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.
David G. McAfee has written a revised version of his book Disproving Christianity and Other Secular Writings and it’s perfect for anyone who has studied the Bible and loves to see its inconsistencies pointed out. One of the chapters, Morality versus Worship, is republished below: “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If… Read more
Beginning on Monday, the Freedom From Religion Foundation will sponsor their first billboard in Rhode Island (on Interstate 295 at Route 2 in Warwick): Annie Laurie Gaylor, Foundation co-president, said it’s fitting that the campaign has expanded to Rhode Island, which was founded by Roger Williams, a strong advocate of keeping religion out of government and vice versa. “Although Williams was a religious man, he believed deeply that civil and sectarian authorities should not intrude on each other, for the… Read more
***Update***: Mattheiss is a staffer at the school and not a teacher. My apologies for the post’s title. Still, that doesn’t take away from anything she writes on the Facebook wall. Staffers, just like teachers, cannot use work time to proselytize. And Mattheiss makes it clear that she’s ignoring that rule completely; she writes that she prays with kids daily. If this were part of some after school Christian club, that would be legal, but there’s no indication of that…. Read more
The Chicago Gay Pride Parade takes place the last Sunday of June and the route happens to pass by a Catholic church. When you’re in a big city, it’s kind of hard not to pass a church along a large parade route. It’s not like they did it on purpose. But the priest at the church said he would be unable to hold Sunday morning mass if the parade went on as planned. That led Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of… Read more
High-schooler Elise Brown recently wrote this fantastic opinion piece for her community’s local paper regarding celebrating Christmas as an atheist and the importance of religious pluralism in our country. While it’s not online at the paper’s site, she reposted it here. I love this excerpt, a response to Rick Perry’s “Stronger” ad: A statesman who insists that the national dialogue about religion must be limited to Christianity is no statesman at all. We all have different beliefs and ways to… Read more