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.
A little roundup: God’s face appeared in a cloud over a soon-to-be-demolished drive-in movie theater that was showing (this gives me chills, people!) God’s Not Dead. He’s perched over the girl’s left shoulder, looking like the product of a supernatural tryst between a drunk Dionysus and Charles Darwin. Read more
Steven Sotloff’s family is in mourning after footage emerged that appears to show the 31-year-old journalist’s beheading at the hands of ISIS terrorists. “I’m back, Obama, because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State, because of your insistence on continuing your bombings,” the English-accented executioner says as he holds a knife to Sotloff’s neck. “Our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people.” Then, as the reporter struggles to get off his knees, the killer starts sawing at… Read more
When we last featured the mega-Orthodox Jewish group Lev Tahor, a Canadian cult, on this site, it was over credible allegations of systematic child abuse. For instance: [A] member told police about beatings with sticks, crowbars, whips and belts… A witness said he saw a woman struck in the face because she refused to wear the burqa-like outfit for women that has led some media to deride the group as the Jewish Taliban. Girls who were 13 or 14 were disciplined by being held in house basements while girls who were 14 and 15 were married to adult men, the police documents said. Children were also taken from their biological parents [and assigned permanently to other families in the sect] if the sect’s leader deemed they were not taught properly. Lev Tahor’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans (pictured), has a record that we’d call odd for a self-proclaimed man of God, if it wasn’t for the fact that crimes against children are rife within patriarchal religions and sects. Read more
I keep this smartypants meme handy on my computer desktop so I can quickly post it, when called for, in certain comment threads on Facebook. In my experience, the most common Internet misattributions have some link to religion, a field where a reverence for facts is often doubtful to begin with and grotesque fabrications are baked right into the faith’s foundational “truths.” Read more
