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.
This weekend’s edition of the New York Times Book Review has a piece by Dan Savage, talking about Jeff Chu’s new book Does Jesus Really Love Me? In the book, Chu, a gay Christian, writes about how he and others like him are working to reconcile their sexuality with their faith — and how it doesn’t always work out. Along the way, he offers a “sympathetic portrait” of the Westboro Baptist Church, visits a gay-welcoming church, and profiles a man who is gay but refuses to have a boyfriend because he believes doing so would keep him out of heaven. (How’s that for depressing?) While it’s a valiant endeavor to cover the church’s spectrum of views of homosexuality from the inside, Savage really gets irate at the way Chu often lets certain Christians off the hook: [Click headline for more…] Read more
It seems a bit out of place at The Economist, but the rise of interfaith marriages is a fascinating subject for discussion: Yet American rates of inter-faith and inter-denominational marriage are rising, to the point where 45% of marriages in the past decade have involved either two religions or Christian doctrines that clash seriously… There are a lot of reasons for this, as the article points out: People are marrying later in life so family traditions no longer weigh as heavily on their minds. Marrying someone of a different faith is no longer as taboo as it used to be. I wonder, though, if atheists break those trends. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Who knows more about the Bible? The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue or Current TV’s John Fugelsang? Or, to put it another way, the guy who makes a living as a self-proclaimed spokesperson for his faith, or the guy who makes a living asking questions? Yeah, we all know where this is going… Some of the highlights: [Click headline for more…] Read more
On May 7th, Elizabeth Colbert Busch (D) will run against Mark Sanford (R) and Eugene Platt (Green) in the special election for South Carolina’s 1st congressional district. The Secular Coalition for America — a non-partisan group — grades candidates on the basis of their public responses to matters concerning church/state separation. And, in this race, Colbert Busch received the highest grade while Sanford failed miserably (PDF): [Click headline for more…] Read more