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.
A former Bible teacher at the Christian Academy of San Antonio will be spending the next 10 to 12 years in prison. A judge sentenced Robert Louis Rosseau to that term yesterday for sexual assaults on underage girls. Rosseau’s modus operandi was to approach teen students with a fanciful story about a “secret society” he wanted them to join, …which was based on Christianity, the occult, magic and Freemasonry,” according to court documents. He succeeded in recruiting two girls but ran into trouble with the third. Read more
I first heard of conservative German bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst last year, when Der Spiegel revealed some salient facts about a trip the Catholic shepherd undertook. The Catholic bishop of Limburg, a small city in western Germany, apparently had noble motives when he boarded a plane to India with his vicar general in mid-January. “We were there to support social projects in and around Bangalore,” Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst reported after his return. They wanted to help children “who worked breaking stones,” he added. But this man of God didn’t just want to do something good for the poor. He also wanted to do something nice for himself. On the upper deck of a jumbo jet, he and Vicar General Franz Kaspar had made themselves comfortable in the plane’s first-class section, which offers such amenities as champagne, caviar and a bed. Price per ticket: almost $10,000. Read more
The tiny Southeast Asian country of Brunei, population 409,000, has long been a relatively moderate Islamic state. Hassanal Bolkiah, the oil-producing country’s imperial ruler, is hell-bent on changing that — the moderate part, that is. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah — one of the world’s wealthiest men — said a new Sharia Penal Code in the works for years was officially introduced on Tuesday in the tiny, oil-flush sultanate and would be phased in beginning in six months. Based on individual cases, punishments could include stoning to death for adultery, severing of limbs for theft, and flogging for violations ranging from abortion to alcohol consumption, according to a copy of the code. The easiest way for adulterous Brunei citizens to avoid death is to leave Islam, as the code applies to Muslims only (who make up two-thirds of the population). Then again, the new rules probably contain some barbaric punishment for apostasy, too. Read more
This school year, my youngest daughter, who is eight, is being asked to say the Pledge of Allegiance in her public school every day. “Being asked” is too kind, really; it’s on her class program, so like a good little third-grader, she simply does it, every morning, without question — just like her 20 classmates. No one’s told her that she may opt out. The school has no specific policy on saying the Pledge, leaving it up to individual teachers to incorporate it into their daily routines — or not. I thought about it off and on for a few weeks, finding it hard to know what to do, if anything. Not rocking the boat has its advantages, which in this case would include not exposing my daughter to the social perils of having an outspoken atheist for a dad, specially in the very school environment where this could hurt her the most. Then again, I’m just not that good at keeping my mouth shut when something bothers me. When I cautiously broached the principal about this, he immediately offered to discuss any concerns with the staff without disclosing my name, or those of my two school-age daughters. I thought that was pretty classy, so I felt unburdened to send him the following letter. Read more
When the House of Representatives, after a 16-day standoff, finally decided to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling last night, it was only fitting that more crazy was on tap. As the vote was coming to a close, House stenographer Dianne Reidy, 48, took to the speaker’s podium and started an unprecedented rant about God. On the recording, she can be heard yelling He will nоt bе mocked! This iѕ nоt оnе nation undеr God! It nеvеr was. Hаd it been… It would not have been… No. Thе Constitution wоuld nоt hаvе bееn written bу Freemasons, thеу gо аgаinѕt God! You cannot serve two masters. Praise be God Lord Jesus Christ. She was also heard to say something about the devil before security officers forcibly escorted her out of the room. Read more
