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, I posted about a meeting of the Vero Beach City Council (in Florida). The five-member council had an easy task in front of them: Approving a resolution marking “Humanist Recognition Week.” But two of the councilmembers refused to do it because of their religious views: This Tuesday, though, several leaders of non-Christian groups in the area are getting together to discuss how to handle this Jesus-or-bust mentality of some on the city council. The article is behind a paywall, but it explores what other theistic groups are saying the wake of the vote: [Click headline for more…] Read more
This is a guest post by Ed Suominen. As an engineer who spent forty years as a fundamentalist Christian, I pretty much ignored the problem of human origins and evolution. The science of radio waves and electronics was very real for me, but so was Genesis: My wife and I had eleven children as a result of following God’s command to be fruitful and multiply. So whenever I came across some article about a million-year-old fossil or the dreaded word “evolution,” I would hastily skip over it. [Click headline for more…] Read more
15-year-old Mohammad Qataa did nothing wrong. He was selling coffee in the city of Aleppo recently when he got into an argument and supposedly said the following: “Even if the Prophet Mohammad comes down [from heaven], I will not become a believer.” That was enough for an “Al Qaeda-linked Islamist group” to find him and kill him yesterday: [Click headline for more…] Read more
If you don’t want to be part of Alcoholics Anonymous because you don’t want to give yourself to a “higher power,” there are alternatives, but none in the city of Kelowna (British Columbia, Canada). That’s why a group of people are trying to start the Kelowna Secular Sobriety Group: [Click headline for more…] Read more
You would think that the Republican ticket in the race to become Virginia’s next governor was made crazy by the presence of Ken Cuccinelli. But Bishop E.W. Jackson, who’s running for Lt. Governor, may be even wackier. We already know Jackson thinks the Democratic Party is a “Coalition of the Godless.” As we dig more into his past, we’re finding out Jackson is full of Christianity-based crazy. [Click headline for more…] Read more