This week’s guests are podcasters, Nathan Alexander and Todd Tavares of Beyond Atheism. 

Nathan grew up Anglican and in his early twenties, he realized there were no good reasons to continue believing. Todd grew up Catholic—technically still confirmed—but even at ten years old, he was a skeptic, wanting to explore reality rather than make-believe. 

In this interview, Nathan and Todd discuss racism, humanism, community-building and what it means to live thoughtfully in a godless world. It’s a sharp conversion you don’t want to miss!

Links

Beyond Atheism
https://www.nathangalexander.com/podcast

Nathan Alexander
https://www.nathangalexander.com/
https://twitter.com/NathGAlexander

Race in a Godless World: Atheism, Race, and Civilization, 1850-1914
https://www.nathangalexander.com/book-race-in-a-godless-world
https://amzn.to/3hGdEtO

#AmazonPaidLinks

Quotes

“The thing the nuns will teach you in Sunday school: God answers every prayer, but the answer is usually, ‘no.’…If there’s always not an answer, then there’s no one answering.” —Todd

“I kinda wanted there to be a god. I wanted it to be true because it’s a comfort that there’s some ultimate plan for you. You don’t have to worry because things are going to work out for you.” —Nathan

“Once I took that leap into atheism? You realize it’s not really a leap at all.” —Nathan

“Instead of sitting around, talking about technology and trans-humanism and how silly religions are, let’s address what we need as the people that we are.” —Todd

“If you look at the base numbers alone, the largest religious group who vote Democrat are Nones—atheists, people with no religion. It’s huge, solidly so.” —Todd

“The road to becoming an atheist is so lonely. Everybody does it alone. It’s an individual experience.” —Todd

“In the long term, maybe, having these groups where people are forced to create them, build them and dissolve them is the way it should be. That sort of creative process might be the healthiest thing for atheists…compared to those institutions that just stick around forever and outlive their usefulness.” —Todd

“Right now atheists are disproportionately white, but…when you look at the younger generations, it’s the case that atheists as a group are becoming more diverse…” —Nathan

Interact

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group!

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

Support the podcast
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist
Paypal: paypal.me/gracefulatheist

Attribution

“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats

David Ames  0:11  
This is the graceful atheist podcast. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. It's been a dry spell for rating and reviewing. So I'm going to ask again, please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on the Apple podcast store, rate the podcast on Spotify, and subscribe to the podcast, wherever you are listening. Are Lane continues to do an amazing job as Community Manager for our deconversion anonymous Facebook group, please consider joining at facebook.com/groups/deconversion. A quick note about social media. I'm actually slightly more active on Twitter than anywhere else. And as you may have heard in the news, there is some craziness happening at Twitter these days, a number of people have moved to a new platform called mastodon. It is I'll be honest, slightly more difficult to get the hang of but if you're interested in that kind of thing. I am at graceful atheist at ma s dot T O. I'll have the link in the show notes. I don't know what's going to happen to Twitter over the next year. But if it does come crashing down, which is at least a small possibility. I will be on mastodon. I also wanted to acknowledge that on Instagram and Facebook Ray, former guest of the show has been doing beautiful means of quotes from guests on the show. So you can find them there as well. I tend to lurk on Facebook because of the deconversion anonymous Facebook group on there. And then finally, I do in fact have a YouTube channel that is way way out of date community member has talked about possibly participating in progressing that forward so hopefully that will soon be up to date. Special thanks to Mike T for editing today's show. onto today's show. My guests today are Nathan Alexander and Todd Tavares. And they are the CO hosts of beyond atheism. I love what they're doing over there at the podcast. It is a sister or cousin podcast to this one. They are asking the question. We're atheists. Now what what do we do beyond atheism? So this was a really fun conversation. We have so much in common. I really appreciate the work that Nathan and Todd are doing. Here are Nathan and Todd to tell their story.

I have with me, Nathan Alexander and Todd Tavares. Gentlemen, welcome to the graceful atheist podcast.

Todd Tavares  2:56  
Great to be here, David.

Nathan Alexander  2:57  
Thanks for having us.

David Ames  2:59  
So Evan Clark, who is of the atheist united group got us in touch with each other. I'm very, very excited about this. You guys have a podcast called Beyond atheism, that I would say is, if not a sister podcast, a cousin podcast to this one. I think you guys are covering a lot of very similar territory. So we'll we'll jump into that momentarily. But the question we asked everyone on the podcast is what their religious tradition was like growing up, so we'll, we'll have both of you answer that question. And let's begin with Todd.

Todd Tavares  3:28  
No, all right. I was raised Catholic. And I mean, technically, since I was confirmed, I still am. So if anyone presses, I can say I am kind of like, they haven't excommunicated me yet, so Okay. All right. Um, and I, you know, it's I don't know where to begin with this. Because it's not that it was like a super intense part of my upbringing, although, but I think I'm different from you guys. At least in the sense of like, it wasn't that strong for me. I never had I was never like fervently Catholic. I was never deeply religious. I remember being young and skeptical. Like, I remember that going along with that thing. And I remember like developing this skepticism quite early. And comparing it to things like Santa Claus, because as a kid, I don't know what kind of bratty in some ways I remember every year trying to catch the Easter Bunny, I set up a net one year it's left under the Christmas tree so I could catch Santa Claus. So there was always that part of like, you know, experimenting with the world and testing and trying things. And like that, you know, at a certain point with God, you just I just got to the point where like, you know, there are pictures of UFOs people see you. People have seen Bigfoot. This seems to be without that.

David Ames  4:56  
Well, Todd, it sounds like you were an empiricist from a very young age. Yeah.

Todd Tavares  5:00  
I do like I remember being told, like toys move around at night. And then like setting them up very strategically and measuring it in the morning after. But yeah, so like, I mean, it was a very weak faith. And it was there was it was imbued with lot of skepticism. And what really mattered for like the religious upbringing to me was that it was a source of conflict, right? In my family. It's like, this is not something I believe. It's not something I want in my life. And there were very early signs that it that I strongly disagreed with it. I was being coerced into it. And so I'll give you there are two things that I kind of like to highlight about it. One was, I remember being quite young, maybe like 12 or so. And being brought to an ash wednesday mass in the basement of the cathedral, where there was a shrine, and they had like, crutches everywhere, where people who had been cured, left their crutches right, because now they can walk. It's amazing. It's American. And I went with my mother and my mother was deeply Catholic. She's very strongly Catholic. She taught catechism, she would sometimes invite the priest over to have dinner, we would bring the sacraments up occasionally at Mass, things like that. And we saw she was sitting in the front made me sit right in the front. And I remember the priest comes out. And the opening thing was like, you're all sinners, everything. You know, it's like we're here to atone, because you're sinners. You've been offending God for the whole year. It's this litany list of how terrible we are. And this voices started coming out from the back of the room. People saying like, you can't call me that, um, no center. interest. And like, yeah, and I mean, that really, I remember that really stands out as an important memory, where I remember my mother was sitting there nodding along with the priests going along with this guilt trip, which I mean, it's Catholic guilt, it sticks around forever, and he never ever shake it off right about anything. And meanwhile, like hearing other voices that said, like, No, you're not we're not sinners. We're not bad people. We're not terrible. Right? That I think that was the kind of thing that shook me out of just going along, being like, I don't I don't need to other people feel this way. It's a normal thing. It's okay to say no, when you disagree, right. And that's, it's, it's such a rare thing. The only other times things I would see things like that is my father wouldn't take communion. And I mean, it's for people listening, if you, you know, you're on the verge, or you're still going, attending or whatever, like going up, and joining this line and taking the communion and turning around and seeing an empty church, with one person sitting there. It's a very powerful signal. It's pretty impressive. So and of course, it's like, well, now I know, I've kind of got an ally. Um, and then in, in the, I think, Gosh, I guess it would have been the late 90s. By then, yeah, it was sometime in the late 90s. There was a Catholic sex scandal, if you can imagine such a thing.

