It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the Church of Scientology. First “Nightline” aired a segment about former Scientologists who claimed they were physically abused by church leader David Miscavige, then Paul Haggis made a stink about leaving the church based on its attitude toward gays, and finally they lost a big court case in France. What else could go wrong? The St. Petersburg Times could go for another bite of the apple and run a big story about how the Church of Scientology treats people who want to leave the organization, that’s what.

The story touches directly on the odd paranoia that Scientology has exhibited to various degrees during its entire lifetime. However, I’ve got my own story to tell. I have personally been a target of that paranoia.

Back when I was matriculating at Eckerd College, I took a class on pseudoscience and the paranormal, and part of the class was that we had to do some sort of field investigation. I didn’t know a ton about Scientology at that point, but I did know that  Scientology’s spiritual headquarters was in nearby Clearwater, Florida. I made some calls to Flag Land Base (the former Fort Harrison Hotel, and Scientology’s primary presence in Clearwater) and determined that the building was open to the public.

This was, I believe, January 1992. I think that was a strange time for Scientology. L. Ron Hubbard had died in 1986, and the church was just coming out of the power struggles over who would lead it, and dealing for the first time with the fact that Hubbard’s directives were sometimes self-contradictory without Hubbard around to interpret them. The church was also in the middle of a major charm offensive and growing rapidly, while at the same time having major legal troubles with the IRS and the local Clearwater government. Since then the church has become a lot more focused and less open. I don’t think Flag Land Base is open to the public anymore.

After plowing through “Dianetics,” and every other book I could find about Scientology, including “Bare-Faced Messiah,” I headed up to Clearwater with my friend Chris.

Finding Flag Land Base was not hard. At the time it was one of the larger buildings in Clearwater, roughly defining the southern edge of the downtown area. It was beautiful building, an impression that was heightened by the fact that the rest of downtown was in a clear state of decay. We walked up to the front entrance, where we were met by a very friendly security guard, and older gentlemen I’ll call Bob.* I told him I had an appointment, which I had made a few days earlier, to talk with a church spokesman.

We were ushered into an open office on the first floor, off of the lobby of the hotel. I explained that I was doing a school project and that I had a list of questions I’d like to ask about Scientology. Nothing hostile or overly probing, though I admit I was curious about any church that has teachings that aren’t immediately available to the public. Things seemed to be going pretty well, but at a certain point in the conversation the spokesman turned cold. I didn’t catch the exact moment this happened, but Chris thought that it was when I said something that led the spokesman to figure out I was from a college, not a high school. I don’t think I had specified one way or the other when I made the appointment, and it hadn’t occurred to me it would make a difference.

After the interview we wandered a bit around the public area of the lobby, looking at the museum devoted to L. Ron Hubbard and such. I then went to the bookstore and checked some quotations I had gotten from books about Scientology against the actual books for sale, just to make as sure as I could that sources like “Bare-Faced Messiah” weren’t making things up out of whole cloth. While in the store I happened to notice that Bob the security guard was talking to a red-headed kid. The kid was about 10 or 11 years old, which struck me as a little odd because it was a school day. Bob was leaning very close to the kid, as if telling him something important. They looked enough alike that I thought they might be related, so I thought it might be a family matter.

Mission accomplished, I said goodbye to the spokesman and we left. Neither Chris nor I had ever been to Clearwater, so we decided to take a quick walk around to see the sights. We headed north, into downtown. We had gone four or so blocks when I noticed that the red-headed kid I had seen Bob talking to was about a block behind us. I quietly told Chris that I had seen that kid back in the lobby, and I wasn’t sure, but he might be following us. We continued walking, heading east, then west, and sure enough, the kid stayed about a block behind us. We even did a loop around a block to make sure. Realizing that we weren’t entirely welcome, we headed back to our vehicle, which was parked south of the Fort Harrison, and the kid was behind us the whole way even though we were backtracking.

I’m still not entirely sure what I did that caused Scientology to sic a Junior Woodchuck on me. It was a surreal moment. In the years since I’ve watched Scientology become more mainstream, but I can’t help wondering if somewhere in Flag Land Base my name is still on an enemies list somewhere.

