I recently read Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading by Nadia Asparouhova and it blew my mind. Just reading the intro I knew I needed to do an episode on the subject. Almost everything about deconstruction and deconversion is antimememetic. It is a significant idea that resists spreading.
All of the following are antimemetic:
Doubt
Deconstruction
Deconversion
Atheism
Humanism
Secular Grace
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This week’s guest is Sara. Sara grew up in a Canadian Mennonite community and embraced it wholeheartedly. She was surrounded by evangelical Christianity and she thrived.
As a young adult, she married and followed her husband into ministry. While he led, she helped as was expected of her. It didn’t occur to her until years later how little her own leadership skills had to be set aside.
Sara’s husband started deconstructing his beliefs before she did, but as he was learning, she was also learning. Years later, she knew he’d become an atheist before he did.
It wasn’t easy, but they made space for one another to learn and grow and move down their own paths. Today, Sara is a spiritual director for others and doesn’t have a specific label for herself, and it works just fine.
“There’s a whole host of ways of being in the world…”
“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats
Transcript
NOTE: This transcript is AI produced 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 United studios Podcast Network. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David and I am trying to be a graceful atheist. 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. We have a merchandise store on T public, you can get all of your graceful atheist and secular Grace themed items there, the link will be in the show notes. If you're in the middle of doubt, deconstruction, the dark night of the soul, you do not have to do it alone. Join our private Facebook group deconversion anonymous and become a part of the community. You can find us at facebook.com/groups/deconversion Special thanks to Mike T for editing today's show. On today's show, Arline interviews this week's guest Sarah. Sarah grew up in Canada in a Mennonite community that also had a lot of evangelical influence. Her and her husband were both deeply committed Christians, her husband deconstructed and D converted first. And Sarah began to deconstruct her faith. Sarah is still a spiritual person, and does not care for labels. But what she is describing is a Christian or a spiritual humanism. Here is Arline interviewing Sarah.
Arline 1:50 Right. Welcome to the graceful atheists.
Sara 1:53 Thank you. Good to be here.
Arline 1:55 You and I have chatted, we're both in the deconversion anonymous Facebook group. You are the lovely spouse of one of our former guests. And yeah, I'm just excited I get to talk to you.
Sara 2:07 I'll take it. I'll take it.
Arline 2:10 Okay, so we usually just start tell us about the religious environment that you grew up in.
Sara 2:16 Sure. So I grew up in small town, Manitoba, Canada, and that is a cold place. But it was full of warm hearted people. For me, growing up growing up Evangelical, Mennonite, Christian, so I'm not sure who's all familiar with Mennonite people out there. But a lot of people in the States could think of Amish people for a first comparison. We still have people groups in that tradition up here with the bonnet and and the old fashioned dress, the modest dress, but mostly progressive communities. So modern communities, full of evangelical based Mennonite Christians. So that's how I grew up, was just being ushered into the faith. So I've learned the term cradle Christian. And that definitely applies to me. So I remember I remember being told that I said the center's prayer around age four. So you know, in in smack at the age of innocence, just reciting, reciting to my parents at bedtime, the sinners prayer and thus becoming a Christian. And my parents describe to me, our faith, our family history as culturally, we came from Mennonites, but our faith was more progressive. So we did attend a non denominational church in our community, which of course was full of evangelicals. So non denomination or not, that's that's what I grew up in and really embraced wholeheartedly. The faith. And so for me that looks like let's see if I can age myself. Date. give you guys a date reference in the 90s. Growing up as a teenager, a little bit of purity culture, a lot of the youth rallies, evangelical, mainstream musicians and concerts. A lot of the culture that I was involved in was all Christian so from morning to sundown, was Christian media and Christian teaching. You did not go to Christian school, we had public school, but really was not exposed to other ways of life or other faiths or other cultures. I'm really just, what's the word one tone, just a uniform tone in our in our small town at least. And I guess you could say I, I wasn't popular, growing up, but I was good. And in the Christian circles that made one feel pretty secure and the affirmation of elders and peers was something that I enjoyed and sought and was rewarded with, because of being good. And I, I was really good at being a Christian and enjoyed it. And I do, I would say, I was lucky that we did grow up, I would say more progressive. And the purity culture, stuff that that did come around indoctrinated a lot of the younger teenagers younger than me at the time. And I didn't get hit with with too much of that guilt messaging. But as a grew up into young adulthood, I, I took the opportunity, of course, and to take the next step from being a good Christian in my small town to being a good Christian in a small college, a small Christian College. So our community has Christian College, about seven minutes away from the town. And so that was my big leap forward out of high school, into the big wide, wide world, seven minutes down the gravel road, away from my house where I grew up my whole youth. And at this school, I would say I did receive, again, a more progressive Christian evangelical education. So in that way, continued to avoid some of the more the pitfalls, some of the more abusive messaging, I would say that the messaging I received was, stay on the straight and narrow and listen to your elders. And, and really, the the messaging Other than that, was, you know, that, that women were submissive to men. But that was never really something that that was something that I struggled with. And it was never rammed down our throats, maybe because nobody questioned it. So regardless of why the messaging didn't seem that traumatic for me. It did enable me to keep mostly an open mindset, I guess. So it was at this Christian College, that I would say, I continue to learn a more open minded and open hearted way of being a person of faith.
I did go on to to take a marketing degree, somewhere else and return to work at this college. And the the marketing challenge that I was presented with when I worked there was very interesting to me because the school was transitioning from I'm not sure what they would have been called beforehand, but they were embracing what was called a liberal arts, education. And so the liberal arts in our area of Canada, all people heard was the word liberal. And they thought this, this college was off the rails and that that was it. However, how I understood it then, and how I understand it now is liberal arts is just a wide range of studies. It's a broad spectrum, education, that's what they were seeking to provide. So I would contrast that with other colleges where the religious messaging is heavy handed and inescapable, and in as much as this college wasn't perfect, they did present as far as I understood it a more open way of being. So as I transitioned from attending the college to You know, ending up working there, I met my husband there. And he was, you guessed it a very good Christian. At the time, we were well matched, both of us wanting to be not just good Christians, but leaders in our community. So leading, as someone who worked at the college, was what I was fully embracing. And my husband eventually ended up working in ministry. We were volunteering at our church multiple times per week, he was volunteering and working full time with youth. And that was always interesting to me, as well as he was fully whose full time employed in ministry. And I was expected to come and help. And this was a fully unpaid understanding was that I would be there to support and help but also lead and teach teenage girls and be a mentor to them. And I didn't quest question it, I enjoyed it. I felt that there was room for me as a strong, outspoken woman to have leadership skills. It wasn't until later that I would realize that in all of that, the ability to fully use my voice, my intellect, was still completely under the the leadership of others, especially under the leadership of men. So from there, we had started a family, we had a young family, and I would say, a catalyst to our growth. My husband and I would be when we did start a family, one of the things about having children having a baby, what is the the expression, having your heart, on the outside, walking around in the world, having having your heart outside of you walking around in the world, we both experienced that intense vulnerability that comes with realizing we're not in control. We leave, pray to and believe in and trust in this big, omnipotent God. And yet, there is there suffering in the world, and there are things that can happen to your loved ones. So the problem of, of pain, the problem of suffering, the fear of not being in control, or wondering why there's a God that would allow suffering, we did have few intense health scares with our first with our first child. So that really prompted both of us this question of what kind of god is this, that we believe and we started to question a little deeper? Hey, what's up with?
The questioning, I would say lead to my husband D converting first. So the deconversion of one spouse when the other isn't ready or hasn't made the same types of growth or the same direction of growth. That's something that we confronted early on, I would say my husband found it difficult to tell me what he was going through for fear of what I would say, and just not necessarily fear, but the the intense, honest discomfort that comes with realizing your spouse and you are, are different and growing differently. And my husband at the time was studying Christian psychology and pursuing his master's in Christian counseling. A lot of the benefit of being a spouse of a student is that you you learn a little bit alongside with them, definitely not to the same extent that he was learning, receiving the training directly, but watching and watching the books that he'd bring home and hearing him talk about what he was learning did benefit me as well. And, and I knew he was questioning and and I did question. A lot of the things I was told from the Bible as well, when one of the areas that we immediately agreed on was the area of the Bible as a book, a literature book, and for context, how it was put together and who wrote it and when and why and learning about the different types of literature contained within this book. Being open to the Bible as Miss being open to portions of the Bible as poetry, and art. We eventually realize that the Bible being the be all and end all, it, it didn't strike us the same way as it used to, using the Bible as a rule book. Using the Bible as law at more than just as a place to find messaging about values, just using it as the foundation for everything for all sources of thought, was not something that we could both condone. I was, I would say, I was very at peace. With that, as you could probably tell. Living in the headspace and questioning and learning and embracing my intellect is not something that I would say that I naturally gravitate toward. That's not me. I, I was always the one who would say I have the gift of faith. I don't question I just believe I, I just know. And even as we were growing and changing, it didn't seem very unrestful to me, because we were still good Christians. We were still going to church, we were still leading in the community. And we also experienced some freedom in what my husband was doing in his ministry, where we were learning about evangelicalism as relational. Instead of, we called it we call it relational instead of vacuum cleaner salesman, evangelicalism. So instead of saying, you know, upfront, hey, we're here were Christian, you should be to Why aren't you one? Here's how you can be one Why aren't you and yet very heavy handed salesmanship. We embrace relationship. First, I, I would describe this as an immature way of knowing that love is more important than law. And we wouldn't have had the words for it then. But we were thankfully supported to continue to do ministry. Without being heavy handed. Or I would use the word abusive now we we were able to be loving in as much as providing religious propaganda in central rural, small town Manitoba can be loving. So I would say, my I knew my husband had become atheists before he did. I remember that conversation on our, on our hosts, we're both are on our coach. We're both night owls. We were staying up way too late having one of our discussions like we do. And maybe I wasn't being the most loving at the time. But, but I remember telling him after he he'd told me for a few years, he was agnostic Christian, which then I had to look that up and make sure that I knew what that meant. And at the time, I could say, okay, yeah, I understand agnosticism, and being able to say that I hold a view of God or what is out there and I don't know for sure. And there are there are more learned and technical definitions than that. The way I understood it very simply was this is what I think I believe, but I may be wrong and I hold that opinion loosely.
So for him to tell me for years, he was agnostic, Christian, I was fine with. And I looked at him one night and I said, you're not you're not agnostic, Christian, you're agnostic atheist. And that that term that's a laden term. So for anyone, and I think I know your audience pretty well, there's probably a lot of people out there who for a long time, that term atheist was so laden with guilt and fear and condemnation. And it was probably the worst thing that could happen to someone was who they've turned into an atheist. And so for me at the time, even though our, our growth as people our development as people was heading in that direction, it definitely scared me. And I think more so than the label was just the implication for our partnership. And the questions that that would raise, how would we raise our kids? How would we celebrate the holidays, the really practical ins and outs of having partnership between two people where their faiths are so different. And for the next year or two after that, I would say my growth continued. But I wouldn't say necessarily the same direction. And now, this is probably where it might get interesting. Because as much as I could look at what I believed and and see that the term agnostic fit with me as well agnostic Christian, I couldn't quite embrace the term atheist. And, and so that's kind of where we parked for a long time. As we both continued to grow, my husband getting more and more comfortable with the term agnostic atheist, eventually found his way to community Bihu humanist Canada, the community of humans Canada, and, and so for him to announce to me that he had become a humanist. That was the next step in in his growth and I still felt I still felt a little left behind, I still felt a little bit like, that wasn't the right direction for me. I did look into humanism for a while and try it on the label of Christian humanist. And I wrote a few essays, developing the idea and, and show making a case for Christian humanism, which I believe there is a case for that type of belief. But along along the way, of my, my studying on my own, not professionally, just casually, I'm pursuing my own topics and books that that kind of served me on my growth path. I realized that I didn't like any of this anymore. Any of these labels. I didn't like the Christian label. I didn't fit the atheist label. I didn't fit the humanist label. I didn't fit the deist label, see theist label. I every label that that someone suggested to me or put on me, I just there was always something that didn't quite fit about it, and portions of it would fit and others wouldn't. And I struggled with feeling about, you know, where did that leave me? What type of community did that leave me with? And then COVID Hit COVID I feel like that's every single story these days or every single interview. There's the point in their history and then COVID. So, the loss of community was happening for me before COVID And the first year of COVID in our small town, cemented my husband and I are shared need to be out to be out of the church. or there was not really a path forward for us that continued to see us. In the church, I was working in communications at the time, I was actually a small town journalist, small town journalism at the beginning of COVID, when all of our governments were doing what they were doing and doing what they could, what they thought they needed to do during the beginning of COVID. And, and I was also on the communications team for our church, and realize that I needed distance from the church, and COVID eventually became a gift. The, the quarantining the bubbling, the distance from the community became a space to breathe. And I know it's cliche. But there's people who would say, there's more people now that would say, they're not a Christian, they're still a Jesus follower. And that's where I saw myself, Jesus follower for a while. And eventually, I wouldn't say that that part has necessarily fallen off. But I started to find other ways of finding information and finding community and finding teaching, outside of Christianity outside of the Christology that I had grown up with. That just made sense. And once you find things that just make sense, you can't go back.
What I deconstructed from is easier to define evangelical Christianity is what I deconstructed from. And I would definitely say D converted from. And we haven't found our way back to a church, there's no plans in the future to return to a church. That's not a healthy environment. For us. It's not where we find that there's life giving activity for us. And what I've reconstructed to is harder to define. So I think I'll leave it there, as far as giving you a history of where I've come from and where I where I'm at. So
Arline 28:05 I have a few questions. Yes. You said there were. There were other ways that you found. I'm not sure the words that you use, but like other ways of thinking about things that you found, what do you have any examples of some of the the no longer Christian things that you were finding that were helpful to you?
Sara 28:27 Yes, there were some big ones that ended up being my non negotiables. One of the first ones that I had to turn away from was the term would be complementarianism. The idea that the genders the idea, first of all, that there's two genders, and that one is subordinate to the other. That became a no fly zone for me in a no go zone. It just did not add up. And the way I rebuilt from that was finding, first of all, a healthy dose of feminist theology. Once I immersed myself in feminist theology, and knew that it wasn't wrong, it was biblically supported. And more than that, it was holistically healthy for women to be seen as equals and operate in the world as equals. I could not subscribe to a church or faith tradition that views women as less than men. So I've constructed the, the author that that helped me the most, I would say would be Rosemary Radford rather. And she's a medical All Episcopalian, Catholic, whatever labels can we give to her? Eco eco theologian, feminist theologian. She passed away just a few years ago, after a lengthy career in writing and pursuing theology and teaching. And of course, it can't remember the the Catholic school she was at. Come on brain. But she she her writing very technically heavy, theologically textbook key. It gripped me and provided for me something to set my back against, so that I didn't need to just say I don't think that it's correct that women are subordinate to men. Now I have some theology that made sense to me now, now that I've come to where I am. I wish I could say I've picked up a lot more non religious feminism. There's no authors for me to name drop there. And that's on my list of things to continue pursuing.
The idea of health? No, that was. So the idea of health as an eternal place of torment became something I could no longer believing, and turning toward more progressive ideas of universal universalism became a way for me to stay as a Christian. And as I continue to grow, the idea that everyone is loved. It's an idea that transcends religion, it transcends Christianity. And the Universalist theology made sense to me. But just a mindset of love and acceptance. You don't need a textbook to flesh that idea out. So the idea that we're all connected and all okay, and loved. That was something that kept me growing. And interestingly enough, I would say the idea of time. And now now's where, you know, I don't put my foot in my mouth over this issue. But I started to find issues representative in science, physics, the study of matter and energy became extremely fascinating to me. And realizing that a, a spiritual being attached to a concept of time that we as humans could possibly begin to understand was, it became evident to me that in my tradition of Christian evangelicalism, the concept of linear time had to be upheld in order for the concept of morality and goodness and final judgment. To make those concepts possible, you had to hold up this linear version of time. And I didn't like that it didn't sit well with me.
Arline 34:09 Interesting. I thought of that. But yeah, that makes sense. There has to be an end. And then a hell. Yeah, well, yeah.
Sara 34:17 So to realize that our universe is growing and expanding, and that the Christian God doesn't fit with science. That became something that I needed to dig into my husband being the more intellectual one and challenged me in that regard. A lot. And it became kind of fun because we would often read articles or or read books. He had read the whole thing, I would just read portions of it. But who did we enjoy Carl Sagan? Neil deGrasse Tyson. There's more I try to remember who else we've read. And I'm not so good with names all the time. At Anyway, the game that we would play between the two of us was that he would read article based on physics and say, See, there is no God. And I would read the same article, and I would say, See, God is so much bigger than how we understood.
Arline 35:35 That's amazing. I love that chocolate have that conversation. And it's fascinating to watch. Two people read the same thing. And yes, the interpretation, the takeaway, the inferences are different. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So when you say earlier, you said, like, we're all we're all okay. And we're loved. I don't I don't even know how to ask this question like, is it a by whom? Or is it just like an inherent worthiness? Or is there a god? Little G quotation marks? Or is it still like up in the air because you don't have to have integers and all that good stuff.
Sara 36:15 For me, it's still up in the air I like for someone who I would describe myself and others, of course, would would agree with me, and call me an all or nothing person for someone who was an all or nothing person. Faith for me has not become an all or nothing. Zone. And I guess what I'm trying to say is, I still use the term God. But what I'm talking about what I believe in, is not what Christians the way I understand them, I would say 99.99% of the Christians I grew up with, they would not understand if I just use the word God. Rosemary Radford brother suggests, for the sake of egalitarianism, of course, she suggests using on paper anyway, it doesn't translate very well to, to spoken word, but she recommends using the term Gods slash depths. So capital God slash d s, s, to represent both genders of God.
Arline 37:34 Okay, got it. Okay, I
Sara 37:36 see it. Yeah, I enjoy that. But also, I don't view God as both male and female. And I don't view God as a God is gender less. That is another way of looking at God, I don't, that doesn't resonate with me, I finally landed on God being gender full. So as the spectrum of gender becomes something that science and the Western society as we understand, it begins to wrap their heads around, realizing that if one believes in God, I believe God is gender full. And I started creating a document for myself as a writer, as a researcher, I've started creating a document for myself to collect names for God, I'm not happy with any of them. And there are some that I like more than others. So in when you dig into the different traditions, surrounding God, capital God is, is what Christians are comfortable with. Jewish tradition, not writing the name of God and seeing the name of God as being holy, and not even capturable. In in a written form that intrigues me terms like the, the great mystery, the divine, the source of all being the ground of all being the most ancient parents. There's some poetical language and some scientific language for God that really resonates with me. And I think that's indicative of, you know, again, not needing to be fully in or fully out. So The way I see God is that source of love, that connection, the the embodiment of the whole way of approaching and enacting and being part of love. To me, that's God.
Arline 40:20 I have a hard time separating the word God from the stuff that I was taught, I have enjoyed or liked to see, when I was on my way out and didn't know I was on my way out. But I was just reading different books, I was reading Anne Lamott squirt, like her more explicitly Christian stuff. And she always talked about God, and called her. And she. And that was fun for me, that just little experience of the feminine pronouns for what I had always thought of as masculine God. And again, I didn't know I was on my way out. But that was, that was a nice little change. Eventually, it shifted. And I liked the idea of goddesses until I read about a bunch of the goddesses and I like, they're all heifers, I don't like any of them. Like, they're all just terrible. And for me, I don't believe in gods and goddesses and things like that. And at the same time, I like the idea of just some kind of whatever the reason is that love seems to be so important for humans, for primates for animals, to to exist well, for our species to keep going like this. It does as well, when we cooperate and are kind and loving, and all these kinds of things. So I love that I'm like, prepare for that.
You in Your un hubs. He's his ADSL. And you are your unlabeled, wonderful self. How did how are the conversations these days? Do you guys just let one another? Do whatever works for you? Is there any conflict? How did you decide about raising kids and holidays? And all those things you mentioned earlier? Once you guys just are have to figure that out? Or are you still figuring it out?
Sara 42:19 Yeah, we're still figuring it out. There's, there's no right or wrong way to do this. So we do feel a lot of freedom. In that regard. A lot of our conflict has dissipated, I think the confusion or fear about what each other believes, or why or how it's going to impact us a lot of that has just dissipated with with time when you're in it, it's scary. And when you've been in it a long time, it's not scary anymore. And we, for how strong willed both of us are, we did find a way to let each other be ourselves and let each other grow, how we would grow. And for me that ended up looking like after experiencing the loss of community, I didn't want to stop growing, I didn't want to stop trying to find people who were like minded. One of the authors that I had picked up earlier in my deconstruction was Kathleen Norris. And for someone coming out of an evangelical tradition, just to be exposed to a writer, for me who represented feminism and an open minded, open hearted way of being but someone who had been an atheist and came back into the church and why was very interesting to me. How she seemed to retain an intellectual integrity and open her heart up to what ways what ways she could grow as a human. And so her book. The cloister walk was one of the first ones that I read, and in her frustration with the church community that she was just kind of finding her way back into. Those were the same frustrations that I had found were leading me out of the church, and I thought both trajectories were AOK Kay. And that that felt good. That amount of acceptance, felt good frustration, vocalized healthily can lead to making healthy steps and choices, away from away from abusive situations away from dogmatic theology away from confinement into more open minded ways of experiencing the world. And from there, she helped introduce me to the Benedictine way of living, which to me was a delightful way of incorporating spirituality. Without the heavy handedness of what I'd experienced in evangelicalism, which is so funny because you think about monks, living in community with rigid rules and expectations. And how could that be a place of more freedom than the modern church, and without judgment, I just say that that's, that's a mirror for the Western Church to be looking at themselves through, that's for sure. When a life of a status ism, become becomes the, the way of freedom. It just ended up fascinating me what I ended up doing to continue to pursue studies and growth while my husband was finishing, not a counseling, Master's in Counseling in a Christian school, he was finishing a Master's of Science in, in a secular university. While he was finishing that I ended up looking into taking courses and studies in what I would eventually know as spiritual direction. So through the Benedictine community, close to where I live, they offered a two year certificate in spiritual direction. But what interested me most what fascinated me about what they offered was the open handed way of offering what they knew with a take it or leave it, gentle kind of way of offering spiritual study. So the program ended up being something that I couldn't take until COVID hit and it could be fully operational online, and suddenly became something that fit into our lifestyle. And what I was able to make work was my schedule. And the the program itself being open to anyone from any faith from any spiritual tradition became something that was very important to me. So I didn't want more Christian education. I wanted spiritual education. I wanted to know if I'm not a Christian, what else is there? What can I still be? And for me, that program really helped to answer a lot of those questions. But more importantly, it showed me which questions served me and which questions didn't. Questions that resulted in closed thinking or closed loop answers. Let's just say the Benedictines are not great at those questions. They're good at the kind of questions that leave you asking more questions.
Arline 49:37 And
Sara 49:39 to me, yeah, to me that represented the freedom to arrive where you're going to arrive in your spiritual journey, whether that is to remain a Christian or not. And whether that's to be a humanist or not, or an eight atheist as long as the way of being in the world is loving and open. That seemed to be okay. And, and I liked that. Yeah,
Arline 50:17 like love and kindness and the things that are mostly universal. I don't know if they are fully universal, but that most society see as very important and very necessary yet again for us to thrive. They're not inherently Christian, they're not owned by Christianity like, and even within Christianity. There's so many different versions of it, we're exposed to this one. Very Evan Jellicle. White, I would say North American in the nine different countries, North American version of Christianity, Western, I guess. And like you were talking about the Benedictines and then there are there's Orthodox churches, and I mean, just Christianity looks very different in different places, and spirituality looks different. And I love that you've been able to figure out like, what feels best and is right for you. And knowing that we have that kind of freedom and relief, the more constricting Hi, what's the word? Hi something religions, high demand religion?
Is there anything I should have asked, we have a few more minutes or anything I should have asked but that you want to talk about.
Sara 51:47 Just trying to think if there's any more pieces of the puzzle that would lend any clarity. If if I would just name another author that helped me on my journey. Anyone looking for further reading. If there if, if any of your listeners are, are still deconstructing still in the process of D converting, because as I mentioned, I'm, I'm not a black and white thinker anymore. It's not a switch that gets flipped. I'm a Christian, and then flip the switch. Now I'm not the spectrum of faith is wide. And Thomas Keating, helped me on my way, as far as presenting an open minded theology that insisted that science be involved, and included and important in a holistic way of being in a way of being a spiritual human. There's no conflict with looking at the way the world is made and coming up with new ways to think about it and new language to talk about it. Thomas Merton, another Thomas, from from Thomas Merton's righteous anger, in the 60s, and his writing. And just one of his final lectures, admonishing people, encouraging people exhorting people to be open to language to learning about, you know, why do we say the things that we do about God? And why is it written that way? And where did that come from? And hey, doesn't this tradition in Christian meditation mirror that in Eastern religions and, and from there, I talked myself into some Buddhist studies for a while, and, and from from, you know, realizing the practices of Buddhism, the commitment to lessening the suffering of others, and how that's not in conflict with, with Christianity with, with how I want to live, and realizing that truth is truth. I know that's a loaded word these days, that everyone claiming to have the capital are real, capital T truth. And realizing that, even though it's subjective, you'll know it and you'll know with whom you share your definition of God, you'll know with whom you share your definition of love, you'll know with whom you share your diff admission of truth if you hold that openly and yeah,
Arline 55:08 leave it there. Yes, that's a lovely place to end. Sarah Thank you so much for being on the podcast I would ask for recommendations for girl you name drop. So many fantastic authors and books that people can find who are still, who still Christians like Thomas Merton and Kathleen Norris, Richard Richard Rohr.
