Block. Block. Block.

When the Bough Breaks Podcast welcomes the one and only Seth Andrews


When Seth isn't busy being just a normal good looking guy with great voice, beautiful family and cute dogs, Seth is a podcaster, author and host of The Thinking Atheist Podcast. Seth guests on WTBB to open up about his estrangement experience surrounding his family's faith and offers encouraging words to our hosts and listeners.

To learn more about Seth, just click the following links! We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we had the pleasure of producing it.

http://www.sethandrews.com

http://www.thethinkingatheist.com

https://buymeacoffee.com/wtbbpod

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

The following is the Kingfisher Media Podcast.

SPEAKER_04: 0:17

Hey, you're listening to When the Bell Breaks. My name is AC Fisher, and with me today is a man that in my world needs no introduction, but for some of you, you may want one. Seth is probably best known as the host of the Thinking Atheist Podcast. He's a published author with at least three books that I'm aware of. In addition to his podcast, he's an atheist activist. Prior to his work in the atheist community, he was a fundamentalist Christian and even worked for 10 years as the Christian radio host. Seth, welcome to the show. Thanks for the invite. It's good to be here. So, yeah, as you know, this show is all about family estrangement. Everything I've heard about your story over the years has sort of clued me into the fact that your estrangement story is not your typical kind of one. Uh because you're such a well-practiced speaker, you've got a great sense of you know how to tell your own story. Maybe I'll just let you tell us a little bit about how this whole family complication sort of got started for you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20

Well, the foundation is one of um, and I was rooted in a fundamentalist faith. My normal was a literal Bible, Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, you know, Jesus came and died on a cross, and we a literal scripture. And everything we did was wrapped around my parents' religion. I mean, it was the schools we attended, the music we listened to, the clothing we wore, the friends we had. And uh, you know, they were insanely proud of their children when we would go out and emulate that Christianity. I was a student leader, they love that. You know, student council president, and I'm on stage during the school chapel services, and I'm reading verses and leading prayers and being the nice young man. They are so proud. And because I had some communication skills and a love for Christian music, I got into Christian radio in 1990, and they considered that kind of a form of ministry, and they were so proud. Our son is ministering the gospel, and he is carrying the torch, carrying the mantle. And uh then I became a Christian video producer or a video producer for a company that served mostly church clients. So now I'm doing another kind of ministry, and oh, we're so proud, and he's exactly what we wanted, you know, that kind of thing. But uh, you know, when you start to challenge that, and when you begin to resist and disagree, you begin to see the evidence of a conditionality of love. You know, I mean, my parents loved me, but as far as acceptance, you know, that was a thousand percent until I started to think for myself. Yeah, and I started to disagree. And then I began to see them close down parts of themselves. And I don't think they did it to be cruel. I think they see it as a kind of tough love, right? If we're too accepting, then we're endorsing this guy as he's off, you know, he's off the reservation, he's the prodigal, and we don't want to be that. We want to try to, you know, bring him back to the fold. Sometimes you got to be stern to do that, stern rebukes, you know. And uh so that led to um what has been, let's see, I started sort of my hardcore journey out of the faith back in 2007 at 13 years. So it's been off and on 13 years. I mean, the last couple of years have been pretty quiet just because I drew some extremely hard lines in the sand. But um, you know, we're not close. In some uh very important ways, we're strangers. Our paths cross every once in a long while. A little bit of small talk. Good to see you. Have a nice day. We go on with our lives, but a lot goes on under the surface there, you know.

SPEAKER_04: 4:13

Do you have intentional communications with your parents at all?

SPEAKER_03: 4:19

Yeah, I mean, I a couple of days ago I got a text, or you know, actually, I'll get the occasional text. Usually it's just a note that your mom loves you and God loves you. It's something along those lines, you know. I just let those go. Uh, mom called the other night and we had like a 15-minute conversation, probably the first one we'd had in three months. You know, hey, how's it going? How's dad? His health isn't great, you know. Uh, you guys being safe during COVID? How are, you know, how are things? What are you guys up to? You know, just it was and but you can feel in those conversations, you can feel all that is not being said. You know, uh my parents have a much deeper relationship with their other children. I have a twin sister, right? She's five minutes older than I am, and she is a devout Bible believer, church going, Sunday go to meet, and I love Jesus, God warrior, human being. And and they love that about her, you know, and and I think because of that, they're more transparent with her and they have just a bigger bond, a greater bond. They're friends. Yeah. And, you know, my parents and I, uh, we're family in the sense of biofamily. Uh, we're friendly when we get together, but we're, I mean, uh, we're not really friends. I don't think we hugely look forward to the times that our paths cross. There have been a lot of words that have been said, a lot of emails and texts, and just terrible phone calls and judgment and shame and confusion and rejection. And uh it's, you know, it's hard to get excited about going over to mom's house. Yeah, I mean, you know, even virtually, hey, a Zoom call with mom. It's it's hard to get excited about that when you feel like that they have checked their acceptance of you. And uh, so I I feel a sense of distance. It's like I I look at my family through glass. I've said on the podcast, I sometimes I feel like I'm related to people that I I don't relate to. Yeah. And that's hard, you know, because we are a family, but what do we really have in common? Do we really, you know, do we have that sort of, I don't know, are they able to let down their guard? Like no one ever asks me how's work going. They ask each other, how's work going? How are your travels back when I was traveling? You know, they would they wouldn't ask me how was the recent Free Thought or Humanist Convention? Never. Uh, how was church? They'll do that. How was your mission trip? But they never talk to me about my life because it's like the the thing we don't speak of. And uh, you know, it doesn't take long before you feel othered. You feel like an outsider. And so then you go and you choose family, people who accept you and respect you for who you are. And that's largely what I've done in my own circle, you know, the family you choose.

SPEAKER_04: 7:19

No, like that can be hard because I mean I spent six years estranged from my mom. And we've uh this past summer we kind of reconnected, and I think we covered a lot of ground as far as sorting out our misunderstandings of each other. And I've come to a place where I really do love and appreciate my mom. And you know, I I look forward to speaking with her, but I can identify with a lot of what you're saying as far as how there's certain questions that she won't ask, there's certain details that I feel like I gotta hold back from volunteering, and it's it it's it's complicated because I mean, yeah, what you're saying, you're you're related to these people, but there's always going to be that separation. And you know, for me, I I came to realize that I never really had a great connection with my mom even back when I was a Christian. Though we did have a lot to talk about. Like I'm wondering with you and your parents, you know, you'd said that they were proud of you for all your work in the Christian circles and whatnot. But do you feel like your relationship had actual substance back when you were still a believer?

