Arline interviews this week’s guest, Andrew. Andrew is a self-named atheist “paleo-nerd.” He grew up home-schooled in a fundamentalist church in southern California. His whole schooling was religious and that included Young Earth Creationism.
In high school, Andrew struggled with his shy nature and some depressive episodes. The church didn’t seem to have room for people like him. As a young adult, finally making his own decisions and living a life without fundamentalism everywhere, Andrew saw how much he could accomplish on his own. He had had the resources inside him but hadn’t known it.
Now, as an atheist, he’s figuring out what life looks like for himself. It includes a wife and kids, online friends, lots of dinosaurs, and a happiness that isn’t perfect or perpetual but is enough.
Links
Dino Dad Reviews
https://dinodadreviews.com/
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/dinodadreviews/
Recommendations
Paulogia on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@Paulogia
Strong non-religious community
Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion
Interact
Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group!
Graceful Atheist Podcast Merch!
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Support the podcast
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Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/
Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/
Attribution
“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats
Transcript
NOTE: This transcript is AI produced (otter.ai) and likely has many mistakes. It is provided as rough guide to the audio conversation.
David Ames 0:11
This is the graceful atheist podcast United studios Podcast Network. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on the Apple podcast store, rate the podcast on Spotify, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening. We have a merch store on T public you can get all of your graceful atheist and secular Grace themed items there The link will be in the show notes. If you're in the middle of doubt, deconstruction the dark night of the soul, you do not have to do it alone. Join our private Facebook group deconversion anonymous and become a part of the community. You can find us at facebook.com/groups/deconversion. Special thanks to Mike T for editing today's show. On today's show, Arline interviews our guest, Andrew Andrew describes himself as an atheist paleo nerd that comes out in his website dyno dad reviews and you can also find him all across social media under the moniker dyno dad reviews. Andrew grew up in a fundamentalist environment that held to young earth creationism, which is very difficult if you're a bright young person with an interest in paleontology. As an introvert, it was difficult with the expectations for evangelism and various other things. And now he reviews books about paleontology for children and adults. And you can again find him at dyno dad reviews. Here is our lien interviewing Andrew.
Arline 2:03
Hey, Andrew, welcome to the graceful atheist podcast.
Andrew 2:06
Hey, good to be here.
Arline 2:07
So you and I connected shortly after the deconversion anonymous Facebook group started. And I count you among my friends. So I'm really excited because I, I talk to you on the regular and now I get to hear your full story.
Andrew 2:21
Yeah, I'm excited for this as well, for the same reasons. Great chatting with you and everybody else. Yes,
Arline 2:30
I have built some really good friendships in the group and getting to meet some people in real life. Just a few, but it's been really nice. So we usually begin, tell us about the religious environment that you grew up in. Okay,
Andrew 2:42
well, I grew up in pretty strong religious background. I feel like I kind of have to pull all these different threads together a little bit because they're very much is this kind of family tradition. On my dad's side, my grandpa was one of the founding members of the church I grew up in. And on my mom's side, we have this big extended family that's still relatively close, despite its size, and lots of them are missionaries and things like that. And we always took everything fairly seriously. Yeah, I grew up going to Sunday school every Sunday. And we often did the whole Wednesday night thing as well. I would say he, we grew up in Southern California. So there's, there's only so conservative you can go there. I feel like but for Southern California, it was pretty fundamentalists conservative, and all that.
Arline 3:57
What kind of church was it? Like what denomination is a
Andrew 4:01
independent nondenominational church? But all of those tend to be vaguely Baptist in their beliefs. So that's
Arline 4:12
true. I found in the few places we've lived. There'll be the big, mega church looking church in town. But they're, they're Baptist. They just don't have it in their name. They're part of the SBC usually. Yeah.
