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.
I don’t watch Dexter, but reader Derek points me to the Showtime trailer for Season 6, in which Dexter encounters a man who killed his own wife. The man has a Jesus tattoo on his chest. How does he reconcile the tattoo with his crime? “God forgives us… You cannot kill me, because God is a mighty fortress! I’ve been washed in the blood of the lamb and He Will Protect Me!” Trailer is possibly NSFW: Derek adds: Dexter is… Read more
The Blonde Nonbeliever offers a synopsis of just about every conversation between a theist and atheist… featuring Homer Simpson as the theist: Atheist hints at nonbelief during some random conversation. Theist picks up on it, smells an opportunity, and bites. Theist, with a kind, approachable smile, gently inquires about Atheist’s beliefs. Atheist either dodges and says something bland like, “I don’t go to church anymore, but I’m still spiritual,” or blatantly asks, “I’m an atheist, you got a problem with… Read more
Remember that Ideological Turing Test I posted about a couple weeks ago? Leah at Unequally Yoked asked a group of 15 people (a mix of Christians and atheists) to answer a number of questions about god and religion. It was up to readers to decide which was which. Could we figure out which answers were genuine and which ones were the Christians “acting as atheists”? Or did the Christians really know what our arguments would be? The results are up!… Read more
Reader Radek from Poland (supposedly, an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country) tells this story: … Poles celebrate a holiday in June called Corpus Christi. It might not be as popular in the US, but here, traffic is banned in whole towns for hours because of the processions. These ‘parades’ can be very loud, take up police time, block traffic, and if any other religion or denomination wanted this kind of privilege, they would not be able to get it. Very recently,… Read more
The Centre For Inquiry in Canada has a nifty offer from a donor. If they can raise $300,000 by the end of September, the donor will chip in $200,000 — all going toward establishing physical buildings for freethinkers across the country. (They’ve raised nearly $100,000 so far. In Canadian money, no less!) Think of all those people who don’t have atheist literature in their homes (or libraries), who live in religious homes and can’t speak freely about religion, who never… Read more
