Presenting a cuter Adam Gadahn
Tuesday January 15, 2008
Categories: Religion (general)
This is the scariest YouTube video you will have seen in ages. Trust me on this. See it while you can. Stone-cold zombified religious fanaticism can be handsome, but it sure isn't pretty....
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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He really is a scary guy, but I feel sorry for anyone who is in the sway of a cult.
He's not scary at all. If that tape gets widely circulated, his career is over. The man has been told by sychophants and lackeys for over 2 decades he craps crushed fruit and he has started to believe it. As the 1st Gawker comment notes, he is bat-fecal-matter crazy. Yes, Tom, push the EMTs, cops and firemen away, to heck with the jaws of life and CPR;hook up accident victims to a Mind Head auditor instead.
I'm just *waiting* for someone to say Scientology is no crazier than Christianity...
...3...2...1...
...of course, now I've gone and taken all the fun out of it. ;)
The thing that strikes me the most are the similarities between his monologue style and Michael Scott's.
Thanks for the pre-emption, Erin. I was dreading that line of posts (although I suspect it's coming anyway).
Do you think it's the Mission Impossible background music that makes it creepier or what?
"We got more work.We need more help. Man Get those spectators in the playing field or out of the arena.y'know?" Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
Or maybe It's all that disassociated laughter?
And here I thought religious devotion was seen as a virtue on this blog!
So where are the paparazzi accounts of the accidents Cruise has stopped at and helped? Does he wipe everyone's memories, after he's put out fires, sealed punctured lungs, and popped all the dents?
Maybe he just "clears" people in passing.
Well, for Erin and Irenaeus' sake, I'll jump in. But not that Scientology is no crazier than Christianity. Simply that Tom's ideas about it aren't much different from those of any fundamentalist. He believes that his is the one true religion. That only it can save the world. That he is absolutely right, and that people who disagree are certainly wrong. That he must devote himself to it wholeheartedly. That people who lack true commitment (those "lukewarm" believers) need to commit or get out. And he radiates that aura of certainty (helped no doubt by some star power lacking in the average street evangelist).
His religion might be crazier, but his behavior is dead on. And I doubt that he literally meant that only he, and not paramedics or rescue crews, could help. More than only his religious ideas could deal with the fundamental problems underlying disaster and misery. Not much different than a Catholic priest believing he should push past the paramedics to administer Last Rites.
So sorry Rod, not getting worked up. Frankly, he doesn't sound all that different from many religious people of all faiths.
Whoo doggies. . . . That was fascinating. I didn't see it as the "stone cold zombified fanaticism" Rod described, though. What I saw was a man who was very uncomfortable with what he was saying, much of the time. He was trying to talk himself into it, but something inside him knows it ain't right.
Some of the things that gave me this impression: look at how Cruise alternates between a forced, unblinking stare and glancing away from the camera, eyes lowered almost to the point of being shut. Look how often he nervously places a hand over his mouth or touches his face. Look at the forced quality of his laugh, and how he pulls his head back away from the camera when he laughs. That's not a happy, spontaneous man. Look how he garbles sentences and breaks off to repeat stock phrases.
I think of myself as pretty good at sensing when I'm being lied to--though I've never been tested, so I can't be sure. Check out the work of Paul Ekman and Mark Frank, who have studied human facial muscles in such detail that they can train people to detect sincerity, or the lack of it.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D00EED8113EF936A3575BC0A9659C8B63
http://www.buffalo.edu/news/fast-execute.cgi/article-page.html?article=79300009
Too bad all voters can't study up on this before the election. It might put politicians out of business--not to mention corporate shills and a good many preachers.
I'll name no names, but yes, I have seen identical speech patterns and affect in many proponents of more respectable ideologies. The difference between Tom Cruise and them is that he's so much more fun to look at while he's lying to me. ; )
Too bad all voters can't study up on this before the election. It might put politicians out of business--not to mention corporate shills and a good many preachers.
That video reminded me of nothing so much as some cut-rate motivational speaker trying to give a pep-talk to an under-performing sales department. Which is a kind of insanity in itself, I guess, but yeah, all the cliched analogies about "getting on the playing field or getting out of the stadium," "lead or get out of the way," "are you in or are you out..." Bizarre.
Roger Friedman at foxnews.com: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,322854,00.html
Oh, that was the funniest thing I've seen today!
If you haven't clicked through the link to watch the video, do so.
His movement and speech patterns reminded me of someone who was stoned off his butt, pardon the expression. Half formed sentences followed by long pauses, all with a very "Dude, I'm being totally serious here, wait, what was I saying?" vibe.
I expect to see this parodied to death within a week.
I think I'm with Lord Xenu on this one.
**We are the authorities on the mind**
Given my medical condition, one can imagine I consider Tom Cruise to be the Antichrist. The Devil Incarnate. Hitler. Stalin. Bin Laden.
(Maybe combined.)
As Jonathan Coulton sings in his song "Tom Cruise Crazy": http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songdetails/Tom%20Cruise%20Crazy
"Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise crazy
Just be glad it’s him not you
If you had Tom Cruise’s troubles
You might be Tom Cruise crazy too "
I was exposed to Scientology as a child (nearly got put in one of their special schools), so this stuff freaks me out. But I think their use of Cruise as a public face actually hurts their cause.
Here's an idea, Sigaliris. In an interview about Scientology I heard a few months (or maybe a year) back, someone suggested that the Church has a lot of dirt on its famous members. Perhaps Cruise is being blackmailed by a church he no longer believes in...muahhahaha...
What did that poor man SAY? I've never heard so many used words to express nothing. Perhaps he thinks he is so enlightened that mere words can't possibly express his thoughts. Indeed, pride goeth before destruction.
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