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.
I just spent the past hour looking through the Facebook page of Leif Greening-Hamlin and my eyes have this weird liquid-y feeling now… This past March, two-year-old Leif was diagnosed with a rare kind of bone cancer, Ewing sarcoma. The chemotherapy that he went through made things much worse, leaving him with liver failure. The fact that he was born premature didn’t help matters… but Leif’s fighting through it and he’s making slow, steady, gradual progress. Just look at some of these pictures (in chronological order) and try not to fall in love with this kid: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Long-time readers of this site are aware of St-Matthew-in-the-City church in Auckland, New Zealand. They’re known for their support of equal rights for the LGBT community and putting up the best billboards ever. Like these: Reverend Glynn Cardy, the vicar of the church (at least through October) just spoke out in favor of the new gay marriage law with words we’re *so* not used to hearing in America: [Click headline for more…] Read more
In February of 2007, after spending time in prison for drug possession, Barry A. Hazle Jr. was finally released on parole. Parole came with a few strings attached, though. Hazle had to attend a 90-day drug treatment program which, in his case, involved the Twelve-Step program most commonly associated with Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. As we’ve discussed on this site before, several of those steps include references to God and submitting to a “higher power.” Hazle — an atheist — wanted no part of that, so he asked to be reassigned to a secular treatment program. Even as he began attending the Twelve-Step classes, he objected to them. Three days after his parole officer received the appeal, Hazle “was called out of a program class and arrested for violating parole… He was sent back to prison for four months.” It made absolutely no sense. That same year, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals specifically ruled “that a parolee [couldn’t] be ordered to attend [Alcoholics Anonymous] meetings as a condition of staying out of prison.” It has taken a long time to resolve this issue, but there’s finally some justice for Hazle today and it comes from the same Court of Appeals: [Click headline for more…] Read more
John Figdor is the Humanist Chaplain of the Humanist Community at Stanford and he appeared on a HuffPost Live segment discussing angels. Angels. It would make sense if the panel consisted entirely of six-year-olds, but these were grown adult humans talking, John being the only voice of reason: Seriously, just listen to the sort of thing John was saying throughout the broadcast (11:06 mark): [Click headline for more…] Read more
The Subway sandwich chain is very clear on its website that it’s an equal opportunity employer. They say that they: [do] not tolerate discrimination of any kind on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, creed, religion, color or national origin within the SUBWAY® brand family. Kermit Ball operates about 20 Subways in the Charleston, West Virginia area and I guess no one told him about the anti-discrimination policy because he has made it very clear that Christians should apply to work for him because he needs some “honest” employees… [Click headline for more…] Read more