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.
Gregory and Melanie Magazu have three kids, including a newborn, but they really wanted to adopt more. They felt that if they were able to provide a home for foster children, it’s something they had to do. And I admire any couple willing to open up their homes like that. The problem was that their Christian faith required them to hit their children. Read more
If there’s one thing we know about religious conservatives, it’s that they’re closeted meteorologists. They always seem to have explanations for various weather-related phenomena. That hurricane? It wreaked havoc because God was angry about gay people. And now the Jehovah’s Witnesses say that a typhoon in Micronesia was just God’s way of delivering sand to people building a “kingdom hall.” In the latest episode of the Jehovah’s Witness’ online show JW Broadcasting, construction overseer Travis Brooks explains how sand was hard to come by when his team was building a new hall. But Jehovah answered their prayers by way of a supernatural disaster. Church watchdog Lloyd Evans has the clip at the 4:26 mark below: Read more
Yesterday morning, whoever recites the Pledge of Allegiance over the loudspeaker at Prior Lake High School in Minnesota must have left out the words “Under God.” I’d like to think it was deliberate — an homage to the original version of the Pledge before Christians added the words in 1954. But even if it was a mistake, it shouldn’t have been a big deal. Whatever the reason, the school district later issued an apology on Facebook: Read more
According to the new hire at Answers in Genesis, Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson, there are perfectly good reasons so many scientists reject Creationism. They go to public schools, for example. And how do you expect to learn any real science when the curriculum is dictated by practicing scientists and expert educators and you use textbooks that don’t have “Bible” on the cover? They also don’t read any Creationist literature. If they did, he argues, they would totally abandon that whole “we need evidence” nonsense. Read more
