Why are you an atheist?

[Music] freedom from religion [Music] welcome to this week's episode of ffrf's ask an atheist I am Andrew Seidel the director of strategic response here at the freedom from religion Foundation today we're going to be talking to two ffr efforters PJ Slinger and Reagan Lucy about why they are atheists A fitting topic for a show called ask an atheist and if you've got questions you can ask them right here in the comments on Facebook or send an email to ask an atheist at ffrf.org that's ask an atheist at ffrf.org and we're going to get to those at the end of the show but first we need to talk about Christian nationalism again Christian nationalism is the claim that America was founded as a Christian Nation that we are based on judeo-christian principles and that we've strayed from that Foundation this is a political identity that is based on lies and myths it's a permission structure that uses the language of Return of getting back to our Godly roots to justify all manner of hateful public policy and even attacks on our democracy I have been saying for years that Christian nationalism is an existential threat to our Republic I wrote a book about that threat and the disinformation that feeds the Christian nationalist identity and the unwarranted privilege it assumes I called it un-American and on January 6th I watched in horror as this wave of Christian nationalism broke over our Capital threatening the peaceful transfer of Presidential Power for the first time in American history I have been deeply immersed in the investigation into this Insurrection ever since I'm working on a number of projects including one for ffrf and a new epilogue for the founding myth which actually focuses just on January 6th and that terrorist attack every day I learn more about how this identity about how the Christian nationalist permission structure motivated the attackers that Christian nationalism cuts across all the other motivations and the identities that we saw there that day the white nationalism and even the Absurd Q Anon conspiracy they believed that they were fighting for God's chosen one and if God was on their side who could be against them we got the first airing of the January 6th attacks during Trump's second impeachment but little if anything was said about the Christian nationalist aspect of the assault I feared and I still fear that the January 6th select committee that held its first hearing yesterday was going to do the same thing and when representative Cheney used her opening statement to say that we are one nation under God which is a Christian nationalist war cry and very much a motivating ethos of that day I was worried all over again they were going to ignore or cover for Christian nationalism but then the politicians listen to the testimony of four police officers four officers who were on the front line that day and they spoke about the violence that was inflicted upon them the injuries they suffered the number of times they were electrocuted the attempts to gouge out their eyes and seize their guns how they were dragged into the mob and beaten the chemicals they were doused with the surgeries that they have had to endure the traumatic brain injuries they've suffered the many colleagues who have resigned one of their fellow officers took his own life they spoke about their anger their anger with the callousness the cowardice and the indifference of those who deny the seriousness of this assault and many whose lives were saved by those very officers on that very day are doing the denying they spoke about the odious racial slurs and racism they faced that day and finally one of them officer Hodges who was the officer trapped and nearly crushed to death between the doors as the mob surged through the capitol spoke about the Christian nationalist aspect of this assault though not quite in those terms but let's take a look it was clear the terrorists perceived themselves to be Christians I saw the Christian flag directly to my front another read Jesus Is My Savior Trump is my president another Jesus is King another shouted do not attack us we're not black lives matter as of political affiliation is how we determined when to use Force a man in a q Anon hoodie exclaims this is the time to choose which side of History to be on a man whose shirt read God Guns and Trump stood behind him silently holding a trump flag God Guns and Trump Jesus Is My Savior Trump is my president the Christian flag that Christian flag was carried into battle against America against the police officers protecting the Beating Heart of our democracy the terrorists didn't just parade the flag on the battle lines They Carried that Christian flag onto the floor of the U.S Senate they attacked they conquered and they paraded their flag on the vanquished ground and then and then they said a prayer to Jesus in that Senate amen let's all say a prayer amen for this opportunity to stand up for our god-given unalienable rights we love you and we thank you in Christ holy name we pray [Applause] in Christ's holy name we pray we cannot understand what happened on January 6th without understanding Christian nationalism those officers demanded Justice accountability they turned to this committee made up of Representatives whose lives they saved and representing the Democracy they saved and they are asking for justice and accountability and our country needs it but we will only get that Reckoning if