David Ames  8:25  
Say, Well,

Todd Tavares  8:28  
it's the really crazy thing about this is that the conspiracy of silence around it, like people just didn't address it was really ridiculous. I mean, by then I had already made up my mind, I had to go through confirmation as part of, you know, family negotiation stuff that you just have to do.

David Ames  8:47  
And it's, you're still very young at this age. Yeah.

Todd Tavares  8:50  
Yes, I would have been I mean, like, it definitely helped by the time I was confirmed. So I'm from a town, Fall River, Massachusetts. So this is right before the Boston one, maybe like, you know, about 10 years before five or 10 years. But what was really shocking about it is people who were really Catholic really supported the church. Just never mentioned it. There were never any apologies there were never like, and that's and that really, that really turned me off to the whole mindset. I think it's like, you can't At what point do you like its children? And you're going to defend this institution?

David Ames  9:34  
That would be a powerful motivator, I would think, yeah, it

Todd Tavares  9:37  
was, it was a thing that's like it's okay. There's, there's a time to run, not walk. And this is a signal. So yeah, I was raised with this sort of the title No. Well, I'll just say you can you guys can tell me if I'm way off base on this and sort of like the naive faith of a child, right. Well, everybody says there's a God everybody says there's a center there must be a And went along with it until I was like, I just don't I don't see it, right? Like how many times the thing that the nuns will teach you, they teach a Sunday School is God answers every prayer. But the answer is usually no. And well, then the answer is always buying. But yeah, if there's always not an answer, there's no one answering. And that's so I was pushed down that road very early. And in my, I want to say was about 10. By the time I started actively not believing and moving past that.

David Ames  10:39  
See, that's amazing to me at the ripe old age of 10. Like, yeah, that's a that's a that's really impressive, actually. Well,

Todd Tavares  10:48  
I It's, I think we all kind of end up in these to me, there seem to be about like three doors. And I guess you would, David, you would know this better than me. But it seems the people I interact with, we we either end up kind of either, like very religious, and then we have to make this dramatic move away from it. Or kind of like me, where it's a little bit softer, you're raised in it, it's a tradition and you just move away from it, it dies way, you've never really that committed to where people are raised without religion. Right? These seem to be the three avenues that people go down. I guess it's just an you know, it's a continuum. And we kind of slotted this way. Yeah, for

David Ames  11:25  
sure. I see just an entire spectrum of people's experiences both coming into and leaving religion and but one of the things that is a relatively common theme is very young people having like a moral stance against what they're being taught so that a child's sense of morality says this isn't right. And then they begin that process of, of leaving are very, very early.

Todd Tavares  11:52  
Totally, totally. And I mean, a big part of it is like, I didn't like being lied to. I don't think anybody likes that. And once you get to the point where it's like, okay, like, the thing that makes sense is people made this up. They're just telling these stories. And I don't want to be told that these stories need to dictate my life anymore. I want to go out and explore and find out what's real and see what that what that means. So yeah, it really I think, like in terms of personality, which is really rubbed me the wrong way. The downside is like, it leads to a lot of conflict. I lived right down the street from the church. I remember waking up to church bells, we could hear it from where we lived. And one morning, my mother heard it, and then started this started this like slow motion fight is pretty amazing. Where like she was trying to get me to go to church without saying you're going to church. It's like, oh, let's go for a walk. Oh, dress.

David Ames  12:50  
Eventually, right

Todd Tavares  12:51  
before the house, like at nine o'clock, and by 11 o'clock, it was getting a car. And it was I mean, it's only like, a quarter mile up the road. And I think I threatened to jump out of the car. That's really what

David Ames  13:06  
I'm willing to get out of a moving car, rather than go. Okay, yeah, it

Todd Tavares  13:13  
did not. It did not agree with me at all. But technically, I'm still confirmed conflict. So there they go. I think it's different for Nathan

Nathan Alexander  13:30  
Well, I think I think my experience is a bit different than than Todd just because I was raised Anglican. And I never really had a seriously negative view of religion growing up. I mean, I think I didn't like going to church. I mean, but more because you know, it's just boring when you're a kid, you know, you it's just, you just don't want to you don't want to get dressed up. You don't want to you don't want to go, you don't want to just sit there. It's like it's you know, and you know, there's a whole bunch of old people there and stuff and you really don't like it, but I never had, you know, I didn't, I didn't so I didn't just like it on like metaphysical grounds or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah. And so I you know, I, I went to church growing up and stuff, but I sort of stopped when I was a teenager but I still believe I still would have you know, called myself a Christian and still believed in God and stuff like that. And I think it was early in my early 20s that I kind of was becoming more and more sort of skeptical and eventually became an atheist. I mean, it's it's also different to because I really kind of wanted wanted there to be a god like I wanted it to be true. Yeah. Because it's such a it's like, it's a comfort that just you with the idea that you know, there's some ultimate plan for you and like, you don't have to worry because things are or, you know, things are gonna work out for you. And so on. There's a purpose to life and a meeting and all this sort of stuff. Yeah. And so I didn't have, like, a sort of a negative break where I was leaving a commute a church community or something, because I didn't go to church. And, you know, there wasn't very much conflict, except for sort of internally. Yeah. And even, you know, that wasn't too dramatic, really, in the end. I mean, I think, once I, maybe this is sort of common, it's like, once I sort of took that leap, or whatever, you know, to atheism, then you realize, like, it's not actually a leap at all. And, yeah, there's nothing, there's nothing to, you know, to be worried, like, life still has meaning after all, and so on, at least, I think so. Yeah, so I think it's sort of interesting, you know, because my own religious experience was not, you know, strongly negative or anything like that. And yet, I've sort of wound up doing this atheist podcast and being involved in atheist stuff and other other respects.

David Ames  16:09  
Did you have a moment, Nathan? So it sounds like Todd, you know, 10 years old was like, this is just Santa Claus. A level of of true. Did you have a moment where you were like, I don't think this is true anymore.

Nathan Alexander  16:19  
Yeah, I think yeah. Like in my early 20s. And I think, I mean, I think it's sort of, like a gradual process where, sure, I think early, at some point, maybe in my teens or something, I found it. You know, like, the idea that the Bible wasn't literally true. That was kind of, if it's not, if you know, if everything in the Bible isn't true, then how can that help? Maybe How is it possible that just some of it is true? Right. I think you sort of reconcile yourself to that. But yeah, I think yeah, my early 20s, I would say, there was a point when you when you sort of like, you kind of strip away more and more than it's just sort of becomes a sort of generic kind of like theism or whatever that and then even then that finally goes as well. Yeah. Yeah, I think I mean, the funny thing is, like, I remember watching a debate with, like, a Christian and Richard Dawkins. And as by this point, I was sort of, you know, still, like, hoping that the Christian was gonna sort of try and give a good argument for God. And I really found the argument like, you know, pretty poor, obviously. So. Yeah,

David Ames  17:31  
I think that's still my experience. every once awhile, I'll listen to an apologist, and now they have like some point to me. No, they don't. Yeah, that's quite disappointing. Yes.

