I picked a bad week to give up crackpot religions

Scientology got a good "kicking" this week, first there was the announcement that the French authorities consider it to be a fraudulent organisation (no s**t Sherlock!) as they handed out a 600,000 euro fine and a 2 year suspended sentence to its leader. France have a pretty rational approach to organisations like this, they refuse to acknowledge that Scientology is a religion at all, preferring to call it a commercial "sect", which of course is exactly what it is.

Following up on the heals of this blow Scientology in the USA received a slap down from one of it's high profile Hollywood members who left because of accusations of homophobia and persecution. Oscar winning director Paul Haggis published a detailed statement outlining his reasons for quitting the cult, which included "gay bashing" and the harassment of his wife who was instructed to "disconnect" from her own parents because they offended the cult 25 years ago.

Mainstream religion has some pretty odd medieval beliefs, the previous story about the homophobic granny is an example of that but Scientology takes the biscuit, combining wacky beliefs with a foundation in pseudo-science, it's even got aliens.

Some people clearly have more money than sense.