{"id":197,"date":"2020-07-20T09:59:13","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T13:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abdullahsameer.com\/podcast\/?p=197"},"modified":"2021-07-12T16:57:59","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T20:57:59","slug":"047-interview-with-the-friendly-atheist-hemant-mehta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendlyexmuslim.com\/podcast\/047-interview-with-the-friendly-atheist-hemant-mehta\/","title":{"rendered":"047 – Interview with The Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I will be interviewing the American activist Hemant Mehta. I have been a big fan of Hemant and his approach towards disseminating his views and have been following him for many years on social media since I left Islam. I always wanted to speak to him about his perspectives and his activism. Join us for a conversation between your friendly neighborhood ex-Muslim and The Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

YouTube version of this podcast can be found here: https:\/\/youtu.be\/M4mT-aWIRLo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the timestamps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0:00 Introductions
0:58 Why the friendly atheist?
3:25 Jainism – being an extreme follower of Jainism. Does Hemant take some parts of Jainism? The extreme fasting in Jainism.
8:20 Hemant’s perspective on Islamic fasting. Problems with Islamic fasting and how it does not seem to have been planned with a global audience in mind.
12:00 Is Christianity harmful to humanity?
14:30 Is Hemant an anti-theist? Hemant\u2019s perspective on this label.
18:10 What is the biggest issue that needs to be tackled urgently? Why is it people tend to compartmentalize contradicting beliefs?
22:05 Are Muslims in the US more progressive than Christians when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights?
28:00 The difficulty in pulling apart cultural and Islamic teachings for example misogyny, chastity, and honor killing, and how younger Muslims are moving away from such practices.
31:25 Why is it important to allow free speech to criticize religion? Is it important to express the lack of belief?
34:20 Testimonials that Hemant receives from people questioning or leaving religion.
35:10 How long did it take Abdullah to change his beliefs from being a Muslim to being an atheist? What started it?
37:40 Has Hemant interacted with Muslims? What were the issues they were raising?
39:50 The importance of coming out as an atheist and normalizing being an ex-Muslim.
41:45 Death threats and backlash to activism against religion.
43:20 Defending freedom of religion while also not aiding the far right in their anti-Muslims bigotry.
46:30 Losing friends and family because of leaving religion. The problem of nihilism. What can you substitute church\/religion for?
53:00 Did religion survive this long because it was beneficial to people or for other reasons?
57:25 The harsh realities for non-believers in Pakistan.
58:27 Hemant’s advice to people who are questioning or want to leave religion. Advice for people who are coming back to religion.
1:01:50 Are Abrahamic religions better than non-Abrahamic religions?
1:03:28 What project is Hemant most proud of?
1:05:00 Hemant’s social media handles
1:05:40 Why Hemant’s perspective is US-centric?
1:06:20 Round of Quick questions
1:07:18 Final remarks<\/p>\n

\nhttp:\/\/podcast.abdullahsameer.com\/episodes\/047-Interview_with_The_Friendly_Atheist_Hemant_Mehta.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will be interviewing the American activist Hemant Mehta. I have been a big fan of Hemant and his approach towards disseminating his views and have been following him for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcasts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendlyexmuslim.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendlyexmuslim.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendlyexmuslim.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendlyexmuslim.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendlyexmuslim.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/friendlyexmuslim.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/friendlyexmuslim.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendlyexmuslim.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendlyexmuslim.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendlyexmuslim.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendlyexmuslim.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}