"I Trust Science, not Miracles!" How L'oréal is Pushing Scientology to Promote its Latest Product

The movie starring Tom Cruise, Knight and Day is on television at the moment. I am sitting with my mother and father watching it whilst peeling an orange, being mindful to peel each white bit away until all I am left with is a crisp, round bright orange fruit. My night has been quite simple thus far, until the movie was halted to make way for the advertisements scheduled to come on and a lady advertising a new L'oréal hair dye appears on the television screen and says that she trusts "science, not miracles!"

My parents, having been born in Lebanon, are still not accustomed to the undertones in advertisements, thus they had not reacted the way I had, leading me to write this. What I heard in an advertisement that was meant to be about cosmetics was a stab at religions which follow God or Jesus or both or neither while glorifying the benefits of Scientology, a religion that of course Tom Cruise is an advocate of. In those allegedly innocent five words targeted towards a larger sale of a mere hair dye made by the already successful L'oréal, a meaning of larger proportions was released - was it coincidental that this advertisement was continuously played in each ad-break for a movie starring Tom Cruise? I think not. Why would a large French cosmetic company with a reputable name and an outstanding net income of over forty-four billion Australian dollars to this day pay for a mere slot at around midnight on Australian television when most potential buyers of this beauty product would be asleep when they could easily afford an advertising slot at a more successful hour? 

Upon looking for links between Scientology and France I only found that in 2012 France sued Scientology for fraud. The fact that a French product is possibly aiming to push for Scientology in the act of subliminal advertising messages is quite possible, because a lot can change in two years, and while France simply believes that Scientology is a cult and considering the French government has adopted a strong legislation against cults, I do not believe that there is not one person within the French government who believes in Scientology, or at least one person in the head of L'oréal. This advertisement is too casually subliminal to not have somebody behind its cunningness. 

This entire cunningness is worrying to me not only because my parents are not accustomed to English enough to think critically but those accustomed to English like my sister who cannot think critically and do not have a background in some general knowledge would, and did, completely ignore the message being sent out in that seemingly innocent beauty advertisement. The outward public demeaning of religions is unacceptable. There are twenty-one religions in the world today, demeaning all twenty-one of these would call for even more wars than we have had. Although the availability of religion may offend free thinkers and scientists, the proper way to approach the stating of one's beliefs is to do it in a blatantly obvious manner, so that one may decide for themselves whether they do or do not agree to what one is preaching. 

My parents, for instance, had no way of defending their opinions from the opinions of the cunning Scientologists behind this L'oréal advertisement. Everyone should indeed have a freedom of opinion, in the same way that I have opinions about why I partially follow Christianity, however I do not use my opinions to demean others. I also do not subtly state them - I either state them in discussions or do not state them at all. While Andie MacDowell, the lady in that L'oréal advertisement does not, according to my quick browsing within Google, appear to be a Scientologist, I am standing by my claim that she might be part of Scientology, otherwise she would have noticed that what she was saying in that advertisement is demeaning all religions except for Scientology. 

Reddit has seen my point, but has made the link from L'oréal to Atheism. I moreso see it linking to Scientology, especially considering the advertisement itself and Tom Cruise were on in the same timeframe. I could be overthinking some coincidence but the way I see it is that it is no coincidence at all. At a time where younger generations are being told to think more critically, Scientology has taken the leap to above and beyond the movie industry to try to convince firstly buyers of cosmetics to place no belief in any miracles. I am glad that that advertisement came on tonight and that I could it red-handed, per se, because after pointing out my interpretation to my parents and my sister I could see them thinking twice in their expressions. 

I think that in order to live harmoniously subliminal messages should cease to exist unless they are presented in satirical instances such as a comedy act wherein the receiver of the messages presented is aware that what they are being exposed to is a cunning opinion and that they also have the ability to withhold their own. 






References

Reddit post:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/13dpqh/loreal_gets_it/]

Number of religions:
[https://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1005120500015]

Scientology status by country:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_status_by_country]

Scientology news (article about France suing Scientology):
[http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/france/120202/france-labels-scientology-business-not-church]

L'oréal's net income:
[http://www.4-traders.com/LOREAL-4666/financials/]