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.
The Daily Beast met up with naturalist and broadcast narrator Sir David Attenborough, 87, and discovered that these days, he turns a tad ornery when the subject turns to superstitious, anti-science stubbornness: Attenborough has made a career of resisting controversy, often describing himself as “a reporter” with no views of his own. … Once criticized by campaigners for his reticence to address contentious issues, [he] is no longer willing to speak in hushed tones. Sitting opposite the kangaroo enclosure at London Zoo, he told The Daily Beast he had lost patience with the “ignorance” of creationists, polluters, and climate change deniers. “To simply say that you must accept unquestioningly what you learned at your mother’s knee is not the act of an intelligent person,” he said. Creation myths are among the things that can exasperate him: Read more
The quiet Dutch town of Laren was the scene of a rather spectacular assassination attempt the other day, when a man named Jeroen van Hasselt was stabbed by a wig-wearing assailant posing as a flower-delivery man. Nice touch: the blade was hidden in a bouquet of lilies — flowers associated with purity and death. Van Hasselt and a few brave passers-by managed to overpower the would-be murderer and turned him over to police. Dutch media report that the attacker, whose name has not been revealed, is a member of the Orde van Transformanten (“Order of Transformers”), a ten-year-old sect of about a hundred people, most of whom live together in a Christian commune in the southwestern town of Hoeven. They claim to emulate Jesus and the original Christians, and try their darnedest to shed “destructive habits” like envy and sloth. Read more
Quick followup to my earlier post about Rory O’Neill, the Irish drag queen who got herself in a world of legal hurt after she called specific individuals homophobes. After I wrote it, I pondered the apparent similarity of “homophobia” to words like “Islamophobia,” “anti-Semitism,” and “misogyny.” Read more
A week after the Ken Ham/Bill Nye debate, it’s time to put the topic to bed, along with the viral photos of Creationists at the event holding a sketchpad with scrawled questions. And we will … just as soon as we’ve pointed you to this imgur page with clever “translations” of those questions. Here’s a sample: There, all done now! Read more
When the Jewish mashiach (messiah) finally returns, guess who won’t be overjoyed to see him? Renters in Jersualem, who fear they will be will be kicked out of their apartments. The Christian Science Monitor found that In apartment contracts around the city, there are clauses stipulating what will happen to the apartment if or when the Jewish Messiah, or mashiach, comes. The owners, generally religious Jews living abroad, are concerned that he will arrive, build a third temple, and turn Israel into paradise — and they will be stuck waiting for their apartment tenants’ contracts to run out before they can move back. It is prophesied in the Jewish scriptures that there will be no more war, murder, or theft, the Jerusalem Temple will be rebuilt (all that remains today is the Western Wall), and all the Jews will return to the land of Israel upon his arrival. This period is known as Olam Haba, or the World to Come. Read more
