My guest today is Lisa. Lisa runs a YouTube channel where she shares from her life experience, recovery from substance abuse and humanistic values. Shortly after getting into recovery, Lisa also deconverted. We discuss what it was like to go through recovery and deconversion almost simultaneously. Lisa shares about secular alternatives to the 12 steps like SOS and SMART Recovery. We try to draw out the secular humanistic values that are embedded in the 12 steps while jettisoning the religious ones.
In the final thoughts section at the end of the podcast, I share my personal story of being a family member in a drug and alcohol addicted family and how the 12 steps influenced both my Christianity and now my Secular Humanism.
My guest today is the producer and subject of the podcast, Hiding in Plain Sight. Tom is a non-believer living in the UK. He decided to explore the hidden things that surround him that he has so far left unexplored. He takes on the task of a search for meaning within the Christian framework.
The Hiding In Plain Sight podcast is very well produced, it has its own original music and it takes an honest and sincere look at Christianity in its first series. Ultimately, the podcast is about the search for meaning and the examination of one’s life. Tom does this with humility and sincerity. It is a riveting story that you must hear.
Tom’s reason for doing the podcast:
For most of my adult life, I have spent a few hours a day on one of London’s busy commuter trains. It has given me time to think. I have often stared out of the window and felt like I was missing something, some meaning. This podcast is a search for that meaning and in each series, we will explore something new, I will try on new ways of living and thinking like a new pair of shoes, and let you know how it feels, the comfortable and uncomfortable parts.
My guest today is Jennifer Michael Hecht. Jennifer is a poet, an author, an award winning academic and an intellectual historian. She has written numerous books from a secular perspective. I asked Jennifer to come on the show to discuss her book Doubt: A History and its profound effect on me post-deconversion. She is one of my intellectual heroes.
It is hard to express how much this book has influenced other secular writers and thinkers. This book has strongly influenced my other two favorite books Greg Epstein’s Good Without God and Katherine Ozment’s Grace Without God. Both of which quote Doubt throughout.
Jennifer proved to be as profound a thinker as her reputation makes her out to be. It was my privilege to attempt to keep up with her in this interview.
I am indebted to Jennifer for coining the term “graceful life philosophy.” My concept of Secular Grace is an attempt to live a graceful life philosophy.
Great believers and great doubters seem like opposites, but they are more similar to each other than to the mass of relatively disinterested or acquiescent men and women. This is because they are both awake to the fact that we live between two divergent realities: On one side, there is a world in our heads— and in our lives, so long as we are not contradicted by death and disaster— and that is a world of reason and plans, love, and purpose. On the other side, there is the world beyond our human life—an equally real world in which there is no sign of caring or value, planning or judgment, love, or joy. We live in a meaning-rupture because we are human and the universe is not.
NOTE: This transcript is AI produced (otter.ai) and likely has many mistakes. It is provided as rough guide to the audio conversation.
David Ames 0:11
This is the graceful atheist podcast Welcome welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. If you've ever thought to yourself, I really want to hear David be less graceful and more mean and catty. Well then I have a podcast recommendation other than my own. I'd like to recommend the deconversion therapy podcast the hosts Karen and Bonnie ticket comedic look at the deconversion process and in particular the silliness of evangelical life. They're often read listener submitted stories and so I submitted a story from my experience as a youth pastor back in the 90s. If you want to hear my story about attempting to be a hip, young, long haired youth pastor in the 90s, check out the May 9 episode of The deconversion therapy podcast on today's show. My guest today is one of my intellectual heroes. One of the great things about doing this podcast is getting to interview people whose work has had a profound impact on my thinking, and deconversion. My guest, Jennifer Michael Hecht is a poet, a historian and a commentator, and author of numerous books. And she literally wrote the book on doubt. She's also an award winning academic, she wrote the end of the soul scientific modernity, atheism and anthropology. Her current book is called stay a history of suicide and the arguments against it. It's a secular argument against suicide. But I asked Jennifer to be on the podcast to talk about her 2004 book doubt, a history and its profound impact on my thinking, post deconversion. There are three books that have had a major impact on my thinking. Catherine cosmonauts Grace without God, Greg Epstein's good without God. And Jennifer Michael Hecht's doubt a history. All three of these books have been important for different reasons. Jennifer's doubt a history really helped me understand the intellectual history that we inherit as secular people. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is going through either deconstruction or deconversion to help ground yourself in the history of others who have doubted before you. It is amazingly comforting to realize that not only are my doubts not particularly original for today, my doubts are not particularly original for 2500 years ago, and that is the kind of context that a book like doubt a history can give you. As you will hear Jennifer and I talk about how old these questions are and that humanity has been wrestling with the concept of doubt and belief. For most of our history. The book is a crash course in philosophy, ethics and religious thought. It encompasses multiple millennia, and circumnavigates the globe, including cultures from around the world. What could be a dry and potentially boring subject I found riveting. Page after page I came face to face with my own ignorance and the wisdom of humanity. Over the centuries. Jennifer has written a book that contextualizes the modern moment of secularization in the West. And for that she is my intellectual hero. And now I give you Jennifer Michael Hecht.
Jennifer Michael Hecht, welcome to the graceful atheist podcast.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 3:58
Thanks so much. Glad to be here.
David Ames 4:00
Jennifer, you're a poet, you're an author, you have a PhD in History of Science, you're called an intellectual historian. And you've literally written the book on doubt. I want to just give a quick moment for you to talk about some of your current work I understand your previous book was called stay history of suicide and a secular argument against it. And that you're working on a current book now, the wonder paradox, a guide to using poetry to find meaning in folk ah, and rest in some clarity of mind.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 4:33
Yeah, we're still working on the subtitle on that one. But yeah, paradox is what I'm working on now. And, and yeah, the The truth is that the books are very different, but in a lot of ways they do all cohere around the question of how people live it outside of religion, or having moved on from it or not. having, you know, come into their own in a culture that isn't, that doesn't find it as their focal point. And there's all different ways that people have structured meaning the, the modern sense that, that without religion, you don't have a lot of these things is very temporally local. It's a very, it's a very momentary and historically specific experience. And so when I start looking outside the present moment, to see how people deal with certain kinds of things that we associate with religion, I always find a wealth of, of ideas and lives lived generations lived under different conceptions of, of all these types of religious ideas. So the Wonder paradox right now is, is a direct response with poetry, seeing how how ritual and wise words that sound good and feel good and that you've returned to have influenced people's lives outside of religion within religion, but without belief with religion with belief, but without all sorts of other kinds of configurations. And as you said, the the anti-suicide book stay was really an investigation into how people who weren't going to just answer that question with God says know, how they respond to what it could mean to to each other and to ourselves to to ask questions about whether it was morally straightforward. Whether or not you could take your own life.
David Ames 6:44
Right. Right. I think that's an important book for our time as the as we see a movement of secularization. Yeah. And suicide is always an ever present danger. So yeah, I terrible podcast hosts, I have not yet written those. That book, I plan to read it very shortly. You've graciously come on the podcast to talk about a book that you wrote in, it's 2003. Right? It's a long, long time back. I appreciate you taking that time. One of the selfish goals of the podcast for me is to just become a little less ignorant. And just to TSF, a little bit, I've read your book, doubt a history a couple of years after my deconversion. And I just found it so profoundly important. And mainly because of my own ignorance. I came from an evangelical background where my ignorance of history and in particular, secular history, philosophy, philosophical history, was just profound. And on top of that, to make matters worse, there's this sense of hubris like, you know, well, I probably I understand these things already. And then even going through the deconversion process, oh, I have these original experiences, it must just be me. And reading through the book was not only recognizing my ideas are not particularly original for today, they are not particularly original for 2500 years ago. And I find like this is just a really useful thing for people to to be grounded in to recognize our place in history. Before we jump into some of the specifics of the book, would you like to tell us about your particular spiritual or faith journey? Where are you at? Where did where was your background growing up?
Jennifer Michael Hecht 8:37
My background growing up was a, I was raised, you know, Jewish household we were practicing. But what's called conservative Judaism at the time, all the names have sort of shifted a little bit, but my dad's a physicist, and so he didn't believe, but also came from the same world of Brooklyn, Jews, second generation. And so third generation in some cases. And so, I grew up on Long Island and in around New York City, so I do a lot of Catholic kids, and I suppose more than you would in the middle of the country. But yeah, for me, the my personal history of secularism, so I decided that that is I came to my own understanding that there is no god or anything supernatural at about age 12. I mean, I know I was age 12. And it did hurt at first. But, but not for that long. It really was literature though. It took me a while to realize that's what it was but this beautiful quote, by Rainer Maria Rilke saying, to live the questions. Mm. like that, we can't come to the answers that even if the answers were handed to you now, you couldn't, you couldn't really know them not only couldn't really know that you couldn't know them at all, he compares them to to, you know, wisdom in a language in a book in a language you don't understand. And the book is worth something, but you really can't understand it yet. And to me, at 12, it was a revelation that, that you could live the questions that you could, that you didn't have to believe, now that there were no answers, because what you thought of as the source of answers previously, no longer holds, holds good. The idea that wisdom is indeed something that you have to work through both in living and through a long process of learning. That was very emancipatory, for me that that meant that whatever I couldn't figure out now was not a closed door. On the other hand, I? Well, I was gonna say that I've had a pretty solid sense of what I thought in terms of believability, the notion that there that I could conduct my metaphysical investigations the same way I conduct my life investigation, so no evidence, really no reason to tolerate the proposition. Right. Right. And, and that worked, okay. But, again, one grows and one learns. So Buddhism became something that was very fascinating to me to figure out, to what extent millions upon millions of people across, you know, 10s, of hundreds of generations were living without supernatural ideas. And what what you find is that it's a little divided. So there's Theravada Buddhism, where you really do strict, strictly state without supernaturalism Mahayana Buddhism, which, as I explained in doubt, they come to the idea that you could believe in the weird and absurd and unprovable through a kind of rational progression, about what you can't know. And when rationalism gets to its edges, where it breaks down a little bit, there are paradoxical problems with being a human being trying to understand the world. Right? Not problems anyone can get anywhere past. And so some, some of the, the Buddhist world also goes into this world of irrationalism, on the good faith of so the world's irrational. But yeah, again, also looking, looking into Confucianism, how much how much of the non supernatural, non theistic religion that is essentially set out there was influenced by local customs and religions that were superstitious, right. And what I found was a tremendous amount of people all over the place throughout all different periods of times, specifically banishing the supernatural, and saying, well, then what do we make of life without it? So for me, I processed through taking on certain amounts of all these different religions to the point where I am now, I have a great deal of respect for all of them, and also a great deal of concern about how much how much everyone who talks about these different religions, is promoting their own point of view. And so we have to be, we can't say that they really are atheistic, because atheism as we understand it now, is very historically specific to this moment. I rambled a bit, but I personally came from a position until 12. I believed to some degree, then I stopped and was a pretty standard kind of atheist very scientistic. Until Yeah, I guess at Columbia, doing my PhD in history and reading about different cultures, atheists, cultures, in history, and finding out just beginning to get the sense that there was more to be understood there and coming to understand that instead of scientism, I really find more truth in what I'll call poetic realism, right? A commitment to realism, but with an understanding that there's more truth in some of the connections we glean through beauty and feeling and surmise. And so that lands me in a rather odd place.
David Ames 15:00
Well, I think I can identify, I think one of the things that I tried to talk about on this show is that we are human beings and not Vulcans. And one aspect of the modern version of atheism is kind of a pure rationality, that kind of tries to ignore the three dimensionality of human beings. We are emotional, we are whatever you want to term spiritual, for lack of a better term, right? We have, we have these feelings, these things are important. And so I was familiar with your concept of, of poetic atheism. And I think that's a really good way of putting it. So
Jennifer Michael Hecht 15:36
yeah, I've sort of moved to calling as to saying poetic realism. In the same breath, I think quite a gazhams. Important still, because I personally think it's important in this moment in America. And it started with Bush, I remember telling interviewer as well, I wanted to, I wanted to use very neutral words, so as to not stop conversation before it started, right. But but as the evangelical started rising up, I started to feel like well, if I'm appreciating other people coming out and saying the word atheist, then I'm going to do it too. And I still have no problem with it whatsoever. And I also think it's important that I keep saying it, but it is. It's just a word that is first of all negative as so many of our words are, and also hung up on Abrahamic theism. The idea of one God, the the Judeo Christian education that everyone in the West receives tilts towards the notion that monotheism and theism itself is a very ordinary aspect, a very ordinary way for human thought to go and it isn't, it just isn't the way they argued it without the evidence was to say that everyone else was primitive, and they were headed there. Right. And that is patently absurd now. But it's what a lot of our whole subconscious notion of what standard normal human religion is. So saying you're an atheist is ignore is sort of separating yourself from all these people who didn't believe in God without having ever heard of them without having ever entertained the notion of an afterlife. And so, realism is a terrifically complicated word you, right, everyone thinks they're being realistic. But still, I felt that it was it was intelligible enough. So I tend to use them both both phrases, that I'm a poetic realist come up poetic atheists to make the point of the atheism but also to, to open it up and ask, well, you know, in what traditions this all falls in?
David Ames 17:57
Yes, I again, relate a lot to that I could very easily use the moniker graceful humanists, but I keep graceful atheists, because I think it's important to be out and allow to help others to come to that as well. But my focus is very much about humanism, and how do we connect with one another and live life? Well. I do want to circle back really quickly. The title of the book is doubt a history and not necessarily atheism history. I understand that it's somewhat of a historical accident. But I find that it's a a serendipitous one, I believe that the word doubt is so evocative. And, you know, doubt leads to questioning and questioning leads us maybe in circles, but eventually to some truth. evokes, in me the idea of somebody who has skin in the game, the doubt or cares about? Yeah. Tell me about your conception of doubt. And what led you to want to research it?
Jennifer Michael Hecht 18:56
Yeah, exactly. You reminded me that in the Introduction to Data, I say the the, the strong believer in the strong atheist in a way have more in common than the great mass of people who don't think about these rights. Yeah, who are sort of hypnotized by, by life enough, my daily life enough to and the concerns that you see in daily life and television and commercials that, that world, that world, you know, it would be hard to argue against it if it went on forever, and it was always happy. But it doesn't tend to serve people that well. And even if it does, it ends and it ends for other people in your life before it ends for you. That is if you try to ignore the situation we're in, it will come crashing in and the if you're not familiar with it, it will destroy you. So we have always known or from the beginning of human records that that we try to prepare ourselves a little bit with by remembering the pain that how happened in the past. And by putting it into some kind of conceptual structure. Yeah, everybody. It doesn't last very long periods of history where people aren't trying to figure out the best way to live, we are living in a very strange, multifocal moment and and that really just means we have to do that extra little bit of work of looking for the material that will save us. In some periods in time, it's handed to you in a little bit more of a coherent way, even at the worst. But we're in a very, very complicated moment, because we've just human beings from different local contained groups have never been able to speak to each other the way they can't today. And so we're all overwhelmed with choice.
David Ames 20:53
It's an information dealers, and half of the problem with the internet is not necessarily finding something to learn, but rather to figure out which things are true. Right filtering processes, the new chat, the modern challenge, that's also
Jennifer Michael Hecht 21:11
you know, that depth of knowledge. So, as you were saying before, the notion that look, I, I can see the world, I'm smart, I talk to people every day who seem like they know less than I do. So I probably have a pretty good handle on this. And then to, yeah, what's located in doubt, and of course, there's a million things I left out of that giant. To see that. If you look for this stuff through history, you will be surprised at every turn. I already had a PhD in history, I had been teaching Western Civ and world history and then history of medicine for years already, when I started to write down, I thought I knew the story. I thought I had picked up as I went along, reading all sorts of history, little stories of atheists and religious doubters, everywhere I looked. Yeah. And yet, when I looked at any overall survey of history, or even of any period, or place, the atheists were gone. And people were still there, but they were being celebrated for other things they did. And if you were only an atheist, you only showed up if if, you know, if you if the big movement came up against you. So they were there, they were still the names were still in the books. But to a remarkable degree. Only when I looked up real close, when some historian had looked closely at a little period, they didn't find it. They didn't leave out the atheist. So I knew about them. I also thought of certain periods of time in certain places as being totally, totally encompassed by religion. But I thought I would just sort of put a sign Here Be Dragons and and we go back to you know, the civilized places where there was culture and sophistication. So like I said, I was already a historian, I had already co authored a Western Civ textbook I, and I thought I had the material. When I brought up the proposal, I had the material laid out. But when I went and did the research, the wealth of personalities and ideas and different takes on things, ideas that seemed like they had to be modern, that showed up in medieval Spain that showed up in Syria, I mean, that, that real color, real flavor, really understanding the ways that different people process these, these ideas about life that are in religion and outside religion. I mean, it certainly blew my mind to the point where I saw that I wasn't writing a story that was a minor story within the larger story of history. I was rather, again, a metaphor I use in in the preface to the book or the introduction. That was it was like looking at a map upside down. It was the same story I learned, but celebrating the times of confusion, which are actually times when people are asking questions and people are suggesting different answers. And people are tolerating the possibility of several answers without a desperate need to pick one and march with it. Those incredibly sophisticated, complex, distressing periods, they tend to make us feel a little ill at ease when we live in them, which makes us write literature which means we have we have the record. And so there, there was just a tremendous The amount of stuff that even as a historian who cared about these things, until I did the research, and really looked up close, I didn't know and was quite astounded, and quite, in some ways you feel better, because you see, you don't have to make all these points there in the world. Right? Like, you're not alone, even if you're alone when you're in a football stadium, and no one else agrees with you. There's millions of people who do agree with you, right? That's a good feeling. A bad feeling is to realize that coming up with some of these answers doesn't save the world. They come out, they help, they can make a wonderful period of time, but there are opposing forces. In in each of us even of just fear and weariness, and, and despair, which can, can put you in other places. But the, the hard part also Well, one thing was I realized by the end of the book, that the reason that we didn't know these stories, as well as we should have was partially the Cold War. It took me a while to really see this, I really had to do some research, some of which, you know, just sort of the highlights ended up in the book, but to really come to understand that in this country, in the United States, during the Cold War, it's in the 50s in response to this fresh, godless, calm animosity with the USSR. That yeah, that not just communism, but atheism because because they were associated with each other became a taboo because it was downright treasonous. The same way Catholicism is treasonous in a in a, you know, during the the age of religious wars, when a country turns Protestant, these kinds of existential belief systems. And so all these books that used to be on the shelves everywhere, came off the shelves. It's remarkable of the extent to which the history of atheism gets shut down in the 50s. And, yeah, there was research I did for a while on, on what I was calling the lightbulb years saying that the first half of the 20th century in the United States was the single greatest period of atheism, including today, that is, before the Cold War, we still haven't gotten back to that level of, of, of certain kinds of freedom. So that, you know, Edison says, you know, in in the, you know, the teens, I think it's 1913, says two New York Times on the front page of the times they asked him about, about the afterlife. And he says, No, of course not. I'm a person of proof and science and mechanism, proof that, of course, there's no afterlife. They'd asked him because William James, up at Harvard had said that just in case, he will try to contact people in case he was so curious about the afterlife. So he had died. And you know, when is your new him said they were contacted. So they went around. And now I don't think somebody who was primarily a maker, the way Edison was, would feel quite as comfortable saying that to the New York Times as in the teens, I'm just saying, even out we can look back and say, Wow, there were many famous men and women famous for other things not famous for their atheism, who were publicly avowed atheists. You know, Sam Barnhart, you know, like, actresses just coming out early part of the 20th century. So, so that was a one of the big parts of realizing the differences with doubt.
