Suppressive Persons

The Church of Scientology is justifying its tax-exempt status by upholding the fine religious tradition of moral indignation at films which have not yet been seen. In this case, the film is Until Nothing Remains, a German television drama about a young married couple who join the cult but are torn apart when the husband decides to leave. The Hubbardites believe that this shows them in an unwarrantedly totalitarian light, and are displaying their fervent belief in intellectual freedom by investigating legal means to suppress the film. They are also planning to make a film of their own to spread their side of the story, which we can only hope will be as good as Battlefield Earth. The makers of Until Nothing Remains claim that it is based on the real case of a man who apostasised from Scientology and whose family subsequently broke up; a spokesbeing for Scientology said: "The truth is precisely the opposite of that which the ARD is showing", which presumably means either that the man did not apostasise and his family did not break up, or that the break-up happened before the apostasy.

Meanwhile, the programme director of the broadcasting network has said that Scientology is not a religion, but "an organisation that has completely different motives", such as "power, business and building up a network"; which makes one wonder how ARD's programme director would define Vatican Incorporated or some of the more well-greased televangelists. Also, Scientology is "no religion, no church, no sect" because its "lessons are pure science fiction", unlike the lessons of real religions which tend to fall into the genres of high fantasy and body horror.