Nathan Alexander  17:44  
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, it's also because you sort of assumed, like, you know, there's this idea like, Okay, I'm not I don't have, I don't have good reasons for believing but other people probably do. And like, and I can sort of, you know, like, they they sort of prop up my faith, because other people really strongly believe this. And therefore, if, you know, if, if they do, there must be something to it. And yeah, and that sort of helps you as well.

David Ames  18:13  
I think you just described a lot of my faith lasting longer than it needed to was, you know, I thought somebody smarter than me understands this somewhere else. And I can just pass that off to them. And yeah, and then when I started to actually look at it myself things that House of Cards starts to fall down. Exactly, yeah.

So Nathan, you provided us with a really good segue of you know, now you do this podcast. That's all about atheism. So, first, I want to I want to hear the story about how the two of you met because you met in South Korea, correct? Yeah. And so I'd love to hear how'd you both end up there? How'd you meet each other? And how did you wind up deciding to do a podcast with one another?

Todd Tavares  19:00  
I'm not even sure where to begin with that. How far back to go, David, how we ended. Um, I think we were both teaching there. And we ended up on the through mutual friends on the same trivia team. Day, and then a hell of a team. That was one of the problems was you could win free beer, and we won free beer quite often. It was a weekday, so we'd stay up late drinking way too much. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. We were also we think we, I Nathan, were you you were in an atheist group there, right. Yeah.

Nathan Alexander  19:42  
It was. It was basically when I when I went to Korea, it was after my master's. I did my masters and I wasn't sure what to do next, really. So I wound up in Korea. And so this was at the same time as I was kind of, you know, becoming an atheist and I was kind of seeking out community of atheists and there was Um, there was an atheist group I found in in Korea, South Korea. It was mostly expats as I remember. But anyway, like, eventually in a roundabout way, I met Todd through that. Yeah.

Todd Tavares  20:12  
We may have been members of the same group. And we just, we just missed each other, but we never met there. Oddly Mo. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. And it's, it was a strange group, because if it was the same one, I was a member of rational thinkers first. And that was a little strange, because it included religious people, it was open for religious people, anyone who's rational, like, like, there are people who identify as irrational. That was a little strange. Yeah. It was also one of the other things that was weird about it is like, you know, that that continuum of atheists, it was a lot of people who never had any religion. Okay, so and that, that's a very, very different dynamic. And one of the things that I saw, not a lot, but you'd run into it is people who ended up I mean, they ended up in a foreign country, because they were so cut off from their family. Like, they literally had nowhere to go. They they lost their family, they lost their friends, they, they can't get work. This is this is where they end up. I mean, people who were the often from the south, I knew someone who was a foreigner, who was training to become a pastor, and had to, you know, I think he's still I think he's in Japan now. Really tough stuff. And unforced. One of the unfortunate things is that with a group like this that's not attuned to that need. We would the you know, it wasn't a very welcoming environment. And that, I mean, it's heartbreaking. It's not it's, it wasn't at all what I wanted to be part of, like, why are we more welcoming to church people than we are to people who have serious needs. I know, a guy from Pakistan who got run out of the country with death threats, it's like this is we need to take this seriously. So we ended up I mean, some other people kind of Reformed, uh, you know, made a different group that was just atheists and was more centered on this idea of like, you know, kind of like the beyond atheism thing. Instead of sitting around and talking about technology and transhumanism, and how silly religions are, let's kind of address our what we need as the people that we are. And it's a weird and one of the things that the podcast is discovered, too, is like, yeah, this happens all the time. And like people always making these groups, and they have, sometimes they have a short shelf life, sometimes they last a long time. They're always reconstituting themselves. So that was that's part of the background of, of, of what led to or like, what led to the aim of beyond atheism? Right? Like we've done enough of this. Yes, religion is silly. We don't need to have these two arguments about the proof of God, what we need to do is, is think more about like, what it is that we need, what it is that that we want, what what is the world that we're trying to make? And how do we make it and fortunately, that's where we ended up with the with the podcast now. Nathan, very wisely. As when we started pointed out, like, Let's never talk about what religion is up to never think about. And that I think has been like the the best thing to happen for us for the podcast is never never needing to worry about that, because it's irrelevant to what we're doing.

David Ames  23:36  
Yeah, I'll just comment here. Like, when I started my podcast, I saw the same thing. I saw so many people doing response, podcasts and YouTube videos, and, you know, they're always responding to the religious arguments, and they're playing on their, their turf. And I think all of us had the same impetus of like, Yeah, but now of lies, right, like, now, what do I do with my life? Like, that's what I care about. And in trying to move beyond that. So I think that's really interesting.

Todd Tavares  24:06  
Yeah, it feels like it's kind of like, we're, like the next generation of things, right? Like, it's been about 20 years since we had the New Atheists. Right. And that that moment did what it did, right, it broke atheism, it made it mainstream, became okay to talk about and the numbers. Anytime there's a peer report, or any sort of religious you know, survey that comes out, you see the results. Atheism, nuns keep growing and growing and growing. You don't need to replay these battles. Again, it's okay to take the next step. And I think that David, that's definitely where you are. It's where we're trying to be. Yeah, yeah.

Nathan Alexander  24:49  
Yeah. I do feel like there is still a place I think for the sort of people who are kind of you know, still debating And Christians and so on. You know, because we, we need to keep keep our supply of new of atheists fresh.

David Ames  25:11  
I seem to have an infinite supply almost. But yeah.

Nathan Alexander  25:17  
You know, I guess, you know, I think everyone, you know, when I became an atheist, like I was, you know, watching, I really liked watching all these videos of, you know, like, Christian destroyed by atheists or whatever. But, you know, obviously you get past that, but I think everyone maybe like, you know, there's still a place for that, depending on where people are in there sort of their journey, so to speak. So I don't Yeah, so I think you know, I guess I'm glad people are still doing that, although I think, you know, it's not what me and Todd are really interested in doing.

David Ames  25:58  
I wanted to talk a little bit about the language or the nomenclature, I saw you guys kind of in the podcast and your writing, struggled through some of the same things that I have that in that atheist has such a negative connotation in society. It's seen as an aggressive stance, when I think most of us would say we're agnostic, atheists are weak atheists, or whatever terminology you want to use. I know for a while, like, just prior to my deconversion. In 2015, there was some discussion of things like Atheism Plus, I really landed on humanism kind of encompassed what I was interested in, right, like a secular outlook, a scientific outlook, and caring for people. And that last bit was was really critical that this is what I actually do believe in is people. So I'm curious how you've worked through some of those language issues for yourself, what do you call yourselves? And what is it like that the podcast represents for you?