David Ames 28:56
Yeah. And again, I think one of the things that just strikes me about particularly looking at a overview the way you do in the book, I'm just seeing various cultures and various times in history, where we've been wrestling with this as humanity from the beginning, these are old questions. And I think he said something very insightful. Near the beginning about even if we hand you the answers, it's almost like we each individually as a society have to go through that process of asking those questions. Even though again, in history, these questions have been grappled with already.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 29:35
Right? And, and we will always have to, which is kind of the wonderful, terrible thing about being human art is not going to get old. Because we're because it's, it's not just that each individual has to go through the story on their own, but that each individual is responding to a new world in a way If they're the culture that's around them, and where they are, in their moment of history makes all the words they're using special.
David Ames 30:10
I mean, right? The context matters.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 30:12
It matters so much. And I think we forget that if, if, if you want went to read Newton right now, you'd be way better off trying to read a book written in this century, about Newton, then reading Newton. And one of the reasons for that is that he's, it's long enough go of course, Principia, a Roman Latin, but, but is the last great work written in Latin in that way. But but the the point is, even John Locke, you know, get closer up to the moment, the words don't mean the same thing. So if you just pick a paragraph and read it, right, you know, 911 people were posting this poem by Whitman, called the firemen, because they were so grateful to the firemen. I'm a New Yorker, I was here and we were feeling very grateful for, indeed, you know, someone I knew who was in the force, passed away that day. And but yeah, the Whitman poem was about the guy in the train, who keeps the fire going back in steam locomotives, there were guys who just had to keep shoveling the coal and keep it going. So yes, it was a hard working man, sacrificing himself, but it was the completely wrong fire man. And I know it's a bit of a digression. But I'm saying that the words means so many such different things. And, indeed, what Americans made up out of Christianity is found nowhere else in history, this very direct relationship with this almost male friend, Jesus character. That's, that's a very American invention. And so an atheist, now, you now are responding to a different religion than anybody else has, and you lost a different thing. Now, there are other things that religious people in the past as they became atheist sloths that you don't have to worry about, because you never had them. There are, you know, the, the ancient Greeks expected to be able to follow their heart and their feelings, but sometimes a Damon sometimes a spirit of one sort or another, or a god would take you over and have you either get in a fight, or fall into a romantic situation, or write something you didn't know you believed in, or do all sorts of things that are out of character, or in, in any case, when they decided, oh, that's all not true. And that did happen. They felt bereft of that, right, but they didn't sit around saying, I don't believe in the gods anymore. Now, I won't live forever, because the gods never offered eternal life for human beings in ancient Greece. So. So yeah, each of us come, each of us comes into the problem in our own moment, in our own way, and then yes, to process through. And, you know, there, there are these beautiful realities of being a natural creature, who has, who has feelings and, and observations of a world happening on many different levels, all at the same time. And comprehending one's vastness and one's limitations, realizing the extent to which you're part of a web of things, right, and your place in it, and the complexity of all of that, that there's something in there. Well, Emily Dickinson says that the brain is wider than the sky for put them side by side, the one the other will consume. And you besides So, the sky the universe is much bigger than you. But you know, the universe and the universe doesn't know you. So who is really the the point of this strange, beautiful, real reality? Yeah, so we are stuck in these mortal beings in these mortal situation but there's something that happens between us and something that happens within us, that is beyond words. And that leaves us the, the great adventure of living our lives. Attempting to speak from What we're actually experiencing to put that into words or colors or shapes to communicate to reach someone else, or at least to reach ourselves to say, yes, I've made something that pleases me in the way that the universe does and to have that communion. But the greatest is the one between other human beings and the way that something real happens in our relation to each other. That is, all the magic you need more than anything else.
David Ames 35:29
Yeah, the two things I wanted to say. One is, and this ties back to the topic of suicide, as well as that, I think we've taken the Copernican principle too far, where we've, we've, you know, we've said, man, we're just a tiny speck in this massive universe, and we're totally pointless. And the flip side of that is what you describe, right? That we are conscious beings, we are observers of the universe. And so I would say, even if you are alone on a desert island, thinking, your thoughts that is so rare and so precious, those thoughts, those conscious thoughts, that there's meaning in that, and we are meaning makers. And I could not agree with you more that one of the primary ways that we make meaning is by interacting with one another, it's our relationships with family, with friends, with our community, and with the wider world. And I one of the things I talk about on the podcast a lot is that as people go through a faith transition of one kind or another, they might be very angry. And, and one of the dangers of that is you've got this all this newfound knowledge, this, you know, the sledgehammer of, of argumentation, and and you're angry, and the most dangerous thing that can happen is you burn bridges to the people that you actually care about. Oh, right. Sure. And so one of the things I just tried to convey is that, yes, you're angry that anger is valid. But sometimes we have to be the bigger person, and the people that we love, really, ultimately is the meaning in our lives. And and, and that's what we need to find precious.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 37:11
Yeah. I agree entirely. And it's a very interesting perspective. I have certainly had many consequences about from being a vocal atheist. But coming from a New York Jewish background. It wasn't, I certainly didn't have to lose friends, I certainly did have some struggles there. And continue to in certain ways, but But I certainly know what most Americans who are coming out of, you know, in fact, for many, many years, I would attend a lot of atheist conventions, because I was invited to speak. And, yeah, the people that you meet there, who who is going to go, why would you choose that as your vacation? And so it is people who very often are coming from a world that that treated them with a lot of hostility as they started to ask questions. So they needed this, this other community. And, yeah, I was very moved to see I bought the book. A boy erased that they made the movie about recently. I purchased it before I saw that I was quoted in it. Oh, there's, you know, a blank page between parts and little quote from Foucault and a quote for me, I was delighted to see but the quote was, it was moving because I wouldn't have thought of this as what my quote was just outside the turf war between religion and science, more nuanced arrangements may be made. You know, what this person is saying is he came out of a world that was very religious, and it was sort of trying to stomp him out, in his very being right. But he loved those people. And he did negotiate, you know, his mom goes with him now to these readings and stuff. And so they, when you love the people, and they love you, you can get past things, even if it takes years sometimes. But if the atheist world around you tells you that the only way to be an atheist is to hate all religion, and not all of them do, right, their atheist crowds where they are very friendly to religion, but very, very strictly atheist, others who are very anti religious, but okay, about a certain amount of supernaturalism. Right? So it's not even a coherent category, but still to just realize that everything that we think of as part of religion has been part of non religious human culture at one time or another, and so you don't actually have to throw out anything that doesn't fit. The the many of the ideas and feelings and rituals that are that we think of as attached to superstition or theism detach very easily. And it feels like you're doing something either hypocritical or offensive if you've never seen it before, that's one of the greatest things about knowing the history of this thing. You just realize how many thoughtful brave permutations of belief and, and ritual and life and getting along with the people around you? How many indeed there have been and, and it's hidden from us for a lot of reasons, including the belief that atheism either didn't exist, ever, right? Or that it was so dangerous, that no one spoke it out loud because you get killed. That isn't true, either. So there's definite hiding, and we have to, we have to do our research with that notion. But yeah, the things that we think we have to hate, because they came along with, with ideas that were oppressive to us, we can end up living in very small box, if we don't do the simple history of looking around and seeing what's been there. And again, what's so great about that, you know, research and writing of doubt for me, what were the characters, these amazing men and women, I mean, the women running around 19th century America, living off giving speeches where they would get chased out of town afterwards for their atheism, wearing you know, the petticoats and like, the whole thing, but managing, and some of them getting invited to the White House. And all these stories are still around, you can go to where the building was where there was a church of science, and there's a plaque on the wall. The stuff is, I always tell everyone, there are atheist screens in every religious person's library, because they just don't know that that's what that book is. You know, even the Leviathan people think of Hobbes Leviathan as just a political work, but it's goes on and on about what he finds ridiculous. sanity,
David Ames 42:25
right. Can we talk briefly about you have a chapter on women in in the history of doubt? I want to just bring it to a modern question. There are times where I want to just relish in the concept of doubt, because I, again, I think that it leads ultimately to truth. But there is a dark side, there's a flip side to that, and the idea of the Dunning Kruger effect. And in particular, I think very highly competent women in our modern society can also have a negative side of doubt where they they doubt their own abilities as yourself being a very highly competent woman or in our society. How do you distinguish between doubt that is good self evaluation and doubt that is debilitating?
Jennifer Michael Hecht 43:14
Ah, well, it's a good question. I guess the, the doubt that I'm talking about in the book is almost always doubt in received knowledge. And the question of doubting oneself is you know, that's an eternal balance. Because if you don't, you're just going to be an ass. Yes. And so anyone who's too successful tends to stop being able to do this balancing work. Which means that you know, all these things that make us doubt ourselves all these you know, and if anyone looks and says oh, she's got seven books and a couple more we for every success for most people I know certainly writers there are so many failures for every success you know, a rejection times 10 You just That's why they say don't do it unless you you really can't not because they've so the the self doubt part the world the world make sure that most people take a couple of real intellectual body blows now and again, you know, and and I find it remarkable watching the great you know, was watching up Fossey Verdun on on FX right now. He's just incredibly celebrated artists. You see it everywhere, when they have one small reversal want, you know, one On batch of critics, that doubt comes back in and it can be debilitating to the point where you can't do anything. But and I don't know, I don't I don't know how anyone. All I know is to do good work and to actually finish anything that that double need is predicated on a balance between self doubt, and a kind of dumb courage. Yeah.
David Ames 45:29
I feel that if I can jump in here, I feel that way about the podcast, right? I have to have a certain level of cognitive biases to even do the work. Who's going to listen to this? Who are you listening out there? I don't, I can't hear it. It's amazes me that anybody is listening. But when you create something, and when you put it out into the world, and other people identify with it, that's an amazing thing. And so there does have to almost be dumb courage to just just put things out there.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 45:59
Yeah, I think so. I think so. Indeed. I just reading out, Antonin Otto talking about Vincent van Gogh and saying, nothing has ever been done. No great work, but also No, almost small work, nothing gets done, nothing new gets done without it being driven by, by an almost crazy kind of anguish, pain or need. So it's not it's like, yes, it's, it's a little dumb courage, but the courage of moving forward, but there also is almost has to be something chasing you from behind some feeling that you that you need to, to, to try in this direction that you need to do it. And because what else could overcome the tremendous, you know, frustration of trying to do anything? And the feeling of who am I? Why should I bother? Right? But we have to always just juxtapose that with the there are people throughout history have changed the world, practically on their own, you know, on their own standing there and being fierce enough to gather a small group around them. And that group standing there and being fierce enough so that other people see, there's an option for it. So, you know, Maslow's pyramid of of needs, yeah, you have to have some of your needs, taken care of in order to do these daring things, like the podcast. On the other hand, if you were really completely settled, I'm not sure you would try a new skill, right? Why not enjoy the things you're already doing. So this thing really is complicated, because I think as you become more mature, in some ways, you have fewer needs to that what being more mature is certainly in our culture, and in many others, to act to not have the need to be celebrated. And to get the attention and to to be applauded. Now. So if maturity means being able to sit quietly, when are we going to hear from these people? When are we going to hear from the wise, right? So it has to be this endless adjustment of what you, you know, an assessment of what you really have to offer of what would feel good to try of your motives, all of these things. And there are going to be times when just feeling bad about yourself, it's going to be enough to make you paint every day. Because you need to do something right. Other times, you're going to feel great about yourself. But if everybody stops painting, when they're in love, we're not going to have any love paintings. Right? Right. So it's a it's it is very complicated. And we do I think all have to trust ourselves. I guess you and I are sort of in the same ballpark age wise, but when you know, when you're in your 20s, you're just trying so hard. And as you get older, you do start to be able to get get the kind of perspective that that allows you to maybe try some things without quite the same desperation. And that allows you to I think, sometimes get work done that you couldn't when you were younger.
David Ames 49:29
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I look back on, you know, in my youth was when I was I went to Bible college, I did mastery for a few years. But you know, I look back on that not only from the secular perspective, but just the, the lack of wisdom at that time in my life period, you know, that, that, you know, you've I've lived a few more years. I've got a few more experiences. Yeah, give me give me some perspective.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 49:53
I mean, I guess I evaded the question a little bit about the the, the female extra burden. And I have to say it's, it's it's frustrating is the the way that the culture uses women philosophers, women thinkers as compared to their male peers. I, I have found it distressing and mostly managing it by trying to think about other things. I'm not really at peace with it and I'm not feeling terribly hopeful. And I'm not sure I would advise a woman or young woman I cared about to necessarily put themselves in this position,
David Ames 50:49
right? Well, I can tell you that I'm incredibly grateful that you have. Thanks. I want to just quickly tell the listeners, you have to read this book, or just doing the research for today I looked at I've read it on Google Play Books. And so I can I can capture the notes, the highlights of that I have 230 highlights. There was no way there's no way to summarize the book without reading it out loud, right. It's just it's a huge summary. And if you are a person who makes memes, this is just a wealth of quotes, you can just mine quotes all day there. I do want to hit just a couple more themes. One of the one of the things that really spoke to me, was this idea of doubt as a feature and not a bug of Christianity, and you specifically highlight Pauline Christianity. Yeah. And I think that's absolutely true of the modern era, in particular Evangelical Church, if it's truly faith alone, if it's trading, just the belief, then the the natural flip side of that is, is doubt. Can you expand on that idea? A bit?
Jennifer Michael Hecht 52:02
Sure. Yeah, that's a fascinating territory and a lot of different ways. The truth is the idea of doubt, in religion and doubt, in God's disbelief and belief was really never central to any religion, I can find any record of before Jesus, the reason it happens is because Christianity is a crash of two streams of culture, the Judaic Hebraic, one and the Greek idea, and by the time of the Common Era, the Greeks have a whole, you know, they have libraries full of atheism, and religious doubt built along all sorts of different scientific or psychological or philosophical lines, we divide them up in those ways. And, you know, in the, in the Republic, so, Plato is, is we're talking about, at least, he's, he's talking about fourth century BC, right BCE, and he's saying all the youth are atheist,
David Ames 53:18
right? Kids these days?
Jennifer Michael Hecht 53:20
That's right. Because Because there have been all these different, there are lots of different ways that that the gods have been dissected and seem to be cultural ideas. And so the religion of the Jesus sect of Judaism, which is what Christianity is, for its first 100 years is a request to believe in not just the Judaic God, which had gotten huge in the sense of being all powerful, all knowing, omnipresent, but gotten so small in terms of anything you could say about him, right? Can't say anything about him. He doesn't look like anything. There's never been a God that didn't look like anything that wasn't a stipulation of Gods before. It was a very weird thing that the Jewish temple had an empty place where the god usually would be at the Sanctum Sanctorum you know, so. So this god that doesn't have features was tolerable by rationalism, in a way that when the Jesus cult goes with Paul, as you said, the Paul line changeover that this isn't a religion about Jesus's critique of contemporary Judaism. And what it really was, was Jesus wanting to kick the Romans out of Jerusalem It was now there's a regular political message and all of that. But when you when you get to Paul, and the religion is now mostly about his death and revival then from that point on the, the, you require a leap of faith and that's when that phrase gets invented because the Emperor's until Constantine it you know In, in what 325 AD, the common error that's what they you see before before the Roman Empire makes Christianity no longer illegal it doesn't make it the religion of the of Rome but it makes it no longer illegal 300 years we had to not get killed or choose to be martyred, right? So had to find a way to get along with the Romans. And that had to be in a philosophical language that accepted that they were talking about a God who was eternal, but who had a face and a mommy. And you know, what a spleen? Does he have an appendix? All of this had been laughed at by by Greek skeptics already looking at their own gods, right? So really took this idea that there was that religion was about a leap into belief over disbelief. Again, yeah, you can even nowadays you can search online, any Bible and just look for the word belief in the Hebrew Bible. And it's really only a you know, I believe it was Thursday when I mean, it's not usually right. And then look, search for it in, in the Christian Bible, and there it is, in this, you know, it'll show up in red, all like a big chrysanthemum around Jesus this and and that goes with the magic as well, all of this notion of let's believe, despite reason. So Christianity is it's a brilliant idea. It's an it's an it's a marvelous theater for human experience, right? This coming towards and away from a belief in a kind of ideal, not everyone wants the ideal that's in this box. And the closer you look at it, do I want to live forever with my family really? Loud worshipping, like, what is that? There's no image of that, that really meant. But if you say it's an ideal, still, there's very localized ideal. It's a kind of pretty human activity, I think I think there's a beauty to that, imagine the ideal, and then attempt to believe it, there's a beauty to it. It's not my thing, unless the reason I believe it, is because I have evidence, it's just elusive. And that I, I have incorporated into my life and my work, the notion that there are things that we believe that we have evidence for, but they're elusive, like love, like justice. And that, though, I'm always very careful when I use words that seem religious, I think the notion of faith, that we can have human faith in ideas that are not measurable the same way, you know, evaporation and condensation are measurable, and yet, are demonstrably real outside one's own self. They're real within the human group, right. And sometimes we can look at things that are elusive, but real within the human group and say, I want to work on my own ability to have faith in say, that I am part of a world of feeling that that I can relate to and how I can be moved by and that I can move that that requires faith, it requires faith to feel that all of this matters without anyone watching. How do I work on that phase? One thing is by asking myself, why would help if anyone was watching? You know, if there was a God out there, what taking notes? Why would that be more satisfying, but I was raised in the West in the Judeo Christian world, and it does feel like I'm sure it feels like if we were being watched and recorded somehow, that we could say, well, you know, that's why it's worth it. But that's a mistake. Right? It doesn't mean it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. So. So yeah, I didn't remember that question.
