By The self-proclaimed “friendly atheist” Hemant Mehta, 24, otherwise known as the man who “sold his soul on eBay” for $504, came to Cal State Long Beach Thursday on behalf of the Long Beach Secular Students.
In the Alamitos Bay Room of the University Student Union, Mehta spoke of the sequence of events leading to the writing of his book, “I Sold My Soul on eBay: Viewing Faith through an Atheist’s Eyes,” as well as the religious insights he developed through his involvement with several different religious communities along the way.
In March of 2006, a curious Mehta put an auction on eBay that soon after turned into a mass media frenzy and subsequently made him the modern day poster boy for atheism.
In his eBay auction, Mehta stated: “I am an atheist. For every $10 you will bid, I will go to the church, [mosque], or synagogue of your choice.”
“I put this auction up there thinking: Worse case scenario, someone was going to bid $10 and I’ll go to church for a day and then go watch a movie and my day will be a good one,” Mehta said. “I thought it’s a crazy eBay auction and no one is supposed to bid.”
However, by the end of the auction Jim Henderson, a former pastor, won Mehta’s auction at $504. Henderson and Mehta then worked out a deal where Mehta would visit Christian services throughout the year and write his experiences on a Web site of Henderson’s.
Meanwhile, journalists had a field day with Mehta’s story. He was featured in many news outlets, including The Seattle Times, National Public Radio and the FOX News Channel. A March 9, 2006, article on the front page of The Wall Street Journal featured Mehta’s story with the headline “On eBay, an Atheist Puts His Own Soul On the Auction Block.”
After his whirlwind of religious experiences prompted by his eBay auction, Mehta decided to write a book about his ordeal.
A section of the book, “Religion on Campus,” depicts Mehta’s experience prior to the auction at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was a student at the time. In it, Mehta writes about the difficulty he had finding secular students like himself on campus.
For more information on Mehta’s religious experience, visit his blog at FriendlyAtheist.com.