Todd Tavares  27:01  
Well, David, I'm shocked that you're, you're still on the weak side of

David Ames  27:07  
I mean, in the sense of you can't prove a negative and yeah, and then what might not be knowable, but yeah, and I get

Todd Tavares  27:14  
it, I mean, like even now, vastly between, you know, some form of agnosticism, right? Like it's unknowable. There's just, we know that what what the claims that are religious claims that are made, we know that they're, they're false. But the there's stuff that we just can't know. But you're right, in this, there's, it's really, really difficult, it's loaded. One of the things that we like to use are sort of like big atheists, and small atheists. Were like, yeah, if you identify as an atheist, and that's your position, that is, it's a strong position, it's, it's pretty definitive and clear, but plenty of people go out and live their life as if there is no God. Right? If all religion is not true, as if there are no gods and gods and goddesses. And if you live that way, you are atheist? Right. So that's like the small atheist? I think that's a fair distinction. I think it's a great way to think about it. And when we think about, you know, moving beyond atheism, in that sense, that's what we're talking about. Right? Just figuring out that were, you know, that we're living in a material world without deities. The other thing we've been using a lot is, is the nuns, which David, I don't know how familiar you are with that. I don't, I don't know. Do you talk to many people who identify as a nun?

David Ames  28:40  
I would say that, because of the podcast is so specific to deconversion there are a few of them, but there's, I definitely see that as a category and I would say that many of the members in our community group are what I would call nuns, right? They're spiritual but not religious. They have their there somewhere in that category where they're done with organized religion for sure. Like that. That's over there. Not quite. naturalists, you know, empiricist, that kind of thing.

Todd Tavares  29:11  
And I'm trying to think Nathan, I don't know if we've have we talked to anyone who identifies as something other than a humanist. That

Nathan Alexander  29:20  
Well, well, I mean, I want one thing. We talked to Lucien Greaves who's a Satanist? That's, yeah.

Todd Tavares  29:29  
They Yeah, but I think they are. They're definitely secular

Nathan Alexander  29:34  
there. I think they would say they're atheist as well, probably. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think so many of these labels, like there's a lot of overlap, obviously. I mean, they're not. They're definitely not sort of mutually exclusive. And I think yeah, I think for me, I always, I always say I guess if I was pressed to say atheist is the main identifier just Because maybe people know what that means most, most of all versus other things. I guess I understand the point of like humanism, where it's, it is it is focusing on the more positive aspects or like, you know, positive in the sense of like, the actual content of your beliefs rather than what you you don't believe. But yeah, I I guess I mean, I always maybe maybe there's some some sort of thing among atheists about just recoiling at any kind of joining something too closely.

David Ames  30:38  
Yeah. That's for sure. Yeah. That's the thing. Yeah. Yeah. So

Nathan Alexander  30:42  
it's like, yeah, I mean, I think I would agree with with, you know, everything really, that the humanists would, would would stand for? There's always just that reluctance to identify yourself as it was something to do closely or whatever. Yeah,

Todd Tavares  30:57  
yeah. And I mean, part of the project for us, it's identifying what atheists are, which is not it doesn't come out. I mean, it's not fully formed, right? We don't really know what people who are nuns who are spiritual, who are, you know, or who may even still believe in God, but have just left a religion. We don't really know the whole thing. Originally, I think this the, before the podcast, we had been shopping an article saying that the it wasn't basically that atheist, people who were without a religion, were the block the block that sort of pushed the Democrats and Biden over the top. In late 2020, all of these think pieces came out about this very specific groups that were that were the difference. And our point was like, no, look, if you look at the numbers based numbers alone, the biggest part now is or I think it's the pluralist, the largest religious group in the Democrats are vote Democrat, are nuns are atheists, people with no religion? It's huge. And they vote solidly. So more so than evangelicals vote for Republicans. That's okay. There's something going on here. There's something very, very important. But anytime we tried to tell this story, this the every rejection was the same. It was always like, no, they're not a block. What you're seeing this is something different. You're talking about young people who are college educated and live in cities and have white collar jobs. That's it, but that that doesn't show up in the in the numbers, right? If it's just that then you would expect college educated people that would vote tremendously this way urban people would vote tremendously. This nuns vote stronger Democrat than urban people do. There's something special that's going on here. Yeah, and I mean, exactly what you said David, like it, it must be that you know, there's humanism, it's, there has to be something like that going on. It's just not accepted or not evidently clear enough right now, yeah.

David Ames  33:29  
That was one of your first episodes, you were looking at the tendency towards liberalism within the atheist community. And one of the things I was struck by that I'd like to explore here is the atheist community here. And I'll just say like, online atheists, right, tend to say about themselves, that there is no atheist community that there is no atheist culture. And I think your first number of episodes was kind of debunking that in one way or another. So you talked about liberalism. I think I've heard you mentioned vegetarianism, which is very over represented amongst atheists, meditation, hallucinogenics, what have you, right, all these things are very, very, like, you know, over over represented by atheists. So I'd like you to talk about what you've explored that are you would say, our kind of atheist culture.

Todd Tavares  34:18  
Well, that first thing I didn't, I didn't believe in that. And then I was on only sky, trying to figure just trying to talk to people and be like, What would convince you that we are a block and that we are? Right, and it was the same thing? It's like, oh, it's just correlations. There's no, cause we're just that's just how we are. Well, yeah, well, what causes us to be that way is yeah, it's it's very, it's a really, really weird thing. Yeah, so Nathan, what have we found? Have we answered this question yet?

Nathan Alexander  34:53  
I mean, I think it seems pretty clear that yeah, that politically, atheists To diagnostics and another non religious people are leaving kind of left politically. I mean, I don't think that's really been controversial to say. I mean, I think it's, you know, if you look at the nuns as a whole, sort of like everyone who's who checks the sort of no religion box, it's strong, but then if you look specifically just at atheists, it's even stronger. And I think like, the reason why that is, I think there's probably

Todd Tavares  35:29  
no pet theories. Yeah,

Nathan Alexander  35:31  
I mean, I think I think one of them is? Well, I'm not. I mean, I think I think that one, one sort of aspect of atheist politics is sort of like, there is kind of like a rejection kind of, of certain forms of authority. I suppose that, you know, and I think, particularly in issues where, you know, rights, say, like, abortion, or same sex marriage, things like this, where it's sort of a religious authority who's trying to curtail these rights or whatever. I mean, there's naturally going to be kind of a recoil at this. But I'm not sure. I mean, in terms of things like, Well, I don't know the numbers, but I imagine it's, there's a similar kind of political view about, you know, increasing social spending, you know, greater spending on health care, something like this. I mean, why atheists should support that, like, how does that fall from atheism? I don't know. Exactly. It could be. I mean, it could be something, you know, a kind of a view of, you know, this is the life we have, and so we should, you know, try to help other people, too. And then maybe there's, it's also, I mean, I'm just sort of thinking on the fly. Your circumstances are really just random. It's not, there's nothing. There's no kind of divine plan that says, you know, you're, you're rich, and therefore you must, you must be looked upon fondly by God, or, or vice versa, or something like that. I mean, maybe there's some, like, greater ability to realize that you could, you know, your lot in life is pretty much randomly determined, and you could just as easily if your advantage you could have just as easily been disadvantaged, and therefore, to try to make things more equitably, equitable. I don't know. I mean, I'm, yeah, I mean, it's also, you know, like, to just, there's a danger, I guess, I've just, like, sort of taking my own views, and then kind of extrapolating them to other atheists.

