This week’s guest is Ben Reed. Ben grew up in the Church of Christ with a cappella music, no clapping, no raised hands, no prophecies, no miracles, but also no demons.

“Compared to the more charismatic denominations, the Church of Christ is pretty boring…I think that’s kind of why I stayed so long because it wasn’t that exhausting.”

Ben’s years in the church were good—no cognitive dissonance or serious trauma—until 2020.

“It wasn’t until Covid hit that I really started waking up, and I saw how Christians were acting about the masking and the vaccines, and I was thinking, Do you not see the moral implications and the examples that we are supposed to set here?”

By 2022 and a chance encounter with some Mormons, too many questions were surfacing. Cheekily thanking “the gods of atheism,” Ben is now able to ask questions and expect serious evidence before he can be convinced of something.

It seems that “the promises of Christianity are found outside of it”.

Recommendations

Belief It or Not podcast
https://thesonarnetwork.com/belief-it-or-not/

@eve_wasframed on TikTok
https://www.tiktok.com/@eve_wasframed

@kristi.burke on TikTok
https://www.tiktok.com/@kristi.burke

@untestimony on TikTok
https://www.tiktok.com/@untestimony

Paulogia on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@Paulogia

Matt Dillahunty on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@SansDeity

Prophet of Zod on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@ProphetofZod

The Atheist Experience on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@TheAtheistExperience

Quotes

“Compared to the more charismatic denominations, the Church of Christ is pretty boring…I think that’s kind of why I stayed so long because it wasn’t that exhausting.”

“I remember…[believing] that ‘being your highest power is terrifying,’—being an atheist—and now that I’m on the other side, I’m like, This is pretty great!”

“There are no thought crimes anymore. That’s a relief.”

“It wasn’t until Covid hit that I really started waking up, and I saw how Christians were acting about the masking and the vaccines, and I was thinking, Do you not see the moral implications and the examples that we are supposed to set here?”

“All that ‘All Lives Matter’ says [in the context of Black Lives Matters] is, ‘Well, what about me?’”

“It just baffles my mind that Christian parents believe that there is an eternal hell of ‘eternal conscious torment’ that their kids have a chance of going to, yet they still are like, ‘Yeah! Let’s have like, four kids!’”

“In my opinion, if hell is real, then humanity needs to die out as soon as possible to prevent more people from going to hell.” 

“Would the apostles have died for a lie? Of course not! Nobody dies for a lie! Well, actually, plenty of people die for lies.”

“I just started looking for more evidence to prove the Bible, and it wasn’t really working.” 

“I was like, I can’t make myself believe anything even for a minute. You can’t make yourself believe…”

“I realized how flippantly we would dismiss the ‘evidences’ of other faiths while giving our own the benefit of the doubt.” 

“Why should I, a human, whom God claims is foolish, have to defend all these terrible things, not to mention do all this patchwork for this book he supposedly left us…?”

“The promises of Christianity are found outside of it.”

“I’m not opposed to anything being true, what I am opposed to is bad reasoning.”

“…Jesus said, ‘My yoke is easy; my burden is light.’ Frankly, I have no idea what that means because Christianity is a hard burden to bear.” 

“At a certain point during my questioning, I started thinking, Is this our God? If his plan is so perfect and his message is so divine, why are there so many problems with it? Why is this my responsibility…Why can’t it just be self-evident?”

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 United studios podcast. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. I want to thank my latest patrons supporter Curtis, thank you so much for supporting the podcast. You too can have an ad free experience of the podcast by becoming a supporter on patreon at patreon.com/graceful atheist. If you are doubting having the dark night of the soul or deconstructing, you do not have to go through it alone. Join our private Facebook group and become a part of the community. You can find us at facebook.com/groups/deconversion

Two weeks ago we had Holly Laurent on the podcast. She is the comedic mind behind mega the podcast. nega is an improvised satire in the world of a fictional mega church and they are releasing a comedy investigative miniseries inside the world of their own show. It is called The Rise and Fall of twin hills. The Rise and Fall of twin Hills is a hilarious riff on the self important truth seeking that happens around church scandals, and the twisted psychology of those who are inside them. This mini series is chock full of ridiculous scandal. If you think that the real megachurch pastor improprieties we've seen over the last few years are bad. Get ready for the outlandish high jinks of Pastor Steve Johnson. If you're a fan of great comedy parody or just a lighthearted take on deconstruction, then go check out mega and their new mini series that started on May 21. There are a few episodes out already. So look up mega now and follow them you're not going to want to miss the rise and fall of twin hills. It's on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Special thanks to Mike T for editing today's show. On today's show, my guest today is Ben Reed. Ben grew up in the church of Christ tradition. He was very dedicated participating in an event called lads to leaders and winning the speaking competition on numerous occasions. And he began to have doubts as he got some space away from the church. One of the nagging problems for him was that he had studied apologetics and he began to see the weakness of the arguments of apologetics then eventually met Andrew Knight friend of the podcast and co host of still unbelievable. Now on this side of deconversion Ben is doing well and is glad to no longer have the burden of Christianity. Here is Ben Reed telling his story.

And read Welcome to the grateful atheist podcast.

Ben Reed  3:18  
Thanks for having me, David. It's great to be here.

David Ames  3:20  
Ben, it sounds like we have a mutual friend in Andrew Knight. Andrew is one of the CO hosts of the still unbelievable podcast. He's a great human being. And you reach out to me and you were saying that he was one of the people that helped you out along the way. So I first just wanted to say thank you to Andrew, like, continuing to be such a great human being. So

Ben Reed  3:41  
I second that he's a great guy. He helped me put into words, I guess the swarm of thoughts that I was having during my deconstruction and ultimate deconversion. So big props to him. Give him a pat on the back.

David Ames  3:57  
Yeah. You know, we talked just to wrap this up, like, you know, we talked so much about actually participating doing something within the community. And I think Andrew is just a great example of of doing that. So anyway, we're not here to talk about Andrew, we're here to talk about you. Obviously, the first question that we always ask is, what was your faith tradition growing up?

