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.
Every so often, I have to edit/update a piece on this site that has already been posted. If it’s an insignificant change (like a spelling mistake), I just go ahead and change it. If it’s something more significant, I will put an update on the post explaining what I did. It just seems like proper blogging etiquette. Not everyone does that, though. In fact, Rev. Austin Miles at The Christian Post appears to have made a major change to a piece he wrote, failed to explain that change to his readers, denied ever doing such a thing after being confronted about it, and then blamed his accuser for bringing it up in the first place. Read more
The Daily Mail, about six years behind the times, is making a big fuss over something Richard Dawkins wrote in The God Delusion back in 2006: That believing (as a child) that Hell is real and that your non-Christian friends and family members will one day burn in it forever may be worse for you, psychologically, than any physical abuse you might suffer. That was a controversial claim when the book came out; it was discussed at length at the time and many of his fans didn’t agree. At best, they said, he was comparing apples to oranges. At worst, he was trivializing child abuse. Still, it’s worth discussing how traumatizing the concept of Hell can be to a child. Read more
Last week, on the day after Christmas, more than 30 members of Secular Events in Chicago (including Jessica and me from this site) went to the Greater Chicago Food Depository to help with whatever they needed us to do. Turns out they wanted us to sort good fruit from bad fruit and box up the good stuff so they could ship it to local food pantries across the city. Read more