Miscellanea Agnostica

Gee, it seems only a short time ago that I blogged about the Church of Scientology’s failed “investigation” of the St Petersburg Times, which late last year ran an extensive multi-story exposé of that so-called religion. This weekend, the estimable New York Times ran its own single-story (to date) exposé of Scientology (WebCite cached article):

Defectors Say Church of Scientology Hides Abuse

Raised as Scientologists, Christie King Collbran and her husband, Chris, were recruited as teenagers to work for the elite corps of staff members who keep the Church of Scientology running, known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org.

They signed a contract for a billion years — in keeping with the church’s belief that Scientologists are immortal. They worked seven days a week, often on little sleep, for sporadic paychecks of $50 a week, at most.

But after 13 years and growing disillusionment, the Collbrans decided to leave the Sea Org, setting off on a Kafkaesque journey that they said required them to sign false confessions about their personal lives and their work, pay the church thousands of dollars it said they owed for courses and counseling, and accept the consequences as their parents, siblings and friends who are church members cut off all communication with them. …

They soon discovered others who felt the same. Searching for Web sites about Scientology that are not sponsored by the church (an activity prohibited when they were in the Sea Org), they discovered that hundreds of other Scientologists were also defecting — including high-ranking executives who had served for decades.

The large number of recent defections from the CoS likely explains this rash of newspaper stories on Scientology’s abuses. At any rate, the story acknowledges that the “average” CoS member may not be aware of all of this:

The defectors say that the average Scientology member, known in the church as a public, is largely unaware of the abusive environment experienced by staff members. The church works hard to cultivate public members — especially celebrities like Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Nancy Cartwright (the voice of the cartoon scoundrel Bart Simpson) — whose money keeps it running.

But recently even some celebrities have begun to abandon the church, the most prominent of whom is the director and screenwriter Paul Haggis, who won Oscars for “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash.” Mr. Haggis had been a member for 35 years. His resignation letter [cached version], leaked to a defectors’ Web site, recounted his indignation as he came to believe that the defectors’ accusations must be true.

The Times continues by relating the Collbrans’ harrowing story of trying to leave Scientology, which included impediments such as taking their passports so they couldn’t travel. It also recounts things like beatings of Scientology members and employees, some at the hands of the head of the CoS, David Miscavige.

Marvelous people, eh?

I wonder if the CoS will try the same stunt they attempted with the St Petersburg Times and try to hire other reporters to investigate the New York Times. Even if they do, I’m betting they will also refuse to reveal the contents of that investigation.

I’ve always wondered why the government never goes after physics for being frauds. It seems pretty obvious that they can’t do what they say they can do. I guess the government figures people who believe in psychic powers get whatever they deserve, for it. But NPR reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission is going after a psychic who claims to be able to foresee markets and investments (WebCite cached article):

SEC Sues Psychic For Securities Fraud

“I have called ALL the highs and lows of the market, giving EXACT DATES for rises and crashes over the last 14 years,” Sean David Morton allegedly wrote in a newsletter back in 2006. …

So Morton managed to raise $6 million from investors, according to a lawsuit the SEC filed today accusing him of securities fraud.

According to the SEC:

Morton claimed that he would use his psychic expertise to provide investment guidance to his investing team, and falsely touted his historical success in psychically predicting the various rises and falls of the market. … However, Morton lied to investors about his past successes, and about key aspects of the Delphi Investment Group …

It’s about time a psychic was called to account for making fraudulent claims.

Hat tip: Consumerist.

I’ve blogged before on Bishop Richard Williamson, who — along with the rest of his cohorts in the formerly schismatic Society of St Pius X — had reentered the fold of Roman Catholicism. It was about a year ago that the Vatican came under fire for having readmitted him (along with the rest of the SSPX), without realizing he was a Holocaust denier. Ultimately the Vatican chose to order him to take back his Holocaust denials. But, as Der Spiegel reports, even a year later, he has not yet done so (WebCite cached article):

Bishop Williamson Unrepentent in Holocaust Denial

Controversial Bishop Richard Williamson continues in his denial of the Holocaust, embarrassing both the Society of St. Pius to which he belongs and the Vatican. But the SSPX is becoming increasingly powerful despite the controversy and is attracting more and more supporters. …

The world has become a smaller place for the notorious bishop. Since he denied the existence of the Holocaust on television more than a year ago, causing serious problems for Pope Benedict XVI and almost triggering a revolt against Rome by the Catholic faithful, the ultra-conservative SSPX has kept him in virtual quarantine at its Wimbledon headquarters. Bishop Bernard Fellay, the superior general of the SSPX, likens Williamson to uranium: “It’s dangerous when you have it,” he says, but you can’t “simply leave it by the side of the road.”

