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.
A day after the assassination of Faisal Arefin Dipon, a publisher who helped release books written by Dr. Avijit Roy (who was also assassinated) and who had ties to three other activists (who were also assassinated), a Bangladeshi official now says they had nothing to do with each other: … Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal today said such attacks are not new in Bangladesh. “Yesterday’s attacks are isolated incidents and such attacks also occur in other countries of the world,” the minister told reporters at his ministry office today. Like hell they were isolated incidents. And they don’t happen in other countries, unless you’re talking about the ones that violate human rights on a regular basis. But since Kamal can’t see the common thread between the victims, let me help him out: Maybe he can connect the dots now? Read more
What’s with Christians complaining about bike lanes lately? We saw complaints in Washington, D.C. a couple of weeks ago; now, it’s happening in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Last year, city commissioners added bike lanes on Richmond Street NW… which happened to be on the street where First Ward City Commissioner Walt Gutowski attends church. The law says you can’t park in a bike lane. But now that a few churchgoers have been given $20 tickets for parking there anyway, Gutowski says the government has gone too far: Read more
If you think of a wedding as a primarily religious occasion, then a civil ceremony is a secularized version of the same thing. You get all of the pomp and “official-ness” without any of the religious nonsense. And it makes sense to have that alternative since you don’t need God to celebrate a union of two people. But do you really need a secular version of a religious ritual? Dolores Diez, an atheist in Spain, is calling for her local town hall to conduct a civil communion for her 8-year-old daughter. Seriously. Read more
