Content Warning: Spiritual, physical and sexual abuse. Depression, post-partum depression, infertility and suicidal idealization.
Arline guest hosts interviewing author and podcaster, Nicki Pappas. Nicki Pappas is a writer who critiques the evangelical establishment that shaped her. She’s the author of As Familiar as Family: Leaving the Toxic Religion I Was Groomed For. She’s also the host of the Broadening the Narrative podcast where she interviews guests who are broadening the narratives she was taught within white evangelicalism. She has three young children with Stephen Pappas, her steady partner in the chaos since 2010. Through her work, she desires to spark hope in the world around her and live out an embodied faith.
I wasn’t ready for Rachel Held Evans but I read her.
Who am I if I am not going to church?
And over the next few months I really got to spend a lot of time with myself and was, ‘Oh, I really like myself apart from a church … and like the person who I’m getting to know.
Curiosity and compassion
I feared I was gonna fall apart. And that was when I was like,
‘Okay so we can actually leave church and I’m not gonna fall apart because I have something better than my trust placed in [pastor].
Content Warning: sexual abuse, rape, spiritual abuse
This week’s guest is Jessica Moore, a life coach focusing on purity culture. Jessica grew up in a non-denominational Christian in Salt Lake City Utah surrounded by Mormons. She felt both the pressure to evangelize and be proselytized.
Jessica went to an unaccredited Christian college where she first began to have doubts. She wound up traveling to Israel and seeing life on both sides of the Palestinian/Israeli border. She experienced the reverse culture shock coming back to the United States.
Jessica put a lot of pressure on herself to be a “godly woman.” Purity culture had a damaging impact on her life.
The focus of her work now is helping people recover from purity culture and religious abuse.
“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats
Transcript
NOTE: This transcript is AI produced (otter.ai) and likely has many mistakes. It is provided as rough guide to the audio conversation.
David Ames 0:11
This is the graceful atheist podcast. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the rescue atheist podcast. My name is David. And I am trying to beat the gracefully. We have a whole lot of housekeeping. So I'm going to jump right in. Number one I was recently on the I was a teenage fundamentalist podcast with Brian and Troy. That was an amazing time. Please go check out their podcast, it is fantastic. They will be on this podcast in January of 2023. I'll have links in the show notes. The big news is that we are very likely to join a Podcast Network. The way that affects you is that this podcast will begin to have ads in the near future. In anticipation of that move, I wanted to give people the opportunity to have an ad free experience as well. And Patreon is the easiest way for me to do that. So at the end of 2022, I'm going to turn off the anchor.fm monetary support. If you have been giving to the podcast there that is just going to stop. If you're interested in supporting the podcast and or you just want to hear the podcast without ads in 2023 and onwards, please join at patreon.com/graceful atheist. Mighty had the week off, so any editing complaints, send them my way. onto today's show, I first have to provide a content warning here. There is the discussion of sexual abuse, rape and spiritual abuse. If you're in a vulnerable spot, this episode may not be for you. My guest today is Jessica Moore. Jessica is a life coach helping people bridge the gap between religious programming and the freedom and becoming you. You can find her work at Jessica more coaching.com sells has a blog there, you can find her on Instagram at becoming you dot coaching. And Jessica is really focused on the damage that purity culture does to a person and recovering from that. Here is Jessica Moore to tell her story.
Just come on. Welcome back to the graceful atheist podcast.
Jessica Moore 2:41
Thanks, David. Great to be here.
David Ames 2:43
Yeah, I say back because Jessica and I had recorded this conversation once. And unfortunately, the audio didn't work out there. So this is round two for for Jessica and I but all the better to spend time with you. So
Jessica Moore 2:57
yeah, maybe I'll be a little more eloquent.
David Ames 3:00
We will we will both try to be yes. We will start with the same question that we started with last time, which is what was your faith tradition? like growing up?
Jessica Moore 3:11
Yeah. So I grew up in a non denominational church. And I also grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. And I think I asked you this before, have you been to Utah?
David Ames 3:23
I have? Yes. Okay. And yeah, as I mentioned before, the it's a world unto itself, like even that, you know, to go to a bar, you have to be a member. Right. So very interesting things there. Yes.
Jessica Moore 3:36
Yes. Such an interesting. Yeah, it's such an interesting bubble. It's its own little states. And I didn't really realize that until I moved away. But yeah, and I bring up Utah because it is such a heavily Mormon state, the state or the churches run by this, no, the state is run by the church. That's how that goes. And that also was even though I didn't grew up in the Mormon church, it was still very heavily influential in my life. So with a non denominational church, I mean, we, I grew up in church was fun. Like I when I think back on my background on my own, it was such a good time as a kid, and we met in a community rec center. And we had to set up every week and tear down every week. It was a lot and both of my parents were involved. But it just kind of was I was there ever since I was two years old, probably Yeah, to from 18 years old. And so it was like it was my home, my second home, my community. And I think, you know, when I think back on what I was taught in terms of my faith, I don't think a whole lot of it actually really influenced much of like, how serious I took my faith later in life. Okay, what I was taught was very kind of basic, very simple in terms of just, you ask Jesus into your heart so that you can go to heaven for eternity. Then here's the rest of how you just, you know, be a good person. And that seems pretty easy to me and my Oh, no problem. Now that doesn't go without hell, anxiety, rapture anxiety, that was still very, very prevalent in my life. But I can definitely connect the dots of this feeling of the pressure to spread the word. You know, it was very important to me that I all my family and friends made it into heaven. But what what was kind of conflicting was like with Mormons, I saw that they were different that were really that I was kind of the odd man out, it was, you know, all of my friends were Mormon. And it wasn't until I think I was in eighth or ninth grade where I finally met a Christian, and she thought that I was Mormon. And it was pretty funny, but Oh, yay. And we're still great friends now. So
David Ames 6:02
yeah, okay.
Jessica Moore 6:04
But what was interesting is I kind of grew up. I did ask questions of like, well, why is it that we're the right ones, and Mormons are wrong, because to me, all I ever saw was, you were a Christian, or you were Mormon, or you are an angry atheist. That was it. Like, that's all I had no other knowledge of different religions at all. I didn't even know that there were different, you know, denominations. I just thought, you know, we were it. Right. But what was also kind of funny is I also felt like, I had the cool religion. Yes, I, we, we had parties, and we could do things on Sundays, uh, we drank coffee, and it was okay, if you had a beer. And, you know, and my youth group, you played laser tag, and then here's the Mormons over here, where they and I could go to church in my pajamas if I wanted. And here's the Mormons that like, had to dress up and look super nice. And their church was super boring, and two hours long. And I was like, Okay, well, I felt good about being a Christian. But I also was really confused. Like, why is everyone Mormon? And we're not like, why are more people joining our side, you know, so it was kind of this interesting. Like, I was happy to be a Christian. But I was also very confused. And I didn't like standing out. And I think I remember, I don't know, probably five times in my life as a kid, like my friends kind of figuring out that I wasn't Mormon, and they'd be like, you're not Mormon? No. But you're so good. I never knew what to do with that. I'm like, Well, I believe in Jesus. And I, oh, well, you're practically Mormon then and. Okay. So it was just kind of like I got by, you know, and again, that was just simple. It was like, okay, I can blend in enough and also just have my cool little religion. And that was the other thing, too, that I thought was cool is we never called ourselves a religion. It was a relief. So that felt more like, why are y'all doing what we're doing?
David Ames 8:05
You talked about like, feeling the weight of the salvation of the people around you. Yeah. Family members, probably your friends as well. But growing up next to a dominant religious sect, the LDS church. Did you also feel like you were the, the target of proselytizing so that they wanted you to become a Mormon?
Jessica Moore 8:25
Yes. Yeah. There was that too. I'd say around. When I was in junior high. I, that's when I really started to understand like, okay, yeah, like Mormonism is like, huge, because they're at each public school. They had their separate Mormon seminary building on the campus. And they, they had a class period to go there. And I got asked to go like, ditch my own class, like, probably math. Who needs math? Math or biology? What are those? And you know, they would be like, you should just sneak into our class. And so I would, because I'm like, Well, I'm kind of curious. What is it that you guys do in this little secret building here? And, and it was very obvious to the I don't know if they were like bishops or they weren't. They weren't school teachers. I don't know who they were. But the the Mormon leaders, I guess at the in the seminary building, they knew I wasn't Mormon, they didn't recognize my face, because you just know everyone. And they're like, oh, like, are you? What do you know? What are you doing here? Am I Oh, I was told to come check it out. And they had no problem that I was missing my own class. And it's just so funny to me. I'm like, Huh? Like they never they're like, well, welcome. Welcome to my class and like, you have no problem that I'm literally ditching school right now. Yeah. So there was a little bit of that. And I did go to there. I did go to Mormon church a couple times. And just to kind of see like, why am I missing out on something here? And I did have a couple friends that were interested in coming to my church and they were so uncomfortable. And I think that, you know, it was it was very foreign. And you know, and I think that was kind of cool. Like, we were both trying to just see what you know what each other was what our lives were like. But I did come out on the other end of though I was a target. I was like, no, sorry, I still have the cultured. Eye bulging. But yet, there were things like, you know, my my parents drink coffee, Mormons don't drink coffee. And so I would hide my parents coffee machine when I had friends over. And I just, I didn't Yeah, I just didn't want it to be a topic. I didn't want to be not necessarily the target of someone like, preaching at me. Right? Because again, they kind of were like, Oh, you're you're practically Mormon. Anyways, you love Jesus. So, but it was more of like, I just didn't want to stand out anymore. So I would hide the certain
David Ames 10:56
understood. Yeah, yeah. Especially like middle school. I mean, the whole thing is you just want to blend in with it. I wanted to just say a couple of things. One, my background is obviously evangelicalism as well, but Mormonism played a role in my deconversion because I discovered that I have this whole family wing, who are LDS members, and I did I was unaware of Oh, wow. And doing kind of like a just some due diligence exploration of okay, well, what did the what are these family members believe? What was striking about it is the LDS and just as strongly the the depth of their faith, the commitment that they have, I recognize, like, ah, that that seems familiar. And yet the things they believed in were so radically different. It was this moment for me where I recognize ah, I think they're crazy, but they think I'm crazy. And that was just that was a lightbulb moment for me, right? Like,
Jessica Moore 11:49
yes, yes, exactly. It's like, okay, well, we still have this devotion. And we still are very passionate about like, I mean, honestly, it was just to be good, be this good person, be kind be loving. And then when you got deep down into the theology of it's okay, like we Yeah, we're both seeing like, we're both you know, crazy or whatever. But that was enough for me to be like, no.
David Ames 12:14
Yeah, just one last comment here. I've also had the opportunity to interview some Mormons. Me Logan, in particular has the podcast ex Mormon, ology that was really fascinating to hear her describe, you know, from the inside, because I think as evangelicals we were trained, we knew all the reasons why Mormonism was false. Well, you know, Amy knew all the reasons why evangelicalism was false. Right? And it's just interesting to, to hear someone from a different religious culture, and all the propaganda really, that we tell each other.
Jessica Moore 12:46
So true. Yeah, it's definitely a training up like you get I remember, closer into like, youth group when it was like, okay, the kiddie stuff is done, you know, you're not playing games and singing songs anymore. This is more of like the apologetics and all have, you know, my youth group, we were like, how do we, you know, kind of give an answer to when we're being asked of like, why we think we're right, and to also share, like, why Mormonism was wrong. And that was it is pretty fascinating to kind of be trained up in that way, where, you know, faith then becomes not faith, it's more of a system. And yeah, it's, it's so fascinating, that whole part of just like, Oh, here's, here's an answer you can give and then be like, Okay, I'm gonna take that and remember that and dish it out when it's time.
David Ames 13:36
And then in the time period of Age of Reason, round that middle school time, was this something that you took on for yourself a sense of faith for yourself? Or did you you feel like you were doing that? Because your parents wanted you to? What was that like for you?
Jessica Moore 13:49
I think it was definitely more for myself. Yeah, I think I inherently just always wanted to be good and be this good person. And so when I hear that I needed saving, and here's how you can show that you are saved or that you're born again, or that you love Jesus. That felt good to me. I was like, oh, okay, like I would do anything to show that. And so that's kind of what I guess faith was less about what Jesus did for me, it was what I could do next for Jesus, right? And then, fast forwarding a little bit to my second year of college, I decided to go to this Bible school. And this Bible school wasn't really it's not accredited school, it was more of a gap year. They focus a lot on just a guest speakers came in and talked about certain parts of the Bible, your identity in Christ, and a lot of outreach, service, ministers trips, that kind of thing. And at the time, when I was thinking about going, really my motive wasn't because oh, I want to get closer to God. I kind of felt like I already had that. Like I knew the Bible stories you pray, you're good Like, that's kind of how simplistic my faith was. And I felt good about that. Really, my motive was it was at Winter Park, Colorado, and I could go snowboarding. I was like, Oh, I
David Ames 15:13
doesn't ever really want to do that.
Jessica Moore 15:17
Oh, and I just did not like school. I didn't like college. So I was like, Oh, this is a win win here. I can win brownie points with God and go snowboarding. This is great. Yeah. So I go there. And this is kind of the start of where faith became more complicated. But it also was the start and foundation of me kind of forming into this more radical sold out devoted Christian, where when I say the simple, basic, you know, say a prayer and your good, that wasn't it anymore. Things became a little I don't know, fundamental is the right word. But that's kind of what it seems like. And so I'm at this school, and when we're digging into the Bible, but a little bit more, and it was like, kind of, again, I thought I knew I thought I knew all the Bible stories, like I grew up in this. So like, what can I know? Or what what can I what new thing that I learned? And so this guy, this teacher at the time, I think we were reading about the resurrection story. And I'm like, again, what's new here? But it was just kind of the way of how he was dissecting every verse. I mean, Bible teachers do this, right? Like, it's like a page within a page, I can find something to like, really dig deep. And I remember just staring down at my Bible and just kind of being like, what is this? Like? It just felt so bizarre and kind of this moment of like, if anyone who did not grow up a Christian were to be told this, this would sound totally bizarre. And I kind of started freaking out a little bit of like, did I just spend 10 grand to get involved in a cult? It was kind of this moment of like, oh, gosh, I don't know if I believe in this. Like, it just felt so intense and heightened. And we were diving deeper into these topics that I never did in church, where it was whether like, Can Can you lose your salvation? And, you know, what does? How do you know if someone has the Holy Spirit? And no, you can't just say a prayer. That's not good enough, you have to do way more. And then it was kind of men and women's roles. And I was like, wow, okay, this got really more intense. This is not, this is new to me. And for a while, I started to kind of not believe it anymore. But I really don't know if I, if I can, like that's something started to become problematic. But leaving wasn't an option for me. I mean, I think it could have been an option, but I made it not an option. I'm like, No, I people financially supported me, I cannot dip out now, like, I'm only a month in. And so I made it work. And I would talk to the Bible teachers and being like, Okay, I've heard this all my life, that it's about a relationship, where the heck did we get that? Like, I don't see the word relationship in the Bible. And so it's things like that of just the certain the Christianese, you know, the language that we've used for so long that became so normal that I'm like, Well, where did we get that? And eventually, like, I just, you know, it's kind of that saying, you are, who you are, who you surround yourself by, and I was surrounded by 40, something Christians and these leaders that I really was looking up to, and in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, and so it was like, I had no other influence no other, like we lived and, and studied in the same spot, you didn't go anywhere else. And so it was kind of like, I made it work. And I folded basically, and
David Ames 18:46
the school is very small, so 40 ish people you're talking about. So I mean, that, that does feel a little claustrophobic and maybe a little bit like, you know that. So that is kind of the experience of you knew that. If you really expressed the doubts that you were having that maybe that would be bad, right? Yeah, that there was a lot of reinforcement.
