Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1795

Three Muslim Students Were Killed in a Tragic Attack Carried Out by an Atheist

Last night, apparently in response to a dispute over parking spaces, 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 Mohammad (21), and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha (19) — before turning himself in to the police.

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

Needless to say, whatever this fight was...

Creationist Group: To Doubt the Existence of Unicorns in the Bible “is to Demean God’s Word”

There are some versions of the Bible, like the King James, that mention unicorns. Many Christians — possibly fearing that the inclusion of unicorns might make a book that has a scheming serpent, magical fruit of knowledge, and a talking ass seem positively silly — will argue that this is just a mistranslation. Indeed, other translations like the New American Standard Bible and even the New King James Version refer to a “wild ox” instead of the “unicorn.”

As a kid, I really liked that the KJV m...

After a Muhammad Image Derailed His First Book, American Atheists’ Dave Silverman Gets a Second Chance

In 2013, American Atheists President David Silverman announced that he would be writing a book called I, Atheist. But a few months later, that book was off the table. What happened? On Facebook, Silverman explained that there had been a disagreement with Pitchstone Publishing: “We parted ways amicable over a smiley face, labeled ‘Muhammad of Islam’, which I refused to remove.”

Well, a different version of that book is finally seeing the light of day. The newly-titled Fighting God: An Atheist M...

19-Year-Old Daughter of Homeschooling Christian Parents Needs Help Obtaining Essential Life Documents

I’ll just say this up front: I haven’t been able to verify this story. But on the hope that someone might be able to help Alecia if it’s true, I wanted to post it.

…

Alecia Faith Pennington grew up in a homeschooling Christian household. As you might expect, her parents don’t like government regulations. We know that freedom can be abused, but I’ve never seen it go this far.

Alecia’s mother Lisa, who runs a website called The Pennington Point, never obtained a birth certificate for her daughter....

Their Reading Comprehension is Always Worse Than Mine

Every holy book ever written… or Richard Dawkins‘ Twitter feed.

You decide.

(via Indexed)

Neil deGrasse Tyson is Taking the Moon with Him

If Neil deGrasse Tyson is going to host his own talk show, he needs to staff it with people who have worked in the medium before! So he went on Conan to do some poaching:

Goodbye, Moon.

After Satanists Planned to Give Away Coloring Books, Florida School Board Votes to End All Religious Distributions

In January of 2013, World Changers of Florida, Inc. held Bible distributions at a number of public high schools in Orange County, Florida. No student would be forced to take one, but there would be a table set up where interested students could take a copy if they wanted:

This alone could have been illegal, but the Orange County School Board agreed that non-Christian groups could also have a distribution if they wanted.

When the Central Florida Freethought Community (CFFC) called their bluff an...

Can We Be Good Without God? The Evidence Points to Yes in So Many Ways

Brandon Fibbs wonders why we keep debating the foundation of morality and whether atheists can be good without God when the evidence in our favor is so overwhelming:

I would caution everyone against saying non-religiosity causes those characteristics… but they are connected. There’s a mindset that values evidence and critical thinking that leads to those results. And the examples in the video certainly show that you can be good without God. The proof is right before our eyes.

Fox News Host Claims Nobody Was Killed Recently in the Name of any Religion but Islam; the Facts Say Otherwise

I have great news, folks. Christians don’t kill people in the name of their religion. They don’t, and they haven’t. Maybe ever. Certainly not recently. Hindus are in the clear, too: there have been zero instances of Hindus killing people in the name of Hinduism. Likewise for Buddhists, and Jews, and, well, everyone. There have been zero instances of religious killings from practitioners of any religion… except Islam.

At least, that is, , who shared this beaut...

Assorted Gods and Prophets, Now In Chocolate, Get the Faithful Riled Up. (Oh, And Guess Which One Is Missing.)

Amazing:

Small, ediblechocolate busts of Charles Darwin,H.L. Mencken, and Christopher Hitchenswere recently on offer at a downtown Manhattan gourmet store, and several atheistsvoiced loud objections, demanding that the “intolerable insults” to their godlessness beremoved from the store’s assortment.

Yeah, not really. I made that up. Itdidn’t happen.

But you can easily guess what did. Via the New York Times:

Is it O.K. to eat a chocolate statuette of your favorite holy figure? The matter arose rec...