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.
Christianity has roughly 41,000 denominations, all of their members quietly or not-so-quietly claiming that they are purer and better Christians than the folks in the other 40,999 groups. Think of all the pain — strife, frustration, aggression, violence, heartbreak — that radiated out from the forming of virtually each of those factions. Christians love a good schism (or at least, they don’t seem able to help themselves in causing new ones). With each new rift, the human toll in terms of shunnings, ruptured family ties, and lost friendships goes up. You’ll need a Python-strength sense of humor to see the fun in that. Splinters, as we all know, can hurt. Read more
What would you do if you saw someone wrapped in a blanket, sleeping on a bench outside a church? For Cindy Castano Swannack, who drove by St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Davidson, North Carolina the other day, the answer was “call the police.” When informed that it was a sculpture depicting Jesus (with stigmata on his bare feet that poke out from under the blanket), Swannack seemed taken aback. She told the local NBC affiliate that “Jesus is not a vagrant, Jesus is not a helpless person who needs our help. We need someone who is capable of meeting our needs, not someone who is also needy.” Read more
Via Politico: Touting the latest White House Obamacare benchmark, President Barack Obama told his political base not to be discouraged by partisan attacks and stressed that their cause is divine. The president spoke those remarkable words at an Organizing for Action event in Washington. “We’re going to make a big push these last few weeks,” Obama told OFA volunteers and officials. “I can talk, my team can talk here in Washington, but it’s not going to make as much of a difference as if you are out there making the case. The work you’re doing is God’s work.” Read more
Akbar Rezaie’s praying robot could easily pass for a playful yet thought-provoking postmodern art project, a masterpiece of irony and social critique. But the metal-and-silicon creature that the 27-year-old Iranian built in his home won’t be showing up in museums anytime soon. It is destined to be purely a prayer instruction device. Rezaie, you see, teaches the Qur’an at an elementary school in Varamin, 20 miles outside the capital of Tehran. Read more