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.
Here’s an interesting split: If you’re an evangelical pastor, you might endorse Ted Cruz since he’s the guy who believes what you believe, is just as much of an anti-gay bigot, and thinks access to health care for women is something we have to eliminate. But if you’re an evangelical pastor who thinks God wants everyone to be rich, then Donald Trump is your man. At least that’s the case for prosperity gospel preacher Mike Murdock, who endorsed Trump at a rally yesterday. If you’re not familiar with Murdock, he’s the sort of guy who says that your credit card debt will be wiped out if you give him money, that “$1,000 cannot reproduce until it enters into a covenant with the soil” (by which he means his ministry), and that “I haven’t seen a woman as good looking as a $100 bill.” So it’s a perfect match, really. Read more
Did you know Godless Secularists are taking over America? It’s true. By my count, we’re inching ever-so-close to having one openly non-religious representative in Congress. Or the White House. Or the Supreme Court. Now that would be power! But while Christians dominate every branch of everything, Franklin Graham told a Florida audience at his “Decision America” tour recently that they needed to defeat “secularism” in the 2016 election or else their religious rights would become an afterthought: Read more
Last year, I got an email from Christian apologist and professor Sean McDowell. He was writing a new book to help Christians respond to modern-day issues (as opposed to the usual arguments about God’s existence and the Bible’s accuracy), and he wanted to include the perspective of skeptics to remind readers of what the “opposition” believes in our own words. I have no problem being part of that conversation (assuming my words aren’t taken out of context or used in some unintended way). McDowell’s book, A New Kind of Apologist, comes out soon. As you’d expect with any book written by a Christian, there’s plenty to disagree with in it. But my interview was reprinted fairly and without edits. Which means this response is now in a book: Read more
It’s no surprise that Ted Cruz wants an ultra-conservative justice to replaced Antonin Scalia. What is surprising is how much he’s willing to lie about the consequences if that doesn’t happen. (Then again, maybe that’s not surprising at all.) On Meet the Press yesterday, Cruz told host Chuck Todd that a liberal justice would mean the end of religious liberty — adding that religious symbols would be “sandblasted off of the tombstones of our fallen veterans”: Read more
