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.
After Republican state senators in Michigan changed an anti-bullying law to allow bullying if it was due to a “sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction,” there was an uproar from state Democrats, GLBT students and allies, atheists, progressives, anyone with a heart… basically, everyone except those Republican state senators. It appears to be making a difference as the bill moves to the House: Speaker of the House Jase Bolger, R-Marshall, is working on a compromise this week that will… Read more
Conservative Christians promote a lot of awful values, but spanking has to be somewhere near the top of the list. It’s not just the few notable examples of parents who beat their children to the point of death — but parents who spank their kids at all. It makes no sense to think that you could actually “fix behavior” through violence. Lately, Michael Pearl and Debi Pearl’s book To Train Up A Child is getting a lot of press because… Read more
Last week, the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo ran with this cover: That’s “guest editor” Muhammad saying “100 lashes if you don’t die laughing!” For that, Hebdo’s offices were firebombed, their website was hacked (with messages like “No God but Allah”), and protests erupted across Europe. Very likely the courtesy of extremist representatives from the “religion of peace.” A week has gone by and the newspaper is now operating out of another office. They haven’t lost their edge, though. First,… Read more
Read this cartoon (click to enlarge) based off of an old experiment with monkeys and then ask yourself what the parallels are with religion: David Stockin summarizes it well and asks the obvious questions: The group knowledge, or paradigm, that climbing the ladder to reach the banana would result in group punishment, stayed with the population even though none of the monkeys had ever experienced the punishment. It has been shown that the monkey’s belief that the group will be… Read more
In case you missed it on Friday, Michael Shermer had an op-ed piece in the LA Times, arguing against “In God We Trust” as our national motto: It’s time to drop the God talk and face reality with a steely-eyed visage of the modern understanding of the origin of freedom on which the United States was founded and continues to be secured. God has nothing to do with it. If you want freedom and security, you need the following: The… Read more