Todd Tavares  37:49  
And like, that's the weird thing about this, as I'm sure like you've seen is that, like, the road to becoming an atheist is so lonely, right? Everybody's, everybody does alone. It's always an individual experience. So it's, it seems like it seems natural that when you come out of it, you would just be won't have caught it. Look, it's it's something you do alone. It's something you do as an individual individuals come out there. And we don't understand the reasons why we are certain ways very well, we can't, and if we do, we can't articulate it. So that's why I'm on board with the authority authority. thing is that, like, there's just, if you look at a lot of religion, it's, you know, it's authoritarian. It's, there's a big, you know, Kim Jong moon in the sky. They're always watching you, God knows everything. He's, he's in your heart. He's in your mind. He knows when you do things that are wrong. And if he's, and he's going to punish the wicked. Now, if you're on board for that, that sounds great. If you're someone who wants to take orders, and do as you're told, that's, that's probably a good train to ride. If you don't like that, if that turns you off, then you're not going to be interested in it. And that's what I suspect. And I'm glad to like, I'm very happy to promote this theory, without any evidence that someone will gather evidence.

David Ames  39:11  
Yes, that's right. Exactly. Yeah. So that we don't continue to just speculate, I do want to come back to a point that I think is quite profound that you just said, Todd, we don't want to lose it. And I believe in one of your medium articles, you talk about this, that the deconversion process tends to be a lonely have you do that alone, it's a lot in your head. But in the writing, you mentioned that it's kind of the opposite of the of a religion or a cult experience, where it's much more about community or you know, who you were born with family you were born with. And I think that's really a deep insight there that the rejection of religion is much more of an individualistic part, and maybe that hints at why you know, liberalism is attractive then,

Todd Tavares  39:57  
yeah, it also helps explain why i The like, why atheist groups, broadly speaking kind of wax and wane like that sort of having to conform to a group, no matter how mildly like it's people know, people who have been down that road don't want to go down it anymore. And this is something we've read about and heard from other people. It's tough to keep those groups together. It's tough because a lot of atheists will say they don't believe in anything. So clearly you believe in things. You have a worldview, you have a perspective, you have things that you take as fundamental truths that other truths have to hang on. You accept gravity. Um, but yeah, I think that having to do everything alone, that becomes the place you're most comfortable. And when you have to be in part of the big group, and go along with certain perspectives, that's when you become uncomfortable. Yeah, David, I hadn't really thought about that that deeply until just now. That's yeah.

David Ames  41:00  
Yeah, I think we should explore it more so

Todd Tavares  41:03  
tempted to credit you with that insight? You gave me credit for thank you yeah.

David Ames  41:19  
I'm going to just keep quoting you back to yourselves here. Another thing that you guys were grappling with was I think, this idea of community. So now you have a secular group and atheistic group. And as we've just mentioned, we are not joiners. Yeah. I believe it was Nathan, who talked about the three B's the belief, belonging and behavior. Yeah, I say it slightly different. I do ABCs, the all belonging and connection. But interesting that, again, Todd, you mentioned that everybody's kind of rediscovering this and redoing this over and over and over again in isolation. So I'm wondering what your thoughts are on atheist community and how that is built? Yeah, this is an easy one. This is. Isn't that easy?

Todd Tavares  42:08  
Wow, gosh, this is one I'm struggling to find a good place to begin with, with this. Um, well, do you mean, David, you mean like, well, I Okay. Here's the thing. One of the things that's really loaded by this is that most organizations, actually almost every organization people are part of is an atheist organization. Right? Like, right, right. They're not religious. Yeah, it's just but it's, it's secular. It's not religious, it's atheistic, it ignores it's that, that soft atheism we were talking about, it's not this strident, let's go out and destroy all gods. It's this, like, it doesn't matter. It's not what we're talking about. It's not we're worried about. So those organizations already exists. And they I mean, you know, it would take all day to just to start to categorize them. With atheist organizing. There's always two tracks. And this is something like from my personal experience, it was exactly what I ran into talking to other people on our podcast, similar thing. And Evan, who, from APS, united, I think, like his experience was the same thing, right? Like, where it starts off is the very social thing. You need it, you want to be people meet people like you, you want to be with people like you, share those stories, share your experiences, and just support one another and be able to do things like make fun of religion every once in a while, and not have to like not have to smile and nod when people talk about praying for your soul and all that other nonsense. So it that that social part is usually pretty attractive. But it also it's limiting, right? People who are serious about atheism and want to promote it and want to push it further. And that's when people start getting alienated when it becomes more community oriented, or political or something like that. That's when you see this sort of, that's when they start to fracture based on what we know about how these organizations work. It doesn't mean they all do. I think the there were numbers on it. I can't remember. Oh, Nathan, I'm really unprepared for this.

Nathan Alexander  44:24  
Or are you thinking of the numbers from the Joe Joseph paradise book? Yeah, there was something Yeah.

Todd Tavares  44:32  
Is it two thirds?

Nathan Alexander  44:34  
It was yeah, it was something like it might have been. Yeah, this guy named Joe Joseph blank when we interviewed him a few episodes ago. He's social scientists. That's sufficiently broad. I know, he looks at, you know, atheist communities. And I think that I'm not sure in late 2000s. And then again, 10 years later say and there was a About the same, like 1500 atheist groups each time we counted, but I think, basically, you know, I'm not sure if it was a third or two thirds. Were just, you know, had completely some of them had disappeared another and then sort of new ones spring up in their place. Right. Yeah. Which, yeah, I'm not I don't remember the exact numbers, but there was a substantial, you know, sort of turnover, I suppose. I guess in these these groups.

Todd Tavares  45:29  
You're saying? Yeah, yeah. And that's for specifically, he's looking at sort of the grassroots atheists getting together. There are, of course, these more established nonprofits that have either like legal goals, like American Atheists is very legalistic, where they're much sturdier. But, yeah, David, did that answer the question?

David Ames  45:53  
I mean, yeah, we're asking an impossible question. It's a question that just constantly gnaws at me.

So right now, my podcasts, we have a little Facebook group called deconversion. Anonymous, that is, it's doing quite well, as far as like people supporting one another as they go through from the questioning phase to how do I parent as a secular person? Or how do I deal with my believing spouse, those kinds of things are the kinds of things that come up. But I'm also acutely aware of that people, you know, for lack of a better term age out of it, right? Like, they're there for a year, year and a half or so. Okay, I got what I needed out of this, and I'm gonna move on. The thing that I'm interested in, is that just being that hyper rationalist and coldly saying, Well, you know, religion is wrong, there is no God, now you're on your own good luck, is not a compelling argument is not a compelling thing for normal human beings. And if we actually want, you know, more secularization, more pluralism, we're going to have to do better than that, and provide some kind of soft landing for people. And so I'm just constantly asking my guests like trying to find, you know, kernels of knowledge of how we can accomplish that.

