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.
It would be unseemly to laugh, wouldn’t it? From the Telegraph: Militant Islamist rebels in Syria linked to al-Qaeda have asked for “understanding and forgiveness” for cutting off and putting on display the wrong man’s head. In a public appearance filmed and posted online, members of Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham [ISIS], one brandishing a knife, held up a bearded head before a crowd in Aleppo. They triumphantly described the execution of what they said was a member of an Iraqi Shia militia fighting for President Bashar al-Assad. It wasn’t, the beheaders soon discovered to their not inconsiderable chagrin. Read more
A few days ago, I published a little riff on the topic of curiosity, based on a wonderful book I just read. Curiosity, book author Philip Ball shows, was long frowned upon by religious authorities as a sign of insufficient humility. All you were supposed to do was gape in mawkish wonder at the miracle of nature, and prostrate yourself before the Lord, expressing awe and suppressing all natural inquisitiveness. Glad we left that atavistic attitude behind us. Or did we? Pope Francis said this on Thursday: “The spirit of curiosity distances us from the spirit of wisdom because all that interests us is the details, the news, the little stories of the day.” Such a spirit, he warned, brings about dispersion and distances people from God. The Vatican leader further noted that Jesus himself warned against a worldly spirit of curiosity, as it causes confusion and impels people to want to feel that God is “here or there.” Read more
Another day, another gay waiter getting cheated out of a tip by prayerful Christians. Former Marine Dayna Morales waits tables in a New Jersey restaurant. The other day, a customer scrawled this note on the credit card receipt: I’m sorry I cannot tip because I do not agree with your lifestyle and the way you live your life. Morales posted a photo of the receipt on Facebook with the following message: Read more
