Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1708

Islamic Strife… Over Whether or Not Muhammad Wiggled His Finger

Sectarian strife within Islam is in the headlines every day.It’s more than enough to make you cry.At times, you just have to laugh.

Take that phrase “sectarian strife,” for instance.What’s that really about, anyway?I stumbled upon one answer recently on YouTube, where I discovered that many Muslim clerics are posting passionate– and sometimes angry– videos fiercely debating one particularly weighty “Islamic Issue.”

On how to advance Islamic nations toward greater peace?Or how to improve human r...

Jim Bob Duggar (circa 2002): Those Who Commit Incest Should Receive the Death Penalty

When Jim Bob Duggar was running for U.S. Senate in 2002, his campaign website explained his positions on the issues.

Turns out he called for the death penalty for those who committed incest.

That’s gotta be awkward now that we know his son Josh Duggar molested five little girls, including four of his sisters, when he was a teenager.

Take a look at how Jim Bob explained his stance on incest in a passage about abortion:

If a woman is raped, the rapist should be executed instead of the innocent unbo...

On Inside Amy Schumer, Bill Nye Explains How the Universe is Totally Speaking to Young White Women

In a sketch on this week’s episode of Inside Amy Schumer, Bill Nye makes a guest appearance to help decipher conversations about how the universe is sending us a message.

Well, some of us.

We now know the universe is essentially a force sending cosmic guidance to white women in their twenties.

Stick around for the ending

If only Nye said that during the Ken Ham debate…

Bangladeshi Government Bans Group That Killed Atheist Bloggers, but It’s Not Enough

This is the first real sign of justice we’ve seen in Bangladesh following the brutal killings of atheist writers Dr. Avijit Roy, Washiqur Rahman, and Ananta Bijoy Das.

The government is banning the extremist group allegedly responsible for these killings:

The Home Ministry’s move to outlaw the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) comes almost a week after police asked the government to ban the group, suspecting it of being behind the deaths of three bloggers this year.

Police had also earlier charged AB...

Christian Pastor’s Wife: Josh Duggar Was Just “Playing Doctor,” So Stop Making a Big Deal About Him

Finally, we know the real reason Josh Duggar molested five little girls. And a Christian pastor’s wife said it so you *know* it’s accurate.

The teenage Duggar was simply “playing doctor.”

Not Josh Duggar

That’s what Carrie Hurd (under her pastor-husband’s Facebook profile) said to my Patheos colleague Vyckie Garrison:

… When I was a kid, it was often called “playing doctor”, there were just as many girls initiating this kind of behavior as boys. Most of those never went on to perp horrible things...

I’m the Student Who Spoke About My Jehovah’s Witness Past on YouTube

This is a guest post written by Brie.

…

My name is Brie. I’m 18 and a senior at Lincoln High School in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. I graduate next week. And until I spoke about my religious history in class, in a video you might have seen online, I’d never shared that information publicly. My classmates were shocked that I was ever a Jehovah’s Witness.

My mother was raised in the JW faith. My father was not, but he joined when I was born. And I was the perfect little Jehovah’s Witness girl, baptized a...

Ray Comfort: Josh Duggar Wasn’t Really a Christian When He Molested Those Girls

Besides the awful acts themselves, I think what bothers me the most about this whole Josh Duggar story is how other Christian conservatives are just jumping to his defense.

Mike Huckabee called Duggar’s molesting of five girls “regrettable,” adding that nobody’s perfect and that Duggar should be forgiven since he “confessed his sins.” (Take a wild guess how Huckabee would react if, say, we found out President Obama did something similar when he was younger.)

That’s pretty bad. But Ray Comfort‘s...

5 Reasons You May Not Want to Come Out as an Atheist

The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses 5 reasons you may *not* want to come out as an atheist.

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.

Neil deGrasse Tyson Shares His Time Travel Preference

In another Mysteries of the Universe with Neil deGrasse Tyson video by Esquire, Tyson is asked, “Would you rather be able to travel forwards or backwards in time?”

Tyson makes an excellent point — echoed by comedian Louis CK, as he notes — about how the past wasn’t kind to certain groups of people, but he does mention one person he’d like to go back and meet.

Can you guess?

Arkansas School Board Member Cyberbullies Student for Supporting LGBT Rights

The Bentonville School Board in Arkansas is currently debating whether or not to “add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected statuses under the School District’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy.”

You’d have to be a pretty horrible person to oppose that, since leaving it out would allow LGBT teachers to be fired purely on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Unfortunately, some of those horrible people are on the school board.

Like Rebecca Powers, who made this comm...