SPEAKER_03: 8:27

I do. I mean, a lot of it, I mean, I was I was never like a mama's boy or daddy's boy, kind of I was always different than my siblings. Like, you know, they were peacekeepers. And even when I was a believer, I was a crusader. I love to argue, I love to debate. I, you know, I was out there fighting for what I thought was right. You know, back then it was Jesus-oriented stuff. I was on the front lines, I was kind of a ham. You know, I I mean, I can keep to myself easily, I can keep my own company very well, and that way I'm kind of an introvert, but I can also stand on stage. And this was the case back when I was, you know, even in junior high. Oh, look, Seth, you know, it's a polished young man. He's you need to put him out front. So youth for Christ and all these other things are interested. And so, you know, while they were content to sort of be behind the scenes, I was more of a visible thing guy, you know. But even then, you know, I was more temperamental and I was more volatile and I upset the apple carts, you know, even when I disagreed with my parents in terms of theology, I remember they loved the televangelist Oral Roberts. In fact, they met at Oral Roberts University, right? So they nearly deified the guy. And I always thought he was just a con man. And so all my, you know, rest of my family would be like, keep the peace, don't talk about Oral Roberts. I'm the one sitting across the table going, that guy's a joke. You know, he's getting rich, he's full of crap. You know, I was always that guy. Uh, so that part of my personality was always there. But, you know, we were pretty tight. We'd have conversations about whatever, you know, we spent a lot of time together. And and uh while when I left the nest, I really left. I mean, I didn't have I didn't feel like a strong boomerang back home. I'm a pretty independent force. Uh, you know, I I didn't feel any sense of like emotional separation, really. Not until I started to disagree. And then you, you know, you really see the temperature change. And, you know, that's tough. That that's a tough thing to see happen. Then resentment builds. You know, you're like, well, look, if you're not going to resent me for who I am, screw you. You know, those things happen in your middle. Fine. You know, if if I'm not, if I don't get to talk about me in my life and I don't get to be authentic while you do. And I'll tell you the other challenge I've got is uh my parents put atheists in a cookie cutter. Like, this is what atheists are. I love it, by the way, when believers tell atheists what they are, what they think, what their value system is, what their philosophies are. I love it. It's a nonstop struggle for us. They always tell, well, you're an atheist, so you just you think this. And I'm like, Well, how no? And where did you come to that conclusion? Right, that often they'll know the caricature of the non-believer in God. I remember one conversation I had with dad, and he's like, you know, the atheist is their life is filled with joylessness and sadness and a lack of purpose. And, you know, there can be no goodness, no joy without the the father kind of thing. It's how my father talks, he really does talk that way. And I told him, Dad, I'm I'm happy, I'm I've got a good life, it's filled with purpose and goodness and love and laughter, and I'm in a really good place. And his response was, I don't think so. It doesn't compute and he, you know, tilt, he doesn't process because, you know, if the atheist doesn't fit in this box, and this is true with my parents for all of the people they have othered, whether it's people from other nations or Democrats because they're hardcore Rush Limbaugh conservatives. You know, Democrats are all this, they're all, you know, gleefully aborting babies as they try to turn the uh the country into national socialist state and they want to ruin freedom and they hate Christmas and blah, blah, blah. You know, they just have all of these caricatures. And you try to, you know, explain to them that your perception about what all this is is really wrong. You are embracing a cartoon of what I am, but you don't know me. And I'd like you to get to know me. But if they were to allow that vulnerability, what happens in their own belief system, that house of cards may fall. You know, if they start to think, well, maybe Seth really does have goodness in his life and doesn't need gods for it. And what if he can generate his own sense of purpose? What if he can love properly and loyally and be a genuinely meritorious human being? But he doesn't require my religion to do that. I mean, the implications of them making that admission, I mean, they're essentially nullifying a part of their critical faith. And so instead of doing that, they just double down, they continue to other me and talk about the cartoon of me instead of addressing me as a three-dimensional human being.

SPEAKER_04: 13:33

No, I think it's it's tough for them because they're so used to believing everything they believe, you know, without question, you know. And when you come along and you say, Well, hey, you got it wrong, it's not you trying to clear up a misunderstanding with mom and dad, it's you arguing with God. Yeah, and there's no way you're gonna win in that conversation. They can't hear you, they shouldn't hear you. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 13:59

Well, if they see the prodigal, right? Uh we need to bring the prodigal home. If they see you as a pet project, if you are a mission field, they've already objectified you.

SPEAKER_04: 14:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 14:08

And uh, you know, I'm not a project, you know, my life is not your mission field. I'm not broken. I have every right. I remember once being on the phone with my mother, you know, do I have the right to pursue truth on my own terms? You know, to try to pursue an authentic life on my own terms. She couldn't answer the question, which was a no, is what really what she was trying to say. But uh, and if I was to ask, I'm sure, you know, do you accept me, your son, as I am? I don't know if I would get a yes answer. I would probably get uh a silent answer or none or a no, because acceptance means endorsement. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 14:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 14:46

And you know, what a tragic place to be. Think of all the goodness I missed out on when I was that person. Because I used to be a lot that way. You know, I didn't know much about the world, but I knew they were wrong. I didn't know much about my own religion, but I knew it was right. I lived in this tiny little sandbox and I felt secure and safe and superior, and I was missing out on the rest of the world. It was my late 30s before I was introduced to all of these other things. And I felt like I wasted so much time, but now, you know, I'd never go back, I'd never trade all this in to go back into the matrix. And and I want to communicate that that to them. But you know, when they're they're not listening, when they're in rescue mode, those conversations usually end in frustration. And if I'm to be totally transparent, I gave up on those conversations with my own family long ago.

SPEAKER_04: 15:36

Do you feel like resentment is a component on either end of this relationship equation?

