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.
It’s an idea most atheists probably find pretty familiar, if not resonant: vulnerable believers, scared and alone, taking comfort in imagining a benefactor or guardian figure, a surrogate parent of fantasy who they come to believe is real. The concept goes literal in Guillermo del Toro’s Mama when two kidnapped children, found living feral in the woods five years later, come to live with their uncle. Psychologists, witnessing the girls’ interactions with their invisible protector, theorize that Victoria and Lily invented Mama to help them cope with their trauma, terror, and abandonment. Read more
Several months ago, I had some conversations with the folks at Hyperink. They publish books, some from scratch and others from previously published content. We talked about putting together some of my favorites posts from the past several years, organized around a few common themes, into a collection. I was hesitant at first, but when I saw that they had also put out books by Robert Scoble and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, I jumped on board pretty quickly. Read more