If you haven’t seen this on gawker or youtube yet then you’re in for a treat. Now, I’m all for expressing unpopular beliefs (popularity is overrated) if you can provide a rational argument for them but if you fervently (WRIT LARGE) believe in something to the point of wild-eyed and frothing enthusiasm then an honest person has to share that with the world at large. Especially so if you view that you’re the “only person who can help” when you see an accident or that your religion is the “way to happiness”. More problematic is the anti-psychotherapist propaganda and the IPR protection of much of the Scientologist belief system. All “religions” seem to think they’re the way to happiness anyway. I guess what I object to about this is that people can have all the unsubstantiated beliefs they want but, at the minimum, theit tenets should be publicly available (not for cash) and publicly expressed, So, with the presumption that Mr Cruise is “extremely serious” he should be giving public interviews about all his beliefs. Even if his career nose-dived it’s not like he needs the money. He’s rightly afraid of ridicule as the Brooke Shields incident proved. Mother’s are movie-goers too! Still, if he’s so serious… ?
I guess I’m a religious committment-phobe. I’m comfortably agnostic but determine the existence of an unknown creator is low in probability based on our current knowledge of the universe. Still, I can’t know so I can’t even fully commit to agnosticism or atheism. Maybe it’s labels. I don’t want my psyche to be branded (or trademarked). I’m not sure I could commit to any religion that wanted me as a member, only kidding :S Gee that sounded smug, maybe I should make an informercial 😀
I reject the idea of “supernatural”, I just believe we can’t explain some things yet but we should be careful about forming belief systems about things we don’t understand. This applies to science aswell. As our knowledge of the physical world expands we better appreciate how neat formulaic beliefs don’t always hold (e.g. at the sub-atomic scale) and we appreciate that our beliefs are essentially heuristics which have a utility and should be measured as such. Bit cold, bit dry but there ya go 🙂 Still, a lot of rules and regulation in the major religions of the world have practical social value. Don’t eat meat that’s rotten, don’t fight your neighbour, don’t steal, kill etc.
It’s important to consider their context rather than blindly dismissing everything. Marx claimed that religion was the opium of the people. So, he replaced it with a new drug, just as powerful and stupefying.
I guess most people would chose certainty over ambiguity, destiny over happenstance and heaven over oblivion.