SPEAKER_03: 15:44

I hear some people say I'm mad at my parents because they lied to me, meaning they taught a fiction as fact. I don't care much for that statement because my parents believe that they were teaching us what was true and they were operating in that way because they felt what they're they were doing was good and right. They were trying, desperately trying, with all of their might to do the right thing. So I'm not angry with my parents for being true believers and just trying to rescue us from hell and give us salvation and the love of God and whatever. I mean, they're indoctrinated, they're brainwashed, but they weren't evil, you know. Yeah. My resentment came when they would use the family card to cross boundaries, and families are notorious for doing this. Yeah. Parents will say, Well, this is not how I raised you, which is an amazing declaration because what it says is you don't have your own autonomy. You are an echo of me, right? I raise you this way, and when you grow up, you will marry the way I think, you will think like this, act like this, you will vote like this, worship like this, and you will live according to my template or else. And then you don't, and then often families will give themselves permission to play the family card to cross a very intimate personal boundary. They walk into your life in very personal ways to shame you and to call you this and say that you're an embarrassment to the family. And we failed as a parent, that kind of emotional blackmail. If only I've heard this one, if only I'd done a better job of sharing the love of Jesus with you. How could you do this to your poor mother? You know, that kind of thing. And uh that's when the resentment in me began to build, because um, it wasn't just about a disagreement, even on a critical issue. It was about a family member deciding that because they were on my bio family tree, that they had permission to waltz into my house and into my life and into my relationships and into my value systems and just pronounce me everything short of evil, if not evil outright. And it went on for so long. I mean, I get text after text after email, these long diatribes saying you're wrong and do this, and you're just following the religion of Richard Dawkins, and you can't be moral and you can't have joy and you're gonna burn in hell and who knows what else. I finally just said, if you do not stop, I will block you, I will remove you from all of my correspondence. So please stop. Okay. You're gonna have to trust your God enough to believe that if you prayed for my salvation and your God cares and is listening, that He's got it, right? You've handed the baton. If you genuinely believe that, then you're off the hook, and you're gonna have to trust the God that you say is so powerful and stop with all of this, you know, badgering. And it was a reflex, they simply could not stop. And so I got more texts and I got more emails, and I went through and I just pulled it up and hit block contact, block email, block, block, and everything hit a wall, and I blocked them for most of a couple of years. Uh they finally got the message, and now at this moment we have a rather uneasy piece, but it is a kind of piece, and it's better than nothing.

SPEAKER_02: 19:19

Thank you for listening to When the Bow Breaks. As always, please remember to like, follow, and share. Links in this week's show notes.

SPEAKER_03: 19:35

They finally got the message, and now at this moment we have a rather uneasy peace, but it is a kind of peace, and it's better than nothing.

SPEAKER_04: 19:45

It's more of a more of a ceasefire than a mending of fences.

SPEAKER_03: 19:49

Yeah, it's an absence of conflict. But I'll tell you this. Um, and I've told this story in the past, I don't mean to blather on, my friend, but um there was A family member. I told this show the story on the show, but maybe your listeners haven't heard it. But it's such a good case study. Um, I got a cousin, she's like 15 years older than I am. And we saw each other when I was growing up off and on. We were never hugely close, but we had real affection. Her name is Sue. Well, Sue lives in Chicago, and I got a message. This was a few years ago. Got a message from my sister. Hey, Sue's going to be in town. And this is like a rare thing. And we'd sure love for you to stop by and see her. I'm sure she'd love to see you. And I said, okay, great. So I uh showed up, and so the family's there. We're all sitting around this great big table, and there's Sue and her husband, Mark. And Sue's just trying to catch up. And she doesn't really know much about me or hardly anybody, what we've been up to. So she starts to go around the table. Hey, so what do you do for a living? And tell me about your life. And so, you know, I've got a brother-in-law who's a deacon of the church with a seminary degree. And this, you know, his kids are on missions, trips doing evangelical work, and you know, someone else has a job in medicine and all they're so proud of it, and someone else has a job doing this, and you know, someone else works as a volunteer in the school, and they're coming around the table, and I'm shrinking in my chair because my parents are sitting right there.

SPEAKER_04: 21:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 21:20

And after all of the just junk that's happened, and all the conflict and all the shouts and all the tears, I'm like, please, I just want to get out of this. I did not come here tonight to be put on the spot to see a big blow up. I'm not here for this. And so I thought to myself, well, all right, I'm just gonna deflect and I'm just gonna try to keep the peace. I'm gonna be vague. So she comes to me and she goes, So what do you do? And I said, Well, you know, I I'm um I'm an online broadcaster. I do uh online, I do, you know, audio production, video production, and some online broadcasting. And something along those lines. And then I said, you know, and uh someone and I kind of deflected to the person next to me, but I could tell she wasn't at all satisfied with that answer. Like she knew there was a lot missing. So she comes back to me. Well, what's your podcast about? And I said, Well, again, the podcast is called The Thinking Atheist. My mother and father sitting in front of me like statues. And I said, Uh, we deal with religious issues, we talk about issues relating to religion. And I stopped with that, you know, and uh tried to deflect. And, you know, she wasn't going to be satisfied with that either. It piqued her curiosity even more. And while I was sitting there, I had this moment of clarity that everybody else at that table was able to be without apology their authentic self. They didn't sit around and try to, you know, excuse their way out of giving a straight answer, an honest answer about who they were and what they did and what they loved. You know, I they weren't over there sitting on their hands thinking, well, I don't want to make anybody else upset because I didn't have to. Why was I treated with a double standard? Why am I not allowed to talk about who I am, what my value system is, what I do for a living? And so she came back to me and she's like, Well, tell me more about this podcast. What is it? And I looked at her straight in the eye and I said, I host the most popular atheist podcast in the world. And there was silence at the table, you know. And I waited for the nuclear meltdown. Yeah, I was waiting for mom and dad just to hit the roof, and it didn't happen. There was a little bit of silence, and then everybody went on. And um, we got through the rest of the night without incident. And after they went back to Chicago, I got an email. And she said, Hey, you know, I've been thinking about what you said. My husband, you know, he's used to be a Catholic, but he's kind of on a journey. Would it be I'm reading your book? She said, which is crazy. So she picked up my book somewhere on between that conversation and Chicago. And she said, Can I give my husband your email address? Because I think you could help him sort of with his journey to encourage him, perhaps. And I'm like, absolutely, you know. And so he and I had this long exchange over the period of weeks. That would have never happened had I not been my authentic self. Right. And, you know, he would and I would have never had a chance to connect in that way. And I made a pact with myself ever since that day that whenever somebody asks me what I do for a living, unless I just don't feel like talking about it, like I was on an airplane or something, I'm not gonna sit on my hands or apologize. I'm gonna tell you exactly I'm an atheist, activist, author, podcaster, video producer, public speaker. I'm just gonna throw it out there. You can take it or leave it, but I'm stuck, I'm no longer going to apologize for who I am, what I think, or what I do.

