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.
This is how Redditor MattONesti is celebrating Halloween today: as the Pope. Improvised add-ons to his wheelchair mean he can roll around in style, in his very own Pope-mobile. Pretty cool! A fellow Reddit user kindly cautioned him that in Alabama, It is illegal to dress as a member of the clergy for halloween. Which can’t possibly be true. Or can it? Read more
It started as a popular inside joke among U.K. atheists: when asked to divulge their faith on the 2001 Census form, almost 400,000 non-believers — 0.7 percent of the population — claimed to be practitioners of Jediism. Yes, as in Star Wars. Somehow, over the years, that little bit of mischief gave birth to an actual belief system with a real theology — for some. The BBC, quoting a Cambridge University researcher, says that there are currently about two thousand self-identifying Jedi in the country who are serious about their faith. They’ve developed “ever-more complex doctrines and scriptures,” … written by the Church’s founder, Daniel Jones. What might have started as an intellectual exercise by fans adding to the movies and filling in the gaps, has become an attempt to build a coherent religious code. … The Jedi belief system is a patchwork quilt of Taoism, Buddhism, Catholicism and Samurai. … Often the ideas offer a simple dualism of good and evil, light and dark. … Beth Singler, a researcher in the Divinity Faculty of Cambridge University, estimates that there are about 2,000 people in the UK who are “very genuine” about being Jedi.” … Jediism is not a joke for them but an inspiration. They don’t believe in “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”, says Singler, quoting the opening text that fills the screen of Star Wars. “It’s somewhere between metaphor and literal truth.” Read more
Bravery under fire: A mullah who raped a 10-year-old girl in his mosque was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a dramatic trial here in Kabul on Saturday during which his accuser, weeping and shaking, summoned the courage to confront him. The girl’s injuries, the court heard, were horrific (upsetting description, fair warning): The rape had been so violent that it caused a break in the wall between the vagina and rectum, a fistula, which had to be repaired surgically. Chances are that if the victim had been of the age of consent, the judge would’ve treated the rape as mere adultery, just as the mullah’s defense lawyers argued he should do in this case; a conviction for adultery would result in both the rapist and the girl undergoing a whipping. “She cannot commit adultery; she is a child,” [the judge] said. “This is rape.” Read more
Hemant wrote an eye-popping post yesterday in response to an article by Jerry Coyne about Sikh pupils habitually carrying ceremonial daggers called kirpans into U.S. public schools. My friend/colleague/boss argued that Coyne was wrong to object. Since kirpans are part of Sikhs’ religious requirements, Hemant thinks that we should accommodate Sikhs and their kirpans on religious-freedom grounds. I respectfully disagree — completely. Below, I explain why in five points of rebuttal. 1. Hemant: “How quickly religious rights go out the window when we’re talking about people who aren’t in the majority.” Me: Majority or minority status has nothing to do with it. Why would it? Let’s argue this on the merits, irrespective of whose superstitions are most popular. So, to battle. Religious rights, you say? I call what you propose religious accommodationism. I’m only in favor of that when whatever is being accommodated extends to all pupils. If a school allows head coverings, the right to wear a hat should shouldn’t only be given to Jews wearing yarmulkes. It should also apply to Muslim students who want to wear the hijab … and to atheist students who feel like showing off their Flying Spaghetti Monster beanies. Read more
When a Malaysian man, Syed Azmi Alhabshi, was repeatedly asked why he insisted on organizing a touch-a-dog day in his predominantly Muslim country, where Islam is the state religion, he made no bones about it: To dispel negative stigma surrounding canines, he said. But as dogs are the second-most-reviled animal in Islam, right after pigs, lots of his fellow citizens took the initiative as an intolerable provocation. Zurairi AR, a fearless humanist and skeptic, wrote an entertaining piece about the flap in the Malay Mail Online, under the Dawkins-referencing headline “The Dog Delusion.” [C]onservatives have since accused Syed Azmi and the organisers of deliberately provoking the Malay-Muslim community with the event, which they say has no place in Muslim-majority Malaysia. Read more