Jessica Moore 19:05
Yes, lots of reinforcement. And I did share at one point of like, hey, like, I'm kind of struggling here. Like, I thought this was a lot more easier. And like, I thought I knew everything there was to know about the Bible, and I'm figuring out that there's not and so again, I think I was kind of that target of like, oh, well, this is great. She's the perfect project here. And I also was, you know, I have this personality of, you know, I don't want to I don't want to stand out I don't want to be the odd one out and so now that's different now, I don't mind but I'll say what I think. But at the time, I was like, Yeah, okay, yeah, fix me do what I need to do, because I just did not want to be the odd one out again. Yeah.
David Ames 19:45
I do want to be clear here that I am not being critical of that. I know exactly what that feels like. Going along to have everything smoothed out. I think that's actually a good description of why religion is propagated so easily and so often is that you want to be a part of the community. And the community says, If you want to be a part of the community, you have to believe these things, and in this way, and you have to behave this way. Yes. And because we're social creatures, we need each other, we just are willing to do that, right? Like that is a normal human thing to do. So I don't want you to beat yourself up about it or anyone listening? Who has been through that same experience?
Jessica Moore 20:21
Yeah, no, that's such a good point. It is kind of like, yeah, it's not our fault. It is very much and there's certain language that is used. It's just very compelling. Yeah, that's how that happens. And especially if there's no other voices that are maybe pushing against that, of course, that's going to happen. And when you are just starving for community friends, something to be or hope, you know, whatever it is, if you're, you know, for people that just hit rock bottom, or whatever, and they hear about this great God, of course, like why wouldn't they? Yeah, so yeah, it is pretty fascinating. Yeah, so I was there at that school for two years. One as a student, the other on I was a staff member. And that was a whole different deal. But again, just very much just trying to play the part be the part I wanted to, and I believed in the part. And I can kind of see now just how much I was trying to be like this very devoted, godly woman that seemed to be kind of like this badge of honor. Like, that's the achievement you want is to be the super powerful woman of God. And I was like, Okay, that seems like what people want. And I'm going to do that. And so after that school, I lived in Denver, and I was, you know, involved in all the things church youth group was a worship leader. Little missions trips, all of that. And that's when it like, kind of that that bubble disappeared a little bit where I'm like, oh, there are other influences here. So it was kind of like I was teetering between, again, kind of like trying to find, well, I wasn't even trying to find this, but it was kind of like I stumbled upon like, the cool Christians, I'm using air quotes here. And just like, it was like, Okay, I'm not being like super fundamental, here's these friends where, you know, we can have a couple beers at the bar and then go pray in the parking lot. This sounds great. Like this is, you know, it was like the best of both worlds of where you can not be of the world, you know, but in it and still be your Christian self. And this radical person. That was much of my kind of like my early 20s, mid 20s, of just, again, being so involved in the church and giving it my all and I never really like watch TV, if I wasn't watching TV, I was watching a sermon, or just really being devoted into Bible studies and just being on this huge quest of being this godly woman. And, and then it, it came to a point where I ran into a situation with someone who was my friend, and, and I'm not sure how much I need to do like, like a trigger warning, necessarily, but we'll
David Ames 23:15
do that at the top of that show. Okay, in the intro, so yeah, you can just tell your story.
Jessica Moore 23:20
Okay. So, yeah, I had a lot of pressure on myself to, again, be this perfect Christian, not mess up. And I don't know if that's necessarily something that I was taught, I still kind of go back and forth on that, like, who told me that it was that just me or, you know, what happened there, but I did put a lot of pressure on myself. And there was a moment where my my friend at the time, I was raped by him. I'm so sorry. Thank you. And it's hard to say that word because my situation feels a little difficult to use that word. But the reason why I bring this up is because within purity culture, I feel like we're given a list of don'ts, and especially what I was taught, especially within that school was like, you know, don't do this, the certain boundaries, like you know, kind of like this ladder of what was allowed and it's like, Okay, after this many months, you can hold hands after this, you know, just like this whole step. And you're given a list of don'ts, but you're not given any sort of integrity or knowing your worth. As a person. It's just kind of don't cross that line. Because God said so, and again, I just kind of was like, okay, like God said, So and is either you don't do it or you'll regret it. And, you know, regret sounded terrible. So I didn't want to do that. So I followed this list of don'ts as best as I could up until I was up at this situation that I didn't know how to get out of and again, I don't think purity culture really is sets you up for the preparing yourself for these kinds of situations. It's like, okay, I didn't, I still didn't do this. But yet I had no words to stand up for myself or get out of a situation. The only thing and I remember this so vividly out at one of the women's classes was because of course, in women's class back at that school, it was all about how to be you know, submissive wife, godly woman. Yeah, purity, culture, sexuality. And so I remember, you know, don't don't put yourself in those situations. If you, you know, you could be tempted, and if you are tempted, flee, literally run. And I think about that advice. And I'm like, that doesn't. That doesn't work.
David Ames 25:44
Yeah. I want to be explicit here as well. And just say that, and I remember this from our first conversation, and I think you are being so careful with your words. And I think it's okay to just say it was right. If you did not give consent before or during doesn't matter. You didn't give consent. That's rape. Right. And I appreciate the care with which you are trying to describe this. But I think that's a bit of a vestige of that Evangelical, thinking that in some way, you might have been at fault. And you're not, right. You said, you said no, at some point, or even if you didn't even verbalize it, you just internally you were you were done. That was it like, yeah, it's okay. That is abuse. Right. And I just want to be clear on my end, that that's the way I see it.
Jessica Moore 26:32
Thank you. I do appreciate that. It is. Yeah, it's it's fascinating to like, not be able to say the word in terms of because, you know, we do have this certain picture of what rape is whether it was violent or something. And that wasn't, that isn't my story. And so, my story is, is that I was in a situation where I did say, No, my body froze up. But it wasn't respected. And, you know, did I fight back? No. Because again, I froze. And I think that's a very common response, especially when you're not taught anything else was like, Okay, I was taught to, you know, to not do this, and I tried now what, so I was not set up for any kind of success, and my body froze, and, yeah, and so that is, there was no, it was not consensual. And so, you know, but at the same time, it was like, Oh, well, I shouldn't have put myself, I shamed myself. It was like, Oh, I shouldn't have put myself in this situation in the first place. Like, because that's kind of what we're taught is like, women are the temptation and men's minds are the monster. So it was like, well, it was my fault anyways, and so it kind of like I did blame myself. And I still fight that, even though it's been, I don't know, seven or eight years. And I, it's kind of, it's amazing, the the programming, whether it be through religion, purity culture, or just kind of like our society today of how they have defined rape, or whose fault it is, you know, that kind of thing. It's like, it does still go deep of like, where I do find myself like, Oh, that was probably my fault. And it wasn't, right. So I bring that up, not, you know, of course, I again, I'm trying to be careful, but I bring it up, not in terms of like, you know, it's funny, like, I didn't think this would be a huge part of my story. But after I started deconstructing purity culture, I'm like, oh, no, this is huge. Like, I and I, after I've heard many stories from other people, men and women, I'm like, Oh, this is a thing, like we were not taught, like, what we were taught about abstinence is not correct. I have no problem with someone choosing to be abstinent, it's the way of not giving any sort of value to the person. Right? I was not taught my worth. Obviously, I was taught that I wasn't worth anything until Jesus died for me. But anything else of like, no. Knowing your values, having any kind of sexual integrity is not offered to you. It's just don't do this. And then you're also promised if you keep your virginity, then you'll have a great marriage. And it's also not true. So there's, there's so many things that I can now see within the purity culture, teachings of just how false and the myths that they are. And when I think about my story, and how I really did want to wait for marriage and when that was taken away. Yeah, it was. I thought, Okay, well, now this is my burden that I need to make, right? And so me and that guy we did pursue a relationship and and you and I even have a little bit confession over him when I think like I, after some of conversations that I've had with different men, how purity culture affected them, and I'm like, man, yeah, that probably wouldn't have happened if he was also taught that like, he's not a monster and also what consent is. Yeah. And you know, I mean, I don't I, you know, I don't know, a whole lot of like his. He did say sorry, after. And so it was kind of like, that's how we could pursue a relationship together. And to me it it was like, Well, this is how we make this right. Like, because we were both hoping to save for marriage, and we didn't. So now we got to get married. Yeah. So yeah, I tried really hard to that felt like, this is how I make it right with God was to beat with my abuser, I guess.
David Ames 30:55
I appreciate Jessica use telling the story so much, because I think you're totally right. I think a lot of people have had at least similar if not almost identical situations and, and have that same sense of obligation to continue a relationship with someone that with hindsight, you can now see was an abuser?
Jessica Moore 31:16
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, there's lots of studies that I've read about now of just like the the connection between people who may be mostly women that will continue in abusive relationship, and a lot of their background is in religion, and so or some sort of theology. So I can totally see that. And, thankfully, that relationship did not work out and have moved on, but that shame of like, oh, I messed up, you know, I'm dirty. I am this deflowered rose, chewed gum, all the things that I was taught of, and, you know, was given these visual presentations of, definitely stuck with me of like, well, this is what it is. And I never really told anyone and, and then eventually, I started open up to some friends, because, you know, it was like, I wasn't a virgin anymore. And there were some that really were just, you know, were so kind and letting me know that this wasn't my fault. And even though at the time, I still never called it rape, I didn't call it rape till about two years ago. And so I was like, okay, and that felt really comforting. And then there was a couple of friends that just, you know, thought they could, God could heal me and make me a virgin again. Because that is, you know, that's the goal here is that's how you show that you're this devoted Christian is keeping your virginity.
David Ames 32:41
What an absurdity that virginity has any any meaning at all to anyone at any time. Like, yeah, so so absurd.
Jessica Moore 32:50
So absurd. And, and heard lots of, you know, stories, rather, like, oh, I, you know, God restored me and, okay, and I guess and so it was just kind of this weird conflict of like, I think I'm okay, because I also was, like, I, I know, it wasn't my fault. Or I guess I had more of a concept of grace. And that, like, I'm not this failure, but I also was, I will now I really need to be careful because, you know, that's a slippery slope I can see now and when they say you can be tempted, it's true is whatever.
David Ames 33:23
Again, I want to just acknowledge human beings are sexual beings, and particularly in our late teenage and 20s like, there's just biology is moving you towards having intimate connections with another human being and might, it just seems so absurd on this side of things to to make that bad or evil, right? You know, when it's just like that. It's truly to be human is to connect with another person in that way, right?
Jessica Moore 33:51
Yes, but only after marriage David. Yeah, it's like, oh, you can only you know, after the altar, you're all good. Yeah. Yeah. And, and no wonder like, it can cause such turmoil for people. You know, you're you're fighting yourself, you're fighting these natural things for so long. And it's like no wonder that causes problems especially with women. They struggle you know, after like, with vaginal dryness, like just this, you know, it's very painful intercourse and or pelvic floor issues, whether they're being intimate or not, and it's because it's just this locked up situation and then when the time comes, it's like, you know, you can't just flip a switch in your brain like Oh, it's okay now like your body is not you've been fighting against it for so long. Like it's not going to just respond to being everything's okay now. And I don't know too much about like, you know, the the physical effects for males, but I can speak to women.
David Ames 34:54
We have had a couple of stories where male partner is almost asexual, and, and a lot of that is the purity culture leading up to that, and they just aren't as interested in in sex. And so, you know, in the header example, the woman is ready, you know, it's her wedding night, she's ready to go. And the man isn't so like, I don't know, you know, I wouldn't know what the statistics are, but it definitely can affect everyone. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Just as you say, if you spend your entire life suppressing that, and then all of a sudden, oh, I'm just gonna turn this switch. And now I can I can turn this on human beings don't work that way. No,
Jessica Moore 35:30
no. Yeah, the the physical or any other residual effects of purity culture are pretty damaging. Yes. And so after kind of, like, you know, this situation of being with this, this friend, and you know, we pursued a relationship, then we didn't, after we had broken up, I was like, Okay, I am on this quest is just gonna be me and God. Now, I don't care about this person. And I'm not going to try to make it right. Because I think that took a lot of my mental space of just really trying to make this work. And just feeling like, I got to do this. And once it just finally ended, it was like, okay, you know, what, me and God, my first love, whatever. And I think I kind of started to want to discover more of like, what was truth? Because I think through the mix of all of this, I'm also being introduced to different forms of spirituality in terms of, well, Christian spirituality. And it was kind of like, you know, there's the fundamentals. There's the ones that, you know, we're the progressive Christians, there's the prosperity gospel. And so it was kind of like, I was just on this quest for truth. And what felt good to me, and not really what felt good to me, but I just wanted to see what was right. Not just kind of be like, Oh, this feels good. To me, it should be more like, No, this feels right. It needs to be right for you to that's kind of where my motive was. And so I tried different churches, just kind of like the trendy churches, you know, the ones with the pastors have got the skinny jeans and leather jackets and fog machines. And then I went to Bethel, visited Bethel for a week or two and saw more of kind of like that charismatic. And that's where I also sought healing for restoring my virginity. And it was kind of wild, that was a huge, I don't know, a whole door of understanding of like, oh, is this how God can work of just people shaking on the floor, and someone would always come up and say, I have a word for you. And like, oh, my gosh, God wanted me to tell you this. And it was kinda like, Oh, God can speak this way. So it was a lot of just trying to discover new things and kind of get outside of my box a little bit. But not too much. Because it was like, well, some of what I saw within like the Bethel culture, it was, they didn't use scripture enough, in my opinion, where it was like, Oh, you're a little, you're a little out there. Maybe you should plug some theology. And there are some doctrine, it was just kind of interesting. I forget what their like mission statement is. But it's, you know, the supernatural school of ministry, and a whole lot of people having a prophetic word for you. Just something always like they're channeling something. huge emphasis on physical healing. And yeah, just kind of like, to me, it was like a bunch of fortune tellers, or at least pretend for tellers kind of thing. And so I had, like, quite a few people come up to me and who didn't know me and just like, God just told me something I need to tell you. And it kind of felt magical. And what was so funny is like the words that I was given, there wasn't really anything super profound or specific to me, it was just like, God really wants you to know that he that he loves you and like, your shame is gone. And the shame that you carry, and I'm like, that could really be anyone. Or you know, and so it didn't. Really Yeah, yeah. And and so if it, it felt special to me at the time, because I did carry shame. Yeah. And so it was like, Oh, wow, cool. But yet, it was kind of this mix of like, super charismatic, but to me, it was like, Oh, you still need a little like scripture in there. There wasn't a whole lot in from my perspective. And so I wanted to step out of my box a little bit, see how it is that God, you know, may work in other areas, and maybe I'm closed off too and but yet, I didn't want to step too much into that because scripture was really important to me. So it was kind of like this mix of just trying to figure out what else is out there. Saw this Bethel experience and had lots of people pray over me and they have a lot of emphasis again on like physical healing. So they prayed for my physical healing as to become a virgin again, and that just kind of felt really odd to me because it was like, not that I didn't want that, but it didn't seem important where I was like, now it's done like, you know Yeah, there were some things were like, that doesn't resonate. But so there was the Bethel kind of experience. And then I decided to go to Palestine, and Israel. Okay. So my next quest was to see how it was that God worked in other countries where I wanted to see like how it was that, yeah, just just to be a part of people's world and put myself in their shoes. And so I go to Palestine, and my very black and white world turned very mucky gray. Okay. And, you know, and I thought, oh, what better way to get closer to Jesus and, you know, go to the holy land exactly where he walked. But that part of like that magical, the biblical sites just really faded, because that that part of the world is so heavily in conflict. And I think we all know that, and I did not know that at the time, very little. So I walked into, you know, quite the storm there. And feeling kind of confused where it was like, I just thought this would get it, this was going to be my moment of God, really, I think I was searching for like this light bulb of this vessel or channel just to really open and like God was always going to speak to me. And I would know really well, again, my quest of just being this like really powerful, godly woman. Like I honestly, it sounds very vain. But I just was starving for that what seemed to like what everyone else had, I wanted that too. And so, but while I was in Palestine, I lived with a Muslim Muslim family in a refugee camp. Then I lived on the other side, in Jerusalem, with a Jewish American family. And then I went back to the Palestinian side and lived with a Palestinian Christian family. So I kind of got a mix of everything. And that was really important to me of just like, Yeah, well, like, again, what is truth? What's going on here, and I'm so grateful I had the opportunity being with like, the Muslim family, it was, I felt very comfortable, like they didn't like try to, you know, convert me. And that was never their focus. And they just really wanted me to be involved, you know, involved with their family. And that was great. And then when I got into the other side with, like, the living with the Jewish family who was from America, you know, it was that this particular woman, my host, it, she was this yoga teacher. And she was all that she was like very much about peace and harmony. And she had said, you know, but Palestinians are poison, and we need to have an ethnic cleansing. And I was just like, whoa, and I don't think she knew that I had lived with Palestinians.