SPEAKER_04: 24:59

No, and and that's gotta be like quite a big relief for you just to be able to get to that point. I mean, like, I'm not exactly there yet with my immediate family. You know, for many years I went through that same struggle where it's like I wanted to hesitate talking about my deconversion, my atheism, you know, you sort of brush past things.

SPEAKER_03: 25:19

Man, do it. I don't volunteer, I still don't walk in with like there is no god t-shirts. I mean, I'm not I'm not there for that, right? But I mean, if someone approaches me in good faith and says, Hey, tell me about what you do, okay, fine, no problem. Uh, I do this. Yeah. And uh sometimes they cock their head and go, hmm, that's interesting. It becomes a little bit of a, I don't know, some kind of a uh you you see what people are really like when they hear the answer.

SPEAKER_04: 25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 25:48

Because in the state of Oklahoma, you hear the word atheist, and people you know think that you are sacrificing babies on a blood altar at night, you know, and you're cackling at the moon. And yeah, they have this wild, weird, and then they meet somebody who's just an everyday guy, and they're like, Really? But more than a few people have have uh heard about me and been curious, and they'll pick up a book or I'll they'll ask me to sign one and they'll go read it, and we'll actually have conversations maybe over dinner about uh you know how what's that about and what's this about? And my hope is that, you know, if nothing else, even as I try to plant the seeds of real discussion and curiosity in them, that we realize that we probably have more in common than we have apart. We all want goodness, we want people not to be harmed in this world. You know, we love our families, we we we're human beings. And uh that's been my biggest goal. You know, let's get past the stigma and the caricatures and the cartoons, and let's try to find each other as sort of common agents in the human experience.

SPEAKER_04: 26:55

Well, that's one of those areas in which you have been instrumental in adjusting the trajectory of my life. You know, like I said at the beginning of our conversation, that I was very nervous in engaging with you because you are one of my heroes, but it's not because you know you're a big deal in the online community or that, you know, you've got the most popular atheist podcast on the planet. For me, it's a lot more personal than that because when I first started coming into a crisis of faith, and that's all I was, I didn't think I was in the process of losing my Christianity or anything like that. I'd come across some of your online work. And what I realized was was two things. First of all, that every area of my life had been overshadowed by Christianity, and that was problematic for me. I needed to examine all of that. But more importantly, I realized because of what you had said, that all of us, regardless of how different we perceive ourselves to be from each other, have infinitely more in common than we have in conflict. And that really made me hopeful that I could go through these big changes, but still manage to relate to the people that I love the most.

SPEAKER_03: 28:11

Well, that's a tremendous encouragement to me. And I thank you for that. I mean, there are some people out there who are genuinely awful people, and we can just look at them and say, Yeah, that's awful, you know. But I I'm amazed at how often, you know, religion's kind of a window dressing for a lot of people who live their lives as humanists. In fact, we see a lot of the work the churches do. What they're doing is essentially humans helping humans. That's humanism. Many people in the church are doing what they do because they genuinely want to help. They're kind, compassionate, encouraging, charitable people who often don't say they don't get the benefit of the doubt by uh atheist activists because we we're guilty as well of tribalism and othering people. I mean, there are others who, you know, genuinely are doing, you know, they're using charity as an excuse to try to um indoctrinate people. But I mean, I just think people are so often people. I've met beautiful Christians and I've met horrible atheists. So beyond whatever label you are, I always am interested in what kind of a person are you? Let's start there.

unknown: 29:13

You know.

SPEAKER_04: 29:14

So, in a way, I mean, with all of your atheist activism, with your public speaking, with the podcast, the outreach, the relationship building, everything you do, in many ways, it sounds like it's kind of a sideways step from your years in the ministry, from your years of doing the things that made your parents proud. And as you've already alluded to, you're a really big deal in these kind of circles. Have your parents ever, to your knowledge, read your books or listened to your podcast or heard any of your speaking engagements?

SPEAKER_03: 29:53

No, I mean, I'm I'm sure they haven't. It's funny. Um, I remember back when my autobiography, Deconverted, came out in 2012. Our paths crossed, and mom said, I heard you wrote a book. And um, I think I said something like, 'Well, yeah, would you like to read it?' She's like, 'No. She's something along the lines of, 'Well, whatever you said, I know it's wrong.' And uh that's their approach. Yeah, I don't think they're at all interested. They don't, there may be some people in the family tree who have sampled at a podcast or a video somewhere, but there is a conspicuous lack of interest. They know it exists. They don't really dive in past knowing it exists. Uh, I don't think they're all that interested in hearing the challenges to their faith. Maybe that drives part of it. Maybe it's just easier to stand on the high mountain and say, oh, you know, poor Seth, we just need to continue to pray for him and show him the love of Jesus. And one day he'll come back to the fold. And Jesus loves him so much. You know, it's always easier to do that. I mean, when I was a devout believer, I wasn't interested in disconfirming opinions or or uh, you know, legitimate criticisms of my faith. Why bother? I already had the answer with a capital A and every conflicting piece of information. Well, I was a piece of the devil. I don't want anything to do with the devil, you know. And religions have these protective mechanisms placed in there like that. They're just part, they're baked into the uh to the whole program. But to my knowledge, they don't they don't read my books, they don't watch my speeches, they don't follow my work. No.

SPEAKER_04: 31:40

Yeah. I I guess it's one of those things areas where we as the the atheists in the equation dealing with religious family members, we've got a bit of a more difficult situation to navigate in that they can be really harsh with us at times, just downright abusive and mean, but they don't have to suffer with the guilt complex that comes along with that because they're doing quote unquote the right thing. Whereas if we want to stand a similar ground, we want to approach them just as directly and be just as vocal with our beliefs and our perspectives, uh, even knowing that it's going to be poorly received, that their feelings are going to be hurt, we don't have a similar justification where we can say, okay, well, we're doing the right thing, we're doing God's work. Do you feel like you're disadvantaged in some ways in trying to approach certain topics with your mom and dad?

