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.
The Cleveland Independent School District in Texas is allowing outside groups to hand out bibles to students after school… (pretty similar to what we saw in Florida) leading the local Fox affiliate to ask if this is okay. Turns out all the parents they asked are totally fine with it. But one legal expert offered the proper answer: Read more
Bill Donohue of the Catholic League loves to complain about all the persecution people of his faith have to deal with — for example, other people sometimes put up billboards that offer a different persepctive — but he has no problem saying the very things he’s flip out over if the tables were turned. He just told Newsmax host Steve Malzberg that atheists are clinically insane: Read more
A couple of days ago, I posted about a runoff race for the Austin City Council in Texas. Normally, it’d be off my radar, but candidate Laura Pressley had posted a graphic on her website explaining the differences between her and her opponent Gregorio Casar. She implied that his atheism was a problem: Except he’s not an atheist. He’s a self-described Catholic. More importantly, why would it make a difference even if he were an atheist? Pressley never apologized for making that unnecessary distinction. Instead, she told the Austin American-Statesman his atheism disqualified him from hold public office: Read more
Matthew Inman, the cartoonist better known as The Oatmeal, recently spoke at Zach Weinersmith’s BAHFest, “a satirical conference on evolutionary biology” in which you present bogus theories using credible research. Inman’s brilliant and hilarious speech offered an alternative to natural selection: Read more
Earlier this week, atheist activist Preston Smith delivered the invocation at the Lake Worth (Florida) City Commission meeting. Not only did four of the five commissioners walk out before he had said a single word, Smith showed what happens when the door to giving invocations is wide open thanks to Christians wanting to pray at government meetings. (Blogger Lynn Anderson said that Commissioner Christopher McVoy remained in the room, as did the city manager and city attorney.) Read more