we grapple with the role that Christian nationalism played in violently assaulting our democracy let's hope this select committee does not ignore or or Worse cover for Christian nationalism let's hope this select committee listens to officer Hodges because on January 6th Christian National has improved beyond all doubt that it is indeed Un-American and that it will not go gently into the obsolescence for which it is bound if we refuse to identify and confront this threat it will strike again and the attackers made that clear and if you didn't watch that hearing yesterday or if you think this wasn't such a big deal go and listen to those officers hear from their own lips what happened to them and if they can't convince you that this is serious willful blindness is your problem we are going to be doing more here at ffrf on the role that Christian nationalism played in this Insurrection in the coming days so please stay tuned for that and if you pre-order a copy of the founding myth on paperback it has that brand new epilogue that is dealing solely with the January 6th insurrection all right so now I'm going to get down off my soapbox here and we are going to turn to something completely different our plans show for the day uh today I am joined by two of ffrs talented staff PJ and Reagan PJ Slinger is the editor of free thought Today ffrx newspaper let's get gets published 10 times a year he has been with ffrf for nearly six years after coming off a 15-year stint as editor and writer at the cap times the capital Times newspaper here in Madison and you met Annie Laurie back in 2013 for the capitol times and that led to this job two years after that yeah so I you know I was always a big fan of ffrf although not a member at the time but Capital time has always got excuse me free thought today and the when the person who delivered the mail Around The Newsroom always brought that to me just out of habit because I was the only one that actually liked to Rifle through it um so it we all every reporter had to come up with somebody to interview probably about once a month to go on the paper and I was like well Annie Laurie you know I'll do her if uh if they if she allows it and this just happened to coincide with the upgrade to the building so there was a good news angle to it it wasn't just here's Annie Laurie of ffrf um so we talked and I did the interview and then afterwards uh I just mentioned how much I liked ffrf and she's like oh you know our our editor Bill done is going to be retiring soon and I was like you know I would love that job but there were reasons I had to stay at the cap times for a few more years um but then a couple years after that they offered another buyout and it was a offer too good to refuse so I left and had kind of completely forgot about the interview with Annie Laurie or what she had said and so I'm you know sending out resumes and everything and I got a call from Annie Laurie are you still interested and I was like whoa so I mean it's nice you have a nose for news and then it knows for who to interview for your future job prospects that's fantastic we are also joined today by Reagan Lucy and Reagan is an ffrf legal intern she is starting at Mitchell Hamlin School of Law in just a few short weeks Reagan entered into the secular world when she started a secular student Alliance chapter in college and served in on the national Leadership Council SSA it's just a great organization we're going to get into that she's also the assistant state director for our good friends at American atheists and is looking forward to defending State Church separation as a constitutional attorney after law school and we're thrilled to have Reagan on staff as a legal intern so oh Reagan PJ welcome to both of you thanks for joining us on asking atheists sure and thanks for having us yeah and thank you for suffering through my rant apologies for that uh so this show is called ask an atheist and we often end up though you know with a bunch of lawyers talking about legal issues or occasionally one ranting about Christian nationalism uh but today we really wanted to focus on those personal stories about how people arrive at a blissful Godless life that so many Believers think is impossible so we're going to hear from PJ and then from Reagan about how and why they're atheists so PJ tell us your story well I never had the actual you know lightning bolt conversion type story mine was just conversion or deconversion uh Decon version yes okay so I was raised Methodist my parents went to church every Sunday you know religiously you might say yeah um and I hated it I just I didn't get it um when I got old enough to help with the uh like the nursery programs so I didn't have to sit in the actual church and listen to the you know the sermon and whatever I gladly took that so I would just go in the nursery and help you know take care of the little kids and that was so much better better than sitting on those hard times it was so much better and listening to all that yeah um but I had never I don't know if I ever truly truly believed maybe as a young kid up to sometime in grade school um but like I think I believed in Santa Claus more than I actually believed in God because Santa had tangible assets deliverables yeah you know God not so much annual deliveries you know there were pictures of him there was stuff under the tree on December 25th so you know hey he's pretty real God not so much potentially