Andrew 4:28
And actually, our church did technically fall into the megachurch category. We had maybe about 1000 members and the worship center had space for even more, but I think they got a little overly optimistic when they built it because it was never super full. But they had very robust Kids program. I still have fond memories of growing up and that most of my friends were actually through church group and stuff like that, because I was actually homeschooled growing up Okay, education, I think is another aspect of my religious background too. I mean, I'm sure there were academic reasons, like, you know, purely academic reasons. As far as like general test scores and things like that, that my parents decided to homeschool me, but we were also a little bit of the be apart from the world sort of mentality. Yeah. Not even an extreme way, because we would still watch movies if there wasn't too much swearing and stuff like that. But there was definitely that suspicion of secular education and stuff like that.
Arline 5:45
So I imagine you're like your curricula. That was all Christian.
Andrew 5:53
And each of my siblings tried out homeschooling for a year, but then they all ended up going to the private school that my church actually ran. instead. I'm the oldest in the family. And then my,
Arline 6:09
I was gonna ask where you have in the lineup? Yeah.
Andrew 6:13
My second brother, I think my parents decided that a more traditional environment would just genuinely be best for him. But by the time my second two siblings were getting into schoolwork, I think it may have been more just, my parents didn't necessarily feel like doing that at that point. And so they got to the same school as well. But by then I was relatively self sufficient. And my mom could just put me in front of an assignment sheet, and I'd power through it and get it done, usually by noon, and then I would just hang out and read or watch TV or things like that. Even though all my siblings started traditional school around. First or second grade. I was homeschooled K through eight. Okay. So just kind of in my own little bubble there.
Arline 7:09
Yeah. Now where you're part of coops to sports teams, any kind of math club, any kind of thing? Yeah,
Andrew 7:17
my mom always had me on the swim team. And we did we got our homeschooling curriculum through this sort of co op thing. They didn't really do classes, except for like, specialist, rare, like special art events where you could come and do stuff like that. They would do the organized, standardized testing, and report our grades to the government and do all the paperwork stuff so that we wouldn't have to. And they also organized field trips and stuff like that. So okay, I knew a few kids through that, but it wasn't any sort of, you know, regular interaction. So all my friends were through my youth group, basically, at least in my early childhood anyway.
Arline 8:23
So then high school youth group, college youth group or not youth group, I guess, young adult. Are you still involved there?
Andrew 8:30
Yeah. High school was quite a shift. But
Arline 8:35
oh, because you went K through eighth. And then where you just,
Andrew 8:39
you just school jumped into public school? Not even not even like a private Christian with anything. So Wow. I was definitely nervous.
Arline 8:46
I bet how, yeah, how was that
Andrew 8:49
adjusted better than I would have expected? And I think a big part of it was finding one of my friends from youth group there. Oh, good. Okay. Yeah. Name was Tyler. And I just kind of latched on to him for dear life. Yeah, he was kind of my lifeline to getting plugged in there. And most of my high school friends were, I met through him because I was still very involved in youth group at church and started doing the various summer camps and even a couple mission trips, although I was never super into that. I felt like I should be doing things like that. And there was this sense that the best Christians would become missionaries, you know, but I could never get myself to get in other people's faces. Not just to the witnessing part too, but uh, For a lot of these trips they wanted you to, like get friends and family to pay for. Yes, whatever, whatever expenses you incurred, whether it was just like weekend lodgings or for some of the bigger ones travel expenses. I say travel expenses, but it was like, you know, driving the church van, a few states over or something like that usually. But you know, I couldn't even handle that part really. I was just like, why am I bothering these people for this?
