And my heart goes out to her for disentangling herself and her daughter from Scientology and its nightmare-sounding Sea Organization.
Katie apparently didn't believe she was worth freeing herself from Scientology, but she knew her daughter was.
It's a start.
When you hear what Scientologists believe in, it's so fantastic most rational people recognize it as ridiculous.
Selling a new religion is based on the same principles, really, as writing a soap opera.
In a soap opera, the absurdity is presented slowly and in dialogue that you buy into. But if you had to explain it to someone - Erica Kane was married 10 times with lots of cheating going on in between (a Tibetan monk among her many paramours), was in a car accident that nearly disfigured her permanently, spent time in jail for insider trading, was blackmailed, had a miscarriage, got her feelings tested by a lover who faked his death, was rescued from Latin American terrorist kidnappers who tried to sexually assault her, attempted to break another lover out of prison with a rooftop helicopter scheme - the absurdity becomes evident.
But, millions tuned in. When you're engrossed in it, the absurdity is plausible because you're getting it a little at a time. And anyway, it's fun to watch so you don't care how implausible it all is.
In fact, almost as if he were openly laughing at the people who bought into his religion, L. Ron Hubbard called his creation story of aliens and extraterrestrial dictators a "space opera."
Scientologists all started out as rational people.
When someone wants you to believe a fantastic lie, they feed it to you slowly, one crazy thing at a time. And they seem perfectly reasonable. Successful even.
And, the craziness is mixed in with good stuff. Like drug rehab programs and reasonable ways to live a happier life.
So, you're willing to suspend disbelief for the good parts and the next thing you know, you're buying that God is a man named Xemu who 75 million years ago brought people to earth on a spacecraft (thank you, Wikipedia).
How much more fantastic is it, really, than Jesus walking on water? Turning one fish into many? Moses hearing God through a bush? Parting the Red Sea? A monkey god with five faces?
Not very.
They're all stories meant to make sense of what we all want answers to.
What's the point of all the trials and tribulations of my life? The suffering has to be for something, right?
That is the question - what is the point?
When I was in grade school I asked one of the nuns what happened if you didn't believe Jesus' body resurrected from the dead.
It wasn't the kind of questioning that was encouraged in Catholic school. But I needed to know.
It wasn't that I didn't want to believe it. I did. It's just the anarchist loose in my head kept not believing it. And they made it seem like if you didn't just buy it, very bad things would eventually happen to you, like after you were dead and they (conveniently, no?) weren't around to explain anything away any more.
The nun said you believe if you have faith and either you're born with faith or not. It's a gift.
One not bestowed on me, apparently.
People get very pissed off when you don't have faith. Like you're a lesser being. You didn't get the 3D glasses and can't see what everyone's reacting to. Being a "doubting Thomas" is a nasty insult. This refusal to consider alternate possibilities and to vilify people who do stifles creative thinking.
But here's the thing. I don't believe people who have faith, have faith. They doubt too but they're afraid that if they say their doubts out loud, God will write it down and remember when it comes time to decide the nature of their eternity, and just in case it is all true, better safe than forever sorry.
Religion is large-scale, fear-based bullying disguised as a feel-good philosophy.
But, whatever rocks your boat.
I think, like Milton says in Paradise Lost, the mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
Heaven is when you give and receive love. Hell is when you don't.
So I'm not afraid.
The "Controversies" section in Wikipedia's entry on Scientology says, "Reports and allegations have been made, by journalists, courts, and governmental bodies of several countries, that the Church of Scientology is an unscrupulous commercial enterprise that harasses its critics and brutally exploits its members." (Roman Catholic Church, anyone?)
So, if I don't buy any of it, why do I capitalize God?
I don't know.
I believe in something.
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