Ben Reed  4:19  
Yeah, so I grew up, like Andrew and I in the church of Christ, which is an evangelical denomination that, ironically believes it's not a denomination, right? They believe and every denomination, I guess, has this sentiment, but they the Church of Christ believes that they're probably the only ones going to heaven. I believed that when I was in the church,

but I'll just run down for the listeners, just some of the notable beliefs or teachings just to get some more context for those who aren't really familiar. So the Church of Christ obviously I've already said it doesn't build What's the domination it believes it is the church. Baptism completely Essential For Salvation. That's the point at which your sins are forgiven. So if you die in a car wreck on the way to get baptized Well, tough cookies, we're going to hell. Yeah. Yeah, like there are no worship bands, it's all acapella. Which I actually really enjoyed the acapella worship is beautiful. There's no clapping, no hand raising. It's led by a song leader. So just one person on stage always a man. And I actually still listen to hymns. I know, some D converts have a hard time after they leave, listen to that stuff. Listen to that stuff, because it can be triggering, but I like they've got some hits. Yeah, I've, I still enjoy them. But also, there are no earthly headquarters like the Baptist Convention or the Vatican. every congregation is separate from each other. And each one of them are led by a group of elders who are in charge of the deacons and the ministers. We don't use the word Pat. Well, they don't use the word pastor. Now we anymore.

David Ames  6:15  
Yeah, that's hard. The language is hard, isn't it? Yeah.

Ben Reed  6:20  
But they don't use the word pastor. It's ministers. And so it's usually the preacher and the youth minister. Okay. It's practically a sin to visit any other denomination. There are no modern day miracles, no visions, no prophecies, no demonic possessions. And they are young earth creationists. So okay, all of these things are based off of a very strict and narrow interpretation of the Bible, a phrase that I heard, every now and then in the church was, we speak where the Bible speaks and our silence where the Bible is silent.

David Ames  6:54  
Okay, and I've heard that phrase. I saw

Ben Reed  6:57  
a comment on Reddit that I thought was funny, and I'll share it it said, if it's not appropriate in a murder trial, it probably won't fly in the church of Christ. Which I thought was hilarious. Right. But I mean, it's like it's very conservative. Like, there's no like shouting or like, amen. Brother. Like, it's, it's, it's very, very boring, honestly. So as far as my experience, I have very fond memories of my time in church. Okay, yeah, I grew up at a church of about 1000 people, which is very large for a church of Christ. In the Bible Belt. It's actually in a very educated part of Alabama, which sounds like an oxymoron. But educated people are in Alabama.

David Ames  7:50  
I'm sure yeah.

Ben Reed  7:53  
But like, I went to church with literal rocket scientists. One guy who was really big into apologetics, who claims to be a former atheist, like, I guess, Lee Strobel, from the case for Christ. Yeah, he has his doctorate in nuclear engineering from MIT. So that kind of gives you an idea of like the people that I went to church with and grew up around. So combined with like the education level and, like, we didn't believe in demonic possession, modern day, demonic possession. It wasn't like that superstitious of a congregation. Got it. There was hell anxiety, of course, because they believe in eternal conscious torment. But, but that was probably it. And compared to like, the more charismatic denominations, the church of Christ is pretty boring.

I think that's kind of why it I stayed so long is because it wasn't that exhausting. I did experience health anxiety, like when I was a teenager, and I'll get to that, but like, I feel like charismatic stuff. It just sounds so much more exhausting. There's a demon around every corner and you can't, like you know what I mean? Constant spiritual warfare. But anyways, growing up my My family never missed a worship service ever. twice on Sunday, once on Wednesday, we were there. I went to VBS. As a kid, I helped prep for VBS. I was went to all the church camps, the church of Christ Church camps. We did this thing called lads to leaders. I don't know if you've heard of that. But it's a it's geared towards, like elementary through high school. And it's a convention every year where it's meant to create new leaders in the church, lads to leaders and like, tell it Looking at it from the outside, it's like super weird, but it was just normal. Basically what happens is you compete against other kids in acts of worship for a trophy. second, or third. So, and this this was to the this was to create leaders. And so there were events like Song leading speech, that was my forte, I won first place a few times, place pretty much every year. And there's like, 1000s of people doing this. So like, it wasn't just like, so let's see, there was a Bible bowl, and like puppets, securing of Scripture where you would memorize all these verses and like, get a plaque for it and stuff like, and looking back. It's like, like, even if God Israel, it's like, that's not cool. Like. Like, yeah. And there's like an award ceremony. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, but I do have fond memories of that. As weird as it is. It was a good time. Because we were,

David Ames  11:05  
that is definitely the first time I've heard about that. So that is,

Ben Reed  11:10  
it's interesting. Yeah. Church of Christ.

David Ames  11:12  
And I'm assuming from the name that it was only boys as well. Is that true?

Ben Reed  11:17  
So to be more progressive, they did. Lads to leader slash leader. In the competitions, you can't, there was no, it was It wasn't co ed. So you had girls song leading, and boys song leading and everything was fine, except for your Bible ball team, which was like Bible trivia. And if you like it was a test, a written test, and you would study a book. And so like, there were girls and boys on the same team. And there was actually also debate, which I thought was a good skill. So like the tissue good skills, like I'm not afraid of public speaking anymore, because of lotsa leaders. They have a debate event for for these kids. So I mean, it could be beneficial. So like, I don't think my upbringing was totally bad. Like, I don't think I was traumatized, like a lot of people have experienced in the evangelical world. But anyways, like, in sixth grade, I was baptized. So like I said earlier, that's essential. That's the point at which you're a Christian. So you got to hear belief, repent, confess and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins? Or else you're not a real Christian?

David Ames  12:43  
Oh, my immediate question that I like to ask people, you know, sixth grade, still relatively young. But was it real for you personally? Was this something you were just going through the motions for? Or did you have an internal sense of this?

Ben Reed  12:54  
So I knew that people my age around me, we're doing it at church. And so I felt like, oh, well, now's my time, but I didn't really get it. And to be honest, my parents don't have that strong of faith. So they tried, they tried to teach me and they brought me to the family minister. And he talked to me and the family minister. told my dad like he's ready. Okay. But funnily enough, and I was gonna get to this actually. So it's funny you asked this. I got baptized twice. When I was 17. When I was I was in high school. I started I had like a spiritual, I guess awakening where I really got into apologetics. Really. I mean, I read the Bible every day, deep prayer every night before I went to bed. And, and I was all in. And I started thinking, and what happened? The reason I got into that is because right before that, I was like, I don't think I knew what I was doing when I was like, in sixth grade, getting baptized, like, I don't remember any like conviction. And it's like, I'm scared. I'm gonna go to hell. And I was talking to my youth minister about it at a time and he's like, you should be fine. I'm thinking like, Dude, we can't risk we got to watch it. So you're just still like, oh, yeah, might be fine. Yeah, it's easy for you to say you're not the one going to hell like

David Ames  14:28  
I love it. That's amazing. Yeah.