and once I you know became of age to know that salmon tooth fairy and Easter Bunny and all that wasn't real it wasn't much of a step you know to be like you know what I think this God stuff isn't always cracked up to be yeah apologies to any children watching who uh did not whoops I mean I think I think my rant probably cleared any spoiler alert that we needed to do but anyway yeah so then uh I remember Junior High I was very skeptical I don't know if I was an out note atheist I certainly didn't call myself that I didn't even know were you still involved in the church though as your steps my parents would not allow me not to go to church until I turned to 18. okay when you're either going to be in our house you're going to be in our church too okay although the day I turned 18 from that day forward I never stepped into a church willingly unless it was for a wedding or a funeral and you beyond volunteering with the the the nursery you you had some other important roles oh yes yep I I have a painting that not a picture this is a painting ladies and gentlemen that I would like to show so tell us what we're looking at fourth and fifth graders were able to become acolytes the ones who lit the candles before this service and distinct or extinguish them after the service so you had to wear this religious robe and sit behind the pastor for the service and of course my parents thought this was you know what a wonderful thing for our child to be doing you know we did a we did have a show on John McNaughton who's the the artist who really likes to portray Trump as being told by God and all that and I was just reminded of that looking at that that painting I feel like we could do a whole show just on that put it back up first I mean like this looks to me like the fires of Hell behind you in the windows it was very orange yep yeah you know and your your foot is not on anything no I well I'm stepping down to uh to head out that must be except that only your foot is stepping down and then it looks like the last supper is behind you here as well yeah I mean and then that shadow of the Cross and you get the double cross this is just it's very interesting so who who painted this uh Ray Malaysia who was like a second grader he was he was a member of the Methodist Church that we attended it was very rude I apologize I I have a feeling he's probably not alive anymore it makes me feel however my parents apparently liked his his work and commissioned him to do this painting uh much to my chagrin and to my siblings utter uh fantasy so they were I mean they were very serious about you being in church yes you know one thing that always strikes me is that we often hear about how humans have this god-shaped hole in them that needs to be filled right that that there's this vacuum that exists that only God and religion can fill but it's just not true you have to you have to force kids to go to church and you're essentially creating this this hole in this and you're forcing it upon them if if there was that hole people would do it willingly without threats of Hell or uh We're not gonna kick you out of the house or whatever it was you know yeah I like I I hated Sunday mornings I just hated Sunday mornings and even uh there's a Simpsons episode from early where Lisa Simpson gets back from church and she's like Yay it's the best time of the week it's the longest time before we have to go to church again and I felt that like that that to me was exactly what it was like okay I don't have to go back to church for almost seven days now and it was just such a relief was it worse for you being in Green Bay and being a huge Packers Fan knowing that a chunkier Sunday was going to be spent in church Well church being in Green Bay they they work church around the hackers of course they did otherwise nobody would show up so on home game Sundays they had an earlier service so people could still get to the games so that wasn't really ever an issue okay okay I mean that that doesn't that does make sense if you're going to ask people to choose in Green Bay to choose the Packers or church then it's not gonna yeah God's not gonna win that one so you you finally you didn't have a uh the opposite of uh uh Paul's moments of conversion did you do you remember what were some of the first dominoes that started to fall for you aside from likening God to Santa Claus uh it just it never made real sense to me like you know if you think about a lot of these stories yeah like Noah's Ark just like that couldn't have happened like it's nearly impossible you know that's from somebody in Middle School thinking that you know um so it wasn't probably until I got to college here at the University of Wisconsin where I just I wanted to put everything to rest like okay I'm an atheist but I just want to figure it out so I took philosophy 101 and in the syllabus it's like yeah we'll talk about proofs of God's existence and I'm like there we go that's going to do it you know if those proofs are legitimate I'll be swayed Bring It On and then they had the proofs and they were ridiculous it's like these aren't proofs these are you know at best theories you know a lot of circulars yeah not scientific theories you know hypotheses I guess and at that point I was like okay so if this is the best philosophers can come up with it's a done deal it's just not real yeah I mean so what you're saying is that it was Godless secular education that drove you away from