
Dan Arel is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in Salon, AlterNet, The Huffington Post, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, American Atheist Magazine and many others. As a writer and public speaker Dan has discussed various topics from religion in politics, science and religion, secular parenting and humanist morality to name a few. Is- sues such as the separation of church and state are prominent in Dan's work and play a key role in his vision for a secular world. Dan was raised in a Pentecostal Christian home but was encouraged to question the world around him and was never held back from exploring other religions. He was fortunate that coming out as an atheist was an easy task in his family and has happily been joined by his other siblings and father since then. Speaking out against the atrocities and discrimination committed in the name of religion has been and is still encouraged by his family and that support has motivated him to pass this encouragement on to his son. Having a child changed how he saw the world and he realized that no one is going to change if for him or his family and the responsibility was on us all. Armed with nothing but a desire to change the world and a computer Dan began writing for small blogs and news sites and quickly picked up the attention of The Richard Dawkins Foundation where he wrote about religion and science and even caught the eye of Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum who took issues with Dan's stance that creationism is not a debatable or respectable topic. Dan writes for the sole reason of reaching out to those who are simply accepting the status quo and opening their eyes to other perspectives. Instead of sugar coating the world, in which we we live, Dan attempts to tell it like it is and call out faith-based claims for the nonsense they are.