Mel Gibson - At Least He's Not a Scientologist

This whole Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes business has, if nothing else, left me with a far greater appreciation of Mel Gibson. I mean, he might be an anti-semite, a misogynist, allegedly violent to women and a racist, not to mention a drunk, but Hell, at least he's not a Scientologist. OK, he has his own crazy religion, which seems to be based on some extremist version of Catholicism, but it isn't Scientology. Indeed, in this respect, I think Mel deserves our praise - he's not lazy like other showbiz loonies, who just jump on someone else's mad religion bandwagon. Oh no, Mel has the balls to devise his own craziness. In this respect is probably only rivalled by Charlie Sheen. Oh, and I also have to defend Mel with regard to a recent controversy: screenwriter Joe Ezterhaus has claimed that Mel's rejection of one of his scripts is down to anti-semitism. Clearly, anyone familiar with the work of Ezterhaus, the 'fucking genius' screenwriter, (as the late Bill Hicks once disparagingly described him), who gave us such classics as Basic Instinct, (to be fair, that probably is his best work), and Burn, Hollywood, Burn, would have to conclude that Gibbo, (if that isn't Mel's nickname, it should be), rejected his script because it was shit.

I'm afraid I've never understood the allure of Scientology. Celebrity Scientologists like Tom Cruise and John Travolta seem like pretty nice, intelligent people (by movie star standards, at least), so I've never understood how they got mixed up with this craziness. Do they really believe it all? Is it a career enhancing thing? Or is it just sheer craziness? Then again, all religions seem crazy to me. That said, at least things like Christianity and Buddhism, for instance, seem to be based on basically benign philosophies - the actual organised religions promoting them might not always be benign, of course - but in the case of Scientology, its basis seems to be a science fiction story L Ron Hubbard wasn't able to sell to Astounding Science Fiction magazine back in 1948. But that's part of the problem - Scientology was founded within living memory, so we know it isn't based on the teachings of the Messiah, or the word of God as transmitted via several stone tablets. Let's face it, as far as unbelievers like me are concerned, all religions are based upon stories made up by mortal men, the difference between them and Scientology is that their origins lie so far in the past that this truth is now obscured by the passage of time.