David Ames 42:44
Right. Assuming that you would be on her side.
Jessica Moore 42:48
Yeah. Right. Especially, you know, being American, and, you know, we're all for Israel or whatever. So I think that was, that was really challenging. I'm like, what that sounds conflicting here, where you, you say you're about peace and harmony, but yet you're willing to kill off these people because you think the land belongs to you. And so, yeah, very, very challenging. And then going back to the Palestinian side, and being with these Christian Palestinians, and how much they you know, I mean, there was definitely a language barrier, but they were kind and loving. And you they're just trying to get by while they're, you know, on, they're held under occupation. And so it was just kind of it was so intense. And then coming back into that, I thought, Oh, maybe I need to be this Palestinian activist, I just really didn't know what was next. But I knew that I was not the same. And so I also was under the impression that no Christian knew about this. When I shared like, my story, my perspective, like oh, my gosh, like Palestinians, like their homes are being taken away, Jewish settlements are being built on them. And like, that's not okay. Like, you know, there's a wall there, you know, all these things. And one of my Christian mentors at the time, she was a who I thought she was gonna be, oh, my gosh, that's, that's awful, you know, right, whatever. She said, Oh, well, you know, according to, I don't know, according to Scripture, yes, the land does belong to them and belong to the Jews. And I was like, I mean, that just put a knife right through my heart where I was like, what, like, that was so confusing to me. I'm like, Have I been fooled this whole time where I was kind of, I wasn't trying to have a bias, but it happened. And I was kind of becoming more of this, you know, on the Palestinian side, where I saw things that were really rough, you know, being under occupation, and I saw them get tear gassed. You know, I saw their homes get bulldozed, and I then I come back to my American home and I hear Yeah, that's what's supposed to happen according to Scripture. And I'm like, what like if I could not imagine speaking in front of my Palestinian friends be like, you know, I'm so sorry this is happening to you. But according to Scripture, This was supposed to happen. Like, how can we do that in the comfort of our own home? Of course, like, yeah, it's no problem when we're not a part of it. But it was just, that was kind of my first opening to theology and doctrine over people, right. And I did not want to be a part of that. And so I left the country again, like three months after that and went to Ecuador. And because again, it was still this, like, I want to see God work in other places than my American, because it was starting to become very like, yeah, the Americans got their own form of little Christianity going on here.
David Ames 45:42
And this is quite an education, you're getting right, like, yes, really seeing humanity and culture, and even God and a different picture in each of these different cultures.
Jessica Moore 45:52
Yeah, right. It was definitely an overload there. I tend to do that. But I saw I go to Ecuador, and I lived actually with a missionary family. But they did things kind of different, where they didn't live on like their, their separate for a lot of missionary communities. They've got their own separate land. And I forget the word for that. But you know, it's kind of like their own gated community. But these missionaries, they were very much about like, no, we want to be in with the people. We want to live in the city when we want to, you know, we're not trying, they weren't really trying to start a church or convert anyone. They were just wanting to, of course, like, you know, spread the gospel in some way. But it was like, setting up the other Ecuadorians to it was kind of like building up Ecuadorian leaders. They didn't want to be the leaders. But I mean, at the time, I was like, oh, that sounds a lot better instead of trying to be this white savior. But I can look back now like now, there's still a little bit of yc.
David Ames 46:47
It turns out, it's difficult to escape your own culture and wanting to distribute your culture to other cultures. Yes,
Jessica Moore 46:55
yes. And that was the thing. And you know, it was kind of it was great. I mean, Ecuador is I was living in the Amazon. And that was pretty intense. The jungle is very intense. It is the anti sexy, I'll tell you that. very humid, all of that. But again, just kind of observing, I wasn't really trying to change anything. And I couldn't speak very fluent Spanish, or even kind of there. They have like Spanish mixed with their jungle tribes. And so I really couldn't contribute in that way. It was just, I just kind of wanted to live in a different culture, see what was going on observe and but I was like, kind of the helping hands for the mission. They had two daughters. And so it was kind of like, I was not the nanny, but just, you know, helping hands for the family. And that was great. But there was also things that I took away of like, I don't see how scripture things that I was taught how they can be applied to this culture. Like, for example, I'm just gonna give monist modesty, like, Here are these people in the middle of the jungle, and they're literally wearing strings, like, yeah, thin strings. And a body is just a body. It's not sexualized, nothing, and they can walk around, basically naked. And that's not a problem. But yet, if I were to say, oh, modesty, you know, they're not modest. They need to cover up because being naked as a sin, it was like, Well, wait a second, like that doesn't that doesn't match up here. So how is it that it's a sin in my culture? You know, where I grew up? I hear you are in the jungle. And it's not. So there was I mean, that sounds kind of like an elementary comparison there. But it was kind of like me noticing that certain scripture cannot be applied to every culture, right? So it was like, What are we doing here?
David Ames 48:42
You're experiencing that firsthand, right? If you're in 90 degree weather with 98% humidity, and oh, that's a rational thing to do is yes, that was little floating around as possible.
Jessica Moore 48:54
Where strings that makes so much sense. Yeah. Yeah. So it was kind of like, yeah, there was just some things where I'm like, Well, how is it like, if we think God is also this powerful God, and He wants everyone to know Him and to go to heaven? Why is it always Americans that are going into these places? And isn't God big enough to, you know, meet or show up in the jungle? Like how he apparently did with Paul, you know, it was kind of like, where are we getting this, that we need to do this for other people? And why is it all I mean, I know that there's also other missionaries in other countries, but it's no big deal, you know, American families. I was just kind of confused of just like, I feel like if God really wanted these Ecuadorians to go to know more about him, he would have provided another way maybe or it was like, but we're still trying to change their culture. We're still trying to Americanize them and that just didn't feel right. So I come back and definitely had to do a whole lot of I was there for six Hans and had to do a little bit of you know, that the reverse culture shock is very real. And yeah, it took some time to kind of like debrief and be like, Okay, I've had these two experiences here, one in the Middle East one in South America, what do I and here I am in America, church just doesn't feel right anymore. Like I could not stand there anymore with these fog machines and worship music and, and our problem seems so petty. And I was just like, I can't, I can't do this. And so this is kind of where my my views like I still held on to my faith, and I still believed in Jesus and God, but yet the other things of what felt like I needed to do whether that be go to church, or even like my prayer, life change, where I'm like, these, all these problems seem really petty now, like, I can't, and that's where it was, like, you know, I'm not even going to worry about evangelizing anymore sharing the gospel, it was just I wanted to stay in my lane of like, I don't know the answers anymore. Where at first, I felt like I was pretty certain on, you know, whether I could tell if someone was saved or not. I don't care. You know, I'm not God, I'm backing off. And I'm just, I'm just gonna stay in my lane. Yeah. And so that's kind of where I was for a while of just, you know, I feeling very comfortable. And, well, I shouldn't say very comfortable, but just kind of riding. riding the wave of being a Christian had my thoughts and opinions not feeling great about church necessarily, or even how to read Scripture anymore. But I was like, you know, you and me, God, I got this and, but also feeling like way more open to having relationships with people that weren't Christian and opening up my bubble a little bit, because for so long, it was just this Christian bubble. And I was a barber for a long time. And yeah, for eight years and, and at first, like what I was doing here, it was like, that was gonna be my mission that like, this is how I get to spread the Gospel. Just how embarrassing. Like, just No, just cut hair. Because yes, because that's your job. You don't have to make it into a ministry. Yeah. And so but through that, like, I've met such great people, and that's where I was starting to recognize like, just because you're a Christian doesn't mean squat. Like it just I'm meeting these people who are so kind, loving, who, who don't claim to know Jesus or go to church, and they were loving, open and accepting. And I'm like, Okay, what is this? Like? What have I been taught here of like, I think I've heard this from your guests as well, it was like you are you're taught you have like this secret to life. And like you, you can tell when someone else is a Jesus follower. It's like, oh, and you're kind of formed that club a little bit. It's Clicky. And I just didn't want I didn't like that. I didn't want to be part of that. And I'm finding all these other great people that still, you know, are very loving. But I think there was still kind of a prejudice where I'm like, you would be so much better if you knew Jesus. You're so close. Kind of like how I viewed Mormons, too. When I was younger, I've just been like, Oh, you've got it, but you're not quite there. That's still followed me. Now more at which I think all of this has kind of been the start of deconstruction a little bit, but kind of more of like, okay, this is where it really, my deconstruction journey started was, I was starting to date and I was becoming more open to that. And because my standards were pretty high have they had to be a Christian and I had to be this super. I don't know, I think I was maybe looking for a pastor, but just someone that was so devoted to Christ. Yeah. And I was also told just throughout the years of just like, oh, it would take such a strong leader to lead you, Jessica. I don't even mean I'm like, What am I doing? Like, I thought this was the goal here. Like I thought, like, I'm supposed to be this godly woman isn't that what's appealing, but apparently was pretty intimidating for some dudes, so
David Ames 54:07
just want to comment on that, like, you took it very seriously. And you had a sense of responsibility to spread the gospel. You know, whether I don't know if you put that in terms of ministry for yourself, but even talking about cutting hair as as ministry. Yeah. You know, women are taught to do all this to be ministers, right? And then at the very end to say, Well, no, but you can't actually lead. And that is just ridiculous, right?
Jessica Moore 54:31
Yes, it was just kind of like, well, what the heck am I doing then? What am I wasting my time on? Yeah, it was like, doo doo doo. And then once the time actually comes, like, just so I meet this guy who is now my boyfriend, and he is not a Christian. And hello, oh, boy, you know, but I was like, I'm just gonna, you know, I just kind of wanted to date without this pressure of like, is he the one because I think that's also a huge part of, you know, what we're taught in purity culture or whatever is like You got to know right away. And so I dated and he is this awesome person and he was, quote unquote, pursuing me the right way. And he was respecting my boundaries and all these things. But yeah, he just had one thing missing. He wasn't a Christian. The longer I was dating him, the longer you know, people really started to chime in and was a hey, you know, you're really playing with fire here. You, you know, are you sure you want you don't forget what you really want. And you know, meaning this, you know, not being unequally yoked basic, right. Yes. And, and I still felt like I was like, Yeah, that's true. Like, I know, well, I thought at the time, like marriage, or any kind of relationships can not work. Unless you have Jesus in them like that I had no other knowledge of how relationships work. It was just if you believe in Jesus, and you are you have relationship with Jesus, both of you, you're gonna be great, you're gonna be golden. And that is so not true. And but that was like the only glue that would work. And so I did break up with him for a few weeks. And he was like, no, no, no, what's going on here? And it was just kind of like, I had to share, like, oh, I can't be with you. Because yada yada, you're not a Christian. And he was like, Well, you've never asked me and so then comes this journey of me trying to convert him. And me converting him kinda was the start of D converting me basically. Right. And he really did try, like we met with pastors, and we, he read the Bible. He said the prayer, I told him what to say. And I'm and on the other end of me just like pleading, asking God, like, why aren't you reaching him? And why aren't you answering him? Like he's trying so hard? Whether it was his motives was to be with me, it was like, come on, like, Don't you want this person to know you? And so it was kind of like, it wasn't so much of like, I came to this point like, well, maybe God isn't real. It was more of maybe what I've been taught of how someone knows Christ is not true, then that kind of started the the domino effect of like, well, if this might have been like a manmade myth, what else is?
