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.
There is no reasonable argument for human slavery. In the antebellum South, the institution was propped up by biblical justifications and pseudoscientific just-so stories. Both of these myths underpinning slavery appear as footnotes in Django Unchained — a whip-wielding slave-driver wears Bible pages pinned to his garments, while a plantation owner with a flair for the dramatic delivers a lesson in phrenology to his houseguests as they negotiate a slave sale. But it’s a different myth at the heart of Django’s story, one that functions in a similar way: to demonstrate the dire consequences when mythic thinking overtakes logic and reason. Read more