the church sure yeah yep yeah that's what I hear okay uh so really the Christians for private schooling are are are kind of right on that front yeah okay uh well let's bring in Reagan and then we're gonna we're gonna discuss this kind of all together and we'll um we'll take some questions so Reagan welcome to ask an atheists thank you so you're you just finished College uh did you have a similar experience where you got this Godless liberal secular education just drove you right away from the church or was your how did you become an atheist I have a very similar story to PJs actually um I grew up in kind of a blended household my dad is Catholic and my mom is Independence so already from the get-go I was pretty confused about religion you know because they're competing ideas between the two of them so I was thinking like who is right one of them has to be wrong that type of thing and I grew up in a predominantly white Christian small town and so growing up the cool thing was to go to church and be part of youth group and go to the Bible camp and just like PJ said like I never got into it I always hated it I would have to be to go to church with like a meal afterwards and was it was it like something exciting for you as a kid was it like well we'll take you to get a Happy Meal at McDonald's or something like that correct yeah it's very popular words I'm in yes and um so I never really thought about religion a whole lot until I got a little bit older and my sister was actually an atheist and she was secular and super into science so I was I kind of already had that seed planted is your sister is your sister older Reagan yes she is she's six years older than me and and so I was introduced to it that way and then I started reading Christopher Hitchens in high school history we'll do it I I felt like cold and I it was kind of crazy because I was like a teenager and I was the angry atheist like bashing the Bible on Facebook and I received a lot of backlash a lot of backlash from family members from the community from just about everybody and I felt pretty Alone um I mean that's really hard and that is one of the things that we know happens to out atheists pretty regularly in this country uh and online and in other countries right if if you are out about criticizing the Bible or religion or Jesus or God you open yourself up to a lot of vitriol uh and this is this also holds true for people who stand up and challenge uh violations of the separation of state and church it's one of the reasons that I think it's so important that everybody who can come out as an atheist and and proudly say that does it because it lessens that stigma and it makes it easier for everybody else so I'm really I'm really glad to hear you say that and I'm wondering is that is that one of the things that kind of drove you towards uh looking and finding out about the secular student Alliance and wanting to kind of build your own community yes um because the area that I grew up in was predominantly conservative I was really excited to go to Minnesota state Mankato because I was just assuming this is going to be a more liberal State a more liberal college and when I showed up I was angered once again because religious organizations and nothing for secular people and my mind was just blown that that was the case so I reached out to one of my favorite atheists at the Andrews shout out to him because he started this whole thing for me yeah we are big fans of Seth over here at ffrf he uh he's been on this show a number of times and On free thought matters a number of times I've joined him yeah he's great so I so you reached out to Seth you knew you knew him through his videos I presume yes I did and I was never expecting an email back and I remember exactly what he said was you need to get hooked up with the secular student Alliance there are Aces at this stuff and I said hell that is but okay I will try that and I got um I got in contact with Ryan Bell and Kevin bowling they're wonderful people and they helped me start my own chapter and um so the summer after my first year of college I ended up going to the secular student Alliance conference and it was the first place where I really felt like my ideas were being recognized and I felt accepted and I was met uh with nothing but kindness and support and camaraderie so that was wonderful and for people who are watching who are thinking that sounds like something I would like to do secularstudents.org is the website uh we are huge fans of the secular student Alliance please go support their work if you are a student looking to do what Reagan did and build up a community at your your your school and then maybe move on into activism you know she's working at ffrf now she's affiliated with American atheists it's a great way to really get involved in this community so secularstudents.org go check them out uh so after the after the secular student Alliance convention that summer Reagan what happened well at the application Allison was introduced to kind of secularism in the legal world and the egregious policies that our country seems to come up with constantly and what you talk about in your book but totally untrue Narrative of Christian nationalism then I was introduced to all of that and I originally wanted to be a lawyer anyway and then with Allison's presentation I just that's when my love and my passion for having legal careers so yeah and I based on the work we've been