David Ames 59:33
No, no, no worries. Let me let me ask a quick history question that I legitimately am just curious about personally, and then we'll hit my last theme, and we'll, we'll start to wrap up. Great. So I'm fascinated my tiny amount of, of education in was in Christian church history. And we studied things like Gnosticism and you know, we have the Nicene Creed, that's really a risk. response to narcissism. And I kind of trace it back a little bit to and tell me if I'm incorrect in doing so. It to Plato, and these ideas of, of, you know, the Platonic forms this idea of these things are, are more real in their abstract ideas than then the natural world around us. Is Plato the first to come up with dualism? How does that play out in history? What's your opinion on that?
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:00:30
Yeah, I guess it's an interesting question. And the way you're phrasing it, I guess. I guess Plato definitely stands out as having described the problem for us in a way that we didn't see before. And that was sufficient to, you know, basically set up the playing field. You know, up until this point, to some degree, the truth is, I guess, in most cases, what we see, is that kind of conversation happening about language. So how is it that we know what a chair is, since all the chairs are different, right, is that that's the sort of obvious version of it. There's, there are ways that all of this floats in and out of kind of all science and, and all poetic description of the world. So that, you know, just in the way we came up with atoms before the electron microscope, it's, it's a kind of metaphorical extension, in part of the same notion of, you know, an ocean wave is not a thing. It's the ocean waving. And, and, you know, an apple that comes into the universe, you know, first it's a flower and it comes out, and then it it shrinks back and, and ends up withered and disappears, again, was for a moment the universe appaling in the same kind of way. Yeah. And following Alan Watts, the great Buddhist teacher, You are the universe Ewing, for a moment. And, and that aspect, where we're recognizing that the whole world is in flow, I think interacts in an interesting way with this idea of there being sort of Platonic forms of there being either these ideal forms, or the forms are not really so important. They're more the shapes that an underlying flow is, is taking out. But I want to ask you find more about your question. Tell me more about your interest in that specific Nexus.
David Ames 1:02:55
Yeah, I guess, I guess what I'm saying is a tremendous amount of problems come out of the concept of dualism. We're still debating that today, right? Is consciousness a function of the brain? Or is it something else? Right? So we're, you know, Descartes is asking, you know, I think therefore I am, he's got separation. Right? What is the physical and what is the conscious and we are still having that same debate. And to some degree, I just want to shake my fist at Plato and blame him.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:03:29
Interesting, right? Yeah, I don't. I don't see Plato, for one thing. I, he's a great philosopher. And I know that he was against poetry in certain ways. But I think he was just mostly against religious poetry. Those are the ones he names. But he's it for me as a poet, philosopher, so that for one thing he has to be because we don't know the order of his works. So we don't know. We don't know the order of his work. So he did very contradictory things across his life, sometimes very poetic things that if he was a poet, I wouldn't hold it against him at all, to hold two opposing positions in two different forms. So he, so he's, he, for me, what he actually believed even about these things, is up for grabs to some degree among them. So there's that. This other thing, I just want to say, look, when I think about the best reasons to believe in some of the most attractive or vontade of the consciousness can be separated ideas. I give it I give it straight thought. And I have to say that I think if there were no other animate life forms, I would say that consciousness is so different from rocks and even so different from trees, that I just don't know whether I would What I would make of it? I wouldn't say, I didn't know.
David Ames 1:05:04
Whereas, which is an honest answer. Yes, yeah. But I am now
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:05:08
surrounded by ants and flies and cats and dogs and polar bears and chimpanzees and bonobo, and I can look at this planet. And even without looking at its history, where did we come from just looking around, as people throughout history have done and said, this consciousness thing is clearly part of matter. I don't know how conscious an ant is, but it is a lot more conscious than, than a rock, right? I have more in common with the ant, you know, then the rock and the ant have in common? We're doing stuff. Yeah. And to see consciousness on all these different levels of scale, to me, leaves no room for, for mysticism that this consciousness is extraordinary. It's poetic, but it is demonstrably part of the natural world. For me, if you're not going to assign a heaven or possible little, what an exhaust of energy from the death of an ant. Just as Ecclesiastes says, you know, a man dies like a dog, why should he die? Otherwise? Why should a dog dog spirit not go up? If you're believing that a man says so? For me, the idea that this consciousness is somehow inextricably bodily I just that just seems pretty bedrock for me. So the next question is, can I regularly convinced myself to be happy about that? Yes. You know, yes. Because if the content if consciousness was really separate from the body, then you could tell me stories about how maybe we're in a computer simulation, but we're not right. I mean, you you know the difference between watching a TV show you even know the difference between a dream and being awake, maybe not when you're dreaming. But when you're awake, you know? Right. And part of the reason you and I both know we're awake right now is because we can feel the weight of ourselves in our chair, the coolness of the air against our arms, also that we're hungry. Also the five thoughts that are flickering at the edge of consciousness, the birds, there's too much going on. Yeah, maybe stuff up fiction. It just doesn't have the detail. Yes. The detail is all from there's so much that's happening because I am an embodied creature. Yes. And this outrageous amount of information that is synthesized through this being that is me that I did not create. I can't think of a more delicious, strange position to be in. Yes. So as much as it's a it's a heavy burden. It's also one I wouldn't put down. Yeah,
David Ames 1:08:20
yeah, I have to I'll have to have a computer scientist on the podcast to talk about, to me that to even contemplate the idea of a simulation that would take the computational power of the size of the universe to compute, right, the detail level that we experienced, so it seems like that's a non starter for me personally. Like I'm I'm very cognizant of your time, but I've got one more theme that would just kill kill me if we didn't get to. And, and again, just to express my gratitude for you coined the term graceful life philosophy, and I just need to set up briefly why that's, that's meaningful for me, I am on a fool's errand assistive physio task to try to redeem there's another religious word, the term grace, this idea. For me, what I call secular grace, is that people and we've talked about this throughout the podcast, so far, people need each other. We need to be we need to feel accepted by one another. We need to feel loved by one another. We need to feel belonging to your group. And you can do all of that all those things are available in a perfectly natural, naturalistic perspective. HUMAN humanity provides that and so that's that this idea of secular grace, but you've said it so beautifully, and it was the first time I'd kind of read someone else put it into words. And and then you go on to describe throughout history, the many graceful life philosophies that are strewn throughout the history. Can you tell me what that means to you? Maybe an example or two
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:10:00
Yeah, I was delighted to hear you describe to me some of that. And, and it made me really happy because I think it's, it's such an important place to start from. And yeah, I wanted to share with you that I had to come up with the term graceful life philosophy, because not only were there not good enough terms, but the terms were a little negative. So, historically, they were often called Silver philosophers as opposed to the golden ones. And the difference is clear in the fact that it's the same insult that's in self help. Okay, the notion of the notion that the work of the work that we do on ourselves, I think it's because it's one of these things that everyone does a small version of, right, we advise our selves, we advise the people around us, and we come up with life hacks that we then tell other people, so self help seems like it can. Well, not just seems it can be this, this lower form of, of philosophy. And that's how it's been viewed through history. So even philosophers who did both the, you know, who studied either ontology, or eschatology or phenomenology, whatever specific metaphysical problems they took on that were about time, or, or cause and effect? Or what origins could mean? Or what endings could mean, the philosophical questions that we hold up, as, you know, as the golden questions, these are the questions about that are practically what was left when physics took everything else you could measure, but it's still physics kinds of questions, right? And then there's these other questions, a lower kind of philosophy, how should we live? Well, how come so many times the same people are doing it, or people in the same crowd are doing it? Because they actually aren't? Because graceful life philosophy isn't a lower form? It's a human version of the same question. And so it's the question of then. Okay, so given that we are separate, and yet, and yet commute communal, how shall I live? Given that time, is always moving? And yet, repetition is constant? So then how shall I live? And so these questions aren't separate, but they needed a name that didn't have to be defended with, you know, oh, this is ancient self help that would have denigrated it, if I called it that they kind of said, this is, you know, self help is really just silver philosophy. That's still denigrating it. So I did, it did make sense, just in terms of the conversation, to keep it as philosophy, but to separate it from the, how does the world work? Separate from our US question? This is the how does the world work? You know? And then how do we live within it? And how do we want to live? The point was, these people weren't saying, Oh, just, you know, just get all the plant and physical pleasure you can out of it, and then die, or just try to make a name for yourself, and then die, or, you know, get as much power as you can. Everybody knows these things. Don't make you happy forever. So there's always this voice that comes after and says, Well, look, if materialism or power or winning isn't working for you, then how do we live this thing that is graceful? Yes, I very much was thinking of the word grace in there that that we are talking about, not just how to live well, live well with others, but to live in tune with the most, the richest, most poetic aspects of being human. And the world we're in is constantly pulling us in both directions, right? There's this, you know, the beautiful trees and birds and this whole outside world right outside. And yet, we also have to get some dinner on the table and have to do all these mundane things in order to make that happen. And, and again, that's why I rehabilitate words like faith, with the same need and grace with the same need of, you know, putting into that category of things that take you know, when I talk about if you're talking about grace in a religious setting, no one thinks anybody's walking around always in a state of grace. So why Why does do do we philosophers and poets and humanists think that our philosophies should keep us in a state of happiness at all times? It can't possibly, it's going to require the same stoking of faith in hope and beauty and rebirth and the healing properties of time. Right? And keeping at bay, some of the more negative stuff and trying to build in ourselves the capacity to be of use.
David Ames 1:15:33
Yeah, absolutely. And find find meaning and purpose and something to, to drive your desire to live. Yeah.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:15:41
But also to know that it is, it would not be even normal to feel good all the time. It's not what you're looking for. You're nobody feels meaning all the time. Nobody's in love all the time. I mean, you know, everybody. The more real this stuff is, the more elusive it is. And yet, the struggle is, you know, is worth it. But we do have to help each other in that belief the same way. Any belief requires a certain amount of mutual shoring up. And but you know, that's the answer to your question. I mean, for me, done a lot of interviews, I, you know, I sort of started to say no to a bunch of them after a while, just because I had done so many. And, but you know, this conversation, it's, it's cool, it's good to hear your story. And, you know, I hope people listening, you know, feel feel moved as well. But I feel moved, you know, and it feels it's great to hear that the work that I've you know, all of this interaction after it is what keeps our heads above water.
David Ames 1:16:50
Yeah, no, and I, you know, I do the podcast for selfish reasons, right? Because I get to have these kinds of conversations. What I found was, you know, as an unbeliever, I was interested in asking these big questions. And now as an atheist, I'm still very much interested in asking the big questions, right, questions that don't have answers, right, and to connect with other human beings who are interested in the same questions is this very powerful thing to happen? Yeah.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:17:18
So powerful. And, you know, I hope you will hear from a lot of people because certainly, you know, it's not as strong as as you know, in maybe 510 years after doubt, just hearing from people a lot of the time I would get emails from people and it was, it really did show me that this work, you know, I think it makes you feel good. And actually, really, there's a world out there and that's how this conversation started. Right? That that, um, went to Twitter and and searched my name mentioned, you know, and that's, that's that little, you know, spider sort of just flicking the string and just trying just listening is, you know, is anybody out there and, and realizing that even one little response, just electrifies everything?
David Ames 1:18:04
Absolutely, absolutely. Jennifer, I could keep you here for hours upon hours. I hope you might consider coming back on the podcast, maybe when your next book comes out. I'd love to I think I have 1000 Other questions I could ask you. Tell people how they can get in touch with your work. What's the right websites to check out? What's your Twitter handle?
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:18:25
I have a website, Jennifer Miko, hec.com. I'm also just Jennifer microtech@gmail.com. If you want to say hi, and and my books are on Amazon stay and as we've been talking about doubt history.
David Ames 1:18:39
Absolutely. And I will provide some links to Amazon in the show notes. Terrific.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:18:44
Thanks a lot. It was great talking.
David Ames 1:18:46
Yes. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. You're welcome.
Jennifer Michael Hecht 1:18:49
Bye bye.
David Ames 1:18:58
Final thoughts on the episode. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jennifer Michael Hecht as much as I did. The breadth of her knowledge and insight is incredible. And I really could have asked questions for hours upon end, many of which I didn't get the opportunity to do so due to time constraints. I would have liked to ask Jennifer about growing up Jewish, as well as subjects she touches on in the book about reinterpreting the stories in the Old Testament. She has a wealth of knowledge and I highly recommend the book, doubt a history because it gives one such a sense of context. And in our moment of secularization in the West, that's crucially important. As Jennifer mentioned, she has written several other books, I'll make sure I have links to her website, as well as Amazon links to her books. I want to thank Jennifer for being on the podcast and graciously sharing her time and wisdom. As a last thought, I just want to talk about the virtues of doubt itself. And here I want to distinguish between what we discussed in the podcast this Dunning Kruger effect where highly competent people doubt themselves, versus the kind of doubt that leads to self evaluation and self reflection. I believe that doubt leads to truth. I believe that doubt helps one to discard bad ideas. If you happen to be a believer and you are having the long dark night of the soul, rather than feeling guilty about this, lean into those doubts, explore what they are telling you. Go investigate. Read your favorite apologists. Does their argument make you feel better? To talk to wise counselors? Do they make you feel better? Ultimately, you may even want to read sources that disagree with you. For all of my time as a believer, I believed that if faith was worth anything that it could live up to scrutiny. So my one piece of suggestion is scrutinize your doubts scrutinize the answers that you get. Take time to evaluate what you accept as truth. Doubt leads to Time for some footnotes. The song has a track called waves by mkhaya beats, please check out her music links will be in the show notes. If you'd like to help support the podcast, here are the ways you can go about that. First help promote it. Podcast audience grows by word of mouth. If you found it useful or just entertaining, please pass it on to your friends and family. post about it on social media so that others can find it. Please rate and review the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. This will help raise the visibility of our show. Join me on the podcast. Tell your story. Have you gone through a faith transition? You want to tell that to the world? Let me know and let's have you on? Do you know someone who needs to tell their story? Let them know. Do you have criticisms about atheism or humanism, but you're willing to have an honesty contest with me? Come on the show. If you have a book or a blog that you want to promote, I'd like to hear from you. Also, you can contribute technical support. If you are good at graphic design, sound engineering or marketing. Please let me know and I'll let you know how you can participate. And finally financial support. There will be a link on the show notes to allow contributions which would help defray the cost of producing the show. If you want to get in touch with me you can google graceful atheist or you can send email to graceful atheist@gmail.com You can tweet at me at graceful atheist or you can just check out my website at graceful atheists.wordpress.com Get in touch and let me know if you appreciate the podcast. Well this has been the graceful atheist podcast My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheists. Grab somebody you love and tell them how much they mean to you.
This has been the graceful atheist podcast
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
On today’s episode I am finally getting the opportunity to discuss the topic I am most interested in: Humanism or what I call Secular Grace. It is ultimately about answering the question, “how do we live life well post deconversion?” Rather than looking backwards, it is looking forward to learning to thrive as a human being.
My guest today is Jim Palmer. Jim is an ordained minister, receiving his Master of Divinity degree from Trinity Divinity School in Chicago. After serving several years as the Senior Pastor of a non-denominational church, Jim left professional ministerial life on a quest for more authentic spirituality and has authored five books about his journey. In addition to writing, speaking and his spiritual direction practice, Jim is an adjunct professor in the areas of Ethics and Comparative Religion. He is the Co-Founder of the Nashville Humanist Association and is a certified Humanist Chaplain with the American Humanist Association.
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are not spiritual beings having a human experience. We are human beings having a human experience. The human experience includes…
NOTE: This transcript is AI produced (otter.ai) and likely has many mistakes. It is provided as rough guide to the audio conversation.
David Ames 0:11
This is the graceful atheist podcast. Welcome, welcome. Welcome. My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. I'm excited about today's episode, as I'm finally getting the opportunity to discuss the topic I'm most interested in, and that is humanism, or what I call secular grace. It is ultimately about answering the question, how do we live life well post deconversion. Rather than looking backward, it is looking forward to learning to thrive as a human being. Today's guest is Jim Palmer. Jim is an ordained minister receiving his master of divinity degree from Trinity Divinity School in Chicago. After serving several years as the senior pastor of a non denominational church. Jim left professional ministerial life on a quest for more authentic spirituality. And He has authored five books about this journey. In addition to writing speaking and his spiritual direction practice. Jim is an adjunct professor in the areas of ethics and comparative religion. He's the co founder of the Nashville Humanist Association, and is a certified humanist chaplain with the American Humanist Association. Jim's first five books chronicle his deconstruction and a search for an authentic spirituality. As I mentioned in the show, Jim is a humanist who's written an awful lot about Jesus. He's currently completing his sixth book, which will have a more secular humanist perspective. I'll have links in the show notes for Jim's online presence and his books. Jim has a way with words. Let me give you a couple of quotes from his perspective. Quote, many people tend to equate morality, ethics, spirituality, goodness, with religion or belief in God, while a humanist sees these as innate and inherent human characteristics and interests, and quote, quote, whereas atheism is more of a position, disbelief in the existence of God or gods, humanism is more of a practice living a meaningful, ethical, responsible, altruistic, spiritual life. My conversation with Jim is wide ranging and seems to cover a number of different topics. I have a plan going into these interviews, but I like to have that conversation unfold naturally. And that takes place here, as Jim and I think, really make a connection with one another. My only disappointment is that we did not get have more time to get into the history and philosophy of humanism. Maybe Jim will be willing to come back a second time. A couple of notes, Jim's mic was clipping a little bit. I haven't been able to completely fix that. So I apologize for the audio quality. And lastly, you might hear my dog jasmine in the background bark at one point. And ironically, that turned out to be Jehovah's Witnesses at my door. So irony wins the day. With that, give you Jim Palmer.
Jim Palmer, welcome to the graceful atheist podcast.
Jim Palmer 3:09
Hey, David. Really looking forward to our chat today.
David Ames 3:13
Yeah, fantastic. I you know, I've spent the last few days kind of going through your blog, and I think you have a really, really fascinating story. I'd like to get into that. And in fact, you know, the podcast is often about the people that are that are experiencing doubt or deconstructing their faith or, or D converting entirely. And, and so the focus I like to focus on is is faith transitions. And and oh, boy, does it sound like you went through a few of those. So I'd like to start with Can you just tell us about what you know where you came from religiously, spiritually, and, and where you are now and how you got to where you are now.