David Ames 57:19
Yeah? What a dangerous question. Yes, yeah. And I
Jessica Moore 57:23
went to therapy. And just because there, there was a lot going on, and I didn't think it would have anything to do with my religious programming. But she read right through that. She kind of was pointing out some things of like, well, where why can't you be with someone who doesn't believe the same things you do as well, because we can't be unequally yoked. And she was kind of challenging that again, of, well, how do we know that's talking about marriage? And I was like, Oh, you're right. And so it was kind of like this domino effect of? Yeah, well, we're all just kind of taking scripture and interpreting it however we want to. And I really appreciate that my therapist was able to do that. Because I mean, on her bio, of how I found her, it says, Christian, and so that's how I picked her. But really, I don't know if if in person, she would describe herself as that maybe, I mean, she was definitely more liberal and opened my eyes. But if I wouldn't have just picked up, just a normal therapist, like Christian had to be in front of it, because I wouldn't have thought I could trust them. And so I'm grateful. I know, I'm so lucky to have found a therapist who was who could challenge my thoughts. And I trusted that, and she was more liberal. And so that's kind of how some of the things of like, yeah, what I was taught, just seeing that, like, yeah, maybe they really aren't true. And then also just kind of like, seeing more of where I've maybe had more spiritual abuse, and gaslighting and just some of the language I was using within my sessions. She kind of was like, hey, you know, some of the things you're saying kind of sound like someone who might have been brainwashed. And honestly, that felt, I don't know what a normal response would have been. But it was kind of like, Oh, thank goodness, like, yeah, because all of this inner turmoil or what I was searching for it, just, you know, the the intensity and devotion that I had, and still never feeling like I was measuring up or something was off. And for her to say, Hey, this is, you know, I think, you know, there may have been some brainwashing or programming or conditioning going on. It was like, Oh, that makes so much more sense now. Right. And of course, that had to do a lot of undoing. And so that kind of came the process of recovery and going through that process of all deconstruction of what we do have just kind of like the grieving process the the trying to figure you feel like you're it's your first day on Earth again, and yeah, it took a couple years after that. I'm just really that grieving part of like, wow, I had such strong devotion. What was it all for? Right? And then you just start to learn how to be trying to figure out what is normal. And what is truth outside of this bubble that you were taught. It's kind of like I heard your guys's episode on The Truman Show. That's exactly what it feels like it just, you're like, Whoa, there's this whole other world and I don't know how to function in it. Yeah, that was kind of the chink in the armor there of just being with my, my boyfriend and trying to convert him. And he asked really legit questions. And when I couldn't answer them, I think there was a lot of things of like, oh, my gosh, I should know this. And, yeah, there was just a whole lot of a mix with of trying to convert him yet. Here I am deconstructing, and so still trying to hold on tight to my faith. But really what I was trying to hold on to, when I think about it, it wasn't so much my faith in Jesus, it was trying to hold on to this good girl persona. And that was being challenged. And then from then on, I can't even say that I lost my faith, it really just kind of dissipated. It was like trying to grab a cloud and you can't it was gone. And then it was digging a little deeper into okay, maybe these manmade rules aren't true. So now what do I do about the Holy Spirit? What is that? And what do I do about this whole Jesus character then like, because I really thought that I had this personal relationship. And I had watched this documentary on, I think it's on Amazon Prime, but it's called Marketing Jesus. Okay. And so good. It was really fascinating, just kind of like watching. I think that's kind of where I got my first history lesson of how the Christian church even started and how even Jesus came about and digging deeper into Bart Ehrman. And just Yeah, knowing more of like, how did we get how did we build this character base? Yes. How did we build this Jesus? And I remember so vividly, I've just kind of like that was kind of like the last thing of like, okay, what do I do about Jesus? I figured out about these No, not totally figured out. But I've kind of made peace a little bit about these certain rules that I was following that aren't true. The Holy Spirit, what do I do about this Jesus? And when I found this perspective of how maybe we are how over history and over time of how this Bible was created, how Jesus was, came about all this, I was just kind of like, oh, my gosh, Jesus isn't real. And I mean, now I like, you know, did you live? Do you know, I don't know. It doesn't really matter to me right now. But it was kind of that part of like, feels like I was I learned about Santa Claus again. That you're that Santa? Yeah, I think in that moment, it was that was kind of like, okay, I really don't believe this anymore. And I can't deny maybe there's a higher power, I don't really, I don't care. I mean, I think there are certain ways to connect in spirituality, such a broad term. And I think that's the beautiful thing about it. And because Christianity gave me spirituality in certain form, and that really just put it in a box. But when you take that box away, spirituality can be anything. And I think that can be really fun. And useful or not, you don't have to use that and or deal with that and or be a part of your practice spirituality.
David Ames 1:03:36
Jessica, you've done a lot of work after this deconstruction process for you, you have a life coaching that is specifically around religious recovery and spiritual views, as well as purity culture, we have a blog, just like you to talk about the work that you've done, kind of on this side of deconstruction.
Jessica Moore 1:03:54
Sure, yeah. Thanks for asking about that. So, you know, life coaching and deconstruction, I don't know if everyone needs a coach necessarily, because again, I think deconstruction is, you know, it's so personal, you don't even know that you're doing it. And until you kind of through it, you're like, oh, that's what that was. But my coaching is to kind of help with that whole process of what to do after you've questioned some of those things. And now, just that moment of where you feel stuck of, how do I go forward, and also just kind of picking apart of how religious programming can still show up in your life, whether you're still part of church or not, kind of like the codependency or the people pleasing, like that's still very prevalent that can start in religion, and it doesn't just go away. The other part of with coaching, it's not so much like a new mindset, but just digging a little deeper as to how trauma or the certain things can be stored in our body and how to kind of move through that. And so that's a huge part of what I do, and especially with impurity culture, I'm very obviously Within my story that's very important to me of just educating of like, okay, how do we have healthy sexuality? Again? How do we have autonomy over ourselves? And what does that look like and learning how to communicate those things with, you know, partners and or prospective people. And so it's kind of, yeah, that whole new world of what we're learning how to be human again. And so, yeah, that's a lot of what I do, and just hoping to be a person that sometimes I wish I would have had someone along with me in my deconstruction journey, who could have walked me through those things. So that's not always a fit for everyone. I think a lot of people are different, and they can move forward, and they're good. And but for anyone who just feels a little stuck, needs help with understanding how religious programming may affect you negatively, but also, like, there are things that can show up that are maybe good things, you know, to kind of not throwing it all out. But just noticing how some good things could have come from it if that's what the person wants. And making peace with your past, I think is a huge part. And knowing how to move forward in the futures is a huge part of what I do in coaching and going through those stages of recovery with the confusion and the Yeah, making peace and learning how to in the stages of grief and how to release some of these things, I think is a huge part of the healing journey. So yeah, it's been very fun. I'm really enjoying it and hope to help more people
David Ames 1:06:34
along the way. Fantastic. Yeah, we say so often that it's such a lonely, isolating process to go through so somebody can reach out to you and have someone to just say, Yeah, I've been there. That makes such a huge difference. Just anymore. I want to give you an opportunity to tell people how they can get in touch with you. What's the website? How can they find you?
Jessica Moore 1:06:53
Sure. Yeah. So my website is Jessica Moore coaching.com, my Instagram is becoming you dot coaching. Yeah, you can find me there on some of the religious recovery and coaching stuff on that. And my blog is called series of expansion, but it's also on my coaching website. So that's a great way to connect with me, you can email me or DM me, whatever.
David Ames 1:07:15
Awesome. We'll definitely have links in the show notes for that. I want to thank you personally for doing this conversation twice. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate you giving us your time.
Jessica Moore 1:07:25
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for giving me a second chance.
David Ames 1:07:33
Final thoughts on the episode. One of the ideals that drives this podcast is brutal self honesty and vulnerability. And Jessica really brings that to the table in this conversation. Jessica's story is fascinating from beginning to end, the growing up in Utah, Salt Lake City around Mormons and feeling like she was on the outside. The experience of feeling both the pressure to evangelize the Mormons around her, as well as being a target of proselytizing is just absolutely fascinating. Then going on to, in effect, be a missionary in various parts of the world, including Israel on the Palestinian side and on the the Israeli side, going to South America, and then the culture shock of coming back to the United States. That really would give you a feel for the diversity of humanity and would make the confines of Christianity very difficult to remain in. Jessica is also very honest about putting pressure on herself to be a godly woman that she felt from an early age, he needed to be this picture of a godly woman she had in her mind, and she was driving towards that at all times. The purity culture that taught her these things is also what was so damaging, the lack of sex education, the lack of understanding and then of course, the natural desire for young people to connect with each other intimately led to a scenario where she did not give her consent, and I have no problem calling that rape. I grieve for Jessica and that experience and I grieve even more because I know that she's not alone that she is not the only one who has gone through this that probably many people listening to her story are thinking me too. And I agree for that. The hope in Jessica story is that coming out of purity culture, she can recognize the absurdity of the purity culture the absurdity of caring about virginity at all the absurdity of trying to live up to an impossible standard and seeing yourself as somehow less than human. Another focus of this podcast Just the embracing of our humanity that includes our sexuality includes our emotions and includes what the church can sometimes call sin. It is all of us, all of us as a human being that makes us whole and embracing that and accepting that is secular Grace loving oneself is secular grace. Near the end there, Jessica mentions an Amazon Prime video called marketing the Messiah. links in the show notes, I did watch that it is really pretty good at especially talking about the anonymous nature of the Gospels. The fact that Paul and his writings are written first. And Paul has a vision of Jesus, and so that we rarely do not have eyewitness accounts of Jesus in the New Testament at all. If that's your kind of thing, check that out. I want to thank Jessica for being on the podcast and especially for the vulnerability and the honesty that she brings to the table. You can find Jessica's work at Jessica more coaching.com. She's on Instagram at becoming you dot coaching. Thank you, Jessica for being on the podcast. The secular gray slot of the week is about grief. Last week was Thanksgiving in the United States. I talked about gratitude, and how important that is an attitude of gratitude. And I like these segments to be kind of honest, like what I'm feeling in the moment and I'm right now I'm feeling grief. I'm feeling grief about the shootings in Colorado Springs, the shootings all over the United States, the fact that people are dying for no good reason, the LGBTQ community and the grief that they are going through. I'm grieving having listened to Jessica's story, and hearing the damage that purity culture has done to people hearing the experience of what is rape and the grief that many people have experienced in a scenario just the same as Jessica. I feel grief for the last time the wasted effort. I feel grief for feeling so gullible. As I said before, when we were believers, we had something we could do in these scenarios, we could pray and we no longer have that crutch to lean on. So we must lean on one another. My encouragement to you is to join the community on Facebook dot com slash groups slash deconversion. Become a part of that community. Consider yourself if you are able to start a meetup.com meetup in your area and just get two or three people together and talk about your experience and maybe even your grief. As I said in the intro, we're about 99% You're going to become a part of the atheist United Podcast Network. That does mean that we will have ads on the podcast beginning in 2023. So that you have the opportunity to have an ad free experience I have started a Patreon account patreon.com/graceful Atheists if that is something you are interested in, please join that if you are currently giving via the anchor.fm and stripe that will stop at the end of 2022 I don't think that you will have to do anything to change that I will be able to stop it on my end. Next week is Arlene interviewing Nikki papas. And then the following weeks will be me interviewing Arlene and then Arlene interviewing me and then we'll take a break and begin 2023 with the discussion about the atheist United Podcast Network and joining there. Until then, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be graceful human.
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 breast 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? And 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 would 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 race. 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
Ben and Ang have been married for seventeen years. They met as tender home-schooled church-kids. They married young, and the church’s “formula” worked well for a while.
They were mostly happy and went on to have kids of their own. But little things from childhood would pop up now and then—purity culture shame, fear of emotions, fear of the end of the world…
In June of 2016, the shooting at Pulse nightclub “broke” Ang, and she knew she had to find a different way forward. By 2017, they both were out of church—Ben trying to save their marriage; Ang trying to save herself.
Now, Ben and Ang are navigating a new and more intimate life together. They’re both agnostic, defining agnosticism a little differently from one another, but they both agree—this life is most important, and it must be lived to the fullest!
“I went from thinking that religion was a kind and helpful tool that could get you through life to very terrified.”
—ANG
“If it wasn’t for [Ang] going through [her own journey], I would probably still be at the same church doing the exact same thing I’ve been doing my whole life because that’s all I know.”
—BEN
“That’s part of the design of a lot of modern-day religion. They don’t want you to ask questions because then you might not want to go anymore.”
—BEN
“…it wasn’t that I wanted to stop believing. It was that I wanted to save myself.”
—ANG
“I made a choice—even if it meant my salvation, and it did—I said, ‘I choose to live right now.’ I had to save my own life.”
—ANG
“We love our Sundays!”
—BEN
“We love Sundays. I feel more at peace now on a hike in the woods than I ever felt in a church.”
—ANG
“There’s this ‘church formula’ where if you do this, this, this and this, your life’s going to be great and everything’s going to be wonderful. We were doing all those things, but we were struggling…”
—BEN
“To step back and look at it from the outside, you can really see that things aren’t how [the Church portrays] it to be.”
—BEN
“They either sell you on the promise of a great life and a great eternity in heaven or they try to scare you with an eternity in hell.”
—BEN
“In my little mind, I thought, If they can’t see me; they can’t hurt me.”
—ANG
“…gray is my favorite color because life is in the gray. It’s not all black and it’s not all white.”
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!
“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
“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats
Transcript
NOTE: This transcript is AI produced (otter.ai) and likely has many mistakes. It is provided as rough guide to the audio conversation.
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
She married at eighteen and expected to have a similarly happy marriage as her parents, but no matter how hard she worked—both literally and metaphorically—that was not going to happen. Heather felt like a spectator, watching the men around her plan her life.
It took years of a one-sided marriage, churches refusing to help and zero answered prayers for Heather to realize she had to be her own savior. Once she had a well-paying job and more education, she no longer needed others to rescue her or her family.
Heather now enjoys a life that is her own and no one else’s. She is the trustworthy one. She can look to herself—her own intuition, her own knowledge and education—for what is best for her. That is a sweet gift that no one can take from her.
Contact
trustworthy.wells@gmail.com
#AmazonPaidLinks
Quotes
I have the freedom and confidence to call myself, Trustworthy.
“…the men were deciding my fate. I was just a bystander.”
…I tried to trust God, and I prayed a lot.
It’s a little easier for women to be financially trapped, especially coming from the Christian background where training in other skills is not always encouraged for women. So what else are they going to do?
…I started to think, Is this a cult that I’m in? because if we can’t consult with anybody else or counsel with anybody else and they don’t want me to visit certain people…”
…the scales fell off of my eyes and I began to see things for what they were…I had been praying for so long and there had never been an answer.
If God has this plan for my life, and I’m just ‘with the wrong people,’ why should that get in the way of an all-powerful god. That doesn’t really make sense.
Once I had financial security, that’s when I could drop all of the weight: I’ll be okay…Now, I can support myself and my children.
The further I stepped away from region, my world got bigger and bigger and bigger.
…Christianity often teaches you not to trust yourself.
Even if it feels as though everything has been stripped away from me, and it looks like there’s nothing left, I can be something…I’m going to be something amazing and beautiful and imaginative. I just need to give myself the chance…
Humanist author and speaker, Joe Simonetta, grew up in a Catholic home with good values. He and his brothers “did well,” and he is thankful for the foundation his parents gave him. As a young man, affected by all the suffering in the world, he vowed to be part of the solution. He has lived a fascinating life, holding degrees from multiple universities, traveling extensively and enjoying all kinds of professions. His full bio is available here.
Joe is hopeful about the future and has three basic rules that he believes can change the future for humanity: Be healthy. Be kind. Respect the environment.
“What triggered me was ‘suffering.’ When I observed the suffering in the world, it really disturbed me.”
“All the while I had this in the back of my mind; this concern about the state of humanity…”
“I said to myself, Do I really have to read all these books? [Metaphysics and religion] could not be this complicated.”
“As I studied all the world religions, it just hit me: There’s nothing here…This is old stuff…the products of our infancy of our intelligence.”
“Everything is connected to everything else. We exist, not separately, but in communion with all other living things…Everything’s in relationship. That’s the nature of the universe.”