Sara 55:31 Richard roars in there, anyone with a psychotherapy bent or psychology bent? Carl Jung Jung, in fact, psychology has been really formative for me as well. And yeah, just realizing that there's a whole host of authors, there's a whole host of ways of being in the world that aren't Christian, as in it, you know, being pegged being in the box it and it's okay, and it's scary at first. But once you're out there, it's wide, open and wonderful.
Arline 56:11 How can people find you online? If you're doing the spiritual direction? Is there a way people can find you?
Sara 56:17 Yeah, I do spiritual direction. I also just write my own reflections on life and the world and deconstruction. So I have a website called the prairie thistle, tours that are really hard to spell it. I don't know why I picked them, but just spell check, and you'll find it WWW dot prairie fissile.ca.ca. Because I'm in Canada. So yeah, okay.
Arline 56:41 Well, we'll put we'll put all the links in the show notes so people can find it. And thank you again, for being on the podcast here. This is lovely. Thank you, Arline.
My final thoughts on the episode. So when I've already talked to someone and gotten to know them, I get really excited when I get to speak with them on the podcast, because I just know they're lovely and wonderful. And I get excited. And Sarah was no exception. It was such a great conversation. She's so kind and gentle spoken and I just, I could listen to her forever. Go, you need to narrate some books. There you go. There's your future job. My final thoughts on the episode. There are so many, I don't know to call them universal truths, because I'm sure there are places where this things are not absolutely true. But like, it seems for humans to survive as a species and for us to survive interstitially with other animals and plants, fungi, the whole earth, like love, kindness, cooperation, empathy, like there's so many things that seem to be integral for us. No matter where we live, like Christianity does not have a hold on humility, kindness, gentleness, whatever the fruit of the Spirit, whatever they were, these are just good things to have. And she kept using the word openness, like if we can be open to things, and I can't cite the science, but I've heard on plenty of podcasts. 10%, happier podcast talks about a lot. And I don't know where else. But when we stay open to things, and we're not judgmental about things and we're not closed to whether or not we could be wrong. It's just good for us, our mental health is better. Our nervous system is less activated. When we stay open to things when we are willing to be wrong when we're willing to give people the benefit of the doubt when we're willing to hear new information and not be closed off to it. Like it's just it's just good for us. And so staying open, being loving, not at the expense of our boundaries and our own personal well being but loving others, because Christianity will teach you to love others, and it'll just burn you out. And that is not that's not good. Last thing, she also talked about having children and the problem of pain and suffering. Like when she when they had children, she and her husband realized like, she didn't say this explicitly, but I've heard it from a few different places. And this was true when my husband D converted. It's like, we should not feel like we are better parents to our children because we treat them better than God treats his kids. That doesn't seem like we should be more moral, or ethical, more kind and loving than God is. And, yeah, there's so much suffering in the world, trying to square up the god we're taught is in the Bible with what we actually see in the world and what we actually see in the Bible. That takes a lot of gymnastics, lot of mental gymnastics, and it's just not worth it. It's not worth it at all. Sara, thank you again for being on the podcast. It was wonderful and I really enjoyed it. And
David Ames 1:00:03 the secular Grace Thought of the Week is humanism. This podcast has from day one been about humanism. And what that means to me is caring for people. I believe in people. With hindsight, I recognize that I had been a religious humanist and after deconversion it was a natural move to being a secular humanist. But really, my core values of caring for people did not change. Maybe my reasons did, but it did not change. I legitimately do not care if people are spiritual and not religious, or Christian or Muslim or Jewish, if they care about people, if they recognize that relationship with other human beings is the most important thing in the universe. Until next time, my name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be graceful human being. The beat is called waves by MCI beats. Do you want to get in touch with me to be a guest on the show? Email me at graceful atheist@gmail.com for blog posts, quotes, recommendations and full episode transcripts head over to graceful atheists.com. This graceful atheist podcast, a part of the atheist United studios Podcast Network
When we’re in the thick of Christianity, we’re bombarded with the idea that if we leave we’ll no longer have purpose or meaning in life. Our life’s purpose is given to us by the church, and if we “turn our backs on them,” we have nothing.
But it’s simply not true.
I turned once again to our online community to find out how some atheists find meaning in life, and the answers are beautiful. If you’ve left religion, only to find life on the other side, please comment below.
“If anything I think being an atheist has made me appreciate this life even more. Like if we only get one, I can cherish it a lot more.”
“My life has meaning when I experience it and don’t run from it. Whether it’s a sweet time snuggling with my kids and reading a book together or a harder day where my mind just won’t work for me, if I’m experiencing my life, then it’s meaningful to me. I don’t need a divine purpose to find meaning anymore. It’s just there.”
“Get as close to the beauty of the earth as possible. Be present and breathe. Practice self-compassion and extend loving kindness to others.”
“I don’t find any ultimate meaning in life anymore. But I still find it worth living, and that’s good enough.”
“I think you have to make meaning. For me, loving my family is the most important thing. Helping others and making the world a better place are much more important and meaningful to me now than “saving” others ever was.”
“Honestly, I’m relieved about not having the pressure to be a world changer and having a higher purpose. I never felt like my life was measuring up to its true purpose when I was in Christianity, and I spent too much time worrying about decisions, being afraid I was going to make the wrong one.”
“Without eternity, each second of this life is precious. Loved ones, nature, my kitties, and pursuing my hobbies bring me fulfillment.”
“As an atheist, I find more meaning in everything because I’m rooted in reality, in the present, in the here and now, not some nebulous, unproven future afterlife. We shouldn’t be ‘coping’ with the idea that this is the ‘only life’. We should be celebrating it. Meaning is what we make. This life is what we make. It always has been (even when we thought it was god). I don’t need a higher purpose or a higher power. I never did.”
“Knowing this is the only life I have, I’ve learned to live in the here and now. Appreciating the beauty that surrounds and embracing life’s mysteries without having to do any mental gymnastics.”
I received dozens more answers to this question that I could share here. If these answers resonate with you, then our private Facebook group may be a good space to check out.
“I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.” –Zora Neale Hurston
This week’s guest is Christian Lomsdalen. Christian is the current president of the Norwegian Humanist Association and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Bergen studying the didactics (science) of religion.
Christian grew up in an ordinary Christian Norwegian family as “Christmas Christians”. He went to church for Christmas and other holidays, and that was about it.
“I identified as a Christian…a quiet liberal Christian, probably. I guess a lot of the evangelicals in the United States probably wouldn’t have recognized me as a Christian.”
Around eighteen, Christian realized he didn’t believe in God, though he read the Bible and liked the stories. Since then, however, he has lived a humanist life.
Christian shares many of the differences between Norway and the US, tackling religion and politics. The Norwegian Humanist Association is doing great work, and it’s a good model for other countries moving forward.
“I read the Bible—tried to read it—and it was one of the things I read when I was bored…I had the encyclopedia, and I had the Bible, and I read them both.”
“I identified as a Christian…a quiet liberal Christian, probably. I guess a lot of the evangelicals in the United States probably wouldn’t have recognized me as a Christian.”
“I really liked the stories; I still have favorite Bible stories…but I realized that I did not believe in the concept of God…”
“I think [deconstruction] is a nice word. I think it describes the process that I was going through…It was a slow deconstruction.”
“My experience is that religion is not something that the state should do. It’s not a task for the state, and to give preferential treatment to one religion is principally wrong.”
“…rituals and ceremonies are one of the glues of society; all humans do all kinds of small rituals…”
“All human traditions exist and are created in a context and evolve in a context, and that means when a secular thought system appears and evolves in a Christian context, it will have Christian values and Christian thought systems that are part of it…”
“One generation goes a lot to church and the next generation goes on some important dates during the year and the next generation [goes] even less…”
“Young families are not even ‘Christmas Christians.’ They are rather secular and that is quite a shift in thirty or forty years…
“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats
Transcript
NOTE: This transcript is AI produced 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 United studios podcast. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David, and I'm trying to be the graceful atheist. Thank you to all my Patrons for supporting the podcast. If you too would like an ad free experience of the podcast support the podcast at any level on patreon.com/graceful atheist. If you are in the middle of doubts, deconstruction, the dark night of the soul, you do not have to do it alone. Join our private Facebook group deconversion anonymous and become a part of the community. You can find us at facebook.com/groups/deconversion. Special thanks to Mike T for editing today's show. On today's show, my guest today is Christian Lomsdalen. Christian is the president of the Norwegian Humanist Association. It's one of the largest humanist associations in the world. You can find that at human dot and oh, he's also a PhD candidate for the University of Bergen. He studies the didactics or science of religion. And he's very, very focused on human rights. And what you're about to hear very interestingly, the rights of religious people within Norwegian and worldwide society. Here is Christian Lomsdalen to tell his story. Christian loves Dalton, welcome to the wrestle atheist podcast.
Christian Lomsdalen 1:49
Thank you, David, thank you so much for having me on.
David Ames 1:52
I appreciate you reaching out to me, I'm going to do just some highlights of your CV, but if you could fill in the details, you're the president of the Norwegian Humanist Association. You're a PhD candidate, I understand you're also a high school teacher. But tell us just briefly about yourself what you do. And we'll get into the details later.
Christian Lomsdalen 2:10
Well, thank you, David. For my well paid the part of my life I work as a PhD candidate for the University of Bergen, which is the second largest university in Norway. Here I studied didactics of religion or science of religion, it could be used both terms for Yeah. And I do a PhD on the right to be exempted on religious, philosophical or lifestance grounds from activities that are part of the school day. So that is what I do for my professional life.
David Ames 2:47
We need to publicize that here in the States as you can imagine, yes. Okay.
Christian Lomsdalen 2:52
I'm trying now to write an article in English about how this right works in the Scandinavian countries. So I'm looking forward to completing data and having something to publish publish in English as well.
David Ames 3:05
Okay. Yeah, we will be looking forward to that.
Christian Lomsdalen 3:09
And, as you said, I'm the president of the Norwegian Humanist Association. We are the largest Humanist Association in the world, with now 135,000 members. Amazing. So that is the largest per capita and in real numbers, so okay. That is, it's something that I take a little pride in, it's
it's good to be able to be from what is rather a small country, but be a large organization in this aspect and to contribute to other people, other countries, groups, humanist groups. That is,
David Ames 3:52
I think that's absolutely amazing. And Norway is leading the way here. So yeah, I think that's fantastic. Christian, we, you know, on the podcast here, we generally tell kind of our personal stories. So before we jump into the all the work that you do, I'd really like to hear, what was it like for you growing up? Did you have a religious tradition at all? And what was that?
Christian Lomsdalen 4:14
I grew up in what is the kind of normal way to grow up in Norway? Or at least it was with my generation, it has been a shift for a new generation. So I will be talking maybe more about that later on. But for me, I grew up in what we call Christmas, Christian family. Yeah, our family that goes to church on in Christmas and does not do very much religion outside of that, but at the same time, I felt that that was how my religion growing up was and this is Lutheran Church, of course, for those who need to know my placement in the church map but Uh, we pray the evening prayers every day we celebrated most of the Christian holidays and so on. So to say that we were just Christmas Christians is probably a lie. But it's it's how I perceived it at a time. But when reflecting on this, I noticed that we did actually participate a lot in different Christians aspects. When I grew up, so I took, for example, the confirmation. I don't I'm not sure if that is a big tradition in the United States.
David Ames 5:37
It is more so in the Catholic Church and some of the more liturgical churches, there might be more confirmation experience. It's less so in the evangelical world, but I think people understand the concept.
Christian Lomsdalen 5:51
I liked the term liturgical church. Yes, yes. I'll turn my lights. Yes, yeah. Because the Norwegian state church, or former state church, we can discuss whether which one is true, okay. But in the Norwegian state church, it's quite liturgical. And the main church political party in the Norwegian state church is very liturgical. So that is good.
So, here, we have confirmations and most of the teenagers do this. So when I participated in my confirmations, I was living in Spain, but going to the Norwegian church in Spain.
David Ames 6:41
Oh, interesting. Okay.
Christian Lomsdalen 6:43
And well, I participated, I was identified as a Christian during this time, and being one of the more active Christians that took this confirmation, a lot of my co conference, they did not care a lot about the religious part of this, but I read the Bible tried to read it. And I, it was one of the things that I read when I was boards. I read the Bible. Interesting, okay, I had the encyclopedia, and I had the Bible, and I read them both like, through and through a couple of times, just because I was bored. Interesting. Okay. So I identified as a Christian at this time, and that was how I view the world quite liberal Christian, probably, I guess a lot of the invading evangelicals in the United States probably wouldn't recognize me as a Christian.
David Ames 7:35
Yeah. They'd be sending you to hell, Christians.
Christian Lomsdalen 7:40
Probably, yeah. Some of the Norwegian wellness as well.
David Ames 7:43
Okay. But you took it relatively seriously by, you know, again, even the statement that, you know, you read through the Bible, you took that seriously, and maybe your other conference had not, that would also be very true in the United States that lots of people who sit in pews every week, I've never actually read the Bible. So it was internally, something you took on seriously? Or was it more following the the traditions?
Christian Lomsdalen 8:13
On this part, I guess I was more active than a lot of my family. So I guess it was internalized anyways. And I think it's unfortunate that more people that grew up in a Christian background does not read the Bible, and because it's quite an interesting book to read. Yeah.
David Ames 8:33
Absolutely.
Christian Lomsdalen 8:35
And during the time reading it and reflecting on the some of the topics, but I realized after I called after a time that I really liked the stories, I still have favorite Bible stories, and I like a lot of the message in some ways. Still, but I realized that I did not believe in the concept of God, as portrayed. I didn't believe in the entity of this God, existence. And then I realized that I had a quite academic point of view on how to view this religion and realize that I'm not here. I'm an agnostic or atheist. Okay.
David Ames 9:20
Um, roughly how old were you when you kind of made that recognition?
Christian Lomsdalen 9:24
I guess I was 17. I wanted to leave the Norwegian state church when I was 15. Already, but that was a political statement, because I didn't believe in churches to be belonging to the state. Okay, so I was opposed to this. Belonging but still identifying as a Christian and then realizing that I'm not a Christian when I was 17 or 18. It was a fluid transition. Or deconstruction.
David Ames 9:56
Yes. Yeah. The hot word is deconstruction. Sure.
Christian Lomsdalen 10:00
I guess it's a nice word because it, I think it reflects upon the process that I was going through at the time. Slowly and gradually, but it was. Yeah. Some of your other interviews that you had this with quite rapid deconstructions sometimes, yes. This was a slow deconstruction.
David Ames 10:20
Yeah, I like to say that we tend to identify the first thing. And the last thing, you know, what started it and what ended it, but there's 1000 points in between. And I definitely have lots of people who will say that it was decades of that process. So you're not alone in that, that for some people. It's a very slow, slow process.
So you've hinted out a few times the the relationship between the church and state in in Norway, do you want to talk a little bit more about that whether or not it is considered the state church?
Christian Lomsdalen 11:03
Yeah, so I actually really wanted because that is interesting for me. Okay. Yeah. And the Norwegian church has been a part of the Norwegian government on order Norwegian state for almost 500 years since the year 50. And 39. or there abouts. Okay. Yeah. So they claim a very long history as being a part of the Norwegian government. And so it has been established as the state church very firmly. And the confirmation that I was talking about earlier, was a bylaw, obligatory ceremony to participate in for all youth. And it was an exam that you had to pass to become a grown up. Interesting, okay. And if you didn't pass this test, you could actually go to jail. And you were not allowed to marry or become part of the military. And a lot of so it was very tightly joined together. And the Norwegian church did was not its own legal person until quite recently, only five, six years ago.
David Ames 12:16
Okay. Wow, that is very, that's really recent. Okay.
Christian Lomsdalen 12:19
Yeah. So and the government was the one that hired new bishops and decided who should be the bishops and it was very tightly joined together. But we had a reform about 15 years ago, which, in in Italy, it was decided that it should be more separation between state and church, okay. And in this process, in this reform, the Norwegian government decided that this church should do the hiring themselves. I think that is a basic human rights for religious organization to decide upon their own leaders. And it was decided that it should be its own legal entity, and that it should be more disconnected from the Norwegian state. But at the same time, they have kept its own provisions in the Constitution in the Norwegian constitution. And the Norwegian constitution works differently than the American one, we actually change the text of the original Constitution with us, we does not just add amendments to it. So we change the text. Okay. But we still have this provisions in the Constitution that gives certain rights to the region's church or the church of Norway, as it's called. That is not the same for the other church churches or lifestance communities and so on and so forth. But it does say that all the rest of us also should get support financially in the same manner as the Norwegian state church. So we are also for some part included in this. Okay. But they say the politicians claim that they have separated church and states and at the same time they have their own, the Norwegian church has its own provisions in law in the Constitution that for my party says that this is a state church really still but a more disconnected state church.
David Ames 14:33
I see. Okay. My immediate question is, Are most of the Norwegian politicians a part of the Norwegian church? Or are they open about that? Is that a thing that that they, you know, they represent or,
Christian Lomsdalen 14:47
as you mean, compared to the American party? Yes. Where nine out of 10 is a member of a church or a believer? Yeah. No, we do. not actually know a lot of this, but because it's they do not have to report it and the Polit, the newspaper doesn't ask the politicians, are you a Christian or no. So it's not something that is considered important, and it's considered quite private. But we see that a lot of members of parliament are also members of church boards and so on. So we know that, at least some of them are there some there's some crossover, yeah, some crossover. But it's mostly tradition, we have a couple of political parties, which values the state church quite highly. And for some of them, it's because we want to control this Norwegian state church, and we want to make it progressive or something. Okay, for others, it's to defend tradition, and some use more Christian rhetoric about why they want to have this church that is the biggest one, give it its own provisions in law and so on.
David Ames 16:08
So it sounds to me like both on the liberal end of the spectrum and on the conservative and there are politicians who might want to have that control.
Christian Lomsdalen 16:16
Absolutely. That is a quite good reading of what I.
David Ames 16:30
Like you, when I was a Christian, I was very concerned about separation of church and state, I felt like was important, both for the church and for the state. I'm curious, both when you were a Christian, and now as a humanist, why is it bad that the Church and State are connected to one another?
Christian Lomsdalen 16:53
I think my arguments about this has changed from when I was a Christian. And but at the same time, it's quite similar, because my experience is that religion is not something that the state should do. It's not, it's not a task for the state and to give preferential treatment to one religion is principally wrong. And it might be good reasons why they want to have this regulation or control over the state church. And there's absolutely good reasons why someone would like to do that. But I think that is also wrong to this day church. I think this reduces the their fundamental human rights as believers as Christians, that the Norwegian government has some specific decisions, that is just for them. And this might be beneficial for them. And it might give them some possibilities that they wouldn't have and responsibilities that they wouldn't otherwise have. But at the same time, it does say that if the Norwegian Church wants to be undemocratic, because that is one of the tenants in the law, that they have to be democratic, and that they have to be nationwide. They cannot decide that they want to be a smaller organization with more limited scope, and that they want to have, for example, the bishops to be the final burden on everything. They cannot do all these like theologically based changes to their organization that all other lifestance communities, all other philosophical communities, all other religious communities can do to their organization. So I think this is a limitation on their religious rights.
David Ames 18:57
Yes, yeah, exactly.
Christian Lomsdalen 19:00
We try. I humor myself with this argument sometimes, because I find it kind of funny that I, as a humanist, am concerned that the Norwegian state church members do not have their full religious rights. And we can discuss the term religious rights as well.
David Ames 19:18
Yeah, let's get into that in a second. What the parallel I want to make in the United States is I have this conversation with believers around me all the time. You know, imagine it, I don't know how it is in Norway. But in the United States, there are many, many denominations, that can be quite radically different from one another. And I'll point out if this denomination that you don't agree with if they gained political power, how would you feel if they began to say that your version of Christianity isn't valid and could enforce that with law or police or what have you, you would like that, and so that is thus the need for secularism or pluralism. And for the state to not have its fingers in religion.
Christian Lomsdalen 20:05
And that is quite important. But at the same time the Norwegian system is built in such a way that this the church, even though it's a state church, they do not sanction what is the correct form of religion? So we wouldn't have some of this. But at the same time, the Norwegian state definition of what is our religion and what is our religious communities and who to gain support from the Norwegian state is quite Lutheran. Okay, okay. So, this means that, for example, the Vegan Society, even though they have been declared i lifestance, veganism is a lifestance. And we see the same in the United Kingdom. Okay, they cannot, they haven't been able to create the Norwegian Vegan Society, lifestance community, because they do not do lifestance activities. Interesting, all right. Because that is supposed to be ceremonies and teaching of the young and spreading the word and all of these things, and they do not do it in the proper Lutheran way. And that undoes the Norwegian state Church's way of doing things becomes the norm and recipe for all the others.
David Ames 21:38
So back to a bit about religious rights, I imagine you're recognizing that this is kind of a human right as well, the ability for us to choose what we believe or don't believe and how we practice that religion. And if we look at history, that has been kind of a big deal.
Christian Lomsdalen 21:56
Absolutely. And especially with the history of the United States in mind, this is a difficult subject, and it shows how important it is. Absolutely, this is a human rights issue. And when I'm saying religious rights, I'm limiting the the aspect of the human rights to just those that are related to your religion, and lifestance. And that is also a shorthand for saying that life stance and philosophical convictions also is a part of the same grouping. And I have some members of my organization that are quite annoyed with me for not always using lifestance instead of religion when I'm talking about this, because that could make it easier to remind the politicians that this is regarding all worldviews, both secular and religious.
David Ames 22:55
The language is hard when we when we're discussing traditions and communities add, you know, things that that don't necessarily have a, let's say, theistic or supernatural element to them, but but they have. And I think we're going to, you're going to describe to us what the humanist society is, like, that have ceremonies and have a community built and a sense of being a group. And so yeah, it's hard to say is this a religion or not? And that word is just over over wrought with, with baggage.
Christian Lomsdalen 23:32
Yes, and this is especially troublesome or telling that religious scientist or this, the scientists that do science of religion, have a lot of definitions for what their religion is and what the lifestance If they do not agree upon that. So in some regards, we could argue that secular worldview would also fit the same bill, but those I don't think those definitions is the best ones. Okay. But as the lifestance community, the Norwegian humanist associations, we work a lot with ceremonies, that is the biggest part of our daily work. My son is now going to the humanist confirmations. And he is that is because he's 15 and almost all teenagers at the age of 15 in Norway, go to these confirmations. It has changed a lot it doesn't involve a test and it's not state obligatory anymore and and you can choose a religious one or a secular one. Even a lot of them we even have a shamanistic confirmations, some places but Norwegian Humanist Association has the biggest non Christian non religious confirmation variant in Norway. So we Yeah, make the confirmations for about a third of the Norwegian youth. Okay, wow. So it's a lot of teenagers, or it's 15,000 to give it a number, so it's a very small American town.
David Ames 25:20
But it sounds like culturally, that Norwegians want that ceremony that that is that's been a part of the process, whether it used to be religious and now a secular. Is that true?
Christian Lomsdalen 25:31
That is absolutely true. And this is a tradition that is quite solid in the Norwegian societal framework. It's something that everyone does. And we have argued sometimes that one of the reasons that the church still has so big portion of the teenagers doing their confirmation of work is that we have provided a good alternative for those who just does not want the religious experience. And that means that it still is something that everyone does, even though the numbers of believers in the Norwegian community has gone from about 60 70% When I was born, till about a third of the population at the moment, wow. Okay. So even though the number of believers and it is especially true in the youngest parts of the population, because it's an age divide here as in the United States, even though this number of believers among these teenagers is so low, a lot of them still go to the Christian confirmation, because this is something that historically won't just do. Yes, yes. Okay. So we have these ceremonies ceremonies, and we have a naming ceremonies are welcome to the world ceremonies, we could use different names, and of course, funerals and weddings. So at the moment, I have been trained as a wedding celebrant. Okay, I'm going to be trained as a funeral celebrant this fall. Okay, but I already done my first funeral. Ah, interesting. That was a televised funeral. Really?
David Ames 27:21
Wow. Okay. I think that's so important. Christian, I think some of my intellectual heroes in the secular world, talk about the need for ceremony and, and tradition. And to have secular versions of those. And I think that is, maybe part of the success of the humanist organization in Norway is that you are providing those, you're giving them a way to act out their life stance. And I think that's really, really critical.
Christian Lomsdalen 27:52
And I really do like the name of your podcast, David. Thank you. The graceful atheist and for me, some part of this is part of doing this ceremonies and doing all of this like community work, that is a key part of this, because rituals and ceremonies are truly one of the glues of society. Yes. And we all humans do all kinds of small rituals, if it's the coffee in the morning that I bring to my wife every day, yeah. Or it's, every Saturday, we have pizza, and we are having the family dinner, or every summer we go to this place somewhere. And we have always been going there, all of this small rituals. And then we have the large rituals, for example, the Fourth of July in America or the 17th of May, which is the National Day in Norway, the constitutional day in Norway. And this is part of the glue of society and it's really important to have this even though one is an atheist and shouldn't really need this kind of illogical thing.
David Ames 29:12
Yeah, and I think the the argument that that we try to make here is that these are human needs. The reason that there are religious examples and almost all cultures is that human beings need that connection with one another and tradition and ceremony and ritual, provide a way to literally physically act that out that is meaningful for human beings.
Christian Lomsdalen 29:38
It is so fun to do this like this for ceremonies that is the the core of our ceremonies. It's so important to have a proper send off for the or goodbye to the ones that have died. And what really makes me sad is when there's no no One left to do this ceremony and to remember the life of somebody, because when one does not have a life after this one or believe in life, yeah, it's really necessary to remind ourselves of the importance of this human being that we do not have with us anymore and to remember them and all the good things they did, and all the less fortunate things they did. Yeah. So that is important to me and for our organizations. Wonderful.
