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.
What do you do when you’re sitting in an airport waiting for your delayed flight? Read all 13,000+ words of the ongoing debate on the efficacy of profiling Muslims at airport security checkpoints between Sam Harris (We’d be crazy not to profile them!) and Bruce Schneier (You have no idea what you’re talking about). In a nutshell, Harris argues that the suicidal terrorists who want to use airplanes to kill innocent people are obviously Muslims and we’d be foolish not… Read more
Jerry Coyne has published a new paper in the journal Evolution about… well… take a guess. More specifically, it’s about “Science, Religion, and Society: The Problem of Evolution in America.” These graphs tell a much larger story (click to enlarge): Coyne also has a message for science organizations: … when scientific organizations argue for the compatibility of religion and evolution, or of religion and science in general, they are engaged not in science or philosophy but in theology. That is… Read more
My latest piece for the Washington Post’s On Faith blog is on how the Internet is killing faith. (See? It’s not just for porn.) An excerpt: It wasn’t long ago when statements made in a pulpit were simply assumed to be true. Now, a child with an iPhone in the pew can find ample evidence contradicting whatever the men of God are saying. That “true story” your pastor is telling? Snopes.com debunked it long ago. Gay marriage is destructive, he… Read more