Jim Palmer 3:53
Okay, well rewind the story of my life to freshmen in college after growing up in a really traumatic, difficult volatile childhood and youth that went off to college. And in college in the Student Union Center. One day I happened to run into a guy who was a campus director of Campus Crusade for Christ. And I was not particularly religious person I grew up loosely Catholic. My mother was an alcoholic. My father left our family when I was young. But every now and then I went to Catholic mass until I had a choice not to go and quit because I just never saw really the relevance of, of God and church for my life. But I went off to college, I met this individual, the Campus Crusade for Christ director, we became friends, and I made the decision to become a Christian. I saw it as a possible way of finding meaning and purpose in my life, maybe healing from some of the chaos of my early childhood and got very involved in that organization. And that's kind of where it all started, I became a student, the student president of our campus ministry, I went overseas and did summer projects with Campus Crusade for Christ. I almost went on staff with the organization after graduating from college. But a gentleman moved into our college town and started a church and I got involved in that. And he the pastor, the guy who started the church, encouraged me to go to seminary, I went to seminary and moved to Chicago got an M div at Trinity Divinity School, while I was at, you know, one preaching awards, and I discovered along the way that I had some speaking and leadership gifts. And so I got all this affirmation and continue down this track. So I graduated from seminary. And while actually, before I actually graduated, I accepted a position as a pastor on what at the time was the largest Christian Church in North America. It was in the suburbs of Chicago. And that's where I got my hands on ministerial training, and then eventually left my position there to start and lead a non denominational Christian church in the Nashville area, which I did for several years, until I had my own crisis of faith.
David Ames 6:20
Right. Like, I like that I like that word crisis of faith. That's, that rings a bell at it. Yeah, go ahead.
Jim Palmer 6:28
The crisis of faith. For me this had to do with the cognitive dissonance that resulted from week after week, month after month, year after year teaching and preaching, outstanding bulletproof evangelical theology. And yet, noticing that the problems of people's lives, persistent unhappiness, depression, broken relationships, and other kinds of, you know, wounds and people's lives going on healed and a lot of brokenness and hurt and suffering in some
David Ames 7:12
events by the church. Right? Well, ladies,
Jim Palmer 7:17
for sure, it took me a while to realize that I was complicit in some of that suffering, or at least the inability to deal with it effectively. So I then took a look at my step back and looked at my own life. And it was also true in my own personal life, despite all that good theology and upstanding biblical teaching, there was brokenness, lack of peace and joy, and then inner suffering in my own life. So Right. to kind of make good all right long story shorter, I decided at that point that I wanted to leave my ministerial career and try to figure out what if any of this I still truly believed and wanted to hold on in my in my life. And so I resigned my position in the church. And at that point, made a break with my my Christian background, my Christian tradition. Okay. That's what I started writing. I started blogging a little bit about my journey out of religion and a publishing house contacted me, you person and editor at a publishing house, have read my blog and said, Have you ever thought about maybe writing a little bit of your story about leaving ministry and faith and what you discovered and so on and so forth? And then that's kind of what got it started in terms of me writing a little bit more about my journey.
David Ames 8:39
Okay. Do you think that it that there are more of us who were in ministry, who have since you know, found that it lacking in some way or another it seems to me like you just can't shake a stick without bumping into people who were, you know, pastors or preachers or missionaries or what have you? Is there something special about that? Is there something special about getting an MDF like yourself, that leads to deciding that it it's maybe not all true?
Jim Palmer 9:11
Well, there are after I wrote the first book, divine Nobodies, I was really one of the the biggest surprises were how many people contacted me who were actually still in ministry could identify with my own misgivings with what was happening within the church and in my my role in it and so on. And in a lot of us, we would say, Jim, I'm with you. But if I if I said any of this stuff, in my actual church, I would be fire I would be let go of it. And, and then later, I ended up speaking at an event and became a member of something called the clergy project. I don't know if you've ever heard of it.
David Ames 9:52
Yes. And in fact, that's has come up on the show a few times. I very much a distance supporter of it. it, I've never felt quite like I, you know, meet all the criteria to get in I was I was youth pastor for like two years very briefly and moved on, you know, and then D converted, you know, like 20 years later. So it just, you know, although I very much feel sympathetic, and I think they do great work. So yeah, tell tell us, please tell us about Well,
Jim Palmer 10:22
well, the clergy project is basically an online community, a private online community, for people who are currently in ministry, they hold a professional ministerial position, that have come to the point where they no longer hold on to the beliefs that they are responsible to represent as a clergyman in their church or their denomination, or their religious community, and the challenges and struggles of when that happens, and the transition out and things like that. And I do a lot of individual work, a lot of spiritual direction and personal development, coaching and so on with people who have been in ministry and left and then they kind of had to start over. Yeah, with what, what they want to do in life. You know, there's a lot of people out there with him. divs. Exactly. And, you know, Hey, okay, now what, you know, yeah. To answer your specific question about I don't know, I think, though, is that when it seems to me that a person with an M div, you know, they have, they've constructed a theological belief system that works for them, and what they're wanting to do with it, in life and in their career. But I think that what I've seen is, as they continue on in life, and they start to experience their own suffering, maybe they go through a divorce, maybe they have a tragic loss, you know, and so, everything that sounded right, when they were in seminary and seemed right, when they were teaching it as a, as a pastor or a church leader, the reality of life sometimes then, can can be what disrupts their confidence in the answers that they were were given. And in most seminaries, you know, theology isn't exactly generally an open minded pursuit of truth, right, you know, it's at least theology is usually has to do more with conduct, you know, developing your, your, your basis and your defense have an already determined position that you have. And when life starts poking holes, in that, you know, that belief system, yeah, and I, you know, I, when I, one of the things I did after ministry was I did some human rights work and traveled the world working cases of forced child prostitution and child slave labor, and those experiences definitely challenged, you know, a lot of my deeper theological beliefs about you know, God, the existence of God, in a whole slew of doctrines related to the existence of God
David Ames 13:38
is, you know, I don't know about your experience, but you know, if you travel especially, and you meet people from different cultures, with different religious cultural backgrounds, the the doctrine, the idea of this is the one and only way is maybe the first thing that goes away that you lose, right? So it seems to me that many of us, on this side of faith have, you know, took on universalism as a kind of a stepping stone. Before we before we maybe had a final faith transition. Is that was that the case for you?
Jim Palmer 14:12
Well, I think you're right, that whatever religious tradition a person has, generally, they're kind of born into it, you know, it's not rocket science. If you know, you're you're born in Tennessee, the the likelihood of you being a nominal cultural Christian is very high. If you're born in India, you're born in the Middle East, you know, so it's not like we choose we kind of almost far culture determines for the most part, our initial belief, belief system. And so I think for for myself, I went through a phase is, for lack of better, you know, interfaith the interfaith phase. Yeah,
David Ames 15:05
yeah. Yeah,
Jim Palmer 15:07
yeah, I did a lot of interfaith work in the city, I have a friend who's an imam at the Islamic Center in Nashville. I kind of reached across a lot of different religious traditions, friends with some of the leaders at the behind temple, here in Nashville. So I know I've spoken at times that the Universalist that you Unitarian Universalist Church here in our city, I know the woman who's the head minister there, she's very sharp individual and and so I went through some involvement in in that respect the interfaith but I didn't, I didn't really stay there. But there's a lot of, there's a lot of positive things that could be said, for people who take more of an inner faith approach to religion in the world, right? I mean, we can all be divided and hate each other and kill each other because we're represent different religious traditions, or we can try to identify the common denominators that we all agree on and try to create a world where we can coexist with peace, harmony and some constructive relationship, you know,
David Ames 16:24
right, right. And today, would you refer to yourself as a humanist?
Jim Palmer 16:29
I would add, and I think that, that what compels me about the idea of humanism, is that it, it identifies both the solutions, the problems and the solutions that we experience in our world, as human ones, and, and on the merits of being a human being with the skills, tools, capacities and abilities that we have, that that we're capable of creating a world that works for everyone. And it doesn't necessitate a, a any belief in God or divine intervention or supernatural means by which to achieve that, you know, and that's one of the things that I really see a lot with the damaging impact of religion is sometimes had in people's lives is that there's a tremendous diminishment of a love of prayer, human beings, natural skills and tools and abilities to live in ethical, meaningful, fulfilling, compassionate, productive life, you know, yeah.
David Ames 17:53
I think you just just recently tweeted the UN, I'm probably going to have you quoted, but you know, we are humans having a human experience, not, you know, not spiritual beings having a human experience, right. Talk to me about that. What does that mean to you know, our,
Jim Palmer 18:09
you know, there's these things that are, that are these phrases and axioms and so on, that are so common, and one of them is is that we're spiritual beings having a human experience, spiritual beings having a human experience, you know, and I think part of the idea is that the really, the, the, the extraordinary part of that, really, is that we're a spiritual being. Like, that's really the most important thing and you know, we happen to be having a human experience. And even if you reverse it around and say, Well, I'm a human being having a spiritual experience. I guess my point is that why have we even delineated, humaneness and spirituality is some twos Thea, you know, separate, and exclusive categories. So well, what about I'm just a human being having a human experience. And the human experience includes things like the experience of love, the expression of compassion, that living a life of meaning, being a person of virtue, experiencing the awe and wonder of a remarkable universe, filling yourself connected to all of life and in a deeply rich way, you know why? That's what it means to be a human being. So I don't think we need the added piece of either the supernatural. I mean, I get that usually in the general definition of spiritualism, it's the non material. So and I get that, but I think that sometimes the impact of religion here has to to deeply divided the sacred and the secular and divided up the world in this way. You know, the spiritual stuff? Yeah, the sacred spiritual stuff is you go to church, you you read scriptures, you participate in religious practices, and that this is really this spiritual and sacred stuff. And the secular things are like everything else.
David Ames 20:15
Right, right. Yeah. So you know, I. So again, one of the other reasons for the podcast is for me to get, get some education and become a little less ignorant. And I, you know, I think you've been doing this a while, you've got a lot of experience, you've written several books. One of the hardest things for me post deconversion, which happened in around 2015, for me, is just the language. So, you know, I think that it's a human need for, let's say, quote, unquote, spirituality. But that word spirituality is so misleading, right? And that words like Soul, and I can't think but, you know, these ideas that are that religion has tried to own for so long. And then we find ourselves with a more naturalistic perspective, let's say, you know, so how do you do you? Are you comfortable using those words? Do you redefine them some way? How do you how do you handle that?
Jim Palmer 21:18
I think that you're right, that language is a real challenge. When it comes to religion, spirituality, anything that's somewhat abstract, because thinking, you know, basically, human language is a social technology that we created in order to cooperate and function to function effectively together as a species. Yeah, so it works really well, if I refer to this thing I'm here I'm holding in my hand right now is a coffee cup, because I can say that this is a cup, and roughly anybody that hears that word, although they're going to envision a different kind of cup, we're, like, we basically know what we're talking about a cup or a chair or a table, but when you start using language, to describe more abstract things, is when it really becomes a bit problematic. Let me just take the word God. Yeah, you know, basically, there's one way you could look at it, which is to say, basically, God is a word, God is a word, it is mainly Gristick marker that we all agreed was going to indicate a an ultimate reality, that is beyond comprehension, and understanding, like, we're going to use the word God to refer to that thing. That is that falls into that category. And the problem is, to some extent, is it even though that, so we say that the word God is a marker in language to refer to an ultimate reality we can't really comprehend. But then people run in and they start defining what it is, you know, I mean, in a way, that doesn't make sense. You can ask any person, really religious person, tell me about God. And one of the first things you're gonna say, Well, you know, God is infinite. He's unfathomable. The human mind can't comprehend the magnitude of God, you know, the highest mind cannot. And yet, then we run out. And we create a theology and doctrine and creeds defining exactly what God is, you know, so. So it's, that's why I don't, I'm not particularly fond of the word God. And I'm not really fond of most spiritual religious language, because I've just learned that people already got a predetermined definition and an understanding. So what makes it more difficult is did I try to be more descriptive of the thing I'm trying to talk about without slapping like these religious words on it?
David Ames 23:56
Right. Right. Right. And I that's what I think the term God is the most dangerous term in existence, right? Because almost literally, every single person as they hear that word has a different conception, even within the same faith tradition of what it actually means. And so it's, it's the most misleading term that we can use. It is that then the
Jim Palmer 24:21
other terms we try to plug into it aren't all that great in the end there because even if we decide we're going to call God universe or source or all these things we come up with, you know, like, I think that the mind can't be trick it still knows you're talking about. It's, it's whatever one word we find to plug into. It's not perfect, because it's hard to get away from the conception that this thing that we're referring to is something that is transcendently separate and different from what I am. And so whenever we refer in to try to refer to something that's describing a transcendent reality, the words kind of evoked this idea of separation. I mean, because if I call something source, you know, like, okay, it's the Okay, then it's the source and I, unless I'm gonna call myself the source, if I'm calling the ultimate reality thing to source, then it's still somehow different or separated from who I am.
David Ames 25:35
Okay, and so do you have? So I hear you that you don't use that term, but do you have a, a, I just want to be clear where we're at? Like, do you have a conception of God that you do accept, like, an idea like you throw the term source around us? Or is there something that you do identify as, as external to yourself in some way?
Jim Palmer 26:01
Well, it with respect to God, you know, if you run through all the options, Okay, number one theism, okay, that's one option, you know, which I don't subscribe to. There's other options like deism pantheism pantheism. I mean, there's, there's a lot of different you know, God is everything or God is in everything or God, you know, there's the kind of just becomes over the spectrum of definitions or conceptions about God, you know, there are a whole lot of, of different options that one can choose from, I'm not really a fan of deism either because it's basically, okay, there is a God and that God is the first cause. And then he kind of stepped away whatever happens happens currently, right? So, I think that the reason why I was compelled by humanism is a humanist perspective doesn't really need or require any, you know, a, a, a definition or an interpretation to somehow squeeze something like a god into the picture.
Unknown Speaker 27:20
Right? You know,
Jim Palmer 27:21
like in the humanism approach, is that light, the meaning and the fullness of life doesn't necessitate the supernatural, the divine or a belief in God. Okay. So that's why I don't do okay. Now, but if you were to, but that's a little different from saying, if you were to ask, okay, I think William James has a very loose definition of religion. When one spot is talking about that, you know, to kind of paraphrase, there is a non material, transcendent reality or mystery that seems to be at the heart of things, and I don't know what it is or what to call it, but I find that when I align myself with that thing that I find, you know, harmony and we'll be
David Ames 28:11
okay, okay.
Jim Palmer 28:12
Okay. So then the question would be, well, what, what thing are you talking about? Exactly? Well, you know, this
comes back to, I think, the perspective of humanism, which is that, why why can't that thing be? Your, your ability to, to make your own meaning in life? Why isn't why isn't that thing, the embracing and practice of virtue? Why isn't that that thing, the ability to appreciate the non material aspects of life, love, beauty, well, being peace, compassion, solidarity, you know, these are all non material Abraham Maslow talked about that self actualization was on the top of his hierarchy of needs, and talked about peak moments and peak human experiences and the full actualization of your human possibilities and potentialities, I view all this as being an aspect of the human journey, the human experience.
David Ames 29:20
Exactly. You know, I so, I think that religion and you know, Christianity in particular has a kind of a negative view on it, you know, if you're a Calvinist it's a total depravity concept but like, you know, a negative view of of humanity and so when we come out of religion sometimes I think carry that with us and I'm one of the things I I personally appreciate about humanism is saying that this human experience my my connecting with you right now, this conversation that we're having, and we're recognizing and one another similar experiences and recognizing the humanity in one another, that is approved found deep and meaningful experience. That's the human experience and that my love for my family and my love for my friends that the or that I feel when I when I, you know, go hiking in the woods, all of those things are part of nature and and ourselves as human beings and that we don't need to make reference outside of that. So that's the way I think.
Jim Palmer 30:25
Yeah, I think that you're, you really put your finger on something that too often religion ends up disparaging the, the inherent value and worth of the human being, you know, so Okay, so there's a doctrine of original sin, right, that you're actually born into this world as someone with a sin nature, okay, so that's strike one, then you have people that you know, there's there's no all kinds of Biblical verses, it can be, you know, used to perpetuate a view of the of the weakness and the frailty of the human being you know, I'm How many times have I heard, the I am weak and he is strong, you know, the, that I'm not really capable within myself, to guide and lead my life forward in meaningful, you know, ethical fulfilling ways, you know, this is where, where God comes in, you know, or the, or the misused verse about how the heart is wickedly. deceitful, is is a verse, that's all the so I do see a lot of people who come out of religion who have are very underdeveloped. They've not developed the the human tools that are available to them, that they naturally have to create a life of meaning and purpose and fulfillment, and they have all kinds of self sabotage Oriole thoughts. And so a lot of times, I will, in some of the work I do with people that mean, you know, religion stirs people up on how they need to have a good relationship with God. I think when you're transitioning out of religion, the focus becomes how to cultivate a, a meaningful relationship with your self. Okay. self confidence, self reliance, self awareness, self acceptance, self love, I mean, there's all kinds of ways you have to pretty much start over in terms of how you relate to yourself, self trust. So I see that a lot, you know, when people are kind of going going through that phase, otherwise, you know, because you can easily switch your dependency on one thing to another, you know, without ever learning what's available to you purely on a human as a human being.
David Ames 33:14
Right? So we've touched on it briefly here, but you you kind of do coaching for people that maybe have come out of religion with some religious trauma, let's say, How would you describe that? Like, you know, what are the some of the key things that you often have to talk people through?
Jim Palmer 33:31
There's a definitely a, a spectrum. I do spiritual counseling with people who have been damaged or traumatized to their experience in religion, and there's a range of that the clinical term RTS, or religious trauma syndrome is the phrase that's been used more and more in clinical terms in terms of dressing people that have been psychologically and emotionally and spiritually damage to their involvement, you know, in religion, and I think that there is of course, there's toxic religious indoctrination. And we've talked about that a little bit already. The way a very shame and fear based approach to life is sometimes the way religion derails a human being. And it's very difficult to to get past that a, you know, like a lot of people that are have have kind of left their religious involvements, they still carry that fear, well, what if I'm wrong? What if when they have the wrong one, and so the shame and fear are two of the most damaging things that happen in people's lives who had that kind of religious experience? shame me Being that there's something incurably wrong with me. And, and fear is that that I always need to be afraid of what could happen. And so that when a person, when a person changes there, when they leave their religious beliefs, and they start deconstructing, and they leave churches, it destabilizes everything. For a lot of people. First, the D and D stabilizes your identity, right? Because a lot of a person's identity often is based on their religious belief system, their social network, was revolved around their religious subculture, their religious belief system, their closest relationship, marriage friendships, revolved around their religious belief system, all their answers to the big important existential questions, why am I here? Where am I going, what happens when I die? All that had nice answers attached to them. So once you, you know, start sailing away from that, then it's all destabilize. So it can be such a volume, it can be volatile, you know, marriage is what I do with my kids now, you know, the existential dread. And all of that kind of gets you loneliness for people who don't know who to talk to. And, and so it's something that is very volatile and difficult to work through, but you can, and there are steps to doing it, and you don't have to do it by yourself. And it's not gonna all happen at once. And, but it happens every day, you know, people work through it.