Arline 10:36
Yes, I hated that part of things. Because my family we were mostly a nominal Christians. And so they didn't care if the church was doing a mission trip, and they didn't want to give money to something they didn't care about. And it's just awkward to like, be a kid and have to ask a bunch of grown ups from like, it's Yeah, yeah, that's a weird experience right there. Yeah,
Andrew 10:59
although, in my family, we were always very supportive of missionaries, obviously, because I've first second third cousins who are in the field even now. So there was this strong family identity that was kind of tied to all that. Oh, wow. So interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So my hesitance was also very much a point of shame for me too. Because it that was that was more just kind of my personality getting in the way or so I thought, you know, and I've always kind of been shy and hesitant to do anything that makes me feel like I'm forcing myself upon other people. You know,
Arline 11:49
I can understand that and the church doesn't. Maybe today it's different. I don't know. But when we were young, like the church values the very outgoing the very go get them the in people's face. And those of us who are like could you just go we just have like a one on one conversation that we've already planned and everyone is on board and everyone's consented. Yeah, I don't understand. Yeah,
Andrew 12:13
that disconnect between my personality and the at least the perceived expectations of the church shins everything that goes with it was kind of a major source of well, it was always it was always emotionally uncomfortable for most of my life, but it got pretty unhealthy as time went on, especially in high school and college. You know, I'm very much aware that I'm, you know, just a very middle class white boy and I don't have the biggest problems in the world. But you know, the church does kind of build up these expectations that you be not like important but you're gonna go on and do great things for God and yes, and for me, like not only am I not living up to that, but it feels like it's it's not just happenstance that I'm not living up to it but like my personality isn't like a good match for that and so I began pathologizing parts of myself that were just normal and then you know, once you throw purity culture into that as well then that becomes a whole thing. I was in high school like around when all that was kind of at its peak. And so you know, again, as a male I didn't definitely didn't get it as bad as maybe the girls did. But you know, the don't look at porn don't masturbate message was very thoroughly hammered down. Like in high school. We were like reading these little self help books about, you know, avoiding lust and temptation and all that. Yeah, I very much absorbed that messaging. And all this kind of came to a head and college which started off pretty well. You know, I was excited and whatnot in my freshman year.
The expect statement of being in a new place and feeling like things are moving forward sustainably for a little while, but as time went on the negative groundwork that had already been laid started Just raring up again. And I went to the campus therapy, I went to the campus therapist at one point. And after talking for several weeks with them, I more or less got the diagnosis that I was suffering from depression, and that I had actually had those tendencies for most of my life most likely had
Arline 15:38
your family had any. My dad was never a Christian. So he had the vocabulary, like the psychology, vocabulary of depression or anxiety, things like that. But I became a Christian as an adult, and we'd never had that vocabulary. Did your family have any of that vocabulary as far as
Andrew 15:57
a little bit? Cuz there's seems to be this general acknowledgement, that it's kind of a family illness on my mom's side, okay. At least a few of the people in that group that I've talked to, it seems to have been something that My great grandpa dealt with, and as well as my grandma, okay. And I actually had an aunt who ended her own life in college due to depression at one point. And that was before I was born even. So, there's this general awareness of it. But it's not really talked about much. So I didn't, yeah, I never really got much education on it, I guess you could say.
Arline 17:02
So like, what did you do with that information? When you found out, it was possibly a depression?
Andrew 17:06
Well, I briefly tried medication. But I did not establish a proper, like, support network or anything. And so when I was frustrated that it didn't seem to be working, I just kind of quit. And I think it I don't even tried it for like a week or something at that point. So if I had had the proper, you know, ongoing evaluation, then? I don't know. Maybe I would have maybe I should have stayed on that. But, you know, yeah, there wasn't really any ongoing discussion that I was having about it. And so I mostly just kind of fell back on the general Christianese as my way of coping with it, just like, oh, just trust God harder, and pray more, and maybe he'll take it away. And you know, even even seeing it as like a selfish disease. You know, like, Oh, you're so focused on yourself. Like, why don't you just think about God more? Yeah. So that kind of spiraled. And by the end of junior year, and all throughout my senior year of high school, I was in a very deep depression. And I was trying to rely more and more on God to fix it. But