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.
Now that we’re seeing a rise in godless congregations, the New York Times asked some people whether atheists should pray, what the point of prayer is, and whether it’s beneficial. One of the panelists happened to be me. Another panelist happened to be Deepak Chopra. [Click headline for more…] Read more
I recently posted about a study done by University of Illinois psychologist Ryan Ritter (published in Social Psychological and Personality Science) in which his team compared atheists and Christians on Twitter to discern any differences. You can see my analysis of the paper here. One of the visuals I mentioned was this one: I thought that was fascinating. According to the graphic, Christians used the word “know” 211 times per 100,000 words, compared to 198 times per 100,000 words for atheists. Meanwhile, atheists used “thought” more than Christians did (59 times per 100,000 words compared to 44 times per 100,000 words, respectively). We don’t have context for those words, but it’s interesting to consider why this might be the case. (More on that in a moment!) Ritter has now created visualizations allowing us to see where there are other language differences between the two groups, and these are even more entertaining than the previous image. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Jessica Ahlquist recently filmed a segment for Chris Johnson’s multimedia book about atheists and what gives them joy and meaning in life. In the segment below, she talks about the time she went from her school where she was picked on for being a vocal atheist to the Reason Rally where she was admired for the exact same trait: (via The Atheist Book) Read more