“What level of thinking are we at? What level of thinking do we need to get to? And how do we get there?”
“These primitive instincts and emotions which are a biological reality and these antiquated and divisive and dysfunctional supernatural religious beliefs…are a lethal combination of behaviors…and they must be overcome.”
“Religion is clearly an obstacle to human progress.”
“The current great extinction is caused by…us! It’s caused by humanity.”
This week’s guest is the content creator, @boundless_and_free. Boundless grew up in a good Christian home, attended a PCA church and believed all was well in her life. She would later learn the term CPTSD and understand that her “good Christian upbringing” was not quite what she’d thought.
In college, Ms. Free first experienced anxiety and depression but had no vocabulary for it. (The Church rarely discusses these things.) It wasn’t until the “perfect life” she’d been promised began to unravel that she realized she needed a different way to understand both “god” and herself .
Now, as a “parts work” therapist, she helps others on their own journeys. Her personal experience of the divine centers around the ways that humans are connected to one another and the universe.
Once again—whether someone leaves religion and becomes an atheist or continues on a spiritual journey—the real purpose in life comes from connecting with other people. We are all in this together, and we each get one life to leave this world better than we found it.
A Course in Miracles by Foundation for Inner Peace
Instagram profiles
@thejeffreymarsh
@jystsaysk
@aftergodsend
@francescafemme
@christenacleveland
@thepracticeco
@drlauraanderson
@reclamationcollective
@hillarymcbride
@methodsofcontemplation
@blackliturgies
@stewartdantec
@kevinjamesthornton
@abraham.piper
Quotes
“I should have been being a teenager, and here I [was] thinking about predestination.”
“…because, of course, if you’re a Christian, you can’t get depressed!”
“I spent every morning praying. I had done all the devotionals…What did I have to be depressed about? I just couldn’t understand it.”
“I look back now at my sweet, young self and think, Honey, what do you mean you have nothing to be depressed about? Look at all the things!”
“So many people in the church don’t talk about mental health.”
“[Depression] has a strong connection to what’s happening inside your body. It’s not just something you can snap out of; it’s not just a mood.”
“[Anxiety and depression] are very connected. They’re often two sides of the same coin.”
“When my body was starting to break down…its way of telling me something was wrong. It was trying to get my attention.”
“My body is this big source of wisdom…this guide that can teach me.”
“We tried really hard to follow the rules [of purity culture], and it had a cost. It had a cost for a lot of people.”
“We were alienated from our bodies. We were told this home that we live in—this beautiful trustworthy home…was bad and wrong and would lead us astray.”
“…a lot of what was keeping me in church was the fear of leaving.”
“I hope I’ll always be in a place of curiosity and wonder for the rest of my life.”
This week’s guest is Daniel. Daniel is a social scientist with a master’s degree in psychology. He grew up in the United Church of Canada, but church wasn’t a huge part of his life until high school. He then went to bible college and worked in ministry. He tried to experience God like others were, but it just wouldn’t happen.
He took on the “Office of Skeptic,” for himself. He hoped it would help both his faith and the church. He could articulate questions and doubts that others couldn’t. Were these miraculous stories true? Was God really even there? If so, what the hell was he doing?
Unfortunately, this only kept him in the church longer than he needed. By 2020, he’d been an agnostic theist for years and was finally seeing the harm done in North America by White Christianity.
Now Daniel writes and speaks, sharing his knowledge with those struggling with addictions and other mental health needs. He no longer looks to the supernatural for miracles but knows how much human connection is the true healer.
“I was now immersed in a group where experiencing the presence of God—like spiritual experiences during worship services—was very common, and I could never manage to actually feel those things.”
“[I had a]…brief but memorable career as a Christian Ghostbuster…”
“He took me under his wing and informed me that why I couldn’t feel God’s presence was because it was all blocked by demons. Obviously.”
“Why do you believe that? What evidence do you have for this? Can your observations or experiences be explained by more mundane means or is the spiritual explanation the best or only explanation?”
“To have someone convince [another person that they don’t need their] anti-psychotics because of [their] faith is something that hadn’t even occurred to me before…it was deeply alarming and stuck with me for years afterward.”
‘[In seminary,] many professors would make logically sound arguments but they’d be based on assumptions or premises that were unfounded…”
“For many of the Christian intellectuals I was trying to learn from…critical thinking was a valued skillset up to a point. When we approach the underlying tenants of the faith, we’re suppose to stop…they’re simply too sacred to be questioned.”
“I was trying to find a reason to stay.”
“It’s the human connection that we make between us that’s really changing our lives.”
“I was encouraged by my new [secular] professors to be absolutely ruthless in my pursuit of knowledge, truth and understanding.”
“Me staying in this religion…despite the fact that I was basically agnostic. It’s lending validation to all those Christians who are actively working to make the world a worse place…”
“If we don’t have practices in place—like scientific thinking, like the scientific method…we’re always going to be taken in by things that we’d rather believe or that are easier to believe.”
“Apologetics: Philosophy, but done badly.”
“I don’t shy away from uncomfortable questions or even more uncomfortable answers. That has been such a valuable change in my life and has led me to some incredibly valuable and beneficial relationships…even some from bible college.”
“I’ve come to the conclusion that the best are going to be ahead.”
“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats
Transcript
NOTE: This transcript is AI produced (otter.ai) and likely has many mistakes. It is provided as rough guide to the audio conversation.
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. I want to thank my latest reviewer on the Apple podcast store Manu Andrew, thank you so much for the kind words, you can rate and review the podcast on the Apple podcast store, you can rate the podcast on Spotify, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening. The deconversion anonymous Facebook group continues to thrive and many of its members have been guests including this week's guest, please consider joining the deconversion anonymous Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/deconversion. Special thanks to Mike T for editing today's show. On today's show, my guest today is Daniel. Daniel has a master's in psychology. He focuses on addiction psychology, Applied Psychology and Social Psychology enjoys the process of reading and interpreting research. And that's actually why he's here. Community member in had posted an article entitled here's how religion imprints us even when we walk away the article and ultimately the study underneath it were funded by the Templeton Foundation, which very much has a theistic bias, but it was still very interesting and prompted this conversation. Daniel has a fascinating personal story being bright and inquisitive. He stayed in the church for longer than he would have by taking on the concept of the Office of the skeptic within the church until he found he could no longer believe. Daniel also discovered that he has the attention deficit side of ADHD. And that plays a fascinating part of his story of deconstruction and deconversion as well. Here is Daniel to tell his story.
Daniel, welcome to the graceful atheist podcast.
Daniel 2:20
Thanks for having me. Daniel, we
David Ames 2:22
had an interaction with each other in the deconversion anonymous Facebook group, we were discussing a Templeton article about people who D convert, and I just thought your responses were incredibly cogent. And it turns out that you have some expertise. So you had real input here. And so I'm really excited to have you on, I'd like you to just introduce yourself really quick and maybe talk about what that expertise is.
Daniel 2:50
Certainly, my name is Daniel. I'm Canadian. And I've also worked in mental health and addictions for just about a decade and a half. And my educational background, which made me most interested in commenting on that article we were mentioning, is that I have a Master's of Science in Psychology. And so throughout that process, I focused a lot on reading and assessing and interpreting research from very various perspectives in psychology, Applied Psychology and Social Psychology and learning how to recognize what's good research, what's bad research, and really been a big part of my life since then.
David Ames 3:33
Excellent. In the second half of the show, we're going to discuss the article that we just reference as well as just your experience in the field. But I want to hear your personal story first. So like we always do, what was your religious tradition growing up?
Daniel 3:48
So I grew up in a Presbyterian home, attending the United Church of Canada, which is an amalgamation of several denominations, including Presbyterian and Episcopalian, it's exclusive to Canada. My family was not especially conservative, nor were they especially liberal. And well, he would have said that we were Christians. Growing up, it wasn't something that was discussed very frequently. I do remember having conversations about it. You know, when our family dog died, I asked him, you know, what happened to him? And can we go visit him and those kinds of things, and that that gave me I think, like a lot of people when your family pet dies, you get a bit of that first touch of the fear of death, which is probably a depressingly common story. What one of the things that's important in contextualizing my growing up and my identity formation is the fact that I had undiagnosed ADHD. Now ADHD comes in a few different varieties and most people are most familiar with the hyperactive subtype because that's the most outwardly visible. I flew under the radar because I had primarily inattentive type, which was less recognized in the 80s and 90s. Mostly just meant that people viewed me as a bit of a space cadet. I was insatiably curious but unfocused, I was frequently accused by my teachers of being lazy. It also able to work in bursts and for lengths of time and accomplish things soon as incredibly quickly. So I was identified as gifted, but unmotivated. Yeah, something I'm sure. Yeah, exactly. Now, a lot of neurodivergent children, including people with primarily inattentive, ADHD, struggle with relationships, and understanding how to act around other people in ways that are considered normal. So like a lot of people who grew up with similar experiences, I would often mimic the people around me or attach myself to stronger personalities and groups, and take on their opinions in order to fit in and to feel safe and accepted. This, I would go undiagnosed until I was about 27. When I was a teenager, I was invited to an evangelical youth group, and that little voice of curiosity inside of me had this whole new world to explore. I identified more and more strongly with this new group, though, I also learned a lot of new things like the evangelical concept of salvation and hell, which really amplified that fear of death that I'd had growing up. After a year in that group, I prayed the center's prayer and was baptized again, even though I'd already been baptized as an adult. I guess I needed a second coat. Yeah. And then my life really revolved around church, I attended youth group a couple times a week, as well as church on Sundays, I gained a valuable group of friends, couple of whom still talk to me today. But despite the fact that I had a new group to identify with, I was still struggling in a lot of areas. One was identity and identity formation, I still difficulty forming opinions of my own, I'd gravitate towards the strongest pains in the group without really putting a lot of time and effort into thinking about them. The other issue is that I was now immersed in a group where experiencing the presence of God and having spiritual experiences during worship services, and so on, was very common. And I could never manage to actually feel those things. I think partly because, while I was very curious, I also I didn't, I didn't lie to myself very easily, I, people would say, I'd really felt the presence of God during that song, I would go, I don't know what that means, like, Tell me about it, and how do I get there too, so they would often talk about experiencing the presence of God or feeling God's love or affection. And those weren't feelings I could just manufacture. So this led to years of rededicating my life to Christ and doing altar calls and trying to figure out what I was doing wrong and eventually going to Bible college, which gives me a big wake up call. This period of time is one that i semi affectionately refer to as my brief but memorable career as a Christian ghostbuster. Okay.
So, early into my first year of college, I, we were all supposed to find Christian ministries to, to volunteer with. And so in the first few weeks, I started to volunteer for a local Christian drop and Center. This center was run by a man that I can only describe now, with the benefit of hindsight as a, as a spiritually abusive megalomaniac. He ran out of this drop in center, in addition to, you know, play foosball and stuff with kids. He ran a deliverance ministry, which, for those of your listeners who don't know what that is, it's a ministry that revolves around casting out demons from people who don't know they have demons in them. Yeah, these demons could be demons of lust, demons of depression, demons of anxiety, all sorts of things you would normally find in Frank Peretti novels. If you ever read those?
David Ames 9:16
Absolutely, yeah. I distinctly recall the Christians around me in the late 80s, you know, being really influenced by Frank Peretti. And, and I was when I was thinking, this cannot be like, even as a as a believer, I thought, you know, this is this takes this too far, somehow.
Daniel 9:34
Well, I was the I was immersed in those books. I the church pastor gave them to me and said, like, this is really going to, you know, if you like Lord of the Rings, this is going to be great for you. And so I was very intrigued by this deliverance ministry, and the man took me under his wing and informed me that the reason why I couldn't feel God's presence is because it was all blocked by demons, obviously. And he also said that he wanted me to come in and work with him in his defense ministry because he had determined that I had the gift of discernment. So I could, according to him, I could feel when demons were nearby and I could tell what they were doing. And that was for an impressionable kid, especially one like myself, who was gravitating towards the strongest ideas in the room, and grew up reading sci fi and fantasy. This was, this was everything I'd hoped to hear. This was my Jedi moment. Gandalf had just sent me off. You know, Hagrid just told me I was wizard like, This is it? This is what I was waiting for. Yeah. So for a couple of months. That was, that was life, and I was becoming more invested in it. But there was one night where after the drop in, center had closed down, and we were doing the deliverance ministry stuff, one of the volunteers, were going to do something that was referred to as manifesting where it they appeared to be possessed by a demon, they spoken a strange voice, their behavior was very strange, very bizarre. And the deliverance ministry leader tried to have a showdown and exercise them which didn't do anything. And so four hours of this into the wee hours of the morning occurred. And after about four hours, the volunteers spouse, volunteer who was manifesting, their spouse showed up with a bottle of antipsychotics that the deliverance ministry leader had convinced him to stop taking, oh, wow, yeah, they took their antipsychotics and then they calmed down, and they went home. Okay. And I identified this retrospectively as a massive wake up call for myself, not only because I got exposed to a genuine, you know, mental health condition, that was misidentified as something spiritual, but because it made me realize, I was not thinking for myself, I was not thinking critically about what I was being told or what I believed. And if I wasn't careful, I was gonna get taken in by all kinds of foolish beliefs that would be harmful for myself and for others. That was the moment when I think the switch got flipped inside me when that voice of curiosity became the voice of skepticism. From that moment on, when people start telling me things about their experiences with God, about hearing the voice of Spirit with, you know, my my new reactions, they have to gravitate towards them and say, Oh, wow, like, Tell me more, I believe you. It was to put the brakes on the Start asking questions. Why do you believe that? What evidence do you have for this? Can your observations or experiences be explained by a more mundane means? Or is the spiritual explanation the best or only likely explanation? That also, this whole experience also really cemented my interest in psychology, and gave me an incredible amount of sympathy for people who were struggling with mental illnesses in the context of the church. To have someone convince you that you didn't need your anti psychotics, because of your faith was something that hadn't even occurred to me before that night, and immediately became deeply alarming. And something that stuck with me for years afterwards. So I stayed in Bible college and for the last half of Bible college, I connected with a few professors who were strong advocates of critical thinking, who helped me to grow those skills. I also benefited from being my wife, who had an incredibly strong bullshit detector. that to this day, is still much better than mine. So I left Bible college still a Christian, but a much more cautious person. And it will be a long journey for that newly planted skepticism to grow into agnosticism.
After college, I started working for Youth for Christ, ironically, also running a drop in center, but in a different community than the one I volunteered for I spent almost seven years there. I genuinely tried to do my best to improve people's lives. But my new skeptical outlook on life really made me question a lot of what we were trying to teach youth. And while I made a lot of friends with others in the ministry field, I often found rifts appearing between myself and those friends, I would question the things they were taking for granted, and things that they didn't want to be questioned. Throughout this whole time, my ongoing lack of any spiritual experience or feeling the presence of God, and all that still weighed on me, and I, it made me question if God was really there, which then brought up those fears of hell and fears of dying. But I'd read at some point during this period, I read CS Lewis is cosmic trilogy, which I'm not sure if you've read or not. I've read it. I've actually read it. Yeah. Which I actually really loved. It was a great series, and there's a character In the the final book, that hideous strength, named McPhee, and he's the only non believer in this group of people who are trying to save the world. And he's kind of presented as a as a bit of a dick. Like he's always questioning people. And he's always saying like, well, but are you sure? And no, could this not just be something in the weather or whatever? And, and he's, the other characters are obviously kind of irritated with him. But the leader of their group says, oh, no, he's our skeptic. And that's a very important office, you know, it's an office in the church, just like the office of priest, the Office of confessor, the Office of evangelist. And I identified with that so strongly, I thought, well, this is why I can't feel God is so that I can, I can hold this office and the church, the Office of the skeptic, that's my job. And that belief, I think, me in the church a lot longer than I might have otherwise.