just to no avail. You know, I literally every Sunday ended with me. hiding in the back of the worship center, crying in the corner, just in tears, praying for anything really, like sometimes I would be praying to make the depression go away. Sometimes I would be praying just, you know. Oh, I'm just a terrible selfish person anyway, so just hollow me out and make me a puppet. And just, yeah, at least make me worth something, you know. Yeah, that was a major blow to me. It kind of I felt like it kind of derailed everything. But then kind of also forced me to confront the fact that I wasn't necessarily going much of anywhere in the first place. Cuz I feel like I'd sort of been doing this Christian sleepwalk. For Maya have teenage and young adult life where I was just like, well, I'm trying to follow God and the chips will fall where they made the it'll just work out, you know, I'm sure he has a plan or something. Okay. And so I began to realize I didn't really do the work that I should have to figure out where I went to college, or what I wanted to do with my life. Because, you know, that suspicion my family had for secular education kind of, I absorbed that, and I never took any secular college as a serious option. And so really only ever, seriously considered about five Christian schools and only even applied to two of them. The one that I did, which was Baylor University, I honestly selected that one because they had found a woolly mammoth skeleton on campus while building one of the dorms. But in fact, they had, yeah, that they had a program that was closest to my interests, which was also involved in excavating that mammoth, because Biola happens to be one of the two Christian colleges that has very, a very robust anthropology program, which includes archaeology. I had always been interested in paleontology. And if you had asked me, as I was going into college, that's what I wanted to do, really. But, you know, I didn't want to go to one of those secular schools, yes, where they actually offered that car. So I figured, archeology, especially if they were practicing their field methods on the mammoth skeleton was the next best thing. So I did that. And I thought, you know, maybe if I get myself a solid Christian base, I'll be a strong enough Christian that I can go to a secular school later. But again, I just kind of got swept up by that sense of, Well, I didn't even have much of a sense of purpose, but I figured there must be purpose somewhere that was going to work itself out. So I didn't really think about where I was going too hard. But anyway, you know, as I was in the depths of my depression, and I did at least still continue going to the campus therapist, off and on. And, you know, at one point, I kind of realized the situation I had gotten myself into, and, you know, my grades were suffering and everything. And so, I don't know, the basically Long story short, I feel like I kind of only technically graduated, as I put it sometimes because I have a degree and everything. But it's not really in something that I actually had that much interest in doing. And I struggled so much the last couple of years, when, you know, all the serious classes were being taught that I feel like I didn't even necessarily get the full benefit of the degree that I do have. So, you know, now here I am graduated with not really much to show for it. And so I kind of spent the next year now feeling kind of emotionally postapocalyptic, you know, just kind of sitting around and not getting much done. You know, oftentimes, I think my friends would call me wanting to hang out and they would just let it go to voicemail and it just kind of became a little bit of a recluse for a bit. I did actually somehow meet and fall in love with and mutually attract my wife to be at this point as well. Not entirely sure what she saw me through all this but we met in college and started dating and eventually I did get just kind of a basic nine to five sort of job. So I was starting to save up money along with her and we got married about a year after that, or no year after she graduated because I was on a four year check and she was on a five year track.
So it was at this point that I was starting to realize that my religious assumptions weren't getting me much of anywhere. And that it was, in fact, while sometimes secular solutions and sometimes just, you know, letting go and not having anything to do with it in general, that was the real solution not
Arline 25:31
having anything to do with, like, Christianity in general or Yeah. Cuz,
Andrew 25:36
you know, well, the job that I got wasn't anything to do with my degree, working did to give me some sense of, at least I'm competent enough to hold down a job. And, obviously, getting married to my wife was a big emotional boost as well. And so, you know, as I was just kind of struck by the fact that, you know, through all these years of praying, and begging, and all that, you know, I never got any mystical sense of healing, or never really felt the presence of God or anything like that. But then just doing these very mundane, normal things, helped me feel much better than any of that ever did. And so, not long after that, not only not only did I, you know, kind of make a conscious decision to stop praying for myself, having having found that being married, didn't necessarily cure what I would have considered lust. I also made the decision to just stop beating myself up over that, and, you know, not worrying about it anymore.
