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.
According to new data released yesterday (PDF) from the U.S. Census Bureau, Southern states — including many Bible Belt ones — had some of the highest rates of divorce for both men and women in the country. Nine of the 14 states with divorce rates for women above the U.S. average, ranging from 10.7 to 16.2, were in the South. They included Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. By comparison, four of the 10 states… Read more
I would make a horrible religion reporter. I don’t know if I could talk about someone’s faith without interjecting my own commentary. Good religion reporters keep their own beliefs out of the picture. They just let you know what the subjects of their stories believe. That also makes it frustrating when reading mainstream coverage of the current crop of Republican candidates for president. Despite the fact that many of the popular candidates right now love to tout their faith as… Read more
The Freedom From Religion Foundation just put up this “Imagine No Religion” billboard in Terre Haute, Indiana (courtesy of a donor who wished to remain anonymous): “There are many nonbelievers in America, including in Indiana, and we want them to know they are not alone. We’d also like to invite believers to imagine a world free from religious wars, sectarian strife and superstition,” said Dan Barker, FFRF co-president. “Like John Lennon, I’ve found that nature and reality are enough for… Read more
This could be controversial, but I think it’s a positive move. The Stiefel Freethought Foundation has just given a $50,000 grant to Religion News LLC (which owns Religion News Service) in order to expand coverage of the “growing community of atheists, agnostics, humanists and freethinkers.” Considering that RNS stories appear in a lot of popular online (and print) publications, like Huffington Post, USA Today, and the Washington Post, that’s a huge boost. …The Stiefel Foundation grant allows RNS to expand… Read more