David Ames 16:00
I relate to so much of this, Daniel, just so you know. I mean, that, you know, being marked out as, like having discernment. And, you know, I think bright analytical people within the church, get that tag and find it difficult to really get into the emotional experience that the people around them are having. And yet, you know, you're wanting to be a part of it so badly that you know, you're still continuing on, even though there's part of the kind of the back of your mind saying, is this quite right, it seems there's something maybe off,
Daniel 16:33
I can remember somebody reading somewhere, somebody had written about a similar experience, how much longer must I put up with such unbearable silence from the throne of heaven? I remember feeling that so deeply, like, yeah, like what, like, what the hell God, and this idea that, hey, you are fulfilling a special place in the church, you're, you're here to be the skeptic. The Catholic church even has somebody employed to go out and check on If miracles are legitimate or not at the office is referred to as the devil's advocate. And I sort of identified with that. And while I was in ministry, I actually went to seminary and threw myself into Bible classes, theology classes, philosophy classes, but also classes in counseling psychology, because that's what I was most interested in. That was the degree I was going for. A lot of the biblical theological philosophy courses were taught by professors who spoke very highly of critical thinking and the importance of a rational face. But more and more, I was convinced there were limitations on how they were applying their critical thinking. Many people, many professors would create logically sound arguments, but they'll be based on assumptions or premises that were unfounded or unsupportable, or non falsifiable. And I began to learn that for many of the Christian intellectuals, I was trying to learn from and trying to grow from critical thinking was a valued skill set to a point. When we approach these underlying tenets of the faith, we're supposed to stop and give those things some space, some things are just too sacred to be questioned, or too sacred to be skeptical about. You had a previous guest named Matthew, who said that he, he had to believe that somewhere somebody knew those answers, that would be sufficient. And you said to trust that guy knew what he was doing. He knows what he's doing. I'm okay. And I really related to that. I saw I looked for that person. I read Alister McGrath, Terry Eagleton, like tons of theologians and Christian philosophers, David Bentley, Hart, just trying to find that person. Yeah, I also read Christians who weren't philosophers, but who were scientists, Francis Collins, for instance, Human Genome Project, I sought for those strong rational arguments for God's existence that would help me satisfy that skeptical nature I had I kept finding that theological and historical arguments would either be flawed or erroneous or would run out long before my questions would. Even though I was actually seeking for that evidence. I think a lot of people think that when you when you leave the faith, it's because you were trying to find an excuse to I was trying to find a reason to stay. And outside of even the insulated North American Evangelical tradition, I found great Christian thinkers whose arguments also fell short and when their arguments ran out their reasons for believing boil down to personal experience. Yes, shutting have.
David Ames 19:38
Yeah, right. Okay.
Daniel 19:41
Yeah. So I kept asking, like, is this really all you guys have? Am I supposed to rely on your personal experience as a reason for my faith? And I was I was always disappointed.
So about 12 years ago, I left both ministry and seminary, and I transitioned to secular Employment First as a counselor working with adolescents. And then as a public health educator in the area of mental health addictions. If someone had asked me when I left ministry, at the time, it would have said that I was an agnostic theist. I was trying to believe, despite my doubts, and despite the lack of personal experience, yeah, I was disillusioned, but I was determined to keep on trying, still hoping I would find arguments for the existence of God, they were actually convincing. Like another one of your guests, Lars said, I was just I was holding on to hope that was all I had left was the hope. My faith for the next 10 years was almost completely intellectual. And more than ever, I told myself that this is because I was in the office of the skeptic. And I was just doing my best. I do want to stress though, and this is important to me, too, that there were many Christian thinkers, educators I encountered, who were very good for my growth and development. One man in particular, became my mentor in the counseling program. He had a strong scientific mindset, before he became a counselor and got his doctorate in that he had been a pharmacist. And one of the things he did outside of the seminary was give talks to churches and Christian groups about how it was okay for Christians to take antidepressants. He gave talks on the history of anti psychotics, and I went with him to some of those talks, and saw him change so many lives, and how I saw him open up churches to the possibility that we could actually feel better without having to feel guilty at the same time. And as he got older and, and moved away, he gave me his blessing to, to continue some of those talks. And I started giving those talks and similar talks on faith and mental illness, at churches, at Christian conferences, not only locally, but then actually across the country. And I was so gratified that he opened up that possibility for me, because I did hear from a lot of people who wound up deciding to get help, because of some of those talks. That mentor, stated, dear friend, and we stayed in touch for many years. And earlier this year, he he passed away due to cancer. Yeah, it was, it's a, it's, I count one of the greatest gifts I've received in my life, that I was able to speak to him the day before he died and tell him how much he meant to me, and how he changed the direction of my life. We didn't talk about faith or God, I just told them how much I loved him and loved what he did for me and the path he set me on. And the fact that he was still cognizant of our conversation and is able to respond and express his emotions for me as well. It's something that I really, I really valued. And I I'm still I still have very fond memories of that work that we did. Within the church.
David Ames 23:21
You know, again, just a lot of parallels my Bible college experience, I had a number of professors that were very focused on critical thinking, I had a mentor, theology professor who, you know, I refer to occasionally on the podcast, and I can see all the positive elements of that relationship and what I learned from those people, even though I'm no longer a believer, and I think you said the most important thing there that it was the, you know, the impact on your life from one human being to another wasn't about spirituality, it was about someone caring for you, guiding you and giving you mentorship
Daniel 23:59
and, and teaching me the value of being a good and empathic communicator. Watching him do public speaking, really lit the bug in it for me and I? I spent hundreds of hours over the last decade doing public speaking both through my work and outside of it. And, and every time I do, I can't I can't ever do it without thinking of him in some way. And like you said, it's that human connection that we we make between us that is really what's changing our lives and something I've just never regretted as the work that he and I did, even though I've, I've had cause to regret some of the things I did and said was in ministry should never, never has it been the work that he and I did.
David Ames 24:58
There's a number of direction means, I want to take, I want to wrap up just one element of what you talked about that I think is really important. And that is, in all of the skepticism and the doubt you were looking for a reason to believe you were looking for evidence to believe the fact that you were unable to find that evidence is not your fault in any way. And I think because sometimes the apologists approach is to blame. The doubter, like it's the doubters fault that they won't accept the argument. But as you pointed out, you begin to recognize the unfalsifiable falsifiability have a premise or it like you say, it can be a sound argument, but it's based on premises that don't have any founding.
Daniel 25:46
Exactly. And that all came even more clear to me when I left ministry and started continuing education. We did, we did join a new church, around the time I left ministry, it seemed to be a bit more progressive. And that was kind of fitting with the more liberal direction that I was leaning in. And I started going to a secular university, taking my master's in psychology and the degree because the science degree it focused heavily on social science, research methods, data interpretation, quantitative analysis. And this work only built on that skeptical, critical thinking foundation I've been building and been strengthening since I was encouraged by my new professors to be absolutely ruthless in my pursuit of knowledge and truth and understanding, especially when it came to things that I wanted to be true. So then I started saying things to myself like, well, you know, even if there's no God belonging to a church is good for community, and the church has a lot of good in the world. So I'm just going to, you know, I became even more agnostic, and then the pandemic hit. And that progressive church we belong to, just took a drastic turn, the pastor that I'd gotten to know and would have considered a friend and had over for beers. He believed COVID was a conspiracy, that there's something satanic going on. He was increasingly going into conspiracy theories from the pulpit, or from the Zoom call. And, and then also encouraging people to break restrictions. And many people in the church started doing that, at a time when, when not only was the pandemic really kicking off, and we were quite uncertain about what the the timeline was going to be like, there were other social issues coming up with the murder of George Floyd. And the pastor and the church really swung in a kind of awful direction on that, too. We tried having some talks in our church as a community about, hey, like, we should talk about systemic racism as a as a church. And the pastor had strong opinions that rationality and human compassion couldn't change. And because he was unwilling to budge church leadership, decided to say, well, you know, we're gonna follow our pastor and align themselves more closely with him, and a lot of people left the church. And it was around that time, I realized, you know, based on a few comments I'd received that, me staying in this religion, we identify myself as a Christian, despite the fact that I was basically agnostic, it's lending validation to, to all those Christians who are actively working towards making the world a worse place, or to oppress or to abuse others. And we often talk a lot, especially in the addictions field about validation how it's why people often will seek to use substances together, not just because it's more fun, but because it lends validation when you're, you know, when you're doing something that you think might not be the best for you. And again, this isn't to cast judgment on any amount of substance use more just to talk about the the psychological work we do to reassure ourselves that we're doing something that maybe not that might not be the best for us, it can be as simple as smoking cigarettes. Validation is also the feeling we seek when we're young and stupid and doing things with our friends that when people ask you, well, why did you do that? Once seemed like a good idea at the time, my friends. And I started realizing that I was I was an academic and social scientist and I was in the church. And there are people who were in the church were looking at me and saying, Well, he's still a belonging. So clearly, what we're doing must be okay. And that that really made me conclude that if I stayed I stayed identifying as a Christian. And I was probably doing more harm than good. And that was a decision I made for me. I don't think that that decision would be right for everybody. I think there's a lot of agnostic theist who choose to remain in the church and who do a lot of good in it. For me, I couldn't anymore. And so in the fall of 2020, I began to outwardly acknowledge the inner experience I've known for some time, right, that I was no longer a Christian, and I was an agnostic. And that was that. And that really kicked off an unfortunate period of time where I was very angry. At the church, I wouldn't say I was angry at God, because all of my angst about God really vanished when I realized I didn't think he existed. At least not in, not in the religious kind of sky god format like, is there? Is there an unmoved first mover? Is there something out there, like think when your previous guests, Doug mentioned, like cosmic brain, and we're all just cells in it? Like, I've got no idea? Yeah, but from a religious perspective, I just couldn't do it anymore. And so I wasn't angry at God. But I was angry at the church at specific Christians, groups that were doing COVID denial or secret mass church services, which we had a lot of those in our area, especially as I worked in health care, doing mental health addictions work, much of which actually revolved around supporting staff in the health care system. And so I was actually involved in several projects, helping to support staff who were overwhelmed by the results of the pandemic. I, you know, I throughout that process, I talked to and interviewed and worked with countless nurses and frontline staff, and frequently they break down in tears during our meetings, just that the death and the, the destruction they were experiencing in the system. And so to go from that, to see people I called friends, you know, sneaking out to do church, or buying fake masks on the internet, or spreading lies about vaccines, it was just an abhorrent to Me and I became very resentful and angry. And I'm sure like a lot of Yeah, like a lot of your listeners, I'm sure, just getting very stuck in that place. And unlike a lot of people with ADHD, when you get stuck in an emotional state, it can be even harder to get yourself out of it. Because your mind is, is racing and going over that rumination of your, of your grief and your anger and your frustration. And I was stuck there way longer than I should have been. And it was, it was some really hard realizations for myself and some conversations with my wife whose bullshit detector is still strong and was blaring when I was in the room to point out, Hey, you're not doing okay, you got to, you got to, you got to stop this. And I realized I was turning into one of those just ain't, you know, angry ex Christians. And that isn't what I want to be. And so I decided that I wanted to take a more gracious and graceful approach to life, I'd been putting the work in over the the latter half of the pandemic to really make some changes and try not to be such a jerk all the time.
David Ames 33:38
Well, I mean, you just stated the premise of the podcast, right? It's like, we want to first acknowledge that to be angry is good, right? There are times when you need that anger to push you out of the comfort zone, and you need to make that change. But that one doesn't want to remain within that anger for so long that it starts to hurt you because it's not really affecting the questions.
Daniel 34:00
Exactly. And what we often say in my field is that anger is a secondary emotion. Okay, you know, it happens because of something else. Anger comes from hurt, anger comes from grief, anger comes from fear. And so I had to kind of get to the roots of my anger, which which was grief. And then and since then, even though I do say, you know, agnosticism describes me perfectly. I identify as a humanist because humanist is a positive term talks about what you're working towards, not what you're working against.
David Ames 34:34
Absolutely. And for sure, when I'm talking to people that I don't know, I'll say I'm a humanist, rather than say I'm an atheist because I want to talk about what I do believe in people. Yeah. As opposed to what I don't believe in right
so a couple of things here. I want to dig into I wasn't in dissipating. But as we're talking, I want to dig into just a bit more, I want to talk about grief. And I want to talk about addiction as it applies to religion as well. But so much of the deconstruction deconversion process is grief, we are losing what can feel like for some people, their best friend, someone who knows them, who loves them. So it feels like loss of a very deep meaningful relationship, we potentially are losing friendships with family or friends, and then ultimately, we're leaving, we're probably losing community as well, for some of the reasons that you might remain for a long time. Because you you need that community and so grieving the loss of all of those things, is quite a lot to have happen all at one time.
Daniel 35:48
Yeah, exactly. And the the, the emotions will kind of compound on each other with interest. And, and especially if you are in communities where apostasy is is taken very seriously and responded to very punitively, then you're, you're going to be experiencing all the same feelings that somebody who's being attacked by anything, you know, attacked by a wild animal, you're going to your experience, your your fight or flight response, right, your your sympathetic nervous system is going to activate and you're going to live in a space where you've got all kinds of stress hormones, and such going through your system and your heart rate is going to be up all the time. And it's it's, it's exhausting. And it's, it's damaging to our, to our systems into our brains, living in a state is not sustainable.
David Ames 36:43
And then I wanted to talk about addiction in the sense of how it might apply to religion, I think the obvious example might be more charismatic Pentecostal expressions of faith that that should be a bit more emotional, there's, there's kind of an obvious dopamine hit in that experience. But even without that, I think you hinted at this idea of affirmation of experiencing the acceptance of the group. And so is this even a topic that is studied at all like that there's an addictive nature within spirituality or religion.