I was realizing that praying for healing from my depression wasn't working. And I was still experiencing what I would consider lustful thoughts, despite now being married. And so clearly, prayer wasn't helping, and my religious assumptions were getting me nowhere. So I made the conscious decision to stop praying around them. And I also basically gave myself free rein to just not control my sexual thoughts or anything like that. And you know, it, both of those things suddenly got better. Nope. Because I wasn't constantly, you know, well, you know, in one sense, they didn't get better, because my impression, all things being equal was still at a roughly equivalent level to what it had been. But I wasn't constantly praying for it to be taken away. And so all that time that I would be praying and thinking about it, you know, had the potential to be something else. So if nothing else, that was 111 Less occasion on which I was thinking about my depression. And so and, you know, thinking about it just always would spiral into actually, you know, getting into a depressive funk. And so, you know, when I stopped praying that happens that much less often and I was generally and then when I stopped concerning myself about porn or anything like that, we now that the maybe it's as simple as just now that the forbidden part of it wasn't there. Suddenly, it was less interesting. And so now I was doing that list to
Arline 29:19
know things. I had a similar experience when I decided mine. I don't I never was formally diagnosed. So I don't know but it was there was like, what they call mom rage, where it was like, I was so angry and me like it was a scary whole scary thing for my kid. Like it was really bad. And I just kept you know, you're praying about it. You're asking like, God, please help me like you're, you're supposed to be. You wouldn't use the word magical but like you're supposed to have power to like, help fix these things. And when I when I when I did, I did. Similarly, I consciously was like, I'm not going to pray about this anymore. All it does is stress me out because I don't know if God's gonna help or not. So I have more anxiety about the thing. And it was like my brain cleared up in a way that I didn't know, my brain could clear up. It wasn't perfect, you know, but it just it took away that extra layer of anxiety. And then my husband and I, he d converted first. And I went on my own journey. And one night we were talking about pornography. And it was like, like, you know, because we're taught that it's all inherently bad. It's all evil. It's exploitation. It's lust. It's this all this kind of stuff. And I was like, I don't know what I think about it. I don't know. But when it became for him when I was like, Well, if we decide to watch something, okay, like, we'll be okay, that's fine. This will be like a thing that we can try and see. For him, because he had the more compulsive like, wanted to what he was like, it became less interesting. Because now it's a possibility. And I was like, Oh, that's weird. And it was, yeah, that it being the forbidden fruit. I like the way you said that made it way more interesting when it was like, Oh, this is just like a piece of candy I can have if I want it, okay. Then it's just like in the pantry, and you don't even think about it. And also,
Andrew 31:14
there's the whole like, don't think about porn, don't think about porn, don't think about porn. But I'm thinking about it by telling myself not to think about it. Since these knots that it ties you into. Yes.
Arline 31:26
And when Jesus said, like your thought life is evil, and sinful and bad. And like all that. It's just, I have nothing. But you know, we have some bizarre thoughts that go through our minds. And it's like, if that means it's reality, or that means that it's true, then I am a horrible person. And it's Oh, my heavens. Okay. Continue. Yeah.
Andrew 31:53
But yeah, you'd think that this might be where the deconversion happens. But, you know, I was still, I still tried to make it work in some fashion or other or another for the next few years.
It was around this time that I also realized what a bogus conspiracy theory that creationism was, began to accept evolution. Then I also found a group of theistic evolutionists as awkward as that sounds to say on Facebook, and that's actually where I met a mutual friend of you and me, large gain. So we slowly became friends through that. But I think accepting evolution actually briefly saved me that's interesting. For a time. Yeah, yeah. Because some of the things I was starting to notice in the Bible, like, you know, God ordering the genocide of the Canaanites, and stuff like that, I was starting to get the cognitive dissonance about all that. And so once I accepted evolution, I was like, well, either the Bible itself evolves, or if we want to take it somewhat literally, maybe God Himself was just trying to do a selective breeding program on people and trying to make them more trying to make us more spiritual or something like that. But that was an interesting intellectual period,
Arline 33:47
I was trying to make all that work.
Andrew 33:50
But one of the funny results of that was that I told myself, I didn't want to give Ken Ham the satisfaction of being correct in that evolution leads to atheism. So I was like, well, whatever else happens, I'm still going to be a Christian. So I honestly think that's kind of what sustained me for the next few years,
Arline 34:14
you should write Ken Ham and let him know hey, there for a little while, I stayed a Christian, because he wanted to prove you wrong. But you know, things change. But I did want to let you know you had that time period of my life. Yeah. So you said the cognitive dissonance. Evolution you're fine with evolution is trying to make it work.
