Terry Firma, though born and Journalism-school-educated in Europe, has lived in the U.S. for the past 20-odd years. Stateside, his feature articles have been published in the New York Times, Reason, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Wired. Terry was the founder and Main Mischief Maker of Moral Compass, a now-dormant site that pokes fun at the delusional claim by people of faith that a belief in God equips them with superior moral standards. He was the Editor-in-Chief of two Manhattan-based magazines until he decided to give up commercial publishing for professional photography... with a lot of blogging on the side. These days, he lives in an old seaside farmhouse in Maine with his wife, three kids, and two big dogs.
Can’t immediately explain something worrisome? Must be the devil. Or evil spirits. Some students of a public school in a mountain barangay in Cebu City [in the Philippines] were reportedly possessed by evil spirits. The case seems to have started when … 35 students from various grade levels suddenly collapsed and started convulsing while attending their classes. Mary (not her real name) said that before she was possessed, a spirit who identified himself as “Jake” spoke to her. Mary’s sister, a fourth grader, was also possessed by a spirit named “Maria.” Their mother believed that the possession may have occurred after the school reportedly cut down two mango trees to make way for the construction of a two-story building. Read more
Using magic, how can you subjugate a male enemy? Easy: [Y]ou have to say a magical formula over two nails, and then “drive them into his doorpost, one on the right side (and) one on the left.” That bit of supernatural advice can be found in a mysterious, 1,300-year-old Egyptian codex that’s written in Coptic. (Somewhere, Dan Brown is in the throes of arousal.) Read more
Last summer, a botched operation took the life of a 12-year-old Egyptian girl by the name of Sohair al-Bata’a. The man responsible has nothing to worry about professionally or legally, though. The first doctor to be brought to trial in Egypt on charges of female genital mutilation (FGM) has been acquitted, crushing hopes that the landmark verdict would discourage Egyptian doctors from conducting the endemic practice. Raslan Fadl, a doctor and Islamic preacher in the village of Agga, northern Egypt, was acquitted of mutilating Sohair al-Bata’a in June 2013. … Sohair’s father, Mohamed al-Bata’a, was also acquitted of responsibility. Police and health officials testified that the child’s parents had admitted taking their daughter to Fadl’s clinic for the procedure. Read more
Two days ago, a family from Texas suffered a horrific tragedy when a long-planned trip to Disney World ended in a fatal car crash in Louisiana. Five members died — two parents and three of their children. Said the mother’s stepbrother: “En route, God had other plans as five members of our family are now enjoying an even happier place.” Read more
Freedom of religion in the United States doesn’t mean you may believe in anything or nothing. It only means that you’re free to choose between Christian denominations. Bryan Fischer tells us so. [T]he purpose of the First Amendment, as Justice Joseph Story declares in his monumental history of the Constitution, was only to protect the free exercise of the Christian faith and to prevent the selection and designation of one Christian denomination as the official church of the United States. In other words, you can be any religion you want, as long as it’s Christianity. More importantly, the government may promote one faith over all others (three guesses which one they supposedly picked). Read more