Nathan Alexander  47:10  
Yeah, I think I think it's like you said, it's, yeah, people may age out of it. And it's like, you know, people may want different things at different times. I mean, sometimes it's just wanting to have a social, you know, like, when I've moved to different cities, like, you know, you sort of seek out, because because I think, you know, for a Christian or someone, a natural place to meet new people is at a church or wherever, and I think it was the same for me in a couple places, where like, a natural kind of community, what might or 1.1 sort of starting point might be a atheist or secular community. But then, you know, once you're sort of established, maybe you don't, you don't need that sort of anymore, but then you might, you might want to be involved in something more political or something like that. You might want to, or is like volunteering in your community or something. I think it's, it is a question you're like, is not believing in God? Is that enough to bind a community group? I really don't think so. I mean, but I do think I watched I happen to see this video the other day, a few weeks ago, or something. And I think, Todd, I told you about it like this, this guy is talking about the need for third places, meeting places where people hang out. You know, it's not at home, but it's not at work. And there's sort of like someplace, you just, you just sort of go and hang out. And there's sort of in this this videos, he's just saying, you know, there's been sort of a decline of third places. Because, you know, community centers are like, just that things are its sense of kind of community centers are kind of hollowed out now. And there's the places are now there's some kind of profit motivation, you know, like, at a coffee shop or a bar or something, you can't Yeah, you know, you got to spend money you guys

David Ames  49:02  
spend money to be there. Yeah, that's actually quite insightful. And I think you I think you're onto something that it's that's beyond just secular people. That's just culture in general Yes, isolated from one another. We desperately want community and connection and it's lacking in our college

Todd Tavares  49:17  
culture. Whereas in this was a big thing. Like that third place was huge in Korea, where like, the homes are really small, nobody really hangs out at their home, they do have like you go from work to another place that is theirs. And then there's also like, you know, different terms for like the first place you go and then the second place you go and sometimes it gets crazy. The third place you go about these, like those outside places. And then coming back like if you I mean, cities are, are rough now in the US, certainly during the pandemic, but then you go out to the suburbs where there's just nothing, right like you are in your home and that's really all there is. That makes it tough. So And, you know, it's like you're saying with Facebook, that's a different experience. It's a different way to meet people. But you know, David, another way we can think about this is like maybe that these that these groups come and go is a good thing. Maybe it is the right thing. What we've seen talking to people, one of the big things that really jumps out at me is that to, to get plugged into the atheist community to get to become part of it to take over leadership role, you just have to go and do it. And that's the amazing thing, right? Like, they're always looking for volunteers, they're looking for leaders, they're looking for coordinators, whatever it is, you just, you can just go and do it. If there isn't a group, you make a group, and people show up. And it's amazing. And maybe, I mean, the way you put it, I think it's kind of sums it up pretty perfectly right? If people age out, it means like, they're moving on to something else. And that's really good.

David Ames  50:57  
And that's actually can be very healthy. Yeah,

Todd Tavares  51:01  
yeah, it might be it might be for the best it might be what we need to do. We were atheism is not at a place where we can answer that definitively now. But we recently talked to the head of recovery from religion, which walks people through the deconversion process offers a lot of peer support, meaning people who've been through it. And fortunately, like that one is pretty sturdy, it seems really, really set. It's not fly by night operation. It's professionalized, um, but like, that's, like, that's what they do right there. There's no one who should be be going to that forever, right? You should do it. you rebuild your social capital, you meet people, you, you readjust to the world, and you go on to something else. So in the long term, David, maybe maybe having these groups where people are forced to create them, build them and dissolve them, is the way it's it should be, right. That's that sort of creative process might be the healthiest thing for atheists, it might be what atheism really, really needs, compared to those institutions that just stick around forever. And outlived their usefulness. And just like, and I mean, we, there are a lot of instances of this sort of institutional legacy where an institution is built to meet a specific need, that need may or may not go away, but then it needs to sustain itself. And it says the institution needs to start taking in money, regardless of what it actually offers. So I'm that's the alternative view to it.

David Ames  52:50  
Yeah. Well, I think that's interesting inside as well.

Todd Tavares  52:53  
Yeah. And really where we are right now, we don't have an idea of what it's, it's, it's going, it's going to look like it's not predetermined. The future is unwritten. This is the good thing. We get to do it now. And that's and that's beyond atheism. Right. How are we doing it?

Nathan Alexander  53:11  
Yeah, I guess, just just to sort of add on, I think there's also the problem, though, is that there's a problem of like, people having to kind of reinvent the wheel constantly. If there's not, you know, if groups are constantly dissolving. And again, I mean, maybe that's not a bad thing, necessarily. I mean, it's in the same way that everyone kind of goes through the deconversion process in some it's gonna look different for everyone. But you know, it's Yeah, but But nonetheless, it's sort of a journey, everyone. Well, not everyone has to go. But you know, some people do. Yeah, but yeah. Yeah, I guess that's that's the point of how to kind of keep up that institutional legacy. So that people who are going through it, that that it's, it is there for for them or something.

Todd Tavares  54:06  
Yeah. And there are people who are great at it, and do it again and again. So

David Ames  54:11  
yeah, yeah, I think the the takeaway from this conversation is to say that there's nothing special about starting a group, you could just, you know, go on meetup.com Say, Hey, I'm going to be at this location. This time, we're gonna talk about deconversion we're gonna talk about atheism, what have you and people just show up? Just do?

Todd Tavares  54:27  
Yeah, I mean, a follow up to it, the thing that we were starting to find is that they are the same names keep coming up, right there are these the sort of network effects that are happening and because it's, you know, you you opt into this stuff. People who do it the most do it the best, or they're, they're moving their way to the top, and they're connecting with other people who've done it. So we're Starting to see sort of big national groups having connections with smaller local groups. And that seems much more stable. The sort of network effects they're growing. And again, we don't know where it's going to go. But like, we did it with, I think it was, was it Chris camera? We Who did we get the survey for? As you can tell, I'm David, I'm not very detail oriented, not have good memory. But basically, there was one group who they were like, oh, yeah, we started vetting all the local politicians. Yeah, just send out a survey. And, you know, when they, when they send it back, we give it a score. And we tell everybody in the group what the score was, right? And then we started getting requests for the survey. Right from other groups who want to do the same thing. That part is building. Right? That and that seems so we have these these two things, right? We have these transitory groups, people come and go, they're looking for connections rebuilding social capital, then you have these long term institutional organizations that are more stable and sticking around. And they're learning. And they're building on it. So like, that survey is gonna go round and round round, it's gonna become a set thing, everybody's gonna know about it, and you can just you just change the name of the state or whatever. Right? Yeah. Right. So we were seeing some of these effects, but on the most immediate personal level, it's still just Yeah, yeah, drop ah, you know, good to meet up.

David Ames  56:46  
One last topic. And I may rearrange this thematically. So I understand Nathan, that you've written about, and some of your expertise is about racism. And I'm interested to know, like, the intersection between racism and atheism, I know, I've had lots of our black friends on who said this is the they're a minority of a minority, and have not necessarily been accepted with wide open arms. But how we address that within the secular atheist community, how we can make sure that we are welcoming to everybody. Yeah, no pressure, no pressure.