Andrew 34:37
But the cognitive dissonance still kept growing and despite the distance I had put between myself and God for my own mental health that still wore on me a bit. Because yeah, like you're saying if If there's such a thing as thought crimes and Christianity, then you know, there truly can be nobody righteous, which, you know, Jesus is supposed to save us from. But it's also supposed to, essentially be your thoughts that save you. Because you're supposed to say in your heart, like, oh, I accept you, and I'll follow you. Oh,
Arline 35:23
that's interesting. Yeah, that's where the belief is, and all that, huh? Yeah. I haven't thought about that. Yeah, yeah.
Andrew 35:30
But, you know, if the heart of man is, above all things, and I can't trust my own thoughts and my own reason, then how can I be sure that I was, you know, serious when I became a Christian? And how do I know that? You know, each little thoughtcrime isn't just proof that I'm not really a Christian. And
Arline 35:58
yeah, it can spiral so fast, if you
Andrew 36:01
think about Yeah, yeah. And I think that whole thing, that was the final bit of rot, that really ate away the remains of my faith. Because I just couldn't accept that I couldn't be secure in my faith. I don't I don't know that I was necessarily seeing the deconversion stories that were coming out around then. But I just had this, I still already knew the general Christian response of, well, they were never really Christians anyway. Like, I still had that in the back of my head. And so I was like, Well, if you can have somebody that seems so Christian, that's never really was what anyway, then there's no reason to think that I ever was one. So despite everything that I've done, to try to appeal to God and everything, and so if all these little thought crimes are potentially enough to indicate that I never really was a real question, well, you know, I'm might as well be damned for stealing a chicken as an egg, you know. And so if being in the church, there's a possibility that I'm not a real Christian, then why continue? And I think the final nail in the coffin was me discovering atheist YouTube. And finally having the words for all these things that I was feeling. I think I'm pretty sure it was actually introduced me to that through RM ra attending Tetsu con in 2018. So this is a whole thing that goes down my nerdier side. So I had been involved in online paleontology nerd circles for a long time now. I had already started making a few friends through there.
There's this one paleontologist in particular that I follow named Darren Naish, who has a blog and a podcast called tetrapod zoology, where he talks not just about paleontology, but any vertebrate animals living or dead. And so he's actually amassed quite a following. And you could make the case that a significant amount of the online paleontology world kind of revolves around him to a certain extent, like he's kind of okay. He's kind of become a bit of a hub that a lot of people can relate to. And so he actually felt that he had enough of a following that he could do his own little convention. Oh, wow. You're on his blog. Yeah. And so this year will actually be the 10th anniversary of that. Oh, but anyway, if the 2018 one, our an RA was one of the speakers there, and he was presenting on his phylogeny project that he's doing phylogeny being fancy scientific term for just the evolutionary family tree. Okay,
Arline 39:31
I was going to ask, not everyone would have any, including myself knows what that word means. I've no idea. Okay, now we know.
Andrew 39:37
And so I started watching his YouTube series on that project. But then, of course, I also was seeing his other videos on atheist content. Now that he was in my feed you to begin recommending all the other people to me as well. And I think it was particularly finding apology. Uh, okay. Yeah, that was a big turning point for me because he was in a vaguely similar position. To myself. Well, I mean, other than all the specific details about his life being completely different, but But it had a similar religious upbringing similarly believe in creationism at one point and was now an atheist. And but he was very much the opposite of the caricature of the angry atheist had kind of dominated YouTube up until then. And so I think, particularly seeing this more thoughtful community that develops, also gave me the space to be more comfortable with adopting that label. And so I don't know that there was a specific moment that I decided I had D converted, but you know, essentially, from about 2018 on, I've been more or less officially an atheist since then.
