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.
Sen. Ted Cruz saying something overblown and idiotic is just par for the course by now, but when he compares church/state separation advocates to religious radicals who will kill those who think differently, it’s at least worth mentioning. Cruz appeared on Iowa radio host Jan Mickelson’s show a few days ago and echoed the host’s words about how the “atheist Taliban” is waging an all-out assault on Christians: Read more
There are still some interesting questions regarding the FOIA data that Hemant acquired describing the self-reported religious preferences of federal prison populations. For starters, why is it that Texas has the most atheist prisoners? Can that really be explained by them simply having more federal prisons? Turns out: Yes, it’s a great explanation. In fact, we can test this statistically to see exactly how well one variable correlates with another. Here is an image of one such correlation, looking at the relationship between the number of federal prisoners in a state and the number of atheist prisoners among that population: Read more
Cindy Jacobs, the co-founder of Generals International, is a faith healer who works miracles. Or so she claims. Last time we mentioned her, she was supposedly turning metal into bone. But her latest miracle is really something. Jacobs says she helped someone grow three inches in an instant, all because of her faith in God: Read more
It wouldn’t be surprising to see a wall of “prayer requests” like the one below at a local church: But let’s admit this has no place in a public school. The American Humanist Association’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center says the board in the picture exists in a classroom at Oak Grove Middle School in Purvis, Mississippi. Read more