David Ames 36:49
Yeah. Man, yeah, I totally recognize recognize a lot of the things you've just described. But you know, the, or the just lost what you felt was your beauty or your best friend, your closest confidant, you know, this, this internal thing that was, you know, gave you an entire sense of being and purpose and, and, and, you know, comfort. And all of a sudden, you no longer think that that is something external. And at the same time, if you if you talk about this fact, you're going to lose, you know, the community around you possibly even friends and family, depending on how bad things are. So, yeah, I think,
Jim Palmer 37:29
well, and it just takes a while. I mean, eventually you realize that there actually are a lot of people that are right, where you're at who can appreciate and accept you where you're at, you know, it's the whole world isn't your, your previous Christian religious subculture, but it takes a while to start establishing new connections with other people. Like, for example, a lot of times when people were in this phase, I might encourage them to to Okay, look and see what meetup groups are in your city. Yeah, yes. Because a meetup group, you know, I mean, there are secular humanists, atheists, you know, agnostic, non spirit, I mean, there are a lot of groups that you can check out, to start maybe getting connected with people who are fine with where you're at, they're not gonna have a problem with what you believe or don't believe about God. The other thing too, though, is that I think that we are a little bit perhaps a victim of Western civilization who is insistent upon working everything out conceptually in our mind. So a lot of people will go through this incessant can, you know, I need a new and improved version of God, I need a new and improved version of this and they just roll it over in their mind and they're like, you know, the mind is a concept generating machine. And yeah, you know, I remember out of your saw the movie Forrest Gump, but there's that scene where he's run and run and run. And then finally, he just gets to this point where it's like, Okay, I'm done.
David Ames 39:01
I'm done running. I, you know, I just want to bring up I read your blog, it sounds like you're a runner, I'm a runner as well, I find, I find so much of, you know, I don't know, just quiet time when I'm running. And I feel so much better after I do that. And so every time I see Forrest Gump, and he says, I just felt like running, I start, I start weeping, because that means something so deep to me, and that the grief that he was experiencing, and that and that, you know, running gave him some peace for that. Yeah.
Jim Palmer 39:40
Yeah, I learned there times when I mean for me, so basically, I use that analogy to say, I came to a time where I was like conceptualizing, conceptualizing working over my mind. What's the new belief? What's the new thing to plug in? And then finally, which is like, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I'm tired. Yeah, this constant you know, like And isn't necessarily like how much of this, you know, is just helping me love people more? Is this connecting me into the present moment? Is this allowing me to enjoy the world that I live in? Is this actually improving and bettering my life? Like who says I have to figure it out and come up with a nice, detailed belief system about something, you know? And I've read about this in one of my books, okay, like, if I go enjoy the sunset, am I is the experience of the sunset going to be heightened if I can explain it, or if I can develop a sunset theology? about it, it's not in fact, it's probably going to, but so I think that outside of religion, I found a lot of fulfillment and very human things. One of them was running, you know, I started marathons and ultra marathons along as one of runs on in 35 miles. I started in the art, I realized that I really enjoyed abstract art. Yeah. And enjoy being outside in nature and in and so I know that for a lot of people, because religion determined what they could or couldn't, couldn't do what they should or shouldn't, like, they don't even you know, like, when I in my life after religion course, one of the modules, I give the person a whole list of questions to help them determine, you know, what spirituality means for them. But the question is, like, what, what brings you joy, what centers you in yourself? What makes you come alive? And a whole slew of questions that are just, you know, designed, they're simple and practical questions, not these big, theological, right, or existential ones, it's the same thing with the meaning of life where you know, it. If I were to say that life is meaningless, some people would be get a bit upset and think that that's really dark. And it's hopeless, and it's not realistic and all this stuff. But, but the other way to look at that is that that's really entirely hopeful and inspiring, because what it means is that you have the freedom to cultivate the meaning that matters to you, you can determine what matters most to you in life, and then you can cultivate a life that reflects that, you know, there's not like someone telling you, it has to be this. Right? So saying that there's a meaningless life is meaningless. It's not saying that there's no meaning. It's just saying that you're the one who has the opportunity to create, determine and cultivate it, as opposed to religion telling you what it's supposed to be.
David Ames 42:44
Right. I like to say that the you know, the universe may be indifferent, that humanity is not right. We are the meaning makers, we make meaning.
Jim Palmer 42:55
Yes, and, and so I think that the, it takes time to make that transition out of religion, I think sometimes, it's it's more practical, daily, simple things, and less, you know, this kind of gnashing of the brain to come up with better answers to the existential questions of our origin and what happens when you die. And, you know, I just read a book by Becker called The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker. And one of the things he says in his book is that the affinity whereas Freud, saw sexuality as sort of the the, the fundamental problem that leads to so much neuroses, Becker says, no, no, it's really the terror of death. And what that represents, you know, the finality of it, you know, the, the becoming, facing the creature leanness, of our, of our existence as human beings. And so I think that one of the reasons why people are very attached to religion is for example, religion, supplies, answers to the things that people are most fearful of, or the things that they want to build their security around. Yeah,
David Ames 44:21
I've noticed lately I want to do an episode on grief. I plan on doing that, but the episode on grief, but even just our cultural touchstones, if you look at Netflix, and just count the number of movies that are about seeing a loved one after death in some way or another, right, somehow transcending that barrier of death. It's so much I feel like so much of religion is the psychological defense is a natural, normal human response to losing someone that you love so dearly that you can't fathom, not having them with you.
Jim Palmer 45:00
Yes, I'd think that what I see though that sometimes there are ways that religion lead can lead a person off the hook from embracing life fully. You know, if, if the downside of having this sort of certainty of an afterlife, it's kind of like the backup plan, whatever happens in this life, it's you know, I mean, how many Christian people have you heard say that? Well, you know, even the Bible verse about how the your struggles now are minuscule compared to the reward in heaven and this kind of thing, right? You know. So who was it was in Marx that said, the Religion is the opium of the people, the basic idea was that the proletariat or the working man could experience in just conditions in the world. And they, they would be tolerant of it, because on Sunday morning, the preacher would woo them into these dreams of a future heaven. And there was a passivity that would come to set in, you know, like, why, why can find my conditions now, when I can expect to have a reward in the future, if I will just tolerate these a little, a little further is the same thing with apocalyptical kind of teaching, you know, if I, if I believe basically, it's all going to go up in flames, then like, what do I really need to be all that worried about the Earth at the climate
David Ames 46:36
change?
Jim Palmer 46:39
It's all going to, you know, go through a nuclear meltdown in the end and start over,
David Ames 46:46
right? Yeah, no, I yeah, I think eschatology has really dangerous especially we're we're now seeing this in the United States political system, just the the kind of policy that gets generated based on some aspects illogical. Theology is terrible. Yeah. Hey, I do want to circle back just a little bit. So again, I think people that have gone through these faith transitions. First thing they do is they get online and they see just these terrible angry people. Yelling, yeah. So you know. So when I say 2015, I realized, man, I know that I no longer believe I don't, I don't believe what do I do now? Right. And so, you know, I started reading books, I started getting online. And really what I was looking for was community. But the first thing you see is everyone else going through the same kind of grief, anger phase that we all kind of go through, it's a real natural part to kind of lash out at our former faith. But what can we do as humanists to try to step into that gap? Right, so that the, the the baby not a theist, or however you want to describe them, but the, you know, early phases of that deconstruction deconversion that they can find, you know, a more positive community that's not just in that angry phase.
Jim Palmer 48:17
Yeah, I remember that. I wrote a blog post. It's been it's a long time ago, but I reposted every now and then which was something like, the the five mistakes I made during, in my deconstructing of religion, and I, but I introduced it by saying that mistake is probably the wrong word, because a lot of this just going to happen, it's even a necessary part of the process. But you have to also, it's something there's more on the other side of it, you know, as opposed to getting getting stuck in it. And one of the things one of the mistakes that I made is that I shifted one fundamentalism to another right, you know, like I was a Christian fundamentalist from the standpoint that I had absolute certainty about a certain Christian theology that I that I would argue tooth and nail over and, and and in that sense, I was a fundamentalist, but then I just switched sides and became a fundamentalist in a different way, which was, you know, having my absolute certainty and superiority and my combativeness against religion. So, you can make, it can be a religion, religion can be a religion, whether you're for it or against it, you know, like you can make a religion out of either and so, the, which as you said, it makes complete sense, okay, if you take a lot of the cases of people that, that, that I've been I work with, if you gave 1020 3040 years of your life to religion, and it dominated everything in your life, and you discovered that not only is it Not true. But it basically determine your trajectory in life and all kinds of ways that you now see your harmful, you're going to be pissed. Yes, you know. And it's, and you're in for time, you're, you're, I mean, it's likely you're not going to see one shred of, you know, goodness that has anything to do with religion. And your your only thought is that I can only hope that religion will be totally eradicated from the face of the earth. And as much as I can help that happen, and I'm all in. And that's completely understandable, you know, during a phase of the deed of deconstruction, you know? But then, for me, I guess just my own path. I started discovering Well, there's a few things first, my particular experience of religion isn't the same as everybody else's. Okay, so that's number one. I mean, there are some people who actually have been part of some religious community or religious tradition that was more accepting or loving more, you know, less. So not everybody had my experience, it wasn't as bad or fundamentalist. So I mean, take, for example, if you had gone to a Unitarian Universalist Church, your own life, you know, like, that's a religious community, religious tradition, or religious experience, but it's not gonna be the same in terms of perhaps it's, so I realized that, then I had realized, well, and I'm also like, you know, basically believe in the freedom of religion, right? So I can't really go around and like, insist that religion be completely eradicated from the face of the earth, because if people want to follow religion, then that's their choice to do that. And where I would draw the line, and this, what I do is I tell people, I'm not against religion, I'm against the misuse of religion. Now, even though I don't practice religion, I don't come out and say, did no other human being can or should, but I would I do stand up and confront religion where I think that it's doing harm in the world. Right. So I think that the shift between, it's almost like, I think part of the goal is to no longer make religion your reference point, either for it or against it, find another reference point and, and to me, humanism provided that reference point, or it's one reference point that I mean, it states that it doesn't hold to a belief in the supernatural as a way of defining itself, but other than that, then it sets off on a more positive course, to live a meaningful and ethical, fulfilling, productive life, you know, and I think that sometimes, you don't want to you, it's not a good trade off. For you to switch from years and years and years of a bad religious experience. And then the whole next stage of your life is nothing more than just being angry about it. Like either way religions still guide you, you know, yeah. So, you know, to sort of to come to a different place. That's why I started doing a lot of personal development with people one because I realized they didn't have the tools to do that, because of what religion did. And because I realized that people would often get stuck in the armpits that religion part of it. Yeah. And you're, and the thing is you're describing is true in general than in a lot of social media. You know, it's very easy to find people that are mad about something, right. Like, that's, you know, whether it's Twitter or Facebook, it's yet and can be a little more challenging to find groups of people who are learning to cultivate a new way of living their lives, you know, after religion, something a little more than just the victory all of of ating religion. Yeah,
David Ames 54:23
I find that, you know, I have to stop myself from that first reaction, right? There's a famous XKCD cartoon where the character saying, Oh, wait, I'll be there in a minute. Somebody has said something incorrect on the internet. There's this sense that we have, like, somebody said, something that's not exactly right. I have to correct them. And no, it's not your job. You don't have to do the letting go of that, I think is actually a huge part. And so the question I posed You go ahead. Great.
Jim Palmer 54:56
Well, let me just say real quick, a big part of what I think I do in terms of my social media presence is that I'm not.
I am. I will publicly take issue with a lot of things I come across in terms of religious mindsets, and, you know, so
it's bad, but it's only a part of how I understand who I am in the world. Right? No, it's, and that's one of the things that really attracted me to you. Is that my involvement in humanism, then, you know, I got in the secular community as a whole. I did find it sometimes the what what's commonly referred to and usually it's a pejorative reference isn't new Atheism, with you know, which tends to be the more combative and demeaning sort of approach towards religion, you know, like, like, for example, we're gonna Yeah, I mean, it can get pretty bad. Oh, yeah. You know, so
David Ames 56:09
no, and, in fact, a huge premise of why I want to do this podcast is, if you want the hardcore, anti atheist, you know, religious people are stupid, you can find that everywhere. Right? But the, what is missing is, if, if that isn't you, what would have what's what is there for us, that is, a huge portion of why I want to do this podcast is let's talk about, you know, it is a part of the human experience to have that religion is a human invention. And that is somewhat natural, you could say, right, and observe it and talk about it, we can describe our experiences of having been in it and coming out of it. And I love the theists in my life, right? That included my family, my very, very good friends, college, college friends, I love these people, why would I? Why would I be attacking them? And, and more importantly, I think there's a perspective of that religious people are stupid somehow. Well, I can't say that. Otherwise, I'd be saying that I was stupid. I'm the same person, I have the exact same intelligence as I did four years ago, than I do today. And so it's not about intelligence, right? It's so much more about culture, it's so much more about, you know, how, what your family was, like, all of those things,
Jim Palmer 57:31
your your, ya know, and all kinds of other underlying factors that would lead to a person being religious, even if they've got a PhD in astrophysics, or whatever, you know. Now, to be fair, I will sometimes switch on to religious channel on TV, just because, like, I have to, like, I don't know, it's some weird form of entertainment or something. Well, I think, to these people still believe this or like, this is actually happening. So that said, are ways that I take on religion Full Frontal sort of like, confrontation, where I believe that it's, you know, being toxic in people's in people's lives. But yeah, the reason why I thought a year is so important is that when I just seen the grace for eight years, I thought, okay, that's, you know, someone who's going to create spaces, where, where people can dialogue and converse, on honestly, and vulnerably. You know, but but, but not have to be a, a combative environment to, to explore and talk about, you know, these kinds of things, because I still think that the greatest defense do things Christians and atheists have in common is that the greatest defense for their, for their positions, in my mind, is their morality or their ethics or their goodness. I mean, the reason why we're so upset with Christians is because they're hypocrites. Okay. That's one of the reasons Sure, and why and what and so, I think it's the same thing with atheists. I mean, if you see an atheist out there being disrespectful, being an asshole, you know, like, being superior, demeaning and diminishing, other people like, that's the, you know, like, that's gonna end up being what discredits who they are in the world.
David Ames 59:31
Right. Right. You know, so, let me let me try to segue here. It brings up an interesting point for me. I think the thing that originally attracted me to Jesus, and this happened for me personally, in my late teens, was his sense of attacking self righteousness. Right? So he was he was going after the people of his day, the religious leaders of his day, who had the form of spirituality or whatever you want to call it. And, and yet, we're, we're practicing hypocrisy today. You know, I often say that the Evangelicals of modern day are really the Pharisees of that time. And I said that when I was a Christian, I say that. But now as an atheist, I see the exact same kind of mentality in atheism, right? There are times when, when it's, it's this certainty that I am absolutely right. And you are wrong, and I'm going to correct you. So the segue is this. So you are a humanist, but you're a humanist who writes about Jesus a fair amount. And I'd like to talk, I'd like you to talk a little bit about how you understand Jesus, maybe the New Testament now, is that something that you still find meaningful at all? And just let you go?
Jim Palmer 1:00:52
Yeah, I think that, um, well, there's a lot of layers to this one layer is that did as a matter of historical fact, was there Jesus. Okay. And, of course, there's some disagreement on it. But for just for the sake of the purpose of this podcast, let's say that the, the, the, it seems to tilt in the direction of the fact that there was a historical individual, who we identify as Jesus who actually lived. And, and after that, we virtually know almost nothing very little. Okay, so let's just say that just for the sake of this,
David Ames 1:01:34
I don't want to get down into the dark, dark hole.
Jim Palmer 1:01:40
Right, so then you'd have to say, Okay, well, then the only thing we really know about Jesus, mainly, I mean, except for the obscure thing here or there by one or two other church historians, is what it says in the gospels, which are roughly, you know, at least three of them roughly about the same story, you know, give and take a little bit, and then John, which is a spiritualize version of itself. You know, it's the reason why I think that there are times when I feel like that there's not that we can deal with Jesus, that we don't necessarily have to totally demolish and discredit Jesus, in the sense of one of the reasons why that you just said, is that Jesus seemed to provide a meaningful path of being an individual, he can look at a religious tradition and confront the things about that tradition, that are detrimental and affirm the things that are, you know, constructive and good. You know, Jesus was a Jew, and he took on his Judaism, that ultimately, you know, got killed. And, but he also affirmed it or explained it in more detail, you know, like the Sermon on the Mount, you say, Don't murder, I say, don't hate you. And so I see, then there's the whole religious or these, you know, archetypes that Jung had several and others have talked about this. So, to what extent is Jesus represent something that human beings almost universally, first, Jesus symbolizes something that human beings universally connect with? Is that possible? You know, I wrote a blog post. Also, there was like, you know, fifth, I think it was other like 15 ways that Jesus is relevant, regardless of what you're doing, whether you're a Christian or an atheist, here are 15 ways that Jesus is irrelevant. So like, for example, and this even gets into how you want to take the Bible so you can take the idea of, of Jesus, this idea of him being some mix between divinity and humanity, which actually historically, I think kind of got blown into out of proportion in a way that even Jesus would be surprised by but as a as a symbol of self actualization. For example, you know, a person coming into the full, the full awareness and full expression of of who they are, you know, a person who was compelled to stand in solidarity with the victimized with the marginalized. A person who spoke truth to power in this, you know, religion, to the political establishment of his day, you know what, so in that sense, I see that the Jesus can have non religious be viewed as meaningful in these ways that don't have anything to do with the religious context. In fact, you know, there's books, I read two of them by the same book title entitled Christianity without God, which are two books that were written by people who spoke of the fact that, like, even the Jesus himself didn't even believe in theism, the way that the Christian church is, has made it indeed, made it into and that so it's so I see Jesus in that sense, I see Jesus as somebody who represents and symbolizes something that human beings instinctually are inspired to or compelled by. And just like, I would see relevance in you know, whether it's Martin Luther King, Jr. or Gandhi, or, you know, any, any, any, no, the Buddha, any number of people that the represents something meaningful meaningfully for human beings.
