Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1748

“In Reason We Trust” Sign Stolen from Wisconsin State Capitol in Broad Daylight

When it comes to putting up displays in the Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison, it’s pretty much a free-for-all, as long as you fill out the proper paperwork.

Since Easter is upon us, the Freedom From Religion Foundation put up a sign saying “In Reason We Trust” last month:

There was hardly any controversy over the sign… until this past Saturday. At 1:13p, three people stole the sign and the easel on which it was displayed:

The suspects are two males and a female, all Caucasian. Footage...

Who Else Do Christian Business Owners Have to Discriminate Against?

You know, if Christian bakers and florists really cared about what the Bible said, they would be discriminating against more than just gay people:

Read the full strip at Ruben Bolling‘s “Tom the Dancing Bug.”

I’m torn between whether I want these business owners to serve all customers, or whether I want them to publicly discriminate against customers to the point where they just go out of business due to bigotry. (I still love the idea of requiring religious business owners to put a sign out fr...

Christian Florist Says She’d Deny Service to Gay People, but Not Adulterers, Because It’s a “Different Kind of Sin”

CNN’s Gary Tuchman visited several florists in rural Georgia and asked if they would provide certain services to gay people. Of course they all said no… because Jesus.

The most telling part of the exchange was this one with florist Melissa Jeffcoat in which she was confronted about the specifics of her bigotry:

Tuchman: … In the Ten Commandments, it says you can’t commit adultery…

Jeffcoat: Right.

Tuchman: It says you need to honor your father and mother.

Jeffcoat: Mhmm.

Tuchman: If someone didn’t...

New Report Projects the Number of Religiously-Unaffiliated People in the U.S. to Double to 100 Million by 2050

A new report from the Pew Research Center says that, by 2050, the number of Muslims worldwide will be roughly equivalent to the number of Christians. That’s what most headlines about the report are saying.

But the report also has a lot to say about those of us who are “unaffiliated,” that is, atheists, Agnostics, and those who believe in a Higher Power but who want no part of organized religion.

The biggest highlights?

1) The number of Unaffiliated people worldwide is projected to rise from 1.13...

Republican Senator Urges Us to “Have a Sense of Perspective” Since Gay People in Other Countries Are Executed

In an interview on CNN on Wednesday, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton was asked to share his opinion of the controversy surrounding the Arkansas and Indiana so-called “religious freedom” bills. The Republican senator tried to sidestep the reason for the controversy — namely, that the bills in question essentially gave a free pass to discrimination for religious reasons — by remarking that in his state, “we believe in religious freedom.”

“Well everyone believes in religious freedom,” interviewer Wol...

Christian Rapper Visits Two Public Schools to Talk About Jesus

The other day, I posted about a Louisiana school district (Caddo Parish Public Schools) that was constantly promoting religion. One example was this newsletter handed out to students at Walnut Hill Elementary/Middle School:

Curvine Brewington is a proselytizing rapper who apparently doesn’t want to wait for kids to come to him after school. He posted this on his Instagram page yesterday:

I crashed lunch at 2 public schools today and freestyled w/ a few kids! Let’s pray that those in the cypher...

Arkansas State Senator Can’t Decide Whether the “Religious Freedom” Bill He Sponsored Allows for Discrimination

Yesterday, CNN’s Jake Tapper interviewed Arkansas State Senator Bart Hester, the sponsor of the state’s “religious freedom” bill. And Tapper wanted to figure out what the bill does. It wasn’t quite the Gov. Mike Pence on This Week debacle, but Hester, instead of giving no answer, gave multiple conflicting answers.

Let me paraphrase the conversation for you:

Tapper: Does this bill allow for discrimination against LGBT people?

Hester: No, of course not.

Tapper: Can Christian bakers refuse to make c...

Indian Girl Born with Trunk-Like Facial Deformity Worshiped as Incarnation of Lord Ganesha

Last Thursday, in India, a child was born with a very visible birth defect that created a protrusion in the middle of her face, the result of a gene mutation that may have been caused by “malnutrition and increased pollution levels.”

Yet, instead of focusing on her health, she’s become a symbol of worship to many religious Hindus, who see the child as an incarnation of Lord Ganesha:

“Her face looks exactly like Lord Ganesha. Everybody is saying she is an incarnation of the god. This is why many...

What Has Religion Done for Us This Month? Episode 15

Daniel is back with another montage of some of the awful things done in the name of God over the past month:

(via Religion Hurts Humanity)

Who Are We and Where Did We Come From? A New Book Offers Scientific Responses to These Questions and More

In their new book Discovering Our World: Humanity’s Epic Journey from Myth to Knowledge (Pitchstone Publishing, 2015), Paul Singh and John R. Shook offer scientific explanations to questions normally reserved for religion: Who are we? Where did we come from? What determines our destiny?

In the excerpt below, the authors explain why we have a moral imperative to save our planet:

The ethics of human enhancement should be guided by commonsensical and compassionate wisdom, so that a genuine “enhanc...