Having something in Common

Whilst watching wife swap and its interesting ability to pitch people together with totally different social extremities noticed the bit with the inevitable boozy party. Posh family against working class "mum" and vice-versa. Once everyone has had a couple of shandies, everyone seems to make a complete twat of them selves on the same level. This also extends to weddings, funerals, birthday's etc. Does booze bring people together onto same level? Seems like it.

Harry Enfield.

What's happened to that genius of a comic. I found this YouTube clip for your amusement.

Scientology....makes yer skin crawl

I've spoken about Scientology previously. This cult, erm religion has caused a lot of controversy.

Whilst basking in the warm of the first proper summers day in good old blighty I mentioned noted that a friend of mine had jokingly inputted Scientology as his religion of choice. More orignal than putting down Satanism. I mean that is sooooo old religion/cult. So we discussed the strangeness of the whole idea behind Scientology let alone the theory about how humans were created from bits of alien flesh fused together by an exploding volcano.

So this morning's hangover cure was a dose of the Panorama programme about Scientology. A friend had recommended that I watch it. After close to thirty minutes of watching the creepy man in black harrassing the poor BBC reporter, I too felt like I was being watched.

Scientology adopt a fair game policy which means tha anyone who actively speaks out against the cult, erm religion will be subjected to intrusive harrassment and targeted for defamation of character or worse public humiliation. Good enough reason not to piss them off I suppose. As I watched more of this it occurred to me that if they are left alone then they pretty much keep themselves to themselves. Am I being a little sympathetic? No, not at all. Give them an inch and they will quite possibly take a mile.

As you know I am not an advocate of religion as I find the whole idea of it segregates people rather than integrates them. Whether Scientology is a religion or a cult, it still amounts to the same thing. Like any young religion, it feels threatened and encourages paranoia within. They film ever encounter with non believers who supposedly give them a hard time. Laughable really. But then you think about the Crusades. What was that all about but to protect the Christian faith. Hindu's and Muslims have fought each other for centuries. Religions mature eventually into peaceful ways of life. There will always be a few nutters who claim to be the protectors of the faith through violence and intimidation. But those are few. Scientology in its infancy just has a lot of them at the moment. Of course I don't blame them for being paranoid. But I do think that they just do not do themselves any favours whatsoever in their agression and verbally threatening manner. What is more useful for them, to coin a phrase from some other loony religion is "to turn the other cheek". It works for a few million of them.

After watching the programme and a couple of other more amateurish anti-Scientology clips, the phone rang. Expecting it to be my parents I was greated by a bloke with a dodgy northern accent. He was calling from Consumer Awareness or something like that. The cynic in me said sales person. It was at the point when he asked for the value of the property that I got a little paranoid. Have those creepy men and women from Scientology tracked me down already? When can I expect posters of me and details of my misdemeanours be put up in shop windows?

Scientology doesn't like being referred to as a cult; its more like a religion. But I'm afraid that it has already reached cult status. Much like Mulder and Scully.

Have you noticed the Scientology symbol? Why on earth is it similar to the Christian symbol of Jesus's crucifiction cross? Not very original is it. Especially for a cult, erm religion that claims to originate from outer space. Where are the UFO's and laser beams?

One last thing. When will they start doing door to door rounds? I don't see my regular Jehovah's gang these days? Where have they gone? What have they done with them? Creepy.....