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.
Pastor Ryan Bell, trying to get better acquainted with the atheist world, recently started immersing himself in it for one year. John Christy, another devout Christian, is at least 1/52nd that committed. He did the same thing, but initially for just a week; that engagement began to stretch toward a year, though, once he decided to make a documentary about his experiences, called My Week in Atheism. The Christian Post reports: John Christy, a devout Christian filmmaker and student of religion, and David Smalley, an atheist activist and radio host, have released a new documentary film they made together, “My Week in Atheism,” about their friendship caught between the two opposing worldviews. The film premiered over the weekend at the Crest Theater in Sacramento, Calif., showing the two traveling together to secular conventions, university campuses, and a live talk show, and how they maintain a close friendship while protecting their worldviews and activism. “The way the world is today, people too often view others with different beliefs as their enemies. But David and I have developed a deep friendship — even though we talk, and argue about religious differences all the time,” said Christy in a statement. “As I’ve gotten to know David more, I appreciate his challenge to my faith. Rather than digging in my heels to defend myself, I’ve tried to take an honest, intellectual look at what motivates atheism and why I believe what I believe,” added Christy, who has a B.S. in Religion and Theological Studies and plans to get an M.A. in Christian and Classical Studies in 2015. Here’s the film’s trailer: Read more
Via the Associated Press, more venality, subterfuge, and malefaction from the Catholic Connoisseurs of Choirboys: When Los Angeles police were investigating allegations of child abuse by a Roman Catholic priest in 1988, they asked for a list of altar boys at the last parish where the priest worked. Archbishop Roger Mahony told a subordinate not to give the list, saying he didn’t want the boys to be scarred by the investigation and that he felt the altar boys were too old to be potential victims, according to a deposition made public on Wednesday. The detectives investigating allegations against Nicolás Aguilar Rivera, a visiting Mexican priest, ultimately got the names of the boys from parish families. They determined that the priest molested at least 26 boys in his 10 months in Los Angeles, according to the priest’s confidential archdiocese file and police records made public by attorneys for the victims. Read more
The Christian proprietors of an assisted-living facility in Los Angeles stand accused of, among other things, retaliating against the disabled they served if their clients didn’t attend religious services. Kang Won Lee and Jung Hwan Lee, husband and wife, own the two houses in Los Angeles’ historic Adams district that became the subject of a lawsuit filed by the office of L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer the other day. The Lees ran the two homes, Agape Mission House and Agape Home Church, as unlicensed facilities for the physically and mentally disabled, the city alleges. The couple had the properties licensed as charities. Read more
If you survived the Rapture that Harold Camping told you about, as well as the Mayan Apocalypse, it’s time to cower for real this time: This Saturday is our day of reckoning when the world will be entirely submerged in water, all Noah-like, after an epic battle between Norse gods Thor, Loki, Odin, Freyr, and Hermóðr. Read more
Good and bad news. Pennsylvania residents Herbert and Catherine Schaible, a faith-healing couple, were sentenced today for letting a second child, eight-month-old Brandon, die last year. The Schaibles had been under a judge’s order to seek medical help for their sick children after the parents prayed over their two-year-old son Kent in 2009 instead of taking him to a hospital. Kent, who had treatable pneumonia, died too. Judge Benjamin Lerner gave the defendants a verbal dressing-down that will likely earn a place in the annals of sentencing. Read more