David Ames 1:06:25
Yeah, I think, you know, I think one of the things that I've learned, and with your educational background, you probably know, much better than I do. But is that these questions about how do I find meaning? How do I find happiness? Are all you know, I mean, this is not
Jim Palmer 1:06:44
nothing new under the sun. I haven't come
David Ames 1:06:47
up with one new idea, you know, to add to this conversation, either religiously, or from a naturalistic perspective, and that we have been trying as a species to answer these questions since the beginning of time, right? The Greeks, you know, with this idea of kind of a civic religion, or you know, that with ethics with having a you know, like the, the, the Chinese with Confucianism, you know, like, just, this has been around a long time,
Jim Palmer 1:07:17
including Jesus robbing, preferred, this isn't the first time somebody in history was sort of the Divine man savior. The, I mean, once you start poking around a person comes to realize that this story of the origins of the universe in the Bible aren't exactly unique to the Bible, that the idea of, of a god man, Messiah who saved the world isn't unique to the Christian belief system. So these are, you know, which is maybe why they represent these archetypes because they're reoccurring themes reoccurring people now suddenly get asked, but why do you think Jesus stuck the way he did? You know, like, I mean, it's hard to avoid the fact that out of all the, you know, billions and billions of human beings that that have lived, you know, how is it that Jesus has endured? You know, if you take 2000 years out of the totality of 200,000 that human beings have, and there's all kinds of reasons why we could talk about where a person might, you know, could explain that my view of the Bible is a little, I'm not sure that I'm like, this is something that I'm going I would, you know, go to the mat on in terms of my understanding the Bible, let me put it this way. I think that, that this, honestly could be giving the Bible more credit than it deserves. And I, and I acknowledge that. I'm not sure it is, but it could be. So what I what I can think of the Bible. Or maybe I'll put it this way, a, to me a high view of the value of the Bible. It's a non traditional kind of Orthodox Christian view would be good or something like this. The Bible tells a story about humankind's relationship with the transcendent humankind's relationship trying to navigate and be in relationship to or with that non material, transcendent dimension to life, that we ascribe the word God to. And, and the the value of the Bible is it tells this this story of that evolution and relationship. Part of that story is like really bad. Part of that story is people running around and rationalizing going into parts of the earth and completely exterminating you know, groups of people rationalize it somehow that God told me to do this, right. It's part of the story in the Bible. It's still the story, right? People still do this to happen and crusades happen in all kinds of ways where we still commit that error. So no, there is There's no god that told people to go into some country and wipe out people for His glory. There is no god that told him by smash baby against rocks, there is no God who killed the guy who slept when he was carrying, you know, the Ark of the Covenant, none of that stuff happen the way that it was explained it was explained the way it was for a useful purpose. But a what you did that's part of the storage humankind's relationship with God, all that kinds of stuff that we do, but the story can also be beautiful. Yeah. You know, like the book of Ruth, like, you know, the you know, Naomi loses everything. And with with no obligation, Ruth gives up about everything to help her right. And I had Hebrew by Dr. McGarry in seminary, and one of the things that I learned in that Hebrew class is that the Hebrew word there's a word that's used to describe Ruth and the only other time the word is used in the Bible is to describe God Himself. And it's the word hesed, which means loving kindness. Yeah. So, you know, that's a beautiful story. Sometimes we're like that sometimes we are willing to come alongside people in their suffering and sacrifice our own comfort and well being to stand in solidarity with another person and help them and in those moments, that is the best example of anything that we can point to in refer to his transcendent or ultimate reality or even God. Yeah. So I think the Bible is all of that, you know, it will, that it's not to be taken into a story. And it does put the onus on the individual to have some discernment. Yes.
David Ames 1:11:56
What is? Yeah, what's, what are the lessons we're supposed to learn from this? What maybe what not to do in many cases? But yeah,
Jim Palmer 1:12:03
you know, like, like Paul wrote, Mozu, you know, I mean, Paul wrote most of the letters in the New Testament, but you gotta say, Are they okay? He, Paul is writing letters to churches answering questions, trying to figure out how does it work to be a Christian in the context of our culture, but it was cultural, you know, like it had to work in their culture. Yeah. So, I mean, to see women wearing head coverings to church are taking seriously that they can't be pastors or that they need to submit to their men, or they're spiritually, you know, like, these are, in my mind cultural aspects of the evolution of understanding these truths, but they're not sacred.
David Ames 1:12:43
Right, right. Well, I think that's the that's the point, right? As a humanist, we can take in the stories of the Bible and derive some value from them, but without being obligated to do the apologetics, right? To make them literal, or to make them binding in some way that you know. So we can we can find that value in the same way that we can, in other historical writings and other Yeah. So that, so I'm cognizant of our time, and I want to give you a chance to just tell the listeners a little bit about your work, how they could reach out to you. You've written five books have maybe maybe briefly tell us about those and then tell us a little bit about your coaching and how people can engage with you.
Jim Palmer 1:13:28
Yeah, I. So I've written five books, divine nobodies is the book where I share my initial deconstruction of my faith, and what were the factors that led to my deciding to leave my ministerial career and my Christianity. And once I started getting letters, and noticing that people were getting stuck in the anti religion kind of mode, I made the decision that I needed to write a follow up book that was describing my initial attempts of figuring out what it meant for me to live a meaningful life after religion. So my next book wide open spaces, is a book where I tell the part of the story is I stumbled forward trying to figure out life and meaning outside of religion. My third book has been Jesus in Nashville. And that book was my so I deconstructed all my Christian theology, except I didn't know quite what to do with Jesus Himself. And so I devoted a year in my life to test a theory that I started to have about Jesus, which was there's absolutely no difference between Jesus and me that that the claim that Jesus was more than me is not true. And or that I'm more than I think I am. Either way, whatever Jesus was, I AM, okay. Okay. So I spent a year of my life kind of plowing into that which was, it was highly controversial. My publishing house which I published my first two books, cancel my book contract they accused me of, of heresy and and said they could not publish the book. So because I wrote the first my first book contract was written with a with a Christian publisher, and they were little, they were okay with divine nobody's ever getting kind of nervous with wide open spaces. And when being Jesus came out I was like we're done. So that was being Jesus in Nashville, then the next book after that was known some of the edge which was a book about my journey of address addressing the root cause of my own suffering, which I was not able to resolve in my previous religious framework. And in that book, also kind of disentangle what it is particularly about Christianity that prevents people from really resolving the root of their own suffering and living a life of fulfillment. And then, the very last book I wrote is called inner anarchy, which was my last attempt to give a alternative understanding of what Jesus meant outside the Christian religious framework and understanding. And I just finished my manuscript of my sixth book, which is how to have a great day without God. A, the subtitle is a non religious guide to living life. Well, that's probably the book that's maybe the more humanist non secular discussion. Okay. So, you go to Jim Palmer on Amazon, you can find any of those books, I have a website, Jim Palmer author.com. And I, like I said, I do I do a lot of spiritual direction and personal consulting with people who are deconstructing their faith going through a faith crisis, trying to figure out all this stuff we've talked about on the, you know, after religion, I've got a life after religion course that you can do, you know, also online, which is, walks people through the steps of addressing more the depths of our religious indoctrination in church. Religious damage, addressing that on a deeper level. And so you know, I'm on Twitter, I'm on Facebook, you know, I guess Jim Palmer author.com, you can find it pretty much about anything there. You know, it will give you the links to my Amazon or the course or anywhere else. I'm on very cool. Social
David Ames 1:17:33
media. So yes, excellent. That's fantastic. Yeah. And I, you know, I've, Jim, I've really appreciated this conversation. And I felt like, we could have done this for four more hours. Maybe if you'll consider it some other time, we'll have you back on. This was really, it's been a lot of fun. I appreciate you coming on the podcast,
Jim Palmer 1:17:53
you I'd be happy to come on anytime. I also appreciate you and who you are for other people in the world. And so you know, it's, I'm inspired and hopeful knowing that there are people like you that are you know, taking that approach of being the graceful atheists creating spaces where people can explore humanism and a secular approach to life, that without it just being a complete, you know, like, I hate religion parade.
David Ames 1:18:27
Exactly. Yeah, I'm trying I in fact, I started my podcast by saying, My name is David. And I'm trying to be the grace radius. Because it's aspirational, right, like I haven't gotten. I'm figuring it out like everybody else. So Well, Jim, thank you so much, and we will talk to you a bit later.
Jim Palmer 1:18:45
Okay. Thanks for
David Ames 1:18:54
some final thoughts on the episode. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jim Palmer as much as I did. We could have talked for hours. There was so much that I wanted to get into about humanism and Jim's faith transitions from deconstruction to becoming a secular humanist chaplain. I feel like there's lots more on the table there. Maybe we'll have Jim back at some point in time. There'll be lots more to say about humanism in future episodes as well. I do want to point out that Jim is a life coach specifically for people who have D converted for those people who have deconstructed their faith and find themselves in need of someone to be there along the way. So I highly recommend that you get in touch with Jim if you are looking for some support. I'll have links in the show notes for all of Jim's online presence. If you want to get in touch with Jim, you can find his website at Jim Palmer author.com. I'll also have links to his books on Amazon. In our interview, we do bring up the clergy project again. That seems to be a common theme. I'll have links to the clergy project. And I also want to bring up just one correction. In my previous episode, we mentioned the humanist celebrants and the American Humanist Association. And the American Humanist Association has corrected me to point out that their adjunct organization that endorses celebrants and chaplains is called the humanist society. And so I will have links to the humanist society. For anyone who is interested in exploring, becoming a humanist Chaplain themselves. I want to thank Jim for coming on the podcast and sharing his considerable insight. And I hope it helps you on your journey of discovery of what it means to be a human being having a human experience. Time for some footnotes. The song has a track called waves by mkhaya beats, please check out her music links will be in the show notes. If you'd like to help support the podcast, here are the ways you can go about that. First help promote it. Podcast audience grows by word of mouth. If you found it useful or just entertaining, please pass it on to your friends and family. post about it on social media so that others can find it. Please rate and review the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. This will help raise the visibility of our show. Join me on the podcast. Tell your story. Have you gone through a faith transition? You want to tell that to the world? Let me know and let's have you on? Do you know someone who needs to tell their story? Let them know. Do you have criticisms about atheism or humanism, but you're willing to have an honesty contest with me? Come on the show. If you have a book or a blog that you want to promote, I'd like to hear from you. Also, you can contribute technical support. If you are good at graphic design, sound engineering or marketing. Please let me know and I'll let you know how you can participate. And finally financial support. There will be a link on the show notes to allow contributions which would help defray the cost of producing the show. If you want to get in touch with me you can google graceful atheist or you can send email to graceful atheist@gmail.com You can tweet at me at graceful atheist or you can just check out my website at graceful atheists.wordpress.com Get in touch and let me know if you appreciate the podcast. Well this has been the graceful atheist podcast My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheists. Grab somebody you love and tell them how much they mean to you.
This has been the graceful atheist podcast
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Today’s show is a Deconversion (not so) Anonymous episode. In these episodes, people who have gone through deconversion or faith transitions tell their stories anonymously or otherwise.
On today’s episode, my guest is Matt Cook from Toronto Canada. Matt was a former evangelical missionary to Pakistan and a preacher who lost his faith about six years ago. Matt is not your typical deconvert. He calls himself religious but not spiritual. Several years after deconversion, Matt chose to live a year “Christianly.” During that year he prayed, he read the bible daily, he went to church and practiced other spiritual disciplines. Although, it did not change his mind he has found continued value in these disciplines and practices some of them to this day.
In the show we discuss the possibility of becoming a humanist chaplain (or celebrant or officiant), if you are interested in exploring that role or if you are looking for a humanist celebrant to officiate a wedding, dedication or funeral find the humanist organization for your country. In the US, it is the American Humanist Society. In Canada, it is Humanist Canada. Wikipedia lists more organizations.
“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats
This is the first of the Deconversion Anonymous episodes. In these episodes, people who have gone through deconversion or faith transitions tell their stories.
On this episode, Susan from Scotland tells us how she grew up Presbyterian but began to ask hard questions at a very early age. She felt empathy for those who were different from herself and recognized a lack of empathy in the church leaders. Ultimately, she deconverted in her twenties and now lives with intellectual honesty, empathy and compassion on the other side of faith.
Conversely inspired by presuppositional apologetics and continuing my Watershed Presuppositions series I thought it time to write down what my presuppositions are.
Presuppositions are truths you accept without justification. They are accepted a prori and may or may not have evidence to prove them. They are your starting point and the basis upon which everything you believe in is built.
It is important to note that everyone has presuppositions whether they are aware of them or not. Much of the difficulty in having a dialog with those you disagree with is the unstated incongruous presuppositions that you and your interlocutor hold.
My Presuppositions
Ontological and Epistemological
The universe exists and has patterns which are to varying degrees discoverable.
Conscious minds are a product of the patterns of the universe.
Logic and mathematics abstracted from the discoverable patterns of the universe by conscious minds are sound and reliable.
The scientific method which uses logic, mathematics and observation is a reliable method for discovering the patterns of the universe.
Truth is that which can be tested and verified to conform to reality.
Moral
Human beings have value and inalienable rights.
Human beings are fallible.
Human beings are meaning makers.
These are the truths that I hold axiomatically. Some, even most, can be justified, meaning they have evidence. But, for our purposes here, what are the implications of these statements when held true?
You may find yourself saying, “but I don’t believe one or more of these.” No problem. These are my presuppositions not yours. The reason they are useful is for you to understand how I come to certain conclusions and not others. If you can accept them purely for the sake of argument you can begin to understand my worldview. If you cannot accept them even solely for the sake of argument then we have nothing further to discuss.
The universe exists
This one seems pretty obvious. If it seems as obvious to you as it does to me, you have probably never hung out with philosophers.
The purpose of this axiom is to do away with the interesting yet tiresome arguments of solipsism, that the only thing that can be proven to exist is our consciousness. Do we live in a hologram or a matrix? Are we just brains in a vat? So boldly and arrogantly I assert, the universe exists!
Even more boldly I assert that at least to some extent it has patterns which are discoverable. These patters are observable and ultimately knowable to varying degrees of certainty. The old trite saying, “as surely as the sun will rise in the East and set in the West,” is an example of observing a pattern of the universe and gaining certainty that it is true.
Conscious minds are a product of the patterns of the universe
This one is more of an assertion. Fewer people may agree with me here. But I take this as a given. Consciousness is not made of a mysterious non-natural substance. We may not understand consciousness in its entirety … yet. Therefore, I assert consciousness is a product of the patterns of the universe we find ourselves conscious in.
This axiom is important to do away with the idea that consciousness is something other than natural. The idea of a soul dieshard.
Logic and mathematics are sound
Again, if you find this one obvious, you have not spent much time with either philosophers or presuppositional apologists.
Logic and mathematics are abstractions from the patterns of the universe by conscious minds. There are a few hidden assertions in here that I will point out.
Logic and mathematics do not exist in the platonic sense. We have discussed dualism in this series before it is a difficult one to escape. What I am saying here is logic and math do not have their own existence they are the product of human intellect based on observed patterns in the universe: abstractions. In philosophic language this is an epistemological claim not an ontological claim.
We as conscious human beings observe the patterns of the universe and we abstract “rules” that describe those patters. If I have two sheep and then I get two more I have four sheep. It does not matter if “sheep” are woolly mammals who chew the cud or blocks, or rocks, or anything. We have abstracted the rule 2 + 2 = 4 by observation and human intellect. From basic arithmetic to number theory we have abstracted rules from these patterns.
The most important assertion here is that logic and mathematics are sound and reliable. It is a feature of logical and mathematical proofs that each step taken relies on the proofs that came before it. If one of the foundational mathematics axioms were not true the proofs built upon it would not “work” as they do.
Don’t believe this one? Then throw out the magic device in your pocket that gives you access to the near sum total of human knowledge. That device, the network it uses and literally the information itself is all built on logic and mathematics.
Mathematics is the language of the universe.
— Neil Degrasse Tyson
The scientific method is a reliable method to gain knowledge
The scientific method is simply a process by which an idea is tested by gathering evidence. If there is strong evidence more credence is given to the idea, if there is little evidence credence goes down and if there is contradictory evidence the idea may be abandoned altogether.
My assertion here is that this is a reasonable and reliable epistemological method, a way to gain knowledge.
The scientific method leads toward truth in major part by discarding bad ideas. Finding true ideas is hard. Validating that an idea is true is just as hard. But by discarding false ideas the options are narrowed down toward true ones.
Science is self-correcting. If tomorrow credible evidence is discovered contracting any of the deeply held scientific theories credence in that theory would drop. Not only that the discoverer of the contradicting evidence would be lauded.
Science tends to assume naturalistic metaphysics. If that bothers you, then you need to account for science’s unreasonable, wild and fantastic success. The entirety of the modern age depends upon the successes of science from medicine to space exploration to binge watching your favorite TV series on demand.
Truth is that which can be tested and verified to conform to reality
Adding to the common definition of truth as that which conforms to reality and adding a bit of the scientific method. I assert that truth is that which can be tested and verified to conform to reality where reality is the product of the patterns of the universe. We should have more credence in something that has been tested and has evidence than something that has neither.
Evidence, testing and validation are important because these are the only tools to convince the skeptic. Einstein was famously not a fan of quantum theory in the early days. But he was won over by the evidence.
If I make a claim, you can believe me or not. But if I make a claim and tell you how to test for yourself and that test validates my claim it is harder to ignore.
I expect the accusations of scientism, materialism and empiricism. Fine. It is certainly true that there are vast areas where science just doesn’t know. And in fact this is a feature: to humbly acknowledge all that we don’t know.
Focusing on the gaps in knowledge misses the point, keep in mind all that we do know. Evolutionary theory explains the vast complexity of life on planet Earth. Theories within cosmology can model the universe back to fractions of a second after the big bang. Gravity waves just recently verified were predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity. The baffling quantum field theory explains nature’s behavior at the microscopic level which turns out to be deeply counter intuitive.
Even for those things which we cannot measure directly we use inference. We have inferred dark matter and dark energy. These two account for 96% of the material in the universe and yet we cannot detect them directly.
Human beings have value and inalienable rights
This is the basis of my morality: human beings have value and inalienable rights. I assert it thus, and then try to live out the implications. As sentient beings we recognize each other’s great value in the otherwise empty vastness of the universe we find ourselves in. We are not alone. We have each other.
I am a humanist as I have written before. This simply means that people are more important than ideologies of any kind. We ought to treat each other with Secular Grace.
