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.
Good stuff: Bad stuff: The team behind the above video works for a startup called Stated Clearly. You can find out more about the members and their goals here. In a nutshell, their objective is to overcome the tendency of most people to “shut off” any learning and thinking about evolution. Stated Clearly identifies the three key factors in that popular rejection as a general lack of interest in science, the fact that evolution can be difficult to understand, and the perception that evolution is “offensive” (after all, some people get upset about being told we’re all related to monkeys, and many see evolution as a middle finger to religious beliefs). Read more
One (almost) down, a bunch more to go. The Church of England is “one generation away from extinction”, the former Archbishop of Canterbury has warned. Lord Carey, 78, said churchgoers should be “ashamed” of themselves for failing to invest more in young people and called for urgent action before it’s too late. The outspoken Lord said that unless more was done to attract new worshipers, every one of the 43 CofE dioceses across the world could be wiped out within 25 years. He also expressed fears that the modern church was too old fashioned and “not the most exciting place to meet new people”. Read more
To cap the Year of Faith, the Vatican has decided to put some almost 2,000-year-old bone fragments on display that the Church says are St. Peter’s. Per the Guardian, The decision to exhibit is controversial. No pontiff has ever said the bones are without doubt those of Saint Peter, and some within archaeological circles are fairly sure they are not. But Catholics are taking it on — what else? — faith. The remains, discovered in 1950, have a checkered history, about which the paper goes into some detail. In his book The Vatican Diaries, longtime observer John Thavis calls the affair “an embarrassment” for the church. “The supposed bones of Saint Peter had been surreptitiously dug up by a meddling monsignor when the archaeologists weren’t looking; then they were thrown into a box and forgotten for more than a decade; then they were rediscovered by accident and became the focus of a feud between church experts,” he writes. “The whole affair did not inspire confidence in the Vatican’s ability to exhume its own history, and it is little wonder that none of it is mentioned in the Vatican guidebooks.” Read more
The Qur’an says Muslim men may take up to four wives. Muhammad, Islam’s prophet, had nine. Is it Islamophobic — nay, racist — to tell a joke based on those incontrovertible facts? It seems so. Conan O’Brien got pilloried when he (or, more likely, one of his staffers) tweeted this the other day: The reaction was swift: “So fucking gross and racist. Good job guys,” responded a seething Twitter user (one of many who’ll probably be surprised when someone clues them in to the fact that Islam is a religion, not a race). Tweeted another: “Real classy bigotry, Conan OBrien. Did you enjoy having a laugh at the expense of the marginalized?” Two hours later, O’Brien’s tweet was gone. Read more
I’m receiving a bit of a drubbing on Pharyngula today, due to my post about Mohammad Fares, an Islamist warrior in Syria who accidentally had his head cut off the other week by an allied band of terrorist rebels. The noggin-choppin’ fundies thought they had caught a pro-government fighter. I wrote: Indiscriminate cruelty and slaughter has long been a way of life for these types. I guess I’m supposed to be sad when it becomes a way of death for them too, but for once I’ll nod along in agreement with Jesus, who is said to have stated the inevitability of violence begetting violence pretty succinctly: “He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.” Mohammed Fares was another Islamist boil on the ass of humanity. It’s an unpleasant procedure, but boils need to be lanced. Or beheaded — same thing. PZ Myers is displeased: Read more