Ben Reed  14:31  
But no, but I was like, I was bawling my eyes out because I was so scared. And he, he, he was like, if you want me to baptize you again, I'll baptize you. And so yes, I'll do it. So and that was just like a it was a really off the cuff thing that happened. Like after school one day. I just like texted my mom saying, I'm gonna go talk to my youth to the youth minister after school today. And so like school is right next to the church building. So I just walked over and like, okay, yeah, it was so really like, I don't know, I only had church friends, I didn't really have school friends. So like, I only hung out with church of Christ people. Not even like denominational friends. But the other activities that I did like throughout the youth group, I was on every retreat. I went on the youth mission trips, by the time I was a senior I, I was like a big leader. In my youth group, a lot of people looked up to me, and this was a youth group of about, like, 100 kids. So like, pretty big, especially our church of Christ. So funny, weird memory that I have from. So like purity culture, obviously is big in evangelicalism. And it's in the press who, I guess they don't have as many rituals, like the Purity Balls, and the purity bracelets and stuff like that, or rings or whatever. Definitely not chastity belts. Thanks, thank goodness, but the we did a guy girl retreat every few years. And this is my first one was when I was 15. And I'm 28 now, but let's see, the guys go somewhere, and the girls will go somewhere. And you know what they're going to talk about sex. And they, the youth minister during one of his lessons, he's he suggested to us teenagers that whenever we start dating a girl, we essentially enter it like we write up a contract with the girl's parents saying that we will not have sex with them until we are 15 I was

like, that seems a little excessive. was in his 40s? Like, yeah, so weird. I wouldn't feel comfortable. Like, I feel like it would be less awkward if they walked in on us.

Anyways, but like, I went to college, I was active in the church of Christ Christian Student Center, like we had our own building, and I was active in church that throughout college. I would, during the summers, I would come back home to my home church and be a counselor in the middle school guys cabinet camp. for like three years after college, I chaperoned on a few youth trips. And I was actually at one point for two years, I was also a small group leader for the senior guys in the youth group. And I actually remember in that small group, I remember telling them, that being your highest power is terrifying. Like being an atheist. And now that I'm on the other side, I'm like, this is pretty great. This is really nice. Yeah, I mean, obviously, like not the hot like highest power, I guess, in the spiritual sense. Obviously, like I follow the law, you know, I pay my taxes, but like you but more of like a moral sense. Like, there are no thought crimes anymore, which that's a relief.

David Ames  18:19  
Yeah, there are a number of myths that Christians tell themselves about atheists, Adam,

Ben Reed  18:24  
and I believed them. And a man. I used to think that well, and like one of my friends when I confessed to her just recently, she was like, so would you consider yourself an atheist or like, Well, I told her I've been telling people I'm agnostic, just because atheist is such a scary, scary, scary word to. to Christians. Yeah. And it seems to them so definitely a and it's it's almost to them. What they hear is me saying there is no God. Yeah, well, no, that's not what I'm saying. I just say, it hasn't been proven. Yeah. And but for their sake, I just say agnostic. Because I, I'm trying to whenever I have this, have these conversations with or like this confession, with Christians, if I feel compelled to. I do my best to get rid of the or prevent them from thinking that I'm an angry atheist or like, right, or, like, I do my best to prevent from them stereotyping me. Because I'm still very I still listen to them. And I still agree with them on some things. And I willing to say, Hey, I understand where you're coming from. And to some extent, I agree on this point and that point, but like, so it's even though I did go, I mean, it was a sharp decline, which we'll get into that. Sure. But, yeah, that I guess so that sums it up. Uh, like after college, we have a big actually young professionals and college group at my home church. And I don't know, like, after college, it was like, I just don't really care as much about like hanging out with these people. And that was kind of the that made that was not really a big deal. But that was, I guess, the very tiny baby step towards atheism. But I wouldn't say that that's that's like, the people really wasn't a problem for me even with like, like, I never got why? Well, I never, I never agreed with people who were like, well, this person was mean to me. So I'm leaving, which I get, I get why people do it now that I'm on the other side. But when I was in, I was like, that's not justified, you're supposed to go to them, like, so it's actually sinful for you to also leave, lead, leaving conflict unresolved conflict unresolved. Because there's two things that are said in the Bible. It's if you think your brother has something against you, you got to go talk to him, and vice versa, whoever basically whoever, since there's something wrong first, they have to go to go to the other. And my, my mom was one of those where I was having to tell the child was having to tell her, like what the Bible says. And that was really frustrating, too. But, yeah, so that's, I would say the answer for question number one. Okay.

David Ames  21:47  
So you've already hinted at, maybe the first baby step was not going to that group or Endor church for a little bit, but what are some of the things that began to break through this bubble? Yeah, so

Ben Reed  22:01  
I mean, don't get me wrong, I would still go to like class and like Bible class. And like, I was, I was still every worship, like, like, going to church, like skipping church was not an option for me, ever. For I. Yeah, so got and that's kind of actually a big thing in the church of Christ. Like, other denominations seem to not think it's big as big of a deal. But in the church of Christ as far as like from, from my experience, it's a big deal. Okay. Especially like the the standard that I held myself to. So I didn't want to be guilty of forsaking the assembly, like it says in Hebrews,

David Ames  22:41  
right? Yeah.

Ben Reed  22:45  
So like, as with a lot of even Joe X, angelic goals and atheists, I mean, the Trump stuff, started it. And for some, that was like the that was the breaking point. For me. Actually, it wasn't the breaking point. It wasn't until COVID Hit that I really started waking up. And I saw how Christians were acting about the masking and the vaccines. And I'm thinking people, do you not see the moral implications in the example that we are supposed to set here? Let's say that it is all staged. These other people don't think it is. It's the same thing as

like Paul said, when don't eat meat around the people who aren't comfortable eating meat.

