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.
Baylor University is one of the religiously-affiliated schools that has recently denied atheists from forming an officially-recognized group. When you read Rob Bradfield’s article in The Baylor Lariat, it’s not hard to understand why such a group is necessary on campus and how hard the atheists who go there have it: Only 43 out of 14,900 students identified themselves as atheists, according to a fall 2010 report prepared by the Office of Institutional Research and Testing. A further 371 students… Read more
Private Transportation Corporation, a hasidic-owned company that operates a public bus line between two Yiddish communities, has special instructions for its female riders: Go sit in the back of the bus because the front is reserved for men. You probably wouldn’t know this, either, because the English portion of their brochure says that “When boarding a crowded bus with standing room only, women should be allowed to board first.” Ok, fine… but then you look at the Yiddish part of… Read more
Ever since Illinois legalized civil unions, state-funded Catholic Charities have had to face the prospect of allowing partners in a civil union to adopt kids. In the past, they restricted adoptions to straight married couples and single parents. When the civil unions bill passed, they had a decision to make: comply with the law or shut down. Most of them chose to shut down. (In one case, a secular organization stepped in to help the children abandoned by the Catholic… Read more
Capt. Ryan Jean is the atheist who’s trying to become a “Humanist lay leader” in the Army. It’s not quite the role an official Chaplain would have — he wouldn’t even get paid — but it’d give him the opportunity to facilitate discussions about religion with Foxhole Atheists who aren’t being serviced by religious chaplains. Father Jonathan Morris knows nothing about that distinction. Hell, he doesn’t even know what this story is about. He keeps complaining about how atheists want… Read more