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.
Atheist John W. Loftus and Christian Randal Rauser have co-authored a new book in which they debate a variety of questions about faith. It’s called God or Godless?: One Atheist. One Christian. Twenty Controversial Questions. The introduction to the book is below: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Let’s go back to September of 2011, to New Heights Middle School in South Carolina. The school is located in Chesterfield County, a place that’s home to over two hundred Christian churches. I wrote about an incident that happened there in The Young Atheist’s Survival Guide: Not only did [Chapman] use his time to rail against atheism, evolution, and homosexuality, he told the students that “a relationship with Jesus is what you need, more important than anything else.” Christian rapper Bryan Edmonds (a.k.a. B-SHOC) later joined him onstage and performed “overtly Christian songs” for the crowd. Even the principal joined the mix by telling students to attend a local church. But that wasn’t all. Students were told to sign a pledge dedicating themselves to Jesus Christ and teachers were told to pray with students before returning to the classroom. Afterward, the public school’s own website declared that “[b]efore the day ended, 324 kids had either been saved, or had re-committed their lives to the Lord.” We know about this incident for two main reasons. First, B-SHOC idiotically posted a video of the event to YouTube (the relevant portion begins at the 3:04 mark): [Click headline for more…] Read more
One of the reasons church-state separation groups go after bills and resolutions that contain even a bit of religion-promotion is that they know they can’t let anything slide. They let the word “God” appear on our currency, which seems like no big deal… until decades later, when Christians use that as evidence that we’re a “Christian nation,” whatever that means. On March 31st, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring April 30th of that year a “Day of Fasting and Prayer”: [Click headline for more…] Read more
One of the many reasons to start a local atheist group? When surveys say your city is one of the least religious in the country, reporters know exactly where to go for insight. A Gallup poll recently declared Bremerton-Silverdale, Washington one of the least religious areas in the country. (They were ranked 7th in terms of highest non-religious population, getting just above 50%.) So the Kitsap Sun, covering that exact region, wanted to know what’s going on: [Click headline for more…] Read more
If you’ve never heard the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Dan Barker tell the story of how he went from preacher to atheist — also detailed in his book Godless — you’ll want to check out this video of a talk he gave at the 2010 Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, Australia: (via The Clergy Project) Read more