Fellay knows what he is talking about. Williamson has no intention of revising his views on the gas chambers. When Nazi hunter Beate Klarsfeld sent him a book about the history of the Holocaust last year, he set it aside, unread. “The fact is that the 6 million people who were supposedly gassed represent a huge lie,” he wrote recently to his fellow members of the SSPX, noting that “a completely new world order was built” on this “fact.” The Jews, he added, “became ersatz saviors thanks to the concentration camps.”

Note carefully this last sentence, which reveals the theological source of Williamson’s denials: “The Jews became ersatz saviors thanks to the concentration camps.” (Emphasis mine) Obviously Williamson thinks that Jesus’ exclusive status as “savior” will be compromised by admitting the Holocaust occurred.

Folks, this is scary stuff. Really scary. However, the cat is now out of the bag … we can see, now, why there are Christians in the occidental world who so vehemently object to admitting the Holocaust occurred. (Of course, this does nothing to explain Holocaust denialism in the Islamic world … but that’s another matter entirely.)

One final question remains, which is why the Roman Catholic Church has yet to discipline Williamson for his disobedience (i.e. not taking back his Holocaust denials, after he was ordered to do so). That they have done nothing about this shows their lack of integrity as an organization, at best. If they wish to present themselves as a beacon of morality in the world, they’re going to have to do a better job of it than they have, and since we all know that “charity begins at home,” they need to start by forcing their own to behave morally.

Hat tip: Rogues Gallery blog at the New England Skeptical Society.

Concerning the starved toddler case I referred to just a few days ago, and I’ve blogged about previously: Verdicts are in. The AP reports via MSNBC (WebCite cached article):

The leader of a household that authorities described as a religious cult was convicted Tuesday along with two other people of starving a 1-year-old boy to death because he did not say “Amen” during a mealtime prayer.

Jurors convicted the leader, Queen Antoinette, 41, of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in the death of Javon Thompson, who was 15 or 16 months old when he died in December 2006 or January 2007.

Antoinette’s daughter, Trevia Williams, 22, and another follower, Marcus A. Cobbs, 23, were also found guilty of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death. Cobbs was also convicted of accessory after the fact.

This result was not improbable, given the defendants represented themselves:

Antoinette, Williams and Cobbs represented themselves at trial. They did not testify or call any witnesses. Antoinette introduced a single piece of evidence: a copy of a handwritten application for nonprofit status for her organization, 1 Mind Ministries. In that document, she described herself “as a chosen daughter of the most high God and a queen of Jesus Christ.”

In their closing arguments, Antoinette and Cobbs accused prosecutors and the media of conspiring to condemn them.

“We’ve been like pariahs,” Antoinette said. “These people want to blame someone for this child’s death, so they’ve chosen us.”

So little Javon Thompson dropped dead all by himself after wasting away for days … but not because you wanted him starved and because he was never fed? Got it. Makes no sense to me, but I got it.

I’m not sure what it is, exactly, about the Pledge of Allegiance that turns people’s brains into mush and sends grown adults into raging fits of childishness. But it does. An example of this phenomenon is that of a Maryland child who dared not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in her classroom. The Washington Post reports on this stupid and juvenile event (WebCite cached article):

The mother of a 13-year-old Montgomery County middle school student is demanding an apology from a teacher who had school police escort the youngster from a classroom for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Yes, folks … as unbelievable as it sounds, a child failing to say the Pledge was sufficiently horrific to invoke police intervention! The Post goes on:

The incident began on a Wednesday in late January, when the girl did not stand for the pledge. Her teacher yelled at her, demanded that she stand and then sent her to the office for her defiance, Quereshi said. The school system confirmed the sequence of events.

The next morning, the girl again refused to stand for the pledge. This time, the teacher called two school police officers to the classroom to escort the girl to the office. …

The unidentified student was mocked by other children in her class and has been too traumatized to return to Roberto Clemente Middle School in Germantown, according to Ajmel Quereshi, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland who is representing the family.

A school spokesman said Tuesday that the teacher’s actions were a clear violation of the school’s regulations, which are based on state law. The teacher, who also has not been identified by either side, will have to apologize to the student, spokesman Dana Tofig said.

