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.
A few days ago, I posted the audio from an interview Seth Andrews (The Thinking Atheist) did with Richard Dawkins about his new memoir An Appetite for Wonder. Video of the interview is now available (in case you’d rather watch people’s mouths move instead of a still frame): As always, if you hear anything especially worthwhile, please leave the timestamp and summary in the comments! Read more
After a year away from YouTube, Scott Clifton (a.k.a. TheoreticalBullshit), a former Daytime Emmy Award winner, jumps right back into the fray, going after William Lane Craig and his “metaphysical cherry-picking”: If any moments stand out to you, please leave the timestamp and summary in the comments! Read more
Somehow, I missed this when it happened in July, but it’s too good to pass up. Daniel Sottomaior, president of the Brazilian Association of Atheists and Agnostics (ATEA), organized mock “de-baptisms” (complete with a hair dryer) as a way to protest his government spending $50,000,000 to accommodate Pope Francis’ summer visit: Read more
This is a guest post by Richard Wilson. Rich is a human being who tries and feels he mostly succeeds in living a moral life without help from any gods. … Last Saturday, October 12, I attended “The Great Debate,” an event hosted by Adventure Christian Church (a mega-church in Roseville, California) and sponsored by William Jessup University. The question at hand was: “What provides a better foundation for civil society: Christianity or Secular Humanism?” Arguing for Christianity was Dr. David Marshall, founder of the Kuai Mu Institute for Christianity and World Cultures. Arguing for Secular Humanism was Dr. Phil Zuckerman, Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College and author of numerous books on secularism. Since the debate was being professionally recorded, I assumed it would be made available online (or at least for purchase), and I intended to simply add a few comments of my own if Hemant blogged about it. So I kept watching the church’s Vimeo site for the upload… and it never went up. Instead, three “rebuttal” videos were posted, responding to arguments made during the course of the debate, but the full debate is still nowhere to be found. Furthermore, those three videos featured pastors from the church, not even Marshall himself. Read more
Sanal Edamaruku is the Indian skeptic who found himself at the center of a firestorm last year after he was called in to explain how a statue of Jesus was “miraculously” dripping water. After debunking the “miracle” claim, he was charged with blasphemy and faced jailtime. Over the summer, he spoke about his experiences at The Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas, and video of his talk has now been released: Read more