Hemant Mehta is the founder and editor of FriendlyAtheist.com, a YouTube creator, and podcast co-host. He is a former National Board Certified math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago. He has appeared on CNN and FOX News and served on the board of directors for Foundation Beyond Belief and the Secular Student Alliance. He has written multiple books, including I Sold My Soul on eBay and The Young Atheist's Survival Guide. He also edited the book Queer Disbelief.
In 1981, Louisiana passed into law the “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act” which said that if evolution was taught in public schools, then Creationism had to be taught as well. It wasn’t until 1987, with a 7-2 ruling by the Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard, that the law was finally declared unconstitutional. It should have been a foregone conclusion that teaching Creationism was just another way to promote Christianity in school, but it took the courts to finally settle the question. The funny thing is that the Louisiana law remained on the books. Even though it no longer had any effect, it wasn’t removed from the records. It’s just been sitting there, doing nothing, to this day. That’s why State Senator Dan Claitor, a Republican, has pre-filed Senate Bill 156, which would repeal the law once and for all. It’s currently in the Senate Committee on Education. Read more
Earlier today, Pope Francis announced that Mother Teresa would become a saint on September 4. The honor will come nearly two decades after her death. While many are undoubtedly celebrating the announcement, it’s important to look at what went into the sainthood process, since it makes no sense at all and few people will dare to talk about it. After all, Mother Teresa is one of those people who’s supposed to be immune from criticism. Read more
We’ve talked about Pastor Kevin Swanson more times than I’d like to admit on this site. He’s the guy who refused to buy Girl Scout cookies because he didn’t want to “support lesbianism.” He also once said children or their parents (it wasn’t clear which) should be drowned rather than letting kids read the Harry Potter series. But if you heard of him in the news, it’s likely because he once said homosexuality is a sin “worthy of death” — and that didn’t stop Republican candidates Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and Bobby Jindal from attending one of his conferences. (Cruz quietly apologized for appearing there a month later.) So what’s Swanson up to now? He’s calling for more killing in the name of Jesus. And once again, he’s picking on the Girl Scouts. This time, he’s saying troop leaders deserve to die because they’re (somehow) still “promoting lesbianism.” Read more
We learned earlier this month that a grand jury in Pennsylvania found that Church leaders in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese were responsible for the sexual abuse of hundreds of kids over several decades. Not only that, they interfered with police investigations into the matter. While the statute of limitations has passed for most of those crimes, the same grand jury has now charged three Franciscan priests with “conspiring to enable a serial predator to sexually assault more than 100 Catholic high school students.” Read more