SPEAKER_03: 32:39

Well, uh, you know, I don't really approach much with them anymore. Um I find it interesting that they get so upset and they're so freaked out, they're so constantly concerned and obsessed. You know, they're always, I mean, I can tell the sort of the buzzing in my family tree about me. I know when I leave the room that there's all sorts of nauseatingly condescending piety going on, perhaps even a prayer on my behalf. I mean, I know, I'm not stupid. But um, I always think it's just odd and I think extremely telling that they are so threatened by a disagreeing position. If they believe in a God that cannot be harmed, and they know that that omnipotent God would never be concerned about a pithy human atheist like myself, right? That God's already won the battle against evil. And if they believe that prayer works, and they've already prayed for my immortal soul that God would reveal Himself to me, and they've already named it and claimed it and all these things. That's already the case. Why in the world would they ever be worried about a guy like me? Why would they be so fitful and anxious and uncomfortable, squirming in their chairs and constantly wanting to blurt out something, you know, because they can't not be an apologist or whatever. At the moment, they have to do it because they they can't get comfortable. Well, why not? And I think you know, there may be a few reasons for that. Perhaps part of it is that they genuinely do believe I'm going to hell and nothing else can be enjoyed unless I'm rescued, you know. But I also am suspicious that deep down, when they're being honest with themselves and nobody's looking, I wonder if they, in some cases, some of them at least, have a deep-seated insecurity about their own faith. It's a fragile faith. So, I mean, if they were to exist in the same space with a disagreeing opinion, they're fearful. What happens if there's a crack in the glass? What happens if he says something I can't refute or that actually makes sense? What happens if he revealed something about my faith that's actually genuinely immoral and that I can't defend as a moral creature? What happens if my back's against the wall and I have to do some serious and honest self-reflection? What if, what if, what if? And uh, you know, that's that's insecurity, which is weird for people who claim just true, steadfast, absolute belief. I think many of them under the surface are really insecure about their religion. And so a defense mechanism against that insecurity is to only surround yourself with reinforcement. Everything is confirmation, confirmation bias fully in play. You make sure that everybody, everything around you is an echo of your faith. You live in a cocoon and you are never legitimately challenged. I think that's that's common in the faith for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 35:40

Yeah. You having gone through the deconversion process, do you ever wonder if your parents are enough like you or they would be capable of indulging in certain questions?

SPEAKER_03: 35:58

I I'd like to say never give up on people. Like if I can be reached, maybe they could be reached kind of a thing. But there is a sunk cost issue with them. I mean, they're both in their mid-80s. They have been not just believers, but apologists, theologians. My mother wrote and published a Greek New Testament study guide used at the college level and teaches, or at least before COVID, taught New Testament Greek. Uh, my father, I mean, these they are so their belief is so woven into their identity. So now they've downloaded it into their children, grandchildren, even great grandchildren at this point. I don't see them ever changing their minds. I am not a psychologist. I don't know what that even looks like. I suspect, though, a lot of it is that they are very prideful people. It would be humiliating to them to admit that they had spent their 80 plus years living a lie, wasting their time misleading, not directly, not intentionally, but misleading their family members who all went off to become believers and give birth to more believers, et cetera, right? I mean, the implications of them stopping and saying we're wrong on so many levels, I think it is something they would never entertain. And um, I think that's tragic.

SPEAKER_02: 37:36

You are listening to When the Bow Breaks.

SPEAKER_03: 37:47

You know, we we see that it's possible Dan Barker used to be a pulpit preacher, and his parents were Bible believers. When he became an atheist, he had those hard conversations with his mother and father, and they're both atheists. So it's possible. When I look at my mother and father knowing them, given their history, given the context, I don't have any real expectation they'll ever budge an itch. No, never.

SPEAKER_04: 38:13

Okay, so with that being said, is there any hope of like actual functional fulfilling reconciliation? Because I mean, it stands to reason that you're never going to be convinced that magic is true and that Jesus belongs in your heart again. And just as much your parents are never going to be convinced to evict Jesus. Uh like this is always going to be a huge conflict.

SPEAKER_03: 38:40

Well, I don't have a problem with the disagreement itself. My problem is in regard to the violation of boundaries. Yeah. The naming and the shaming and the emotional blackmail, the familial blackmail. That's it made it really hard. I suspect my father's in failing health, and I don't know what the next year is going to hold, but it's, you know, it's going to be tenuous. And I'm at this point where I've had those conversations. Like, what does that even look like? I'm sure I wouldn't be asked to speak at his funeral. I'm sure it's going to be a hugely religious affair. Right. You know, I mean, I certainly would be there as his son, public safety provided. But, you know, while everybody else is saying he's in a better place and one day, you know, God called him home and well done, good and faithful servant. And they're not, I even though I would not use that platform as my soapbox, you know, talk about our our disagreements and my atheism. I would I I think funerals need to be about remembering those who we've lost. I I I'm pretty much convinced that I would not be asked to participate for that reason. Yeah. And then how would I feel when you are pretty much a stranger and you've already kind of grieved the relationship? Which I have. I mean, I grieved my father and mother a long time ago. Um How does that even play out? What's it look like? What's it feel like? And I don't know. I I mean, I I told Natalie, like, you know, one day down the way when the phone call happens and my father has died. Um, you know, what will I feel an overwhelming sense of grief and loss? Will I still be looking at it through glass? Will I feel um will I feel anything? Will I feel everything? And I just don't know. And I think it's this is one of the reasons why in my own activism, I try to encourage families to acknowledge and protect boundaries. Uh, because and to try to see each other as human beings in the hopes that it might prevent some of this in their lives. You know, I actually uh did a video about a man. There was a man whose uh he he and his wife were believers. When they were engaged, they got married, and then he deconverted after they'd already had a kid. So, right, their lives are already intertwined. And he's on a journey, right? He's just trying to figure it out. And he comes to the realization he doesn't buy it anymore. He's an atheist. Well, his wife's going, This isn't the deal I made. I thought we were a Christian home. We're going to raise Christian kids, and I thought somebody would be sitting with me in church, and you know, so she feels like the rugs pulled out from underneath her. And I get that. And she's going through a very real crisis in her heart, you know. And I produced a video called The Letter to a Christian Spouse. It was directed right to this woman and people like her, that essentially said, try not to see the label when you see your husband and see the human being. What has changed? Is he still good? Does he still love you? Does he still love your children? Does he still charitable? Does he still laugh with you? Does he still has this have a sense of life purpose? Is his life still worth living? You know, all of those things, if you see him as a person first, then you can deal with the disagreements later. And I've spent a lot of my activism, especially in the last few years, trying to draw a big red circle around that, you know, our shared humanity. I'm not successful as often as I'd like to be, but it's uh kind of a passion of my heart.

