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.
Suppose you got on an airplane, sat down next to a random stranger, made small talk about your families, and discovered he has a husband back home. What would you do? Correct answer: Nothing. Because who cares. If it were me, I’d just say, “That’s nice,” before putting on my earbuds and falling asleep. Because there’s nothing more that needs to be said. Being on an airplane is like standing at a urinal: I acknowledge other people are really close to me but that doesn’t mean we have to have a conversation. Read more
I recently posted about Grandmother Fish, a children’s book designed to teach basic concepts of evolution to pre-schoolers. Creationist Ken Ham is furious about this because he considers the book a form of indoctrination. Because teaching kids how science works goes against everything Ham stands for: Read more
In Kentucky this week, a group of Christian students at two high schools thought it would be just awesome if they wrote Bible verses on Post-It notes and slapped them on the lockers of every student. (Because Jews and Muslims and Hindus and atheists need to convert and putting litter on their lockers is the best way to make it happen, I guess.) But the notes that were put up on Wednesday afternoon were gone by Thursday morning at one of the high schools. Read more
For the fifth time since the beginning of the year, an atheist has been killed in Bangladesh. We’ve already known about the deaths of Dr. Avijit Roy in February, Washiqur Rahman in March, Ananta Bijoy Das in May, and Niloy Neel in August. Now, 43-year-old Faisal Arefin Dipon (below) has been found dead in his office. He had put out some of Avijit Roy’s books as head of the Jagriti Prakashani publishing house. Read more
