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.
Last week, I posted about a ceremonial “pinning” ceremony that takes place when nursing students graduate from Colorado Mesa University. It’s a way of welcoming them into the profession. But at CMU, when those graduates stepped off the stage, they were given a Gideons Bible. There was no good reason for this, other than the lazy excuse of “tradition.” But if administrators were opening the door to Christians, then I guess atheists and Satanists could get on board, too, right? The Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers sent a letter to the school explaining what their options were. Simply put, the school could allow giveaways of any and all religious materials or they could say no to everyone. It appears that the school’s President, Tim Foster, has finally decided to say no to everyone. Read more
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the Republican Presidential candidate who has tried to present himself as the sane alternative to his far right competitors, offered a proposal yesterday that you’d expect from someone like Mike Huckabee. He suggested creating a government program to spreading “Judeo-Christian values” around the world: Read more
How do you explain Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity when you don’t allow yourself to use the word “relativity”? Or “gravity”? Or “Einstein”? Or pretty much everything else you find in a science textbook? That’s the challenge Randall Munroe (creator of XKCD) gave himself in an essay for the New Yorker, where he limited his explanation to the one thousand most commonly used words in the English language: Read more
A charter school in North Carolina has temporarily suspended all clubs just to prevent an LGBT student group from meeting. It’s happening at Lake Lure Classical Academy (a charter school that receives taxpayer funding), where students formed a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Club, something they have every right to do. They have that right because of the Equal Access Act, which has been in effect for decades now. The EAA says that if a public high school allows any extra-curricular clubs, then administrators must allow all of them (within reason). While it was initially a way to get Christian clubs in schools, it has been used to defend Gay-Straight Alliances and Secular Student Alliance groups as well. In this case, though, the mere existence of LGBT people has offended some Christians. Read more
Comedian Aziz Ansari, who’s not religious, recently spent a lot of time around his Muslim parents as they filmed his new Netflix show Master of None. While the filming went fine, there was a lot of tension during dinners with them since he and his girlfriend eat pork and they (obviously) don’t. Ansari told Conan O’Brien how all of that played out and it’s hilarious: Read more
