Shalini Sehkar

Shalini Sehkar is a skeptic, atheist, science blogger and anti-creationist activist. She is currently a member of the Center for Inquiry Pittsburgh advisory board. She may or may not be the author of Evolved Rational.

Activism

Known for her strong opposition to what she claims is the undeserved respect shown towards religious beliefs, she has been associated with the Rational Response Squad who made headlines in December 2006 with their Blasphemy Challenge. She was a guest on their 2007 Christmas show, where the topic of discussion was the existence or non-existence of the Christian God.

She joined the advisory board of the Pittsburgh branch of the Center for Inquiry in 2008.

Blog

Her first blog was created in June 2006, with a focus on evolution, anti-creationism, skepticism, rationalism, scientific naturalism, and atheism.

Atheism

She is a proponent of the 'New Atheist' position, a position also promoted by others such as Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers and Larry Moran, and a critic of the 'framing' method of science popularization promoted by Matthew Nisbet and Chris Mooney in the journal Science. She also views theistic evolutionists as closet Intelligent Design proponents, and has accused a portion of the atheist community of being 'closet theists'.

Controversy

She dismissed a significant proportion of the atheist community as 'appeasers' and 'spineless pushovers' for not being more vocal about their criticism towards religion, thus causing Intelligent Design (ID) proponents to describe her writing style as a form of belligerent bullying.

Some of her comments have also not sat well with others on the atheist and evolutionist spectrum. Responding to the aforementioned post, Dr. Richard B. Hoppe, a lobbyist in Ohio against ID commented:

This is a prime example of tactics that will lose both the multiple individual battles we have to fight and the larger war on rationality.

References

• Christians to be reminded that their God doesn't exist
• Scientia Natura
• Update on Shalini Sehkar