Carol (a.k.a. “the friendly American exmormon atheist mom living in France”) has a review of I Sold My Soul on eBay up at her site! Go check it out 🙂 Thankfully, as she writes in her review, I avoided a duel with her over the use of my domain name. *phew* (Judging by the cartoon-y profile picture in the lower right hand side of the page, she could beat me up in .00004 seconds.) She also talks about the three… Read more
Wow. Lots of postings dealing with books today. I had written previously about not really liking Richard Dawkins’ book cover for The God Delusion. Not everyone agreed. But the folks at The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDF) are offering you a new book jacket! The cover that receives the most votes will be created and offered to anyone who makes a $10 donation to the RDF. The new cover would take the place of the original one… Read more
The issue discussed in this post actually arose several weeks ago. I talked to Dale about the issue when it occurred; we agreed it wasn’t worth posting about (it would just bring on unnecessary attention) and it would just fade away. Now, it looks like the story is going to spread since it has been mentioned in Humanist Network News and in the comments section on Daylight Atheism. I might as well jump into the fray. Here’s the summary of… Read more
As people post reviews of I Sold My Soul on eBay, I’ll be putting them up in the Book Reviews section of the sidebar. Frequent commenter (and Christian) Mike Clawson has a positive, in-depth review of the book on his blog. Go check it out! And if you have a review of the book on your site, please let me know! [tags]Hemant Mehta, Mike Clawson, I Sold My Soul on eBay[/tags] Read more
The shorter review: Go read Nica Lalli’s new book Nothing: Something to Believe in! You’ll love it. The longer review: There are a lot of books out there written by academics who can give you a philosophical explanation of why we shouldn’t believe in God. There are an increasing number of books out there (mine included) that discuss becoming an atheist after having been raised with religion. But I had yet to read an autobiography from the perspective of someone… Read more
During the American Atheists convention, we were given a slip of paper that asked us what question we would like to ask God (if there was one). Those who chose to do so wrote a question down, put the slip of paper in a box, and then forgot all about it. Then, during dinner one night, guess who graced us with a visit?! Jesus H. Christ. He pulled our questions out of the box one-by-one and began to answer them…… Read more
On Sunday afternoon at 1:30 pm (CST), I’ll be speaking to the Minnesota Atheists group at Roseville Public Library (in Roseville, MN). If you’re in the area, please come by! Detailed information can be found here. Some other interesting notes: One member of MN Atheists is August Berkshire, who wrote the popular “18 Unconvincing Arguments for God” list. If you go to the Minnesota Atheists home page and look on the right side toward the top, you can see videos… Read more
Roland Martin is a syndicated columnist and former editor of the Chicago Defender, an influential black newspaper. If you’re unfamiliar with him, you may remember this exchange on legacy admissions (which essentially mean you got into a good college because daddy went there and now gives the school money) he once had with President Bush– it made national headlines: Roland Martin: So, the colleges should get rid of legacy. President Bush: Well, I think so, yeah. It should be based… Read more
At the American Atheists convention, there were more women (at least ratio-wise) than I’ve seen at just about any other atheist/skeptic event. It was nice to have them there, but this convention, like all others, was short-lived. It raises the question of why there are relatively few women in the secular movement. Why is it when I got to any atheist gathering (a convention, a local group, or a campus group), there are an overwhelming number of men? It’s a… Read more
(Update: The video is back up and able to be embedded!) Well, my family isn’t this bad. They still get me Christmas presents. (Of course, I’ve gotten only socks from them for several years running now… maybe they’re trying to send a message.) But I don’t think Michael’s mom’s reaction is out of the ordinary for a lot of atheists coming out to their families. Many of us have to deal with this. No wonder so many atheists remain in… Read more
