By the way, have you heard about the Dallas remake first scheduled to start filming in October 2006 but to this day still looking for a new cast, new investors, new distributors and a new script?

Up to now, the only officially credited actor is John Travolta in the role of J.R. Ewing. I was thinking maybe the Scientolog church may consider investing in the movie. Considering how some of the members seem to have a tough time finding roles, how about this cast:

John Travolta - J.R. Ewing
Tom Cruise - Bobby Ewing
Katie Holmes - Pamela Barnes-Ewing (if she's not too young)
Jennifer Lopez - Sue Ellen (she was rumoured to play this role)
Kirstie Alley - Miss Ellie
Lisa Marie Presley - umm.. Donna Krebbs?

Barbera Bel Geddes was nine years older than Larry Hagman. Kirstie Alley is three years older than John Travolta, but otherwise at the exact same age as Bel Geddes was in 1978. With a bit of aging make-up, it could work.

Another possible role for Lisa Marie would be Jenna Wade, originally played by her mother Priscilla Presley. On the other hand, in a 2-3 hour movie, Bobby can't have two women simultaneously.. or maybe he can. Lisa Marie is four years younger than Tom Cruise, but a decade older than Katie.

Tom Cruise is already a prophet. Celebrities have replaced deities in everyday life and common parlance. Romans, Greeks and Indians all have/had their pantheon of Gods. Goddess of Beauty, God of War, whatever. We have Paris Hilton, and Donald Rumsfeld.

We just like to think we're smart, so we don't believe in "irrational" spiritual beings. Then everybody buys People magazine to find out what Tom Cruise said, as if his life was so much more interesting than ours.

Tom might not be an ideal in the sense of a monotheistic religion's Supreme Being, but he's at least as famous and quoted as Apollo or Brahma.

You may also consider checking out Discordianism in which it is said that "every single man, woman and child on this Earth is a pope". It reminds me of that Depeche Mode song, "Everyone is Jesus".

Well, jumping on a couch has to be better than the kneeling on cold stones from my childhood...

Actually, there have always been masses of prophets or holy leaders declared, and the vast majority of them have vanished pretty quickly, when the world didn't end the day they predicted or whatever. Just before people had the internet, there was a film about "the rapture" which was supposed to happen on October 17 of 1992 (If I recall correctly). Around that time, a very minor prophet called David Koresh, and a collection of people prepared to believe him, were destroyed in a firestorm. As far as I can tell both he and the FBI (who were ostensibly there to shut down his cult) effectively collaborated in maximising the death and destruction in Waco that day. There have been hundreds of others in my own lifetime.

A few have lasted longer. Sikhism appeared around 500 years ago, starting as a small cult and growing into a powerful religion that took over the Punjab and is still pretty strong today. Some prophet appeared in Vietnam in the 1920s and set up a sect that still exists despite heavy repression. Falun Gong is heavily repressed in China, yet apparently thriving and certainly famous.

Maybe what it really takes to create a prophet is someone else prepared to make a martyr of them, when there are a few people who are prepared to venerate the memory of such a martyr and have the talent to spread the idea.

Sometimes, of course, the ideas are pretty good. Christianity spread in part because it gave hope to the downtrodden masses of the time, becoming a religion "of women and slaves". Over time (a dozen and a half centuries or so) it even managed to be a powerful force for the abolition of slavery - and it has sometimes been used to support (and others to oppress) women's aspirations and situation. Similarly, Islam established various rights for women of the time and initially provided for a community that would stop trying to kill, rob or enslave each other. (Later, both religions were used as excuses to do exactly what they had prohibited - after all, they are interpreted for us by actual humans... :( )

Communism, raised almost to a religion by secular prophets including Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Che Guevara, and their latter-day successors such as Hugo Chavez and Danny Ortega (both popularly elected as heads of state in more or less free and fair elections), often tried to repress theistic religion in favour of a particular form of secular humanism. Again, the implementation didn't always match the specification, and the downsides were pretty tragic at times.

And in the aftermath of Communism in Europe we see that the churches they repressed actually grew stronger, while they decayed in the "free West". The secular prophets they repressed have either become tarnished and lost popularity, as was the case with Walesa and Havel, or followed the pattern of being corrupted by power that was described so elegantly in George Orwell's "Animal Farm" (some argue that this is the case with Vladimir Putin, for example), giving rise to a new generation of democrat martyrs...

Of course Tom Cruise is the chosen one ... for Scientologs that is! He is famous, rich, reasonably good looking (some people think, other may think he's a slime), has an equally famous and good looking wife. Further, he has become a very strong believer in his own religion and doesn't hesitate to be open about it, unlike other movie stars and artists who may not speak as freely about their commitment in the Scientology church. In short, they could not have found a better "spokesperson" that Tom. He only needs to finally convert Katie from Catholicism, unless she already haven't.

I suppose he does some long time investments apart from living a luxurius life and sponsoring his church. Many people appear to think twice before working with him or his movie company, and if no new jobs appear, even a very rich person at one point may run out of money. Perhaps it is then he will start doing wonders and prove his divine gifts?