Please Stop Making Fun Of Scientology. No, really.

[Currently Listening To: David Bowie - Low]

"No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States" - Article 6 of the United States Constitution

I realize I'm way behind with the final installments of the Demonbaby Awards, but I had to break for a moment to get something off my chest. You see, there's a funny little video going around the internets today. You might have seen it. It features Tom Cruise, the notoriously wacky Scientology overlord, waxing schizophrenic about... well, I'm not even sure what about. The clip is apparently from a Scientology indoctrination video, and the "Church" of Scientology has been furiously ordering removals of it from YouTube due to "copyright violations," and threatening to sue Gawker for hosting it. Here's the video, in case you haven't seen it:



It's wonderfully, utterly batshit insane. He's a fucking lunatic, and he's selling a dangerous scam masquerading as a cult masquerading as a religion. And since they're trying so very hard to keep it out of your tubes, I urge everyone to take a few moments to download the Quicktime version here or here or here or here and upload it to YouTube as many times as you can.

Anyway, the thing about Scientology is that outside of its brainwashed devotees, everyone knows it's crazy, and everyone makes fun of it. Its looney sci-fi overtones make for a delightfully easy target, and the tyranny with which its guardians protect it makes it an even more appealing punching bag. But here's my problem: Relatively speaking, Scientology isn't that crazy. No, really. It isn't. You see, here in the good ol' United States, more than half of our citizens (depending on which poll you look at) happily ignore centuries of overwhelming and exhaustively-researched scientific evidence suggesting human beings have evolved into their present form over millions of years, and instead choose to believe that we were plunked down on the earth fully-formed by a mythical being in the sky, because an old book of parables written by primitive people says so. Americans also believe overwhelmingly in miracles, heaven, hell, and that Jesus is God or the son of God. They like to think they believe all this because of some righteous faith in their soul that sin-laden secular heathens like myself could never understand. In reality, it's because as children they were indoctrinated into believing that The Bible is a book of absolute truths, and The Bible says that God created man in His image, and they'd no sooner want to believe they've been wrong their whole life than I'd want to believe that maybe Saved By The Bell was never actually funny at all, and I was just a twelve year old with bad taste. Come on, Screech had some great one-liners... right?

When I was about four years old, I loved stickers. I loved stickers so much that I stuck them everywhere. Every fucking where. It drove my family crazy. They told me I was no longer allowed to put stickers on walls or furniture or my toys, or I'd be in trouble. So fuck it, I thought, I'll put stickers on myself, and one day I stuck them all over my body. I even stuck one on the end of my tiny little four year old ding-ding, covering up that important hole that pee comes out of. I thought it was funny, and to a four year old, who doesn't even really know what a penis is, having a sticker on the end of it is pretty fucking funny. That is, until I had to pee, and it dawned on me that I'd clogged up the pipes, so to speak, and trying to remove the sticker was painful beyond imagination. At that terrifying moment of realization, the young mind produces one and only one result: Bawling. Loud, desperate, tear-streaked bawling. I had to tell my Mother about the horrible mistake I'd made, and she and my Grandmother had to soak me in warm water to loosen up the glue on the sticker so it could be painlessly removed. Why, you ask, am I telling you this, short of my masochistic desire to frequently embarrass myself on the internet? The point here, really, is to illustrate how fucking dumb I was when I was four years old. How dumb we all were. How we were little sponges, eager to learn, looking to the guidance of our parents and our teachers to tell us how the world worked. And at the same tender age that I covered my pee hole with a sticker, I began attending Sunday school at my local Catholic church. At Sunday school my spongy, impressionable brain was told over and over again that God created the earth, and He created Adam and Eve, and He created me, and He loved me, and Jesus loved me, and all I had to do was love Him back and be a good person and I'd get into Heaven. What a wonderful thing to believe as a child. There's a big bearded guy in the sky watching over me, and He loves me no matter what, and He'll help me through thick and thin, and when my goldfish died he went to a magical place in the sky with the rest of his goldfish family and swam in God's big beautiful goldfish bowl, and someday when I died I'd be there too, and it'd be even better than my life on earth. I bet there are tons of stickers in Heaven, and you can put them anywhere! WOW!

Why wouldn't I believe all that? It sounds great, and hell, I also believed that a magical fairy covertly paid me for my baby teeth, and that a giant bunny rabbit got off on hiding eggs all over my house to celebrate the resurrection of the son of God. Besides, adults were telling me all this stuff, and adults knew lots of things I didn't, like why you shouldn't put stickers over your pee hole. But I guess indoctrination is a delicate process, because somewhere along the way, it was too much for me. Later in life it pushed a little too hard, and I stopped buying into it. I think it was when I stopped going to Sunday school and started attending regular mass, and Catholicism revealed itself as being more about guilt than love, and church was the most boring fucking thing I could have ever imagined. I started asking questions my Mother couldn't answer. I started drawing mean caricatures of our priests on the collection slips and leaving them in the Bibles for people to find. I started to call bullshit on the whole ordeal, and my poor Mother, her own faith having grown fragile over the years, could no longer defend it. And that was that. I got out. Most people in that situation aren't so lucky, and hence, America is overwhelmingly populated by people who believe in Santa Claus. He may be skinny and shirtless and pinned to a cross, but he's still Santa Claus.