An apology is not forthcoming, however, because the school will not allow one to be offered except on its own terms:

Quereshi said that as of Tuesday afternoon, no one from the school had contacted the girl or her family to resolve the issue. The teen’s mother tried to schedule a meeting with school officials but was told they would not meet with her if she wanted to bring a lawyer, Quereshi said.

While many Americans believe that reciting the Pledge is mandatory in schools, the truth is, that it is not. The Post article explains this:

The [United States] Supreme Court ruled in 1943 that students cannot be forced to salute the flag. Maryland law explicitly allows any student or teacher to be excused from participating in the pledge, according to the ACLU.

This is reflected in the school district’s own policy:

The Montgomery school system’s student handbook contains a section about “Patriotic Exercises” that reads: “You cannot be required to say a pledge, sing an anthem, or take part in patriotic exercises. No one will be permitted to intentionally embarrass you if you choose not to participate.”

So no, this child did not have to say the Pledge, nor even stand while others said it, nor anything of the sort. She could not be chastised for it, and other students cannot ridicule her for it, either. Nonetheless, at least one teacher, and perhaps some administrators, and school police officers believed otherwise. The Supreme Court case in question, by the way, is West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943). No American — not even school children! — can ever be compelled to profess loyalty or salute a flag or anything else of that sort. It’s not permissible.

Of course, lots of people (mostly religionists) get all up in arms about the Pledge, because — since 1954 — it has contained two words they prize above anything else: “Under God.” Thus, for them, the Pledge is intertwined with their religious beliefs, and this means that anyone’s refusal to say it, is a serious and real threat to them. (Because to a religionist, a threat to their beliefs is inseparable from, and thus equivalent to, a threat to their person.) There was a famous case of atheist Michael Newdow suing in federal court to get these two words removed from it … which was unsuccessful because he was found not to have standing to sue for this. The rage that was spewed in his direction over this suit was palpable.

The problem with the Pledge, however, is not in those two words “Under God.” The problem with it is that it is a “pledge of allegiance” and is therefore inherently un-American.

Allow me to explain: The concept of “allegiance” is basically a medieval and feudal one; the word itself comes from “liege,” which was the duty of a serf to his lord (or “liege-lord,” i.e. the “lord” to whom the serf owes his “liege”). Oaths of allegiance were sworn by serfs to their lords, and were solemn promises of payment and service, and the saying of such an oath was the foundation of whatever rights the serf had, as a serf.

However, Americans are not serfs who owe service to any lord. We are, instead, citizens of a representative republic. Moreover, our status as citizens is not predicated upon saying an oath of allegiance, but on the Constitution and the rule of law. No citizen of a constitutional representative republic owes “allegiance” to anyone or anything … ever. Not to the country, not to the president, not to the flag, not to anyone.

Thus, forcing school children, or anyone else, to say the Pledge of Allegiance is a throwback to the European Middle Ages and the feudal order of that time. It is not appropriate for any citizen of the United States — young, old, or in-between — to have to pledge their allegiance to anything, in order to have their rights as citizens. (Some oaths are required by various offices that one may take; the President, for example, must take a Constitutionally-mandated oath. But that’s a different matter.) The sooner we jettison the Pledge of Allegiance to the dustbin of history … on the grounds of it being an inappropriate anachronism, not based on whether or not it’s religious … the better off the US will be. We are not serfs, and should never be made to act like serfs. Ever.

Hat tip: Friendly Atheist blog.

Late last year, the St Petersburg Times published a series of stories which, together, were an exposé of the Church of Scientology. This project, known as “The Truth Rundown,” is extensive, and must have been a massive undertaking. The paper has a long history of exposing Scientology, dating back decades, so this is, perhaps, not unusual. The CoS’s response — aside from simply dismissing the comprehensive reports as “total lies” — was to commission its own investigation of the St Petersburg Times and of “The Truth Rundown” itself … i.e. to “fight fire with fire” as the saying goes. That investigation, however, has ended, at Scientology’s direction, and will not be disclosed. TV station WUSF in Tampa reports on this development (WebCite cached article):

The Church of Scientology is deploying a new weapon in its three-decade battle with the St. Petersburg Times: award-winning investigative journalists.

Those reporters completed their own review of the newspaper’s coverage of Scientology, but church officials won’t release it.

In 1980, The St. Petersburg Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the secretive religion, headquartered in Clearwater. Since then, church officials have said the newspaper’s coverage is unfair.

So church officials decided to do something about it, according to spokesman Tommy Davis.

“To be honest, I think we just took a playbook from the media,” Davis said. “Media pay reporters all the time to investigate things.

