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 horrible homework assignment for a seventh grade history class: The worksheet, Vocabulary Pictures: The Rise of Islam, listed words such as Quran, Mecca, Bedouins and Muhammad with spaces for students to draw pictures or images related to those words. So… it was an assignment that basically told kids to draw Muhammad. (It’s not even a good assignment. Drawing images associated with Islam? That’s almost entirely busy work with no substantive value.) Read more
Pastor Steven Furtick is the evangelical megachurch pastor who runs Elevation Church in North Carolina, a place that draws in nearly 20,000 attendees and takes in about $500,000 each weekend. He’s been in the news before for his shady financial dealings and fake “spontaneous” baptisms, so it’s natural that people want to know how his church manages all that money. How much of it goes to the pastor himself? He finally responded in an interview this week… by saying he would never answer that question because Jesus told him to keep his mouth shut. Speaking with WCCB News @ Ten’s Morgan Fogarty, Furtick deflected a question about his extravagant lifestyle by saying he would keep his mouth shut: Read more
Last December, atheist activist Preston Smith delivered an invocation at a Lake Worth (Florida) City Commission meeting. Not only did four of the five commissioners walk out before he had said a single word, Smith represented what could happen when the door for invocations is wide open thanks to Christians wanting to pray at government meetings. His speech referenced a number of religions and gods: Read more
Regular readers of this site know that I work with a group called Foundation Beyond Belief which encourages atheists to give money to various charities, supports on-the-ground volunteering in the U.S. and overseas (we have a team currently in Ghana), and raises funds for resources in emergency disaster situations. It’s a lot to juggle and our staff won’t be able to do it much longer unless we have more support. We’re holding our year-end fundraiser right now and would really appreciate your generosity. As an added incentive, the first $20,000 raised will be matched, and there are all sorts of prizes available for individuals who make a contribution or groups that encourage members to give! Read more
