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.
Angie Schuller Wyatt, the granddaughter of famous televangelist Robert H. Schuller, wrote a book exploring the intersection of faith and sexuality called God and Boobs and I published an excerpt from it last week. Afterwards, a lot of you had questions for Wyatt, who is still a Christian. I sent a handful of them along to her and she wrote back with responses, adding that the comments from all of you were “totally hilarious and nearly all respectful of my views despite our differences. For that, thank you.” Our exchange is below: Read more
As I alluded to yesterday, half of Alcoholics Anonymous’ famous Twelve Steps (PDF) include mentions of how you must look to a higher power in order to overcome your addiction. One of the problems with that, especially in the past several years, is that atheists and agnostics who need a way to recover from alcoholism either don’t join or feel excluded from local AA groups that push religion on them. (They may be unaware of secular alternatives that are out there or simply don’t have any of those groups in their areas.) G. Jeffrey MacDonald of Religion News Service points out that AA is going through a crisis right now, wondering how flexible they can be with the religion issue: Read more
Guy P. Harrison is the author of the popular books 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God — an excellent primer for new atheists trying to figure out how to respond to popular Christian arguments — and 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True. This week marks the release of his latest book: 50 Simple Questions for Every Christian (Prometheus Books, 2013). As with his previous books, this one is easy to read and a great ice-breaker for anyone who wants to start a debate 🙂 An exclusive excerpt from the book is below: Read more