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.
Earlier today, Ted Cruz fired his communications director Rick Tyler after the staffer posted a news story on Facebook suggesting that Marco Rubio disparaged the Bible. As the story went, Rubio came across a (Cruz) campaign worker holding a Bible and said there were “not many answers” in it. The truth, as you can see the video below, was that Rubio said the Bible has “all the answers.” Read more
It was nearly a year ago when Arkansas State Senator Jason Rapert (a Republican, of course) filed a bill to install a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the State Capitol, similar to what the state of Oklahoma once had: That bill eventually passed, despite the potential legal challenges. After all, the government is forbidden from promoting Christianity, which is all this monument is doing. The Supreme Court once said that a similar monument was legal because it had been up for decades and was surrounded by other historical displays, but that won’t be the case in Arkansas. So far this has just been all talk. The monument may be legal in the state, but it doesn’t exist yet. And that’s why Rapert is now trying desperately to crowdsource funding for the Ten Commandments monument (on behalf of a private company). Read more
Last November, Georgia Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle threw atheists under the bus with a fundraising letter stamped with the line, “Don’t Let Atheists Ban Georgia’s Football Chaplains.” He was referring to Freedom From Religion Foundation’s campaign calling out public universities that have Christian chaplains (some of whom are paid) preaching to the football team. In other words, his letter was basically saying, “Let the state promote Christianity through public university football teams.” The state Senate just passed SB 309, which allows athletes at public schools to put religious symbols on their uniforms. It’s a ridiculous bill which would inevitably result in Christian students turning a team sport into a game of one-upmanship over who publicly loves Jesus the most. It’s no surprise, then, that Cagle loves it. He wrote this on his Facebook page a few days ago: Read more
David Barton, the Christian pseudo-historian whose own understanding of history is so warped that his publishers had to yank his Thomas Jefferson book off the shelves because of all the errors, will soon be the namesake for a school of political science. The David Barton School of Political Science will be a part of Arkansas’ Ecclesia College. Read more
It’s been more than a quarter-century since author Salman Rushdie was the subject of a 1989 fatwa from Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini as a result of his book The Satanic Verses. It changed the trajectory of his life for several years as he did his best to hide from the Islamic extremists who wanted to murder him. And now the fatwa is being renewed: Read more