Daniel 37:18
I'm certain if you went down the Google Scholar rabbit hole far enough, you'd find something that somebody has published somewhere about it. I, you know, even working in the addictions field. We don't even use the word addiction that much we use words like substance use disorder, and, and so on. And one of the reasons is because there's a lot of there's a lot of behaviors that are that are harmful, that fall into a category where we would identify it as an addiction, that have nothing to do with drugs, you look at look at gambling behavior, for instance, problematic gambling, also gives dopamine hits, you know, in similar fashions as substances do. You look at sex addiction you look at now, like online gaming, addiction, and, and all those things, there's, you know, the word addiction can get attached to them. And there's lots of you know, there's there's lots of politics around it sometimes. And there's lots of baggage around the word. And what we often talk about is maladaptive behaviors. These are behaviors serving a purpose. Now, all addictions are maladaptive behaviors, but not all maladaptive behaviors or addictions. So some maladaptive behaviors could be, for instance, you, you go through relationships in with certain patterns that always end up in, in tears and self destruction in the end, because that's, you know, that fits your that fits your personality that fits your upbringing, it fits kind of how you were, how you were raised, or the patterns or relationships that you experienced. Now, that might not be an addiction, even though people seem to do it compulsively. But it is a maladaptive behavior. So I would say that there's a lot going on with religious experiences, in particular. So you mentioned dopamine, as well, in neurotransmitters that really gets activated when you're having an ecstatic experience. Another would be endorphins, you know, which are some of the neurotransmitters that get impacted by the brain's opioid system. So things like heroin, that's probably a very similar feeling. So yeah, I think that there's definitely something to be said for looking at looking at people who retreat to those things, as a as a way of unhealthy coping. But I would also say just as much there's there's benefits from religious groups or from community in general that religious groups can provide. I think the important factor to remember there is just like you pointed out earlier, these benefits are occurring because of humanity. They're occurring because of human connection and in connection. I, I worked in ministry for almost seven years, I've worked in the, you know, mental health addictions field for over a decade, I've never seen anybody who just spontaneously got made better from these things, because because God did it. Right, I wouldn't count a lot of people who would say, Well, you know, religion was important part of my recovery, and they would find out how their religious community was there for them. And, and I think that's a, that's a benefit that we should think carefully about losing as we talk about, you know, church, attendance declining, not a bad thing, necessarily, but what are we replacing it with? We need to be diligent and trying to create community. And I think that the community you've created online, as, as part of that, certainly,
David Ames 40:48
definitely, I'm very conscious of, you know, trying to build some form of community, because you can't just say, leave all of these wonderful things about being part of community and give that all away and do it on your own. Now, you know, that is that is not a very attractive message.
Daniel 41:04
Totally. And I think, you know, maybe, maybe adjacent to when we talk about, like mental health addictions and church, could be how the church impacts people's ability to be skeptical and to think critically. You've had people on your podcast before, talk about things like, you know, cognitive dissonance, I think, yes, yeah, it's come up. And, and so when, when, when I talk about cognitive dissonance, what I'm generally talking about is that state of psychological discomfort or distress that we feel when our beliefs are in conflict with, with evidence or with our own actions. So believing in religious ideas, when the evidence contradicts them, like evidence from history, trying to believe in the Bible, or you're still smoking when you know, it's bad for you, those feelings cause cognitive dissonance. And then that triggers something called motivated reasoning, which is a process by which we attempt to reduce cognitive dissonance by accessing, constructing or evaluating arguments in a very biased fashion to arrive at your preferred conclusion. So when I think about churches in psychology, I often think about how we, how we engage in motivated reasoning, as I was doing for many years to try to find the best arguments to support a position. And that's just one example of a cognitive bias, right, like, those things that we do to get to conclusions quickly, and that impair our ability to reasonably solve problems. And there's lots of cognitive biases, and you've had guests talk with them before. And it's it's a fascinating area of study.
David Ames 42:51
Yeah, and this is why I often say that this has nothing to do with intelligence, because actually very intelligent people can rationalize more, right, like they the capacity to an adult, it's all the human condition of that motivated reasoning. And so, again, apologetics being an example.
One other thing I want to jump off of what you just said, too, is sort of the, you know, the, the need for skepticism is important, because, as you saw on the front lines of COVID, that for the people who began to go down the rabbit trail of various conspiracy theories, or even just ignoring the science, right masks, work, vaccines work, that kind of thing, and for whatever reasons, motivated reasons or otherwise, begin to deny that there are real world consequences that the, you know, first responders and the Yes, nursing and Doctor staff were able to see and you are getting to see indirectly, so that beliefs have consequences, and why that skepticism is necessary in the world we live in.
Daniel 44:07
Yes, exactly. I love how you pointed out that intelligence is no substitution for good skeptical practices. I think you mentioned in one podcast, how our scientific thinking is how we guard ourselves against getting taken in by our own cognitive biases. Right? And that's completely that's completely true. And that's the best way I think, to describe it because even very intelligent people have human brains and human brains are designed to do I say designed human brains have evolved to do things to to conserve mental resources in everything they do. It they are just to think, give attention to detail and solve problems in ways that require the least calories possible. Because we're, we're we're evolved to save energy wherever possible, including in the brain. And it's a it's a giant pain in the ass. But it's it's how we're, it's how we're just going to work forever. And if we don't have practices in place, like scientific thinking, like the scientific method to hijack that process, where we're always going to be taken in, by things we would rather believe are things that are easier to believe. And there's, there's countless examples of that. Even very skeptical people, scientific people can get taken in by all kinds of things, if we're not careful.
David Ames 45:37
Absolutely. Because I know the schedule of the podcast coming out prior to your episode will be Tom Christofi X, he has a book called tempted to believe. And he goes into a lot of detail about these various things. And kind of the lesson that I drew out of that is summarized in the Fineman quotes, the first principle is not to fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. I love that quote. And that kind of captures it. So this is less about saying, Oh, look at these other people how they're wrong and more recognizing, how can I go off the rails? How can I start to take in things that don't have evidence that are unfalsifiable that, you know, are, Tom's word is off grid, meaning, you know, something that does not have scientific evidence,
Daniel 46:26
I think that's a very good way to approach it, treating yourself as treating yourself as a gullible person is probably one of the best starting points for engaging in scientific thinking. Because often, we'll see even in even in published peer reviewed research, we'll see people who have clearly started out with their study with a bouquet of axes that they want to grind. And they and they just get there one way or another. And one of the things that we talked a lot in grad school was how to recognize how to recognize bad research. And there's a number of practices people engage in that, that can create the results they're looking for. And that's not meant to say that we shouldn't trust research. But it is meant to say we should really be diligent in utilizing the peer reviewed process. And in looking at where are, you know, where information is coming from following that lineage, from start to finish of information, and it's been a bit of a, you can really, you can really drive yourself bananas during COVID Trying to fact check everything that you see. And I had, I had engaged in a lot of long and useless conversations with friends who just keep moving the goalposts as I kept bringing back all these things you're saying is wrong because of this? And they say, Well, what about you know, Bill Gates and depopulation? No, no, we can we can put that to bed and it's no big deal and, and then say, well, what about masks make people sick? Okay, well, let's go over that. And then, by the time you get through, you're only back to the beginning of the conversation.
David Ames 48:19
Yeah, it's unfortunate that the human condition is such that the easy answer, the simple answer to complex problems is much easier to accept than the real world complexity that actually exists.
Again, this leads into this is a good segue to discuss kind of why we're, we're chatting together. As I mentioned, in the deconversion, anonymous Facebook group, we I think it was even former guest Ian had put up a article by the John Templeton Foundation called here's how religion in Princess even when we walk away, and this is an article that talks about how people remain pro social and pro moral, even when they walk away from Christianity, as we somewhat pointed out, in that the Templeton Foundation does have a bit of a bias. Although they are attempting to do real science. They definitely have a theistic bias. And that does come through in the article. There's some interesting things to talk about it I understand you have some notes about that as well. Just kind of want to get your feel for for the article, and then we'll jump into some of the specifics.
Daniel 49:33
Sure things so we're really talking about two things here. We're talking about the article, the Templeton Foundation, and we're talking about the original research study, which was published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. And so the article in Templeton is by one of Templeton's? I don't know if journalists is the right word we'll say journalists, and it's a boat. The research study that That was produced by a number of a number of researchers, some of whom were actually paid through the Templeton Foundation for the study. So that's, that's part of the lineage there. I gave it a quick skim on first glance just through the article itself. And thought, well, there's there's some, I've got some concerns here. And then actually having gone and, and found the study itself in full text and downloaded it and read through it and highlighted it and doing the doing things that I don't get to do as much since leaving grad school. So those kind of fun nerdy things I actually don't think the study is is all that bad in general, and what it's trying to look at, I did have some, some kind of thoughts about both the article and the study. But for me, one of the most useful things to do when when talking about research is to try to say what makes research good. And you know, for the I'm sure you've probably had guests talk with this multiple times at length through the benefits of your listeners who may not have heard those episodes, we generally ask four questions when we're talking about research. The first is, is it valid? Does it have validity? does it measure what it's intending to measure? The second is, is it reliable? Would repeated testing or repeated studies produce similar results? The third, is it generalizable? Can you take those findings and broadly apply them to other settings, individuals or groups? And then the fourth is sort of adjacent to the first three, it's what have a bias, you want to examine bias, you want to know what bias exists without resorting to making ad hominem arguments against the study just because you don't like the people who did it. It's also important to have as unbiased research as possible, which is why research is more valid when it comes from unbiased, unbiased sources. So independent drug studies, for instance, are more valuable than ones paid for by pharmaceutical companies, right? And we can all kind of guess why.
David Ames 52:15
It's great in your own paper, but yeah,
Daniel 52:17
exactly. So so going into the study itself, like the article was clearly written, to kind of showcase how Hey, like, even when you leave religion, stuff sticks with you. And there are a few kind of bits and pieces we can dig into about that. When I look at the study itself, which is always where I try to start, I do agree with the author's assertion that religious nuns, those who those who grew up without any religion, are different than religious dons, those who D converted at a later date. The name of the study itself is religious identity and morality, evidence for religious residue and decay in moral foundations. And right off the bat, my, my thinking here is, I questioned the use of the phrase decay and moral foundations. Yeah, in the title. First of what first reasons because it's not actually in the study anyway, they don't say decay of moral foundations in the study. It's not a social science term, like decaying world foundations. When you see it in articles online, you generally it's describing like the moral decline in society. So also, its decay in moral foundations isn't really what they were studying. They were referencing how a specific moral values associated with religious beliefs may linger for a time after you leave that religion. So for example, you know, you're a conservative Christian, you, you leave the faith, you become an atheist for whatever reason, and you still kind of don't really feel super keen on gay marriage, you know, and then after a while, you realize, okay, no, that's yeah, I am okay with this, actually. And I think it's a good thing. So that is how specific moral values will change over time. They didn't find and they they weren't even looking for if people who leave their religion have their overall morality, decay. That seems to be the implication in the title and that there may be an unintentional implication like, I don't think it was just based on how I'm reading. How I read this and how I read the article and knowing what I know but the Templeton Foundation I, I think that was probably intentional to create a bit of a slant. It's also something that you frequently find in ideologically driven research, you find data and then you present it as something slightly different, or meaning something slightly different than it is actually means, which calls into question the validity of your research. It's where we have to look very carefully at the studies themselves, and not just the journalistic articles about those studies.
David Ames 55:12
Before we keep digging into this, I want to touch on just one thing that you mentioned that does drive me nuts and, and I get it right if you are doing sociological studies, you have to create categories, and you have to pigeonhole people into categories. But one of the things that that is a bummer to me is that the Dunn's the people who are not just nuttin, which can mean you know, you could be spiritual but not religious, but completely done with theistic worldview, or supernatural worldview is very hard to capture. Not everyone says that they are an atheist, like that's a pretty that's a pretty strong bold term that not everyone is comfortable with. And in the studies, you know, do you think that will begin to get more targeted to separate? The nones no NES from DUNS?
Daniel 56:00
I hope so. And I hope that more groups than this will start doing that research. It's been a it's been a minute since I've done a lot of deep digging into the current state of the psychology and sociology of religion, you know, that that world? Yeah, mostly because my, my work generally revolves around more social psychology or psychopharmacology. And that's where I've really been just kind of, were public health psychology, that's where I've been spending all my time. I think a deeper dive into the psychology, religion, sociology, sociology of religion, we'll likely find some research that kind of goes dip his toes a little bit further into this. But it's not something that I've had the time or the inclination to really spend a lot of time on right now. I if there hasn't been that real distinction made in the past, from the sounds of it, but to hear the authors say it, this is an understudied area. And they had some, you know, they had some previous papers they referenced, but if it's under studied, and we're just really getting getting used to the idea that hey, there's, there's more than one kind of non religious person out there, I would expect that this is going to become more and more relevant as church attendance drops, as religious affiliation drops. And as, as our world continues to evolve, as a result of increased scientific knowledge and increased knowledge of increased general knowledge of things like the, the evolutionary origins of human morality, I think that there's a lot of people who are learning a lot of things that's making it difficult for them to stay in their religious tradition, whatever that is, this is only a group that's going to be growing in the future. And, and new and growing groups are social science, research, bread and butter. That's, that's what we're interested in. We want to know what's happening here. We want to know if it's gonna happen elsewhere. And we're all giant nerds. And that's what we're here for.
David Ames 58:17
So your, your reference there to kind of the evolutionary source of morality, I think, is what's critical here. So my response to the journalistic article, I didn't dig as deep as you did, but to the journalistic article is that they have the cause and effect backwards. So they seem to be implying that religion causes morality, and therefore it's surprising when someone leaves religion that they remain moral and pro social. And I tend to think that it is the reverse that the people who are pro social and and have a moral sense of moral conscience, tend to become religious. And if those same people leave, they remain so and so it's not surprising. But I wonder what you think in that on that area?
Daniel 59:04
I think that's a really good way to put it. That very pro moral people will often gravitate towards systems that are going to allow them to practice that morality. There's a lot out there. Right now in the apologetics world. Generally, when I'm talking about apologetics, I refer to it for refer to it as philosophy but done badly. So you see, you see, you see things like the argument for morality. William Lane Craig is especially fond of this one. And it will talk about how like there's there's no possible origin of human morality or universal human morality except for God, because there is clearly universal human morality. Clearly there must be God. And that's in like the most nutshell this kind of version. But looking at the field of evolutionary Psychology, which is something I've really just scratched the surface of as a, you know, as an ongoing student. The origins of altruism morality, are very easily explained and even observed in nature and in, in natural selection, it makes perfect sense how pro social behaviors would contribute to group survival, right? That makes total sense how acting in ways that are altruistic that benefit the group at large, will result in the increased odds of group survival against the forces of nature. We can even observe this kind of morality in animals. And there's many studies out there looking at morality in rats or other other creatures, a rat will go through great lengths to free another rat, if that rat is trapped, and won't even save food for that trap rat, like in advance of it getting out of its trap, we see several examples of how these behaviors will benefit the group growing up, especially in very pro social species like rats and like humans. So we have with ample evidence for the development of moral systems based on the promotion of well being and the reduction of suffering in in animals and multiple species. Why would humanity be any different? That's often been something that I've, you know, over the years become increasingly convinced that that that the argument from morality is one of the most easily dismantled, double, but most tightly held reasons for people to continue in their religious belief, when they're faced with evidence to the contrary, the argument morality is an incredibly powerful poll. Yeah,
David Ames 1:02:06
you mentioned William Lane, Craig. But I also think of CS Lewis. So Mere Christianity, this basically begins with with that he uses the term fairness that we have, in his terms, innate sense of fairness. And yet, the idea of an evolutionary morality explains both the commonalities and the differences between cultures. And if there were, from the theist point of view, an objective moral standard that we, you know, somehow intuitively innately knew we would expect a lot more conformity throughout culture.