Nathan Alexander  57:25  
Guess I researched the topic, sort of historically. And so I wrote a book. Everyone should check it out. Yes. Go ahead and plug race in a godless world. Atheism, race and civilization 1852 1914? Kind of a long title. Basically, why? Yeah, well, maybe I'll just I'll just say something about the book and then see if this has some relevance to the present. Basically, the the the argument was, Well, I think that this sort of starting point is in the 19th century, which is what I was looking at, you know, it was the vast majority of atheists were were white. And so I was really looking at, you know, what is the attitudes of the white people about race and racism? And what I found is that there were, as you might expect, in the 19th century, you know, they did, they did accept these ideas of racism and white supremacy, and so on. But I also found that in other ways, there were these way the atheists who were far ahead of their time, I would say, with regard to race and, you know, questioning things like slavery and, and imperialism and even sort of the, the underlying logic of racism, you know, that there was sort of a biological hierarchy of races or something like that, and which is not, you know, it's quite a radical position in the 18th century. So I think, I guess, I guess the theme of the book was sort of just getting at this complexity. I think as as it stands now, I mean, yeah, I really I don't know if I have too much to add other than what you said that I I think, you know, atheists of color and I should shouldn't have you know, for for listening, you know, since it's just audio I'm, I'm awake. i So. I mean, yeah. You know, it's a little a little bit weird. But

David Ames  59:30  
on the spot, I'm sorry.

Nathan Alexander  59:34  
No, I mean, I understand you know, that atheists of color have sort of unique needs, we'll say within within the community. And I think, you know, we've talked with Mandisa Thomas, for example, you know, who started black non believers. Yeah. And I think big because, you know, there's sort of a unique you know, atheists they You know, atheist share sort of this, you know, coming out, or you know, D converting and so on. But, but I think, you know, black atheists, for example, maybe have particular things in common that perhaps white white people or other other people just really can't maybe relate to as much. Right. So I think, yeah, I think having space spaces for that, I think is a good thing.

David Ames  1:00:27  
All right, I'll let you off the hot seat. It.

Todd Tavares  1:00:32  
The other thing is we're like we're old atheist. Now is another thing. We kind of why certainly. I'm on

David Ames  1:00:39  
the Great Barrier. So yeah.

Todd Tavares  1:00:42  
Like I, generationally, things are things are changing. It's tough to keep track of the youth. But they have very different perspectives. And they're, I think the numbers are changing, too, which is a good thing, right? Yes. Yeah. Right. We did also recently learned that among the sort of black atheists lineage of thought, right, when we take this intellectual family tree, it goes back to Thomas Paine, which is, it's was a wake up because it's like, wait a minute, that's like every time we start tracing it back among you, in the UK, even in the US, where this line of fire back to Robert Ingersoll goes back to Thomas Paine. So it's amazing that like, intellectually, there's this incredible overlap. There's, it's completely related. There's not there's not really a difference. The cultural overlap isn't there yet. But it's, you know, generally, generationally, and as like, eight more atheists get together. Like, it's something we're gonna have to do. And, of course, being since we seem to be so related to humanism, the interest is there. It's, it's, it's not just that, you know, in the past, we might be able to say, atheists are right about exactly one thing. There's no God. Now, it seems if we are expanding this to like, well, you know, we all we're all materialists, right? We're all humanists. We don't think we should have a secular government. It's time to, you know, put it into action.

David Ames  1:02:25  
Yeah,

Nathan Alexander  1:02:25  
yeah. Oh, can I can I add one more thing on the race thing, just sort of sort of what Todd was saying a little earlier, just about? You know, it's true that I think, white and right now, white atheists, like atheists are kind of disproportionately white. But I think when you look at sort of the younger generations, it's the case that more like, you know, it's atheists as a sort of group are becoming more more diverse, I suppose. When you look at kind of the Gen. Gen. Zed, as

David Ames  1:02:59  
Canadian would say, yes.

Nathan Alexander  1:03:02  
Yeah. So I think you know, as it's, you know, growing more, I mean, I guess, like, you know, atheists are gonna just look more like the population as a whole, I suppose. Yeah.

Todd Tavares  1:03:11  
The Canadian thing and the vegan thing is we keep surprised. Yeah. Especially since I stopped eating meat and dairy. That's, like, I don't think but you still do eat meat?

David Ames  1:03:25  
I unfortunately, do. Yes. Fortunately, yeah. I felt like I'm way I'm way out of out of the atheist culture by still eating meat. But yeah, but this it's

Todd Tavares  1:03:38  
a weird one. Like, I don't think there is like a, is there an atheist culture that says, You can't eat meat?

David Ames  1:03:45  
No, I think, Ron for sure. No, but I think that the, you know, the, we take a rationalist approach to morality, we think about consciousness and, and sentience. And you know, that we see how that expands to the animal kingdom. And, I mean, there are some moral obligations there. I will admit that, you know, the factory farming is horrendous. And I know that and I just basically go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that is not a terribly ethical stance. So

Todd Tavares  1:04:17  
what you just explored, like is something that's not It's not coincidental, right, but it comes out. It's it's part of the Atheist Experience where you you're critically thinking about all these things, you're using these tools, and you've taken in these values as part of it. It's a really remarkable thing that we're all you know, we're kind of discovering ourselves that we're all we all have these commonalities. Yeah, for sure.

David Ames  1:04:48  
You know, I think just to wrap this up here, one of the things I find interesting about the commonalities amongst religious traditions, obviously, there's lots of diversity but there's also So lots of commonalities. And I think one argument is to say that you take the supernatural elements out and the very specific cultural elements out and you wind up with humanism. You know that that is the commonality, but also that it is the commonalities there, because human beings, we are the operating system as it were aware that, you know, we're the same no matter where we are. And we're going to come to some very similar conclusions. And so well, I think you've tapped into that, Todd, that, you know, as we explore a rational approach to morality, and we're trying to be consistent within our morality, we're going to come to some very common conclusions. And it's because we're human beings, and that's the common denominator.

Todd Tavares  1:05:41  
Yeah, that makes sense. And that mean, I think we are I think there's more variety than that, David. And I think rationality is. Rather, rationality is a lot more flexible and fluid than we think. But yeah, like, you know, when you take the time to think these things out, it's remarkable that we all come to similar conclusions, right, just by giving it a good thing. Yeah.

David Ames  1:06:11  
Yeah, yeah. And just to be clear, I don't mean that we will come to happy harmony and agreement. I think that's why I'm a pluralist. That's why I'm a secularist, is that I want the marketplace of ideas, to be in competition with one another, to find the truth closer to the joy. I

Todd Tavares  1:06:27  
mean, that's one of the things that like I appreciate about your being graceful, right? Like, it's not either of us to we're not out to abolish religion. And I think it's, it's important not to lose sight of that, particularly for what we're doing. The thing that kind of, especially where the battle lines have been drawn, these days, where we're seeing real political struggle, it's not that we need to go out and destroy religion and make sure it never impacts humanity this way again, right? We're saying just leave us alone. Right. Don't impose it upon us. Because we have no interest in imposing upon other people. We've never met, we've never talked to any atheist who said, you know, we need to force these people to renounce their beliefs. It never ever comes up.