David Ames 30:42
I want to ask you a wide open question. And we can go any direction you want with this, the term humanism, I think people experience that in different ways, right? For some, it's very academic, it's maybe even anti religious. For some, it is more about, you know, connection with people. I'm curious for you personally, Christian, and then for Norwegians, what is humanism mean?
Christian Lomsdalen 31:07
And you are quite right, it's like quite a difficult word, David to four to establish what it is because on the one hand, it is both academic term for I'm a humanist in my study in work because religious science is placed within the humanities. In that means, I'm a humanist. In Norwegian history, as well as in the European history, the humanism we talk about in history is more or less the Christian humanists, the evolvement of the Christian humanist man, this had a quite big place in Norwegian history, it was established as an important and existing framework. So in the Norwegian when the Norwegian Humanist Association was established in 1956, they chose to you use the word human ethicist, okay, are these humanist and ethical union I think is the word in best translation in American, which meant that we were that separated it from the Christian humanist term, and may established its own term that we could fill with what we needed it to be filled with, which was a secular humanism, okay. But at the same time, this has evolved a lot in the Norwegian context. So that now we more frequently uses the term humanism when we are talking about humanism as a term. And some of the strongest proponents of the Christian humanism, are quite angry with us for using their words, as a way to talk about our thing. Yes, and I feel that this is quite different things, even though they are quite similar, although their origin word the reasons for the world to be and the origins of everything is quite different in these two aspects. So on our Facebook page, the most contested posts are the one where we write humanism and write about our form of humanism. And a lot of people are writing on the Facebook pages, and commenting that this is not humanism. I'm a Christian humanist. And why use this word? I'm not a I'm not a humanist ethicist. I'm a humanist. The real thing do not monopolize our word.
David Ames 33:48
Interesting. Interesting. So you're studying religion? So I'm curious, you know, when I talked to the equivalent of, of what you just described, maybe Christian humanists, although they probably wouldn't use that terminology in the States. But they want to say that humanism is stealing from Christianity, the moral framework, ethical framework, what have you from a, you know, studying of religion point of view, is that true? Do you think that humanism under a different name predates Christianity? What are your thoughts there?
Christian Lomsdalen 34:23
I think that this is absolutely stealing from the from Christianity. Okay. Okay. And I have really no problem with it. Yes. Okay, but I think you make an important point, David, that you say that humanism even predated Christianity because I really do think that that is correct Christianity borrowed from traditions and thought systems that existed when Christianity was founded or appeared. Humans and at the same time, And this evolved in a context of traditions and points of view, its society that it was founded in. And at the same time, humanism as it exists in Western Europe, Northern Europe, United States has evolved from a cultural contexts. And for example, we I have been listening a lot to Tom Holland, for example, and his book dominion. And it seems like you're surprised that secularism or atheism comes from a Christian background. And this is the big finding, and all the Christian media has used very big headlines about this, this atheist historian that has discovered Christianity and its its reasons to create humanism. But this is not something new, right? All human traditions exist in a context and is created in a context and evolves in a context. And that means that when a human when a secular thought system appears, is evolved in a Christian context, it will have Christian values or thought systems, that is part of it, some of it will evolve further away, some of it will have experienced smaller evolutions, and it will be quite different. And some of it will be quite close, and quite similar. But this is not something new. This is basic cultural science.
David Ames 36:45
Yes, yes.
Christian Lomsdalen 36:48
So I'm not sure what the Christians that proposes this argument, because I hear it a lot as well, in the Norwegian context. I'm not sure what their goal is of this, do they want me to become a Christian just because some of my values and some of my ways to think is the same? Do they think that that will make me a Christian? And that will make me realize that I was a Christian all along? Yeah. Because I'm not really sure of the end points of what they have this argument, I'm, that makes me quite dumb fund.
David Ames 37:26
I'm fascinated by it as well, I think, the way I have been framing things of late, and I've stolen this from multiple people, but is that everything is secular, that human beings are the source of religious traditions. And so religious traditions themselves are secular as well. And that, just as you say, this is the normal cultural evolution that takes place when people are together over time. And just that's just what happens.
Christian Lomsdalen 37:52
You have traditions and they evolve. Exactly.
David Ames 37:56
Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, I find like, the argument that humanism has stolen from Christianity, it's almost like, well, you know, that's, that's my ball, I get to keep that and you don't get to play with. There's almost that, you know, kind of, I don't want to say childish, but you know, a way of saying that's ours, and that's not yours in a way that just doesn't recognize the complexity of human culture.
Christian Lomsdalen 38:21
And I think that that is a very good point. And to some degree, I think that this is a way for them to try to invalidate my, my worldview, on the basis that they had this part of this first. But at the same time, I think they should be rather proud of themselves. Because this means that their religion, their worldview, their religious worldview, have succeeded in such to such a large degree, that I as a secular person, includes this part of their worldview, as a part of my worldview, even though I don't believe in other parts of their worldview. And this is the same for the confirmation ceremonies, because a lot of Christians in Norway or some, it's less every year, are angry that we use the word conformations. Okay, because this is a Christian word they say. I would say that they stole it from the Roman Empire. So who steals from that they succeeded so much in making this tradition, an integral part of the Norwegian culture. They should be really proud that we use this word. Yeah. Yeah, it's like a point. It's more problematic than for us that we use this word really? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But Latin words, fortunately have a lot of meanings in different ways. We use it in the way to strengthen the use not to confirm some
David Ames 40:00
Ah, okay. Interesting Yeah.
Christian are there are some topics that I haven't asked about that you definitely wanted to bring up?
Christian Lomsdalen 40:17
What I think is important to notice that you have seen the shift in American religious framework or the religious map, it has changed a lot during the last years. And to some degree, the American context is a few years behind on how many religious people there are, how many non religious people there are, because America is a more religious place than Europe. Yes. And in the Norwegian context, around 30% now says that they are a believing Christian, or that they believe in God. And even then a region churches members say that it's around the same. So even within the church, a lot of people are reporting that there are non believing, which has given quite interesting rhetoric from the Norwegian state church of late when they have been arguing that we do not place our members in A or B categories, and we value them as much and they want obviously want to belong to the Christianity, because while they are members, even though they do not need to be. This change in the religious landscape means that I felt that I grew up in a quite normal religious home, when I grew up, as I said in the beginning, and at the same time, I think that my children or not my children, it's hard to use the precedent of the Norwegian Humanist Association as an example, as a part of a normal Norwegian religious family. Okay, okay. But the Norwegian family normal family would not participate a lot in the church community, as of now, because, and this is a trend that I heard on their religious podcast, as well as unbelievable that some one generations goes a lot to church, and the next just goes to church, some important dates during the year, and then the next generation, even less than I think this has happened a lot in Norway. So at the moment, I would really believe that young families is not even Christian Christmas Christians. They are rather secular. And that is quite a huge shift in this 3040 years for where I have been alive. And that is quite interesting.
David Ames 42:56
Yes, in the United States, and I don't have the statistics right off the top of my head, but the people who select none of the above nuns and O N. E. 's, are becoming the largest bloc of lifestance, let's say, people in the United States, which is quite a transformation from previous eras. So I think we're definitely looking at Europe in the UK for the secularization process that that you all have been through for some time now, almost for guidance, as we tried to figure out how what does this look like within what was formerly a very religious culture.
Christian Lomsdalen 43:34
But what is quite interesting for an American situation is this notion that or the belief that no politician will ever get into office as an atheist or a secular person, or it will just be from some liberal districts. And this is quite strange for me as a Norwegian to hear about because we had our first more or less openly atheist Prime Minister in the 50s.
David Ames 44:04
Wow, okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Christian Lomsdalen 44:07
And this is not something new and he was buried in the same place or his ceremony for his funeral was in the same place as I conducted the funeral I conducted in the town hall of the Capitol. And this was, I'm not sure if anybody first a lot about that. He had a non religious funeral service, even though this was in the mid 80s.
David Ames 44:34
Yeah, I think for right now, the I think there are many non religious politicians, but they have to hide. So I just very small handful, will say that they are agnostic. I actually think that one of the ways forward for us is to have a more formal sense of a humanist presence. Yeah, exactly. Yes. You know, for the politics. She needs to be able to say because the when when an American hears atheist they hear God hater immoral nihilist. And so I think a way forward is for a politician to say I am a humanist, I have an ethical stance, I, you know, I care about people, and that that might be the it for the future, a way for more secular politicians to hold their ground and and still be able to be elected.
Christian Lomsdalen 45:29
And that is probably the reasons why you have graceful atheists.
David Ames 45:37
Yes, yeah. Yeah. That Yeah, well, the podcast started because I just needed somebody to talk to I was feeling pretty lonely. So yeah.
Christian Lomsdalen 45:46
But at the same time to show that you can be a moral human being that makes good decisions and care for? Well, your neighbor is an important part of establishing that this is a possibility that well does not seem to exist in America at the moment for politicians. Exactly. So I think that you what you do with highlighting the graceful ways to be an atheist is important.
David Ames 46:17
Well, thank you so much, I really appreciate that.
Christian, can you tell us how people can learn more about the Norwegian humanist? I keep saying the wrong thing? It's not society, its association Association. Thank you. Sorry about that.
Christian Lomsdalen 46:40
Oh, it's not that important.
David Ames 46:43
And more about you? How can they find you?
Christian Lomsdalen 46:45
If they want to learn more about the Norwegian Humanist Association that you can visit our webpage and it's quite easy in English, it's the most the USA it's human.no. So human dot Norway. Fantastic. Okay, that is the easy way to find the Norwegian Humanist Association. And you would have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and choose English. Okay, because that is not that easily accessible.
David Ames 47:15
Actually, I wasn't, I was looking at it today in Chrome, and it'll just translate it for you. And it does a pretty decent job at that. Also,
Christian Lomsdalen 47:23
we and the best thing about that is that you can read all the Norwegian pages, which are a lot of more Norwegian pages than English pages on this web page. So you will learn more actually, if you visited with the automatic translation than just visiting the Norwegian the English page,
David Ames 47:42
we'll definitely have that in the show notes. Christian, I want to thank you so much for being on the podcast. This was a lot of fun. I always find it fascinating to compare culture. There's there's lots of similarities even and some differences. And I think that we all learn from that process. So thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Christian Lomsdalen 47:59
Thank you so much for having me my
David Ames 48:05
final thoughts on the episode. Christian was a fascinating person to speak with. Not only is he studying religion, from a teaching, didactic scientific point of view, but also the president of the largest Humanist Association in the world in Norway. And what Norway is doing is absolutely amazing that they are focusing on the human needs for community to have ritual in your life and give people the opportunities to act out their philosophical life states. I appreciate so much talking with Christian and hearing a different perspective, the European perspective that is definitely different than the United States, but also having very common ideas, the need for the separation of church and state for both the good of the state and the good of the church. And I find it fascinating that Christian is focused on the rights of religious people, including the politicians, and I think this is maybe what evangelical Christians don't get the most is that pluralism and secularism is actually good for everyone involved. I believe that history proves that out what evangelical Christians see as taking away something like school prayer, it doesn't occur to them that if you wanted to come and have a Wiccan ceremony or Satanic Temple ceremony, that would be difficult for them to swallow within a school. But by separating Church and State everyone is more free. I want to thank Christian for being on the podcast for telling his story, his personal story as well as the Norwegian story, giving us an A glimpse into what a more secular society can be like, one that embraces the rights of religious people and non religious people, and gives them the opportunities to live out their philosophical life stance. Thank you, Christian so much for being on the podcast. The secular Grace Thought of the Week inspired by Christian is about the human need for ritual. Two of my favorite books are, Kristen augments Grace without God and saucer seconds. For small creatures such as we, in both books, both women make the argument that human beings need to come together and physically act things out about their beliefs about their philosophies about their life stances to us Christians term. Sasha makes this explicit about births, coming of age, marriages, deaths, in the marking of time, things like birthdays, all of these things are really deeply important to us as human beings. And because they have almost always been wrapped up in religious tradition, on this side of deconversion, we can sometimes feel like they no longer apply to us. Or as Jennifer Michael hex coined in the Wonder paradox, dropped by and lie. In other words, we sometimes find ourselves at funerals and weddings that are religious, and yet we feel deeply uncomfortable. With all three of these authors suggest for us to do is to create our own traditions to reinterpret existing traditions to make rituals in our lives that are meaningful to us. And I love the way that Christian talks about this, our philosophical lifestance Or again, to use Jennifer Michael hex terminology, a graceful life philosophy, or in my words, secular grace. Next week, our lien interviews Kyler, that'll be a great conversation. Until then, my name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be graceful human beings. The beat is called waves by MCI beads. If you want to get in touch with me to be a guest on the show, email me at graceful atheist@gmail.com for blog posts, quotes, recommendations and full episode transcripts head over to graceful atheists.com. This graceful atheist podcast, a part of the atheists United studios Podcast Network
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
This week’s guest is Stephanie, a Deconversion Anonymous group member. Stephanie grew up in the Assemblies of God church as a Missionary Kid. Her younger years held all the trappings of white American evangelicalism, from conservative Christian school curricula to a paralyzing fear of going to hell forever.
“The ‘hell belief’? It’s a sticky one.”
Stephanie’s beliefs, however, had been set on precarious foundations: Christians are good and everyone else is bad; the Bible is true and inerrant; the Earth may look old, but it is only thousands of years old. Stephanie made friends outside the church as a young adult, and these new relationships plus great documentaries and books cracked open the bedrocks of her faith.
It’s been a long time since she deconverted, and she is living a life she loves by loving others without reservation. This is true secular grace, Humanism 2.0.
Quotes
“I have always felt strong emotions when I was participating in any of these very charismatic services, a lot of crying, a lot of emotion, but I’m not one of those people who really felt like I was talking to God, that He was talking to me. I was wishing desperately to feel that, [though]…”
“I had a very severe fear of hell.”
“I was jealous of the Baptists because they had the thing called ‘eternal salvation,’ that once you were saved you were always saved.”
“The ‘hell belief’? It’s a sticky one.”
“You can’t raise a kid in one culture and then drop them off in another and that be okay…You can’t do that to a child.”
“If you don’t hold to the [inerrancy of the Bible] very strongly, you can hold onto your Christian beliefs much longer.”
“If you are raised that the Bible is inerrant—We stand on it firmly!—and then you [hear] all this evidence that it’s just not inerrant…then it all just kinda tumbles in on itself.”
“It’s over. I don’t believe. I don’t believe any of it. It was just a quiet moment inside my head with no fanfare, no tears, no nothing…”
“I can hold out that there’s a possibility that some sort of entity out there may or may not have sparked everything, but I don’t see any evidence for it, and I’m not wasting mental energy on it.”
And then last fall, I finally managed to get a position as a nurse scientist where I helped design studies help other nurses put studies together, help them look for evidence, help them critically evaluate the evidence. I love my job. I can think of nothing better than I could do.
“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats
Transcript
NOTE: This transcript is AI produced 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 United studios podcast. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. I want to thank my latest patrons on patreon.com Melissa and Susan, thank you so much for supporting the podcast. I also want to thank my existing patrons Joseph John, Ruby Sharon, Joel, Lars Ray, Rob, Peter Tracy, Jimmy, Jason and Nathan. Thank you to all my Patrons for supporting the podcast. If you too would like to have an ad free experience of the podcast you can become a patron at patreon.com/graceful atheist. If you are doubting or deconstructing, you don't have to do it alone. Please join our private Facebook group deconversion anonymous. You can find it at facebook.com/groups/deconversion Special thanks to Mike T for editing today's show. On today's show, my guest today is Stephanie. Stephanie is a missionary kid she grew up in Brazil. At 18 She was dropped off back in the United States where she experienced a lot of culture shock. Stephanie admits that she was not very much of a Christian humanist. Her deconstruction and deconversion began with simple things like nature shows and science shows. Stephanie was a nurse for many years she went on to become a nurse scientist where she does research and supports her nursing staff. And today she is very much a humanist and concerned about secular grace and caring for people. Here is Stephanie to tell her story. Stephanie, welcome to the graceful atheist podcast.
Stephanie 2:10
Yes, thank you for having me.
David Ames 2:12
Stephanie, I appreciate that. You. You reached out to me. I think you had heard me on the I was a teenage fundamentalist podcast and I told a bit of my story. And it sounds like it touched a chord for you. And you reached out.
Stephanie 2:25
Yes. And at that point, I started listening to your very first podcasts and it. I mean, I listened to a lot of podcasts. And I listened to a lot of nonbeliever podcasts, and this one has just really aligned best with my way of looking at things.
David Ames 2:47
That's awesome. Thank you. Yeah. I cringed a little bit when people start with the first ones. The first ones were ROVs
Stephanie 2:55
were but hey, I've gotten I've been kind of kept. Whenever I have spare time I catch up on them. And I'm up to I'm up to like about a year ago, I can see like enormous progress. But heart was always there. And that's what kept me coming back and listening.
David Ames 3:14
Well, thank thank you for saying that. I do feel that that the core idea of secular grace, the core ideas of caring for each other. And through this process, not having people go through it alone was there from the get go, whether we executed well on it or not. So we're not here to talk about the podcasts. We're here to talk about us. As we as we always do want to hear about your faith tradition, when you were growing up.
Stephanie 3:39
My faith tradition growing up was a sin was Assemblies of God, just very, very always in the Assemblies of God. My mother literally went into labor as they were heading out the door to go to church where my dad was pastoring
David Ames 3:56
Okay, okay, so you were a PK as well? Yes,
Stephanie 3:59
I was, uh, yeah, I was a PK. But I don't have memories of that. Because we left. My father felt a, you know, call to the ministry. And when I was about two and a half years old, my parents moved our family to Brazil. They were Assemblies of God, missionaries there. I'm gonna try to think it's 3040 years, something like that. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was I want to say it was probably 40 years because hey, I was two years old. When it started. My middle brother was already with us. My youngest brother was born in a hospital in the Amazon region of Brazil. So that was a challenge. My parents, we live for a short time in the Amazonian region, but the vast majority of their the time that I grew up was in the southern Part of Brazil which is very urbanized, big city, certainly was not technologically up to the US and had lots of poverty. But it was a very modern city. And in fact, it was probably more of a big it was much bigger city than I've ever lived in and even till now. So it was big city living when people think that you're out in the jungle.
David Ames 5:23
No, no was that the experience of like the, forgive me if I get the term wrong, but the favelas like the very shanty kind of housing
Stephanie 5:32
was favelas were just all over? Yeah, it just wherever there was land that nobody was protecting, a shantytown would set up. And that was part of life, if there were floods, the favelas were getting washed away. And I didn't really even understand that. And I also, even though my parents in the US lived a very meager lifestyle. I mean, missionary work doesn't pay well, in Brazil, because of the way that just what you can buy. With more with less money. We were considered upper middle class, we were we were way wealthier in Brazil than we were in the US making the same amount of money. And therefore we had a lot of luxuries that we didn't have in the US. We had a maid who worked like, I don't know, 50 hours a week, and we paid her better than any of the other maids. But we still didn't pay her a lot. Yeah. And she lived in one of the shanty towns close to our house. That was generally kind of how it was those were the folks who wanted to come work for us. So my faith tradition was assemblies to God, we were. We were braised Assemblies of God, I had a salvation experience when I was six. for what that's worth, yeah,
David Ames 6:57
okay. Yeah, deep sinner at that time. Yeah.
Stephanie 7:03
I knew that it was very important. My parents who made it very clear that this was important, but they are really wonderful people, they really, were never going to be like, on my case, to do all the things that needed to be done. They really thought that it needed to be something that you wanted to do. So I give them great credit for that. As I grew up in Okay, so the missionary thing works different with different denominations. The one that we were with you were generally in your country of ministry for four years, and then back in the US for one year to visit all the churches touch base, tell them what you're doing and pass out those pledge cards. Yeah. Which was a lot times the child's duty, the children's pledge cards and stamped nicely at the front,
David Ames 7:53
just to jump in here. I don't think most people understand that. People who haven't done missionary work themselves that missionaries have to raise their entire salary themselves. And so it's like a politician, you have to, you have to raise your own money in order to go to the country. And that can be super challenging.
Stephanie 8:13
Well, that's for some of the missionaries, not those lazy Baptists. I say this very tongue in cheek, but the Baptist some and I don't know which set of Baptists because there's so many flavors, but in general, they have like a missionary fund that everyone contributes to and then I mean, it sounds really communist, I think, yeah. So yeah, but the Assemblies of God made you raise your funds individually, and you could not go back to the field if you had not hit your goals, and made your budget, which is wise. Because plenty of other people that are at the Assemblies of God mission is very well run. It's a very organized, we got to see lots of bad from other missionaries with a bigger denominations. And that's it's a really well organized mission organization. But we would come back to the US we tended to live in the southeast
it was around, oh, when was it? 1112 years old, that I had a big praying through at the Michigan School of missions that we would go to holy hill of Springfield, Missouri, and I received the baptism in the Holy Ghost with speaking in tongues. I wasn't even going to say anything to my parents, but my brother's ratted me out. I just it was a very personal thing. And our parents just were very respectful that yes, we had nightly devotions we do I had intense religious instruction from them, they they did all these things, but they did not push these items. I never had pressure from them to do any of these things.
David Ames 10:13
And just a real quick question was did that feel real internally to you that felt like,
Stephanie 10:18
I always have experienced strong emotions in when I was participating in any of these very charismatic services, a lot of crying, a lot of emotion. But I don't I'm not one of those people who really felt like I was talking to God. He was talking to me, I was reaching desperately to feel that and I believed other people were feeling it. I believe that what they they felt something I couldn't. I couldn't tell you that it was something for me. But I also knew I really needed to do this. My parents particular belief was that you needed to be saved. Baptism in the Holy Spirit and water were optional, but very, very good options. Very strongly recommended options.
David Ames 11:12
Yes, for the listener, who may not have grown up in the Assemblies of God, like it really is. You're kind of a second class citizen. If you if you don't speak in tongues. Yeah,
Stephanie 11:22
yeah. I mean, they need to at least Yeah, you need to, as far as like, the experience of glossolalia. As I came to find out it is later. I don't believe I was making it up. But I do believe that it was a psychological reaction, a kind of group. Think type thing. Because I never experienced some people do experience it when they're not in groups. I did not. That was not my normal prayer. preteen, I wasn't good at that. I tried to follow a lot of routines of developing my spiritual life, my my relationship with Christ, I was very good at doing all the things I needed to do. I would read the scriptures, I would pray on a very regular basis, even when I didn't want to, because I knew I needed to, because I had a severe fear of hell. Okay, theory severe fear of hell. And as you know, with the Assemblies of God, they, I was jealous of the Baptist because they had that thing called eternal salvation. That once you saved you were always saved. I came to find out that that's a little bit nuanced man to understand. But I, you know, there was, there were people that were getting rededicated to Christ all the time, because they had fallen away. And you know, what, if the rapture happened, they were getting left. And so anytime my mind would be wandering, and I wasn't really good with my relationship with Christ, I would be terrified. I would cry to God to please save me. Forgive me for my sins. Yeah. I literally used to have a thing as I'm sitting on a plane taking off, because you, some people do have existential moments then. And I'm like, Okay, no, this is a good time to make sure I'm good with God. Salvation back, just in case, we're not good god checking in, forgive me my sins in case we go down.
David Ames 13:27
It really does. Like, with hindsight, you realize that it is fear based, that it's driven by fear. And that's not really a great way to live.
Stephanie 13:38
No. And so I started struggling with really severe anxiety in my middle teens. I believe it was somewhat prompted by the thought that I was finishing my coursework pretty early, which was in the accelerated Christian education system, which is a whole different topic that I can't even get into. But, yeah, it's on par with Abeka. If that's all you're very, very conservative Christian curriculum with extremely slanted Christian nationalist views, didn't know that that was a thing. But yes, it was there. And I was going to leave my parents and I was going to have to go back to the US because it wasn't really a thing that you stayed in the country with your parents.
I really relied on them to feel okay with God. And I was starting to have a lot of doubts. And I have really struggled to try to think what started these doubts. When did they start because they did? Definitely, were not always with me. I was a very solid believer as a child as a young teen. And I did actually hear somebody speaking on your podcast. stuff about the ancient Oh Akkadian gods or something. And one of them was L and I'm like, oh, you know what? When I was in my mid teens, I was a vigorous book reader. I was reading a James Michener book. Yes, I loved those things. Called the source and it was about you know, if you know, James Mitchell, he does vast historic fiction covering decades, if not centuries, and this book covered the the beginnings of even I think it had like prehistoric humans, like non human human creatures. And it covered like the first people who started to realize religion and one tribe meeting another tribe, and the one tribe believed in this spiritual B, they call it L. And how this woman brought the belief of God and I kind of wonder if that didn't start to make me think like, wait. Yeah, yeah. I don't know I now looking back, because the time was pretty coincidental that it would have been around that time that that would have been the probably the first time I would have ever encountered any kind of literature that would have caused any doubt because I was very sheltered. I read only the things that I was doing. And James Michener is good, you know, all these books. So I wonder if that had something to
David Ames 16:32
do with it. So I read all kinds of secular stuff. So I read a lot of fantasy novels and science fiction novels. It It amazes me now in hindsight how almost all of that genre, or those genres have elements of critique of religion, that I was somehow I have this deep in the bubble, I was I was somehow able to say, well, that's not that's not what I've my relationship with God. And I was able to just push it off to the side and ignore. And you know, now with hindsight, it's like, wow, that was just a major theme and all of that literature.
