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.
Tim Mayhall is a chaplain at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. In my brief interactions with him yesterday, I got the impression that he’s earnest and committed to the job he loves, and that he finds it easy to make common ground with non-believers. He sees a lot of pain and fear, being that as a chaplain, he covers emergency and trauma, as well as surgical intensive care. Inevitably, some of the people he helps care for are atheists and agnostics. Mayhall got in touch after reading the articles on this site about the Ardmore, Oklahoma Catholic hospital where a receptionist told non-believer clients that atheists shouldn’t be allowed to procreate. Read more
As the world’s love affair with Pope Francis continues unabated, there’s one sour note for the pontiff: Even a majority of Catholics don’t buy what he’s supposed to be selling, rejecting the Church’s stance on divorce, marriage rights for clergy, and contraceptives. Per Time magazine: The Vatican faces a wide ideological gap with popularly held beliefs in many countries, a new poll [of more than 12,000 Catholics from five continents] finds. On issues like contraception, gay marriage, divorce and women’s admittance into the priesthood, the Church is at odds with a majority of Catholics in many countries across the world, the poll shows. Over 90 percent of Catholics in countries including France, Brazil, Spain, Argentina, and Columbia favor the use of birth control, a position that opposes official Catholic doctrine. And more than 60 percent of Catholics in countries including France, Spain, Poland, Brazil, Argentina and the United States believe priests should be allowed to marry. Here are key results, courtesy of Univision: Read more
In a little over two weeks, Josh Ladgrove will take the stage at Adelaide Fringe, an annual open-access arts festival, and piss off tons of people who aren’t even there. In fact, he’s already started doing just that. That’s because the Melbourne comedian, who bears a passing resemblance to Western depictions of Jesus Christ, is scheduled to perform three shows in which he appears before the audience dressed as the Savior and sticky-taped to a cardboard crucifix. Then, he invites audience members to heckle him on any subject, never knowing where those who oblige will direct him with their taunts and insults. The title of the always-changing performance? Come Heckle Christ. Read more
Last week, jittery representatives of the student’s union at London’s South Bank University removed atheist posters featuring the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) — and initially lied about the reason, according to the British website politics.co.uk. The posters had been put up at a Freshers’ Fair (a new-student orientation event) by a secular student group, the South Bank Atheist Society. Union officials at the London South Bank University removed the posters from the society’s stall overnight and then barred representatives from printing off more, citing the visibility of Adam’s genitals as offensive. Right. Because we all know that Leonardo da Vinci, whose depiction of Adam (taken from his Sistine Chapel masterpiece) we’re talking about here, was an infamous pornographer who gave Adam a massive erection (topped only by the holy boner of Jesus). Oh, wait. Read more