*In fact this may have been his actual name, but after 17 years memory fails on the details.

Starving, exhausted, lobotomized fish in a nearly-empty barrel.

Creationist nut-bag Ray atheists’-nightmare banana-fetishist Comfort has had the audacity (bad judgement? misfortune?) to go mano a stupido with actual scientist and non-crazy-person Dr. Eugenie Scott in a resent set of essays on the US News & World Report Blog. (Dragon*Con-ers may remember Dr. Scott from Skeptrack this year.) Comfort starts out . . . strong? Well, he starts out . . . and gets knocked down, but he gets up again (you’re never going to keep him down!) – oh wait, yes you are. And Dr. Scott does so handily.

Comfort’s arguments really are almost indescribably bad (he says, immediately before going on to attempt to describe them). Fallatious arguments abound: ad hominems, quotes out of context, straw men, special pleading, moving the goalposts, non sequiturs, appeal to consequences (hell, it takes him all of five paragraphs to smack into Godwin’s Law!). These essays, and everything Comfort has ever done, frankly, are such a mess of ignorance, mischaracterisation, and misinformation that they pretty much devolve to the level of Gish Gallop: he gives so much bad, innaccurate data so fast that’s wrong on so many levels, that a step-by-step refutation becomes impossible in the allotted space. For instance, here is his “argument” that evolution is wrong because of the problem of the evolution of sex:

[E]volution has no explanation as to why and how around 1.4 million species of animals evolved as male and female. No one even goes near explaining how and why each species managed to reproduce (during the millions of years the female was supposedly evolving to maturity) without the right reproductive machinery.

This argument is so blitheringly stupid, and is wrong on so many (basic) levels that even having it postulated in a “serious” debate makes my eyes bleed. Fortunately, it also makes him sound like a raving loon.

The sad thing is that people like Comfort, who is at best a complete idiot, and at worst an outright liar, are given such prominent stages from which to present their arguments, as if they weren’t definitively refuted long ago. Of course debate of contentious issues should be fostered in the public arena, but you don’t see them giving Time Cube Guy a chance to debate his position on ABC’s Nightline. Why? Because he is clearly nuts, and any rational person can see that his arguments are ridiculous. It’s about time to start treating Ray Comfort the same way.

For a cogent and thoroughly watchable discussion of “Why Evolution Is True” (and a pallet-cleanser to get all the Comfort out of your system), check out this recent lecture Jerry Coyle at the AAI conference in Californina:

Particularly nice was his inclusion of the excellent transitional fossil record of whales, which Comfort claims is completely missing – something that further shows that he is either completely out of his depth, or is deliberately misrepresenting the facts. Or both.

You can find the Nightline segment online here. Much like the St. Petersburg Times story it’s based on, it’s mostly about David Miscavige, the current leader of the CoS, and the alleged abuse he metes out. I wish some investigative paper would take on some of the scientific/factual claims that Scientology makes, but I guess the Church is now established enough that the news media gives them a pass on all matters of doctrine, just like the other religions.

Sometime soon, I’ll write about my encounter with the Church, and why I’m probably still on an enemies list somewhere in the Clearwater Flag Land Base.

Tonight on Nightline (ABC, at 11:35 pm) they’ll be featuring a story about the Church of Scientology, based on this St. Pete Times feature.

A follow-up of sorts on my earlier post about local mayoral candidate Bill Foster and his belief that there are dinosaurs in the Bible. Today the St. Petersburg Times ran the results of recent polling of “likely voters” on subjects that have to do with next month’s mayoral election. One of the questions asked was “Bill Foster believes the earth was created in six literal days and that, contrary to the view of most scientists, dinosaurs and humans lived on earth at the same time. How much does this concern you?” The results of that poll were as follows.

A lot – 27%

Some – 12%

A little – 15%

Not at all – 44%

Don’t know/Refused – 2%

I suppose the good news here for those of us with a rational, evidence-based worldview is that at least 54% of likely voters (as I understand it, likely voters are usually self-identified during the polling process) don’t agree with Bill Foster’s Young Earth creationism. I say “at least” because it’s possible there are people in the 44% who say they aren’t worried by his Young Earth views who don’t agree with those views, but don’t feel the need to take them into account when voting for a mayoral candidate. It may be a small group, but I bet it exists. (It’s tough to imagine that the opposite group could exist: people who are worried by Foster’s beliefs and agree with them.)