But they didn't see it like that. It's the I don't see how it's not the same thing. And I was like, and I mean, I worshiped online alone in my apartment. I'm an introvert. I live by myself have so for many years, throughout college, and even now, but I just worked worshiped alone during that time in my apartment watching online because I was like, y'all, it's too early to go back. I mean, they were smart about it. They had a mask. They had two services. So it's masking required and masking optional. Interesting. Okay. Well, you will but they were trying, I guess. Yeah, they weren't as militant about it as like, I guess, the Greg locks of the world like in Nashville. I don't know if you know about Greg. Greg lock.

David Ames  24:29  
I'm familiar. But yeah, he's he's a very aggressive preacher. That online presence. Yeah.

Ben Reed  24:36  
Yeah, so but just that and like, the Black Lives Matter, stuff that happened around like George Floyd. And like, the whole, like, black lives matter. Well, no, all lives matter. Like, okay, yes. But like, the only reason people are saying black lives matter is because of what's happening to Black Lives. All Oh, all lives matter says in that context is, well what about me? Like, you know what I mean? What about me? Don't forget about me? Like, yeah, it does nothing and Christians. I saw a lot of them just on social media, it's just like the spreading the misinformation, and the hate. Or the I mean, excuse me the Christian love. But so they call it but like it was just really discouraging. And so like, even after all that, I still wouldn't even consider myself a, what you call a progressive Christian like some people are because I still thought homosexuality act homosexual activity was wrong, not not being attracted to the same sex. I didn't believe that was wrong. But I was like, What difference does it make it that can get married? Like, who cares, you're, they're still gonna have sex like, it does not matter. We're making a fuss about this stuff. And just just like the culture war stuff that just seems really petty, like use this as a teaching moment for your children quit trying to control everything. And so like it was that and like, also, like, I realized they didn't want kids. And I know that's kind of it's kind of like an off the topic thing. But like, I was thinking, like, I just don't just the idea that they could grow up and go to Hell, or like, even Well, I mean, that's not to say like, be a negligent parent. But like, I understand, like, it just baffles my mind that Christian parents believe that there is an eternal hell of eternal conscious torment

David Ames  26:47  
that their kids, their kids have a chance of going to yet they still are like, Yeah, let's have like four kids. Like, that's interesting. That is, I had never really put it in that that framing that is really interesting. Yeah. Because,

Ben Reed  27:01  
like, in my opinion, if hell is real, humanity needs to die out as soon as possible to prevent more people from going to hell, because and this is something that Andrew and I talked about. Basically, humanity is on a conveyor belt, there's people dying, and there's people being born. And it's been just churning for years and years and years. And as they drop off that conveyor belt, when they die, some are going to a lot of them are going to hell. And I think as a small minority, you're going to heaven. So if God's real and He knows this is happening, he knows the population of Hell is ever increasing. Why doesn't he stop it? To prevent more people from going to hell? Like he used Andrew use the phrase hasten the end, why hasten the end? Why doesn't he hastened the end? And then like, it's it just doesn't doesn't make sense to me. So yeah, like, I don't want kids and now like, like, without the whole marriage thing, and like dating, I feel free, so much freer to like, just date, someone who I like, rather than Okay, I like you. But what are your beliefs? And what are your mind new beliefs? Like? It's just I, yeah, it's almost like, we have to be on the same page about everything. And it's just exhausting.

David Ames  28:21  
It's like a negotiation, you have to negotiate like, the beliefs, you know, what's acceptable, what's not acceptable? Yeah. Yeah.

Ben Reed  28:28  
And like, let's say I met a girl, like, from a denomination. Well, great. Now this is gonna be a steep hill of conversion, trying to get convinced her to convert to the Church of Christ, because I'm sure not going to the Baptist Church. But like, Now, I could just I could do it, anyone I want. And that's so freeing and, and if I like, do find a partner, like I don't even know if I'll get married. I mean, the only reason I think I would get married is for the tax benefits, which is I don't think it should be that way. But that's the way it is right now in this country. So like, but aside from that, like it's just it doesn't there's it doesn't seem like there's a point to marriage. But I don't know if people have different opinions on it. So it's whatever. I don't know. Not that much. I'm not a staunch opponent of marriage, but I don't really see the point as much anymore.

David Ames  29:25  
And for sure, coming out of a more a higher control environment where marriage would be an absolute it's entirely justified to begin questioning that like what what have we inherited culturally that we want to keep and what do we not want to keep?

Ben Reed  29:48  
So I'm getting now here is the point at which everything started to fall. Okay. This happened last year 2022 During like February through April ish. Okay, some so I was living after college, I moved back to my hometown. And I was living there for a few years and and I currently live in the town of my alma mater that I live in, went to college, and I'll get to that later. But um, so it's about an hour away from home. But anyways, I was sitting at home one day in my apartment. And some Mormons came to my door. And I mean, you know, there's feel like they're missionaries. It's usually two guys. They actually weren't on bikes. They had drove a car. But, but they were in there get ups like the short sleeve white shirt and their name tags. Elder blank and elder Thing One and Thing Two. But the, like, I know that the the story of Joseph Smith, I mean, roughly like, so it wasn't, it wasn't scary to me. I like I like I said earlier, like, I know apologetics. I know, the arguments like glad it's in Galatians. Paul said that, if even if an angel comes to you with a different gospel, he has to be accursed. Yeah. So I use that against them. And they kind of wiggled around it, you know how they do. And like, I welcomed them into my apartment. And we actually, like, I started studying with them, just so and I was like, Guys, I'm going to be a hard sell. But like, I think that if the Book of Mormon is true, I would need to change but you just got to convince me. Yeah. Because I was using that as an opportunity to like, show them the target Christ. Right. Right. So they were, we were they were giving me some arguments and stuff like that. And at one point, they bless my home.

David Ames  31:53  
Okay. Nothing happened.

Ben Reed  31:55  
But let's see. So Oh, yeah, actually, funnily enough, they bless my home, and then my rent went up. So that's why I moved. All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys. But the let's see, their argument that got me was they said that, like, you know, the story about Joseph Smith and he developed a following. Basically, the the peace followers and him, they essentially ruin their reputations and society, based off of the story. And the Mormons, the Mormon guys said, would somebody do that for a lie?

