The Joy of Sects?

Tonight I actually watched Today/Tonight, that paragon of quality journalism *cough cough* (Side note: A Current Affair had a nice fluff-piece about Scientology - interesting to note that James Packer is reportedly into Scientology.)

It was because the doco John Sweeney had done about Scientology, Scientology and Me, was on it in full, and I was somewhat curious to see it following the shouty Scientology YouTube thing that had been on the news the other evening. Especially to find out what context it was in.

Rather peculiar, the entire thing!

Although I'm a Christian and that's vastly different to being a Scientologist, I really don't see why the Scientologists had to be so defensive about their beliefs or when questions were asked about being a "cult." You'd think that if they were open and had a bit of a laugh about the "cult" stuff, they'd have come across a lot more sanely. Or even if they'd just used the interviews to dispel some of the myths(?) about the religion and speak openly.

When people get ultra-serious, thin-lipped and angrily defensive about any subject, you kind of wonder what it is they're feeling they need to hide. I know Scientology's been called a "dangerous cult" regularly in the past and they probably are on the defensive from the out-set because of that. However, I'm sure there are a lot of people who are genuinely interested in what the belief system is of Scientology and what they have to offer in terms of spiritual experience and would have been interested in seeing what Scientologists had to say.

The creepy thing about it all was all of the "stalking" of the journalist that went on. He was half-way through an interview with a guy and the Scientologist guy, Tommy Davis, turns up, brandishing papers and going on about how the man is a pervert and degenerate and can't be trusted. Why barge in on an interview with no real purpose other than to call someone a perv?

Add to that the same Scientology guy knocking on the door of the loo when Mr Sweeney and his team were trying to have a break from being filmed by Scientology cameramen and demanding to know what they were doing... Just deeply odd.

John Sweeney has written some thoughts post-doco that are interesting to read (Row over Scientology video). I also found this pretty interesting, in terms of the comments. There's lots of pro-Scientology stuff out there, too if you do some google or technorati hunting.

According to Sandy Smith, Panorama (and Sweeney's) boss, the church originally agreed to be involved, lined up celebrities to interview and then sent lawyers letters to request the removal of the interviews. To my mind, it would have been better to have people who are currently in the religious group and feel positive about it taking part.

I know things are edited in production and angles are taken, but the way stuff was handled by the Scientologists was really poor form. And then trying really hard to discredit the BBC doco - why?

Everyone has different attitudes about things in life, obviously, regardless of how much you try to control other's pereceptions of what you're like as a person/group/religious organisation/ business/etc. Creepy or out-right rude behaviour isn't going to endear you to many people.

I guess my thoughts about the whole thing is that Tommy Davis didn't do Scientology any favours - especially with the stalking and personal-space invading finger-pointing stuff - and it would have been interesting to hear what Scientology celebs have to say about what they believe.

That said, John Travolta's still pretty spunky.