able to do with you I'm excited to see what you do with that and you have a little bit of experience PJ with secular student Alliance tangentially kind of uh through my daughter yeah yeah can you can you just add that to the conversation sure I was just thinking of that when Reagan was talking about that so my daughter attended the University of Wisconsin which has a uh aha program American humanist and atheists atheist humanist agnostic okay yeah yeah so she was a member of that for four years all four years of her college and for two years she was vice president uh you know made made her dad proud yeah she invited me to come speak at that oh that's right yeah it's one of the stronger student groups that also affiliated with secular student Alliance um and they they were able to get money from the University actually because of as Reagan mentioned there's a lot of religious organizations at schools around the country and they are often able to get money from the University to put on programming and so here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison the AHA was able to also get a big chunk of that money and they've been able to put on some big conventions in the past uh really fun my daughter is now uh heading off to get her Masters and she was wondering if she could apply for one of the ffrf essay contests and you grade some of those though I said well I don't think that'll quite work since I'm the one that can't make those decisions we do try we do try to anonymize all the grading but it's that's still oh this one's really really good the appearance of impropriate uh so and and Reagan um you're starting you're starting law school in the fall so you're going to be you're going to be a rising 1l you're basically going to be learning a new language um and then you're gonna have three years of this hopefully come back and work uh with ffrf and some of the other orgs as a legal intern and then and then what do you want to do is this is this what you want to do what's the if you had your dream job what would it be this is what I would want to do for sure um when I was in My Philosophy of Law class the case actually happened to be American Legion versus American humanist Association and tell people to work real quick tell people what that case is before uh because a lot of people don't know so that was about the Bladensburg cross case a humongous case near a highway um it was on you know public property and Association because they wanted it removed right it was so long ago either yeah I mean yeah yeah the American humanist Association 40 foot tall cross public land like you said said hey that's illegal take it down ended up as a lawsuit and then that ended up before The Supreme Court so that's the case that you're you're talking about and working on then yes and I kind of though head burst into that and listening to the oral argument and kind of following Monica Miller who works for the American humanist Association following her journey to the Supreme Court I saw her do that and I said I want to do that someday for sure so working for any organization like American atheists American humans humanist Association that is definitely what I want to do because I think it's so important as we saw on January 6th bring it back we need to avoid those things from happening and the way that I feel I can best do that is to fight for State Church separation as an attorney well I I would I would agree with that wholeheartedly so we're getting some questions coming in and I do I do want to get to those um but you know is there anything else that either of you you know that I that I didn't ask you that you're that is missing from your story I mean Reagan sadly we don't have a portrait of you um at the altar um but you know is there anything that that really is missing from the story of why you're an atheist how you how you uh this isn't really how or why I'm an atheist but uh kind of a Fallout because I'm an atheist so when I told my grandmother in high school that I didn't believe in God uh she did not take it well and she's a very educated woman for being you know growing up you know in the early 1900s and everything um and so I thought I could tell her this even though I knew she was religious um but that that really it hit her hard and apparently then she told some other people relatives and they kept coming up to me and trying to get me to apologize to her or to renounce what I had said to her and I just kept saying no I was like it's who I am I'm not going to apologize for that you know you shouldn't have to change who you are and unfortunately she I don't know if she lost respect for me or whatever but it unfortunately it hurt her and in hindsight I probably never would have told her just to save her the hurt it is interesting though because it has nothing to do with her right like your your personal belief system doesn't well I mean her you know as a grandson I'm going to spend eternity and hell yeah it upsets her in that regard but it doesn't it doesn't actually do anything to her and I and to me that the the um the fact that some people genuinely do get upset um with the idea of their their friends and family burning in hell for all eternity why worship a God Like That is really indicative of a deep true belief in this system and when people are unwilling to try to save your soul in a way I'm kind of like a little bit question whether or not they really do believe this stuff