I appreciate the need to expand this concept to conscious creatures. This has vast implications on how we treat animals and potential artificial intelligences. However, as recent political history has shown we are not very good at treating each other with respect and valuing each other’s rights. So human beings are my focus.
Human beings are fallible
Just as important as recognizing the value human beings pose we must also acknowledge human fallibility. Although, I reject the concept of sin it would be foolishness not to recognize people can be destructive to themselves and others.
Human beings are neither all good nor all bad. If those terms are too loaded, they are neither completely selfish nor completely altruistic. Our motivations are complex and varied and they very rarely reduce to simple identifiable sources.
We are very good at fooling ourselves. We are susceptible to a vast array of cognitive biases. In fact, much of the process of the scientific method is to avoid human fallibility and our ability to find what we want to be true.
However, just because human beings are fallible or imperfect does not mean we are not of great value. Sentience being an exceedingly rare commodity in the universe we find ourselves in, we need to love each other.
Human beings are meaning makers
We humans are the conscious observers who abstract the patterns of the universe. We experience awe and mystery and give them meaning. We define human morality I assert there may not be inherent meaning in the universe but we humans make meaning.
We are the universe aware of itself.
— Carl Sagan, Julian Huxley, Neil Degrasse Tyson all have said some variation on this quote.
I tend to agree with Hume that you cannot get an aught from an is. Rather than exhausting ourselves looking for external objective truth, morality and meaning we should take it upon ourselves to work together toward greater understanding of human truth, morality and meaning. Though all human moral systems are incomplete, taken together they point toward respect for human value.
Many months ago Neil Carter, Godless in Dixie, wrote an article about the Evangelical mind warping perspective on Philippians 4:13. (I particularly like the comment about his kids noticing the clock reading 4:13 as apposed to 4:20.) He also uses a cute analogy about Dumbo and the magic feather.
— Graceful Atheist (@GracefulAtheist) July 6, 2017
The reason Neil’s suggestion that religion might be helpful in the beginning struck me as true because that was my experience. Right at the time when I was most “lost” is when I became a Christian. That may actually be trite to say. Isn’t that true for everyone? This is going to sound like a religious testimony, but I have a point to make. So bear with me.
I grew up in a nominal Christian home. There were occasional references to God but he was never at the forefront of conversation. So much so, that I was curious about what the adults all seemed to know that I did not quite get. If I can quote Douglas Adams, my position on God as a kid went something like this:
Who is this God character, anyway?
The other pertinent piece of information is that I grew up in an alcohol and drug addicted family, specifically my mom. After years of broken promises and heartache when I was 17 my mom came to me and said, “Jesus told me to stop drinking.” “Sure, mom, whatever,” was my response. But she was clean and sober that day. And the next. And the next. She claimed God had given her a choice, “stop drinking or die,” and she chose to live.
This had a rather profound impact on me, as you can imagine. My mom did not push religion on me. After going to rehab and being clean and sober for a couple of months she bought me my first bible and gently suggested, if I was interested, to read one of the gospels. Which I did. Over the next year, I read it cover to cover.
With mom suddenly acting like an adult, this was my cue to fall apart. This was my junior year in high school. I had already had problems with school, mostly due to skipping class. But I was also dealing with what I now understand was depression and anxiety. I was panicked about projects where I had to speak in front of the class. So I did not go to school. Which made it harder to go the next day. Which made it harder still. The pressure and anxiety snowballed. I felt like I had a mountain of anxiety on my back every day.
So, I dropped out.
This is when I became a Christian. I had just watched my mother transform literally overnight. I had dropped out of high school. I was 17 years old, poor, with no prospects for the future. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. All while I was reading the bible which was presented to me as having answers. And it claimed there was a God who cared. I needed help. Of course, I reached out to God.
Here is the point where my secular readers are jumping up and down at the manipulative nature of religion preying upon the vulnerable at there weakest. This is, of course, true, but not the main point I want to make. I need you to feel how lost I felt: on the cusp of adulthood, with no education and no plans on how to make a living, nor any hope for a meaningful life. Because the rest of the story gets to the point.
I had the odd experience of reading through the bible before I went to church. Which means that upon arrival at church I was constantly wondering, “Where did they get that idea?” I was 18 and the church had no idea what to do with me. So, the youth pastor asked me if I could help out with their youth group. Turns out not everyone in the church has read their bibles, so I was pretty good at preaching and teaching it very early on.
Here is the critical point in the story. One day the youth pastor says to me, “you should go to bible college.” Now, I was a high school drop out, I had gotten my GED and was playing about at community college with no particular plan. But suddenly, the idea of going to college was not out of reach. At least one person believed I could do it.
I wound up going to bible college and graduated Cum Laude. I met my future wife there. I briefly became a youth pastor. On at least a few occasions, I spoke and preached in front of thousands. This was the same kid who dropped out of high school because he was afraid of speaking in front of the class.
You know there is a rest to the story. This entire blog is the rest of the story. There were dark days for my mom. There were problems with bible college. There were certainly problems with ministry. And ultimately, my recognition that none of it was based on reality.
So what is my point?
I wouldn’t be here writing this today. I wouldn’t have my life. I wouldn’t have my career. I wouldn’t be married to the woman I love (I am still not in my wife’s league but I really wasn’t before college). None of these things would exist had I not been given that little bit of hope when I was at my lowest point.
I was dumbo. I was holding the magic feather of religion. And I could fly.
New perspective
One day, I discovered the magic feather was not actually magic. It was the people in my life who had lifted me up. But that does not mean the magic feather was not useful for a time.
Do I think God delivered my mother from drugs and alcohol? No, I do not. But the idea of God gave her hope to not drink that day. And the next. For ten years. Until it didn’t.
Do I think God took an anxious and scared kid and made him a public speaker? No, actually, I think it was the relationships with people in my life. That youth pastor who legitimately cared about me but just happened to be in the church. My grandparents who paid for half of my college. And even my mom who, despite all her flaws, let me know how much she believed in me. People believed in me, supported me and got me through very difficult times and allowed me to succeed.
Placebo Effect
The placebo effect in medicine is a well understood phenomenon. When people are given inactive sugar pills but they believe they are medicine they get better. The mind is a powerful thing and it has influence over the body (to an extent). The point is even though pills made of sugar have zero medicinal value people physically got better when they believed the sugar pills where going to heal them.
The point Neil makes above and the point I am extending here is that religion has a placebo effect. It can be helpful for some people some of the time. My mother’s belief in a deliverer (and not coincidentally one who watches over you and knows all) helped her overcome an addiction. My belief in the “Father to the fatherless” and a God who providentially guided me helped me overcome my anxiety and analysis paralysis and get on with my life.
Why in the world would would I (the Graceful Atheist) make the argument that religion could be helpful? A few reasons. But first let me clarify.
What I am not saying:
I am not saying that the magic feather of religion is actually magic. There are perfectly natural explanations for all of one’s religious experiences. In fact, that is the point, it is a placebo.
I am not saying that one should stay in religion. The point I am trying to make is a humanistic one: one’s own humanity and one’s relationships with other human beings are the magic. Not the religion.
I am not saying that religion is an unqualified good. It is more harmful than helpful because it isn’t true.
What I am saying:
What I am saying is that in some circumstances for some people some of the time religion can be a “crutch” or a talisman that helps a person get through difficulties.
Further, we in the secular community need to keep in mind that taking the magic feather away from someone by force leads to a crash. Placebos stop working when one becomes convinced that the pills are just sugar. But if someone else tries to externally convince, one is more likely to become defensive.
One of the reasons why I am not an anti-theist actively trying to disabuse the faithful of the magic of their feathers, is that this can be more harmful than good. When bubbles burst it can be painful. People self-delude sometimes for good reasons. Maybe they need that at the time. I tend to believe that when a person is ready they will start asking questions of their own volition.
We in the secular community should argue against bad ideas wherever they are found. Sometimes in public. But there is a tendency, particularly online, to see it as one’s mission to destroy religion at all costs. Not only do I think this is wrong, I think it is counter productive.
I have not actively tried to convince my believing family to give up their beliefs. Partly because, I perceive they are not ready. The magic feather is still keeping them in the air. Taking it away by force will just make them crash, not help them thrive as human beings.
We have to have something to give people to replace the magic feather. Something that will give them hope. Something that will carry them through dark times. As things stand today, I think this is the greatest failure of the secular community. Why would I yank the crutch out from underneath someone when I have nothing to offer but pure self-reliance? That just isn’t enough for many many people.
Avoiding the crash
After the deconversion process the single most important thing is finding community. Finding the relationships that keep one afloat. It is a secular community of caring people that needs to replace religious ones.
I consider myself a pathologically independent person. I decided at age 12 no one would be taking care of me but myself. The idea of a God who had my back was deeply attractive. It turned out I was still on my own. I tell you this to point out my greatest character flaw. I find it very difficult to ask for help even when I need it desperately.
A consequence of this is that when I deconverted, I did my thing. I did it alone. I read a pile of books. I got online and studied humanism, science and philosophy. I listened to hours of podcasts. I came to understand I was not alone. I was actually a part of a long line of history of doubters. I learned how to live life gracefully without God.
But here is the thing. Most people aren’t like that. Most people need more. If all we have to offer is “Good luck, you are on your own,” most people will reject that.
We need to do better at creating safe, welcoming and caring communities for the doubting, for the deconstructing and for the deconverting. We need to provide Secular Grace. We need to provide a replacement for the magic feather. It is we human beings who can do that.
What do you now see was a placebo?
I asked a few online secular communities I am a member of what they now thought of as placebo that they once believed was magic.
The overwhelming response reminded me (and you, dear reader) of the privileged position I have as a white(ish) cis-gendered heterosexual man in this society. Not everyone had positive experiences with religion. See the #ChurchToo. Some have experienced nothing positive at all.
I got pithy responses like: “All of it,” “None of it” and “Thoughts and prayers.”
There was a common theme of parents having transformed, angry fathers becoming loving caregivers and drug addicted mothers getting clean and sober.
Prayer was the big one people recognized as a placebo. Prayer feels like you are doing something when things are most out of your control. It is a tough one to get over post-deconversion.
In a mirror image of my argument for caring community, one person pointed out the false sense of community as placebo. They found out that the religious community who said they loved them and would always support them suddenly abandoned them as soon as they rejected the faith.
Also in juxtaposed from my experience of hope, one person talked about false hope. They talked about how devastating it was to feel hopeless when God did not come through for them.
I got strong push back from the spiritual but not religious who argued that the positive effects (“feel-good hormones) are not placebo but a direct result of spirituality.
What do you look back on now as a placebo that felt very real while you were in your faith?
Conclusion
There can be some positive effects from religion. It is OK to look back fondly on them post-deconversion even while you grow out of the need for magic feathers. Forcibly trying to dissuade believers is counter productive. Even if we could convince them we still need to do better at providing a safe and welcoming community for them to replace what they are losing.
Most importantly, you can be the magic part of a secular community that can replace the impotent feathers and pills filled with inactive sugar for the believers in your life.
Although everyone has a unique story, sometimes those stories can have striking similarities. Deconversion stories are no different. Sometimes they sound a lot like “I was born again” testimonies, “I was blind but now I see.” I love reading and especially listening to people’s deconversion stories and learning what was similar and what was different for each person. Deconversion stories are our origin stories.
This post will have two goals. One, to describe the similarities experienced by others who have deconverted and two, how to get the ball rolling if one wanted to proactively start the process. These proactive steps tend to be the causal steps that we took naturally unprompted.
I need to make clear up front, that the title is tongue in cheek. This post is really descriptive rather than prescriptive. Your experience may have been different, even radically so. Stages could be skipped, reordered or take longer or shorter than described. We are complex human beings and it is difficult to encapsulate the variety of human experience. This post is an attempt to describe the similarities during the process of deconversion.
I also hope this will be a living document. If you are reading this and have gone through the deconversion experience, please help me improve it. Please send me feedback. Send me any corrections or additions you might have. If you find it useful, please consider linking to it from you blog or site.
Note: The overwhelming initial feedback has been about the non-linear nature of deconversion. So, I will state this again. Your experience may be different and that is OK. This post is not to suggest this is the “right” way to experience deconversion it is merely an attempt to describe some commonalities.
Terms
First lets get some terms straight, as I see some confusion about the term deconversion. and this will help define the target audience. By deconversion I am referring to a person having had faith in a particular religion, and subsequently ceasing to be religious and rejecting faith of any kind.
It is significant that deconversion applies only to those people who once were religious. This seems obvious, but there are some unique experiences for those of us who were religious and then reject our faith. This is opposed to having been raised secular all of one’s life and becoming more activist in one’s secularism, humanism or atheism. Also opposed to, the probably more common, having been raised culturally of a particular religion but not having been an active participant. There just isn’t much to deconvert from in those cases.
Deconversion is also not just that we rejected our own faith, but all faiths. It is a unique experience to lose one’s faith and find oneself isolated from religious circles. In many cases, this can be the total loss of one’s social support system, as the newly deconverted loses relationships from the old faith and may have no one to replace those relationships.
Lastly, when I use the terms religion and faith, I am referring to the supernatural variety with a world view that presupposes something that transcends nature. I am well aware there are some non-supernatural religions out there. I like the term “graceful life philosophies” from Jennifer Michael Hecht’s book, Doubt, for these. We can debate, for example, whether humanism is a religion in another post. But these are the exception and not the rule.
What Deconversion is not
It might be helpful to contrast deconversion with what it is not.
Deconversion is not conversion. It is somewhat common for people to convert to a religion or from one religion to another religion. In the case of conversion, there is a new faith community that softens the loss of the old faith community. That is not the case with deconversion.
Deconversion is not just deconstruction. Deconstruction is often the process of becoming less fundamentalist in one’s faith. It usually entails the rejection of scriptures being inerrant or authoritative. Often, one’s theology is liberalized to accommodate the modern world. The key difference here is that typically (not always) the person is still a person of faith. This faith may be sophisticated and nuanced but it is faith none the less. It is very possible for deconstruction to be a step on the way to deconversion.
Before the process begins one is secure in one’s faith. The answers provided by the faith community and the sacred text(s) provide comfort and feelTrue. Sure, there may be a nagging question or two but that is for the theologians to debate up in their white towers.
At this point, cognitive dissonance is at a minimum, the avoidance or minimization of the problems are in full effect, and confirmation bias is at its maximum. There may be some questions best left unasked. Flat out denial is not out of the question.
Life comes at you fast. At this point, something, anything, can happen that makes you take a second look at some of your assumptions. Some deeply held belief might be invalidated. Something doesn’t quite feel right. The pat answers now sound pat. There has been a blip in the matrix.
For some the deep need for truth that led them to religion is the exact need that leads to doubt. It is not a coincidence that many who attain higher educational levels deconvert. Those with Masters in Divinity and PhDs in religion often go on to deconvert after learning just how the sausage gets made. In their quest for truth it is discovered that truth may lie somewhere outside of religion.
For some the precipitating events can be tragic: the loss of a loved one, hurt caused by the church or say half the country electing a demagogue in the name of god. For others it is the slow relentless grinding creep of doubt. But something causes you to start re-evaluating your beliefs.
This stage can be characterized by “calling out to god.” You might even feel guilty or to blame for these initial doubts even if they have arisen due to external circumstances.
“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
–Mark 9:24
There may be an impetus to “double down.” You might redouble your efforts to pray more, read your scriptures more, rededicate yourself to god or pursue ministry with more dedication.
At this stage cognitive dissonance is starting to rise. Confirmation biases are just starting to show cracks. Precipitating events may cause brief periods of doubt but your faith tends to win out in the end and push the doubts away.
Proactive Steps
Read your sacred text(s). All of it. Even the boring parts. Read it without making excuses for what it literally states. Rather than wearing your rose colored glasses try reading it as an outsider.
Ask yourself the hard questions. Why is there suffering in the world? If god intervenes in the world, what does god’s silence mean?
Talk to a non-believer. Ask them to tell you honestly what they think about your beliefs and why.
At the critical mass stage, things are starting to pile up. Multiple precipitating events are happening at the same time. The doubts and questions are taking up a lot of mental energy to keep contained. Cognitive dissonance is becoming problematic. You find it difficult to keep the plates of faith spinning. Critical mass is death by 1000 paper cuts.
Believers call this “the dark night of the soul.” It is a time of serious doubt that threatens your faith. Believers assume this is a temporary stage. However, what if your doubts have validity?
The silence of god during this period can be deafening. Divine hiddenness begins to look strikingly similar to non-existence. The call out to god is increasingly desperate.
God, DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!.
During this stage it is common to feel like you are doing something wrong. It can feel like you are not seeking god enough or not in the right way. The initial feelings of guilt from precipitating events can mount.
It is easier to blame yourself than to acknowledge the possibility that god is not real. A common response is the dreaded, “I must not be in god’s will,” as if “god’s will” were discernible. This will be particularly painful in religious traditions where many community members often claim to “know god’s will.”
As in the previous stage, there may be a renewed effort to “work harder,” but ultimately this is a delaying tactic. This is the beginning of the end. Cognitive dissonance is peaking. Confirmation bias is starting to fail. Doubt is a constant companion.
Proactive Steps
Make a list of all the things that are causing you to doubt.
Think about each item on the list and decide if it has validity.
Stop trying to keep the plates spinning and see what happens.
Answer the question, “What if it is not your fault?”
Up to this point the stages have been about things that happen to you not necessarily by choice. The permission to doubt stage is a proactive one. Consciously or subconsciously you give yourself permission to doubt. I particularly like the description of this stage from the ex-christian.net forum: Curiosity Killed The Cat.
The permission to doubt stage is a conscious acknowledgement that doubt is not your fault. It is the attempt at letting go of pent up guilt. It is the recognition that doubt cannot be denied or contained forever. Doubt must be addressed directly on its merits.
One description of deconversion is the gradual, even subconscious, raising of one’s standards of evidence until the weak, circumstantial, and special pleading nature of the faith tradition’s explanations becomes obvious.
At which point it all comes crashing down.
In “Letting Go of God”, Julia Sweeney describes this stage as putting on the “Not believing in God glasses.” What does the world look like if you do not assume god’s existence?
Depending on where you are at in this phase you may still identify as a believer. That is OK. But you are taking a more proactive examination of your faith. Or you may feel at this point things are going downhill fast and the outcome is a forgone conclusion. Either way you are taking active steps to learn and explore.
Doubt* is your subconsciousness telling you the truth.
*Religious doubt. I don’t think this is true for all non-religious cases. See for example the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Cognitive dissonance is either peaking at this point or already on the decline as you come to grips with the answers you discover. You may begin to recognize how confirmation bias has been fooling you.
Proactive Steps
Reverse the old believer’s advice to doubt your doubts and trust your doubts instead.
