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.
New York Times columnist Frank Bruni did a facepalm when he saw Senator Mark Pryor’s preening I-love-the-Bible commercial, and was inspired to write in opposition: “So help me God.” “Under God.” “In God We Trust.” Perhaps we’re meant to register these ubiquitous phrases as unspecific inspirations, vague recognitions of an undefined higher power, general appeals to generous living. But they’re rooted in a given religious tradition and are arguably the gateways to the Arkansas ridiculousness and to the overwrought accusations of a “war on Christmas” that herald the holiday season as surely as Frosty the Snowman and Black Friday do. Read more
The veneration of the folk saint Santa Muerte, while nominally a Catholic phenomenon, is causing more and more problems for the Catholic Church in Mexico. Santa Muerta is believed to have some eight million followers in Mexico alone, from average poor folks to drug-trafficking criminals to, oddly enough, LGBT people. Reports BBC News: “[She] has also been adopted by the drug traffickers who ask her for help to avoid arrest and to make money,” [Francisco] Bautista [an exorcist] says. “In exchange they offer human sacrifices. And this has increased the violence in Mexico.” … Mexico’s exorcists say there is unprecedented demand for their services. Some are even not taking new cases, as they are having to exorcise demons almost every day. The way Bautista sees it, the cult around Santa Muerte is only one of two reasons why [cough] demonic possessions are spreading in Mexico. Can you guess the other one? It’s a doozy. Read more
This year, the holiday displays inside Florida’s Capitol building are going to be just a little more inclusive than usual: After hearing about a group installing a manger display in the State Capitol as well as another group intending to add the Three Wise Men, Deerfield Beach resident Chaz Stevens, a self-proclaimed “militant atheist,” felt that his Festivus pole rightfully deserved a place there as well. So he asked the Governor’s office if he could pretty please erect his ode to Festivus, … an 8-foot-tall tower made of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans. He received the approval [yesterday] and will be making the trip up to Tallahassee to install the Festivus pole himself this Wednesday. Read more
My mind is still reeling after I just watched the footage of a recent feminist protest outside a cathedral in San Juan, Argentina. In the NSFW video, shot on November 24, the female demonstrators are seen attacking a cordon of non-violent Catholic volunteers who said they were trying to protect the building from vandalism (apparently, the attendees of the annual women’s rights conference that spawned the demonstration had been on graffiti rampages before). How can people do this and still look at themselves in the mirror the next morning? The protesters, many of whom were topless, sprayed paint on the men, wrote on their faces with markers, and spat on them, in addition to other indignities. The men stood with linked arms and prayed during the assault. Inside the church the Archbishop Alfonso Delgado also led 700 people in prayer. If I were merely reading about this, I admit I’d be inclined to bring some skepticism to these allegations. Did exaggerations or miscommunications color the reporting? But the video — as far as I can tell — doesn’t lie. Even if some creative editing occurred, it’s a stunning record of nastiness and destruction. And it seems to go only one way. Again, the footage is not safe for work. Read more
The other side of “spirituality”: A French court on Friday sentenced the uncle and mother of three teenagers to jail for raping and assaulting the girls in voodoo exorcism sessions. The uncle, a 28-year-old Togolese man, was sentenced to 14 years for raping his niece in the guise of “chasing out an evil spirit”, as well as for assaults against the girl’s two older sisters. Read more