SPEAKER_04: 42:12

So you've had some experience with that, because as I understand, Natalie either is currently or was somewhat recently a person of faith, was she not?

SPEAKER_03: 42:22

Yeah, she you know, used to be heavily involved in the Christian church. Um, I don't think she'd mind me saying the way I say it that I think she is uh more of a deist these days. She, you know, if someone says, Are you a Christian, she'll say yes because that's the faith culture she came out of, but she's not really engaged with the Bible, she's not dogmatic. I think her God belief is more of a I think there's something out there, and I think there's a life after this life. But she frames that sort of with the terminology she's familiar with. Yeah. I mean, that's the language that she's comfortable with. If you know, uh if she was a fundamentalist, we would not work. I mean, I'll I'll just admit it outright. Like, okay, if she was like, I want you to be a church of me on Sunday, I could not exist in that universe. I'm not going to go and and tithe 10% of my income and put my name on the rolls and sign my identity to a religious faith anymore. I'm not going to do that. But if, you know, my gripe in this world really isn't with the deists. You know, oh, I think there may be something out there. There's something bigger than me, or, you know, we all go on, we'll be reunited somewhere, or what? I mean, yeah, those people aren't the ones right now that I'm doing battle with. They're not the ones who are trying to change the laws to protect and privilege a specific religion. They're not discriminating against LGBT people or people of color. They're not the ones who are, you know, dancing over the state church line to protect power and privilege. You know, the theocrats, that's where my energies go in this fight. The deist, whatever, knock yourself out. You know, that sort of casual cultural, I just think there's something up there making the rainbows God. I'm not worried about that because that's not the God that's trying to strip away people's freedoms and harm other people. You know, that's really more of a kind of a window dressing as people live largely secular lives.

SPEAKER_04: 44:24

You know, it sounds like you've really gone through a journey of learning to identify individuals rather than just sort of stereotype them according to their their belief set and whatnot. So I think that's that's actually a very commendable thing. And I know how difficult that can be. I mean, when I first came out of the Christian faith myself, I had lost a lot in that transaction because it wasn't just a case of losing everything that I had ever held to be true, but I lost everybody who I thought would always be there at the same time. So there's a lot of resentment that kind of came out of that, thinking, you know, religion is necessarily the culprit, therefore, all forms of god belief are toxic. But, you know, over the years I've learned, I guess, as as you have, that I mean, not everybody who holds a god belief or a something bigger belief is an asshole. A lot of them are just wonderful people.

SPEAKER_03: 45:22

Yeah, I I mean when you're wounded by the faith, it's justifiable to get. I was mad, I get mad still. And when you are cast off by people for being an atheist, and you realize your friends were conditional and often shallow and petty and really weren't friends to begin with, I mean, we're angry, you know, we grieve that. I think that's natural. And um, but when I got into atheist activism, sometimes I would see, you know, religion is a mental illness, is what they would say. And I'm like, no, you know, I wasn't mentally ill when I believed in God. You know, religion's an idea. I'd been indoctrinated with an idea, and ideas can be changed. You know, my IQ didn't go one way or the other when I was a Christian or an atheist. Just a fallacious argument. And uh, you know, we we in the atheist movement tend to, you know, we can be guilty of tribalism and we can be guilty of othering people. And so it's, you know, it's fun to feel superior to look at a religious person and say, geez, you're an idiot. You know, all those, those, yeah, I've heard them say religiotard or creatard or these other slurs. And, you know, they sit there and chuckle at themselves. And I just don't find those things good, healthy, productive. There are some awful believers doing awful things, but there are lots of a lot of people out there who were like us. You know, I mean, I wasn't a bad person when I was a Christian. I had a lot of bad ideas that I thought were good, but I was a victim of bad ideas, and I needed to be disabused of those ideas. And I think, you know, if we're going to change the world, do we sit here and throw rocks at people and say you're an idiot, which doesn't change anybody's mind and only causes them to double down? Or we try to find opportunities to humanize them and perhaps have that discussion over coffee, where we lead with questions as a human being, compassionately with goodwill, in the hopes of maybe seeing that door crack open just a little bit, you know, and uh telling them it's okay. It's okay. You know, doubt is not a sin, you're not broken. It curiosity is great. A worthy God would embrace your curiosity. Let's go down the bunny trail, let's see where it takes us, kind of thing. And uh, I think we have more success in uh those approaches than simply screaming that uh religions, uh religious people are all idiots, you know, those t-shirts that they might feel satisfying to wear in the microsecond, but they're not gonna change the world.

SPEAKER_04: 47:57

This is gonna be maybe a silly question, but I found this question personally difficult when I was estranged from my mom. Do you love your parents?

SPEAKER_03: 48:10

Uh yes, uh I do. I don't feel affection. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes perfect sense. If I knew they had a need, I you know, and they've had a need. Hey Seth, could you take them dinner because dad went to the hospital? Could you drop something off at their doorstep so they'll have something to eat and if there's a crisis? I would certainly care and want to help to be there in that way. But I don't, you know, when I see mom on the collar ID, I sigh, like, oh so you know, I think love, love, loving someone and liking them, you know, sometimes those two don't always line up. Isn't that weird?

SPEAKER_04: 48:58

Well, no, I mean I I've gone through estrangement from a religious parent myself. So I mean I can personally identify with this. I think a lot of our listeners probably can too. It seems that more often than not, matters of faith do become a strong component in these family difficulties, we'll say. I mean, not everything results in a fallout cease of contact.

SPEAKER_03: 49:26

Yeah. I mean, we have um pleasant conversations where we talk about uh you know this and that, and we'll even, you know, chuckle and laugh together. Um, so I mean, we have moments where we do that, but it but it takes a little bit of work, you know. It's it's always a little harder than it needs to be.

