Germany has been hot under the collar ever since Tom Cruise arrived to impersonate Claus von Stauffenberg and to make a film about the July Plot to kill Hitler. What upset Germans was not Cruise's acting skills (or lack thereof) but rather his membership in the Church of Scientology. This so offends official Germany that Cruise was initially denied a working visa to make the film. Scientology is illegal in Germany on the grounds that The State has determined it is not a valid religion but rather a "conspiracy" to dupe people and part them from their money. Cruise has been compared to the Evil Doktor Goebbels himself and when a newspaper editor dared to speak up on behalf of the movie itself official Germany went into paroxysms of indignation.
Dear Der Spiegel:
It never ceases to amaze me how little Europeans truly understand freedom of religion and speech. Mr. Cruise's religious beliefs are his right and his affair. God gave every dog the right to howl, and no less to man. If you don't like his religion, don't believe it. Es ist einfach.
That it may be used to "dupe" people is (yawn) beside the point. Karl Marx's criticism that religion was the "opiate" of the masses was not directed at Scientology but at the established Protestant Churches of Germany in the first instance. After all.....the nature of an opiate is to dupe. And last I looked, the Protestant Churches of Germany were collecting tax monies from people who might not believe a damn bit of their creed.
Lastly, to compare Cruise to Goebbels is hysterical nonsense. But then again, God gave every hyena the right to shriek.
Chip
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