I came across some news on MSNBC.MSN.com today. It’s about this new and exciting religion called Scientology. I’ve heard of it a few times before, only ever being associated with Tom Cruise. I suppose he’s the spokesman for the religion. Anyways, here’s the article:

Scarlett Johansson escapes Cruise's clutches 'MI:3' star reportedly wanted the starlet to embrace Scientology

Did Tom Cruise try to recruit Scarlett Johansson to Scientology?

The “Lost in Translation” star was expected to co-star with Cruise in “Mission: Impossible III” but was dropped because of “scheduling conflicts.” But it seems that there may have been other conflicts as well. Cruise invited Johansson to a Scientology center where he showed her literature about joining his controversial church, according to a report. “After two hours of proselytizing,” according to RadarMagazine.com, “Cruise opened a door to reveal a second room full of upper-level Scientologists who had been waiting to dine with the pair, at which point the cool-headed ingénue politely excused herself.”

The Scoop called Johansson’s mother/manager for comment and she declined, referring us to Johansson’s publicist, who didn’t return calls or emails. Cruise’s rep didn’t respond to requests for comment, but Rick Ross of CultNews.com told the Scoop: “Is this Tom Cruise’s version of a first date? It’s becoming increasingly difficult to make distinctions between his personal, professional and religious life. Tom Cruise and Scientology seem intent on recruiting a hot young star. Apparently, Scarlett Johansson flunked her test, but Katie Holmes passed.”
By Jeannette Walls
Link To Article

Giving the benefit of the doubt to Scientology and all Scientologists, (if that's what they're called) I checked out the website Scientology.com. I swear this thing is a book fair for L. Ron Hubbard. I clicked on the link What is Scientology? to see what this thing is all about. Here's what I got:

What is Scientology? The aims of Scientology are a world without insanity, without criminals, without war, where the able can prosper and where Man is free to rise to greater heights.

And if you were to ask any Scientologist they would tell you it is a practical religion, with practical answers — tools that can be applied to achieve greater awareness and purpose in the here and now.

Or, as we say it, when you have the answers to life’s questions — there is virtually no part of existence it cannot be applied to for the betterment of life itself.

What people need are real solutions, real tools to deal with and effectively overcome human problems.

Every one of us has experienced it.

Think back yourself and you’ll remember when you tried to help a grieving loved one, a struggling child, a friend overcome by addiction.

And where you have failed, it’s only because you lacked effective answers to accomplish what you desired.

Now, I know this isn’t supposed to explain their whole religion. I know that. But come on, that’s no real answer. If anything that’s skirting around a serious question that needs to be answered up front. So far, it’s my belief that Scientology is crap. Plain and simple. Crap. I’ve always thought that most other religions couldn’t give you real answers, but this just tops them off.
Just a few years after I really come to appreciate Tom Cruise as an actor, I’ve now come to think he is just a few french fries short of a happy meal (for lack of a better phrase). Hope War of the Worlds is good. I don’t want him to go off the deep end completely.

I’m sure I’ll read up a little more on Scientology before I write it off altogether, but it doesn’t look too promising at the moment.

In other news, I made my second new website theme this week. It’s just a random idea I came up with based off of the Yahoo website. So check it out if it’s not already loaded into your browser.

I guess that’s it for now. I think this is the longest post I’ve made since I downloaded Wordpress. Of course, if I took out all of the quotes, then it’d be shorter than some of the other posts.