Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1691

Southern Baptist Manual Offers Suggestions on How to Get Around LGBT Anti-Discrimination Laws

The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, in partnership with the notoriously anti-gay Alliance Defending Freedom, have helpfully put together a publication to help religious people avoid the scourge of equality.

The result, Protecting Your Ministry, is available in PDF format for free online. And there’s plenty of interesting tidbits nestled among the 44 pages of persecution narrative and recommended legal manipulations.

Early on, the manual lays out the t...

A Detailed Look at the Chapel Hill Shootings and the Atheist Who Killed Three Innocent Muslims

The latest issue of the New Yorker has perhaps the most detailed account yet of what happened on February 10 of this year, when 46-year-old Craig Stephen Hicks went to an apartment near the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and killed three Muslims — Deah Shaddy Barakat (23), his wife of just over a month Yusor Abu-Salha (21), and her sister Razan Abu-Salha (19) — before turning himself in to the police.

(from L-R) Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha, and Razan Abu-Salha (via Twitte...

The Hilarious Meaning of Life

(via the New Yorker)

4 Benefits of Death

The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses 4 benefits of death (hear me out on this):

A rough transcript of the video can be found on the YouTube page in the “About” section.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the project — more videos will be posted soon — and we’d also appreciate your suggestions as to which questions we ought to tackle next!

And if you like what you’re seeing, please consider supporting this site on Patreon.

Christians Ditch Anonymity and File New Lawsuit to Keep Giant Cross in Grand Haven, Michigan

It was just a few days ago when I posted about the latest development in the ongoing saga in Grand Haven, Michigan.

Long story short, the giant hydraulic cross that had been going up several times a year was going to be transformed into a neutral anchor… but local Christians were furious that they were losing a privilege they didn’t deserve in the first place. So a group called “Citizens of Grand Haven” filed a lawsuit asking the court to reverse the city council’s decision.

Their lawsuit was d...

Egyptian “Council of Churches” Will Hold Meeting This Week to Discuss How to Combat Atheism

Finally — finally! — religious leaders in Egypt are going to figure out how to combat all those vicious atheists in the country:

The Council of Churches will organize a Cairo conference to “counter atheism in Egypt” June 16, Youm7 reported Tuesday.

Under the slogan of “Church Facing Atheism,” the council has invited all Egyptian churches’ patrons and priests to the conference, which will be held in the Jesuits’ Saint Family school in Cairo.

You know, considering the entire nation is home to only...

Church-Owned Building in Atlanta Had No Air Conditioning for Weeks, Leaving Seniors to Fend for Themselves

If you live in Atlanta in the summer, you know how hot it can get.

Now imagine you’re a senior citizen living in a building with no air conditioning. You have a real problem on your sweaty, fragile hands…

What makes this particular situation even worse is that Friendship Towers, the building without the air conditioners, is owned by Friendship Baptist Church. Church leaders don’t seem to give a damn about these residents, taking their sweet time fixing the mess they created.

I have a hard time b...

Did Albert Einstein Believe in God or Not?

You may have heard that a collection of letters written by Albert Einstein was sold at auction on Thursday for $420,000.

The contents of those letters include advice to his son, words of consolation to a friend whose husband cheated on her, and adjustments to certain math equations. But much of the focus in the media has been on what he said about God.

The headline at the conservative Washington Times, for example, reads:

Albert Einstein was no atheist; 27 letters up for auction show ‘he believe...

A Primer on Christian Legal Defense Groups

With all the legal goings-on we write about on this website, it’s easy to get confused by the numerous Christian legal defense groups out there. Are there differences between them? What sort of cases do they take on? Which attorneys work for them?

Daniel Bennett, writing for Religion & Politics, has done a nice job of explaining the various groups out there and what makes them unique.

The biggest takeaway for me? The budgets for some of these groups are just ridiculously large.

Here’s just one e...

A Paycheck’s a Paycheck…

How many of you have ever been in a situation where you worked for a company you knew was peddling bullshit?

(Image via PostSecret)