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 a question every anti-gay bigot should be able to answer: Since you oppose marriage equality, how will legalizing it affect your life? In the case of Australian Christian Lobby head Lyle Shelton, the answer is that people will assume he’s gay. Which is apparently an awful thing that can never, ever be corrected. Read more
Before this weekend, the religious makeup of the Supreme Court was six Roman Catholics (Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor) and three Jews (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan). While there are much more important strategic considerations regarding Scalia’s replacement, the religion factor has been ignored by practically everyone. When we talk about diversity on the Court, we usually talk about gender, ethnicity, or color (and to a lesser extent background and schooling). So let’s talk about their faith. Among those whose names have been brought up a possible nominees, here’s what we known about their religious affiliations: Read more
Following news of Richard Dawkins’ stroke, the Church of England did what the Church of England does: They tweeted out a prayer for him: The proper response to this tweet would be: That’s sweet. The prayers will have no effect whatsoever on Dawkins’ health, but it’s nice that the Church is thinking about him. Instead, some people on Twitter charged that the Church was “trolling” Dawkins, trying to stick it to him in his time of agony. Read more
In Latin America, where the Zika virus is spreading quickly, we know it can cause serious birth defects. The rational thing to do here would be to prevent mothers from getting pregnant in the first place by promoting contraception or make sure they have access to abortions. But the Catholic Church isn’t exactly known for being a rational institution: Read more