If I have children and, as their sole voice of guidance in their crucial formative years, tell them that Tommy Lee was an earthly vessel of the almighty Creator, and His autobiography Tommyland contained the universal truths for all mankind and the keys to salvation, and anyone who felt otherwise was simply a misguided soul destined for eternal damnation lest they be awaked to the sacred truths of Tommy Lee... Well, I'd end up with a pretty fucked up kid, but by the time he'd reached adulthood with these superstitions drilled into his brain day after day, you'd have a damned hard time convincing him his beliefs were wrong.

The problem here is that because Christianity is old and widely-believed, we're meant to inherently accept its fairy tales as somehow more credible than Scientology's fairy tales, when really, they're the same fucking thing. So why is it okay to make fun of Scientology in a country that takes Christianity so seriously? Why is it common knowledge that Scientology is a cult that scams people out of money and uses devious tactics to lure people into its teachings, but no one wants to admit the same things about Christian churches? Why is Tom Cruise a lunatic for saying whatever the hell he said in that video, but we'll gladly elect a President who thinks the earth was made in seven days? Why is poor Dennis Kucinich lampooned for saying he saw a UFO, but we're perfectly comfortable with all the other Presidential candidates worshipping an omnipotent being? If you get right down to it, UFOs have far more scientific basis than omnipotent beings.

I wish religion was, like anal beads and Everybody Loves Raymond, something that people practiced privately, in their homes, and it was an individual matter that rarely intruded on my life. Because theoretically, I really don't care what you believe in. I don't give two shits if you worship Jesus or Allah or Brett Favre or The Force or little fucking forest gnomes. In theory, it makes no difference to me whether your idea of a religious experience is saying ten Hail Marys, or nailing your balls to a wooden plank while defacating. It should be no concern of mine. But these fucking fundamentalist Christians have unfortunately made it my business and everyone's business, and because of their insistence on meddling with science and politics, I now have to try and figure out who's the least superstitious Presidential candidate. I wish it would never even occur to me that the prospective leader of the free world might, in the 21st century, reject a basic foundation of science. But alas, this is the dumb, credulous kindergarten class known as America, where, much to the snickering bemusement of Europe and the rest of the developed world, our political leaders have to show up on TV kneeling in front of a cross at Sunday mass to even be considered a candidate for Commander in Chief. And that, sadly, makes religion an important issue - because religion has begun threatening science, and if we start tearing away at science, we risk losing what little sense of reason and logic our country still has left to hold onto.

In case you hadn't noticed, we're in the early stages of an insulting sham of a Presidential election process right now. But as flawed as the system might be, it's still going to result in a new leader of our fragile empire, and no matter who you vote for, on either side of the political fence, you're voting for someone reared on a theology no less absurd than anything Tom Cruise believes in. In this election there are arguably more important issues - like trying to undo eight years of imperialistic insanity and fiscal irresponsibility. But I think a person's ability to weigh out religious beliefs against scientific facts says a lot about their character and informs all their decisions - and since every Presidential hopeful has to have a cross up their ass, I like to at least know which of them are drinking more of the Kool-Aid than others. This time around the thirstiest seems to be Mike Huckabee, a Republican front runner and former Baptist minister. Aside from crediting divine intervention with some of his political success, he has vocally supported creationism and thinks it should be taught in science class alongside evolution. He also carries the proud right wing tradition of using religion as an excuse for close-minded bigotry, calling homosexuality "an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle." And naturally, he's anti-abortion, anti-stem cells, anti-gay marriage/civil unions - all the ignorant, Bible-inspired goodness you've come to expect from the Christian right. Most recently Huckabee has said that "what we need to do is amend the constitution so it's in God's standards rather than trying to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other..." So, um, by "God," do you mean the Islamic concept of God, Mike? That one? Oh, oh, I'm sorry, you meant the Christian God. The, um, the good one, right? Sorry, my bad.

