*xenu saves*

[rjwhite]

Have any of you read the New Yorker piece about Paul Haggis and his dropping out of Scientology after 30+years?

It's very interesting reading and I was constantly struck by how bizarre it was to me that people could get into this and not find it strange at all.

Then, I started thinking about their cultivation (or, should I say- cult-ivation? HAR) of

Comments

[tawdryjones]

A college friend was into Scientology and I tried my best to be supportive when none of our other friends were. They mocked and teased him for being into this nonsense and even though I believed it was pure (but still interesting) science fiction, I was the only one he could talk to intelligently about it. (I was the only one of our group who'd read Dianetics). I didn't like him any less for his strange obsession in Scientology. The sad part was when, two years later, he'd become disillusioned in it and became a slob, stopped working out, stopped showering regularly, started doing badly in classes, and just looked terrible. We used to call him Superman because he was broad-chested, muscly, had black hair and glasses, and was energetic in a child-like "save the world" way. Losing his religion, even a quack one, hit him hard.

Which is all to say, to each his own. We do attach to artists (why we get sad when these perfect strangers die) and I'm disappointed in Beck and Giovanni Ribisi but if that's what they need to hold them up, well...alright, then.

[rjwhite]

I'm just disappointed in Giovanni Ribisi for being a terrible, terrible actor.

[pookieman]

Be fair- there should have been many, many Oscars for the tearful scene with his father in The Boiler Room.

[rjwhite]

If you mean old men named Oscar pelting him with shoes from just off camera, then yes.