Stephanie 17:04
Yes, I need to get into some of those. Because yes, it is. And I became very good at eventually locking down those bad thoughts. Because it led to pathological paralyzing anxiety. I could not, couldn't function. I couldn't go to school. I couldn't do anything except cry. I mean, it was really like at night when things would quiet and the thoughts would crowd in. And I was most terrified of going to hell, because if you don't believe in God, you're going to hell, the hell belief. It's a it's a sticky one. Yeah, it doesn't. You know, and I, there was a lot of me that believed I should believe in God. But I was struggling, I wouldn't say I lost my belief in God. At that time, I was just wracked with doubts, right? Yeah. And that kind of persisted. Until I was probably 16, my youngest brother had a very bad health scare. He had a rice syndrome. And he was he was bad off. And I saw my parents really struggling with that. I mean, they, they were, I mean, as you might imagine, they're in a foreign country, and their child is having a severe health crisis. And so he did pull through that, and I'm just like, I, I gotta get my stuff together. I can't, I can't. And I know that my anxiety and psychological condition was distressing my parents intensely. And they were thinking about having to leave Brazil and not come back until I was fixed or whatever. And I did share with my mother that I was having doubts about God. And she took it pretty well, because it wasn't like I said, I don't write. Anyway, we, I just decided, You know what? I'm done with the doubts, I believe, and any thoughts that rise up in your head. I've never been good at meditation, but it's almost like what they tell you about meditation about like, kill that thought. That blocked focus, kill that thought focus. I was able to do that. For a long time. I was able to pull through that and graduate from high school and then yes, then my parents left me and they left me in the US as an 18 year old who was really probably not ready for that. But
David Ames 19:42
can I ask it what you know? If you grew up in your teen years in Brazil, was their culture shock coming back to the US?
Stephanie 19:50
Ah, that is probably the one thing that I do. I am a little bit upset with my parents because they thought All the other missionary I don't think they realized how big of a deal that is. You can't raise a child in one culture and expect to drop them off in another culture and be okay. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, I mean, now with all that I know about, you know, development, child development, mental development, the contact I have with, with psychology that's just that you can't do that to a child. Not on it not expect big problems. But I pulled through it. I did have to go live with my aunt. Oh, yes. So I tried to attend the southeastern Assemblies of God college. I think it's a university now. But whatever, that last year.
David Ames 20:45
That sounds familiar. Yeah. And then now my university no longer exists.
Stephanie 20:51
That lasted a whole two weeks before I started having panic attacks. And just needed to go somewhere where I had support and I landed with my favorite aunt. And I mean that completely my mother sister who took me in and took an extra child and to take care of, and I lived in a closet in her her kids play room. And that was that was good. That was good. I had support. I had someone who loved me and could just provide a it was still extremely hard. It was extremely hard. I was trying to go to college, I was somewhat succeeding. I was poor. I was very faithful in a local Assemblies of God church. I was, in fact, I drew incredible strength from that. I I heard somebody talking recently, and they're like, and man, I was at the church to three times a week and I'm like, slacker. God. That's not enough. Sunday, twice on Sunday. And then Tuesday, youth service, then Wednesday prayer service. And then hopefully, there's a Friday get together small groups. So that was my level of need that could I you know, I don't I didn't know what I was doing. But I was seeking that community support to cure rounded. And it helped. It helped me It helped me have a community that I needed. I had lost all my other community.
David Ames 22:29
Exactly. You're literally alone. You know, I know your aunt supporting you. But yeah, you have no community. And so obviously would reach out for for that. And there it is on a plate.
Stephanie 22:39
Yeah, there it is on a plate. And you know, they were good people. And I had a lot of social capital as a missionary kid. Okay. That was worth a lot. I mean, missionary kids aren't known as screw ups. They're known as like, really good kids. And I was I was a really good kid. And I was well accepted. There. But that was I remember one time my car broke down. I was in the middle of nowhere, not anything bad. And I had the phone number for the pastor of this church. And I called him at 11 o'clock at night, and he came and picked me up and took home and ask zero questions, then, I mean, that's that I had support. I had support. I was attending college, I felt like I might want to do nursing, because that was a degree that I could get in a couple of years, and I had an interest in medicine.
Nursing turned out to be a really good fit for me. I got my associate degree there, you can enter nursing with an associate degree. I worked at the local hospital. I did well in that as time passed. So now I'm in my early 20s, I started looking back I probably had more community developing with my work friends, and I started pulling away from church. Also because night shift work does not Yeah, Night Shift and weekend work does not always match well with the with the hospital job. So I wasn't out of the church, but I was I was not attending four or five times a week. I was maybe going to Sundays a week, a month, two Sundays a month, which is terrible by my previous standards.
David Ames 24:39
Yeah. And you're not getting that reinforcement. So we talk a lot about the need for that reinforcement for it to work.
Stephanie 24:47
Absolutely because I feel like I had one of the slowest deconstructions ever, okay. And I would not say that I was having any knew doubts about God at this point I still was I was very firm in my belief and I was not readdressing them. I got a little bit adventurous felt like I might want to date or whatever. took up travel nurse jobs and wound up in Texas and found a man and married him. I know that's a lot. happened like that. Yeah. Okay. And almost that fast. And yet, we're still married 20, almost 25 years.
David Ames 25:31
Congratulations. Yeah, let's go. Yeah, yeah.
Stephanie 25:36
So when I came to when I met the husband, Patrick, I was I convinced myself that he was a good Christian who had struggled with his faith in the past. And I completely do not put any fault on him for miscommunicating that you hear what you want to hear? Yeah, I heard he went to a Christian university. I heard he wanted to be a missionary when he was young. I heard he led all these different ministries with his parents. I heard that he had some doubts after his father died. But you know, he worked through them. And he spoke Christianese.
David Ames 26:17
It was, yeah.
Stephanie 26:19
It wasn't until we had been married, I think two solid years that he said, No, I am really not sure there is a God. And that that devastated me. But I, I was just convinced that he was a Christian. Now we weren't churchgoers. We had looked at churches, we had tried different churches. He grew up Church of Christ, they're not really into the super charismatic stuff. And so we would try different places. We really liked the Liturgy of the Presbyterian churches, that was nice, but nothing, never. We just never hit with a place. And so we're just kind of out of church. And he also decided to get a degree in nursing. And we we know that you get paid and paid best when you work nights and weekends. That did not match well with going to church.
David Ames 27:20
And you do what you have to do, right? Yeah.
Stephanie 27:22
I mean, yes, it did pay well, and we weren't that dedicated to. I was still very much believing I was a Christian. I would still every few months have the panic moments of God, I'm so sorry for my sins, please. Re up my salvation. Please. i It wasn't really until I went back to school when I was pretty much 40 years old to get my bachelor's degree, and they required a whole bunch of liberal arts degree or liberal arts courses, including a world religions course. Which is astounding when you start doing that. But as a preamble to that I had read a book just for my own entertainment. The Infidel by il en Hirsi Ali. That's her. And she gives an excellent account. I know that she you know, today has some issues that whatever her book was very good for me. Yeah, yeah, he gave a very detailed account of how she became a very dedicated, fundamentalist Muslim, and her personal journey, becoming close to God Allah and it was identical to what we Christians are supposed to do and very confusing to me. It really planted a deep seed. I don't think I came out of that. But I came out of that book with like, wait a minute, I need to look at some things you can't develop a close relationship with the wrong god. Not possible. That's something something some part of this equation is wrong. And I don't know maybe, you know, maybe we're worshipping the same God. But then how is she doing it wrong the whole time. And yet she's developing this close personal relationship with the right God I took there was too many questions. Yeah. And I that bat put a severe blow on my faith but it also been a long time so I wasn't that close to the church. So this wasn't so like personally traumatizing okay, because I had the distance at this point to be okay with it. I was in a safe place. My husband was not a believer.
David Ames 30:00
All right, you had rooms in question further if you needed to.
Stephanie 30:03
Right, so and so then I take the world religions course. And I'm just like, Okay, everybody, the big thing that I got out of that is no, no, no, the Buddhists really aren't trying to be evil, that people who have their elder based worships, they're really trying to do all the same good things that Christians are trying to do. You mean, we're all just trying to be good. I don't understand this, because it was pretty inherent in my religious education that all these other people are just demonic and evil. And they they want to do bad. In Brazil, there's a strong spiritist movement, which is a it's a religion that has risen from the tribal religions of Africa along with some kind of 19th century spiritualist beliefs. And you know, what I come to find out later, they're really just trying to get close to their ancestors in a series of gods, but to us, all they did was get together and invite demons to possess them. And it's just a whole different perspective that No, no, we're all just trying to get to be good.
And then I had to take ethics, okay, which was a whole review of different philosophies so that you could understand where ethics arose. And it was just shocking that all these ancient Greeks were thinking about such serious things. And I have never, I've never been introduced to that in my AC e curriculum for are not going to talk about anything outside of the Bible, or people who specifically addressed the Bible. So it was it was mind blowing to, to have that thought about what is good. And I'm like, but good is God. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, no, no, but why is God good? Is he is good. Is God good? Because he has to comply with some good ethic that existed prior to him overs God, good, because what he says is good is good. And that was a mind blowing thought. I mean, literally felt my brain kind of exploded inside my head. I'm not joking. I had a physical sensation,
David Ames 32:47
I believe here. Yeah, that is, that's quite a quite a moment.
Stephanie 32:51
And at this point, I've kind of abandoned the God of the Bible. And I'm just holding on to some deistic belief of some sort, not not even like a liberal, I had a super quick, liberal Christianity phase like it didn't it didn't materialize to anything. And then my husband starts playing Bart Ehrman videos, and that that's probably what did in all the God of the Bible, because, you know, it's one thing if you get raised in a church with pretty easygoing views on the internet and the inerrancy of the Bible, if you don't hold to that very strongly, then you can hold on to your Christian beliefs much longer, in my opinion. I agree. Yeah. If you are raised that the Bible is an error, we still don't stand on it firmly. And then you provide all this evidence that will but it's just not.
David Ames 33:53
It's demonstrably not. Yes. It's,
Stephanie 33:55
it's not even like up to for debate with anybody who's done any kind of minimal study. Well, then it just kind of all tumbles in on itself. Because I, I built my belief on the inerrancy of the Bible, and that it was accurate and historically accurate. So that that was a big thing. But I still wasn't like really sure about all the evolution stuff and all the age of the Earth things. And there are a few more documentaries and one boring documentary about the layers of silt in the ocean that just clearly demonstrate the age of the Earth and the progression of creatures that get deposited and I'm like, Okay, now it's over. I don't believe I don't believe any of it. And it was just a quiet moment inside my head with no fanfare, no tears, no nothing. Just don't get out. No, none of that. None of that. I mean, I can hold out the possibility of there being some sort of entity out there that may or may not have sparked everything, but I don't see any evidence for it. And I'm not wasting mental energy on it. It's not important to me, I don't. And I don't I had, so I was probably around 42 Or three. In fact, I just found a Facebook look back post from 2012, where I had just passed my ethics exam. Okay. And that was like, Okay, that was right at the beginning of the end. And within about a year, it was over. And it was all over. I had no more. No more supernatural beliefs. I I had finished by 2013, I had finished my bachelor's in nursing. I fell in love with research. Love it. That's apparently a weird thing for nursing, I felt compelled and encouraged by my wonderful husband to pursue a PhD in nursing so that I could do research. Yeah, that was a long, hard battle. If you get a legitimate PhD, in Obi Wan. It's it. It's hard. Anyway, I defended back in 2019. And then last fall, I finally managed to get a position as a nurse scientists where I helped design studies help other nurses put studies together, help them look for evidence, help them critically evaluate the evidence, I love my job, I can think of nothing better than I could do.
I will bring up the I got to change bosses when I come to the new job. And she has been an amazing boss. Heavily demonstrated by the fact that right after I got hired on I got a call. So September, I started the new job. November I get a call from my our text from my sister in law who lives in the town where my parents live and saying your dad's taken a turn for the worse. Dad had been suffering with vascular dementia for two or three years, not very long. Apparently, it's a very rapidly progressing form of dementia, which I had witnessed. And it was so fast for what I have been able to see as a nurse over the years. So I got a call, he's taken a turn for the worse his hospice nurses worried that it may be today. And I'm like, Okay, I'm coming. And I booked my plane ticket, right there. And then I notified my manager who said, Go, Go be with your family. Don't worry about it. Do not worry about it. She was amazing. That's not the attitude that most bedside nurses get exposed to. They're like who's going to cover your shift?
David Ames 38:10
Right, right.
Stephanie 38:13
I recognized how valuable that was. And I arrived on a Tuesday and that had rallied just a little bit. But he wasn't really able to speak. And I knew that he was close. He had been kind of sick for two weeks. But he can't be as debilitated as he was in come through. Even like I think he had a mild viral something and it triggered one more stroke, because he would have strokes off and on. And then he just couldn't. He couldn't swallow and he was struggling to breathe. Anyway, I spent. So I arrived Tuesday and Friday afternoon, I saw very serious signs. Before I get there, I still am not out to my family directly. I have I have shared with my middle brother that I consider myself closest with him. That I mean, we share my husband and I shared that we went to like American Atheist convention. I think we didn't have to come out and say, Hey, we don't believe in God. I think that was pretty clear. You know, and me participating and talking about the things we were there doing. But I never revealed any of that to my parents. And I don't want to hurt them. Yeah, I don't want to hurt them. And my father by the time I was kind of really realizing my lack of belief. He was already suffering from dementia and I just don't know how much I don't want his just couldn't burden him.
David Ames 39:55
It's definitely I don't know how much of my story you know as well but I have this Same experience, I lost my mom about a year after my deconversion. And I was unable to tell her there just wasn't the right moment. It didn't happen. You know, I sense that it would have done more harm than good for her. Right? And when you actually care about the other person and sometimes unburdening yourself isn't the right move. And like, there's nothing to feel guilty about. There's what I'm saying. So,
Stephanie 40:23
no, I don't feel guilty, I feel like I did the right thing. I feel like I do have that strong. I did, as time passed after my end of my Christianity, I don't even know if I would call it a deconversion. It was a very slow death. I do have a personal ethic. And I do identify as a humanist. Not only that, but I don't think that I was a Christian humanist, I don't think I was a good humanist. My beliefs were very driven by extreme right wing politics, I was very judgmental, I was very black and white, I did not accept Shades of Grey, I wasn't that nice of a person, I don't think I have moderated that and tried to look at people as individuals who have their quirks and bumps, and are still people who need help. So as I, so I did start identifying as humanist, we actually, I think I am currently a member of American Humanist Association, we went to a few meetings in our area, didn't really bond with the folks there, they were a bit older than us. And then the pandemic hit, of course, so that kind of, I don't think we've gone back since then.
Wanted to navigate this time with my family in a caring way. I mean, who does it but I was trying to be very balanced between accepting all their needs to be very Christian and very event, evangelical during this, my father's dying process. And knowing that there's, there's no need to even get into this. And part of that is going to be me participating in some of these things. So as I'm sitting there, helping mom educating her on what I'm seeing as the dying process, I, you know, would give different advice on nursing care, she'd derive great comfort from me being there and having some enhanced knowledge. As the last moments approached, I saw signs of impending death. And I I gathered the family and said, I think this is it. I think he's, I think he's at the very end. So right now, just talk to him. I mean, they had been doing so all along. Sure. I said, you know, whatever, whatever you think would make him happy do that. And my aunt and Mother start seeing singing old gospel classics, and, you know, in nice harmony, which they were two little PK, so they tell you that and we're all joining in, there's prayers going up, but there's mostly just singing and telling stories. And they, you know, don't you think dad's going to be thrilled to go up and hug Cassie? who passed away two or three years? Isn't that wonderful? He always loved her and I'm just participating in the Congress. I'm not what why am I gonna like rain on this parade this? I don't have anything. I'm going to go Yes. Like, He'll be so happy. Not because I'm trying to be deceitful because I'm trying to comply, provide comfort and be in the moment with everybody. And it truly even though it was very sad. I truly don't believe my father was suffering any. And I truly believe that. That's the way I would want to
David Ames 44:23
go. I surrounded by your loved ones. Absolutely. Yeah.
Stephanie 44:27
And I told them that I said it when it's my time to go. I want to be surrounded by all my family who loves me the most singing to me telling me what great stories. Yeah, there are really good deaths, but they're better deaths. And I think he had a pretty good one.
David Ames 44:47
And I think you played a major role in that. Like, you know, just being there comforting mom, you know, having some real practical advice. Yeah. First of all, I'm very, very sorry for your loss. I know and how devastating that is. I know that you mentioned Off mic that you just heard the episode where I talked about my my father in law and I had with not as intensely attached because it was a father in law. I loved him dearly, but But obviously, I don't want to compare in that way. But like having the sense of being there for the family, allowing them to express their faith in the way that they did. And just being supportive, like physically helping us where I could that kind of thing. And, like you say, Man, that is, you want to be surrounded by the people that you love when you're when your time?
Stephanie 45:36
No, that's we have not found out how to make death optional at this point. And so I'm very pragmatic. When and if it's my time to go, I want it to be as free of pain as possible. Don't be surrounded by my family love, and you may, yeah, yeah. And we had excellent hospice care. They this this one hospice nurse, he was kind of hilarious. Well, he was a Yankee. So first of all, and he had a tough, crunchy outer layer. But when it was time, he was the most supportive person possible. And he would speak to my mother at the appropriate level, very frank, honest, but on a layman's terms, and when I told him my experience in nursing, he spoke to me in very precise medical terms. And we collaborated very thoroughly on his end of life care on dosing him with morphine and him giving me some safe parameters to raise his dose or hold off or whatever. And whatever decision we made. We were supported. And so I couldn't ask for more from the hospice staff. They were amazing. But I really felt that I was able to be a support to them. And I mean, they said that, and then that goes further, because I actually my husband, one, he's had multiple previous careers, and one of them was a funeral director. I know a little bit about the funeral business, and the psychology of funerals. And you know, the important thing is that funerals are about the people that are here.
David Ames 47:33
Exactly.
Stephanie 47:34
Yes. They say that in a completely Christian environment. Yeah, yeah. Because that's who's paying their bills. And so I recognize that as mom plan, dad's funeral, this funeral is for her, right. And it's going to make her happy to do what she believes he would have liked. But it's for her. It's for her, and it's for my brothers. And it's for me, and my dad loved him some old fashioned hymns and church camp songs. And so we came up with a list of songs. And they planned that his service would be truly a celebration of life, with mostly concentrated on singing, all his favorite songs. And they tried, they called one of the older men who hadn't been up in pulpit doing music ministry, and forever, because he would do it very old fashioned. They, they called all the old choir members, because this church is trying to modernize and they've gotten rid of the choir. So I mean, I don't care. Yeah. Anyway, they did all the multipart singing, and I got up in there, and I sang all those songs. I think that's participated. Because to me, that was my way of paying tribute to my family. And I hope that they don't misinterpret that I have actually thought a lot. When my father started showing signs that he was going to deteriorate in a matter of a couple of years rather than decades. I kind of started thinking, if I don't ever think I would come out to my father and tell him that I believe in your God. I can see that happening with my mother for many reasons. She's, she's very, very fundamentalist and her beliefs, but they actually raised us, telling us that we were always allowed to ask questions. And we were always allowed to respectfully address anything that we wanted to and I'm sorry, but I listened to that. And that's where I wound up was questioning everything. But I could see myself talking to her about this one day it wouldn't be right away. Sure. She's grieving me But if it ever came up, I would be comfortable sharing that with her. I think it would break her heart. So I'm probably not going to be the one who goes there. But if it gets brought up to her, that's okay. Anyway, I, I think that the process of my father dying was much easier for me to navigate than it would have been otherwise, because I chose to take a hand and being his caregiver. And that may have been a defense mechanism. I don't know. But it felt natural. And it was appreciated.
David Ames 50:50
Well, and I think a couple of things, the participating, then physically participating, it's why why ritual is still important, right, right, is a part of the grieving process. And so being a part of that the before, the, during the after, is a part of that grieving process. And, and I think one of the great ironies of deconversion is that we actually get to grieve, we don't have to say to ourselves, well, they're in a different place, and better, right, we can just mourn the loss of that person and celebrate their life. And, and there's something much healthier about that as a grieving process than then pretending that they're still still with us somehow.
Stephanie 51:30
I mean, I feel that is such a huge difference. Because it changes the way that my husband and I relate to each other, we choose to do things that make us happy. And we don't like, back when I was a, I was a non humanist Christian, I would just decide to be mad and not talk to him for a while. And now I look at that and go, that is a week of our tiny little time and a half together, that has been just, I just decided not to take it. That's stupid. You know, and not that I'm not going to be mad if I need to be, I'm going to deal with it. Because that is just stupid. We only get a blip of life. The ones who live to be 90 years old, we only get a blip of light. And I want to, I want to fully experience that. And because I do feel committed to humanist principles. Part of that is my nursing profession. I want to pass joy to as many people one of the big things I do in my job now is sitting down with nurses who want to fight want to look at doing a research study or want to look at doing an evidence based practice project. They're terrified of the process. And a, I understand. Yeah, I used to be there and be come sit with me, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna take this beer out. If it's the only thing I do today, I want to take the fear of this away from you. Because I've got you, and you can do this.
David Ames 53:22
That's amazing. Like, I think, you know, mentoring, especially in your expertise is such a valuable thing. You're passing on knowledge you're supporting and enabling their success, and then what they do that affects people's lives literally physically. So that's a profound piece of work you're doing.
Stephanie 53:42
Yeah, I had some fears. When I was leaving the bedside nursing job. I worked in the NICU. That's very gratifying. We, I've worked with the majority of the babies I worked with were on their way to recovery. And it was a very gratifying work. And you do get at you know, you can get into a whole debate about altruism. Is there any true altruism, I kind of don't believe there's true altruism, I think we all do good things, even if it's to make ourselves feel good. And that's probably why I did a lot of the things in nursing that I did is it's so gratifying and instant reward. And I'm worried about moving into a role like this. I'm moving away from the bedside and I'm not going to be sitting there making the babies happy again. Am I going to because I know that that's important to my ego, to my you know, that Freudian type of ego and I have been so rewarded. Working in this role. I get that interpersonal reward from working with the nurses and working with other people in the departments but I I truly see that and I see the fear melt away. I mean, I've had a lady in here Monday, that was like almost paralyzed. But she had a project she really felt strongly about, like, Tell me more. Oh, this is cool.
David Ames 55:16
That's awesome. Yeah, that's fantastic.
Stephanie 55:19
That that is very rewarding to me. I look forward to a long career doing this, but hasn't been made. So
David Ames 55:27
well. Definitely you have the my vote for humanist of the year I think that got some incredible work that you're doing. I loved your story. I think the element of just the evidence piling up and just being willing to accept that even down to you know, a documentary about the sediment, right, like just being able to let that absorb and get past the protections and is so profound, and I think many many people are going to hear their themselves in your story. So thank you so much for telling your story on the podcast.
Stephanie 56:00
Well, thank you for having me.
David Ames 56:07
final thoughts on the episode. Stephanie found this podcast by hearing me on sister podcast, I was a teenage fundamentalist. What all of us have in common is the Assemblies of God and a Pentecostal background. What makes me slightly different is that I didn't grow up with that. I became a Christian in my teenage years, and thus avoided some of the things that Stephanie describes in this episode. That real honest fear of hell, and hell, anxiety and that lingering in her words, she says, The hell belief is a sticky one, that was a struggle for her to get over. I really love Stephanie story that a nature show talking about silt layers, and the obvious implications for the age of the Earth, began her deconstruction. Stephanie clearly has a scientific mind. She loved doing nursing, but then continued on in her education, getting a PhD and becoming a nurse scientist, where she supports other nurses. That inquisitive mind, I think, was always working and maybe doubting her story is not unfamiliar that she was doubling down and forcing herself to believe and ignoring her doubts through most of her life. I love her description of her deconversion she says it's over. I don't believe I don't believe any of it. It was just a quiet moment inside my head with no fanfare, no tears, no nothing. It can be that simple. I'm so glad that now Stephanie has the freedom to love people that prior to her deconversion she was more judgmental. And that's all part of being within the bubble of Christianity. Stephanie's heart comes through here in this interview that she actually really cares about people going into the nursing profession and and now as a nurse scientists supporting nurses, you can hear how much she cares about people. And I am so glad that the concepts of secular grace and humanism are now meaningful for Stephanie, as she can embrace the people around her and love them without hesitation. I want to thank Stephanie for being on the podcast for being so honest and vulnerable for telling her story. Thank you so much, Stephanie, for being on the podcast. The secular great start of the week is the freedom to love people. We say this all the time. But one of the great ironies of deconversion and deconstruction is being released from the feeling of obligation or the perception of obligation to be judgemental to hold some imagined moral line, such that we held people at bay, we held people away from us, and we mark them as others, all the while as Christian saying that we loved people, and that God loved him. This side of deconversion, you begin to recognize how judgmental we have been, we have to have a bit of grace with ourselves as well and not to beat ourselves up about that. But the exciting part is then the ability to just embrace the humanity and others. And ultimately, I think this is what humanism is, this is what the acknowledgment of human rights is, is the Express statement that all human beings have value, that we assert it so that we recognize that everyone is worthy of love and respect and acceptance. And we don't need to play mental gymnastics to say that we hate the sin but love the sinner. We can just love people and people are complicated, but that's okay. This is the core idea of secular grace that we embrace. As our humanity so that we can embrace the humanity and others and that we can truly love them. We've got some wonderful interviews coming up. Up next is our Lean interviewing cat. After that, I interviewed Joanna Johnson, who's written a book called silenced in Eden, and many more lined up after that. Until then, my name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be graceful human beings. The beat is called waves by Mackay beads. Do you want to get in touch with me to be a guest on the show? Email me at graceful atheist@gmail.com for blog posts, quotes, recommendations and full episode transcripts head over to graceful atheists.com This graceful atheist podcast a part of the atheists United studios Podcast Network
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Poetry is one way we homo sapiens, can get a glimpse into another’s life, into the lives of people whose experiences may be wholly different than our own. Poetry has the power to meet us where we are and possibly begin to change us.