David Ames  1:07:23  
Yeah, I would hope that most of us are not totalitarians. And that, yeah, you know, I truly do believe in freedom of religion and freedom from religion. And it's that last bit that we've been lacking, yeah. And that we do in some senses need to fight for on the political stage. Absolutely. Yeah. Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure. The podcast is beyond atheism. This has been Nathan Alexander and Todd Tavares. Can you tell people how to get in touch with you how to find the podcast? Any other work? You want to plug? Oh, well, we're on the

Todd Tavares  1:07:57  
atheist United Network now, so you can find it through their website? Um, any problem? Do you have any complaints? Go on Twitter? It's Nathe. G. Alexander. We'll look them over. Yeah. I think that's it. I don't. David, I've been I've been such a hermit lately. It's ridiculous. Really, I spent all this time talking about and reading about and talking to other people about atheist organizing. And man, I yeah, I'm not even online. I don't even know.

David Ames  1:08:34  
It's crazy. That's awesome. That's probably better for your mental health. Nathan, last word, anything?

Nathan Alexander  1:08:42  
Yeah. Just find me on Twitter, like Ted said. And yeah, check out my book of fight you.

David Ames  1:08:49  
If people are interested. Yeah. One more time the title of the book, Race to the godless world. Fantastic. We will have links to those things in the show notes. Gentlemen, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Final thoughts on the episode.

I think you can see that Nathan and Todd have a very similar approach to what we've got going on here at the graceful atheist podcast. Beyond atheism, is asking the question that I was asking shortly after my deconversion. Now what? As I mentioned in the conversation, I had read all the books, all the four horsemen and was immediately aware of the fact that I was just rereading things I already agreed with and I was much more interested in what do we do now? And that is the topic that Nathan and Todd are tackling in the beyond atheism podcast. I very highly recommend that you check them out. There were a number of things that came up in the conversation that I think are deep and insightful. Todd talked about recognizing early on in their set healer communities in South Korea, that there was a difference between the community of those who were raised with religion and those who were not. I think that is the difference that we are trying to describe here on this podcast. It is a radically different experience to be an atheist from the age of reason on and maybe have only a lightweight religious training versus being steeped in a fundamentalist experience as a child, and then coming out of that as an adult. The other thing that I thought was super deep that we got to was the fact that the conversion experience the experience of becoming a believer and a part of a community is a community event. It's driven by your family, if you grew up in it, it's driven by a church, or a general rule, it's person to person, literally all of Christianity is about evangelism, it's about to give it its best spin, it is about loving people out of hell to give it its worst spin, it is manipulating the people that you have connections with. And yet deconversion deconstruction is a completely isolated, solitary and alone experience. Almost every one of us who has gone through this has gone through this alone, very, very few of us have a partner in crime, so to speak, going through the deconstruction process. At the same time, the last people we are able to talk about it with our the believers in our lives, I find that to be a profound insight of what it takes to go through this process, the guts that it takes the courage, the willingness to face truth, even when it hurts deeply. That willingness to risk community and friendships, and even potentially family. It is an amazing, amazing journey that you all have taken. I also thought Nathan's insight, referring to this concept of third places, community locations, and how they are missing within Western culture was also deeply insightful. The first two places are home and work. But these third places where you're out in the community, being a part of the community are very, very difficult to find. And I think that is what we've been talking about a lot here on this podcast as well. We're trying to build online community. But there's a desperate need a desperate desire for people to connect with each other to be in the same room with one another to be able to spend time with each other. And I do hope that over the following years that we're able to make that leap from online to in person. And then finally, the insights that because secular people tend not to be joiners, and we continue to kind of recreate these communities over and over again, without any reference to previous attempts. There is an upside to this in that it remains fresh. As I said, people will age out of listening to this podcast, and people may age out of these communities. But having that refresh process taking place constantly means that they are not stuck in tradition and making the same mistakes that fundamentalist religion has made. It allows it to be contemporary, and in the moment, the zeitgeist of the thinking of that day. Still, I think we do need to connect with each other and that should be a goal for people who are in the middle of deconstruction, or on the other side of deconversion. I'll plug here Nathan Alexander's book race in a godless world atheism, race and civilization 1850 to 1914, that it's going to be a bit more of a scholarly piece of work, but I think it would be very interesting to go and check that out as well. The podcast is beyond atheism, you can find that on all the major platforms. I want to thank my guests Nathan Alexander and Todd Tavares, for joining me here and for the work that they do, bringing us beyond atheism. Thank you both. The secular Grace Thought of the Week is you are not alone. The deep inside of this conversation is that you convert in community and you d convert alone. I have been saying that over the years, but I've never been able to put it in quite that succinct and pithy away. I think this is helpful to understand the feeling of loneliness, the feeling of isolation, the feeling of the uniqueness of your experience, when I think back on my deconversion and the years leading up to it, which really was a deconstruction, but without me knowing that word. And I'll say here that most people who are questioning have no idea what the word deconstruction is, or at least haven't until recently until it's become widely known. It feels like you are the only one that there couldn't possibly be any other people who are doubting the way that you are. I know that I felt that way. And the message of this podcast is that not only is that not the case, there are hundreds of 1000s of people who are questioning, doubting, deconstructing, and de converting. But also, the reference to Jennifer Michael hex book, doubt a history that this has been so for as long as there have been believers. I find that deeply and profoundly comforting that we are not unique, that this is a process that human beings have been going through for time immemorial. The important part for you to know as you question and face your own cognitive biases as you wrestle with the cognitive dissonance, that can feel like a wrestling match with yourself that this isolated feeling isn't actually true that there are so many out there going through the same process. The community that we are trying to build at deconversion Anonymous is a safe place to question to doubt to deconstruct and de convert, please consider joining and you will know instantly that you are not alone. That's at facebook.com/groups/deconversion. All right, we've got a lot of exciting interviews coming up. We've got a couple of for Marlene, in fact, Arlene is going to feature throughout the rest of November and December. Arlene has two interviews one with a couple Ben and ENTJ, and one with Nikki papas. We have Jessica Moore who is focused on recovering from purity culture. Again, we had to redo her interview, but that's been done that'll be coming up. And then for December, late December, we have two conversations between Arlene and myself. I interview Arlene and talk about what she's learned from the community management of deconversion anonymous and doing these interviews, and then we turn the tables and she interviews me. For those of you who are longtime listeners, it might be a bit repetitive. For those of you who have just joined in the last year and a half or so, it might be brand new information. So I'm excited for you to hear my thoughts on secular grace and deconversion and the process of doubting. Until then, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be graceful human beings.

Time for the footnotes. The beat is called waves for MCI beats, links will be in the show notes. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can promote it on your social media. You can subscribe to it in your favorite podcast application, and you can rate and review it on pod chaser.com. You can also support the podcast by clicking on the affiliate links for books on Bristol atheists.com. If you have podcast production experience and you would like to participate podcast, please get in touch with me. Have you gone through a faith transition? Do you need to tell your story? Reach out? If you are a creator, or work in the deconstruction deconversion or secular humanism spaces, and you'd like to be on the podcast? Just ask. If you'd like to financially support the podcast there's links in the show notes. To find me you can google graceful atheist. You can google deconversion you can google secular grace, you can send me an email graceful atheist@gmail.com or you can check out the website graceful atheists.com My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist join me and be graceful human beings

this has been the graceful atheist podcast

Transcribed by https://otter.ai