The Apostate

In this week's New Yorker magazine, Lawrence Wright tells the story of writer/director Paul Haggis leaving Scientology in an essay entitled The Apostate. There are links all over the Internet to the story, including on the Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo, but putting it here on my humble little blog means it's gone viral, which I guess is supposed to be a good thing.

If you've read The New Yorker, you know what to expect in an essay. It's long and meticulously researched. If someone tells an anecdote, everyone involved in the story is given a chance to state their recollection. Wright has a fondness for simple declarative sentences. Though emotions run high both in church members and in those who left the church, the tone of Wright's writing is so calm, it almost feels like a dissection.


Nearly everyone living mentioned in the article is given a chance to respond. The notable exception is David Miscavige, the man who at the age of 25 took the helm of Scientology after the death of founder L. Ron Hubbard and has helped it grow remarkably in the past 25 years. If we accept the official version from Scientology, Miscavige is a wonderful human being. If we listen instead to the formerly high placed defectors, he is a violent bully with terrifyingly quick mood swings.

Miscavige declined to be interviewed. While other Scientologists who knew Haggis are quoted by Wright, the only official who goes on record is Tommy Davis, son of the actress Anne Archer, who has been practicing Scientology since Davis was a young boy.

It will be interesting to see how the church responds to this story. According to Haggis, a tenet of Scientology is to listen to all sides before making up one's mind, but not surprisingly, every Scientologist will find a dozen good reasons not to believe anyone who leaves the church.

I've never been in the church. I think most of you can figure out whom I believe.

It's a very good read. Matty Boy says check it out.

What happened to that crazy girl Sinead O'Connor?

Eighteen years ago, Sinead O'Connor was famous for being pretty and bald headed and singing a song written by Prince. Then she went on Saturday Night Live, sang the song War by Bob Marley a cappella, then said we had to fight the real enemy and tore up a picture of the pope.

She was reviled. How was the pope the real enemy? She was dismissed as some sort of lunatic.

This is what she has to say today. She had a point then, she has a point now. Different pope, same hierarchy, same problem.

Not a lunatic, but a survivor of a nasty system that has still not seen the complete light of day.

I wish her Godspeed.

The flowchart for choosing a religion

My sister Karlacita! sent this flowchart to me about how to choose a religion. It was mailed to her, but the original source is the HolyTaco.com website. It may offend some of my religious friends but I kind of doubt it.

I like the fact that the first question after you decide you want to believe in one god is "How Do You Feel About Bacon?"

Take the test yourself. If it turns out you should be a Scientologist, please don't tell me. I like to think well of my invisible reading public.

Doing the right thing and other unthinkable options.

There is a saying that became popular after Watergate, "The cover-up is worse than the crime." Like any conventional wisdom, it has its moments and other times, it doesn't even come close to conveying the truth.

We should start with the difference between a scandal and a crime. Michael Steele is the head of the Republican National Committee, and while there have been plenty of scandals during his tenure, none have risen to the level of criminality. The latest, a $2,000 expenditure for a trip to a high end strip club in West Hollywood that ended up as a receipt paid for by the RNC, is getting plenty of play in the press but is of no interest to any law enforcement agency.

It's just embarrassing. Or if you watch The Daily Show, it's just HIGH-larious.

Technically, no crime and no cover-up, just another of many embarrassing gaffes that have been the hallmark of the Steele tenure as RNC chairman, a tenure all liberals and progressives hope will last for many years to come.

Oh, heck, let's go for it. We want Steele as RNC chair for life.

The right thing to do for Steele if he wants to help his party is to resign, but obviously, the right thing is not an option.

Having sex with a woman who isn't your wife isn't a crime, unless some idiot actually succeeds in turning the Ten Commandments into statute law. So in this case the cover-up is worse than the act it covers up, because the cover-up might actually involve crimes. According to reports at The Huffington Post quoting a Nevada political reporter named Jon Ralston, the Justice Department is doing due diligence on an indictment of Senator John Ensign of Nevada for payments he made to the family of his mistress Cindy Hampton. Ms. Hampton and her husband both worked on Ensign's staff, and the odd ways that money got into the Hampton bank accounts may have broken several laws.