Can you find objective (non-subjective) reasons for your faith?
Can you find evidence that would convince a skeptic or yourself that god is real?
Let your curiosity guide you. Investigate the things you have been afraid or unwilling to explore. Read atheist books and blogs. Explore science that contradicts your faith like evolution and cosmology. What else has been off limits? Go check it out.
Deconstruction is the stage of the sophisticated believer and the liberal theologian. It is a rejection of puerile fundamentalism. At this stage you may actively start to reject elements of religious dogma without throwing the baby out with the bath water. It may be time to retire doctrines that no longer work in the modern world like inerrancy of scriptures, creationism or ancient social morality.
This stage is an embracing of science, education and modern ethics. It acknowledges the complicated world out there and the failure of fundamentalism to address that world. This stage can be a focus on the social gospel. People have become more important than religious dogma.
Often this stage is focused on reinterpreting the sacred texts. Escaping the tyranny of literal interpretation and exploring the metaphorical meaning to be found there. What are the supra-cultural truths these scriptures are pointing at?
Deconstruction may mean the complete redefinition of “god.” It may mean the move away from a theistic understanding of god to deism, pantheism or panpsychism. Rather than seeing god as a bearded angry man in the sky, she might be “the ground of all being,” or as in one famous example, the forces of nature themselves.
If the previous stage was permission to doubt, this stage takes doubt deadly seriously and is as far as one can go and still consider oneself a believer. This stage acknowledges that faith is an entirely subjective endeavor. It is possible to remain at this stage indefinitely at varying levels of faith and doubt.
In this stage and the next few I’ll use the analogy of a mathematical limit. As you approach the limit of unbelief, you probably still consider yourself a believer. Even while you are discarding elements of your faith, some kernel of faith remains when you are on this side of the limit. For the deconstructing believer the approach to that limit can be near infinite or take no time at all.
Proactive Steps
Take an inventory of your religious doctrines and determine which are literally true, which are figuratively true and which are completely false.
Answer the question for yourself, “who or what is god?”
Answer the question, “what parts of my religious beliefs apply to helping those less fortunate than myself?”
Ryan Bell describes the liminal stage as that between faith and unbelief. I have added this pseudo stage to acknowledged that faith is not always binary. There can legitimately be a time of in between.
Continuing with the mathematical limit analogy, this is the infinitesimal approach to the limit of unbelief. For those less mathematically inclined a better analogy is jumping off a diving board into a pool of water. The moment you lose contact with the diving board until you have hit the water is the liminal stage. Faith is gone at the loss of contact, but you are not wet (an unbeliever) yet until you hit the water.
Contrary to the analogies, some may waver back and forth in this in between state.
It may take years, months, days or just moments to come to the realization that you no longer believe. You may have been in denial for some time or it may hit you like lightning. At some point you are honest with yourself and admit to yourself you no longer believe.
The mathematical limit of unbelief has been crossed. Belief is not a choice. You are either convinced of the truth of a faith claim or not. At this stage, you are no longer convinced of the truth of god. You are a non-believer.
You may continue to go through the religious motions for some time after you have acknowledged your lack of faith either out of habit or necessity. Not a problem. You may find yourself starting to pray only to be jolted back to reality. Old habits die hard.
At this point you may be unable, unwilling or incapable of telling another human being. That is OK. You do not owe anyone anything.
Your safety is the highest priority. If you live in a culture where it is dangerous to be an non-believer, it is not your job to fix this by outing yourself and putting your safety in jeopardy. If you are young and living with parents who might possibly remove you from the home, you are not required to tell them. Keep it to yourself.
But you do owe it to yourself to be rigorously honest with yourself and no longer pretend internally. Recognize how confirmation bias has worked against you in the past. Notice that cognitive dissonance has flat lined after admitting this to yourself.
Ironically, the experience is not unlike being born again. The scales fall off the eyes so to speak. For me personally, I had a literal “Oh, shit” moment of realization.
Proactive Steps
Start enjoying your mental freedom and the peace of letting cognitive dissonance go.
Actively read other deconversion stories to recognize you are not alone in this process.
Begin making a plan. Can you tell anyone? Who are you going to tell first?
Deconversion is an emotional experience. It has been described by Brian Peck of the Healthy Deconversion Project as very similar to the grieving process of losing a loved one. You might experience any number of emotions as you grieve the loss of your god, your faith and your religious community. That is a lot of loss and can lead to a wide range of emotions. The point is there is no “right” way to feel and no emotion that is “wrong.” Give yourself permission to feel and take as much time as you need. This is a chaotic time. Give yourself some secular grace as you navigate new terrain.
Anger, depression, guilt and even bargaining with a non-existent god are all normal. What order and how long you experience these or any other emotions is an unknown. There is no need to rush and definitely no need to beat yourself up when it feels like you are starting all over again.
The above are all fairly well known emotions during loss of any kind. I want to highlight a few emotions that are specific to the deconversion process.
The first is the loss of the sense of control. As a believer, there was always something you could do when in need. You could pray. Regardless of distance or your own ability, you could respond to difficulty by calling out to your all powerful god. The first time a tragedy strikes during or after your deconversion, whether it is out in the world or close to home, the overwhelming feeling will be of powerlessness. In the short term, this is painful. In the long term, this is healthy. Learning what you can and cannot control is a part of facing the world as it is not as you wish it to be.
The second is the shame at your previous gullibility. (Maybe this is just me.) As you learn about science, philosophy and ethics, your previously held reasons for believing may become increasing distant. How could I have believed these things? How could I have been fooled by these poor arguments? Remember, that when you are in the bubble, everything seems to make sense. It is only now, outside the bubble, that you see clearly the logical mistakes.
Finally, the feeling of loneliness can be overwhelming. You may not be able to discuss your deconversion with your family or friends. Your social support structure may be off limits on this topic. If you do not happen to live in a larger city, there may be few opportunities for secular community. The main thing to remember is that you are not alone. I’ll say this again in all caps:
YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
Many have gone through this process before you. You do not have to go through it by yourself.
Proactive Steps
Reach out. If you have a non-believing friend. Run to them! If not, there are plenty of resources online as well as a large community of non-believers. Engage, ask questions and don’t hesitate to ask for help.
“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”
You are a baby not-a-believer. Soak up knowledge like a sponge. All of the things that were off limits, considered “liberal” or “worldly” are now on the table for investigation.
This includes reexamining your religious texts and apologists. I re-read many apologists just to make sure I had not missed something. I had not. How were they convincing before? Are they now? I occasionally crack open the bible to re-read one passage or another to see it with new eyes. What does your religion’s sacred text sound like to your non-believing ears?
Discovering secular thinkers is a valuable process. It reminds you that you are not alone in your deconversion. It may also teach you ways of thinking and explanations for your new found lack of faith. You are not obligated to believe anything. What freedom! You decide for yourself what you believe and why.
You may still be in the closet at this stage. That is OK. Take your time and learn.
Proactive Steps
Learn some science. The scientific method and falsifiability are great tools for seeking truth.
Read. If you are a reader this is the time to go nuts. Read atheists. Read apologists for your religion. Read scientists, philosophers and ethical thinkers.
It may take a while but eventually you will probably tell someone about your deconversion. Admitting your lack of faith to another human being is immensely cathartic.
I’ll re-iterate here that safety is priority number one. There is no shame in staying in the closet indefinitely if your safety is an issue. But if you can safely do so, telling another person will be a beneficial step.
Consider carefully who you tell and how you tell them. You are not obligated to publicly post on Facebook for all the world to read. Even in places where non-belief is not a safety concern there may be employment, school or community implications. You also don’t owe an explanation to your third grade teacher or your second cousin once removed. Think carefully and take time during this process. Start with people you trust and tell only the people who need to know.
Oddly, sometimes the easiest first step is to talk to a stranger. Maybe someone you meet online who is not vested in your faith one way or the other.
When telling family members and close friends remember as Brian Peck has said, “They are at step zero.” Your deconversion process could have been years in the making. You have done the doubting, the questioning, the searching, the grieving and the information gathering. Your family member has not. They are starting from ground zero and this is going to hit them like a ton of bricks. They are likely to react defensively. Tread lightly.
Except in the case of abusive relationships you probably want to maintain the relationship. You may need to be the bigger more humble person in this process. This can be challenging on a number of fronts. You may still be angry. Your newly acquired knowledge mixed with a new disrespect or hostility for faith can be an intoxicating combination that may lead you to say things you might regret. Plan out what you want to say and expect push back and defensiveness from your loved one. Try to give them the secular grace you needed during your deconversion process.
It is a process. Particularly in the case of a spouse, this is unlikely to be a single conversation but rather a lengthy back and forth. Be patient and encourage your loved one to ask you questions. Try to remember how convinced you were when you were a believer and remember that is where they are at now.
Keep in mind it is not your job to convince them to abandon their faith. Your goal is to keep the relationship. There will be some natural tension. Remember that to the believer casting doubt on their beliefs is perceived as a direct attack on them and their identity. Love is hard.
Someday you might find that you do want the world to know. If it is safe to do so and you have considered the implications, knock yourself out, make that public Facebook post. If it is the right time write the email bcc to all. Tell the world. The more people who are “out” the easier it is for others to do the same.
Proactive Steps
Read other “coming out” stories. This includes the wisdom of the LGBTQ community.
Read “letter to my family” posts. Many deconverted have taken the time to write down their thoughts on what they want their family to know about their new lack of belief.
Write your own letter. This will allow you to plan out the things you want to say.
Be gentle. Try to show the kind of patient loving kindness you would want if the roles were reversed.
This is the big question. Ceasing to believe is really only the beginning not an end to itself. Just because you no longer believe in a god does not mean you do not need human connection and belonging. Your religion likely provided more than just doctrine and dogma it also provided community. One of your first tasks should be to find a secular community that meets the very human need to be a part of a group.
Religion does not own awe, wonder, gratitude or morality. You are the same person you were before deconversion. Likely your morality has remained mostly unchanged, other than having more freedom and less guilt. This is your chance to seek out and express where you find meaning. Ask yourself and try to answer:
What is my source of morality?
Where do I find meaning?
How can I experience awe?
How can I give back?
For me, secular humanism provides an answer to several of the above questions. You may or may not find humanism useful. That is not a problem. You get to discover and answer these questions for yourself.
Proactive Steps
Try the Belief-O-Matic online quiz. This will give you a quick feel for how your current beliefs line up with other organized religious, ethical and philosophical groups.
Study morality and ethics. There is a rich history of non-religious philosophy on ethics. Many times this has been off limits and is new information after deconversion.
Participate online. Twitter and Facebook are full of secular groups. This is an easy way to dip your toe in and see if a group is right for you. Try starting your own blog and documenting your deconversion process.
Give back. Find a way to give back to the world. Without a religious framework this one can easily slip through the cracks. Ethical societies are a good way to keep motivated to give back to the community. This is as much for you as it is for those served.
Conclusion
It goes without saying, that your experience may be different than what is described above. Great! You are a unique human being that is to be expected. Maybe things are out of order or you skipped multiple steps. Maybe you stayed in one stage for a long time. There is no right way to deconvert. We are all learning as we go. The purpose of this document is solely to provide some comfort in knowing that others have gone through this before you.
As I stated at the top, I would like this to be a living document. So, if I got something wrong or an important step is missing, please let me know and I’ll update this post. Your experience is valuable and might help others so don’t hesitate to send me update requests. If you think others will find it helpful, please consider linking to it from you blog or site.
Finally, I am interested in your deconversion story. If you need a random stranger to tell, I am here. If you need to write out your story, send it my way. And, if you are interested and willing, let me know and I will post your deconversion story to the blog.
To hear the deconversion stories of others checkout the podcast and Deconversion Anonymous episodes. In these episodes, people like you who have gone through a faith transition can tell their stories anonymously or for all to see. It is your choice. If you would like to tell your faith transition story anonymously or otherwise get in touch with me at gracefulatheist@gmail.com or @GracefulAtheist on Twitter.
One of the things I love most about books is that while reading you uncover the author’s thinking and sometimes you find that it matches your own. And as is often the case for me, the author is able to articulate that thinking in a much more precise and engaging way. Katherine Ozment’s Grace Without God: The Search For Meaning, Purpose, And Belonging In A Secular Age is just such a book. While reading it the experience was like recognizing a new friend who has thought through the same problems and come to very similar conclusions.
This is a great segue into describing the book. Grace Without God is about the human need for belonging. Just because we do not have a faith in a god does not mean we do not need to connect and belong with other human beings. Ozment describes her “spiritual”* journey from a nominal Christian upbringing; to leaving religion and faith behind; to an honest and heartfelt search for how secular people find meaning and connection. The subtitle describes it succinctly: The Search For Meaning, Purpose, And Belonging In A Secular Age.
Just because you have walked away from religion, does not mean you no longer need human connection and belonging.#Deconversion
The book is the result of her quest to answer her son’s simple question, “What are we?” At the time he was watching a Greek Orthodox Good Friday procession out the window.
“What are they doing?” my son asked. “It’s a ritual,” I said, thinking it must be their Good Friday. “Why don’t we do that?” he asked. “Because we’re not Greek Orthodox,” I said. “Then what are we?”
What an insightful, deep and difficult question. Her initial response: “Nothing.” The book traces her rigorous and heartfelt search for a better answer.
Voice of the Nones
With Grace Without God Ozment has tapped into something vital for our moment in history. She is expressing the voice of the Nones. As Pew research has pointed out the Nones are the fastest growing “religious” group in the United States. People are choosing not to affiliate with religious institutions for a variety of reasons. The Nones include a wide spectrum from “spiritual but not religious” to dyed in the wool atheists.
I too sense this is a vast group of people who are essentially “spritually”* homeless but who are honestly seeking meaning, purpose and belonging. Grace Without God is a response from one of our own describing a path forward.
Absolutely, I think you have tapped into something vital for our moment in history. You are expressing the voice of the Nones.
One surprise for me while reading the book, was how much I related to Ozment’s description of her nominal Christian upbringing. Although unlike Ozment, I went on to become an Evangelical for far too long before deconverting, I grew up in a nominal Christian environment. I remember the curiosity I felt hearing others describe some nebulous faith in God. A la Douglas Adams I would ask “who is this God character anyway?” and never got a sufficiently satisfying response. This too may be an expression of the Nones’ curiosity and need to answer the big questions.
Skeptical Chops
In the atheist community there is a natural distrust of anything that sounds too spiritual even up to and including humanism. So I suspect Grace Without God is not the first book on the atheist’s reading list. This is a shame as I think the book has much to offer those of us who identify as atheists. This post an argument for atheists to read the book.
I recently described to Steve Hilliker on the Voices Of Deconversion podcast the resistance I experience from my moniker Graceful Atheist. I chose the moniker because it reminds me that people matter. It is very easy to slip into believer bashing as an atheist pastime. I am also interested in “redeeming” the word grace from a its religious context. But the atheist part of the moniker is just as important. I don’t believe in god(s) and it is import to me to be open about this. Similarly, don’t miss the “Without God” bit by being distracted by the “Grace” bit. Ozment uses it in the truly secular sense.
I am a natural skeptic. I can’t help it. Even when I was a Christian I felt I was an internal critic. So when I read Grace Without God, even though I tended to agree with Ozment from the start, I did not leave my skeptic’s hat on the sidelines.
What struck me most about Grace Without God is how well researched it is. The book is full of interviews with professors, researchers and community leaders. The book can fairly be described as a research project but much more engaging. This is not a book of platitudes by some self described spiritual guru, but rather a skeptics attempt to ask the hard questions and grapple with the lack of answers. Ozment has skeptical chops.
Ozment is not prescribing anything. She certainly doesn’t come off as preachy. In fact, she poses more questions than she answers. In the book, Ozment is descriptive, giving account of how others in the secular community have attempted to solve the need for meaning and purpose.
A non-exhaustive list of topics she tackles:
Being good without God.
The failure of some secular communities to survive for the long haul and not having the same binding effects as traditional religion.
The need for ritual. (Yes, really, read the book)
Dealing with death from a secular perspective.
The new hotness, philosophical Buddhism. (This is the one I was most nervous about, but true to form it is descriptive not prescriptive)
Heart, Humanism and Secular Grace
Ultimately, I think Ozment would identify herself as a humanist. She describes taking the Beleif-O-Matic online quiz and getting 100% humanist. I also consider myself a humanist, which is probably why I identify so much with the book. After acknowledging lack of belief, humanism is an attempt to answer, “now what?” It is about “being for something” not just “against something.”
In my Why I Am A Humanist post I point out how difficult it is to avoid cloying platitudes when attempting to describe Humanism. Happily Grace Without God (dare I say) gracefully avoids this. Ozment acknowledges the real struggles to build secular community. The elements that bind religious communities together can sometimes be missing in secular communities. But secular communities are needed just the same.
Ozment visits Sunday Assemblies and humanist student groups. She visits secular parent groups and death cafes. She is reporting on the myriad ways secular people are attempting to recapture secular grace. But rather than coming across as dry or distant Ozment’s writing is full of heart and pops off the page. One cannot help but relate to her honest questioning and searching. She is telling my story … our story.
I appreciated, as well, that she expresses a lack of satisfaction in the answers. It is not that this or that solution is the right way or only way but rather that they are all pointing at something significant. And the continued search for that significance is the point.
I have written about Secular Grace and my attempts to use the term to describe the human need for connection. Ozment takes it one step further and tries to capture something deeper and for a lack of a better term “spiritual.”*
Ozment poses a provocative question:
I had felt a bit of what I thought of as grace—an abundance of gratitude for something freely given—that day gazing at my tulip and, later, at my family from across the street. But it wasn’t related to God. It was a wholly secular experience. What was it I was feeling? Could I train myself to recognize and prepare for such moments of secular grace—not to just wait for them to wash over me, but to create them myself?
Is it possible that rather than just passively waiting for moments of grace, we can actively seek grace out?
Conclusion
This is the type of book that I wish I were capable of writing. And to be clear, I am not. I recognize it as a is a bit of grace to come across a book and an author that articulates my thinking better than I can. My biggest problem with the book was not trying to highlight the whole thing. The hardest part of reviewing it is not plastering quote after quote.
The book is worth its price just for the epilogue, “A Letter To My Children.” In which Ozment describes her own 10 “commandments” of how to live life and seek out meaning.
Grace Without God is well worth a read.
* I am using the word spiritual here for lack of a better term. I don’t think I am alone in struggling with terminology in the secular community. I mean the term in the naturalistic sense of human beings need for meaning, purpose and belonging. No supernatural implications are intended, thus the scare quotes.
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