tom cruise and the idiocy of scientology

what is it about human beings that requires them to grasp onto the irrational and treat it as if it is the rational? i used to have to write paper after paper about this phenomena in barbara kitcher's class that examined kant's critique of pure reason. recently this sort of thing has been popping up in the daily news, the culprit? tom cruise.

what is scientology anyways. if scientology is a philosophy so be it, but it is not, and that is the root of the problem. what scientology tries to present itself as is one man's legacy of melding science with religion, making the world a better place, it strives that we must purge our minds of irrationality, but that's exactly what it is, an irrational body of thought. it's like a dog chasing it's own tail.

scientologists promote their religion by saying they are striving to make the world a better place. that's fine if that's true, but there must be something that sets them apart, every religion to some degree wants to make the world a better place, woopeteefuckingdoo. here's the kicker, apparently some of the truths that you learn after donating about $10,000 is that a long time ago our galaxy became overpopulated and they sent the overpopulated masses to earth and hydrogen bombed them, the souls of these beings entered humans and are the cause of all misfortune, etc. first of all that statement itself has all sorts of unfounded inconsistencies and has lunancy written all over it.

i think it is perfectly rational to believe that aliens visited our planet, you might even go so far as to saying that perhaps they kick started the absolute miracle that turned amino acid soup into organisms. scientology's science fiction is hardly believable. first of all, they present themselves as a tax exempt religion, religion usually has to be based on something, a dusty book, scrolls in a time capsule, the bible, something. scientology is based on the lifeswork of a professor/sci-fi writer, a mr. hubbard. how can the supposed fastest growing religion maintain its members if you are presenting something like alien genocide and invasion of the body snatchers that is based off of 0 factual proof, just one man's 'theory'. people give enough of a bad rap to christianity for following the world's greatest history book, but this? this is insane.

first of a belief in souls is irrational, it is faith. scientology is supposed to be rooted in the science that developed the atomic bomb (as they say on their website, they also claim he was a physicist and war hero). second of all, if their was an overpopulation problem, why send them to earth and bomb them? why not send them to the sun, why not burn them alive, why bother sending them to earth? overpopulation for the galaxy, that's going to be A LOT of organisms. a hydrogen bomb blast killing them off would have to be pretty ginormous, so where is the explosion remnants. oh i get it, it killed off the dinosaurs.

in an interview with matt lauer on the today show he went nuts on him about people using anti-depressants and any kind of drug. "By his account, Tom Cruise owes his cool head, defeat of dyslexia and, in a way, his unstoppable stardom to Scientology."

ok. a. cool head, jumping on a coach on oprah saying your in love with katie holmes is not a cool head.
b. there are two kinds of dyslexia he could have had or still have. primary dyslexia which is a dysfunction of the left side of the brain, which does not change with maturity and is genetic, and secondary dyslexia which is caused by hormone imbalance during fetal development that diminishes during maurity.
it is impossible for scientology to cure dyslexia, taking vitamins and breathing in and out and whatever the hell they do, does not cure gene related dysfunctions. they can be dealt with by alternative learning processes but you don't persay learn like everyone else does. If it was a hormonal imbalance, sorry tom, it wasn't scientology, you just got older.

either way, he is speaking of the impossible, it wasn't a miracle either, there are no miracles in science. the fact that 8 million people are scientologists is disturbing, the fact that their teachings are so secretive is disturbing. why would a religion not want to be public with it's beliefs, while touting it is the fastest growing religion in the world?

this all feels disturbingly similar to the doomsday Aum cult that was responsible for the sarin nerve gas attack in tokyo subway in 1995. how many normal japanese professionals and college students were sucked into that, paying for stupid things that their "guru" said would lead them to further enlightenment, such as a vial of his piss to drink. their uptight workaholic culture prompted that but it is no answer for how rational people gave in to the teachings and beliefs of someone who fabricated the entire thing for monetary gain. we're seeing it again, who are the scientologists and why are so many people believing what they have to say? i don't want to be a conspiracy theorist but i hope that this is a product of tom cruise and his hollywood associates being stupid and not some sort of masterminded plan where our mental faculties are weakened by something in the water.

i dedicate this journal to freeing katie holmes from the clutches of shorty mcshortsalot tom cruise.

new jersey

people from new jersey often complain about their situation in life. they complain that they are shunned as secondary citizens by their neighbors in new york city, they complain that they are unfairly stereotyped as less intelligent than their jcrew clad counterparts, and they complain that people don't give new jersey enough credit, that it isn't the stink hole that people who have never even been there attribute to it.