David Ames  32:43  
And very familiar. Yeah.

Ben Reed  32:46  
I've very familiar Yeah. And I, the more I got to like looking I was, they gave me a lot of like, readings to do and like talks to listen to from some of the higher ups and over in Utah. And I was like, I was always like, Hey, I'm open to it. I'm very open minded. I tried to be and, and none of it was working. I kept telling them like this praying for like it for the for the Mormon message to be revealed to me. Like it's not it's not changing, reading a passage from the book of Mormon, like, it's not really doing anything for me. But that argument, the who would die for her not to who would die for a lie, but who would ruins who would do something negative against themselves? Or a lie? Yeah. I started think like, my first thought when I and this was just in my thoughts after they had left was so I was just supposed to believe this stuff, because people 150 years ago chose to ruin their lives over it. Yeah. But then I thought, or I realized, oh, that's what we say about the resurrection claims. And like, would the apostles have died for a lie? Of course not. Nobody dies for a lie. Yeah. Well, actually, plenty of people die for lies. Yeah. All the time. Yeah, like, I mean, like, most notably, like, I mean, if you've heard anybody who's heard the word, or the phrase drinking the Kool Aid, that's, that comes from a cult that Jim Jones called. And they drank kool aid based off. They were convinced based off of a lie and the Kool Aid. It was not really kool aid, but it was poisoned. And

David Ames  34:27  
yeah, that's a literal example of being willing to Yes, yeah.

Ben Reed  34:31  
And like 911. I mean, I'm sure like, I mean, they did it because like jihad, you know, they were Islamic terrorists. And I'm sure I mean, they were probably very sincere. They sincerely believed this stuff so much that they were willing to die in a fiery plane crash for this. And all Christians know that Islam is a lie, obviously. You know what I mean, those hijackers died for a lie. So plenty of people die. And that was really The what started the slide for me. And then I moved over to this new city where I'd lived during college. And like, and I started getting in, I guess engrained into a new congregation here. And I started like meeting some people. But thankfully, like, so this happened, I moved May of 2022. And by late June, I had just stopped going to church. Okay, and for like, that was a by June. I like it, I had so many doubts in my head that Sunday was rolling around, and I was like, am I going to go to church? Can I do that I just, I can't go to church, I cannot add for the first time in my life. I just did not go and I had no excuse to go. Like, whereas other times, it's like, oh, well, I'm sick. And that was that was like, like, it had to be a pretty high bar for me to miss church. Like, even when I was completing my MBA, like, I was swamped with studying, and I would still go to church, like, so it was a big deal for me. And so the things that I just started, like, looking for more evidence to prove the Bible, and it was like, it wasn't really working. And then I started just to check it out. I started looking at like atheistic stuff. And like Tiktok was getting had gotten really popular during the pandemic when everybody was quarantined, and like, so now it's a really popular app for like atheists and extra angelical 's and their arguments just made so much more sense. And it's such an easier thing to believe, than having to do all these mental gymnastics of about this guy raising from the dead. And this is not even a recent thing happened 2000 years ago, supposedly like, and there was one tick tock that I saw, that kind of made me step back and think about like, he was talking about how you can't choose your beliefs. And I had never thought about that before ever. I always implicitly believed it simply because in order for something to be quote, unquote, morally justified, like damnation to be morally justified, you have to have the choice to believe in Christ because that your belief in Christ is essentially what gets you that it gets you in Heaven. Not to mention baptism, I guess, if you're part of the church of Christ, but like, but generally speaking, the belief that got you into heaven, and I was like, I can't make myself believe anything. I can't wait even for a minute.

David Ames  38:01  
Yeah, you can't make yourself believe you cannot force Allah, that Allah

Ben Reed  38:05  
is real, and that Islam is the true religion.

I actually got in touch with so that lads salitre stuff. He was a coach of mine for one of the events that we were doing years ago when I was a kid. And I looked up to him, he's like, 13 years older than me. And he became an atheist, like, 10 years ago. And that was kind of a shocker. Yeah. And he's like, he like me. He was one of the last people, anyone to anyone would have ever suspected to have become an atheist. And, but this was like, a long time ago. And I got in touch with him through Facebook, while I was like questioning all these things. And like, Hey, man, I know, it's been a while I'm reevaluating my beliefs. And I hope it's not too personal, personal of a question, but like, What made you start questioning? And he started listing some of the stuff and it's like, it's the same stuff. Because like, like, I realized how flippantly we would dismiss the, I guess, quote unquote, evidences, even though I don't consider them evidences, we would flippantly dismiss the evidences of other faiths while giving our own own the benefit of the doubt. Exactly. Well, that's, that's a double standard. So if we give them all the benefit, the benefit of the doubt, well, then they're all true, but they can't all be true because they all claim to be correct. So we had to put them all under the same amount of scrutiny. So I had to approach my own beliefs for as from from the standpoint of, I'm seeing this from a neutral place, right, would I be convinced, and I couldn't get myself back up to where I was. And I guess Parsh part of it is Like, I mean, I don't know, just me being like, not a typical evangelical like, I, like, I don't vote Republican anymore. Like I don't you know what I mean? Like, yeah. And like just I don't think everyone like having guns everywhere is such a good idea. That kind of stuff and like Yeah. And so like it's hard to relate to it was hard to relate to Christians even when I was over here. And there's like a high concentration of churches of Christ in the area that I'm in in Alabama. And so thankfully, this is what's really good. I was able to leave with very minimal, like, nobody noticed nobody said anything.

David Ames  40:45  
Okay. All right. Well, yeah, that has something to be thankful. And

Ben Reed  40:48  
I'm so thankful for that, which I don't know. It could be it could be viewed in a good or bad light. In the good light. It's like, I'm glad I didn't have to deal with all the like, Come back, come back. And shame on you. Like, you're never you know, you were never a real Christian and stuff. Like, fortunately, they didn't do that, because they didn't really know me that well. But also, from the bad point of view. It's like, wow, y'all didn't reach out to me. Y'all are supposed to shame on y'all. What would Jesus think? What would Jesus do? You got the bracelet I've seen on us seen it on you. Like, you know,

David Ames  41:26  
yeah, I've talked a lot about that. I expected to get lots of questions from people. And it's been deafening silence. Like no, like, no, no one has any interest in engaging me and why? You know why? Well, I think few

Ben Reed  41:39  
people do, like truly engaging, I feel think I think few Christians do. Yeah. Like, it's a hard topic, because it's like, oh, like, I don't, they don't they don't know what to say they really don't.

