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.
The great Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are, died yesterday at the age of 83. The Illini Secular Student Alliance reminds us of this excerpt from an interview he did with NPR’s Fresh Air in 2003: “I am not a religious person, nor do I have any regrets. The war took care of that for me. You know, I was brought up strictly kosher, but I — it made no sense to me. It made no sense… Read more
Security expert Bruce Schneier has taken Sam Harris to task on his proposal to profile Muslims at the airport. I don’t have time to analyze the back and forth right now (it’s late; I’m tired) but I still think it sets a good example when Harris offer up his own site for a guest post that includes this opening: Why do otherwise rational people think it’s a good idea to profile people at airports? Recently, neuroscientist and best-selling author Sam… Read more
After an online contest held in January to design their next billboard, the Mid Ohio Atheists selected two designs (both created by Elliot Fuller) and they went up yesterday in Mansfield! In addition, they put up the following billboard as a response to a sign a local church put up last summer (which strangely used the same wording). They ran a similar billboard back in November: How soon before the complaints begin? The crazies are already rearing their heads… Read more
I like Crommunist’s take on the age-old question, “Why are you an atheist?” Better yet, he asks, what has changed since you became an atheist? Here’s just one of his examples: Because I am an atheist, I am on the organ donor list Far more pragmatic and less self-reflectively thanatophobic than the first one, I realize that my body is a meat machine that has a lot of parts that can be inordinately useful to others when I’m dead. I… Read more