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.
If anyone’s interested in becoming a blogger, I suggest contacting someone at The Telegraph (UK) since they seem to be taking anyone with an opinion, no matter how uninformed they are. Today alone, they have two pieces that are heavy on polemics and light on facts. The first is from Sean Thomas, who claims that atheists are mentally ill: In 2004, scholars at UCLA revealed that college students involved in religious activities are likely to have better mental health. In 2006, population researchers at the University of Texas discovered that the more often you go to church, the longer you live. In the same year researchers at Duke University in America discovered that religious people have stronger immune systems than the irreligious. They also established that churchgoers have lower blood pressure. It goes on like that for a while… Thomas neglects to point out the thing that I was silently screaming the entire time I was reading it: None of those facts have *anything* to do with anyone’s religious beliefs being true. It has *everything* to do with having a strong support network, and dedicating your life to something you’re passionate about, and having a stable force in your life. Even though we’re non-religious, many of us have alternatives for those things which churches provide to religious people. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Here’s some helpful advice: If you’re a fundamentalist Christian, and you’re writing a book about the Bible Principles of Child Discipline (such as “You cannot raise the kids without a paddle”), and you’re looking for a perfect family to put on your book’s cover, you should do a little bit of research when picking a photo… [Click headline for more…] Read more
Adding to the conversation about why millennials are leaving the church, Rachel Ford (a Christian herself) offers her own list. I love this item for obvious reasons: 2. Atheism and agnosticism do present appealing, intellectually honest alternatives When you’re talking about something that no one has seen, no one has witnessed, no one can reproduce — and the only “evidence” in its favor is an ancient manuscript that has been altered, re-translated, and mistranslated a thousand times — is it really a puzzling thing that so many people are saying, “to be honest, I just don’t know”? Factor in that information has become more easily accessible — a person can become well-informed on many topics with but an internet connection, a tablet, and a discerning eye — and the exclusive “truth” of any given religion seems to fade… This is why it’s so important that more atheists keep speaking out. Even if we don’t convince people to fully lose their faith in a God, we can at least give them reason to second-guess those beliefs, making them a little more rational in the process. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Back in May, former American Atheists president Ed Buckner visited a state park in Georgia and found a Bible in his rented cabin. That wouldn’t be unusual in a privately-owned hotel… but a state park?! It’s not that the Bible was “offensive.” It’s just that, on principle, it shouldn’t have been there. It suggested government endorsement of Christianity. At the time, park officials removed the Bibles from the cabins, but Governor Nathan Deal quickly put them right back in because he (wrongly) believed they were legal: “These Bibles are donated by outside groups, not paid for by the state, and I do not believe that a Bible in a bedside table drawer constitutes a state establishment of religion,” Deal said. “In fact, any group is free to donate literature.” O RLY?! Any group can donate literature?! You can imagine how the staff at American Atheists was salivating when they heard those magic words: “We appreciate the governor’s invitation to place atheist books in the cabins and look forward to providing visitors with the opportunity to learn more about atheism when they visit Georgia’s beautiful state parks,” said Managing Director Amanda Knief. … “American Atheists does not believe the State of Georgia should be placing Bibles or atheist books in state park cabins; however, if the state is going to allow such distribution, we will happily provide our materials,” said President David Silverman. Well, it’s finally happening… [Click headline for more…] Read more
Rush Limbaugh made the argument on his show yesterday that you can’t believe in both God and manmade global warming, an idea many evangelical Christians have long embraced: See, in my humble opinion, folks, if you believe in God, then intellectually you cannot believe in manmade global warming. You must be either agnostic or atheistic to believe that man controls something that he can’t create… Even for Christians, that’s a weird belief to hold… [Click headline for more…] Read more