And so now we'll get to me confessing to my family. Okay, yeah. Yeah. So like, I had just moved to this new city. And my mom, like, I hadn't told anybody, I hadn't gone to church for a few weeks at this point. And it was like, in July. At this point. My mom texted me. And I hadn't told her soul. Oh, let me back up. So all through all this time, like all summer, and like, even into the fall, like I was talking to this guy, who had turned into a to a into an atheist. And he was like, taught we had like, multiple, like, calls about this. We even he even came over and like, got lunch with me. And the way we were talking about it so much. And he was a huge help to me,

David Ames  42:51  
Ben. Yeah, you have to know like, how lucky you are. So many people go through this entirely alone. So like, it's fantastic that you have somebody to be able to talk to you. That was great.

Ben Reed  43:01  
Well, and yeah, for the most part, I would say it had it was alone. Like I didn't tell anybody from church, that I was doing this actually, I did tell one person, it was my old youth minister, I'm still friends with him. Although I think our friendship might be different now, just because he knows for his in his eyes agnostic, not atheist. But like, I had a few calls with my youth minister, and I was just like, I'm really struggling here. I just can't I was talking about all the bad things in the Bible. And he was bringing up like, Well, what about context? And

David Ames  43:40  
a, what context? Are these things? Okay, man. Yeah, they're not Yes. Like,

Ben Reed  43:45  
I cannot it gets to a point where they just start to defend slavery and hell, almost as if they're a good thing. And like, it's just like, Okay, why should I a feeble human who guy claims is foolish have to defend all these terrible things not to mention, do all this patchwork for this book that he left supposedly left us that's, that's quite a mess. I mean, it's, it's, it's more problematic than a fixer upper. You know what I mean? And we're definitely not making a profit off of it. But like, well, actually, some churches are. But anyways, my youth minister was like, as the first to know about my questioning that was the first Christian I told and my mom texted me and my mom and I have never had especially like high school and college like ever since then, like, my mom and I have never really had a great relationship. I don't like I just tried to be cordial with her. But she and I are just totally different people. And so I I mean, I get it like, I'm her son. I'm her baby. I'm her. I'm her firstborn. So like, of course, like, yeah, she cares about me. And I do appreciate that. But like her faith is weak, and it is weak. She does not know why she believes what she believes. And my dad, I think, knows more, but there is, I never really looked up to them as sources of like, spiritual guidance. And, like, my youth minister was the guy that I looked up to, and even he couldn't, like, he tried, but it just wasn't helpful. So my mom, I keep getting off track. But my mom messaged me, Hey, your brother, and a few guys from church are going on a retreat this weekend, you should go with them. And this was after I had already, like stopped going to church and stopped believing I was like, Okay. And I was like, well, now is probably the best time if there's ever going to be a good time, because I'm not going to like, I'm not going to prolong this lie, or a facade with them at least. And so I gave her a call. And it breaks my heart just because it's when she answered, she was happy to. She was like, happy that I was calling. And I was like, oh, man, you don't know what I'm about to tell you. Yeah. And I started telling her this stuff, like, I was, like, I'm doing I've been doing a lot of studying. And I, I don't think the Bible is true. And I went on and elaborated. And she, she was like, I just cannot handle this. I can't stomach this. And so we had to kind of in the call, but like, she's also one she's not very good at like hard conversations, either. So she like she can't she can't handle like conflict well at all. So that certainly doesn't help. So like, since then, she hasn't really talked to me about it. She's gotten people from church to call me about it. And she thinks that other people can do a better job than her. Which, interestingly enough, one of those people is who is an elder at that at my home church is the dad of That Christian turned atheist. That was talking Yeah, so super, like but but they don't know that I contacted the atheists. Because I'm because like, it's one of those things where I don't want to give them a I don't want to make them more afraid than they already are. Because like, Oh, Ben that went out. He got in touch with him. Like, that's that guy. He He fed him all these lies and convinced him but like, the thing is, it's like I'm living in this small town of like, 40 to 60,000 people and the church. It's like, the church of Christ is on every corner. So it's not like I moved to this big city and Obinze chasing after the lust of the flesh. No, if anything, my faith should be strengthened here. And it didn't. It's not like the classic tale of like moving to the big city and just forgetting your faith. No, no that at all. I didn't really want it to happen. I didn't really have a choice. But so I call I told my mom, and then I gave an individual call to each one of my family members, my, my mom first and my brother, a brother. His first reaction was like, Well, do you think you need a Savior? And I was like, well, hold up. We haven't even proven there's a God. Yeah, it's like, Savior you'd like to. So that was a whole mess of debate. But then I told my dad because he had gotten home and like, I think, saw my mom crying. And so I was like, I was like, I guess Mom told you like, I'm not really convinced anymore. And and then he he, I'll just, just for the sake of this conversation, I'll give the name of the atheist just his first name just because, or actually, I'll just give a pseudonym. His name is Steve. And, and they the Christian turned atheists. And as my dad was listening to me, as I was telling him this he's like, would you say that it's the same kind of doubts that Steve had. And that like so this is a big deal in our church like growing like, because this is like, very few people made like such an exit from being so devoted, like teaching class and stuff like that to non religious at all. And so that's one reason why I think they got in touch with the elder dad that called me and then I got in touch to my mom totally gave my number to the sweet lady. Bless her heart. That's what we say in the south. But bless her heart Um, she she was texting me and just preaching to me and I was like, Kim, I appreciate you. Like, she's so sweet. Her heart is full of nothing but good intentions. But she's delusional. Like, like this, this preaching stuff isn't working for me.

David Ames  50:23  
I get it right. Like they think they're doing something good or unkind for you. Yeah.

