The blue sky heir...

A number of folks on the blogosphere are making a big deal out of the St. Petersburg Times' three-part expose on the Church Of Scientology, or (more accurately) on COS big goomba David Miscavige. The piece is undeniably bold, considering COS' history of litigiousness and "Fair Game" tradition. But it's also basically irrelevant: regardless of whether or not the allegations that David Miscavige has engaged in a pattern of physically and psychologically abusing underlings are true or false, regardless of the role Miscavige did or didn't play in Lisa McPherson's death (and the COS officially denies the allegations of Miscavige abusing COS members and denies that Miscavige played a role in McPherson's demise), the question of whether or not Miscavige is or isn't a douchebag is ultimately irrelevant to the bottom-line fact that Scientology is an enormous, steaming pile of horseshit invented out of whole-cloth by a mediocre pulp SF writer, O.T.O. reject and distinguished WWII Naval veteran whose singular combat achievement appears to have been sinking a piece of driftwood that was threatening the Oregon coast (in all fairness, it's quite possible the driftwood was initially from a Japanese tree).

It's sort of like the scandals that have plagued the Roman Catholic church: some Catholic priests have obviously committed crimes and embarrassed themselves, their parishioners, and the Church-at-large while causing inconceivable and permanent harm to their victims, but that's hardly evidence of whether or not God exists or even relevant to the matter of whether the Roman Catholic church is the direct successor to the ministry of Jesus via Peterine apostolic succession. David Miscavige may be a horrible human being or the victim of slanders levied by disgruntled excommunicated church members--so what? Either way, it's not as important as the fact that Scientology is a crock of shit, and it's as much a crock of shit with Miscavige in charge as it was when L. Ron Hubbard was in charge, and would still be as much a crock of shit if somebody else were to take over from Miscavige tomorrow.

Still, the link to the Times article's main page is here, and here's their main video (maybe--it initially previewed as "unavailable," which may be a bandwidth issue if everybody's hitting it while it's hot; check back, or watch it from the article's main page) if you're interested:

But even better yet, here's an oldie but a goodie that's more worth your time: Jon Atack's thorough-and-devastating A Piece Of Blue Sky. If nothing else, it's a pretty funny read.

Clear!