SPEAKER_04: 49:46

Yeah, I I get once in a while some strange comments from my mom. Like I do um another podcast called Turn Up the AC. And uh on on that show, it's sort of like an introspective, retrospective, biographical sort of exploration of how my personal philosophies have developed and are developing. And whereas my mom's not really interested in any of my atheist activism, she's not terribly interested in this show, I think, because the topic of family estrangement is a sensitive one for her. Yeah, she is curious about you know, turn up the AC. And you know, she's listened to basically everything I've ever done, and some of the comments that come out of that are things that maybe you've heard over the years from believers, you know, like uh almost like you know, you're you're more of a Christian than some of the Christians I know because they don't know how to measure goodness without invoking a deity. Yeah, do you has that been a component of any of your family circles uh interactions?

SPEAKER_03: 50:52

When you are trained to see everything in a religious framework, it's a reflex. Like if I go to an atheist or free thought convention, what they see, well, it's a gathering of people with speakers, uh that's atheist church, right? If you enjoy communal music, and you know, we'll go and everybody sings. You know, I remember one convention, they played John Lennon's Imagine. Well, and my family would call that religious hymns or atheist hymns, rather. Um, you have your own preachers. Uh, my mother thinks that Dawkins is like the prophet of atheism, and we just simply blindly follow him long lockstep. And I'm like, you have no idea what you're talking about, because in the free thought community, people love him, hate him, everything in between, they agree, disagree. I mean, this whole idea of sort of this blind allegiance and loyalty to a savior figure is just it's a revelation of how they use religious thinking and religious framing to try to describe non-religious events. I think also the church has done a very good job of stamping a brand of ownership on things that people do anyway. We're communal creatures, we are tribal. We want to get together to celebrate shared interest and pursue common goals. So if you get together to do that, I mean, if you're at a free thought event, you're pursuing common interest, you're learning new things, pursuing common goals to help change the world. Uh, does that church? Well, no more than Comic-Con is church, because that's a common interest of people gathering or bowling night or a rock concert or something else. But you know, when you are programmed to uh call everything religious by reflex, and also when you're trying to deflect and marginalize, you know, atheism is just another religion, is a sort of designed as a conversation stopper. And so they use that as a tactic. And uh I find it a weird defense because it kind of marginalizes their own position. Well, your religion's no better than my religion, you know. I'm like, well, yeah, is that really the hill you want to fight on? Because that doesn't seem like true conviction to me.

SPEAKER_02: 53:10

The views expressed on the show are opinion and experience based and are not intended as a substitute for therapy.

SPEAKER_04: 53:24

Okay, I know we're getting towards the the tail end of our time here, but Alexis, our other host, would very much like to uh join us in the conversation, even if it's just briefly towards the end here. So I'm gonna go ahead and bring her into the conversation if that's okay. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 53:44

Hi, Seth. Can you see me?

SPEAKER_03: 53:46

Hi, Alexis. It's nice to meet you.

SPEAKER_01: 53:48

Sorry, I don't have my setup here today. I've I've been uh kind of busy and preoccupied with with family stuff, but I I did want to come in and say hello. It's nice to have you on the show. We're very excited. I don't know if he's what he's told you. He's a big fan of you.

SPEAKER_03: 54:03

He said you were the hive mind. He said you were the brains of the operation that uh all roads lead to Alexis. So I'll treat you with that extra measure of courtesy and respect today.

SPEAKER_01: 54:14

Well, thank you for being here. It's really, really glad. It's really great to have you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04: 54:20

Okay, I was just telling Seth before I let you on that you had had a question that was sort of like framed from the from your own personal experience. And I didn't cover that question at any point. I thought maybe that was one that you'd like to ask yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 54:37

I guess, you know, with coming out of a religious group and then experiencing estrangement kind of all at the same time, I guess my family thought that when I estranged myself that I shied away from them because I was ashamed. Uh, but in reality, I wasn't ashamed. I just knew that watching my deconversion up close would be painful for my family. And I didn't think that they could handle it or I could handle it. And so I thought it best to take several degrees of separation for the benefit of both parties. I don't know in hindsight if that was the best decision, but I felt like that was the one that I had to make. Can you identify with this?

SPEAKER_03: 55:32

Well, I took the opposite approach. Um, I don't know if it was a good idea. But my parents being theologians, when I began to have doubts and deconstruct Christianity, my first step was to go to them. All right, well, if anybody's got the answers, it's going to be the wise old man and the wise old woman who've been teaching us the Bible for so long. And uh began to say, well, what about this in the Bible? And how come this doesn't make any sense? And how do you reconcile this? You know, and I I went to them, and so they were part of my at least my initial process. And the result was that they just flipped out, you know, because holy cow, did you know Seth's got questions and these are serious questions, and something's going on with our son? You know, then they went right into panic and rescue mode. Um, did you distance yourself because you feared that they would pull uh emotionally blackmail you, or did you just need room to breathe while you got your bearings?

SPEAKER_01: 56:34

Um, yeah, one of the main reasons was I I just needed to breathe because my estrangement, you know, it's complicated. I I didn't estrange myself just because of religion. Uh with some family things going on, you know, some, you know, just a toxic behavior.

SPEAKER_03: 56:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 56:50

And uh, you know, I felt like that was my last resort. And so it was, I was really dealing with a lot more uh than I thought going into it. And um, I guess I shied away because yeah, I wanted room to breathe. I uh I didn't want anyone disrupting uh this momentum of thought process that I had, this independent thinking that I was never allowed to possess growing up. And so I felt like for the benefit of myself, it was most important for me to separate from them. And I tried explaining that.

SPEAKER_03: 57:27

Did you tell them at the front end? Look, I'm gonna take a little time for me, or did you just sort of disappear?

SPEAKER_01: 57:34

No, I did. I sent them a letter kind of explaining why and what what what I expected uh was to have some time. And I I guess my mother had received the letter, but she didn't show it to my father. So my father has been wondering this entire time.

SPEAKER_03: 57:53

Uh well, I like the idea. You know, sometimes it's like standing right uh right on top of a of a painting and you're trying to see it from an inch away. You're just not gonna be able to focus. You can't see the picture. So you have to step back and let your eyes sort of recenter and focus and take it all in from corner to corner to corner. And um, I think that's something that not enough of us do, especially when you know that there are going to be all these sort of peering eyes on you. And if you had some toxicity and some other baggage going on, I can understand why you'd want to, you know, do this on your own terms at your own pace. I myself, I didn't do it that way. But I will also say that that 18-month period was marked by tumult and conflict and tears and shouts and pain, and they made it harder. And in some ways, I kind of envy you that you were able to sort of go to a safe spot where you could breathe the air and focus your eyes and ears and and kind of start to figure it out on your own terms without quite as much distraction. And the truth is, and this is conf uh uh um it's uh not contradicting, it's controversial to say you don't owe your family anything. Like we tend to think we owe our families this or that because they're mom, dad, siblings, whatever. But uh honestly, you you really don't. I mean, you don't owe them an explanation. The fact that you told them you're gonna take a little time and you took that time, I think is absolutely yours to do. I I think that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_01: 59:37

Well, thank you. Yeah, no, it's it's nice to be validated in that way because you know, sometimes you do question did I do this the right way? Could I have done a better job of this?