Ben Reed  50:27  
Yes. Oh, bad. She, she said, I told her I was like this happened as a result of me searching for better answers. And she came back with something like, I know, you may have been searching for, quote, better answers. But just know that God is the best answer. Like that there was like just a really big sermon points, like, and at a certain point, I was like, I appreciate that you feel the need to reach out and care for me, and I feel very I've just, I'm thankful. But I don't think these texts are helpful or productive. I'm just not convinced the Bible is true. And I think that any attempts to convince like any attempts to bring me back is an uphill battle. And she thankfully, she didn't press much harder. She was like, Okay, I understand. But that was, that was straight up annoying. And I don't know, I told my sister that that lady got in touch with me. And my sister was like, she would she would make the run to and my sister is still a Christian. That's, she chose her. That's, I don't know what she was thinking.

The thing is, like growing up, my parents didn't really talk about a ton of like church stuff growing up, like they tried every now and then. But it just wasn't like, I felt like I was the spiritual leader of the family, not my dad. And I think my brother was probably going through that phase now, because my brother is really on a spiritual high right now. And I wouldn't be surprised if he stays in, but we'll see. He just has a different personality than me. But yes, I mean, like, it's like, I think they did a good job of raising a functional member of society. And like, as a Christian, like, I was still really respected. And my family is still respected in the church too. But I'm glad they don't talk about church outside of church. Whereas when I was in church, I was think I was so anxious. I was like, Y'all need to be talking about this so much more. This is so important. And I feel like I'm the only one who cares about this. And what a blessing it is. Now. Yeah, from the gods of atheism, I guess,

David Ames  53:02  
one of the things that your story reminds me of is when one of my my guests, Jenna said, she had this moment of realization that the answers were satisfying to the faithful. But the answers weren't satisfying to her. And, you know, what do you do with that? Right? And I think that's kind of what you're describing is all of these people who are satisfied with the answers are trying to give you the answers. They're satisfied with that you are not satisfied with those. And so it's it. It's how do you handle that? How do you how do you be the bigger person and be caring for them, even when, even when what they're doing is a bit abusive? A bit a bit manipulative? That kind of thing?

Ben Reed  53:44  
Yeah, I've had to be the bigger person. I've had to be more Christ like the now. But

David Ames  53:50  
Exactly, yeah.

Ben Reed  53:51  
Which is so ironic, though, is I say, Now, the promises. Well, this is kind of not really related. But I just came to my head. I say this now. The promises of Christianity are found outside of it. And I've never felt more free. I'm happy. I have friends. Like I didn't really have like, I realized how forced friendships were in the church. Because like, now, that's not to say like, a lot me a lot of people genuinely do have good friends. I didn't have a ton of like, genuine friends that I could count on that I felt like I could count on okay. It was more like a bunch of acquaintances. But back to the satisfying answers thing. apologetics is a big thing, and I think they're satisfying enough to keep people in. But not enough to convince people to join. And as a last ditch effort, I listened to things on YouTube. For those who want to look it up and not give Lee Strobel book royalties, there's an audio book of the case for Christ. It's 12 hours. I listened to it. I don't know if the royalties go to them or not, but it's not like they're a channel related to him, it seems. But anyway, I don't know if that's I don't know if I'm endorsing piracy. Nevermind.

David Ames  55:20  
No, it's all good.

Ben Reed  55:23  
But I listened to it. And man, my eyes just roll the entire time. It's bad. Like, it's I don't want to say he. Yeah, I don't want to say he wasn't a true atheist because that would be a No True Scotsman fallacy. I just doubt how of how skeptical he really was. Because the the if the questions he asked to those believers, which that's another problem, he only asked believers, he didn't ask like staunch atheists. Right? The in these interviews, like if those questions that he asked qualifies skeptical being, like staunchly skeptical, we get it together, man. Like, it's just it's bad. Yeah. I tell people this when I'm, like, I heard I have this answer prepared. I'm not opposed to anything being true. What I am opposed to is bad reasoning. Yeah. In the case for Christ. There's a lot of things like archaeology and oh, well, this place is mentioned in the Bible. And we still see that we still see that it's here today. So therefore, miracles happen, that kind of thing. But

David Ames  56:40  
it's a non sequitur. Oh, exactly. Yeah. Like,

Ben Reed  56:42  
okay, well, we could take a trip to New York City. There might be a person named Peter Parker there. Yes. He might even work at a newspaper. That doesn't mean Spider Man's real people. Okay. Like, it's just got total non sequitur. Yeah. That's a that's a really, that's a good good word, or good phrase of it.

The apologetics company that I grew up with was apologetics press. It is an exclusively Church of Christ. apologetics company, okay. And so like, if you have like we had, so he's a big celebrity in the church of Christ Kyle, but so he he'll go around and you can look them up on people. The listeners can look him up on YouTube. He debated Bart Ehrman and Dan Barker, actually some pretty big names. And, okay. Kaaba has a weird, really weird cadence. And I actually went to church with him for a bit but he's like a celebrity and like, so that apologetics press stuff. It's like the the typical apologetics stuff, along with why the Church of Christ aren't the only one gets going to heaven. But like that, also, looking back, helps me realize how silly it all is. Just looking at it from this atheistic point of view. I went back like growing up, I watched the debates between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens, Bill Nye and Ken Ham. Kyle, but and Bart Ehrman and Barker. I was always on the Christian side. And it's so weird to see it from another point of view now. A big point in the Bill Nye call. Bill Nye and Ken Ham debate was during the q&a when a question or it was a Krishna answer a question or asker? I don't know. asked, what would it take to convince each of you of the other side's points of point of view? And some some people in the audience may have already seen this debate, but maybe you have to but Ken's answer was in an Australian accent. I'm not going to do it. But he said, like, Well, I'm a Christian. And basically he just said it. He just went on a bunch of like tangents about how he's a Christian like he believes the Bible is the Word of God. And then Bill Nye came back with evidence. I believe it if there's evidence, yeah, that's pretty telling. Exactly why. Yeah, and and I'm so like, I just find it so interesting. Like how Jesus said, My yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Frankly, I have no idea what that means. Because Christianity is a hard burden to bear. You know? Yeah. And the weight off my shoulders is the weight that they say will be lifted off your shoulders. When you're forgiven of your sins, at a certain point, during my questioning, I started thinking like, Is this our God? Like if his plan is so perfect, and like his message is so divine? Why are there so many problems with it? Why is this my responsibility to defend these things? Why can't it just be self evident? It's like, Christians, like preachers like, and Christians will spout all this nonsense about how God can do XY and Z for you. But when it comes time for him to do that, it's like, you can't put yourself in God's shoes. You can't you're you're playing God right now. Don't Don't question him like, Okay, if not now, when? Like, you know what I mean? It like the whole, the whole reason I was comfortable questioning is because I believed I had the Holy Spirit, Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth will, okay. Right? I guess he has.

