AUTHOR
Michael Scandling
Fine-art photographer, writer, counselor-at-large, chef, dog lover, nature lover. Not particularly reverent.
TOLERANCE
We would have dinner and spend the rest of the night talking till the wee hours about religion—he from his perspective and me from mine as a Scientologist—starting with comparisons of morals and over a few evenings getting deeply into our spiritual nature.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
Back in the 80s and 90s, people who used Macintosh computers—myself included—were considered odd, as were the computers themselves. Mac users were considered a cult. As a result, Mac sales were dismal. To boost sales in 1997, Steve Jobs launched an ad campaign called “Think Different.”
MEDIA & ETHICS
As a sad testimony to the bloodthirstiness of a portion of America’s viewing public, Remini’s show had a few people watching for a while. But the viewers had a short attention span for eavesdropping on an obsessed actress piously peddling her pet peeves and have moved on. The ratings have tanked.
TOLERANCE
What are these people so afraid of? That Jehovah’s Witnesses are personally attacking them by handing them copies of The Watchtower? That a man in a turban is going to change the fabric of the City Council? That Mormons will make them look bad by being too moral? That a Muslim real estate agent is a terrorist? That a Scientologist might poison their minds with The Way to Happiness? The list could go on.
MEDIA & ETHICS
In early 1898, William Randolph Hearst needed more readership for his newspaper, the New York Morning Journal . He figured a war would do the trick. The paper had been covering the Cuban Revolution since 1895, as had the Journal’s chief rival, Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World .
SCIENTOLOGY RELIGION
Ron was discussing methods of determining sanity. He described sanity in a number of ways but the simplest was noting the individual’s ability to compute—think—accurately. The word that got me was “accurately.”
TOLERANCE
Real, careful discrimination takes accurate observation, knowledge of the subject at hand, and fine judgment. That takes some thinking—and it takes some work.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
The prophets wanted their followers to believe in God and follow His Word. It’s true that some adherents to these religions do better than others in following their scriptures; they range from virtuous to considerably-less-than-perfect, but the vast majority fall short of putting a scarlet mark on their creed.
TOLERANCE
One day when I was a kid, my mom brought an apple pie home from the bakery. This was a rare occurrence in our sugar-rationed household and therefore a very big deal to me. I, personally, had an open-door policy on sugar.
TOLERANCE
We were either going to see a magnificent astronomical event or—more likely—we were going to end up as bloody roadkill on the side of High Valley Road before we even had a chance to see the eclipse.