you know like if you actually think that's gonna that I'm gonna burn in hell for all attorney you really should be doing your best to save my soul um so I I it's a weird sort of backwards something like that for me um uh Reagan what about you any um any issues with your family um with coming out as an atheist you said your older sister kind of paved the way a little bit for you so maybe that made it easier yeah well first of all I want to apologize to AJ that he has gone through the same thing I am going through that currently with several of my family members and that has been a long battle since I was 16 or 17. I came out as a little PS um and it's a story that's all too hot and it's it's just horrible that religion drives people who would normally have really wonderful loving supportive relationships to do to to act in that way so that's pretty horrible and to anybody watching who might say well that's not very Christian uh I just remind you that Jesus said that he came to bring the sword he came to divide families to turn the father against his son mother against her daughter all that kind of stuff this is what he envisioned Christianity and belief in him as the deities Supreme Over familial relationships um again why worship a god like that so we've got some questions coming in I'm gonna I've got them right here on my phone Neil who does not appear to be very genuine said you can call yourselves whatever you like but you're still a Satanist religion isn't the problem it's lost souls like you that is I believe he means that are the problem repent before it's too late uh no Neil I I shall not repent um also people who don't believe in God don't believe in Satan either I mean I know this is very difficult for some Believers to understand we don't not believe in God but believe in the devil uh or or that uh it's you know we're just choosing this path because it's fun or easier we get to go to the the Satanic rituals right like we just we just don't believe yeah so I think what they think it's a lot of thinking there um but you know we might not outward or think that we're satanists but we are because we reject Jesus God whoever therefore Satan has taken control of our brains our bodies or whatever and therefore we are satanists even though we might not think of us ourselves as satanists so that's what I think they think maybe then how could we repent if we don't have control over our own actions Reagan thoughts I know a couple satanists and they're some of the nicest people that I know nicer than most of the Christians I know and isn't I uh forgive me if I'm wrong but isn't the Church of Satan predicated on just anti-christian values and anti-authoritarian isn't that the way it is I don't even know that necessarily yeah I'm personally more familiar with the satanic temple and I have quite a few friends there and I will Echo your sentiments the the members of the satanic temple that I know are just some of the loveliest people I have ever had the Good Fortune to meet um and in stark contrast to for instance uh the Christians who were attacking the police officers that we talked about at the beginning of this so yeah I certainly agree with you on that one but to play Devil's Advocate uh I think that you know this satanic temple and Satanism actually is like associated with humanism but that's not what the Christians think of Satanism they think of it as the Rosemary's Baby yeah type Satan where you know we worship the devil and you know all of its hatred and everything yeah so I mean for for my money a God that creates a place of eternal torture is is worse than any devil that he then puts there but I don't I don't know Neil if you want to if you want to at me go ahead and let me okay we have uh other other questions Caroline Carolyn excuse me Carolyn Allen asks I learned or says I learned a lot about ethics and caring from the church but non-church-goers often learn the same things somewhere maybe at home so I think this is basically I think Carolyn's getting at the idea of like where do you if if you're not learning these values of our shared Humanity in church you know what where are you learning them I personally I just feel like you you just know them it's almost innate in humanity um you know and people of course the the God people will say well that's God putting that in you it's like well then why do you need to learn that at church you know if it's already in you it's just you know I I have never wanted to purposely hurt anybody you know and I'm always struck by that too where people you know you hear Believers say something along the lines of well why don't you go around killing and raping and murdering and I I have no desire to do that there's nobody I want to kill or rape or murder I would I would never do that let's respond to that where um somebody asked him that and he's like well I do I do rape all that I want to kill all that I want which is none yeah exactly Reagan do you have uh do you have thoughts on this where do you get your values if you're if you're not getting them from church sure um I mean I was raised really well but now that I'm an adult and I can rationally think through things and make my own decisions for me it is so much more empowering to do a good thing and be a good person not because it's Godly or it's going to get me into heaven whatever that means whatever that entails it's just because I genuinely want to be and I think that's what other