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.
This past June, in response to a Ten Commandments monument outside the Bradford County Courthouse in northern Florida, American Atheists installed a bench peppered with quotations about atheism and church/state separation: Now, the Williston Atheists (also in Florida) are looking to do the exact same thing outside the Levy County Courthouse where there’s another Ten Commandments monument: Read more
Remember the Awkward Moments (Not Found In Your Average) Children’s Bible? It’s a book documenting little-known verses from the Bible that few Christians would ever want to admit are in there: The anonymous authors are now trying to raise money to purchase a series of billboards to “preach back” at Christians. The designs are fantastic — the only question is whether billboard companies would be willing to put them up. But just check out the signs you could be seeing in Kansas, South Carolina, Texas, and several other locations in the Bible Belt: Read more
Michigan State Senator Rick Jones, a Republican in case you have any doubt, has introduced legislation to honor the words “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. That may not seem all that weird, given that it’ll soon be the 60th anniversary of the day those words were shoved into the original Pledge, but Jones is going a step further. His legislation, Senate Resolution No. 108, will make sure those two words remain permanently in the Pledge — no matter what atheists try to do: Read more
Remember how the Mormon Church responded when The Book of Mormon musical came out? They embraced it (without quite endorsing it), placed ads in the Playbill, and even issued a well-crafted public statement: The production may attempt to entertain audiences for an evening, but the Book of Mormon as a volume of scripture will change people’s lives forever by bringing them closer to Christ. Brilliant. So when a theater company in Northern Ireland wanted to perform a comedy called “The Bible: The Complete Word Of God (abridged)” — a show that pastors have long-enjoyed as it’s a satirical look at a subject near and dear to their hearts — you would expect the reactions to be along the same lines. Instead, politicians there demanded the cancellation of the show because they believed it was too blasphemous: Newtownabbey councillor Billy Ball claims the play makes a mockery of the Bible and Christianity. “This is supposed to be a Christian nation and we are allowing the Bible to be mocked and slated,” he said. “Our parliaments are sworn under it, the courts offer an oath on the Bible, if that’s your religious choice. “Christians can be slagged for their beliefs and I can take that, I don’t mind that, but when it comes to the Bible that’s different, it’s sacred.” And as we all know, nothing that is sacred to anyone can ever be mocked! Well, guess what? Freedom of speech is sacred to me, and Ball’s call for censorship is far more offensive to me than anything this acting troupe is doing to the Bible. Unfortunately, his tactic worked. Evangelical Christians in the nation’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) pressured the theater into canceling the production: Read more