Committed cult member Jenna Elfman sure knows how to parrot Scientology’s “poor us” talking points. She said she ignores criticism of her religion because people who haven’t bothered to pay and get harassed in order to study it aren’t capable of telling her it’s a scam and a fraud. She also compares criticism of Scientology to the Roman’s persecution of Christianity.

“If someone starts talking to me negatively about something they’ve never actually studied that actual text of, I don’t really admire them very much because it shows they don’t have much integrity, so I just kind of ignore them,” Elfman told AAP in Sydney.

“I’m not going to listen to gossip and hearsay about something that’s affected my life so tremendously in such a tremendously positive way.”

Founded by American science-fiction author L Ron Hubbard in the 1950s, Scientology has received much criticism and been the butt of many jokes for its stance against modern psychiatry and belief in alien cosmologies.

Elfman compared its treatment to the way other religions had been persecuted through the ages.

“It’s a new religion. Historically every new religion has been [dismissed],” she said.

“People were hanged, fed to the lions for their beliefs so this is just a modern day evolution of what happens when something new comes into our culture.

“It is not fully understood yet.”

[From ABC.Net.au via Fark]

And in a line that mimic’s Tom Cruise’s famous rant about how Scientologists are the authorities on everything and how they’re the only ones who can help in an emergency, she went on to basically call it a cure all:

“I’ve seen drug addicts completely rehabilitated, I’ve seen the illiterate become literate, I’ve seen people that were so depressed and hopeless completely rehabilitate their goals in life, become happier, find partners,” she said.

“It’s beautiful.”

[From ABC.Net.au]

Jenna’s partner Bodhi Elfman is the guy who introduced brave ex Scientologist Jason Beghe to Scientology. Actor Beghe recorded a series of interviews earlier this year in which he detailed the way he was deceived, brainwashed and robbed by the cult. He described how you’re told that you can achieve a state of clear, in which Scientologists claim you’ll never get sick and “no longer have a reactive mind.” Beghe said that all the courses, auditing, and programs he took through Scientology damaged him psychologically and cost him over a million dollars and years of his life.

I wonder if Jenna Elfman would accept criticism of her beloved religion from Beghe, who achieved a high status in the cult, has personal experience with it, and was even friends with her husband. It’s not gossip or hearsay coming from him. Beghe lived through it and is lucky to have survived without “committing suicide” with some exhaust pipes stuck in his bedroom window.

Our friends at Deceiver remind us that Elfman called AIDS “a state of mind, not a disease.”

Jenna Elfman is shown in Australia with her husband on 10/29/08. Credit: Bauergriffinonline