Hemant Mehta is the founder and editor of FriendlyAtheist.com, a YouTube creator, and podcast co-host. He is a former National Board Certified math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago. He has appeared on CNN and FOX News and served on the board of directors for Foundation Beyond Belief and the Secular Student Alliance. He has written multiple books, including I Sold My Soul on eBay and The Young Atheist's Survival Guide. He also edited the book Queer Disbelief.
Kylee Chapa is a Mormon missionary currently working in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was recently teaching the Book of Mormon to a 13-year-old girl named Kami and they came across a horrific passage in which Nephi is told by God that he must kill Laban in order to secure some brass plates. In the story, Nephi struggles with the command to kill someone else because, you know, murder is wrong. But if Heavenly Father says so, why not?! So Nephi cuts off Laban’s head. If you’re a missionary, how do you teach this story? And if you’re hearing it for the first time, don’t you have some natural objection to it? Kylee writes: Kami asked a question, and it amazed me because I had just learned this lesson myself a couple of weeks ago. She said, “Why did Nephi have to cut off Laban’s head? Why didn’t he just slit his throat or something?” Read more
Over the summer, Paul Fidalgo posted about a popular Bible app called YouVersion — which, despite having the worst app name ever, was still incredibly useful to anyone who wanted a portable Bible. It turns out a lot of those users are atheists and they’re not using the app in the way the creator intended: Read more