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.
Over the weekend, this was posted at Postsecret: I’ve heard from a few of you who are in that type of predicament right now. Turns out the secret’s owner isn’t alone. From one reader: Five years ago, after growing up in and being educated in church institutions, I lost my faith. Trouble is, I’m married to a pastor and have since entered church employment myself — I lost my non-church job early in the economic crisis and a number of… Read more
In the wake of President Obama saying he supported same-sex marriage yesterday, most people were thrilled. I was. And why not? No American president has ever said that before and symbolic affirmation is significant. Yeah, some people weren’t impressed, but what else is new? Here’s a hypothetical: Regardless of what Obama said, what if it was Mitt Romney who had come out in support of marriage equality instead? What if he figured out that most of the people voting for… Read more
Back in 2008, the popular Christian rock band Haste the Day kicked out one of its guitarists, Jason Barnes, because he was an atheist. When I posted about it then, I had no idea what prompted his deconversion. Roy Culver recently caught up with Barnes and asked him about what made him walk away from his faith (and, therefore, his band) and what it was like telling the people close to him: And what began that journey to begin thinking… Read more
Ex-Pastors Teresa MacBain and Jerry DeWitt appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation on Monday to discuss how and why they left their faiths. The audio and transcript are now available. Here’s one of the happier moments: [Host] Neil Conan: Was there a moment when you decided you had to come clean about your beliefs? Jerry DeWitt: Yeah, there actually was. It came for me — I began to realize that there was no way that I could live a… Read more