Blog
SCIENTOLOGY RELIGION
I never heard about Scientology when I was in high school. Most likely because news didn’t travel so fast back when I was a teenager. I didn’t have a cell phone or a personal computer with which I could freely jump onto the communication lines of the world and pull information from whatever sources were out there. I was more of an outdoorsy kind of guy and didn’t watch a whole lot of TV, but I definitely listened to the radio.
TOLERANCE
What hatred and intolerance look like: The charred remains of 4-year old Melissa Morrison, recovered from the ashes of the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas, after the inferno of April 19, 1993 ended the FBI’s 51-day siege.
TOLERANCE
If you complain long and loud to a Scientologist about your spouse, your boss, your church or your kids, the Scientologist may ask you an interesting question: “Have you done something they almost found out about?”
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
Turns out they were attending a meeting of Baptist pastors at the hotel. Once we straightened out our respective denominational preferences, we quickly realized we had something in common. Both of us had observed that religion in general—whether Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Scientology or other—was under attack by secular forces.
TOLERANCE
I’ve driven urban professionals, reformed criminals, burlesque dancers, angel investors, families with groceries, people with baggage. Some are in a hurry to get the hell out of wherever I picked them up from.
TOLERANCE
Laugh if you want, but he seriously felt like a friend. He came in the door singing. He changed his sweater and his shoes. He fed the fish. He dog-sat for a neighbor, got mail delivered, and showed me all around his neighborhood. He invited me to join him, via his trolley, in a land of make-believe.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
It was one of those moments in which every single second seems to last a painful eternity.
SCIENTOLOGY RELIGION
You are talking to a percentage of the population that would hate YOU if you caught their attention enough.
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
Well, is religion that dangerous or irrelevant? Should we consider being evangelical about the gospel of Nothingness? Shall we take John Lennon at his word and “imagine” no religion, no heaven above, “living only for today?”
MEDIA & ETHICS
It got me thinking: who actually works at tabloids like that? What are their story pitch meetings like? Do they know that what they’re doing is hurtful and destructive? They must, right? Do they just laugh it all off or make justifications to convince themselves they’re still good people, and that it’s “just for entertainment”?
