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.
Last month, a few different billboards for the Mid Ohio Atheists went up in the city of Mansfield: Incredibly, that middle one turned out to be the most offensive. Today we received the news that the owner of the land where one of our billboards was placed has threatened to cancel his lease with Lamar if they do not take down our billboard. Had I been forced to guess which one of the three we put up people would find… Read more
In news that’s shocking to no one, the Catholic Church is in the middle of another scandal: Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York authorized payments of as much as $20,000 to sexually abusive priests as an incentive for them to agree to dismissal from the priesthood when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee. So now we know how much money the Catholic Church thinks a child’s innocence is worth. Just to be clear: Priests molested children. But instead of… Read more
The last time we talked about the Ten Commandments banner in Giles County schools, the district has suggested surrounding it with other “historical documents” and a judge had offered the district a compromise: Just cut the Ten Commandments down to six! Where are we at now? There’s good news! The Giles County School Board voted today to remove a copy of the Ten Commandments that has hung on a wall of Narrows High School during a year and a half… Read more
Earlier today, I posted about this billboard up in North Carolina: While I appreciated the sentiment, I wanted to know if it was an attempt to look good without actually pushing for real change. I wanted to know if the church supported same-sex marriage. And, though less important, what did they they think of gay people? Was a person acting on his/her homosexuality condemned to hell for doing so? Despite my inquiry, I never received an answer from the pastors…. Read more
We can debate whether or not it’s a good idea to change your last name after you get married, but Andrée Seu Peterson at World Magazine (a Christian publication) explains how she changed her name after having a talk with her husband: When nothing else was working my true love said to me, “Andrée, ultimately I’m not that important to you.” It was the last resort in a drawn out drama and it did the trick. Stunned like a wailing… Read more