Surprisingly, the only other major candidate to actually say outright that he doesn't accept evolution is - *gasp* - the beloved Ron Paul. Here is the awkward clip where Paul, a devout Baptist, sent shivers down the spines of his many left-leaning, secular supporters by saying "I think it's a theory, the theory of evolution and I don't accept it as a theory." Ooooh, snap! How's the "theory" of gravity working out for you, Dr. Paul? He also said he didn't think it was an appropriate question to be asking Presidential candidates. Well, it certainly the fuck shouldn't have to be asked, any more than "what's two plus two?" But when we live in a country where so many people actually reject a basic foundation of science, and want to indoctrinate future generations with that kind of thinking, it's a staggeringly appropriate question. Of course, Paul's devotees would probably retort with something to the effect of "Ron Paul would let the states decide how to handle discussion of evolution in their schools, so it doesn't matter what he thinks." Except that going to school is mandatory, and public schools are provided by the state, so incorporating intelligent design into a public school curriculum equates to incorporating religious teachings, and that violates the long-standing restraining order filed by State against its creepy stalker, Church. It's okay though, if President Paul lets the states make that call, I'll just move back to New York and help build a wall to protect us when the next generation of public schooled kids from Arkansas comes around trying to burn down the secular den of sin that is Manhattan.

The rest of the candidates - all of the Democrats and a few of the Republicans (McCain, Giuliani, and Romney), appear to be, whether they even know it or not, "theistic evolutionists." This means they believe in evolution, but also believe in God, so they inherently believe that God had some involvement in the process of evolution. Their varying thoughts on intelligent design in public schools are outlined here. Certainly this is far from the only thing, or even the first thing, you should consider when deciding which candidate to support, but it's something that isn't being talked about much right now, and it shouldn't be forgotten. Fringe Democratic candidate Mike Gravel is the only candidate with the balls to say something truly awesome about the intelligent design issue, and sadly his candor is one of the many reasons why he'll never be President: When asked if creationism should be taught in public schools, he said "Oh, God, no. Oh, Jesus. We thought we had made a big advance with the Scopes monkey trial... My God, evolution is a fact, and if these people are disturbed by being the descendants of monkeys and fishes, they've got a mental problem. We can't afford the psychiatric bill for them. That ends the story as far as I'm concerned." Couldn't have said it better myself, Mike.

The other reason all this is important is because Presidents nominate Supreme Court judges, and it was a Supreme Court judge who famously kept intelligent design out of public schools - at least for now. A President who can't accept fundamental science over his own superstitions, or at least adapt his beliefs to things we know to be true, is not someone who should be picking Supreme Court judges. We've made that mistake, and I think we'd be wise not to make it again. To quote Bill Maher: "Maybe a President who didn't believe our soldiers were going to Heaven might be a little less willing to get them killed."

Last week on his HBO show, Bill Maher responded to the controversy over Hilary Clinton "crying" by asking, somewhat rhetorically, "are we a serious country?" No, Bill, of course we're not. We're a silly, lazy, simple-minded, easily-manipulated country, ready to believe anyone who tells us what we want to hear and any ideology that presents the easiest path from point A to point B. No wonder Kirk Cameron believes bananas are proof that God created the earth. No wonder a douchelord televangelist like Joel Osteen can become so massively successful by telling his millions of believers to just kick back, relax, turn on Everybody Loves Raymond, and let God take care of things. Yup, just believe in God, and everything will be fine. Wow, life is that easy? Sign me up!

Personally, I don't believe in UFOs like Mr. Kucinich, and I don't believe in God like Dr. Paul. But I don't not believe in them either. I believe in science, and thus far, science can neither prove nor disprove either one of those things, so my mind is open. Of course, at this point science has rather drastically disproven the history of mankind as written in the Bible, and that's where things have gotten a bit awkward. With the vastness of the universe and the complexity of life, I suppose believing in some kind of higher power is in our nature. We're too aware for our own good, and we can't stand the horrible, empty feeling that comes with not knowing why we're here, how we got here, or where we're going. It's discomforting to think that we'll never be able to understand all the secrets of the universe. So we make up stories that take care of those concerns very neatly. These stories answer all your questions, they appease all your worries. All you have to do is believe, and the best part is that if you don't like something about the stories you've been told, you can write your own book of slightly different stories and tell other people that your stories are the right ones. You have the truth now. And if that helps you sleep at night, then I'm happy for you, and please, carry on, but don't try to pretend that you have an answer I don't. No one has the answer, and in that sense, Scientology is as real or as unreal as Christianity, or Judaism, or Islam, or Tommy Leeology, or hell, even science. But at least what science offers that religion doesn't is the ability to question, and reason, and re-evaluate, and allow its ideas to, well, evolve based on new information. If factual evidence shows up tomorrow suggesting that our species actually evolved from the fecal matter of giant space turtles, then science will evolve with those new facts, and rewrite the rules based on new evidence. That's the reason the earth is no longer flat, and it's something an unwavering belief in a book of stories can never offer. So please, if you're going to laugh at Scientology and call Tom Cruise a brainwashed lunatic, be sure to play fair and save some venom for all the other religions and their brainwashed lunatics. And, well, I'll just let XKCD conclude this rant more efficiently than I ever could:




Edit: Oh, shit. I wrote all that before seeing Kirk Cameron's definitive proof that evolution isn't real. Fuck! Everything I stood for, debunked so effortlessly, and with such perfect teeth! Well, back to the ol' drawing board...