I just caught the end of last night’s Panorama programme on BBC 1. When I saw John Sweeney’s head about to explode as he launched into Tommy Davis, a leader of Scientology. This was enough to get me hooked and I spent the night looking through the web to find information on this bizzare series of events.
I have to admit, that I don’t know much about scientology, other than the fact that Tom Cruise and John Travolta are believers. I also know it’s based on teachings by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. But that’s as far as my interest goes. Well it was until I witnessed the Panorama programme last night.
The show dipicated the Church of Scientology as some religious cult that dictated to it’s followers and was extremeley over protective of any criticisms of it’s church. I guess that can be said about a lot of religions. However, how many religious bodies will set private investigators on you, follow you where ever you go, and turn up in any corner you decide to visit?? Some of the scenes were ridiculous. At one stage John Sweeney and his camera man went into a toilet to get away from the constant interruptions from Tommy Davis. Just as they were explaining this in the documentary, you could hear a call from outside the toilet “What are you guys doing in there?”, yes, it was Tommy Davis again….. To make things worse they claim physicatry is a “nazi pseudo science” and have used the halocaust as an example of how it was used…..
There’s a good summary of the story on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwTDvfjcUJU&NR=1 - this is of course from John Sweeney’s perspective.
Now, I always believe there are two sides to any story and it’s too easy nowadays to edit footage to give a preferential bias to someones opinions in any documentary. So on that point - here is the Church of Scientology’s response to the whole debacle : http://www.bbcpanorama-exposed.org/watch-the-video-documentary.php. But seriously, are the leaders of the Church of Scientology extracting the urine? Mot of the footage includes “security camera” footage of John Sweeney and his team walking through public places. Whatever other reasons they have for claiming this documentary is biased, this is certainly not a normal situation for your typical religion.
Anyway, even if Scientology is a proper religion, it’s a religion I’d prefer to steer well clear of. In Ireland the church was in control for so long and we all know how great that was… don’t we?
thank God I’m an atheist!
What I found interesting was that the BBC Panorama Exposed came out few days before the actual BBC Panorama.
According to BBC John Sweeney edited the whole thing in the days before.
So what you see in the BBC Panorama Exposed from the church is how Sweeney had an angle, a story, about a religion you couldn’t get into and ask questions.
Then came the story on how the church had actually been more than available all the time - and probably more available and present than BBC had planned.
So, the real Panorama history became the one about how Sweeney had been followed.
John Sweeney for his part claimed he had done 6 months research for his documentary. In reality his research was of no use and he had to do a story on what was left.
Anyway, five years ago BBC had gone with their original story, which I believe would have been very an unpleasant story about how you can’t get to speak with anybody in Scientology. And no one would ever have heard or seen the other side. The internet changes the ballgame.