Humanism is about human lives–the story of our lives–both our individual and collective experiences but without any divine intervention.
Poetic Recommendations
At the beginning of April, in honor of National Poetry Month, members of our Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group shared some of their most treasured poems. Enjoy!
This is a manifesto, mostly written for myself, but perhaps it may help you.
The temptation is strong. Fight it!
Coming out of Christian fundamentalism, there is a temptation to jump right to the next fundamentalism. Angry Atheist is the first one that springs to mind, but there are others. Once you are used to having a community that tells you what to think, it is difficult to move away from that and do more of the thinking for yourself.
And that’s the thing. You have to think for yourself, or you may end up committing to yet another ideology that betrays you.
Avoid living in a way where some rules or ideas are untouchable. You do or believe things because the group says you do them, but you haven’t dug into exactly why these things are done or believed.
Avoid the temptation to follow a group because it’s easier than figuring things out on your own.
Do learn and process things in a community–where you can–but be mindful about it.
People are more important than ideas
Learn to connect to your fellow humans for their own sake. Everyone has a story, some might even share with you. Everyone can benefit from a listening ear. People aren’t “projects and objects.” They’re people (hat tip to Matt, in his episode). People from your former faith are still people, our fellow humans.
This isn’t an exhaustive list. In short: I don’t want to go back to being a fundamentalist.
Jennifer is a poet and historian and in this interview, she makes a solid case for the important place that poetry—and other art forms—can have in our lives.
“It’s got to be a poet who says, ‘This virtue still matters,’ because we’re at a moment where we don’t even know what to do with things that are not fairy tales but also not physics.”
This is a great conversation that you won’t want to miss!
“…a poetic way of looking at our lives can do a lot of the same jobs that religion can do, and we need to explore that.”
“We have these profoundly complicated feelings, and how do you express that? To some degree, it is inexpressible…but poets are going to try and capture that ambiguity.”
“The main poetic subject really is to look at things that are kinda too hard to look at…the inner experience of mortality, that inner experience of ambition despite mortality, which is the paradox that all of us have to face.”
“You don’t need to collect hundreds of poems. You need to seize on a few, return to them and let your life grow on them and their intricacies grow on you.”
“It’s got to be a poet who says, ‘This virtue still matters,’ because we’re at a moment where we don’t even know what to do with things that are not fairy tales but also not physics.”
“What is between the factual and the nonsense is the whole realm of humanity.”
“When you see the larger scope of how human beings manage the fear of dying, you don’t look around for a replacement for heaven anymore.”
“There are many rituals in any given faith that specifically welcome everybody, that welcome outsiders…You can do the ones you’re invited into.”
“Human beings aren’t robots. Rituals weren’t for God. The rituals were always for human beings, and it’s good for us to keep doing them.”
“The next generation is going to believe bad things if we don’t give them good things [to believe].”
“I call myself a ‘poetic realist,’ and I call myself a ‘poetic atheist.’”
“I feel very strongly that the way to the future is pluralism and rationality. I believe in those things so much that any indoctrination is not going to be what I want.”
“…you gotta go out and be with people…[and] you need some time alone to think.”
“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats
Transcript
NOTE: This transcript is AI produced 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 United studios Podcast Network. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. 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. Shout out to all my patrons. If you too would like an ad free experience of the podcast you can become a patron at any level at patreon.com/graceful atheist. If you are in the midst of doubt or questioning or deconstruction, you do not have to do it alone. Please join us at deconversion anonymous where we are trying to be a safe place to land for those people who are questioning doubting and deconstructing. You can find us at facebook.com/groups/deconversion. Special thanks to Mike T for editing today's show. On today's show. My guest today is Jennifer Michael Hecht. Jennifer is one of my intellectual heroes and she has written a new book called The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives. Jennifer was previously on the podcast four years ago and 2019 where we discussed her book doubt history. Jennifer is one of those people who is able to capture the joy and wonder of life from a secular perspective and put it down on paper. I describe her as one of the very few people on the vanguard of ritual and meaning for nonbelievers. She coined the phrase a graceful life philosophy. We discussed multiple phrases that she coins in this book, including interfaith lists, cultural liturgy, dropped by in lie ceremonies, and poetic atheism. Jennifer is a historian and an academic but she is first and foremost a poet. And that comes through in her writing. And in our discussion here today. The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives is out March 7, please go out and get this book. It is absolutely amazing. Here is my conversation with Jennifer Michael Hecht.
Jennifer Michael Hecht. Welcome to the Graceful Atheist Podcast.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 2:45
Thanks so much for having me,
David Ames 2:46
Jennifer. It amazes me. But it was four years ago that you and I chatted about your book doubt. That was all the way back in 2018. You were so kind to come on then the podcast was two months old, I think at the time. So it's like, what a transformation since then. And we were discussing the fact that you are currently at that time writing Wonder Paradox, which is your new book that is out on March 7. So I'm so glad to have you back.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 3:14
Thanks so much. I'm really delighted to be here. And Wow, you've grown and served so many people. And it's just amazing thing you've you've managed to do here.
David Ames 3:22
I appreciate it. Yeah. And I think the I think the listeners are probably sick of hearing me recommend your writing. Almost anytime anyone asks me about books at all, you are at the top of that list. So you remain my intellectual hero. Thank you so much for the work that you do as well. I won't go all in on your your bone a few days. But I think your bio is understated. It says that you're a poet and a historian. And that is there's a lot packed into those two words. I think you've been a professor or you've written a number of books, including academic books, you want to talk just a bit about the work that you've done over the years.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 4:03
Sure. You know, I started out as a poet, and I thought I would do really I was in high school sort of college college and I thought I'm gonna write poetry. But I wanted a day job. My father, until very recently was a history. I was a sorry, a professor of physics, at Delphi on Long Island. And so the idea of teaching the idea of going to graduate school so I think I thought about, about doing history of literature, history of poetry, but in graduate school, I fell in love with the history of science, and have very poetic it was how how very much in order to do science. You have to try as hard as you can to go from one rational idea to the next, but one does history of science. By unraveling that, and that is much more of a sort of, by your guts feeling to realize well, how how would certain ideas, perhaps stay in a certain line of thinking longer than they should have, and then sort of try to figure out, oh, it was stuck to this and that all of this kind of work is much more cultural and literary. But doing the history of science, of course, brought me into the history of atheism. And I was already an atheist, and I was just overjoyed to see such weird and interesting people. You know, I wouldn't say that all atheists through history have been as weird as the group that I happen to find when I was doing some history of science work for my PhD. And found some some early anthropologists, they'd really sort of invented anthropology in a sense, and they were atheists, and they were, they saw what they were doing as, as a way of promoting atheism, their science. So this is not in the history, the way we look at any of these subjects. So that was an immediate Oh, this is fun and weird, and I gotta track this down. And that experience made me realize, oh, every time I try to find a straight history of atheism, there isn't one out there. People were either making everybody atheists or nobody atheist. So that work was a delicious side slant that took me you know, that became my main branch of how I was operating in the world, to bring that kind of history of atheism, history of religious doubt, history of debt, religious doubt, that leads people to new religions, not always to agnosticism or atheism, a whole bunch of varieties of watching the ways that sometimes ritual disappears. But faith stays sometimes faith disappears. So all of that kind of work, for the longest time was somewhat separate from my poetry. And I read poetry as well as write poetry and I and I've taught on the graduate level. So yeah, eventually those things were going to come together and they finally have is our ex, I'm really looking at the ways that, that the, that a poetic way of looking at our lives, can do a lot of the same jobs that religion can do, and that we need to at least explore that at least all of us just up a click of observation about how these things operate in our lives, you gain, you gain some power, you gain some peace, just little adjustments, of naming some of the real things that are happening around us, you don't even have to seek to change them. Just naming does a tremendous amount. And that's where, where the book starts just talking about that phenomenon.
David Ames 8:06
You know, it's interesting that you say naming things, because I think you are amazing at kind of coining a phrase or a word, we're gonna go over some of them in our previous conversation. And he talked about graceful life philosophies, which I felt was such a beautiful term, and you know, evocative, and there's a number in this book, I do want to get the subtitle out. So the book is called The Wonder Paradox,: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives. And it is out in early March, march 7 of this year. I wanted to begin with you, Jennifer, by kind of confessing that, you know, I'm the cretin. I am the the troglodyte here, and that poetry isn't a significant part of my life or not something that I'm cognizant of. So I think reading, reading this book made me more aware of where poetry tends to be more with music for me personally, but it you know, where poetry was, in fact, a major part of my life. So So let's begin by just talking about why poetry What is it about poetry that you think has such meaning for human beings?
Jennifer Michael Hecht 9:16
Well, I do believe that, in a sense, when I say poetry, I'm speaking about art. And I'm even speaking about the poetic aspect in science. And some scientists are good at ethics explicating that but of course, who's going to be best at doing this kind of poetic work is people who have trained themselves to think in terms of very densely packed, rich ideas that because of the way they use language, are a little bit fluid in the places where, if you lock it down, you're only getting half The truth, right? Nobody totally loves their loves other human beings loves everybody in their lives and totally hates them. But we have these profoundly complicated ID feelings, right? And how to express that? Well, the answer is, to some degree, it is inexpressible the way that humans feel about their lives. But it's poets who are going to try to capture that ambiguity. But I think what you said at first is so important that I think that a lot of people experience, let's guess, 10 poems in the course of a year that just crossed their desk because of today, because of the inter webs, there's no question that's where it's happening. But in the past, it happened by many other ways that we used to have the advice columnist Ann Landers, and she was constantly being asked where a certain line of poetry came from, and then she would print the poem, and people would keep that piece of paper on their refrigerator. For decades, I mean, there have been many different ways where, and I walk into people's homes, and nowadays I look around, and I will often see some kind of poem on the world, on the wall, often a good poem. And they, and they, the people, somebody put that on the wall, because they had that kind of connection to it. Now we do it on the internet, and what is it that happens, you read it, and sometimes it doesn't work for you, you don't read it all the way through. But every once in a while, not infrequently, you read one of these poems, and you, you know, it makes you take in a moment of breath, you have a slight moment of a change in perspective about who you are in the world. In fact, that's the main poetic subject, the main poetic subject, really, is to look at things that are kind of too hard to look at most of the time. And that's where we get our gigs, right? What what nobody else is talking about. And what is that, that's that inner experience of mortality, the inner experience of ambition, despite mortality, which is just a paradox that each one of us has to negotiate and, and the idea that the culture rightly tells us that an adventurous life is one at home, building things or out there forging ahead, and you can't kind of do both, at least not at the same time. All these paradoxes that we live with, that poetry sees as its main business, so when these poems, you know, maybe 10 lines of have an idea across your desk, and it means something to you. I'm suggesting that that's a great place for us to grab that poem. Keep keep it safe, return to it. Don't you don't need to collect hundreds of poems you need to seize on a few and return to them and let your life grow on them and and their intricacies grow on you. And most cultures in society have had something like this, but in the non religious world right now, we are lacking in some of this conversation.
David Ames 13:23
Yeah, that's that's kind of a summary of that, of what you've just said, you say that poetry can help us make up for the loss of the supernatural can connect us to one another, and to meaning in our lives. And I think that's what I really connected with with this book. I feel like you and just a handful of other people in the world are on this vanguard of you know, how do we live a full meaningful life secular people with the wonder with the or with the the full range of human experience instead of what can sometimes be a hyper rationalist perspective that denies the emotion and human experience?
Again, how do you feel like poetry brings particular to lead to secular people, this sense of meaning?
Jennifer Michael Hecht 14:24
One of the things that I'm seizing on is the notion that a lot of us are already getting meaning from our lives and from art and literature, and science. But we haven't taken that one little step of saying that this, that the things that we do to nurture those feelings are a kind of I I'm very careful to not say replacement when I'm writing because these are the Religious doesn't come first, right? In the society, it's in the culture, it's in religion, and it goes back to society back to certain culture, all of these ideas are not. But for us, if we're speaking, especially in terms of sort of American, Christian or post Christian audience, we're looking at very specific things that were lost. And that we can look at and say, Well, what, what's missing there, and it really takes not being too furious or to a vengeful at religion, you have to understand I have listened to enough of your show to to get a sense that a lot of the people in your audience were raised in religion in a very toxic way. Now, I met many, many people and have stayed in touch with people from from the middle of America, but but who have that experience, and so I'm very, you know, I was very sort of traumatized myself and coming to understand it. Because, you know, because of what I do, people tell me a lot of stuff. Sure, I can imagine, but, but where I come from in terms of where I live, which I live in Brooklyn, and I write for other literary and educated people around the world, and I hear from them. So I'm writing to people who might be pretty much thinking that religion is neither their friend nor foe, right? They just feel that modern life is modern life. And that in what I call drop by and lie religion, though, I don't mean it in a mean a negative way. I really think sometimes it's the only way you get to get together with maybe your family. But it's worth thinking about, if the only times you do go to a house of worship is just drop by and say things you don't believe. And so, you know, I look in the book at ways of avoiding that, but but the specific notion that there are a lot of people who just feel atomized and alone. And if they were to realize how many people no matter what religion they started from, are really trying to guess try to make a better world try to try to stoke and fan compassion and empathy and just attempting to do the right thing. Even that notion of the right thing. It's got to be a poet, who says virtue still matters, because because we're at a moment where we don't even know what to do with things that are not fairytales, but also not physics. Right? What what is, is in between the factual and the nonsense is a whole is the whole realm of humanity. Right? In the book, I say, you know, with our white coats on we can I understand that love is about facial symmetry or something, you know, making a good partner but, but we live these questions and explaining it doesn't explain it away. We live here, and it's where I want to live. And where I live is full of emotion and meaning. I wouldn't say much justice, but that turns out we have to work on but, you know, love is real. And we know that it is something and we know sometimes we're not even experiencing it. Sometimes we're left out in the rain. But the notion that love is real, there's a bunch of things that we can put in that category. Right? And and we forget that and I think meaning is one of the things that's in that category. We don't it's not easy to take it apart and say where it comes from. But what in the human experience can stand up to such a question really were asking, you know, how much more can we know about it and in different kinds of ways, but certainly the idea of explaining it to the point where it doesn't exist when here we are all living in meaning and living with love and if all of its difficulties. Yeah, it becomes important to champion the poetic again to say we can't we don't always we're not always doing that kind of research experiment. Sometimes we're doing one that's more internal.
David Ames 19:46
Actually, yeah, the chapter on love poetry, you know, I felt myself just gets swept away and some of the stories you're telling like, you know, you kind of compare and contrast rom com versus kind of more a deeper that maybe more painful perspectives on love in poetry and story. That was just it was definitely captivating. And it's one of those things where I think what you said that really struck with me was like, you know, I've been coupled for a couple of decades now and then getting excited about other couples that you know, who are kind of in the middle of that that infatuation phase man that poetry is, is attempting to, to capture the chaos and the joy of all that.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 20:27
That's right, and, and also to sort of celebrate all sorts of versions of love, including the kinds that in our society, we, you know, except for that sort of single image of older people walking down the street holding hands, we tend to celebrate new love rather than the love that we say we believe in which wraps families and puts down roots.
Another thing that sweeps all around, this is something that for me, I made up kind of as a joke, at first, I was just writing and I came up with the term the interfaith lists. And it just made me laugh, the interfaith less, you know, because the interfaith was such a specific moment in in mid 20 century, and though it survives on in some ways, but the interfaith was made me laugh, because, oh, well, it's not clearly an exact term, it's just saying that there are so many of us all around the world, from all sorts of religious backgrounds who have these positive, warm feelings and base our progress and action in terms of both science and, you know, trusting in the other people who are who are really working in the direction that we want to see the world go in, including climate change, and all these kinds of issues to realize that, that the interface lists the people who perhaps are, you know, on a given holiday, or something are feeling a little left out from those public celebrations. But once we realize that there are a couple of us in any gathering around a Christmas tree, for instance, you start to be able to feel the people like you who are out there in the world, I don't want to talk too much about my last book, which was a stay a secular argument against suicide. It really did learn from that experience, kind of I learned to feel the people out there. Because when someone in your world, even pretty far out, does take their life, you realize what they meant to you? And what a soul not doing that meant to you because you suddenly feel a tear in the fabric way over there. Yeah. And that just made me learn to when can you feel the fabric? When do we feel that we're connected? And how can you know, how can we enhance that feeling so that we're not alone. And that definitely came into this book and saying, you know, we're already doing a lot of the things that I'm talking about. I'm just saying, if we can become a tiny bit more aware of them, right? naming a few of their parts, we can start to just build a song, just the tiniest bit better life makes a big difference.
David Ames 23:38
Yeah, absolutely. You actually, you know, you're answering questions I haven't asked yet. But like, I felt like Wonder paradox was an extension of stay. And how that's relevant to my audience is, they come from a very conservative theological background, typically, and and then when they lose that they have the believers in their lives telling them well, you have no justification for your morality, you might as well be a nihilist, that kind of thing. And kind of the entire purpose of this podcast and these discussions is to say no, you this is a human experience, all that wonder are human things and like you get to keep that with you. And I feel like that is the through line between those two books that all of this is is the human experience and it's wonderful in our interconnectedness with one another is a way that that builds that up to remind us that we are not on an island alone and that there is great meaning in us being together with one another.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 24:38
Yeah, and there's tremendous pain in being a human being but that's true pretty much no matter what you believe not what you believe you're gonna have to struggle with it when the pain is hard and you're gonna have to struggle against you know, egotism when when you're feeling super happy because you know, the The, the idea for me is it, you know that you want to lean on something that for you is pretty steady. Right? And so for me, you know, I so to lean on human beings is a great leap of faith, but at least I know they exist. And I know I am one and I, every once in a while have it in me to be able to lean out and help someone else. And, and yeah, the, the, the magic of that is, is what I mean by the poetry of our lives and, and also the, the beautiful repetitions that happen through life. Again, it's something that we can, we can coax ourselves to be able to notice and see. And it is it's just, it's just that little extra bit of joy and control that make life a little bit more more worth living. But I mean, especially outside of a religious framework. And I say that from kind of an American point of view, I will say the book because I've spent the last however many years I'll say decades now I got my PhD in 1995. So I have been studying the history of religions and the present day of religions all over the world since then, and that has made me into a person who finds even the word atheism. So Christian centered in a way. And so are Judeo Christian centered or the world is mostly filled with people who don't have a single god with a single morality and an afterlife where you go on having what tea and cookies with your relatives where you actually have things. So even if there are afterlives in these other religions, they are not like the Christian afterlife, where I do go on actually doing things. And, and that's a big deal for people who are coming out of Christianity to realize that, that it's not just a matter of loot, losing the supernatural, it's losing this particular very specific religion at a specific moment in history. And, and it creates, you know, a shadow version or a chasm in just the shape of where you thought you had this special, special characteristics of life of not dying of these things. And, but when, when you see the larger scope of how human beings manage fear of dying, you don't look around for a replacement for heaven anymore. What what what human beings mostly do is not looking in that direction, they place the the big contest of life, all in terms that are not about that, that idea that death is a chasm that you're gonna fall off and that chasm is the empty space of heaven that it's it's x Christians that are most worried about that. And that tells us that you can focus elsewhere. It's not a matter of, of just being up just having lost something. You walk into a larger world and see oh, people have been a mad seeing this life and a lot of different ways. And yeah, it's amazingly freeing. Absolutely. Right. It for for audiences who are very much in that world, it still feels you know, I can remember after doubt, doing a talk in Salt Lake City, they invited me I went, you know, yeah, it out, like, who invited me and how that happened. And there were a lot of people in that audience who who came because they knew who I was and wanted here they came from far and wide kind of thing. But there were also students at the, at the community college. And and some of the questions were, well, what about the miracles? You know, that's a very long swing between kinds of questions that I'm getting. But and yeah, sometimes I know that, that the message I'm giving right here is going to sound like it's, it's yeah, it's a step away from religious pain. It is because I'm saying to people, when you land all the way on this shore, and you're just going through the motions of these dead old rituals, and you feel a little hypocritical All and you feel a little letdown, you can put some of the meaning back in by thinking about that moment with a poem, bringing that poem back in and thinking about the other people in the world who are celebrating in a similar way, with their families with that ritual. You know, what I'm saying brings up the question of cultural appropriation, people have to think carefully before they do other people's rituals. But there are many rituals in any given faith that specifically welcome everybody, welcome outsiders, for all sorts of reasons. But most often, because everybody knows that feeding outsiders is a blessing, right? So that happens in all sorts of cultures. So you can do the ones you're invited into. These days, we intermarry in such a way someone in your families related to a holiday, you might want to try out in that kind of way.
But mostly what I'm trying to say to people is that human beings aren't robots and rituals weren't for God, the rituals were always for human beings. And it's good for us to keep doing them. You can invent new ones, if you want. And I think on some level, every family does just out of, you know, sure, you're close enough to where they have ducks. So you have to do the ritual with chicken, it's just how it is. But when people start to say, Okay, I'm gonna make up a whole bunch of rituals on my own. Well, then you're asking other people to do your wacky ideas, and sometimes it's just not going to fly. Whereas if you say to people, Look, I know this is bizarre, but what we're going to do is going to cut down this tree, we're going to make a circle of like, you have all these odd things, but everybody's been doing them forever, and look around and Miles is doing. So it's a lot easier to just insert some of your own ritual into that. But I think a lot of people still feel I know that a lot of people feel guilty and confused, let down and hypocritical, saying words, they don't believe in situations that they couldn't help be in. And they alternative for them as nothing. So what I'm saying is, I hadn't joined the party, here's how to make sure you have some meaning. Realize that the rest of us from all sorts of different things are doing the same kind of thing. And then the fun is okay, so then how can we make all of this more fun and delicious? One thing, the next generation is going to believe bad things if we don't give them good things. Yeah. See that?
David Ames 33:02
Everywhere? Right? Yeah. So you've been circling around the holidays and your term have dropped by and lie, for sure. That is a sentiment that, that we hear from people who have gone through this faith transition to say, you know, what do I do at Christmas? What do I what I do at Hanukkah are my My favorite tradition. And I think the message that that comes across in wonder paradox is that you get to own that you get to mix and match, you get to build new traditions that you don't have to be left, high and dry. And then ultimately, you can also just participate, knowing that this is a human ritual, and do it anyway.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 33:43
Right, and, and, you know, I'm basing these kinds of claims on a lot of History and Sociology. So that, and and all these years of just studying the varieties of ways that things have gone in history, and then going out and being invited to give these talks, and I didn't even realize there was an atheist movement until I wrote out, it didn't. They just started inviting me. That started that was just old white guys in the room. Right. And that changed while I was there, you know? Um, that came out in 2003.
David Ames 34:23
Yeah, that was right. Right. Before there's kind of the explosion of it. Yeah.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 34:29
And, yeah, enough, so that I was sort of able to look at at what was going on just in the beginning. So yeah, it's been having all these different experiences of learning about the stuff I'm talking about, but then going out into the world to give talks, where I'm invited, so I'm not going into sort of hostile crowds. I'm going to places thought they've liked the message, but very often religious places because they're interested in these questions. And hearing so much specific trouble around ritual ritual having to do with holidays, as we've discussed a little bit, but also rituals having to do with funerals, weddings, and baby welcoming ceremony. Were were other things that are heard a lot. And I've also heard some people's little solutions that made it into the book as just sort of templates for how people do negotiate these things, sometimes rather beautifully. But yeah, the I think that there's a way in which what I'm arguing for is almost the sort of poetic common sense of a lot of secular people living today, I was just able to spend these decades being able to show why indeed, we are doing things that make sense and have historical strength and muscle to them. Beautiful poetry already exists. And yeah, very much saying, I think we're doing smart things. And here's some of the reason why you should feel good about them instead of conflicted.
