The eBay Atheist

I recently came across Hemant, an atheist grad student in math, who sold his soul on eBay for the price of $10/hour of church. Since it was going to the highest bidder, there was competition amongst atheists who wanted to keep one of their own, and evangelicals who wanted to save the boy.

Hemant made out pretty well ($504) from Henderson, a former minister in Seattle
who made him a deal that he just had to go to 10-15 sermons of his choosing and then agree to blog about it. So far he's goe to megachurches and predominantly African American churches, and then he extemporizes on preachers who talk too slow or whether it's necessary to pray for a bigger parking lot. But he does it all in an open and respectful fashion, and some of the preachers have written back to say thanks for the criticism, or "I've heard it all before."

Henderson had wanted to increase the amount of dialogue between believers and non-believers in a way that gets beyond the hard-sell tactics that are off-putting to many. So far it seems to be working, and while I don't agree with Hemant on everything (like it being harder to ru for office if you're gay than atheist), I do think he brings up some very pertinent and thought-provoking questions.

Plus the kid is photogenic and media-savvy, he should go very far. Way to go, brother.