“So we thought it warranted some investigation, and so we hired some reporters to investigate. It’s pretty straightforward, in that regard,” he said.

To the CoS’s credit, they’re correct about this. It is fair to investigate the investigators, so to speak. But since they’re not disclosing the results of that investigation, it’s likely that it never turned up whatever dirt that Scientology had expected to turn up.

Those reporters are Christopher Szechenyi, an Emmy-winning television producer from Boston, and Russell Carollo, a Colorado-based reporter who won a Pulitzer for uncovering medical malpractice in the military. …

Carollo and Szechenyi declined to be interviewed for this story. In a statement, they said they never misrepresented themselves or who they were working for. They also said they were paid in advance and had complete editorial control of their work.

In any case, the newspaper declined to cooperate with the investigation, saying it would fuel the religion’s ongoing campaign to discredit The Times.

“They have, at various points, threatened litigation against us for performing this kind of journalism,” Brown said. “When you’ve been threatened with lawsuits, it doesn’t make sense to have a conversation with subjects who are threatening you about the work.

There was an added layer of the investigation, too, that being an editorial one:

The reporters completed their review and turned it over for an edit to Steve Weinberg, a long-time University of Missouri journalism professor and former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors.

While the CoS hasn’t released the report, they’re using it indirectly against their foes at the Times:

But that didn’t stop Davis from speaking about the report to Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz, who broke this story Monday [cached article page 1 and page 2]. Davis called the report “highly critical” of the Times.

In their statement, the reporters said Davis “did not accurately portray the full scope of our work” and urged the Church to release the report.

But they say they can’t talk about their findings, because of their contract with the Church.

Unfortunately for Scientology, they don’t get to claim that this report condemns the St Petersburg Times if they refuse to disclose its contents; a report that says the Times is in the wrong, but they won’t allow anyone to see, is inseparable from a report that does not, in fact, state that the Times is in the wrong.

Every once in a while I wonder if I’m the only person left on the planet who thinks that facts matter. Tonight I ran across a column by Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald which shows that I’m not, in fact, alone. He writes of a correspondence with someone for whom facts are fungible, and who thinks something he doesn’t like is just someone else’s insidious “bias” (WebCite cached article):

Facts no longer mean what they once did

Igot [sic] an email the other day that depressed me.

It concerned a piece I recently did that mentioned Henry Johnson, who was awarded the French Croix de Guerre in World War I for singlehandedly fighting off a company of Germans (some accounts say there were 14, some say almost 30, the ones I find most authoritative say there were about two dozen) who threatened to overrun his post. …

My mention of Johnson’s heroics drew a rebuke from a fellow named Ken Thompson, which I quote verbatim and in its entirety:

“Hate to tell you that blacks were not allowed into combat intell 1947, that fact. World War II ended in 1945. So all that feel good, one black man killing two dozen Nazi, is just that, PC bull.”

In response, my assistant, Judi Smith, sent Mr. Thompson proof of Johnson’s heroics: a link to his page on the website of Arlington National Cemetery. She thought this settled the matter.

Thompson’s reply? “There is no race on headstones and they didn’t come up with the story in tell 2002.”

Judi: “I guess you can choose to believe Arlington National Cemetery or not.”

Thompson: “It is what it is, you don’t believe either…”

At this point, Judi forwarded me their correspondence, along with a despairing note. She is probably somewhere drinking right now.

You see, like me, she can remember a time when facts settled arguments. This is back before everything became a partisan shouting match, back before it was permissible to ignore or deride as “biased” anything that didn’t support your worldview.

What has happened is that, for most people, “truthiness” (or something that one intuitively accepts as “true” even when it’s not) is more important than “truth.” Pitts echoes this:

To listen to talk radio, to watch TV pundits, to read a newspaper’s online message board, is to realize that increasingly, we are a people estranged from critical thinking, divorced from logic, alienated from even objective truth. We admit no ideas that do not confirm us, hear no voices that do not echo us, sift out all information that does not validate what we wish to believe.

No one is really interested in anything other than his or her preselected ideology. Everything else is out. Entirely out. Unacceptable and even sinister. One’s own side is saintly, the other is Hitler. (Reductio ad Hiterlum is a common propaganda trick.) What the average American wishes to be true, s/he claims is true; what s/he doesn’t want to be true, s/he claims is not; and Americans refuse to actually look into things to find out if they’re correct.

P.S. For a taste of how irrational and fact-deprived Americans can be, have a look at the comments to Pitts’s article. They prove his point every bit as much as the correspondent he quoted. What a bunch of children.

