Monday, April 05, 2004
Bokononism: The Smart Man's Scientology
I'm reading Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" right now because my son needs to do a Vonnegut report for his Junior project. We're both reading it. I tried a Vonnegut book a long time ago and didn't like it, but Cat's Cradle has really kept my interest. Vonnegut creates a religion in the boook called Bokononism. As far as I know, Vonnegut's religion has never taken off.
I sent all three of my older kids through public school. I believed at the time it was the right thing to do. If good, strong, religious families start removing their kids from public school, then the rest will not be exposed to good, strong, religious ideas. But my young five year old is enrolled in a Catholic school and that's where we'll be keeping her. The public schools have just become too dangerous, mean spirited, and general awful places -- especially for girls. I can't deduct my daughter's tuition, but there is a religion that can deduct the religious ed of their children from their taxes: Scientology.
So L. Ron Hubbard creates a religion based on his own freakish science fiction and the IRS allows people like John Travolta and Tom Cruise and others like them to deduct the "cleansing/training" of their kids, but we Catholics get no such deduction. Kurt Vonnegut would have made a lot more money if he would have given up writing and gone with his fake religion. Hubbard did.
Why is it that when people like Travolta or Cruise talk about their religion the whole country doesn't just laugh in their faces? They believe an alien in some volcano in the Pacific leaves stick-em spirits on people like 3M notes that have to be cleaned off. They believe wierd, cultish things... and people respect them? Where is the respect for Christianity? Remember when Bush said Jesus was his favorite philosopher? Where was his respect?
I sent all three of my older kids through public school. I believed at the time it was the right thing to do. If good, strong, religious families start removing their kids from public school, then the rest will not be exposed to good, strong, religious ideas. But my young five year old is enrolled in a Catholic school and that's where we'll be keeping her. The public schools have just become too dangerous, mean spirited, and general awful places -- especially for girls. I can't deduct my daughter's tuition, but there is a religion that can deduct the religious ed of their children from their taxes: Scientology.
So L. Ron Hubbard creates a religion based on his own freakish science fiction and the IRS allows people like John Travolta and Tom Cruise and others like them to deduct the "cleansing/training" of their kids, but we Catholics get no such deduction. Kurt Vonnegut would have made a lot more money if he would have given up writing and gone with his fake religion. Hubbard did.
Why is it that when people like Travolta or Cruise talk about their religion the whole country doesn't just laugh in their faces? They believe an alien in some volcano in the Pacific leaves stick-em spirits on people like 3M notes that have to be cleaned off. They believe wierd, cultish things... and people respect them? Where is the respect for Christianity? Remember when Bush said Jesus was his favorite philosopher? Where was his respect?
