Empire of the Odd

Skepticism Makes The World Go Round: Chiropractic cures for your DNA?

Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science — by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans — teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us.

Once again the Saint Petersburg Times trolls Scientology and their center of the universe in nearby Clearwater.Giant ‘Super Power’ building in Clearwater takes a pause, yet millions keep flowing in

By Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin, Times Staff Writers
In Print: Monday, November 21, 2011

The seven-story Super Power building, also known as the Flag Building, sits on a full city block across the street from the taller Fort Harrison Hotel. In the foreground is the church’s power plant (L-shaped orange roof). It will heat and cool Super Power. Next to it is the church’s parking garage, both styled in the Mediterranean Revival architecture of the other church buildings. Scientology plans to build a seven-story, 3,500-seat auditorium on property it owns south of Super Power.

Maybe they’re out of money.

That speculation — irresistible to many Scientology watchers in Clearwater — never died after the church suddenly stopped construction on its massive, downtown “Super Power” building.

The church had spent five years and $45 million erecting the shell of the seven-story colossus that covers an entire city block. But in 2003 it shifted the project into idle, offering little explanation.

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