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.
Of all the ways to market a major movie, this has to be at the bottom of the list: Warner Bros. and MinistryResources.org have partnered to create a website which contains “Man of Steel” resources for Christian priests, pastors and ministers. Yep: They’ve pre-written a sermon (PDF) for pastors to use in church, comparing Superman to Jesus. The superhero created by the sons of Jewish immigrants is being used to market Jesus. Seriously. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Last year, hip-hop singer Toby Ganger released an EP full of pro-atheist themes called “Evolutionary.” More recently, Ganger released a sequel, aptly titled “Evolutionary 2,” and since I didn’t share it when it came out, I wanted to share one of the tracks with you now. The song “Nowhere to Run” is all about breaking the bonds religion and challenging religious ideas openly: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Someone seriously pissed off Alexander Lucie-Smith, a Catholic priest, because this is the last paragraph of an article he wrote for the Catholic Herald: Heresy, and atheism, produce nothing beautiful. They can’t. They are stony barren fields. And the examples above are some of the ugly fruit of these intellectually incoherent movements. Wow. What did we do?! Did atheists desecrate a Renaissance painting depicting a scene from the Bible? Did we burn down an ancient church? Did we kill off an entire group of religious people? Nope. Someone didn’t capitalize the word “God”: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Senator Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey, died this morning from viral pneumonia at the age of 89. While he was planning on retiring in 2014, the remainder of his term could be filled through a special appointment by NJ Governor Chris Christie or by a special election. While Lautenberg was Jewish, he was a strong supporter of church/state separation. OnTheIssues.org reported that Americans United for Separation of Church and State gave Lautenberg a 100% approval rating on church/state issues, and the Secular Coalition for America gave him a perfect A grade in 2009. [Click headline for more…] Read more
In April of last year, the City Council of Lake Elsinore, California talked about how nice it would be to honor local veterans with a monument. $50,000 was budgeted for the project and all the designs they considered in the following weeks seemed fairly typical for such a monument. They included the American flag, a bald eagle, the city’s crest, military branches’ emblems, etc. In July, Mayor Pro Tem (i.e. vice mayor) Daryl Hickman suggested the monument be placed, not in the courtyard of City Hall, but near the entrance of Diamond Stadium, a city-owned minor league baseball stadium. The City Council agreed to the change and moved forward with a plan to build a redesigned monument… but the design that was eventually put forward in October featured a soldier kneeling in front of a Christian cross: There were several objections from people who attended the October meeting, but Hickson saw no problem (PDF) with the proposal: [Click headline for more…] Read more
