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.
Last week, when the Cannon County Board of Education (Woodbury, Tennessee) held its monthly board meeting, nothing very eventful happened until the board members discussed next year’s school calendar. This is normally a quick, breezy process. Just approve it and move on. But one of the board members was offended by what he saw on the proposed schedule: “What is the possibility of calling Winter Break Christmas Break instead?” [Chris] Blackburn asked. … “I am frankly tired of being pushed around by people that want to take Christ and God and Christmas and everything out of the school system,” Blackburn said. “They want to take prayer out of school and they want to take it out before ballgames. I am in favor of this calendar as long as we call it Christmas break.” What the hell…? Read more
The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses the idea that, yes, Christians do wrong, but that doesn’t invalidate Christianity! Or does it?…: 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
This weekend, I’ll be joining a large group of heathens in Chicago for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night walk. We have a number of Secular Student Alliance teams that will be there, but I’m running the Friendly Atheist Virtual Team! If you’re not already walking and would like to chip in for the occasion, your donations would go a long way toward my personal goal of raising $2,500 (and your gift will be matched by the Stiefel Freethought Foundation!), so please consider giving something. Otherwise, if you’re in Chicago, hope to see you Saturday night! Read more
Seth Andrews (The Thinking Atheist) recently sat down with Richard Dawkins for an hour-long conversation about his new memoir An Appetite for Wonder and plenty more. The interview begins at the 7:47 mark: I haven’t had a chance to listen to the full conversation, but if you hear anything notable, please leave the timestamp and summary in the comments! Read more
Usually, when church/state advocates argue against school vouchers, they’re fighting against tax dollars being used to pay for religious schools that may preach Creationism or revisionist history. Alex Morris shows us in the latest issue of Rolling Stone that there’s another concern: LGBT students can be legally expelled from schools that are receiving this government cash: As religious institutions, these schools have the legal right to uphold and enforce any faith-based belief system they please. And parents who enroll their children — if not always the children being enrolled — understand the repercussions of such policies. However, by exploiting recent legislation, Christian schools in Georgia that openly discriminate against gay students have been receiving millions of dollars in diverted public funds as a result of a 2008 law meant to provide funding to help [low-income] children transfer to private schools. Tristan, Jason and Emily, along with about 500 other students, attend a school that participates in this program. It’s not just Georgia — 11 other states now have laws that offer tax credits to those who give scholarships for private schools. Read more