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.
Teresa MacBain is one of the increasingly popular group of pastors-turned-atheists. She was the first female graduate of the Clergy Project and now works as Director of Public Relations for American Atheists. Back in June, Teresa spoke about her religious “shift” at the FreeOK Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma: Like many former pastors, she’s *really* hard not to pay attention to when she speaks — she has the cadence and the oratorical skills. At least she’s an atheist now so we… Read more
This is the city seal for Austin, Texas: Activist Joe Zamecki (who co-founded Atheists Helping the Homeless) spoke yesterday to the Austin City Council about why they needed to remove the cross from the seal. His basic argument? It doesn’t fairly represent the population of this great city, and our government should never actively promote religion in such a blatant and unnecessary way. He explains why he argued against the current seal here: And here’s video of his speech in… Read more
A couple of days ago, Pastor Rick Warren explained why he canceled a forum featuring President Obama and Mitt Romney by saying this: “The forums are meant to be a place where people of goodwill can seriously disagree on significant issues without being disagreeable or resorting to personal attack and name-calling. But that is not the climate of today’s campaign. I’ve never seen more irresponsible personal attacks, mean-spirited slander, and flat-out dishonest attack ads, and I don’t expect that tone… Read more
The latest edition of the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice features an article about college atheists by John A. Mueller of Indiana University of Pennsylvania. (The article is free to access if you fill out a form.) In 2009, Mueller and colleague Kathleen Goodman published an article about “why colleges should embrace and acknowledge atheists on campuses nationwide.” The topic this time around: “Understanding the Atheist College Student:A Qualitative Examination.” Mueller spoke with 16 atheist undergraduate and graduate… Read more
Back in April, the Pew Hispanic Center released the results (PDF) of a nationwide poll showing that non-religious Latinos were growing faster than we might have imagined: As you can see from those images, 14% of U.S. Hispanics are religiously unaffiliated and more “Americanized” Hispanics are less religious than their foreign-born counterparts. NBCLatino reports on the findings: Timothy Matovina, a leading expert on Catholicism, says Latinos’ attitudes toward religion mirror the rest of the population, since the 19 percent say… Read more