David Ames 36:16
I think one of the things that really helped me is, it's an idea that you expressed in wonder paradox that I've also heard from people like James Croft, and Anthony pin. And the concept is just that everything is secular, meaning, religion and ritual are our human inventions. And so everything is secular, and it flips it on its head a bit to say, I haven't lost anything. I, you know, everything is secular, I can you know, I can participate, how I want the specific quote, and in your book, you say, but surely religion is a human creation to organize human needs for celebration, gathering, meditation, inspiration, and comfort. And I also like the way that Anthony Penn put this, he basically said, religion is the human collective search for meaning. And I feel like that that's in the zeitgeist right now. And it has a lot of relevance for this audience as well that, you know, coming out of that, again, you haven't you haven't lost anything, you can just recognize the humanity in it and recognize your own humanity.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 37:19
Yeah, I think that's great. I think that's really good. Of course, once everything is religion, we're back into a kind of swampy language. We can put that aside and say, Okay, this is a beautiful formulation and not need to associate it with everything. Because we can step back and say, relive religion can be a template for hypnotizing and controlling and abusing people, by people who for some reason seem obsessed with sort of power and control and all sorts of things that we know, a religion does that make people want to break out of it. The in the book, I use the interfaith lists, and I associate myself with that, but I also call myself a poetic realist, I call myself a poetic atheist, and I still am a poetic atheist, I just want to make clear at all times, that there's a ton of things I don't believe in, God doesn't really have that special place in that category of being nonsense. For me. There's a whole range of human behaviors that I look at as saying, Well, you know, that kind of story doesn't do a thing for me, because of aspects of its nature that make it in into the wound category, right? But all of this is subjective. Like when, when does a moment you know, and so we define our terms, right. So, in the book, I say, you know, sacred is something that is a word that predates the religious and people use it to mean what people hold sacred. In the social sciences today, this is how I'm using, but I don't use the word spirituality in the book. But people use it to describe me and they're not really wrong, because, again, this is muddy language territory. Exactly. So I invented a term partially because yes, when you invent a new term, in order to try to be more specific, you also realize how inadequate the old terms are, and you find new associations. So you know, when anything you make up that doesn't work doesn't stick so you don't have to worry about that. Unless you're, you know, trying to be a historian. I'm really careful. You know, I only make up terms when I really feel they don't know how else to speak about the thing is matter of fact, I tend to make them up for myself as a shorthand, because I need a way to write about something and that I realize, oh, I should use this term more. But yeah, I like poetic realist because it doesn't really need a definition. realist I believe in, you have to be careful with the term realism. Of course, it's had some artistic moments where people used it more. The reason I've avoided it in the past was because people who believe in religion believe what they're doing is real. So what does it even mean to whereas rational at least has a, you know, they believe they're being rational too. But we do have a definition of rationality that it's a little bit more separate, right. But I felt that once I said, poetic realist, it was like saying poetic atheist, but with a little bit more reach. But you'll notice I almost never say poetic atheists without poetic realists without working poetic atheist in into the conversation because I want people to know, I am still an atheist and one full of fire and brimstone. You don't be right, you you do a grace, relate the ascent doing a poetic atheist? What are we trying to do? We're up against a wall of people who are rightfully very angry, and using anger as the way of communicating where they're at. But there's just too much you lose in that in that kind of fight. Right? Exactly. Yeah,
David Ames 41:21
I tried to make it clear that the anger is super valid. And you might sit in that for a while, but you don't want to remain there forever. Right? You want you want to get out eventually.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 41:31
Right. And it's good for people to know where to go in the culture to find different types. I mean, not that we have to be locked into what we are. And I think anybody listening for anger in anything I do can find it. You know, yeah, I feel very strongly that the way to the future is pluralism. Rationality. Yeah. I believe in those things so much that any indoctrination is not going to be what I want and any kind of retrograde ideas that are not based in rationality. Right, right. But within that spectrum, within that world, we do need people to know where they can come if they want to feel big, interesting. feelings and ideas that live in the world. We believe in you and I need Yeah, not find somebody who's furious at religion because that story is only one part of what we're what we're talking about.
Without doubt, I even was constantly at pains to make the distinction between people who were arguing against fables. And I include the resurrection of Jesus as a fable. It's a story that didn't happen, because it's too much not what happens, right? Yes, exactly. Then there's another kind of person who says they believe in God who really believes in something awfully like poetry, progress and love. And they tell me, I believe in God, and I tell them, they don't and we happily can break bread together. Exactly. There's really no difference in what we believe. Because there are many people who choose to say they believe in God and choose to relate to the world, believing in God, just you know, just like there are atheists who still believe the universe is going to bring them something that's often close. Right? So, so yeah, I think it's, it's super important that people know, yeah, there are atheists who are taking into account a very, very wise kind of belief and still saying, Well, for me, it the big reason not to do that is because it gets you you don't focus on how to make the human world stronger and better. You're still assigning a little something out there. So for me, that's not my direction, right? But, but it's really important to say, yeah, there are all these different distinctions. And sometimes you're you're in one where you say, you know, I I'm not in a place where I need to be arguing against the parables. You know, I know that there's something well, there's some there are different conversations everywhere. It's so important to be meeting people where you're meeting people, as I met them, when at when the doubt talks were, well, the pandemic gave us put a stop to a lot of uh, yeah, hearing that people are so abused by religion or abuse by powerful people who just happened to be hitting them with the Bible. Yeah, that they really need this conversation to take place on all these different levels in a slow burn to really see what's, you know, in some of this stuff with our parents. We never saw it out right. We just get stronger we learn how to deal.
David Ames 45:03
Man, there's so much there I want to respond to I'm gonna let me just do a quick lightning round and just say, I agree with you that I think I've generalized beyond just religion to say, you know, traditions that are rigid, that lock a person into a certain view of the world that may not be true. And so it you know, it is beyond just the religious context, but anything that is that proves itself to be untrue in one way or another. And I think the, what you were describing there about the, the closeness and you, you and I discussed this last time about the ardent believer and the ardent atheist have more in common than the kind of the middle masses. But I often say that the, you know, the most dangerous word in the English language is God in that, you know, you can be in a room of 1000 people, and you say the word God, and there are 1000 different interpretations of what that actually means. And I've liked that you kind of work with the messiness of the language, it's so hard to say anything about like, spirituality. You know, as when we get close to that some of these concepts and what we really mean is about the experience of being human, but all of the verbiage implies something else, not because that can be very difficult.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 46:12
Right? Well, you know, I mean, when you're working from the Abrahamic religions, you got Moses coming down with morality written in stone, are for what isn't, it isn't written in stone, constantly take into account the context and the situation and what's going on. So it's, it is kind of comic Yeah.
David Ames 46:50
Couple more things. One other term that I think you coin that we've been circling around is this idea of cultural liturgy. So some of the, you know, the rituals that we go through that are that are, in fact, secular already. And I thought that was a beautiful term that we need in the world.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 47:05
Thanks. So one of the reasons that cultural literacy liturgy seems so important to me at and again, just to give a sort of example of, for instance, we could talk about just the, you know, colored lights at, at holiday time that are, at this point, their cultural liturgy, rather than a religious artifact for many people. But, but also, you know, we go to weddings and see the same poem there. And we think, Oh, this is trite, or used or cliche. And who would say that about a biblical prayer, right? Oh, you know very well, that whatever was good enough to get in that book, whatever people keep saying that helps. And it helps partially, just because you've seen other people get married to it. So that consistency is not a bad thing, it's a good thing. And that's something that really needed to be said, so that there are poems and music that are already cultural liturgy, and that we should encourage each other to embrace them. If you see a great poem read in a movie, and you want to incorporate that you don't have to think of that as something on original. We don't want original at a funeral, or we, we want something to hold on to something to be able to revisit that stays strong for us, because it was already there. Yeah. So that that became a really important thing to be able to see that there already are some things like that, that while no individual person could plant the flag and say, Now, this is cultural liturgy, we can notice that the whole culture is gently moving towards, in a way certain things and we can situate ourselves in that world. Yeah, as you said, Before, you can know that why isn't your natural and real relationship with the religion you were born into just as valid as the people who encountered that religion a century, two centuries, three centuries ago. And, and I can show you that those people changed their religion because it match how they lived. They it happens every generation. And And there, there are generations that move towards and away from what we would call unbelief that we don't even realize was unbelief for them because we certainly grew over it. So yeah, that's that's part of the reason that this book that's really, you know, it's really my heart. But if he did, it needed constant, it needed the scaffolding up history who would have believed well, not only scaffolding that the historical example about how all This stuff changes makes you feel braver to reinterpret. And also just to not think that everything we're doing today must be bad, right? It is the invention of the future.
David Ames 50:13
A couple things on that one, I like to, like a thought experiment for people is to say, you know, if you had a time machine, and you can go back to any point in time in the history and be amongst the believers of that time, would you do that? And do you think that you would recognize it? And you know, I think my intuitive response to that is that, no, it would be radically different. Even if you drop the Christian into Jesus's time, right? It would be unimaginably different than what they think it is. Because of just the constant change.
Another thing that leapt out at me that you talked about is, in this idea of coming up with your own traditions that you talked about, somebody asked you and you said, Well, we made it up. And they asked you, can we do that? And then you said, well, Who's stopping you? stopping us? I love that, like, you know, we have the ability to make those new traditions for ourselves.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 51:17
That's right. And and what gives us that ability is some kind of authority, which if you can't find it outside yourself, it only takes out, it only takes flicking that switch on in your head to realize oh, okay, that means me. I think it's, it was especially interesting for Jews, because we have this notion of a kind of most orthodox down to a most reform, which is not reality really. It because they come in at different times come into America, I mean, and so these things are all just, it's really quite a mess. But the sense that there's a more orthodox version of your religion can make you feel like, oh, they wouldn't believe in the stuff I'm doing. So I should add a little bit more. And this was a realization Oh, they wouldn't believe in what I'm doing anyway. If I add a ton more, because the person I'm doing it with is the wrong faith three generations back or something. And I can't fix that. And I won't fix it. Nor do I believe in the distinction being made. And so now I'm angry and up against it. Right? If you think it through you, you feel like rejecting it. But yeah, if you if you start from there and say oh, they already don't, nothing I do is going to make the absolute orthodox feel like I'm doing it right? Yes, you can save yourself. Okay, well, then whose team Am I on? And I'm on the team of of other people who are trying to make a more beautiful world for our kids in the next generations. And, and that is a clarifying moment. Yeah.
David Ames 53:00
A very freeing Absolutely. For Hank, I believe you give this thought experiment to your students. You said you wake up tomorrow morning and can't find anyone, anywhere. By all indications you're alone on the planet. What do you do that you say to your students? Sorry to do that to you. But most of you were headed for an existential crisis anyway. So this way, I'm here to get you out. Again, I loved I think this I think in our previous conversation, we talked about how we each kind of have to go through and the culture itself and us individually have to go through these deep questions. Anyway, over and over again, that there is no kind of free ride that we have to ask these these hard questions and get through it. And this seems to me like a very personal one, you know, what is meaning for you if you were the only person on earth?
Jennifer Michael Hecht 53:47
Yeah, absolutely. Isn't it so interesting, and so much depends on how you interact with other people. So I think that I'm kind of a gregarious, but Ultra introvert. Okay, I really, whether nature nurture, I am going to be very engaged for a long, long time on my own before I even look up notice that Oh, right. Eventually it happens but I have so many projects in the house that I can forget to go out and without it being a sad thing on Yeah. I mean. So I think that I am always lecturing people ongoing you got to go out and be with people because that's the message I need. Okay, because naturally my I don't need the message. You need some time alone to think right? I know I forget that other people need need to practice that and to you know, so I have that's more something I have to remind myself and I do of course, but And that question about the world being empty for me I'm was something that, you know, interaction with students eventually kind of threw that back at me to sort of look at myself and see that this idea of the end of the world, I've been showing it to people partially because I want to show them how connected we are. Much everything would stop it for us individually, if everyone else went away. And when you're talking to college students, they it really is an original thought for a lot of them that even three meals a day with a fork is a thing. Why should we three meals a day and even these tiny little questions of, of how we live that I can show them through travel? Right, you can see that when you go to another country. And I think it's always important if somebody has been to England where you know the language, but you still don't know how they behave. It's still another country. Yeah. And, of course, you can get farther and farther away from anything, you know. And it is a classic, classic idea that the past is, is another country, I would ask people that question because it was a way for me to remind myself how much I need people. And I would imagine in the thought process that what would save me was again, some sort of project that I would put my life into, even if I was alone, I would find, and that project would be very human based, right, because I'm a human being. But whatever it would be, would be based on continuing the values that I was sort of started in. But so it's an isolated way to be very public. But I think that what was so important for so many people that they would always come back to it and want to talk about it is this notion that that whether you're alone or with people that were making the meaning together, and you can enhance or decrease that, that connection, and that when it comes down to it. It's really just us, it's just us and, and mortality is the problem that were handed, or each one of us is handed. And if you don't think much about that, you still may think about the idea of the choices that you make in a single lifetime. And you want to let you want to live the life that you want to live. And just that that is a burden that each of us comes into life with, if we're lucky, write the script for us. And there's tremendous processing that we have to do. And so that's why the book is divided up into sort of problems that people would have problems like shame, or, you know, problems, about how to talk about death, outside of heaven to young people, really specific kinds of problems. Then there's one chapter that's on holidays, that's a very broad look, that kind of invites you to think about the specific things in the holidays you like either the song or the drink that goes with that how to really sort of parse through what what you bring into the holidays, and what you might be able to tinker with in order to connect the holiday with a specific emotional experience that religions most religious holidays, they either they're commemorating a historical thing sometimes, but very often, it is about exploiting shame, getting over your shame, sometimes having to recognize it first face it, apologize to people. And those are very often about fasting or bathing going to where certain river is just even thinking about these things can help us realize, oh, human beings throughout history have suffered this weird thing of shame. Yeah, how we've coped with it, and then showing how it's coped within Shakespeare poem and that so they're short chapters that deal with very specific issues. Yeah,
David Ames 59:26
I have to tell you, let's see, I've got I've got this note here somewhere that I laughed out loud, and I'm probably going to murder the German name here. The HC HC minutes twist on Heraclitus seems to be playfully denying the religious idea of washing oneself internally in a river you can't get clean even once. I love that and the reason I do is like my first philosophy, one on one with Heraclitus said, you know, the idea of that changes the only constant in the world and the predecessor to him was saying, you know, you can't step in the same river twice. And he's the one who said you can't step in the same River wants anyway, I just that was a little personal present to me. So thank you. I love that
I want to hit my last two topics that you talked about marriage a fair amount and the the ceremony of it. But I also wanted to just draw out pertinent to my audiences when somebody has gone through this faith transition, and they are still married to a believer. So a couple things I think are really useful there. You talked about strong bonds can go along with fierce contrary forces. And you also say it also shows that love is a mess, a serious mess. And there's a lot of deconstruction, excuse me, destruction and remaking, total destruction, total remaking new substance remade form, married people are separate, yet united. And there's some hope in there. I think it parallels the st. Perell concept of a second marriage to the same person. But like that happens, just a little personal note that happens to be true in my life. I'm married to a believer. And I know lots of people kind of need to hear that message. We talked about change being constant, and also the individuals in a marriage and the marriage itself is constantly changing as well.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:01:17
Yeah, absolutely. And specifically, the issue of being married to someone who's still in religion. So interesting. My husband's from a Catholic background, but also, but I think, you know, we've definitely over the last 23 years come to a lot of, of understandings fresh together of the world so that, you know, you build a new world. Yeah, I think it's a really interesting problem. And I think that it's like, I feel like, yeah, I feel like people are operating from similar values in lots of different ways. Right? And so yeah, my husband coming from this Catholic world, and me coming from a secular intellectual, Jewish kind of world. And, you know, he was in Hoboken. I was on Long Island, we met in the middle and, you know, the Lower East Side. And, and we, so we have all this background that was different. But, you know, we grew up watching the same commercials on TV, like, there's so much, you know, not every place in the in the world can you just say, dibs and point to something and everybody knows that, that means dibs. There's all sorts of shorthand. And I think sometimes you you do end up taking on some huge challenge in your marriage. But you don't realize that two people who are both Christian or atheist, but one is from a different country, and there are a lot of these people. They have this endless need to explain really basic terms that you and your wife may have so much that you just know, bedrock, common language. So yeah, you're putting on top of it something, you know, there's no, there's no fully diminishing the challenge of that. Sure. No, having a different, you know, especially if, you know, you have different ideas for what you would want the kids to be and stuff like that. That's challenging stuff. But I do think, yeah, if you had if you also were from different countries, you know, you have something on your
David Ames 1:03:39
hands. Yeah, that'd be challenging. Yes.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:03:43
Remembering sometimes there's these tremendous commonalities that can support, you know, two trees going in opposite directions on the top of that.
David Ames 1:04:05
And then the last topic is the chapter on death. And I feel like this is an area that we need to talk about so much more, right, and that religion has tended to own but the thing that really leapt off for me was you were talking about travel for the purpose of spreading ashes can send mourners on a physical adventure to a loved place. And that actually, again, just happened to be my experience. I lost my mom in 2016. And about a year later, I went on a road trip to California took her ashes to the beach. And I found like, that was such that process. I went by myself, I didn't take family with me and like, you know, being alone and literally physically having her ashes lit, you know, grieving on the drive there. That whole process was really deeply meaningful for me and helped me to close out that chapter and feel like I didn't have to say, well, she's in a different place. I I knew she was gone. And I could I could let just absorb that during during that trip. And I think that, in particular for newly secular people, death is difficult. And, you know, how do we process that? How do we how do we build rituals around that that are non religious that still give one comfort?
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:05:19
Yeah, absolutely. Your story so, so meaningful to me and, and it really is, once again, a case of like, how you did all the right things for your heart. And, and yet we're in we're not even a full century into Americans commonly cremating their loved ones, right. And so here, we have a sort of by accident, by default, because we came up with this idea of, well, you know, I don't have to bury the ashes. So where should they go. And because we do think of wonderful places, they are very often at a distance. And so without having planned it, we've created this new cultural liturgy. But but one that I would say is like, it's in a very early phase, it's not named. And people have, you know, they feel a bunch of different ways about it, especially, for instance, it takes most people quite a while to take those ashes and do something with them. Yeah, and your guilt all over the place about it, I hear it from you know, famous people just chatting, oh, I still have any, and they seem upset. Whereas when, once you notice, oh, this is part of the process for a lot of people, they need to sit with this for a second. And, and whatever that means, when you realize that everybody's trying to figure this out. And there are some beautiful things that are, that are coming into being. It's, again, it it collapses, the cultural and the sort of ex religious, but what it mostly does is it gives us a way to talk to each other and be together and to try to try to think of ways to comfort each other through this strange experience.
David Ames 1:07:10
I think the crux of Wonder paradox is in this sentence, much ritual seen as religious is a fundamentally poetic, artistic amplification of the natural sacred. I love every word in that sentence. That the ritual aspect, the coming together the funeral, however, whatever the thing is, right? It is important that we physically act out these things. And there's some there's something meaningful in that, and necessary as a human being.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:07:40
That's the I specifically, say over and over, because it's something that I can miss if I don't pay attention. I can intellectualize and think well, I'm thinking about washing my hands like that is I made that metaphor up to show myself thinking about washing your hands forever, will not get your hands clean, right? There are, you know, things if you want to put your heart through a difficult passage, you do have to sometimes do things. Yeah. And that's something that only by by compare and contrast between when I do and when I don't, that I know for sure for myself, that showing up matters for reasons I do not have to understand. For myself, and for the people around me,
David Ames 1:08:23
Jennifer, I could talk to you for hours someday, I want to be in the same physical place as you and just you know, buy you the beverage of your choice and just sit and listen to you forever. Need to wrap up, unfortunately, can you tell people how they can get the book. So your name Jennifer Michael Hecht, and the book is called wonder paradox and it is out March 7. How can they get the book
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:08:44
and it will be? You can contact book shop.com or amazon.com. It's with FSG. For us, Drew Macmillan. And yeah, it'll be in all the bookshops. And also, there'll be audible and Kindle. And forward to hearing from people. It's pretty easy to find me from my website, and I'd love to hear from people.
David Ames 1:09:05
Yeah, and the website is Jennifer Miko, hex is it.com. That's right. That's correct. Okay, so we will have of course, links and things in the show notes. Jennifer, it was such a joy to speak to you again, thank you so much for the thinking that you put down on paper is more meaningful than you know. It's just very important. So thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:09:25
I really appreciate it.
David Ames 1:09:32
Final thoughts on the episode? This is one of those times where I just want to read quote, everything she said in the book and everything she said in the conversation. Please go back and listen to the episode again. Please go out and get Jennifer Michael hex book, The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives. It is out March 7. You can get it on Amazon and various other booksellers. So many things In this conversation that leap out at me, number one, as I said at the beginning of the conversation, poetry isn't something that I consciously think of on any kind of regular basis. Reading this book, I realized how much poetry is in my life and what an impact that it has. And so I appreciate Jennifer just revealing that to me in her writing. As I said in the intro, Jennifer is amazing at coining terms. Language is so difficult. The term atheist has so much baggage has so much unintended implications. It has been very difficult to find words to describe ourselves. Secular Humanist has a lot of meaning to me, but means almost nothing to the general population. She talks about inter faithless as a way of describing ourselves, and Jennifer calls herself a poetic realist or a poetic atheist as another way of trying to describe someone who doesn't have a belief in the supernatural but also experiences blunder and joy and love, and the all of the experience of being a human being. I loved her concept of drop by and lie, if you've ever been in a church service as an unbeliever. And in particular, if you've been at a wedding, or some very high ceremony example of that, you really can feel very false for being there really does feel insincere, and yet you are obligated to be there. I think the most important thing that Jennifer is saying that Anthony pin is saying that James Croft is saying that I am saying is that these are all human experiences. My favorite line of hers in this conversation is that human beings are not robots. Rituals weren't for God. The rituals were always for human beings. And it's good for us to keep doing them. I absolutely love that. I could keep re quoting everything but please go read listen to the conversation. Jennifer Michael hex book is The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Pur Lives. It is out on March 7, go get the book and you will find out why I still consider Jennifer Michael Hecht, my intellectual hero. Jennifer, I want to thank you for being on the podcast. As we said in the interview, the first time you came on was two months into the podcast. I'm so happy to be able to help promote your book here. And thank you again for putting into words, a graceful life philosophy that we can embrace and experience the fullness of being a human being. Thank you, Jennifer. The secular Grace Thought of the Week is just how worth it the human experience is. The theistic worldview will say that non believers, atheists agnostics, the interfaith plus whichever term you prefer to refer to yourself as that we have no reason for living, we have no reason for morality, we have no reason for being good to one another. And my experience, and I think Jennifer Michael hex experience is the exact opposite. On this side of deconversion, I realize how important our lives with one another are. For those of you who have ever had times of depression, or questioning whether life is worth it, my answer is emphatically Yes. Jennifer Michael Hecht's answer is emphatically Yes. The other book that Jennifer wrote is called stay and is all about the secular reasons for living and experiencing life and why it is worth it. And the Wonder paradox takes that the next step of not just, why live but how to thrive, how to have the fullness of the human experience. One of the main themes that keeps coming up in all of her books, in this podcast and in various other places is our connection to one another. For those of us who are in a healthy place, we have to take on our obligation to love other people to to reach out to people to know that they are loved, so that they know that they are cared for in a way that maybe our previous faith traditions provided and we no longer have those things. And for those of you who might be in a pretty lonely place right now, you need to know that there are people who care about you, there are people who love you, and there are people who are invested in your life, you can always reach out the deconversion anonymous Facebook group, we are trying to be a safe place to land for those people who are doubting, questioning and deconstructing, as well as those people who are just lonely. You are welcome. We want you to be there. If you need more immediate assistance you can reach out to recovering from religion their website has a way to connect with somebody immediately you can begin talking about your experience. If you're in crisis, and you're in the United States, you can call 988, the suicide prevention hotline. And you can also reach out to the secular therapy project to find an ongoing therapist. So there are resources for you if you need them, you are not alone. Next week is the four year anniversary of the podcast. I have our lien, Mike T. Jimmy, Colin, and Daniel on to talk about our favorite movies, television programs, books that talk about the themes of deconversion and secular grace, you would be surprised it shows up a lot. And we just generally have a good time and celebrate the four years. So join us next week for that. In a couple of weeks, our Lean interviews David Hayward and that is an amazing conversation. As I hinted out last week, I will be doing a promotional exchange with mega the podcast and I'll be having Holly the rat on the podcast in April. So be looking forward to that as well. Until then, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be graceful. The beat is called waves by MCI beads. If you want to get in touch with me to be a guest on the show. Email me at graceful atheist@gmail.com for blog posts, quotes, recommendations and full episode transcripts head over to graceful atheists.com This graceful atheist podcast a part of the atheists United studios Podcast Network
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
As a Christian, I was limited in who I could read and learn from—a short list of dead white men and an even shorter list of living white women and men. Since leaving religion, I’ve opened my mind and heart up to writers from America’s past and present, and it’s been good for me.
Writing their own legacies in the face of injustice and hate—often at the hands of God-followers—these authors offer an abundance of humanist wisdom. After all, if no gods are coming to save us, humanity’s future is up to us. It’s up to all of us.
This week’s guest is Evan Clark. Evan is the Executive Director of Atheists United. Evan grew up in a partially religious home, but at six years old, the idea of a god didn’t make sense to him.
He attended a Christian liberal arts college and was able to start its first atheist group. Since then, he’s gone on to create many humanist communities.
In this episode, Evan explains why atheist spaces in the US differ from spaces in other more progressive countries, why community is not the only thing people need, and he shares some of Atheists United’s upcoming projects.
Quotes
“‘Why do you need an atheist community?’ It’s not about atheism; it’s about atheists. Atheists are people, and people need community.”
“In the US, we don’t fix homelessness with our government. We don’t fix hunger with our government. We don’t provide healthcare to all of our citizens, and so what is the most powerful, most well-funded institution, outside of government, that then steps up?…religion.”
“There’s something unique about the humanist perspective that we can offer the world.”
“To be a ‘Philosophy Bro’ is abnormal. To sit and ponder literally everything while things burn around me? That is a privilege upon a privilege.”
“There’s so much more value from what I can do…getting atheists together and doing good work and providing transformational spaces for them; rather than being the one who fixes bad ideas of other people.”
“You stay in an organization, and you become active in an organization…when it transforms you, when it’s something that helps you grow as a human being.”
“Humanism starts from the idea that magic isn’t real. It’s a naturalist world…God and gods aren’t things that matter to our universe. We are these small little homo sapiens on a small planet, in a small galaxy, in an unbelievably massive universe.”
“The story of the universe and the idea that you can solve problems…and understand your place in [your community] and figure out moral and ethical problems. I think that’s more beautiful [than religion] because it’ll always improve based on new evidence and experience.”
