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.
Greg Wilcox has a terrific cover story about ex-Mormons who become atheists at City Weekly: Certain heavy-handed practices required by his mission also made [former LDS missionary Chris] Merris feel uneasy about his religion. He says that he and other missionaries were encouraged to go beyond the normal missionary discussions with prospective new members, implementing such things as what they called the “Joseph Smith pray now.” This involved getting missionaries and prospective new members to pray in a circle about… Read more
At the request of several readers, this is a separate thread just for the Jessica Ahlquist college scholarship fundraiser. If you want to help her, please contribute. Let the media know that there are a lot of us who support what she’s done and who want to make her future better than her present by giving her the opportunity to go to college without worrying about things like tuition and books. As I stated before, when this fundraiser is over,… Read more
Spoken word artist Jefferson Bethke is getting a lot of attention recently because of an Ode-to-Jesus video making the rounds on all your Christian friends’ Facebook pages: The music, editing, and performance are admittedly impressive. It sounds refreshing, too, until you actually pick apart what he’s saying. Like this excerpt: Now back to the topic, one thing I think is vital to mention, How Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrums, One is the work of God one is a… Read more
In the aftermath of Jessica Ahlquist winning her legal battle against Cranston High School West, a number of Christians (and run-of-the-mill trolls) have resorted to threatening her and verbally abusing her on Facebook, Twitter, and even the comment sections of various news sites. Mary and Robert Posey have compiled screenshots from all over the place… it’s one ugly collection of backlash. Massachusetts state director of American Atheists Zachary Bos has already informed the high school about this just to make… Read more