SPEAKER_03: 59:46

I mean, I don't know if there's a right way. I'm not Yoda on this stuff, right? I'm just a guy, but I'm just I the idea that you decided here's my framework. I'm gonna tell my family. You can't control that your mom helped. The information hostage from your father. That's not on you. And uh you felt given your history, this was the best way to move forward. I don't, you know, there may not be an A B answer, but it sounds to me like you did it on your terms, and that's good enough.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:15

Yeah. I think that's good for our listeners to hear too.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:20

No, it's like, and I I think this is great actually that I guess all of us get to weigh in a little bit because our estrangement stories are very different. I mean, with you and Alexis, you were uh more or less the ones that initiated the um deceased contact. With me, my mom had made the decision for me quite suddenly. But at the same time, there's so much commonality in not just the the the three of our stories, but also amongst all of the stories that we've heard doing this podcast. When family relationships go wrong, it's painful, it's confusing. But I I like what you said that you know you don't owe anybody anything. I mean, we owe ourselves to self-preserve, to self-protect, things like that.

unknown: 1:01:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:06

I like the idea of communicating if you want, you know, just so they know you're not, you know, in danger or you know, you haven't totally slipped off the rails in some sort of an untoward way, but just say, look, I'm gonna take a little time and space. Don't worry that it's all good. But I'm I'm gonna navigating some stuff. I kind of like that idea.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:25

Yeah, it's like not coming from a place of hate, it's coming from a place of something else.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:30

Yeah, mostly just to make your life easier, right? Because if they don't know exactly why you disappeared, now the rumor mill kicks in and that makes your life more complicated. But everybody, you know, they can approach it any way they want. And I heard somebody say once that all families are dysfunctional. And I think to a degree, that's kind of true. I mean, we tend to fall in love with this idea that, well, you know, the family next door are the people posting amazing perfect photographs on Facebook. Well, that's the gold standard of families. And we all I'm not that, so somehow I've failed or fallen short. But the truth is, is that you're looking at the airbrushing of lives, you're not looking at lives behind closed doors. And all families have their issues, their problems, their bad agents, their drama, their lovely people and they're horrible people. All families are dysfunctional, and you're not alone experiencing so many of those things.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:24

Okay, so you had mentioned that you like the idea of being able to communicate or communicating. I just I know we're coming towards the the end of our time here, so I just want to kind of like end with uh this this one question, which is that coming from the place of understanding where you have had a frustrating time of getting your parents to see you for who you are and to understand or even accept your position, if you could wave a magic wand and communicate something to mom and dad and actually have them genuinely receive and accept and understand it, what would that message look like? Well, I'd like them to see past the label.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:06

You know, for them now it's Seth the atheist, right? And it's one of those things where everything they see in my life sort of goes through that filter and it cheats them out of really focusing on a guy who is more comfortable in his own skin than he's ever been. It's weird because when I was a true believer, I was actually more unhappy.

unknown: 1:03:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:35

When I really, when I believed in God, I was I struggled more, I was more depressed. I blamed myself for the days I was down or the problems I had because you know, I'm more of a sinner and God must have withheld his blessing. Or, you know, I was I was totally guilty about everything from you know having sexually impure thoughts to what do I do with my gay best friend and how to kind of accept or reject him and all of my other worldviews, you know, they weren't necessarily fitting, but then I would just ignore them, but that creates kind of an unrest. Man, you come out of that and you look around and you think, you know, I used to believe I was going to heaven. I'm gonna live forever in a mansion and I'm gonna have perfect peace and joy. And I was terrified of dying. It was when I got out of the faith, I don't believe in an afterlife, that now my fear of death is totally gone. It's just weird. It's just weird. And uh so I would like them to see that. Agree, disagree. I'd like them to see a guy who I'm not sitting around in the corner with my arms tucked around my knees, rocking back and forth, weeping for all that I've lost in a haze of sin and evil and depression and despair. I'm a guy who I I finally got introduced to me. Hi, I'm Seth. Well, great. What do you think about the world? What are your values? Not your parents' values, not your church's values. What do you think? How do you feel about this? What are the terms you'd like to live on? What are the things that are important to you? Uh who are the people you would like to love? And uh, you know, man, when you get a chance to do that, it just it sets every cell in your body on fire. It is one of those things where you think, I wish I had found this sooner because now I'm no longer jamming the square peg into the round hole. Now I no longer have to take the nonsensical and make it make sense. Now I don't have to spend the rest of my life sitting around judging people, but I get to accept them for who they are, the wild, wide diversity of humankind and thought and ideas, and colors, and cultures, and creeds, and sexuality. And it's a potpourri of goodness out here on the other side. And that's what I'd like my parents to be able to see. Is somebody who went out and sort of left the cocoon and sort of sample the rest of the real world and fell in love with it and is very happy and centered in his own life. If they'd only see that guy, I think they would be a lot happier in their own lives for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:11

If somebody wants to find you, what's the best way to go about that?

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:15

Well, if you ask my parents, look under a rock or uh maybe inside a ritual sacrifice, you know, on Halloween or something. Uh but my work is easy to find. I host a weekly podcast. You can find it linked at the thinkingatheist.com, YouTube videos, lectures, other stuff. Or if you want to know more about me, my books, etc., my personal website is Sethandrews.com, either one of those works.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:43

It's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. Thank you so much for taking the time. And uh hopefully we'll hear more from you in the future.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:54

Well, to both of you, Alexis Nacy, I I'm just honored that you would uh invite me to be a part of it. And to any of your listeners, just know that you know the human journey is often messy, and that's okay. And uh just give yourself permission to ask the questions, to pursue an authentic life. Don't let anybody else tell you who you are and you are not alone. And I'm honored to have been a part of today, and I hope you're safe and good for the holidays, my friend.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:22

Likewise. Thank you, Seth, for coming on the show.