“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats
Transcript
NOTE: This transcript is AI produced 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. It's part of the atheists United studios podcast. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Welcome back. As you heard in the new intro, the podcast is now a part of the atheist United studios Podcast Network. As we begin the new year, I want to remind you that we have the deconversion anonymous Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/deconversion. Please consider joining and become a part of the community. I want to thank all the patrons on patreon.com Thank you so much for supporting the podcast. Thank you to Sharon Joel, Lars Ray, Rob, Peter, Tracy, Jimmy and Jason. Your support is much appreciated. If you would like an ad free experience of the podcast, become a patron at any level at patreon.com/graceful atheist. You will also get the podcast early ish on most weeks. You'll get it a few hours early on occasion. You'll get it a couple of days early. Hang on until the end for the final thoughts section. I'll talk a bit more about some of the plans for 2023 including what the community will be doing. As always special thanks to Mike T for editing today's show. On today's show. My guest today is Evan Clark. Evans bio says he is a humanist entrepreneur, a political consultant and a public speaker with over 14 years experience tinkering with secular communities. In 2019, Evan was hired as atheists United's first executive director, atheists United's mission statement is our mission is to build thriving atheist communities empower people to express their secular values and promote separation of government and religion. But much more than that, Evan is a secular Grace kind of humanist and you're going to hear that in the interview. Evan reached out to me in the fall of 2022, and asked if the graceful atheist podcast was interested in becoming a part of the atheist United studios Podcast Network. And I am very excited to say that as of you hearing this, we are now a part of that podcast network and I am excited about my sibling podcasts, and the work that Evan myself and the sibling podcasts will do together over the next and following years. Here is Evan Clark to tell his story.
Evan Clark, welcome to the graceful atheist podcast.
Evan Clark 2:51
Thanks for having me,
David Ames 2:52
Evan, you're currently the Executive Director of atheists united and I'd love your bio on on the site. It says evidence a humanist entrepreneur, political consultant and public speaker with over 14 years experience tinkering with secular communities. So my first question to you is did you start at 12?
Evan Clark 3:10
No, no, no. Oh, man, I'm glad I still look that young. No, I started in college. I attended California Lutheran University and I started their atheist club. Okay, I cold emailed the Secular Student Alliance and immediately got a group started by the end of my freshman year, and it was wild. It's a really unique experience starting a Secular Student Alliance. There's only maybe three or 400 of us in the world that have done that before. And then of those, I'm one of like, 10, that did it at a religious University. So we had kind of a unique experience. And I will say Cal Lutheran is not your Bible thumping. Liberty University or Azusa Pacific or something. It is. It is a open liberal arts college. And we had a really great experience. But yeah, I think it is a unique experience being in a religious space. I mean, most of us are in a religious culture, and we deal with religious politics, but then having your college environment have prayers in weird places, and pastors that are on the payroll in a church that, you know, they they closed down classes for an hour each day so people can go, Oh, wow. But luckily, it wasn't forced. So we there were plenty of secular students on campus. And we we built a really unique community. And that was my first that's what really kind of got me excited about this whole thing. I remember our last our last meeting in college I the last one for me, after three years, four years running this group, I challenged everyone like Do you think there's a need for spaces like this after college? And I had already made up my mind by then, but I was trying to see, you know, where everyone was at and what they thought of it. And yeah, I mean, to really think that 1011 years later that I could get paid to be an atheist organizer is just mind blowing dreams do come Um, true for privileged white guy.
David Ames 5:04
I think we're gonna circle back to some of your like, you know, your growing up years. But I want to talk really quick about Cal Lutheran. So my understanding is that you also became student body president there. Yeah, that's right. How does that work and atheists that at a Christian university? Yeah.
Evan Clark 5:17
So I mean, it's funny to think back. We were celebrating its 50th year as a university when I was student body president. And I imagine there were probably at least one or two other non theists. But yeah, but there's a difference between being a public non theist, right, like we know, we've had many elected officials in Congress that are non theists, but they won't allow themselves to be that publicly, on all surveys, they identify as Jewish or Christian or Muslim. And I think that's what's unique. So I was the first out public atheist in that position. And yeah, honestly, it really wasn't that big a deal. When I ran for student body president, it was more controversial that I was running against a former roommate than it was that I was running, you know, as a leader of the Secular Student Group. Yeah. So while I do know, some people it probably frustrated or gave them a bad taste in their mouth. And I do know, the like, local press decided to run with it here and there. Overall, the campus was very supportive and never really thought twice. And I remember by the time I was getting out of college, the university was bragging about our secular student group as another form of diversity on campus. Look, we have these atheists, then look at religious diversity. And I do think that helps kickstart kind of an interfaith era for Cal Lutheran, and they've been really active with interfaith work ever since. And I like to think that we helped nudge that along.
David Ames 6:48
That's awesome. That's actually I think, a positive impact. We say sometimes that there are better and worse versions of religion, and one that's more ecumenical is definitely better. And so it sounds like you had that kind of impact on the university.
Evan Clark 7:02
Yeah, yeah, I think, I don't know. It's, it's really interesting, building a secular space, and then thinking about how that relates to the rest of the community and culture that you exist in. So, you know, atheists United was founded in 1982, over separation of church and state case in LA. It was a contentious existence, and to be an open atheists in 1982 was kind of a, you know, extremely intense experience. You're talking about maybe losing your job or having to confront family if it's public suddenly. And yeah, Cal Lutheran in 2012. Not as intense is 1982. Atheist organizing. But what I will say is, yeah, it brought the conservative Christians out a little bit more, it brought the other clubs that did interfaith work, a little bit more vocal, and it gave them I think, space for that. What was unique about our group as we explored religion, most secular student groups look like philosophy clubs, actually, it's because they recruit mostly from the philosophy clubs. That's why they looked at why there's a self selection bias there. Were at Cal Lutheran, we decided, because we are identifying publicly as non theists in an explicitly at least a name theistic space, we need to know what we don't believe if we're going to claim that publicly and organize around that. And so what we did is we did anthropological exploration of religion, we went to churches and synagogues and mosques and pagan rituals and Mormon temples. And we, we engaged, we sat through their ceremonies, and we got a crash course in experiential religious studies. I learned so much more through my club than I did through even the religion classes that I took. Because we had first hand experience. And yeah, I'll never forget how much we learned and how much empathy I built and how many patterns I noticed about religion, because we weren't afraid of it, we, you know, openly engaged it,
David Ames 9:08
man. You know, that's incredible. Because one of the things that I think concerns me is, my point of view is very specifically having had belief, and then going through a deconversion process and being on the other side, some of my criticisms of the atheist community of you know, maybe the last 1520 years is kind of that hostility towards religious people. And I think that comes from a lack of understanding. There's no point of recognition of the humanity of what it is like to have believed and I think just taking a comparative religion class alone, but even going as far as you did to actually sit in on other religious ceremonies is like super valuable. And I think it also not just from the empathy point of view, but it also inoculates you event, right? Right. I think people can be susceptible to you know, if they have a particularly difficult moment in their lives, the love bombing effect of some religions and having an exposure to that could actually be an inoculation.
Evan Clark 10:10
Yes, and it's such a complex topic talking about how people came to their non theism. So I there as a community organizer who grew up secular, which we can talk about in a second, and I went, I grew up in Massachusetts, I went to Catholic school in first grade and immediately said, this isn't working for me. Okay, all these. They start with stories of Genesis, and I was picking those apart one by one. Yeah, yeah. Nuns hated me. I was a little brat. I was asking questions about how Adam and Eve had two boys and populated the world. And like, I didn't even know what sex was. But I was like, giving them questions that made them have to, like, think or engage that topic. And so they just wouldn't. And that frustrated me more. And so yeah, I decided this God thing isn't working for me in first grade. I didn't find a word like atheist until sixth grade, super flipping through a dictionary, you know, trying to not read in one of my classes or something. And yeah, I found this word atheist. And I go, there's a word for me. I thought it was such a powerful like an identity moment. And then I started using it and realize not everyone liked the word.
David Ames 11:18
Yeah. Had some connotations. Little baggage. Yeah.
Can I ask real quick? Yeah. Was your family religious then? And did they? How did they respond to that?
Evan Clark 11:36
Yeah, it was more, I'll call it a I'll call it split religious. My dad grew up, like secular San Diego household. My mom grew up in more of Roman Catholic Massachusetts household. So when we I was born in California, but at the age of two, we moved to Massachusetts. And so I think my mom just had this idea that if you can, if you have the money, you raise your kids in a nice Catholic private school. Yeah. Um, and that's why I went to the Catholic school that I did. But yeah, when it immediately wasn't working out, and we happen to be in the one town in America where the public school is better than the private school. I was able to transition to the public school. And though my mom tried to get us to go to church, and again, this is Catholic, Roman Catholic at that style of church. My dad didn't like he would do it for my mom, but it wasn't something he ever cared about. He clearly didn't believe in he chose to watch football on Sundays, rather than go to church half the time. And so very quickly, I wanted to go I want to watch football with Dad, I don't want to go to church I hate I hate this ritual. It's boring. It's, they make me sit and CCD, and it's all bullshit. Like I immediately just fought back so hard. Yeah. And my mom finally made a deal with me. She said, If you finish first communion, I'll let you decide if you ever want to go to church again. So I said, Sign me up. Let's do it. Awesome. I'm gonna win this. Yeah. And yeah, that's exactly what happened. I did it a year late, because I had complained so hard the year before about leaving the church. And yeah, I finished the first communion, I got my dumb little wafer, and I never went to church again, not till college, actually. And so I actually feel bad because I was so religiously uneducated, from when at that like fourth, fifth grade experience up until college, like I didn't know the difference between a Catholic and a Christian until I suddenly was in college and decided there should be a space for atheists. And then everybody wanted to talk about their religious traditions, and like, you know, Lutheran and Methodist and all these things I'd never heard before. I have to now really engage. Yeah, so it's, it's been a fascinating journey. But, you know, I identify more with the people who grew up without religion, I just have a little bit of more cultural baggage than those that grew up with atheist parents.
David Ames 13:55
Right, right. Right. Okay. Yeah. And then Evan, I think something that you and I share is, and I think you're doing it better than I am, but is, is obsession with community. So from my perspective, it's that, you know, religion provides a really built in community and the platform for friendships and relationships and building a sense of belonging, and that on this side of deconversion, that that is much harder to facilitate in a secular environment. And yet, human beings need that. And so like I'm just obsessed with ways that we can bring each other together in a secular environment and you are out there on the front line doing that kind of thing. Why is community important to you? Like how did that be? Oh,
Evan Clark 14:39
yeah. Yeah, well, you're gonna have to get me to stop talking to you. Once you get me wound up. It doesn't it doesn't stop but my my poor girlfriend's heard my rants on these 1000 times. But also to finish the last point. People come at their non theism from so many different perspectives where I come at it from more of I grew up most secular with a little bit of religious baggage you know if if you are traumatized by religion if you have sexual shame or if you spent 10s of 1000s of dollars, on superstitious things, if you have guilt still that is riddling, that is destroying your life then I understand why people have really intense negative responses to religion. And the institutional political side is we we see clear obvious dangers we see, you know, our our queer friends, we see our people with reproductive organs that are not like mine being legislated. We see immigration law, even being connected to religion, like we see oppression that people can draw direct lines to, and if they care about justice and social justice in those means, and they can suddenly see this as either a tool or an inspiration for those. Yeah, to me, it's an obvious, rational way that they got to that conclusion, even if I think some of their arguments might be broken, that lead to bad conclusions, like I don't think, like religion, for me is often more of a tool and a space than it is the actual oppression. You know, the reason people come to belief is that always inspired by the ideas they have, or did they already have those ideas, and then they used religious belief arguments to justify those and I think when you get more nuanced, and the deeper you study, philosophy, rational thought community organizing, I'm much more humbled about people. I just don't think we're the rational brained overmatched people think we are you know, like, I think we're very flawed and we're very biased and yeah, I just don't think the judgment of religious people or religious institutions, which can is one of the like hardest things to define in social science, sure. But yes, what is religion? Right, like, do we count? football stadiums, as you know, next to churches or phrases sorority or religion or is a Buddhist non theist organization or religion? Like these are really complicated questions that social scientists debate to this day.
Moving to the community question, and away from the first one, we desperately need community, but it's going to look different for everyone. So if we start from just the research perspective, if I wasn't to make more personal arguments, research shows that when you participate, I should back up, the way the research was done is more fascinating. They actually found a discrepancy between atheists and theists, when they looked at quality of life, reported levels of happiness, life expectancy, how much you volunteer and how much you donate to charity. But when you dive into the study, and I should say the discrepancy was bad for the non theistic. But yeah, they live longer, they gave more or they reported higher levels of happiness, right? Like, it's just like, Wow, geez, I guess I'm supposed to be religious, if I want to live a good life. Yeah. But when you dive into the research, it has nothing to do with intensity of belief. So it didn't matter that you believe 10 times harder and God than someone lower on the spectrum, with the correlation and causation seem to be more attached to your participation in religious community. So basically, the more you went to a congregational model, the more you participated in pro social behavior, the more pro social benefits you got, you know, which, which matches suddenly, with all of the other social science research that says, When you hang out with people, you have less depression when you you know, when you volunteer more you like, feel happier, and you give more to charity. And so it's really cool when you look at research in that sense, that what I do as an atheist organizer, even if I took the non theism part out if I completely removed atheism and any mention of humanism and all of these recovering from religion thing even if I removed all of that and all we did was get together at a bar and like party once a month, I would be doing a social good that could be improving how much you volunteer how much you donate, how long you live, how happy you are, like, community in and of itself is a proven social good, and that is because we are hardwired social animals and we just this is this is a fact we like can't ignore it. And it exists in different ways for different people, like people are finding online community in ways today that just wasn't possible 25 years ago, we have you know, hybrid communities we have, you know, a lot of structural designs to our society like third places that no longer exist that make it harder for us to actually do this work. But yeah, I will always be an advocate for community because you know, for getting All of the other bigger political and philosophical arguments I could make. And they could make you a good person or society better place. Like I really just think at the end of the day like we improve people's lives by getting them together in community. And in a religious dominated society, where when they leave religion, there are often zero options for you to hang out with other people that share your values on Sunday, people that might visit you in the hospital, if you're sick people that you trust to help you raise your children, people that might be your dating network or your job network, like, we leave that to religion in our society. And beyond that, it turns into political organizing, and it turns into, you know, financial access, and it turns into all of these other forms of power. So yeah, this is why, you know, I get asked sometimes by atheists, like, why do you need an atheist community and like, it's not about atheism, it's about atheists. Atheists are people and people need community and people have needs, and they have goals and aspirations and cares, and that you can build a community around atheism gets really boring really quick.
David Ames 21:09
Absolutely. And I mean, you've basically described the impetus for for this podcast is, you know, like, pick whatever term right humanism, what have you, we talked about secular grace, but like, it's acknowledging the humanity of, of each of us and our need for connection with each other. And that that doesn't go away when you walk away from religion.
Evan Clark 21:31
And this is an evolution that's happening, you know, when I think about the secular movement, or the atheist movement, these are phrases you'll hear thrown around by organizers like me a lot, you need to consider that there's different types of movements that are happening simultaneously. So one is a political movement, where we are hiring lawyers and lobbyists, and we're building these institutions in DC that can represent us. And we're fighting cultural stigma and political stigma. And we are have some goals that we as atheist have all come around together for like separation of church and state, or I don't know, taxing churches or whatever it might be. We have a few aligned things that we in large masses have built political power for. But we also seem to have some cultural things we've organized around as well, we are trying to figure out how to build institutions that frankly, look a lot like classic religions. Yeah, and you see a way CES and Sunday Assembly and ethical culture society that have come up over the past 100 years that are building these spaces where secular people can have congregational models of gathering where we can maybe still sing together or or maybe, you know, checking in on each other if we're sick or builds, you know, food networks, in case anybody gets behind or loses a job. Like when I look at Norway, and I see a very secular country, and I see a Humanist Movement that doesn't talk about politics the way we do in the US and isn't building atheist organizations the way we do in the US. I've thought a lot about where the differences were, they looked at us and they go, why on earth would you need an atheist organization, we're gonna go play with some humanist models, we'll come up with like a, a youth coming of age ceremony, but like, that's all we need. And the deeper thing I've noticed is most of this comes back to politics in the US, we don't fix homelessness with our government, we don't fix hunger with our government, we don't provide health care to all of our citizens. And so what is the most powerful, most well funded institution outside of government that then steps up in those spaces and right now, in the United States today, that's religion. We just don't have giant secular NGOs that are in most hospitals and who provide most homeless care and provide food distributions like this is almost all being organized in religious spaces, which furthers religious privilege and gives religious power. Right, if I was to think like a religious authoritarian, the first thing you would do is try to claim government power, which we're seeing we this is the classic modern Christian nationalist religious right. But if you can't get that the second best you can do is limit government power, and and completely control all social and institutional spaces beyond that. And that's why, you know, creating secular education, creating public schools was probably one of the biggest secular achievement in world history for most countries. Yeah. Like, I don't think we stop and appreciate enough sometimes the secular public school movement and what that meant for separating religion and government. Right, and why religious institutions that are authoritarian all want private schools to take back over and they want to end public funding of education right now apply that to churches now apply that to food now apply that to housing, right? They get to preserve power in that way. And so, you know, yeah, we provide community with atheists united, but we also get to challenge that religious power by also doing our own food distribution by also getting involved in local advocacy by showing up at a bunch of events that we've never shown up for, for the past, you know, however old this country is now. So anyways, it's it's really interesting, there's so many dynamics for how you can come at it. And like you have a political movement with some very clear political goals, you can have a social movement that, you know, maybe has your media figures that are constantly in a cultural debate over theistic ideas. But then we also have, like, local power questions that are both cultural and political, that I think local institutions can solve and support, you know, and it's not just are we providing food for people, which is amazing, but it's how are we educating the youth that are going to take over our society? How are we building rituals that are not shamed base, but aspirational and critical and thought provoking and pluralistic? That's what's to me exciting about the potential of humanist communities and atheists, we're not, we don't have to just be reactionary. There's something unique about a secular perspective that we can offer the world. I think
David Ames 26:11
you just said the magic word there to that pluralism, I think some people can be afraid of the word secularism, and yet, we are not trying to enforce unbelief. You know, on everyone else, it's just to make room for freedom of religion and freedom from religion. And that that actually has, as you've just eloquently enumerated massively positive impacts on society, including things like public education, and some
Evan Clark 26:37
bros on the internet do want that, right. Like, I've actually started to use the phrase atheist supremacy that I think they're actually arguing for, they really believe that other people are broken, and they need to fix them with atheism. They, they they literally look at them as less than during the pandemic, there was some disgusting comments by a lot of atheists online, that I noticed on Twitter and Facebook around like, Well, Lisa killing off lots of Christians. And I just discussed it by comments like that. Because yeah, sure, if there's a Christian pastor who is getting on the errors, and saying, the vaccines are crap, ignore the science, you shouldn't do all of that. I think they are in positions of power, and they have more responsibility, and I care a lot less about if if they as hypocrites get hurt by that. But most religious people are followers, they are part of a community, they don't have the time to go think about vaccine efficacy, they don't have time. You know, they're in a crap economy with kids and a full life and trying to maintain friendships and keep out of depression during a closed society. And then the person you trust, trust most in the world tells you this is an unsafe vaccine, and you shouldn't go get them and then you get sick because of that, like, Are you a victim? Or did you bring that upon yourself? And I think a lot of atheists because we come to atheism through such individual means and because so much of our language comes from often libertarian Western, like culture. We treat everyone with this, like you are the only one that can answer any question and you have to use rationality and by rationality. I mean, like the Jefferson debate in the street with everyone, you know, philosophy, which doesn't recognize that that's not how most humans think that is not how we actually come to conclusions. In most cases, I can see very emotional journey for most people to have religion or to lose religion, as much as it is a rational decision. And rationality is informed by emotions, but that's a longer rant.
David Ames 28:55
Again, Evan, I can't agree with you strongly enough. This is literally a conversation that's been going around our community because of I think genetically modified skeptic recently did a post about apologetics and counter apologetics are, are useful, which I tend to agree with. And there was a bunch of pushback from lots of people. And the point is that it's you know, it's the very, it's the philosophy people that you were just talking about, right? I love philosophy. It's like you know, it definitely affects me, but I don't represent everyone Yeah, I
Evan Clark 29:25
can hang with philosophers as much as anyone and I love it and I love deep questions and I'm one of the few people that will spend hours and hours and hours in those discussions compared to my girlfriend for instance, because zero patients for them she's just like, does it impact my life? If it does, how does it hurt or not? And I want the side that improves doesn't hurt right? Like she there's no debating abortion access with her right there. The philosophy around that as a waste of her time she has finished with the debate and it is emotionally painful to continue to have and I think that's a wreck. cognition of how humans function right? Like, right to be a philosophy bro is abnormal it to sit and say I can ponder literally everything while things burn around me like that is a privilege on a privilege. And so anyways, what I do think, though is we need to recognize that there is some supremacist thought that comes from other places, right? White supremacy exists regardless of religion, we have other forms of supremacy, gender supremacy we have, we also have religious supremacy and some people I think, learn the wrong lessons, they still hold on to some cultural ideas that religion, mostly conservative religion has propagated, which is that, you know, you have to be right, and that you need to fix other people with the truth. And no, that's, that's not actually true. What we need is a society that functions well and prompts people up and helps them get through their lives. Right. And what I find when I look around right now is I see a lot of churches and synagogues and mosques and temples that are doing way more work than we are, when it comes to justice work when it comes to fighting climate change when it comes to science education, like literally the thing we speak most about. Yeah, I've met progressive churches talk more about science than I wouldn't say talk more about we talk a lot. Maybe organized more about, like, science based policy in some cases. And if I look at that, and I also look over here, and I see Richard Spencer, who's an open atheist organizing the Charlottesville rally with frickin Nazis. And I go, Well, should I stand with an atheist? Because they're an atheist? Or should I stand with these people who agree with 99.9%? On like, values, questions, and it's, it's obvious, it's so I've never met an atheist who were like, Yeah, let's go hang out with the Nazis. Right? which defeats the argument that belief is the most important thing. It just destroys that idea. It is actions, it has values it is what we organize around it is our humanity, not our beliefs. And when we recognize that, yeah, belief impacts that belief isn't completely meaningless, right? Like, philosophy is good, so that we keep growing as a species. But that's, that's a feature of a secular ideology. When you let go of Magical Thinking, then appeals to tradition is a logical fallacy. Well, what's the opposite of that? That means progress, we have to challenge our ideas, right? They have to use methods like scientific method for them to be more true. And we will, over time come to better conclusions, and and philosophies, one of the tools in that toolkit. But yeah, when that's all it is, and suddenly it allows you to hold what I would consider a supremacist belief over someone else. Like, I actually think you're more harmful than helpful. And we don't do that in my community.
David Ames 32:56
I actually love that that verbiage. You know, recognizing the shared values, you may know my story that my wife is still a believer. And I talk a lot about with her, you know, that the shared values that we have that that that's what our marriage can can stand on.
Evan Clark 33:11
People don't know this, there's actually a staffer for American atheists who is a Christian. Wow, okay. It's completely possible. You know, I have a one of my best friends from college, he joined my Secular Student Group, he was an agnostic at the time, he went to Europe for study abroad, he came back and he's like, I need to, I need to take you out to lunch. I got something to tell you. And I'm like, Oh, cool. He's gonna come out as gay or something. Yeah, I got pregnant. I have no idea what's gonna happen here. Yeah. And he's like, so the only book I took with me was the Koran and I'm a Muslim now. Oh, that's a cool. Coming to my Secular Student Group. He became the vice president of my student group in college and like, I still hang out with him to this day, I couldn't imagine, like losing that friendship over. You happen to go to a mosque, not an atheist group with your time. You know, he does more good work than most atheists. I know. Like, that's what Bond's us. Yeah, we disagree on a few things. Oh, boy. Sure. You know, like, it gets awkward when I talk about like, how he's going to teach his kids about religion, but that's part of society. I don't know, I'm okay with that. I'd rather have that conversation, then find out he's a Nazi. What happens to be an atheist or is like thinking it's okay, that Trump wants to end the Constitution. Like that's way more problematic to me
David Ames 34:29
to kind of wrap this up. I often say that, again, this concept of secular Grace if you want to be good to people, and you justify that in a theistic way, and I want to be good to people, and I justify that in a humanistic way. Let's just go good. Be good to people, right? Like, we should be allies in that work, even though we disagree with each other's justifications.
Evan Clark 34:50
And this can be hard like the I came into the atheist movement during the new Atheism era, like I ate up a lot of the talking points. around like beliefs leads to action. It's taken me a lot to try to deconstruct that and look at people more as a bunch of monkeys and shoes trying to figure out how to live lives. But, yeah, I think I think there are some interesting questions here that could be explored more, I'm probably going to leave them to more philosophers and thought leaders than community organizers like me, but, you know, to some extent, belief obviously matters a little like, we know, it does impact actions a bit. We do know, it's attached to identity, it's attached to politics, it's attached to how you organize. So I don't want to be completely flippant about that, like, I do think, you know, the way I'm attacking Nazi ideas, like I think right need to be challenged beliefs have consequences. Yeah. But, you know, I just don't think they're as strong as people often talk about in atheists spaces, I really just don't think it's like I, you know, believe in insert, Evan Jellicle, like, interpretation of the Bible. And that means, like, I beat up gay people, like, we don't actually find those correlations. We do find the community organizations and institutions that organize around, like, oppressing gay people, like happen to be using religion as a tool, and there's some correlations there. But, um, but I don't know where the limits are on that. Because yeah, I think if you're talking to your toaster and your toasters telling you I need to go shoot up a school, like, we clearly care about that belief and want to intervene in our society. But yeah, like the local pastor that helps out with our atheist programs in LA here, like, he calls himself a Christian atheist, and I still don't know what that means. Yes, you know, do I need to try to challenge that and fix that, or, you know, when I was dating a lot, after college, and I would go on a date with somebody who believed in astrology, and I like 99 out of 100 times, that's like, it just means they believe in ghosts, like, it's very similar to like an impact or life zero, they like find movies a little bit more interesting if they believe in ghosts, but it always scares me a little bit. Because if you're willing to believe that some bullshit about the stars can impact like who your identity is, then couldn't it impact you thinking vaccines are bad, or something like, I worry about that. But I don't have good solutions around it. And I find, given our short time in the earth, given our limited resources giving, given the community I'm working on, and what we're prioritizing, there's so much more value I can do from a efficacy stance of getting atheists together and doing good work, and providing transformational spaces for them, rather than being the one that fixes bad ideas of other people. But, but I won't, I won't completely shut down the people that do that, like I do think education is important. It's just education rarely changes the world as much as mobilizing does.
