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.
Last week, Cardinal Raymond Burke responded to a question about the well-being of children, posed by the Christian website LifeSiteNews. You might think that the topic had something to do with the astonishing number of Burke’s brethren who like to illegally probe boys’ bottoms, but no. This was the concern: How should Catholic parents deal with a difficult situation like this: When planning a Christmas family gathering with grandchildren present, parents are asked by their son, who is in a homosexual relationship, if he can come and bring with him his homosexual partner. And this was Burke’s answer: If it were another kind of relationship — something that was profoundly disordered and harmful — we wouldn’t expose our children to that relationship, to the direct experience of it. And neither should we do it in the context of a family member who not only suffers from same-sex attraction, but who has chosen to live out that attraction, to act upon it, committing acts which are always and everywhere wrong, evil. The outspoken cardinal (below) has a history of homophobic remarks, and there’s no reason to think that that will change. What will change is his job title. In one of the more explosive shakeups in recent history of the Catholic Church, the second-most powerful man in the Vatican has been ousted. Read more
When advocacy organizations adopt motions to praise or — more typically — condemn this or that, it’s a symbolic, well-intentioned act that rarely changes anything. Sometimes, the more horrific and farther flung the actions being protested, the more inadvertently comical the proudly announced statements of disapproval become. Such was the case when the left-leaning U.K.-based National Union of Students condemned the bloodshed by ISIS terrorists the other day, in a motion that made the Islamist butchers quake in their boots. Oh wait — neither of those things happened. The NUS couldn’t get the required votes for its anti-ISIS motion, despite the language being relatively weak and more than a little mealy-mouthed (you can read the full text here). The bill called for the Union — which claims to represent UK students — to support unity between Muslims, condemn the bloody terror of ISIS (also known as the Islamic State), and support a boycott on people who fund the militants. But the motion offended Black Students Officer Malia Bouattia, who said: “We recognize that condemnation of ISIS appears to have become a justification for war and blatant Islamophobia. Read more
Humorist Andy Borowitz cracks wise about the current health crisis: There is a deep-seated fear among some Americans that an Ebola outbreak could make the country turn to science. In interviews conducted across the nation, leading anti-science activists expressed their concern that the American people, wracked with anxiety over the possible spread of the virus, might desperately look to science to save the day. Read more
Did Jesus really exist? John Dickson, the founding director of the Center for Public Christianity in Sydney, is a little incredulous that anyone, especially qualified academic sources, could doubt that Christ was a real person. He doesn’t consider Richard Carrier’s book (On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt) very convincing, nor does he appear to be impressed by Carriers’s credentials — PhD and MA degrees in ancient history from Berkeley and Columbia. “Almost no one believes Carrier — outside the circle of eager sceptics.” … claims Dickson. Read more
Newsweek asks a good question: Why, if Americans are so horrified by the ISIS beheadings, do we collectively shrug about the beheadings carried out by Saudi Arabia, our so-called ally? Since the beginning of the year, 59 people have had their heads chopped off in the Islamic paradise, in cases that wouldn’t pass judicial muster in a halfway enlightened nation. The Saudi legal system is based on Islam’s Sharia law. Some countries that use Sharia possess a penal code, but Saudi Arabia does not. This is what awaits the condemned. If you are a prisoner in Riyadh, the capital, you might be taken to the ocher-colored Deera Square, which has acquired a macabre sobriquet: Chop Chop Square. Before you arrive, police and security forces will have prepared the area. It may have been cordoned off to keep curious spectators at a distance, but they will congregate nonetheless. You will be led to the center of the square, on the bare earth. According to one of Saudi Arabia’s state executioners, Mohammed Saad al-Beshi, who was interviewed in the Saudi newspaper Arab News in June 2003, your energy is likely to fade at this point, from sheer exhaustion and fear. You will not fight for your life, nor protest against your restraints. Also because usually there’s Valium or another sedative coursing through your system — a pill that the regime touts as a kind offering to calm the convict’s nerves, but which is also to the executioner’s benefit: less chance of anger, desperation, and writhing. Read more