people are people deserve so it it's just like there's no excuse or no moral babysitter I'm just doing it because I want to and I I know that's the good thing to do yeah Amen to that that was that was well set I I enjoy that and and I do believe too it is there's a certain amount of um to me arrogance that that comes through here from time to time right like uh if we think about the Golden Rule right this the golden rule is a simple rule that any child can understand and probably understands innately as you were just saying TJ right it's it's not something necessarily that you need to teach or if you teach it can be taught in in one once sitting right don't do something you wouldn't want done to you and I think the idea um that that is a Christian rule or a Christian principle or a Christian value is wrong it is a universal human principle that every successful Society we know of has come up with on its own I mean it's written down in Egyptian uh hieroglyphics I think 1800 years before Jesus was supposedly walking around right I mean this is this isn't these are Universe don't kill don't steal these are Universal human principles that every society I'm pretty familiar with how Christianity has plagiarized pretty much everything that it does you know so I don't you know that's not different you know they they stole you know saturnalia I mean but what they're doing here to me is what they're doing they're taking that Christian flag and they're staking it in to that Universal human principle that belongs to all of us and seeing and then they're saying see look what we did look at how good our religion is um rather than recognizing it for what it is um anyway um Kayla asks what religion do you think is the hardest to leave that's a that's a good question uh I wouldn't really know because I've only been associated with the Methodist and that was easy I just never went I feel like Catholicism might be because they guilt you from day one and um and I guess Scientology could be one that uh and I guess the the Mormons Reagan do you have do you have thoughts I would have to say those more extreme versions of Christianity for sure um Catholicism and then being a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon especially and I think the reason for that is just because the familial ties are kind of contingent on whether or not you're still a member of the church and so if you leave the church you leave your family you're excommunicated and that that would make it difficult yeah religion often create a lot of self-defense mechanisms and build them in shunning uh is a great example which you're just talking about you know to to keep people from leaving uh and my answer to that is the religion that is hardest to leave is the one that you were in I I you know I I stand in awe of the people who have the intellectual courage and honesty to look at beliefs that they have been told since they were children are absolutely true and you cannot question them you have to take them on faith and you have to have the courage and the intellectual honesty to go and then Challenge and examine those beliefs despite every authority figure in your life telling you otherwise uh to me just speaks volumes about the people who are willing to do that including Reagan and PJ who are sitting here with me today so I I I was fortunate enough I didn't grow up in a very religious household my my mom's operating principle was challenged everything um so it was it was this was never an issue for for me um and I really I often wonder if I had been forced to go every day until I was 18 or been bribed with with Happy Meals would I have had that that intellectual courage important and I don't know I don't know that I would but I like to think I would have so and I don't know how I would be had I grown up in an environment like yours where I never had to deal with religion like how would I think of religion now you know yeah so well and one thing my mom did and Reagan you kind of mentioned this at the beginning when you were talking about being raised in a split household um my mom did encourage me to go to uh Catholic Mass with our Catholic friends I remember going to Temple with Jewish friends Apparently after I went to my friend's Bar Mitzvah I came back and said I wanted to be Jewish because it was the most fun I'd ever had at a party um I I and I remember thinking Reagan exactly what you said earlier on which is that this seeing all of these different truth claims alongside each other really brought home that they're not none of them are true right like they're all making the same claim and they're all saying you have to believe it on in faith and the obvious answer is well then none of you guys are are true and that was where I landed pretty early on too so um I'm gonna check and see if we have questions I don't think we have any more questions we do not have any more questions so uh uh Reagan thank you PJ thank you for joining us we really appreciated hearing from you I think this was a this is a fun show uh chat about despite the uh the rant at the top I appreciate everybody who's stuck through that and please join us next week for the another episode of ffrf's asking an atheist [Music] [Music]

Channel: Freedom From Religion Foundation

Views: 15,642

Keywords: Ask an Atheist, FFRF, Atheism, Freedom From Religion

Id: pcyybtBrRqY

Length: 41min 45sec (2505 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 22 2022