Arline 41:09
And so now, you know, we're told that there is no, there's no joy, happiness and purpose, meaning any of those things whenever you leave Christianity
How do you find those things now? Now, I will say your face lit up. As soon as you start, y'all can't see it, because we're on podcast. But as soon as you started talking about paleontology, it was like, a whole new injury, it was about the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. But so yeah, how do you find meaning and purpose and all the things we were told we can't have? Well,
Andrew 41:48
as been throwing myself into the Paleo world much more thoroughly than I ever had been before. I actually started my own little blog called dyno dad reviews.
Arline 42:01
Yes, it's fantastic. Great children's books available on there if you're interested.
Andrew 42:07
Yes. The I mostly review children's books on paleontology, although I do do the odd book aimed at adults every so often. And occasionally, TV shows and museums as well. But yeah, I've had a lot of fun with that. And I've gotten more connected with people in the Paleo sphere, as we call it through that.
Arline 42:33
I love it too much.
Andrew 42:34
Yeah, yeah, I've been having lots of fun with that. It's been great. I do miss the idea of church in some ways, because I have yet to find a strong real life replacement for it. I've got these great online communities with you and our friends in the deconversion anonymous group. And while my friends in the Paleo sphere, but you know, if you're just to look at me going about my daily life, I very much look like a bit of a recluse. Yeah. And through both my depression and purity culture, and all that I definitely suppressed this over time. But I do think I am sort of a I think physical touch and or just physical presence, I think is one of my love languages. And so I have felt kind of stunted in that regard for the last few years. And I even still have been going with my family to church. Oh, just kind of in the hopes that I could still connect with some kind of community, but that hasn't really been working out very well. There's a couple people that I like that I see sometimes, but you know, church still isn't really hasn't really felt like a community since I left youth group. Oh,
Arline 44:17
wow. Yeah, it's Yeah. It's like this strange experience when becoming an adult, all of a sudden, everything so much harder to build friendships in real life. I don't. And I don't know the like, I've seen memes that are like, I'll wear a t shirt that says I would like to be your friend to the park for playdates, like Are any of the other moms or dads one of the Yeah, it's it's strange. I don't I don't have the answers or know why it gets weird. But yeah,
Andrew 44:48
I mean, I also have my own internal issues help that don't help me in that
Arline 44:56
regard. Understand, like I
Andrew 44:59
said, I have a very strong aversion to doing anything that feels like I'm forcing myself on other people. And so I think, in some ways, that's possibly why I have more online friends than real life friends at the moment because it feels, to me it feels like an online friend always has much more of a chance to back out if they want to.
Arline 45:24
Oh, that's interesting. But
Andrew 45:25
when you're in real, when you're like, face to face with someone and talking to them, you know, it's harder to politely get away from that. So I think I am just kind of, I just kind of have a bit of social anxiety in that regard, I guess.
Arline 45:43
And like, with online friends, at least, what I found is, well, I hope there's this freedom, because I've been living in this freedom. So I hope it actually exists of like, not having to get back soon, every single time. You know, like, there's this amount of distance where it's like, if I don't have whatever energy, I need to like, chat right now. It's okay. Like, I'll get back when I can. But then there's also this like, I don't know, it feels like there's more freedom to, like, we'll, we'll chat. And then we can have space, and then we can chat and have space. And when I say that I have you and I are in a group thread. And I am always, always late, like I don't have a clue. That's what's happening by the time I get to it. So I don't know if that's good or not good. You know, having that space and taking it.
Andrew 46:33
You also have the advantage of casting a wider net and have having a greater chance of finding people that actually
Arline 46:41
click well with you. Yes, if I were bound by geography, I would have a lot fewer acquaintances and friends and
so here you are a heathen and atheists. Paleo nerd. I love it. What recommendations do you have for people who are D converting or have already D converted? Well,
Andrew 47:11
I would definitely recommend apology, like I said before, Paul appname pa ULOGIA. So it's upon on apologetics. Which, funnily enough, apologists somehow never seem to catch. Because, really, unless he was so happy, really. I know, right? But literally every apologist response video to him I've ever seen. They're like, so there's this guy, like, pollutes Paulo, Jia? Wow. On your profession, that's fine. To be doing this on purpose.