David Ames  1:01:09  
I think you summed it up so well, and that the promises of Christianity are found outside of it. Like I feel the same way that the very things that led me to Christianity led me out the need for truth, for humility for self honesty, all of those things, led me in and led me out.

Before as we're wrapping up here, Ben, I do want to hear about what is meaningful for you on this side of things. You've talked a lot about the freedom that you feel, but like, you know, what, books, other podcasts, YouTube channels, that kind of thing?

Ben Reed  1:01:49  
Yeah, so I've been I need to get to reading on some books I've been meaning to. But YouTube channels tick tock, and I'll listen to stuff and some podcasts, namely, the graceful atheist, I'm going to plug it just because I think it's great. I appreciate all of the listeners on here, continue to listen. But the beliefs that are not podcast, I think is really great. The Atheist Experience on YouTube, it's a Colin show, for theists and it just kind of helps you get a good gauge of like, how ridiculous Christians are and how I kind of like use their arguments against them. Also, like I mean, I think tick tock Christy Burke and Eve was framed was a really good let's see. Matt Dillahunty, which he's a big name in the atheist world. He has his own YouTube channel, he does the atheist debates Patreon project, which he basically it's just basically these monologues and he's just talking about certain argument claims of Christians and how they're problematic. And that's another thing too, claims are not evidence. But anyways, as far as the resources, also just go back and look at some of the stuff that you used to believe. Like, for sure me the case of Christ was like, the nail in the coffin. Ironically, it was not the slam dunk. I was told that it would be.

David Ames  1:03:30  
Yeah, ironically, Ben, I had that same experience, my best friend, the one thing he asked me to do is to read case for Christ. And I had already I was already semi familiar with it. I was like, Sure. Great. Like, yeah, and I was like, this did not have the effect that you thought it

Ben Reed  1:03:46  
was shame on you. But let's see. Yeah, the beliefs that are not really helped and believe it or not, has a YouTube channel to that has like separate videos from the podcast. Born, born again, again, was really good. It was a short lived podcast, but I think it's really good. Oh, Paula GIA on YouTube. Prophet of Zod forest Val chi for younger any younger Earth creations, create creationists out there who are believing in evolution for the first time. Let's see. Oh, on testimony on tick tock. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. But he was really helpful in he used to be a Mennonite. And he actually, he used to be a Mennonite and he worked on the Star Wars movies, which I'm a big fan of. Yeah, so super cool guy. He's up in Canada. But

David Ames  1:04:44  
yeah, and if anybody knows Paul, reach out to him. I've been meaning to have him on but just as

Ben Reed  1:04:49  
also, for the listeners, there's the line is a YouTube channel hosted by Jimmy snow. And so like some of these names that I've been mentioning, are on it Like, it's like a rotating cast of all these people, and they're alive. So it's really good. Also, Dave Warnock has a show that I called into once. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah. Other than that, that's all I can think of right now. Okay, I should have written down. But

David Ames  1:05:17  
no worries. We'll try it. We'll put we'll try to get a list together and get get that on the show notes. So awesome, man, really appreciate you telling us your story. Thank you for being on the podcast.

Ben Reed  1:05:26  
It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

David Ames  1:05:33  
Final thoughts on the episode? I really appreciate Ben's story. It reminds me a bit of my own. Ben was very knowledgeable. He had studied apologetics. And when you begin to see the flaws in the arguments, even if you believe the conclusion by faith, but you see the strain that it takes to uphold those apologetic arguments, it begins to take its toll. And that's what happened with Ben. Another similarity is the experience with the Mormons. Although I didn't speak to Mormons directly. I had Mormons in my family and when I went to investigate, what is it that they believe? I found it very interesting. I didn't know that there were, in effect, signed testimonials. You could call that an affidavit about Joseph Smith and his claims. And when you compare that to the kind of apologetics about the Gospels and statements like Paul's the 500, who saw Jesus after the resurrection, who did not sign affidavits, it begins to shed light on how bad those arguments are. By appreciate that Ben actually had Mormons into his home and to engage in that this is what began his real doubt. This is sometimes called the outsider test for faith when you can see your own faith from the outside. If you hear someone tell a story about a young teenage girl who gets pregnant, and is quickly betrothed, and the claim that that girl was impregnated by God, does that sound realistic to you, as an outsider, not even a little bit inside the bubble, it makes total sense. I also want to give a shout out to Andrew Knight, the co host of the still unbelievable podcast. Andrew is an amazing person. And I was so glad to hear that Ben had connected with Andrew, who could help him along that way. Ben also had a friend of his who had deconstructed ahead of him who he could bounce ideas off of. And as I said in the episode, he was incredibly lucky to have that. And I will always quote Jenna as saying, I realized that they were satisfied with their answers. And I wasn't satisfied with their answers. And that is so much my personal experience. And it sounds like it was Ben's as well. I want to thank Ben for being on the podcast and for telling his story. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Ben. The secular Grace Thought of the Week is about curiosity. I think a common theme for many of us who deconstruct and especially those of us who go all the way and deconversion is an insatiable need for finding out the truth, that sense of curiosity of what is true and what isn't. And I don't think that ends after deconstruction, it is important that we as human beings continue to learn we continue to grow, rather than being locked into a particular pattern or way of thinking. I think this goes way beyond just religion. It affects politics, it affects culture, it affects relationships. Now, I want to be clear here, I'm not saying that all tradition is bad in any way. I think tradition is good. We've talked a lot about the need for ritual for human beings. It's the ability to question it, the ability to be curious and look behind the curtain. And if you find that the people around you are trying to stop you from doing that, there is your sign that you need to dig deeper. Be curious. Next week are lien interviews Benji, not to be confused with Ben. You'll want to check that out next week. Until then, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be graceful human beings. The beat is called waves by MCI beats. If you want to get in touch with me to be a guest on the show. Email me at graceful atheist@gmail.com for blog posts, quotes, recommendations and full episode transcripts head over to graceful atheists.com This graceful atheist podcast The ABS United studios Podcast Network

Transcribed by https://otter.ai