David Ames 38:17
So I want to key off of something that you just said there too. And this can sound religious, but providing the platform for good works, as it were, or however you define do define that, you know, giving people the opportunity to, you know, use what they are good at in their hobbies or what have you in some kind of way that impacts the community in a positive way. And I know that like you guys recently have done a project, atheist street pirates where you were cleaning out, like proselytizing signs and things of that nature. And you had a religious people along with you also doing that if you want to talk about that for a minute.
Evan Clark 38:53
Yeah, so that programs called atheists, street pirates, we founded it. During the pandemic, we noticed a lot of illegal religious propaganda. Most cities probably have this and you just kind of forget that it's there. After a while, but maybe a highway overpass somebody put up a sign that said Ask Jesus for mercy or some random telephone pole by Library says, you know, Jesus is coming. Yeah, there's there's a bunch of random propaganda like that that essentially furthers Christian privilege. And normalizes this idea that everything is a Christian space, but they're often on public land, they're on, you know, highways, they're on bridges, they're on telephone poles. Well, that's illegal. That's, that's the shared land that has to be a secular space. They definitely didn't get permission from the city to put those up. But what we find is cities don't have the time and resources to always take those down. And so we started just by mapping them, we created this Google map and we started, you know, seeing how big the phenomenon was. And then one of them that was there for a while we decided, Okay, we're gonna go at like two in the morning and see if we can take this down. hopefully doesn't fall on the highway. Of course, it's la the highway doesn't slow down at two in the bazillion cars out there. And yeah, this kind of kicked off this really odd program that we get a ton of press for where we yeah, we directly map and take down these illegal religious propaganda and it's inspired, even religious people who believe in separation of church and state who believe that for this to be a pluralistic space, you have to also have freedom from religion. You know, freedom, freedom of religion is completely meaning I'm sure a million guests have said this. But it's completely meaningless without your ability to say no to any one religion that approaches you. So yeah, well, I have a I have a local pastor, I met at a local Pride event, and he came out with us. He loved it. He took one of the signs to his congregation and preached that that week about our program. Yeah, at the atheist street pirates were doing. So yeah, we've we've done some really cool things in that sense. And I think what you're getting at, though, as a question is, like, should we institutionalize? Should we build these things that should be there for 50 or 100 or 500 years? And this is the question I always think about, what are we building? And why and what is the like, long term goal of this? Because yeah, in some sense, most atheist organizations are reactionary, that God exists, they exist. They came into existence in the past 50 years. And it's because of the rise of the Religious Right. You know, if the country just turned into Norway, we'd be looking around, like, why on earth? Do you need an atheist community where you talk about atheism, and Christianity and blah, blah, blah, right? You will notice that if you go to Portugal, you go to Denmark, you go to Norway, like they just don't exist. Like, it's actually hard to find atheist communities, the way we have in the US, US we have one or two or three made, you know, atheist communities, for every major city, or hundreds and hundreds of groups you can join. And a lot of that politics, right, it's just obvious we have a religious political movement. And the first and most important group that they will oppress is the non religious, we are the canary in the coal mine for secular government, and for a pluralistic society. In some ways, this is my frustration with our religious allies, including the Satanic Temple and, you know, even Unitarian Universalist is because they think of religious pluralism in only a religious contexts. And they can't recognize that most atheists want to also be non religious, even if we join communities, the language is really important to us, the identity is really important to us. And the government interaction is really important to us. So yeah, it's really cool that the satanists can also give a prayer. But like, what about a group that doesn't pray? Right, that that is that is important. And like, we need to look at a future where most of us don't pray, it doesn't matter. Like now you're forcing us to come up with a prayer to be equal. That is not welcoming. That is not our idea of a secular government. And yeah, it's better than just one religion having access at least we have a seat at the table, the let us do something. But yeah, I like to call it one is the classic secular argument of like a pure secular state, where religion has zero power in religion. And then the other is like a secular light where all religions get equal power. Right. But what happens then is the religions with the most resources and the most organizing, they're the ones that get more time. You know, if I have to compete with the Evangelicals over who gets prayers at city council, like, I see the next 50 years, they're gonna add organizers. Yeah, yeah, not for lack of trying, but like, they just have so much more money. And so many more people that hang out in congregational models that Yeah, could take me 4050 years to like, match that. So that's my concern and why I really think like the secular government argument matters. This is why we don't put up our own signs with the atheists street pirates all the time. Why don't you just go put up atheist signs. I'm like, Well, I don't want to get into a religious arms race. Yeah.
David Ames 44:10
You're gonna lose. But that's so telling of it. I mean, that's, that is so important. That exact statement that you are not putting up. You shouldn't believe science. You should become an atheist. You're just you're just saying, Hey, this is a secular space and so there should not be proselytizing here.
Evan Clark 44:27
Yeah. And I think that's a really, you know, I posted recently on Instagram I did this video I observed some guys proselytizing they walked up to guys, old guys walked up to a young guy with his Kid in a Park. I have a minivan and I sometimes like work in the back of it random places around LA. So I observed this whole thing right up close. And they just immediately started talking to him about Jesus and you need to oh man, and you know, everyone's broken and Jesus is the only way to get saved. Can we pray for you? And like I just watched this like 25 minute interaction in the pork It was like trying to run around and like that was trapped. And I put up a video about how like atheist groups don't proselytize. Right. And I got a lot of pushback on that, both from atheists who some think we should, some from people who have experienced atheists who have pushed themselves into the lives to talk about belief. And yeah, I'm just I think it's really important that if we care about a pluralistic society, which is a place where all have equal access and all or treat each other equally, it doesn't mean I believe that they're right. I, you know, when I do interfaith work, the one thing we agree on is that we all disagree. I love interface work, because yeah, it's literally like, I can walk up to a Muslim and I go, like, I think you're nuts. And they look at me and they go, I think you're nuts. And I go, cool. Should we plant that tree now? And yeah. Like, that's okay. That's cool. That's a society. That's a functioning society. Yeah, we could debate that in our spare time. But proselytizing, to me my personal definition of it is going out of your way, and pushing yourself into other people's lives. You know, I've never ever ever met an atheist organizer who wants to go door to door to talk about atheism. Yeah, I will buy ads on Facebook to promote an event we're doing I will, you know, follow the laws and rules around like promoting ourselves, but I don't think we should have special privilege and access to your life, unconventionally, right, I respect your freedom to say no, and we will present our ideas in some places, but somebody responsibility to convince you. And, you know, again, if, if everyone was Nazis, you know, maybe that's what I would be doing, I'd be like, I want you to not be a Nazi. And we have that in different forms today. But I don't know, I think there's so much more work that needs to be done for the millions, literally millions of atheists, agnostics, humanists and other non religious identities in the US, who don't even have community right now. Right, don't even know that there's spaces they can gather, and you can meet other people like you. And you can raise kids in those spaces free of any dogma at any time, that cares about critical thinking the way you do, people that might be able to visit you in the hospital, if you get sick, or help you out. If you lose your job like, that is so much more valuable in most people's day to day life than your, you know, obvious argument, they could have Googled about the problem of evil. So I don't know. That's where my time and energy is these days. And I'm encouraged that there's a lot more people doing it, and there's a lot more resources for it. But we're so underfunded. I mean, like I ever drive by like a Methodist Church, and you're like, Oh, God, 200 year old building, I wonder what it would be like to do our work in something like that. And then you think about the budget, they probably have, you know, they probably spend more on upkeep of that building than like every atheist group in California put together, right. You know, let alone the pastor salary, the youth pastor, the Secretary, the contractors, the marketing budget, you know, they probably spend more on print materials than I have for 16 programs.
David Ames 48:26
Atheists United is about and I'll just do your mission statement here. Our mission is to build thriving atheist communities, empower people to express their secular values, and promote separation of government and religion. The reason you and I are talking is that you have also started a podcast network and the aggressive atheist is going to become a part of that. So I want to talk about a little bit what that idea is what you're trying to accomplish there. And we've talked about the existing podcast there humanist experience, nomadic humanists, and the beyond atheism, guys that interviewed recently.
Evan Clark 48:58
Awesome, ya know, I'm so excited that you're joining the network and that there's growth in this type of content. When I look around atheist media these days, I see a lot of I'll call it Christian talk radio for atheists. Yeah. You know, like, and it's not inherently bad. Like, again, I think there's a lot of people craving that content. If if I was just coming out of an evangelical tradition, and I need the language for some of these ideas I have if I need to, like, I'm thinking through a problem about God's existence, or whatever my pastor or priest told me about this topic, like, yeah, listening to some of these, these people who talk about those ideas is actually radically valuable. But there's a lot of questions that come after a secular identity as established that I really want to help promote the content creators that are working in that space. You know, I launched a podcast in 2015. And we traveled the country and we created the whole thing from scratch. Should we didn't have podcast backgrounds. And it was a beautiful experience. But what I quickly learned is, you know, creating contents one thing, getting anyone to listen to it is another. It's really hard to have a successful podcast. No matter how brilliant you are, or how beautiful your content is, you need access to an audience. And so the idea that I've been sitting on for years and finally was able to do this past year was let's take a bunch of awesome underfunded ragtag content creators, you know, atheist content creators who just need a little help. Let's throw them in a network together. And they can promote each other and share each other's audience because their shared values and identity here and the questions some of these shows, are asking overlap with other shows that are coming at them from different angles. And that's been the beauty so far. And we started with the beyond atheism, guys, which you had on your show a few weeks ago, who, who really asked my favorite question, which is Now what's cool, you're an atheist, like, Kay, you can go many different directions. Now, you know, how? What does that tell you about how to handle artificial intelligence taking our jobs? Or how does it handle raising a kid? Like, those are real questions like atheists? Yes. For me, who's been an atheist for 2030 years now? Like, I'm, frankly, bored by the atheism question, like, I haven't heard anything new in 25 years in that in that space. Exactly. Yeah. The interesting, juicy questions are like, how do you raise a kid ethically, like, oh, there's so much unknown in that space, and so much we need to learn and practice and figure out how do you? How do you ethically engage our economy? How do you build communities ethically, right, as a community organizer? Do I go fully egalitarian, like a lot of our socialist roots? Or do we use some of the hierarchies that exist in other organizations like churches? You know, do I, as the leader of the community get on stage and talk about our beliefs and values? Or do I avoid being the face in the center of it? And we kind of use a more equitable model like these are their ethical questions or organizing questions that are super juicy and fun? And I don't have you know, we're not going to find a perfect answer to anytime soon. Yeah. Yeah. So we have podcasts that explore that, or in some cases, we're finding, like in the Spanish speaking world, there aren't even shows that address the questions around theism and atheism, you know, like, the alternative. So we, you know, I wasn't expecting to do this, but we might be bringing on a show that goes at the arguments of God, but for our Spanish speaking audience, interesting. Okay. Yeah, underserved spaces. We have a Jewish humanist podcast launching next week called amusing Jews, like so a secular Jewish perspective, like so secular, they barely ever talk about religion. They're mostly just, you know, talking to Hollywood writers about the shows they work on and their hobbies and Festivus is nice. So anyway, it's like this has been the idea. But what's been really, really, really fascinating is trying to just figure out what programs we should do as a community organization. So most atheist groups, if you were to, you know, go pick a city, Houston, or New York or Miami or something and go to their local atheist group and local humanist group. Usually they have a speaker event, right, we do some type of educational program, they have a service program, usually some type of giving back to their local community. And if you're lucky, maybe like a recovering from religion subgroup that supports people with religious trauma. But one of the struggles you find when you talk to most organizers is people will check them out. Like atheism is still a controversial idea. There's lots of new people identifying as atheists, so people will explore it, but they don't always stay. Right. We don't have a 2000 year tradition of like space you want to hang out in or have rituals that you know, like, make you feel good, like, like, Thanksgiving turkey or something. So how do we build spaces like that? And what is actually the goal of spaces like that? And one of the things I've learned recently, weirdly by reading church planning books, which I never thought, you know, I took this job and there's there's nobody that's had a job like this before me, so I have no one to like, I have no mentors to go ask for advice. You know, atheist community organizers, like a new job title in this world. There's like four of me in the world.
David Ames 54:26
I know. Yeah. Not that many people do.
Evan Clark 54:29
And one of the things I found in this, this book recently was about you know, it's about how to turn around failing churches and he talked a lot about how people think they come for belonging, right like you want to find other people like you who share your identity and you just want to like be among them. And that's nice and that's true a lot of people do want belonging that's language we all all use. Every religious and non religious community I know uses this language. But I find that's not why they stay, you know, like I find belonging in a political Oregon. zation, but I won't go to every event. You, you stay in an organization and you become active in an organization, you start donating to that community when it transforms you, when it's something that helps you grow as a human being. And this has been the most transformational idea for me, as an organizer, which is like we need to not just represent people, we need to help people. You know, I'm suddenly looking at things like recovering from religion, not as just a space people can belong together. But as like, truly trauma care. I'm looking at, you know, we added a Smart Recovery Program, which is a secular addiction recovery program, for any type of addiction. It's usually people who like really hated the higher power language in AAA, they want something that's more based on science, smart recovery is the place you should go or at least start. And yeah, like, we are literally helping people's lives. You know, if I can help you with addiction, yeah, of course, this is the community, you're gonna give your time and your money and raise your kids and the rest of your life. And that helped us launch a new program called atheist adventures. And we last year, we went to Death Valley and looked at the stars with an astronomer. And we were asking the question of like, how do we recreate religious experience in a secular sense, right? Like we know, we experience all we know, we feel meaning in certain moments. Well, you know, a lot of us it's been in nature and feeling small or large, based on the context of the experience, right? That's what most religious experiences are, right? Like the reason you walk into a giant chapel in Europe, and you just feel amazing is because you feel so small, suddenly, it's designed for you to feel small, right? And you have a weird moment in your brain where everything kind of fires Well, yeah, you can feel that in Death Valley on a moonless night with an astronomer doing a star talk
David Ames 56:51
real quick, I have to tell this story, because as an atheist, I happen to be in London. And I went to St. Paul's Cathedral. Yeah. And I had that exact experience of just, you know, recognizing that. Oh, you know, it was it was the architecture, and the, the, you know, the brilliance of the stories, and yeah, and the the beauty of it, and the light filtering through the stained glass. And like, you know, the there was an experience, there were some legitimate experience as a, you know, straight up atheist, and let you know, we can definitely have, especially in nature, I think is a great way to experience that the experience of awe, and it'd be an entirely secular experience.
Evan Clark 57:29
Yeah, Alain de bitone wrote a whole book on this about how we should be using architecture from a secular perspective to create memory and awe and like, celebrate secularism. And I completely agree. But yeah, what does that mean in different contexts? And how do we communally do that is, I think a really interesting question. Like we haven't figured out there are very few secular rituals that you'll find in most groups around the world. We have, you know, there's been different attempts there are, Norway has a coming of age ceremony that they do for like all 16 year olds, and they spend a year working on like, community service projects and kind of blueprints, and then they talk about it, and then the community recognize them as adults. And that's common, most religions have some form of coming of age ritual. But if you ask most atheist communities in the US, like, we'll get there like I can, I totally imagine that if we are committed to community, the way we're building, we're going to have some types of rituals that represent those. But yeah, what they look like might be different. And because we have no holy books, and we don't need to stick to a tradition, just because it's been tradition, it will look different in different places. But yeah, most most, organizers and scholars in the space talk a lot about birth, death, marriage, coming of age as like four of the biggest rituals we just have in our society. And we have secular versions of them. In most places, you know, I know not in Iran always but like, you can go to Vegas and get married. That's pretty secular experience nine times out of 10. Um, but yeah, like actually thinking about if we want to create our own unique cultural ritual or, or culture, right, like, Can atheist communities do culture making? I'm of the opinion yes. Like we didn't I've been looking through the history of atheists United since I took this job and I found that we did an arts festival 25 years ago in LA right like what is secular and atheist arts and you know, it is whatever we gather around it is not because some old dudes in Europe decided this is the only book that is true it's it's because we through basically a democratic process like decided this is our ritual and we can find value in it or we can let go of it and to me, that's beautiful. Like that's what informs humanism for me like humanism which I No, We're departing a little bit from atheism. But I think there's so tied and 90% of atheists wind up humanists in the US at least.
David Ames 1:00:06
And that's this podcast it is about, humanism
Evan Clark 1:00:10
Yeah. Humanism, starts from the idea that like magic isn't real, right? That it is a naturalist world that God and Gods aren't, aren't things that matter to our universe. And so we are these small little homosapiens on a small planet in a small galaxy in an unbelievably massive universe, right? Yeah. Okay, well, now we want to understand the world around us. How would we do that? Oh, well, we'd probably come up with some method to test our ideas and things like science suddenly become tools that we use for understanding the natural world, which is why science is so popular in human spaces. If we could find a better way to come to answers in science, we would use that, but it's the best method we've come up with yet. Well, you know, how do we think about morals and ethics? And answer these questions while using tools like science and recognizing that with no gods, and no magic, right? Like, we're the only ones that can solve the problems that matter to us. And we have to create or feel the meaning in those things, right? We can start thinking about moral responsibility, we can think about our interaction with everyone around us and somebody might go, Hey, but like, I'm a libertarian, I think I can go off into the woods and not impact anyone else. And it doesn't matter. Well, science, and the natural world tells us that we're all interconnected, right? Like the air I breathe is the air you breathe, right? The history of the universe all moved through time to where like, I'm made of the same Stardust that you're made of. And because there are interactions between those things, like why isn't there more responsibility between those right? Like, I live in an ecosystem, I don't live in a video game where I can exist separate from you. And with that knowledge that I live in an ecosystem, this is my one and only life. And we're using tools like compassion and reason to understand our place and how to be good in it. That's how we figure these things out. Right? Like, I think it's, it's so obvious and beautiful and exciting when we think about it that way. But, you know, we don't always get the narrative, you know, you you lose theism. And maybe you're biased by the idea that I must have come from something or that I must have a church that gives me the answers, but the story of the universe and the idea that you can solve problems, or you and your community can solve problems and understand your place in it and figure out how to solve moral and ethical problems. Like, I think that's as beautiful, if not more beautiful, and I would argue more beautiful. I personally would argue more beautiful, because it will always improve based on new evidence and new experience, we will we won't just accept an answer, because it's been the answer before, if we can find a new way to improve upon it, we have to
David Ames 1:03:00
man, I think that's got to be where we wrap because that was very well said. Like, it's amazing to meet you in that there are are very few of us, right? There aren't that many people who care about these things in the way that you've just expressed, right? And that's what we're trying to communicate here on this podcast. I want to thank you for being on the podcast. I want to also give you an opportunity to tell people how they can participate with atheists united, how can they find you? How can they interact?
Evan Clark 1:03:28
Yeah, so atheist, united, we're based in Los Angeles, but we consider ourselves a California nonprofit. We have chapters in San Luis Obispo and Santa Clarita. And I would encourage people to become members, especially if you're in California. That's an ongoing monthly supporter of our organization. donation is always helpful. I'm a nonprofit, I have to ask. But you can follow us on social media. We are on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and probably going to move to Tik Tok soon you can find us on YouTube. Yeah, it's It's wild. We didn't even have time to get into this but like the growing spectrum of atheist experiences, right, like a third generation atheist family has a kid in LA and that kid goes to USC and only has atheist friends and then works at Netflix with other atheists like them trying to find community is so night and day different than third generation Evan Jellicle comes out as gay and atheist and Kentucky, rural Kentucky and like finding a community that's atheist is life or death for them, right? Yeah. And yet, Intel we have more atheist spaces they have to share community where one is desperate to talk about religion and its harm and how they interact with it where one is like, I don't understand why anyone talks about religion. Yeah, and right now they share spaces in LA. We have we're one of those unique cities where we have like people who came here from all over. We have religions like Scientology and Jehovah's witness that are a lot stronger here than other cities. And we also have like one of the most secular, you know, generations and multi generations here, and they're all trying to find community at the same time, and we're all trying to figure out, you know, yeah, we can politically organized together. But what is gathering look like? What does a party look like? What does care look like? So yeah, that's why supporting atheists United is so cool and critical is that we are incubating a lot of the programs that we hope other groups around the country will eventually take off with. We happen to be big, we happen to be really active. We're throwing a lot of spaghetti at the wall right now. And if something works, we're going to share it around the country around the world and hope more people do it.
David Ames 1:05:40
Excellent. Fantastic. Well, we will have links in the show notes, of course, but I want to thank you, Evan, for being on the podcast.
Evan Clark 1:05:46
Thank you for having me.
David Ames 1:05:53
Final thoughts on the episode? Well, it's hard to overstate how good it is to find other people in the secular world who also have a secular Grace focus. Obviously, Evan wouldn't use that term per se, but the things that he does is secular Grace boots on the ground humanism, touching people's lives. I highly recommend that you listen to Evans original podcast that is the first podcast within the atheist United studios, podcast network called humanist experience. He did that with Serato, Blaine, Surat, like lived on the streets of LA with the homeless, trying to find practical ways of helping people. I couldn't think of a better description of what secular grace is, boots on the ground, blood, sweat and tears, humanism. That is the kind of humanism that Evan Clark and atheists United represents. As you can imagine, this is why I said yes. When Evan asked for this podcast to become a part of the Podcast Network. Evans work is really important. It is humane, it is loving. It is on the right side of history. And I'm just excited to be a tiny part of this. I'd like to mention the other sibling podcasts that are a part of the atheist United studios Podcast Network. You've already heard from Nathan Alexander and Troy tub heiress of the Beyond atheism podcast. I interviewed them back in November. I just mentioned the humanist experience that is with Evan Clark and Sarah Blaine. Very well worth your time to listen to it is kind of an NPR style, very highly produced beautiful podcast. And then the most recent podcast to join the network. Besides mine is the amusing Jews who Evan talked about in this interview. I know that Evan is working hard to bring other podcasts online. I anticipate having guest exchanges with those podcasts. And I'm looking forward to all the exciting things that we will do together in the next year. I want to thank Evan for being on the podcast for living secular Grace without knowing what that word is, for exemplifying it for us giving us a practical example to try to follow. Thank you, Evan, for being on the podcast and for inviting us to be a part of the podcast network. The secular Grace Thought of the Week is what obviously follows out of the conversation with Evan and that is about secular community, and how desperately we as human beings need that. It was incredibly insightful what Evan talked about that. The secular community has to hit this entire spectrum of people from people who have been abused and suffered at the hands of the church to people who are third generation atheists who have no experience with what faith feels like. And so the more communities that we have, the more opportunity there is to fill the niches or the specific needs of the people. I cannot say enough how important Arline's work as a community manager has been and will continue to be. I'm in continual gratitude for our LNS work. For those of you who have been a part of the deconversion anonymous Facebook group, you know how important Arline's work is. I want you to be asking yourself how you can participate in the community how you can lead in the community. Do you want to lead a group on a particular topic? Do you want to lead a book club? Anything that brings people together is vitally important. In 2023, as we watch COVID in the rearview mirror, I'm really interested in in person connectivity. If you'd be willing to host something in your local area and there are two or three or four other people in the area. That is the next step for us. And I'm very interested in seeing that happen. Another thing happening in 2023. We're going to have more blog posts from multiple people including Jimmy who's a part of the the deconversion anonymous Facebook group, Arline herself. If you are interested in writing on the topic of secular grace or deconversion, or related secular topics, I'd be willing to have you on the blog as well. If you are interested in doing social media outreach, or the YouTube channel or any other myriad of ways that you could participate, please get in touch with me graceful atheist@gmail.com or reach out to Arline on Facebook. Coming up we have next week I was a teenage fundamentalists. Troy and Brian interviewed me and I interviewed them back in November. My episode on their podcast aired in late November. And I will be releasing my interview of Brian and Troy next show look forward to that. That is a great conversation. I love those guys. They are also a sibling podcast, whether or not they're a part of this podcast network. After that, I have Rachel Hunt of the recovering from Religion Foundation. And man, that's an amazing conversation. Absolutely loved Rachel. I've got a bunch of community members coming up who I will be doing interviews for but the thing I'm super excited about. I will be interviewing Jennifer Michael Hecht, who I have quoted 1000 times from her book doubt. Her new book is called The Wonder paradox. And it is about how poetry can impact our lives. And if you're thinking to yourself, Man, I'm not into poetry. trust me this is it's bigger than that. It is about the all that we experience as human beings from a very secular perspective agenda for Michael Hecht is amazing. Can't wait for that interview and can't wait to share that with you. That'll be in early March. Until then, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist join me and be graceful human beings. The beat is called waves by MCI beats that you want to get in touch with me to be a guest on the show. Email me at graceful atheist@gmail.com for blog posts, quotes, recommendations and full episode transcripts head over to graceful atheists.com This graceful atheist podcast part of the atheists United studios Podcast Network
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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