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.
For the past two years, Florida activist Chaz Stevens has countered the Nativity scenes in the State Capitol building with a display of his own: An 8-foot-tall Festivus pole made out of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans. It’s an attention-getting stunt, to be sure, but it also makes a valid point about how the government can’t approve certain religious displays but not others. This year, Stevens is taking it a step further. He’s still applying to install a Festivus pole in the Florida Capitol. But he’s also started an advocacy group called the Humanity Fund that’s raising money to create and install Festivus poles in State Capitols all around the country. Read more
On last night’s Real Time, Bill Maher delivered a stirring speech about how Ben Carson and other candidates have religious beliefs that are appalling — and present a danger to society — and yet the media never asks about them. Because we have this idea that a politician’s religious beliefs are off-limits, even when the stakes are so high. Carson is a Seventh Day Adventist, a Christian faith that, like many others, seriously believes Christ is coming back to Earth and taking the believers with Him. If that’s what Carson really believes, shouldn’t we all be aware of that before casting our votes? Start watching around the 2:30 mark: Read more
As the demographics of the U.S. shift away from organized religion, it brings up a lot of questions about how much religion you should have in your life when you’re not all that religious yourself. If you’re a “None” who doesn’t believe in some Higher Power, does it make sense to go to church, even on the major holidays? How should you introduce the topic of religion to your kids? Atheists have been discussing these questions for a long time, but those answers don’t apply to everyone who isn’t affiliated with a traditional faith. Those topics are what Christel Manning, a professor at Connecticut’s Sacred Heart University, addresses in her new book Losing Our Religion: How Unaffiliated Parents Are Raising Their Children (NYU Press, 2015). In the excerpt below, Manning talks about what prompted her to write the book in the first place: Read more
