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.
Alabama Media Group reporter Erin Edgemon is running a series on atheists in the state and she’s tackling some great subjects: Roger and Pat Cleveland, who run an annual gathering for atheists at Lake Hypatia; Duncan Henderson, who began a secular student group at his junior high school and currently runs the only high school atheist group in the state; and Jerald Motyka, a former pastor who eventually tossed his faith. The big picture you get from the articles is that there are a lot more atheists in the state than the stereotypes would have you believe. But many atheists, wrongly assuming they’re alone, remain silent about their beliefs Read more
Eric Fromm is the student body president at Northwest Christian University in Eugene, Oregon. And last week, he publicly outed himself as an atheist: I was an atheist long before I came to NCU. I was baptized Lutheran, and raised Methodist, but as time went on I slowly came to the conclusion that God wasn’t real. For me, church was an empty ritual that I participated in so I could see friends, scripture was largely mythological, and Jesus was a great moral teacher, but he wasn’t God. Yes, yes, I know: What about the obvious question? Read more
The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses how an American Legion group denied a park district $2,600 because its board’s commissioner didn’t want to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance: You can read more about the story here. I’m happy to say we’ve reached the $2,600 goal in under a week — and then some! I’ll be getting this money to the park district soon (more on that later). The coverage has been pretty positive, though one reporter asked a fair question of what will happen in future years. I hope we can raise enough this year to ease the stress in the future, but I’ll revisit this story in a year to see how the park district is doing and take it from there. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the project — more videos will be posted soon — and we’d also appreciate your suggestions as to which questions we ought to tackle next! Read more