John Ensign is one of those upstanding Christians that belong to an odd little group called The Family (no relation to the Charles Manson cult of the same name). The Family maintains a nice little sleepover mansion on C Street in Washington, a Christian fellowship that believe that God's work is done by special people with lots of power who commune with Special Jesus, not that scruffy commie Jew boy who got himself killed about 2,000 years ago.

Ensign came forward and asked for the resignations of both Bill Clinton and Larry Craig for their sexual misdeeds. He could do the right thing, but obviously that isn't an option.

And then there is the cover-up that is nowhere near as bad as the crime, because the crime is multiple instances of the rape of children. Joseph Ratzinger, now going under the alias of Pope Benedict XVI, was deeply involved in the hiding and re-assignment of pedophile priests. I chose this picture of him that makes him look like an old and decrepit underworld boss who cannot be touched by the law because that is what he currently is.

In some ways, this should be a legal matter and not one for the church. The parents of the molested children could have gone to the secular authorities instead of the to church bureaucracy to get justice done, but in a place like Ireland, if the church refuses to co-operate, can anyone be sure the police or the prosecutors or the judges would do the right thing? Would a cop be willing to arrest a priest and would that cop's superiors back him up? If the cops are clean, are the district attorneys? And if the system works all the way up to that point, who's to say some judge won't defend the rights of the corrupt church instead of the rights of the completely innocent victims?

There are times when the power of the church has been severely limited, sometimes in a power struggle with some other powerful institution, sometimes because the faithful rose up in protest. It's time for some of the old grumpy people pretending to be John Hancock and Sam Adams in this country change their goofy outfits and walk around in public pretending to be Martin Luther. The church is unclean and deserves to wither and die if it does not purge itself and reform.

Pope Benedict XVI could do the right thing and resign, but I think you've caught on to the pattern if you've read this far.

Religion in general and one "religion" in particular.

I've been thinking about religion a lot recently, and not just about the negative stories that are all over the place right now. There is always the temptation to blame the media, but the arrest of an armed Christian militia in Michigan is legitimate news, as is the story of the acts of child abuse in the Catholic church, the work done by people at the very top of the Catholic hierarchy to cover up the abuse and the stone stupid statements made by the Catholic apologists, both here in the U.S. and coming out of Rome.

Let me be less controversial. Let's talk about Scientology.

Okay. That was a bad joke.

I saw this article from the Associated Press about people who left low paying jobs at Sea Organization, the inner circle of Scientology. One man says he was paid $29,000 for fifteen years work and is suing for millions in back pay. The spokespeople for Scientology claim the man is a whiner and a poor worker and a troublemaker.

Why do people get involved in organized religions and why are other people completely resistant to the charms? I expect it's a matter of both nature and nurture, and in my case, both nature and nurture worked against me becoming religious. I tried for a few years about twenty years ago, but I didn't leave the Episcopal Church because of strong emotions of disgust or some dramatic crisis of faith. I was pretty sure from what I saw that other people were really getting something useful out of the experience and I was getting next to nothing.

Being from a religious family makes a difference, just as being raised in a non-religious household was a big part of my upbringing. Some people will stay with the family through thick and thin and others will rebel, with that rebellion sometimes taking the form of leaving the church. Beyond the family link, there is the desire to know the unknowable, or at least to make some effort to acknowledge the mysteries of the universe. For me, the statement "I don't know" is enough for some of the big questions, but for others, they are comforted by the idea that God knows what they don't.

And then there's Scientology, a complete mystery to me. There doesn't seem to be much of the family tie part to the cult, though I'm sure there are people now being raised Scientologist. The religion was founded one year before I was born, so for a religion, it is very, very young. I didn't get involved with the New Age stuff much, but my sister Karla did and she changed her last name from Hubbard so that she wouldn't have anyone thinking she was related to L. Ron Hubbard, which we aren't.

There are religions I don't like much, like Catholicism and Mormonism, but I know both Catholics and Mormons who are good, decent people. On the other hand, if I find out someone is a Scientologist, I can only assume that person is a sap or a villain. This thing is a scam and it's been that way since the beginning and not even a well-disguised scam. Steven Weinberg, the Nobel Laureate in Physics has the quote "With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion." I don't see the good in them. Everyone I have seen from the top of that organization just looks like standard corporate scum or worse. Here in the U.S., Scientology gets the protection given to religions. In Germany, they are considered a cult and have no legal protections. It's easy to mock and distrust the Germans, given their history of religious intolerance in the 20th Century, but that does not change the fact that they are absolutely 100% right in this instance and that the U.S. is making a terrible mistake giving these sociopathic thieves a license to steal.