Certainly, I wish the number of my fellow citizens who accepted science was higher, but at least we’re not in the minority in St. Pete.

Here in St. Petersburg, the November mayoral election has come down to a choice between two distinct candidates: lawyer and former city council member Bill Foster, and lawyer and former city council member Kathleen Ford. While there are plenty of important issues facing the electorate, I would like to highlight one minor sideshow of interest to skeptics.

Back in September, the St. Petersburg Times reported that candidate Bill Foster is a young Earth creationist. He says this shouldn’t matter, and it’s up to voters to decide if that’s true. Luckily, the mayor has little power over public education. But I was struck by the following, which verges on a factual claim:

“Dinosaurs are mentioned in Job, so I don’t have any problem believing that dinosaurs roamed the earth,” [Foster] said, referring to the book of Job, which mentions the “behemoth.” He said he believes dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time, though most scientists say there is a gap of at least 60 million years between dinosaurs and mankind.

Leaving aside that whole 65-million-year gap, are dinosaurs mentioned in the Book of Job? That’s certainly an interesting claim, and one I’d like to examine.

The Book of Job is part of the Hebrew Bible, and is accepted as part of the Old Testament by Christians. In it God and Satan (not the devil, but another deity that acts as God’s enforcer) discuss the pious man Job. To discover the source of Job’s piety God instructs Satan to destroy Job’s life. Job’s worldly possessions are all destroyed, and his children are killed. Job still doesn’t curse God, so God gives Satan permission to physically harm Job as much as possible without killing him. Job is inflicted with boils and other horrible diseases. Finally, Job breaks and laments that he was ever born. What follows is debate among Job and his friends over why Job suffers so. This goes on for a while, until God, in the form of a whirlwind, interrupts and proceeds to kvetch to Job about how hard it is to be God and how Job should just be glad that there’s someone willing to do it. It’s in this part of the story, as God describes some of the more high-maintenance parts of His creation, that Christian fundamentalists find a description of a dinosaur:

Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.

Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.

He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.

His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.

He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.

Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.

He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.

The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about.

Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.

He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares.

(From the King James Bible.)

The first thing that strikes me is that this description isn’t very descriptive. The Behemoth is big and strong and eats a lot, but what does it actually look like? The passage says almost nothing on the subject. No “he hath a head like a snake” or “he resembleth a giant lizard.” How do Biblical literalists get a dinosaur out of the passage? They focus on the line “He moveth his tail like a cedar.” The only animal, they claim, with a tail that resembles a tree (or at least a tree trunk) is a dinosaur. Creationists.org is quite adamant on this point, and other fundamentalist scholars make similar arguments. But why describe the physical appearance of only the tail of the Behemoth, when most of the other lines are similes about strength? The answer can be found by looking at the passage in the original Hebrew:

His tail hardens like a cedar; the sinews of his testicles are knit together.

(Translation by Rabbi A.J. Rosenberg)

It’s a bit more obvious that the “tail” being referred to is not a literal tail, but something else. Something attached to the testicles, something that gets hard like a tree, and something that is called throughout the Bible by many euphemisms, including “tail,” “thigh” and “foot.”

I think it’s safe to say that the Behemoth is a giant bull. All the attributes given to it match those of a bull, and the lack of a physical description would suggest it’s an animal that would have been familiar to the Hebrews. Furthermore, God’s explanation of its place in the scheme of creation is similar to that of the “Bull of Heaven” of Sumerian mythology and the Epic of Gilgamesh, down to it drinking up whole rivers. This would make sense because the Book of Job may be based on an earlier Sumerian story. In any case there’s absolutely no part of the passage that is more likely to be referring to a dinosaur than some mundane (if mythologically embiggened) animal.

It’s disturbing that Bill Foster is using badly translated literature from 2500 years ago to form his view of the natural world rather than taking time to learn about the facts.

"Behemoth and Leviathan" by William Blake. I'm guessing Blake imagined Behemoth to be a hippopotamus. The dragon is Leviathan, which is a whole other can of worms.