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.
Seth Andrews of The Thinking Atheist recently interviewed Mandisa Thomas, President of Black Nonbelievers, Inc. In addition to pointing out the unique challenges of being an atheist of color, Thomas talks about how, even though we may know the names of several famous black leaders, we often forget that many of them fought against religion: Read more
While everyone is piling on Steve Harvey for botching the most important part of the Miss Universe pageant last night, it’s important to remember that there are other (much more valid) reasons to dislike the guy. Announcing the wrong winner was an honest mistake, but Harvey very deliberately told women they shouldn’t date atheists in a 2009 interview on The Tyra Banks Show when he was promoting his book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment. At one point in the interview, he told women they needed to know certain things about the men they were dating before they pursued anything serious. That’s not bad advice. But his example? If he’s an atheist? Don’t even think about it. The clip begins at the 5:57 mark: Read more
Half of Alabama’s high school students have had sex, half of those sexually active students didn’t use a condom. The STD rate is also very high, with Montgomery, the state capitol, ranking highest in the nation. The state’s teen birthrate (34.3 births per 1,000 people) is higher than the national average (26.5). Oh. And they teach abstinence-only sex education there. But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence… Al Jazeera America’s Ashley Cleek explores how Alabama continues sticking to the abstinence agenda even though the data shows the plan isn’t working: Read more
In a ballroom in a Washington, D.C., hotel, more than 2,500 people sit anxiously. There is a palpable tension in the room while the attendees wait for the next speakers to be introduced. They sit politely, applauding the few red-meat lines in Arizona Senator John McCain’s speech, but they’re not here to hear from the 2008 GOP presidential nominee; McCain has never been particularly popular with this audience. The two speakers following McCain — Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, of Florida and Texas, respectively, both running for president in 2016 — were much more in line with the priorities of the conference attendees in the room. For an Atheist like me, listening to the speakers at the 2015 Values Voter Summit (VVS) — held in September by the Family Research Council, Liberty Institute, and a host of other far-right religious organizations — can only be described as surreal. Read more
Raihan Abir and his wife Samia Hossain are two atheists from Bangladesh who currently fear for their lives. After learning about the brutal deaths of several of their colleagues over the past year for the “crime” of criticizing religion, they vowed not to fall victim to the same fate. Affan Chowdhry of The Globe and Mail tells their remarkable story: Read more
