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.
The good: Mother Katie Hughes talked to her daughters about sex when she felt they were ready to handle the information (at age eight). She didn’t avoid the conversations. She took them very seriously. The bad: She had her daughters sign a contact with a reward for “good” behavior: … in a nutshell, it’s an agreement between us as parents and our children, signifying if you refrain from the use of drugs, alcohol, premarital sex and or promiscuity and live a clean, moral life up to the age of 20, we’d give that child $1,000.00 as an ultimate reward for positive behavior. Okay. Let’s talk about the two issues at hand here. [Click headline for more…] Read more
A bunch of students from an Orthodox Jewish school in Brooklyn got on a flight, refused to turn off their phones (an annoying rule, yes, but still a rule), and then got kicked off the plane. They took to Twitter to voice their complaints: “BIG SCANDAL!” one wrote in Twitter messages to several news organizations, echoing the view of many of the students that they had done nothing wrong. “Didnt think you’d ever get kicked off a plane? Well it’s possible,” another, Rebecca Rahmey, wrote on Twitter. Asked why by an acquaintance, she replied, “no reason.” Katie McDonald, a spokeswoman for Southwest Airlines, AirTran’s parent company, said the flight’s crew had ejected the group out of concern for the “overall safety” of the flight. She said the students had violated flight policies and federal air regulations, ultimately delaying the flight by about an hour. That alone is a story of annoying kids thinking they’re above the law. But then they started claiming this was done because of their religion, which took the whining to an entirely different — and totally ridiculous — level: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Dannika Nash is the college student who wrote the very-viral “open letter to the church from my generation.” She basically said that the Christian church was pushing young people away because of how the institution treats gay people. It was such a powerful and controversial piece that the Christian summer camp she was scheduled to work at fired her. More recently, I posted a response from Dannika to a conservative Christian’s attempted takedown of her arguments. (Spoiler: He lost that battle.) Anyway, a lot has happened to Dannika over the past couple of months. She’s still a Christian and she still supports LGBT equality, but she’s learned four very important lessons: [Click headline for more…] Read more
The Vero Beach City Council (in Florida) had an easy task at yesterday’s meeting. The Humanists of the Treasure Coast asked them to proclaim June 16-23, 2013 as “Humanist Recognition Week.” The language was innocuous, calling for “compassion guided by reason” and the like. Normally, these proclamations get passed without much thought. This one, however, only passed by a 3-2 vote and it’s worth discussing what happened. First, take a look at the 2:23 mark in the video below. Mayor Craig Fletcher is going over the agenda at the start of the meeting and says that he wants to remove the item about the proclamation entirely. When asked why, Fletcher says, “I refuse to support an organization that does not believe in Jesus Christ. I’ll have nothing to do with it. If you want to outvote me, that’s fine.” The way he responded, you would think someone tried to get him to denounce Jesus! It’s the biggest overreaction I’ve seen since… whatever’s on the front page of Charisma’s website today. [Click headline for more…] Read more