Daniel 1:02:42
Yeah, and we really don't see that. Right, we see, we see drastic differences that you wouldn't expect to find if the law of God was truly written in all of our hearts, but the you would expect to find through the results of in group formation, and how those in groups protect the members and how they punish deviation. You know, that's a that's a system that very succinctly explains variations in human behavior and human morality, and does so without appealing to the existence of a being who is apparently giving us a universal morality, but being kind of bad at it. Exactly. And I'm not surprised to see the Templeton Foundation kind of circle back to that argument for morality as a, as a foundation for some of the ideologically driven research that they're that they're doing. That's that's their, their purpose is to find, to find the intersections of science and faith, which, in general, would be something that I would support, I would like people to be more scientific about everything your faith included. But the foundation is a bit problematic, because it it really builds itself as a scientific foundation, doing research with religion, but it's a religious organization, doing research with some science. A few examples are in, in other studies they've done and other pages on their website, talking about the decline behind the decline in Youth Mental Health, you know, and they, they reference well, it could be due to a push to have children wrestle with questions of their own gender identity early in life, which is, you know, another ideologically driven statement. They, they celebrate problematic figures like Mother Teresa, who, you know, there's a lot of history there that I think many Christians don't realize is deeply concerning about how her funds were spent and how she actually was treating people. And then just, again, as I read through a number of the articles on their website, I found a lot of issues with how they were referencing studies as having established facts or having established data. And then when I would go and find those studies and read them, isn't actually what the research was saying. And they were making pretty big stretches in getting to their conclusions. Like there was one that they said, well, reduced participation in religion might have health consequences. So, you know, if you if you reduce your participation and your religious group, you may have increased, you know, rates of some health issues, which isn't actually what the research showed, it showed that certain groups that had higher standards for things like smoking and alcohol consumption, if you were participating in those services more frequently, you are less likely to be having the associated health issues with those specific behaviors. So that's, again, you know, taking something that we found and research and representing it as something slightly different to try to make your point. Yeah, that's, that's first level college stuff, I tend to get frustrated by that kind of stuff pretty quickly when I found it. And Templeton isn't unique in that there's a number of you know, far right organizations, the the Heritage Center, in the United States, for instance, is notorious for publishing research studies where they engage in piles of questionable activities like confusing correlation with causation, mislabeling their graphs, something called P hacking, which is where you just kind of keep changing or adding variables until you get sufficient numbers that you say, Okay, we found a result, and now we're going to run with it. Something statistically significant. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then just like drastically, misrepresenting what their results actually show. Yeah. I've, I've put far too much time in on social media, trying to convince people like, No, this is actually not legitimate what you're reading and this is why, and it's unfortunate, but those pesky cognitive biases that we've talked about have really make it challenging to change people's minds.
David Ames 1:07:24
Well, you've just given us another reason why skepticism is important.
Daniel, before we wrap up, is there a topic that I haven't asked about that you definitely wanted to get across anything else that you wanted to say?
Daniel 1:07:46
So my gravitation towards humanism has led to interesting conversations and connections in my personal life. Now more than ever, I've really leaned into the office of the skeptic, even though it's no longer one that I hold in the church. I don't shy away from uncomfortable questions, or even more uncomfortable answers. And that has been such a valuable change in my life, and has led me to some incredibly, incredibly valuable and beneficial relationships that I've started developing, including with several people who I went to Bible college with all of whom are atheists now. Oh, wow. You've really connected over that. Have I lost friends? Yes, absolutely. And that has been sad. Have I lost opportunities? Yeah, I, I have lost opportunities that I could have had to teach at my alma mater, the Bible college, I went to and asked me to come back and teach a number of courses, and I had to inform them that I was no longer a Christian, and I'd be happy to come and teach if they would have me and, and they said, you know, wasn't gonna work for them, which I understand, you know, no hard feelings whatsoever. But it's also led to other opportunities. I, I now write a mental health column for the local paper. And I've been using that platform to discuss things like critical thinking cognitive biases, why our brains struggle with scientific thinking, and even tackle some theist objections to atheism, like the psychological origins of altruism and morality? Well, there's been some challenges, I would say that the biggest challenges have been caused by my own development and my own need for maturing and growth. And I've definitely come to the conclusion that the best days are going to be ahead.
David Ames 1:09:53
That's amazing. I want to give you just an opportunity. If you have any recommendations for things what should we be reading Is there other podcasts besides this one, YouTube channels, that kind of thing that would be beneficial for people.
Daniel 1:10:07
So I've been really interested since I went on this part of our part of my life's journey in the works of Carl Sagan. So the demon haunted world was an incredibly important book for me. And it really opened up my eyes to how how scientific thinking could work and the, the benefits of that and written in such a beautiful and poetic way that nobody could write quite like Carl Sagan and I, you know, I just, I just love the way he presents the world, and is able to write and be so hopeful and so kind, and so gracious. In the face of, you know, all the issues he is passionate about, including agnosticism and humanism and science education. And you know, I think I there's a YouTube video out there with his speech, the pale blue dot, where he, he gives this speech and it's got, you know, various scenes from science and from films. And I watched that once a year as a, as a spiritual pilgrimage. I guess you could say,
David Ames 1:11:26
yeah. I often say, by the way, that I am a second night, atheist, you know, in the vein of that in the sense that I still have so much wonder and awe at the world at the cosmos, that there's no loss of that, you know, joy and wonder and mystery, while still having high standards for evidence.
Daniel 1:11:47
Yeah, I completely agree. And like I said, nobody could, we could say it quite like Carl, exactly. Another. Another book that I would recommend, is one that I'm starting to get into how minds change the surprising science of belief, opinion and persuasion, by David Mcrainey. Really a very good, very good entry point, if you don't have graduate level education and psychology, right into the real depths that cognitive science can bring in the richness of human experience, and how we, you know, how we learn and grow and how we resist learning and growth, right? He's a science communicator, and I think he does a very good job of, you know, bringing some of these things across. I think those would be some of the ones that I would recommend the most I'm working my way through some of the classics, you know, the, The God Delusion and some Christopher Hitchens, but also acknowledging that sometimes the perspective they bring can encourage the feelings I was having when I was feeling stuck in anger. So treating those books like they're hot cups of tea, yeah, taking them in steps. You know, I love it and, and moving on. And if, if anybody is interested in learning more about ADHD, especially as as an adult, I would suggest the book scattered minds by Dr. Gabor Ma Tei. Dr. Mateos work was the reason why I sought a diagnosis at age 27. Reading him describing his experiences as an adult with ADHD. The hair went up on the back of my neck. I you know, I felt like he'd been looking over my shoulder my whole life. He described you know, having to have a novel in his pocket at all moments in case he was in line at the grocery store because even 60 seconds of idleness was enough for his brain to consume him utterly. And I just about threw the book across the room I but it was it was one of the best things I could have done for myself because it contextualize my life and my experiences. So well. So scattered minds, the origins and healing of Attention Deficit Disorder. It's, it's a, it's a great read and can really if people are wondering, is this what's going on? For me, that might be the book that puts them over the edge.
David Ames 1:14:32
Excellent. Those are amazing recommendations. Daniel, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thanks for having me.
Final thoughts on the episode? As I said in the interview, there are a lot of points of comparison with Daniel story and mine. The thing that I really really resonate with is his idea of the Office of the scout Deke, for those of us who are inquisitive, we get tagged with that idea of having discernment. But there are definite limitations on that discernment. You can only question so far. I love the framing that Daniel brings to that of taking on the Office of the skeptic, even though that kept him in the faith longer than he would have otherwise. The other thing that I really related to was that recognition of the difference between psychological explanations or spiritual ones, he told the story of the individual who after having their medication, completely calm down. So was that a demonic attack? Or was it the person just didn't have their meds? In the slow creeping realization that there are naturalistic explanations for every spiritual experience that one has, including one's own. Yet another thing that I really relate to in Daniels story is the recognition of the limitations of apologetics that even the critical thinking believers have limitations and the flaws within apologetic arguments become overwhelmingly obvious. unstated, or even sometimes stated premises are unfounded, don't have any evidence, or as Daniel points out, are unfalsifiable. And so it is assertions all the way down. There is no foundation to the apologetic arguments. That's sad, especially when like Daniel, you're an inquisitive person, and you're actually trying to find a reason to remain in faith trying to find reasons to believe and you're struggling to do so on, you're going to what are considered the best intellectual arguments for Christianity, and you see the flaws immediately. There's some grief involved. Even today, I often will read an apologetic that I have not heard before, and there's some tiny part of me that hopes that it'll be worthwhile that it'll have something real to say. I have yet to find that apologetic that doesn't have obvious premises that are unfounded entirely. Daniel's observation about apologetics and the limitations of intellectual curiosity within a believing structure like Christianity is that some things are too sacred to be questioned, that captures why those limitations are there. Of course, the conversation revolved around the Templeton Foundation article and study about how religion and Princess even when we walk away, as we discussed in the conversation, the obvious theistic bias of the Templeton Foundation comes through. But I really want to hammer on the point that the causation is going the wrong direction. That pro social and pro moral people tend to become religious. And if those same people leave religion, they remain pro social and pro moral, is not the other way around. And yet the theistic organization like the Templeton Foundation wants to make the argument that religion is the cause or faith is the cause of morality. I want to thank Daniel for being on the podcast for sharing with us his insight and his educated perspective on research, his eloquent expression of the need for a scientific mindset and for skepticism, as well as his honesty and talking about ADHD, his personal deconstruction process. Thank you, Daniel, for being on the podcast. The secular Grace Thought of the Week is again the need for skepticism. A couple of weeks ago, we had Tom Christofi AK on talking about his book tempted to believe. And this episode with Daniel just reinforces the need for a skeptical mindset to protect yourself from all of the sources of misinformation, disinformation, and untruths. Again, I want to say that skepticism is not cynicism. This is not about destroying sincere things, or just sacred things for the sake of destroying them. Skepticism is about the desire for truth. What is real, what can be substantiated? What can we hold on to that will be unshakeable? The irony is that is the verbiage and rhetoric of Christianity that Jesus is supposed to be the rock that that is supposed to be unshakeable. As we heard from Daniel, as he delved into the apologetic arguments, finding that there were deep problems with those arguments, and that it turns out to be a subjective experience, from our own faith experience to the person who told us about faith from the person who told that person from the person who told that person all the way back down to Paul and Peter, and maybe Jesus Himself. These assertions of the supernatural and atheistic deity are unsubstantiated all the way down. But this need for skepticism goes beyond faith and religion. Just in the last handful of years, we have had a masterclass in misinformation and disinformation both in US politics and now in world politics. And the need to be able to discern what is true validatable falsifiable versus what is assertions what is rhetoric is critically important in today's day and age. And as Daniel and I pointed out in the conversation, that beliefs have consequences, if you believe that vaccines don't work, that is more than a personal decision for you, that affects everyone around you that affects every human being you come into contact with. If you believe that masks don't work, that affects more than just you. And these are just the obvious examples. There's 1000 others of how taking on misinformation for you personally affects more than just you. If the word skepticism is too harsh a word for you use the idea of the scientific mindset. both Daniel and I are huge fans of Carl Sagan. And his book demon haunted world that Daniel mentions is an amazing book, in that you see how Carl Sagan loved the idea of extraterrestrial intelligence, but that he held his standard, the scientific method and the scientific way of thinking to such a high degree, that standard was so high, that even though he was out to find that evidence, he could not say that extraterrestrial intelligence exists until he finds that evidence. Likewise, I've had conversations with believer after believer after believer who want to lower the bar of evidence. I literally had a conversation with a believing lawyer who wanted to lower the bar to say that the hearsay of the Gospels and the hearsay of the New Testament was valid evidence. And my point is, if Christianity is true, and this is the most important thing in the universe, the most important decision that any human being will ever make, shouldn't the standard of evidence be the highest it can possibly be? For something so important? And the fact that it isn't, and that apologists want to lower it is the indication that it is unfounded and untrue. As we said before, we've got some amazing episodes coming up. We have Jessica Moore, who talks about surviving purity culture and what you do after that, and we have another Arleen interview of boundless and free. Until then, my name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be graceful.
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 or books on restful 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? And 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 would 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 atheist.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
This week’s guest is Treasure, interviewed by Arline, the Deconversion Anonymous community manager. Treasure grew up in the Seventh Day Adventist tradition. Her whole family was focused on ministry. Treasure is a singer and was continually asked to sing for every church she attended. She was focused on mental health issues and ministering to people in need.
In 2020, Treasure began to quietly question her faith and then began the slow painful process of deconstruction. Though she still loves hymns, even music–once a joy–has become “confusing” due to the obligation to perform for churches and feels like a “job”.
Treasure has found spiritual and community fulfillment in her current spiritual practices of meditation, intentional journaling and yoga, including sound bowl healing. She is also a participant in the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group where she says, “It is safe to vent.”
Quotes
Does prayer work?
Why am I here?
I am OK with not knowing.
You don’t have to unpack it all.
Once…the mind is stretched, it cannot go back to its original form. It just can’t.
Content Warning: miscarriage; traumatic birth; mental health problems; hell anxiety
This week’s guest is Julia. Julia is the clever mind behind the Instagram account, @painfulpostchristianprayers .
Julia grew up in a German mostly-atheist home. The hostility, however, she saw for religion made it all the more appealing. As she came of age, she found herself confirmed in the German Lutheran church but attending and loving a very American Baptist church. Julia was all-in but soon found some doctrines were a bit much, especially the teachings about Hell.
For years, Julia threw herself into American Church World. She read the entire Bible, went to university to become a missionary doctor, met her spouse at church, even read Joshua Harris’s books. But life has a way of forcing some to wonder–Is the God I believe in really is as kind as I’ve been told.
After one trying event after another, Julia could no longer see God’s “goodness, and she started to see through the “incredibly ridiculous explanations” people gave when God did not come through.
Julia is in a different place now. Her online presence provides an outlet for the anger that had been pent-up for so long, and it has also brought her community. She is far from alone; thousands are waking up to the empty promises of Christianity.
And that is what is what humans truly need—not a distant, pretend deity but real human connection and relationship.
Quotes
“I’d prayed The Prayer…like, twenty times or so because I was never sure if it worked.”
“This Christian role that I was trying to press myself into was really causing me to be in a really bad place…”
“I think this is happening because I wasn’t faithful to god.”
“I felt like I couldn’t trust God anymore to do what he, supposedly, was suppose to do—namely protect his kids!”
“That’s what I am looking for, I am trying to find a god I can love, and I cannot love this one because he is abusive.”
“I came in touch with my longing for that god. I wanted it to be true … and I didn’t. “
“Everything works in that theological framework until it doesn’t.”
“It’s not just a belief system. It’s an abusive relationship with an abusive deity.”
“I tried to salvage my faith … but the slippery slope is really as slippery as they say.”
“It just all came apart in my hands until nothing was left”
gracefulatheist.com 