i never really liked new jersey that much, i don't have some blind hatred for it, my mother's entire side of the family resides around verona and bloomfield so i visit every now and then, but it's not paradise. for the next 3 months i have become a new jersey resident. i live in mercerville, new jersey. it's only been 6 days total, 3 days of working and i'm already starting to hate it. it's really only two things: the people and the scenery.

we'll start with the scenery. maybe it's because i'm unfortunately in mercerville. i think you can judge how civilized a place is by how many starbucks are around you. in new york city there is one just about every 2 blocks. ok maybe not 'civilized' but developed, even in jacksonville, fl there is a starbucks dotted around the place. my house in mercerville is very old, i live above a dentist's office and everything about it screams out old. the electrical outlets are two-pronged, which means i have to find adapter plugs for all my surge protectors, etc that have the additional grounding plug. there is high speed internet in the house but a. the office is locked from the rest of the house and i can't see how it's set up b. there is a wireless router but the guy living there says that the man who set it up forgot the network password? c. i can't get into the office and reset the wireless whachamahoozits.

in my desperate search for internet i have begun to rely on my cell phone for receiving instant messages. it's pretty pathetic and it gives me headaches as it does persay "chat" it text messages me an alert every time I have a response and i follow the hyperlink and i get to my message. yesterday i went crazy. i decided to search for the only civilization that i knew, starbucks. i knew starbucks would most likely have wireless internet, it is a haven, albeit a haven with bad coffee. i drove and drove and drove, at one point i almost ended up in philadelphia accidently and the other i ended up back around work in princeton. no starbucks. was i going crazy? tonight the search continues.

now the people in new jersey are terrible. i'm not sure what is their general attitude problem. i can understand new york, people in new york really just don't give a damn about you and mind their own business. in new jersey everyone wants to be up as close as they can be to you and tell you your business. they are just plain mean. i saw my dad's head about to explode as the realtor for potential studio in princeton gave him attitude. my dad grew up in small towns and has always lived in small town mentality, everyone is nice and no one gives you your business. i knew there was trouble when this realtor strode around with his sweater preppily tied around his shoulders as he sashayed towards spring st. "are you trying to blow your son's chances at getting this apartment?" oh god guy, you're dead, god have mercy on your soul, my dad is not the person to speak to like that.

the house i'm staying at has two parking spaces. after office hours, the family from ghana in the house moves their car to one of the spaces and the dentist has the other one until she pulls out for the day. i came home early yesterday and found both occupied. not knowing the area and it being my second day of driving in nj, i pulled into the street next to the house where the day before i saw a sign indicating it was fine to park on the side. as i turned into the street i noticed a car coming at me, i looked to the side and discovered it was a one way st. not a big deal really as it was a small street behind a grocery store. i did my best to pull to the far right of the easily 3 car width wide street and waved for them to go around me as i couldn't back up into traffic. the first car drove right at my grill and proceeded to give me the MOST angry looks and mouth of to me in his car. you'd think i killed his dog or something.

the next car was driven by a white haired old man. immediately as he saw me he decided to pull directly in front of me insteading of going around me as he had been on track to do. was it senility? no. the first guy did the same thing. only in jersey. when people do that in my town we just drive around them, hoping the driver becomes unlost.

on monday, i met tim and matt in princeton and we went out to watch a movie. it was about 10 pm and there were 2 other people in the theater. we were excited because we had driven all over the place to find this hidden AMC and had just run through the rain to get in (jersey's road system is the dumbest and most... whack thing i've ever seen in my entire life). for most of the movie they talked. this isn't the normal kind of 'loud black people yelling at the movie'or whispering to each other, as i was used to, this was fat white people that decided the theater was their living room and they could talk alongside with the dialogue.

only in jersey. somehow in the middle of their talking i snapped and told them to shut up. the girl turned and looked at us and said 'hey boooys'. she then proceeded to continue talking as her boyfriend shushed her. then he started talking with her again.

here's another anecdote. while i was shopping in wal-mart with my dad to get all the basic things i needed to move into my new home, a funny thing happened. i pushed my cart along the aisles as i searched for pillows. i left my cart parallel to one of the aisles as i searched, i went up to each pillow fluffing them out and seeing which would be the best for me. as i returned to my cart, i discovered someone had stolen one of my bath towels that i had put in my cart. i angrily got another one and checked out. it wasn't until the next day that i found out that someone had stolen the other bath towel too. what the fuck?

if i wasn't going to new york on the weekends i think i may go crazy. no offense to the wonderful people of jersey that i know at columbia, but i will never raise a family in jersey. i couldn't live with myself if i did.