Arline 47:52
Oh, my gosh, we'll have it all in the show notes. So don't worry about how it's spelled, like he's, we'll have him in the shed
Andrew 47:58
anyway. But he's always super kind and grace, gracious and everything he's just a pleasure to listen to. And then, I don't know, I would almost say the YouTube algorithm can take it from there. Just the people that he associated with, but, you know, I would also obviously recommend this podcast. And like the our Facebook group and other online communities like that, I also find that a strong, non religious community is also helpful as well. It's just good to have some sort of community of mutual interest that you're involved in that is not tied to the church or anything like that. Yes. For me, it was the online paleo community, and just being able to talk with joy about things that we love that are just there don't have moral implications on our lives. It's just something you love. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just very, very healthy activity. Yes.
Arline 49:15
Yes.
Andrew 49:15
You know, that's, that's something you can't neglect and all this because I think there there can be a tendency to spiral in different ways once you come out of religion and take mentally unhealthy tracks. And I think that's where the whole, you know, early 2000s angry atheist YouTube culture came from. It's just these people who D converted but then never quite answered the now what?
Arline 49:47
Yeah, like what do we do now? That isn't just being against something the whole time? Well, Andrew, thank you so much for doing this. This was such a lovely conversation. I really appreciate you Big nine.
Andrew 50:00
Yeah, I was nervous that I wouldn't have anything interesting to talk about. But this has been
Arline 50:13
my final thoughts on the episode, I've had a few other opportunities to interview people that I've become friends with online that this was my first time with someone like that I talked to not every single day but pretty close very often. And so this just made my heart so happy getting to talk to Andrew and hear his full story. Your wish this had been YouTube's you could see him light up, it was like a completely different person, like telling the the beautiful but difficult story of his deconversion. And then when he started talking about his paleo nerd friends circle conference, it was just he lit up. So I guess one of my big takeaways is y'all find that thing that lights you up that makes you one of those things where you just talk about our something you love so much that just makes your heart happy and makes you excited and makes you want to just tell the whole world about it. That's one of the things we're told in Christianity is that this is the most important thing, Jesus is most important, you should care about this. But they just should all over us about something that may or may not be super interesting to us. And then they want us to tell the whole world about the thing that's not super interesting, and it just doesn't, it just doesn't work. So y'all find the things that just light you up, whether it's your family, or paleontology, or some other ology, or for me, it's children's books and kids, the options are endless. We may not be able to make money off of it. But like we can love it and do it and enjoy it. So find those things. The Facebook group, like I've built some great friendships there, if possible, if you're interested, we will have links in the show notes. deconversion anonymous Facebook group, come to some of the events come to the Tuesday night podcast discussions or our weekend social. That's once a month. And y'all meet some people. They're fabulous. We're fabulous. Andrew, thank you again for being on the podcast. It was so lovely.
David Ames 52:22
The secular Grace Thought of the Week inspired by Andrew is except your personality. There are many ways that you may not fit in, in church. But one of the difficult ones is being a precocious intelligent kid, who is an introvert, growing up in the church. The expectations to be demonstrative to be evangelistic. To be out front and in leadership in one way or another is absolutely a huge burden on such a person. I want to be clear here that there are lots of difficulties for kids who are outgoing and extroverted as well. So it's not just about introversion here. But the message that a child takes in is that there's something wrong with them because they are not matching up with the expectation on this side of deconstruction and deconversion. You can accept your personality, who you are, you can lean into the strengths of your personality. If you're an introvert who likes to study and focus on details, or an extrovert who is a people person who brings people together and is a hub of community. whatever your thing is, you can lean into that and accept it and whatever is a perceived weakness. There's no pressure anymore. No one's asking you to be something that you are not you get to be yourself. Until next time, my name is David and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be graceful. The beat is called waves by MCI beads. If you want to get in touch with me to be a guest on the show. Email me at graceful atheist@gmail.com for blog posts, quotes, recommendations and full episode transcripts head over to graceful atheists.com This graceful atheist podcast a part of the atheists United studios Podcast Network
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