In response to events at CPAC, the conference of conservatives that ended a few days ago, I’ve written, in response, “My Non-Believer’s Manifesto.” I invite one and all — religious, non-religious, and in-between — to read it.

I admit it is a challenging statement, and this is by design, for reasons I explain there. Some of you might even consider it incendiary or extreme.

But whatever you think of it, clearly American non-believers no longer have any choice to but to start asking hard questions of religionists, who believe they are entitled to run the country and even to dictate what everyone within in it says and thinks. There doesn’t seem to be any more room for debate or negotiation, because religionists in the U.S. will never engage in either … not genuinely, anyway.

In any event, my thanks to one and all for having a look at it.

The phenomenon of killing one’s own kids for Jesus … or trying to … is, unfortunately, not new. It’s something I’ve blogged about on several occasions. It’s my sad duty to relate the latest case of it. Sacramento TV station KOVR (CBS13) reports (WebCite cached article):

DA: Parents Killed Daughter With ‘Religious Whips’

Prosecutors say that Butte County parents used quarter inch plastic tubing to beat their seven-year-old adopted daughter to death. Apparently, they got the idea from a fundamentalist based Christian group, which promotes using this as a way of training children to be obedient.

Three years ago, Kevin Schatz and his wife Elizabeth did something so noble, a Chico television station featured them; the pair decided to adopt three children from Liberia. Now, they’re accused of killing one of them because prosecutors say she mispronounced a word.

Butte County District Attorney, Mike Ramsey, says for several hours, the seven-year-old was held down by Elizabeth and beaten dozens of times by Kevin on the back of her body which caused massive tissue damage.

“It was torture,” says Ramsey.

Another 11-year-old adopted child was critically beaten for “being a liar and a bad influence on the seven-year-old.”

Note the similarity here to the recent case of Southern Baptist missionaries from Idaho who recently tried to steal some children from earthquake-ravaged Haiti in order to raise them to be good obedient Southern Baptist Christians. I love how these people can’t seem to find any kids from their own country to forcibly convert to their own version of Christianity.

At any rate, authorities have been able to show how the Schatzs’ brutal form of discipline was religiously derived:

The District Attorney points to a book written by a Tennessee Evangelist named Michael Pearl, who the Schatz’s have told police they were following.

Pearl’s website, www.nogreaterjoy.org, suggests “A swift whack with the plastic tubing would sting but not bruise. Give ten licks at a time, more if the child resists.”

The really tragic part about this is that there are probably tons of good Christian parents in the US who have no problem with this sort of thing. “Spare the rod and spoil the child” is a common expression in the English language, and owes its origins — ultimately, if one goes far enough back in time — to a number of Bible passages, especially these:

He who withholds his rod hates his son,
But he who loves him disciplines him diligently. (Prv 13:24)

You shall strike him with the rod
And rescue his soul from Sheol. (Prv 23:14)

Isn’t religion grand?

Hat tip: The Friendly Atheist blog, as well as the Life Without Deities and Anti-Bible Project, both on Delphi Forums.

We’ve heard for years, from the Religious Right, how “sacred” marriage is, and how it must be “defended.” This talk has led to — among other things — the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, and California’s Proposition 8. Listening to the rhetoric, one would think that “marriage” was literally under siege, soon to be killed on the field of battle in The Great Culture War by the hideous and evil forces of Secular Progressives.

The reality, however, is that — in spite of this extreme rhetoric in which one would think actual blood was being shed and the streets are littered with corpses — the defenders of marriage’s sanctity do not actually practice what they preach. Divorce is common among Christians; in fact, “born again Christians” are more likely to divorce than non-believers! Imagine that! (WebCite cached article.)

The most recent example of this particular phenomenon can be seen in the news that the wife of famous evangelical Christian preacher and faith-healer, Benny Hinn, has filed for divorce. The L.A. Now blog at the Los Angeles Times reports (WebCite cached article):

The wife of faith healer and televangelist Benny Hinn has filed for divorce in Orange County Superior Court.

Suzanne Hinn filed her divorce papers Feb. 1, according to the court website. Her attorney, Sorrell Trope, could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon.

It’s nice to see, once again, how stunningly and obviously hypocritical these fundamentalist Christians are — in spite of the fact that they accept the Bible as the literally-true word of God, and in several places that same Bible explicitly and clearly condemns all forms of hypocrisy and forbids any and all Christians from ever engaging in it.

Hat tip: iReligion forum at Delphi Forums.