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.
A lot of atheist groups recently tried to get people to sign a petition on behalf of Alexander Aan, the Indonesian atheist sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for the crime of… saying he’s an atheist. If we could get 25,000 signatures in a month, the Obama administration would have to respond to it and maybe they would take action in some way. The deadline for the petition was yesterday. It got about 8,000 signatures. Well under the amount needed…. Read more
Too bad. As of August 30th, eBay’s putting the kibosh on sales of anything that’s not quite tangible, including a lot of things that probably should’ve been prohibited a long time ago because they’re just scamming gullible people: The following items are also being added to the prohibited items list: advice; spells; curses; hexing; conjuring; magic; prayers; blessing services; magic potions; healing sessions; work from home businesses & information; wholesale lists, and drop shop lists. Doug Barry at Jezebel doesn’t… Read more
Remember Michael Leisner, the Cheerios protest dude who was mad because of General Mills’ pro-gay-marriage stance? He is no more: Leisner died Saturday while waiting in his car for his sons to finish playing tennis, said the Rev. Dwight Denyes, senior pastor at Emmanuel Christian Center in Spring Lake Park. The family said in a statement that the two sons found Leisner in his car and not breathing. He was taken to Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids and died “of… Read more
Perhaps due to the renewed focus on Governor Bobby Jindal’s plan to send $11,000,000 of taxpayer money to Creationism-endorsing schools, it looks like the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is now smartly taking it more slowly when approving new programs: The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education Tuesday held back state approval from six new schools that board President Penny Dastugue says she is afraid were formed strictly to take advantage of the new voucher program. Dastugue said… Read more
At the 7:00 mark of the video below, after a long conversation about how evangelical couples should have three kids each in order to outbreed the rest of us, Christian Right leader Bryan Fischer speaks with Ed Vitagliano about the “threat of secular fundamentalists.” I listened… because I figured they were talking about mah people. So what were their examples of how we’re threatening religious liberty? Brad Pitt’s Christian mom wrote a pro-life, pro-Romney letter-to-the-editor in which she said President… Read more