I don't want to get rid of the freedom of worship clause from the U.S. Constitution, but I do want a better definition of what a religion is. Just as the government has the right to regulate charities, it should have the right to say what religious organizations can and cannot do, with the penalty of taxes and fines when these tax-free entities overstep those bounds.

Chapter Five, Verses Ten and Eleven.

Yesterday, a judge decided that the father of a dead marine was obliged to pay the legal fees of the Westboro Baptist Church, a small sect from Kansas under the guidance of the Rev. Fred Phelps. The WBC sends its members around the country to stage protests at the funerals of fallen soldiers to publicize their view that the soldiers we lose in the wars we have chosen to fight are not the natural consequence of war, but rather the supernatural will of God to punish this country that does not hate homosexuality as much as the Rev. Phelps hates it. One grieving parent tried to sue the Church to make them desist from doing this to other families. The judge has decided that the WBC members are within their First Amendment rights to the freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the right to assemble peaceably.

"Common sense" accepts the view that religion makes people better. I disagree. Religion amplifies people. Those with love in their hearts can find more strength to do good in the world. Those who hate things can make themselves believe that God hates those same things just as much. The WBC have done everything in their power to make themselves repellent even to people who may agree with them about homosexuality. Personally, I think they have just taken the Bible and made some verses more important than others.

It's a big book. It's impossible to do otherwise.

Consider Matthew 5:10-11, two verses from the end of the Beatitudes, the list of the blessed from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. This is often put forward as the epitome of God's sweetness and light and the great comfort to the afflicted of this world.

10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

There is no question but that Rev. Phelps and his followers believe these verses are meant for them. They have no reason to be meek, because they do not want to inherit the earth. They are not interested in the rewards given to the merciful or the peacemakers. They want the kingdom of heaven, so they want to be persecuted. I doubt they believe their actions will change public policy towards gays. Their own salvation is much more important to them.

There is no part of the Bible that cannot be twisted by someone who is intent on nurturing the hatred that any human being can find in his or her heart with just a little effort.

And so, in my modest way, I have added to the persecution of the Rev. Fred Phelps and his flock, though I do not claim I have borne false witness against them. Let me say to them, you're welcome. If you want to thank me, a fruit basket would be nice.

Bible Stories Illustrated!

One of the proofs of the divinity of Jesus is that they never found the body when they opened the sealed tomb. But scholars who have read the lost Gospel According to Kal-El have this passage where The Man Of Steel tosses both the cross and the man crucified on it into outer space. Mystery solved!

If you wonder why he would do such a thing, you may need to go to this website to see many examples of Superman being a dick.

Actually, I'd like to discuss a bible story found in the regular version available at stores near you, almost all hotel rooms and quoted in places around the Internet. Adam and Eve.

Adam and Eve is one of my least favorite Bible stories. As a factual account of the history of humanity, it leaves a lot to be desired and even as a metaphor, great is its suckitude. I was shopping at my local supermarket yesterday and the nice Jehovah's Witnesses ladies had lured someone into a conversation. They were discussing original sin, and the nice J.W. lady asked the possible convert if she agreed that Adam was born without sin. She agreed, so this meant that original sin is something humans brought upon themselves, not something God did to them.

A young man nearby felt the strong need to correct these ladies about their error in scholarship. Adam was completely free of sin and would have stayed that way except for his wicked wife Eve, who was foolish enough to listen to the talking snake with legs, and so the fall of mankind was obviously the fault of the half of mankind that do not have penises, or so believed this individual from the penis enabled half.

These people were having a passionate argument about a story where one of the main characters is a talking snake with legs. Seriously.

I don't want to speak ill of all religion and religionists. I have evolved past that. I went to the grocery store today, and nearly every kind of beer was on special, and I'm pretty sure we have St. Patrick to thank for that. So, good on ya, Paddy!