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.
American Atheists has issued a press release to express their sympathies for the victims and families of the recent Sikh temple shootings in Wisconsin: American Atheists wish to express condolences to the victims and families affected by the recent shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. The shooting took place when temple members were reading scriptures and cooking food in preparation for the main Sunday service and community lunch. It came two weeks after a massacre at a Colorado movie… Read more
We already know Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal‘s voucher program would give upwards of $11,000,000 to religious schools that teach complete nonsense. But what would those schools teach? Mother Jones’ Deanna Pan has a list of “14 Wacky ‘Facts’ Kids Will Learn in Louisiana’s Voucher Schools.” It’s exactly as messed up as you would expect… and I’m even ignoring all the Creationism stuff: 4. Africa needs religion: “Africa is a continent with many needs. It is still in need of the… Read more
A lot of religious schools have been freaking out over Obamacare because they’re now required to provide emergency contraception to their employees… and they think that amounts to promoting abortion… because they don’t actually know how birth control works. For the most part, it’s been Catholic universities leading the charge. But evangelical Mecca Wheaton College (just outside Chicago) has also joined in: In the early stages of the battle over the contraception mandate, coverage mostly focused on the protest from… Read more
Nearly a month ago, Shady Grove United Methodist Church in Irmo, South Carolina got vandalized with atheist-themed graffiti: I don’t know if atheists actually did that, but it definitely makes it harder for us to explain that we can be good without god when shit like that happens. You all raised money for a similar incident last year, so I thought it would be a nice gesture if we could do that again and, with the help of the church’s… Read more
Craig and Aimee Howley at Ohio University are doing research on K-12 teachers/administrators who are also non-religious. A great deal of research in education focuses on the experiences of marginalized groups. The aim of this study is to investigate the experiences of one such group — teachers who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics, or freethinkers. Little is really known about the experience of atheists in any realm of social discourse in the United States, and no study has investigated the… Read more