Thoughts on the 'Friendly Atheist' (aka Hemant Mehta)?

[ILikePie]

patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/

If you don't know who he is, Hemant Mehta is a popular atheist blogger and activist who works as a math teacher in Chicago. When he was 14/15, he "deconverted" from Jainism and has been an atheist ever since. How do I know all this? I used to read his blog pretty much every day (new posts were uploaded several times a day) and also enjoyed his Youtube videos which he posts on his channel 'The Atheist Voice'.

At first, I liked that he supported efforts to create a society that was inclusive to all religions and that he tried to find common ground with theists, which most of the new atheists don't bother to do. However, over time, I began to find his online personality and writing style off-putting.

He claims to be a 'friendly' atheist, but always assumes the worst of his opponents; namely theists and conservatives. In one post, he described pro-life demonstrators as "sneering" as a woman who was pro-choice threw a fit. From what I saw, the demonstrators kept their composure and responded respectfully to the woman in the accompanying video. In another post about tightening homeschooling regulations, he claimed he was certain that "secular" parents would have no objections to these regulations while the evangelical homeschooling community would only object because of religion. He has also said that 'secularists' would never discriminate based on faith in a post discussing religious discrimination in school clubs.

All this aside, how much of a friend is he to Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. when a significant portion of his posts are devoted to making fun of their lifestyle and moral values? If you had a friend who constantly berated you for choosing to be vegan, would you want him/her to be your friend? He also posts studies that supposedly show the superiority of atheists to theists. For example, he posted on the fact that "secular" children were less likely to believe fictional stories when in fact the study's setup was flawed. The fictional stories used in the study were very similar to the ones in Exodus about Moses parting the Red Sea, making his staff turn into a snake, so naturally churchgoing children would be more likely to believe them. But then again, skepticism and freethought only apply to religion, right? :angry-banghead:

Also, his regular commenters for the most part act like kids in the comments section (baiting other users, making accusations towards anybody who doesn't agree with Mehta).

Sorry for the rant and if you read through that whole thing, well...may the :fsm: be ever in your favor. :)

[Dark Matters]

I've been reading his blog for a couple of years and for the most part, I enjoy it, especially Richard Wade's contributions as both an article writer for the blog and a commenter. I find his (Mehta's) blog and commentariat a lot softer on religionists than some of the Freethought blogs I follow. He is not militant about his atheism but he will call out the stuff he finds ridiculous.

He has had a few missteps as far as feminism is concerned though - mainly in promoting videos or blog posts of other atheists without doing a bit of research first.

[chissprincess]

Isn't his blog the one that actually has a lot of writers? I remember there being some confusion about one of Patheos' atheist blogs because everyone kept assuming there was one writer for the blog, but there were actually several, and I feel like it was The Friendly Atheist.

[Firiel]

I always felt he should call himself the Patronizing Atheist.

If you are a progressive theist, he will pat you on the head, smile at you condescendingly, and give you a cookie for tolerance.

I'm not a huge fan, for the reasons you posted, ILikePie. Can you really be called "friendly" towards a group if you clearly think that they are all delusional idiots? He's definitely polite, but he's not exactly friendly.

[debrand]

I've only read the Friendly Atheist sporadically so I can't comment if he is patronizing or not. Could you give a few examples or links? There are some atheists that are pretty jerkish to believers, I admit but The Friendly Atheist has never seemed particularly antagonistic to me.

[Firiel]

I've only read the Friendly Atheist sporadically so I can't comment if he is patronizing or not. Could you give a few examples or links? There are some atheists that are pretty jerkish to believers, I admit but The Friendly Atheist has never seemed particularly antagonistic to me.

I'll see if I can dig some up later. I don't read him much because I got the patronizing vibe pretty quickly. He's not antagonistic... I just felt he sees himself as an enlightened adult compared to well-meaning but foolish theists.