OK, I was really surprised at the thoughtfulness of this thread, kind of expected a pile on.
My thoughts:
1. Who cares? If he is working to make things right from his past, if working on becoming a solid member of society, build a family, if he is ... like so many ... working on a continual process of improvement and recovery, who cares?
2. Mirroring some of the comments above, what is a Scientologist? Three generations of my family were scientologists, almost a combined century of active involvement. I was born in. my children were born in. I can't say all of it was bad, but I can say that the sum of the benefit compared to the cost in everything from lost life, family relationships, time and money are far more extreme and destructive than any benefit. People born in like me, Rinder, etc ... how do we know where Scientology teachings or culture start and stop ... what is us ... our native personality and skill and what is the "teachings" and what is environmental conditioning?
3. I don't know any person out and decompressing or recovering that hasn't massively changed their perspectives, those few who try and hold on to the old ones seem to be struggling most in life. Public evolution like Marty and Mike have to be the most difficult because even though they may change and evolve, they are held to things they said in the past.
4. Mike is a personal friend, we last met a few weeks ago in the middle of Texas at some road side restaurant in some small town for dinner. We were driving opposite directions on different highways, and on a whim decided to detour a couple hundred miles for a quick chat and meal. I don't think we ever asked each other that question, well maybe 5 or 6 years ago we did. The question just doesn't seem relevant to any discussion we have.
5. Mick makes a comment that I have long believed is incredibly important ... the environmental impact, the cultural impact of the Scilon empire on us ... types of books we read, politics, type of friends we have, how we view ourselves, others, other jobs or people in different socioeconomic situations, etc. How do we respond to situations, stress, humor, problems, wins, etc. I don't know that we can separate this out so easily.
6. I don't know that I can define where my complete Scientology upbringing and experience starts and stops. I have recently become very involved in trying to work out ways to create educational/training programs to teach people stable careers in the environmental industry. A focus is where did I get my skill, I have often assumed it was based on SO experience. When trying to figure out how to duplicate this, I realized I got very little valuable skill from the SO, most of it came from my childhood, pre-15 working with my father, tinkering, fixing things, going with him to the factory he worked on the weekend and night shift, etc. I think it is quite difficult to understand honestly and unbiased ... what effect things had on us. What would we have been like if Scientology was never in our world? But then, I wouldn't have my children, born to a woman I met in the SO, my sister would not have her husband and children and current life, I wouldn't have my current work and career ... understanding it is an exercise in understanding both the game theory and chaos theory!