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.
Knoxville pastor Andrew Hamblin, who handles poisonous snakes as part of his faith, got in trouble with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency the other day. TWRA agents raided his Tabernacle Church of God, and took the dozens of illegal snakes they found, including rattlesnakes and copperheads, to the Knoxville Zoo. The TWRA says some of them were in bad condition when they were confiscated, a charge that Hamblin denies. The pastor, reports the local Gannett news station, was cited with possession of Class 1 wildlife (wildlife inherently dangerous to humans). Hamblin is crestfallen over the loss of his beloved animals. Oh wait, my bad — he isn’t at all, actually. Read more
The UK Telegraph reports that in a ruthless Vatican power play, Father Renato Salvatore fabricated unspecified criminal charges against two rivals so that he would be re-elected Superior General of the Camillians, also known as the Order of Ministers to the Sick. The Camillians have been around for some 440 years. Whether they’ve ever seen this level of venality before, I don’t profess to know. Read more
John Carlson loves him some Albert Camus. Carlson is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University; Camus (1913-1960) was the famously godless French novelist and essayist. On the Huffington Post, Carlson writes fondly about Camus, because the Frenchman … offers a powerful counter-example to the stridency and animus of the “new atheism” associated with Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and others. Indeed Camus makes us long for the days of the “old atheism” when religious people weren’t mocked for their so-called irrational beliefs; bullied by the charge that “religion poisons everything”; and told to step aside while secularism sweeps clean the religious debris from public life. Nothing new there. When, post-9/11, atheists no longer felt forced to use only their inside voice, people of faith — and the media — were quick, almost gleeful, to attach the adjective “strident” to the noun “atheist,” as if the two are conjoined twins. Does it get old? Not to Carlson. Hardly a picture of originality, he uses the term repeatedly. Read more
Malala Yousafzai’s recent book, I Am Malala, is causing a lot of commotion in her native Pakistan. In the latest example, Mirza Kashif, the president of the All Pakistan Private Schools Federation, said he’s decided to protect Pakistani children from the impertinent book — banning it to keep them from entering “a confused state of mind.” He’s afraid that Malala’s biographical account “will challenge the ideological foundations of our next generation.” Read more
This isn’t turning out to be a very good month for the American Legion. First, members of Post 311 decided they wouldn’t attend a Veteran’s Day assembly at a Pennsylvania public high school because the superintendent told them their chaplain wouldn’t be allowed to deliver a prayer at the event. Then, there was the PR smackdown suffered by an Illinois chapter of the organization. You’ll recall that after Morton Grove Park District Commissioner Dan Ashta declined to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, piqued members of Legion Post 134 decided they would withhold their $2,600 worth of financial support. On Hemant’s initiative, atheists from all over the country quickly contributed $3,300 to more than make up the shortfall at least for this year, ensuring that Morton Grove residents can continue to enjoy their greenery. And now, there’s this: Read more
