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.
Back in June, 2011, Grief Beyond Belief was created in order to support those who experienced the death of a spouse, or child, or friend, but didn’t want to bring religion into the conversation. Rebecca Hensler’s group is now getting some major media attention, thanks to Kimberly Winston at the Religion News Service: For nonbelievers, John Lennon’s famous bid to “imagine there’s no heaven” isn’t just a lyric; it’s reality. And it’s not always easy. Last year, Hensler founded “Grief… Read more
A couple of weeks ago (and many times before that), I posted about Donna Hunter and the other parents in Morinville, Alberta (Canada) who have been trying to get just one secular school to open in the area. Right now, the only options for their children are religious schools. There have been many setbacks, but finally, there’s some good news to report! The Alberta Human Rights Commission has agreed to investigate complaints from four mothers from Morinville, who alleged that… Read more
When the Cranston School Committee had public meetings about whether or not to appeal the ruling to take down the prayer banner at Cranston High School West, local residents were allowed to speak (for 3 minutes), followed by non-residents. Locals filled up four pages’ worth of sign-ups to speak and after 2.5 hours of comments, they barely got through the first two pages. That meant Ellery Schempp, the atheist whose Supreme Court case helped stop mandatory Bible readings from public… Read more
A couple of months ago, we found out that the Supreme Court had refused to hear a case in which Highway Patrol Officers in Utah were putting up 12-foot-tall Christian Crosses in honor of fallen comrades. That meant the atheists were victorious since they had won their appeal. While the state paid only $1 to American Atheists to settle the case, the lawyer’s fees are a different story. And Utah’s Attorney General must be realizing that it was a bad… Read more
You might have said something like this to conservative Christians before: So what if you don’t like gay couples? Nobody is forcing you to approve of their relationships, support gay marriage, or pay any attention to them at all. But if you said that, they would whine and cry about how that’s ridiculous and how a gay couple’s love will (somehow) ruin all of society… they’re protecting the institution of marriage, dammit! So you have to laugh at how Bryan… Read more