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.
This freakishly old penny from 1792 (which never even went into circulation) was just sold for $1,150,000: The best part? The inscription: Todd Imhof at Heritage Auctions told ABC that unlike today’s legal tender which bears the inscription, “In God We Trust,” the copper-silver penny reads “Liberty Parent of Science & Industry.” “At the time, industry and science reflected an enlightenment mindset,” Imhof said. “People believed freedom of thought and industrial growth would bind and unify the new country, not… Read more
There are two conferences I’ll do anything in my power not to miss: Skepticon (which I went to last year for the first time and have no plans of missing ever again) and the Secular Student Alliance national conference. Drew Pruitt of the Secular Student Alliance at UNLV explains why he’s making sure his group’s members attend the SSA event in Ohio this year: We networked with leaders of other groups around the country. We had lunch with them, we… Read more
If you’re watching Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly on PBS this weekend, you’ll catch this fantastic piece from correspondent Lucky Severson on Rock Beyond Belief. The segment covers the need for secular chaplains as well as the problems with the military’s “spiritual fitness” tests: Justin Griffith: It went on and on telling me that I need to improve my spiritual fitness. But if I need help, I call this 1-800 number. So I called that 1-800 number, and I was basically… Read more
The presidential election is just under 200 days away and the Freedom From Religion Foundation is starting a billboard campaign aimed at preventing the “folly of theocracy”: That “God Fixation Won’t Fix This Nation” billboard is going up in Denver (twice) and Colorado Springs (once). In other words, not far from the headquarters of Focus on the Family and Ted Haggard’s former church… “This is the launch of our election-year caveat,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor… … “God fixation… Read more