|
| |
|
Top IRS official will
invoke Fifth Amendment
|
|
Los Angeles Times, by Richard Simon and Joseph Tanfani
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: Scottyboy- 5/21/2013 3:53:35 PM
Post Reply
|
|
WASHINGTON – A top IRS official in the division that reviews nonprofit groups will invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer questions before a House committee investigating the agency’s improper screening of conservative nonprofit groups. Lois Lerner, the head of the exempt organizations division of the IRS, won’t answer questions about what she knew about the improper screening – or why she didn’t reveal it to Congress, according to a letter from her defense lawyer, William W. Taylor 3rd. Lerner was scheduled to appear before the House Oversight committee Wednesday.
|
Darrell Issa: Lois Lerner
lost her rights
|
|
Politico, by Rachel Bade
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: JoniTx- 5/22/2013 3:34:05 PM
Post Reply
|
|
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said embattled IRS official Lois Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights and will be hauled back to appear before his panel again. The California Republican said Lerner’s Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination was voided when she gave an opening statement this morning denying any wrongdoing and professing pride in her government service. “When I asked her her questions from the very beginning, I did so so she could assert her rights prior to any statement,” Issa told POLITICO. “She chose not to do so — so she waived.”
|
Howard Dean: ‘Benghazi
is a Laughable Joke’
|
|
National Review Online, by Andrew Johnson
Original Article
|
|
Posted By: KarenJ1- 5/21/2013 11:59:15 AM
Post Reply
|
|
Former Democratic National committee chairman Howard Dean considers the controversy over Benghazi a “joke” and “silly.” “Benghazi is a laughable joke,” Dean proclaimed twice in a discussion with Republican National Committee communications chairman Sean Spicer last week. “With all due respect, governor, when four Americans die serving this country, that’s not a joke, sir,” Spicer responded. “Oh, stop it,” said Dean. The former Democratic presidential candidate also said that there were “no serious questions being asked about Benghazi” and brushed it off as an effort by Republicans to score political points.
|
| | |
|
|
