Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 372: Drew Bekius

Episode Date: August 7, 2017

You can find Drew's work here:  Twitter: @drewbekius ( Rise Fall Faith God Godless:    Hi Drew’s Mom.   

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two fingers were held up to help me out with that i appreciate it too appreciate it i'm here you know we've been doing a lot of recording back to back to back. I'm kidding, right? I don't know what goes where at this point. We're the glory hole. I'm not sure where to stick it. It's confusing. We are joined today at the glory hole in person. In person. You know, anytime, I have to say, anytime we get somebody live at the glory hole that's

not you, because at this point, you know, no offense here. I get it. I get it. But I always know who's on the other side. It's that distinguishing mark. It's the distinguishing odor. That you can tell. That's the thing. I can, through the wall, I know it's But I always know who's on the other side. It's that distinguishing mark. It's the distinguishing odor. That you can tell. That's the thing.

Through the wall, I know it's you, buddy. We are joined by Drew. I've already forgotten how to pronounce your last name. Then it probably doesn't really matter. But it does. Because you're an author and you want to pimp your book and people need to Google that shit. Well, it's not phonetic, though.

It's really aggressively not known. I'll hardly agree. But Bakeus, not phonetic, though. It's really aggressively not. I wholeheartedly agree. But bakius, I suppose. Bakius. Yeah, something. So, Drew, thank you for joining us here at the Glory Hole. You are the author of Rise and Fall of Faith, a God-to-Godless Story for Christians and Atheists.

You are also the co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. And, no, it said on, I thought it said, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. And no, it said on, I thought it said. That would be Dan Barker. Co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Dan Barker would skin me alive. Oh, about the authors. Forgive me. That's okay.

That's okay. So you are also the creator of humanistcoach.com and board president at the Clergy Project. Ah, there we go. There we go. Gentlemen, what a pleasure. What a pleasure it is to sit on this side of the glory hole wall with you or are we on opposite walls

I don't know we're all on the same wall are we inside the glory hole or are we just trying to picture what my role is and there's a verb too that we're missing I think somewhere we're always missing the verb.

That's the problem. It's the action word, and we never get that one. We're a bunch of nouns in a verbless world, my friend. It's terrible. So, Drew, I want to start out. I want to start out by, because I was reading your bio, and I was

just floored. You used to be a pastor, an evangelical pastor. Oh, fucking yeah. So I want, what I want to know before we even get into the book, what I want to know is how do you get from evangelical pastor to sitting in a fucking glory hole? That's you. You finished the question. It's a perfect question.

I mean, I feel like he's used to kneeling. Yeah. I mean, there are some things that get you there. You know, it's like cross-training. I'm the one who stands. Cross-training. Cross-training. Get it?

It's a Christian joke. Oh, shit. Supplication is just in the DNA at this point. So evangelical, what form or format of evangelical? Yeah, absolutely. So started off on the more mainstream and centered

within evangelicalism. It can be kind of a big camp, whatever. There's a lot of diversity in it. So more just kind of your typical kind of what may appear cheeseball, whatever. Like Hell House style? Not so much.

Not like that. So you've got fundamentalism, which is way more right word. Evangelicalism generally, or at least how we would have defined it, is a little bit more moderate, a little bit more rational, a little bit more tempered. All right. 6,000-year-old earth or no? Yes. Well, not always. It depends. Okay. What about you? What about you? Are you a 6,000 year old earth or no? Yes. Well, not always. It depends.

Okay. What about you? What about you? Were you a 6,000 year old earth guy? Were you going seven, seven and a half? Yeah. I kind of took more. I took more of a.

Wait and see a person. Poetic. Yeah. Kind of more. You know what I said? How I took it by the time I was a lead pastor, senior pastor, whatever. So and by then I was on the more progressive end of evangelicalism. Evangelicalism still defined, you know, more centered on that idea of whatever the Bible

says and whatever it intends to communicate is actual truth. Okay. God inspired truth. Sure. But in how we commute or how we interpreted that, it was a little bit more progressively. And so we kind of took full freedom there. At least I did. So, I mean, when you talk about the age of the earth and whatnot, my position would have been Genesis one and two, or at least Genesis one was intended to be taken more poetically.

So I'm not. And I would I was the kind of pastor who willingly and often said, I don't exactly know. And I don't need to know I'm comfortable with gray. I'm not a black and white kind of guy. And I would teach and all of that, uh, that kind of perspective. And so I'd say Genesis one, who the hell really knows what exactly it's saying, but whatever, however God created the earth, he did it. He may have used evolution. He may not have whatever he did. He did it. And that's really what Genesis He may not have. Whatever he did, he did it. And that's really what Genesis 1 is trying to tell us in poetic form. How did you get

into pastor-ism? Pastoring. Pastor-iting. Pastor-ization. How did you become pastor-ized? Sheeps and shit out in the field. Right? Yeah. How did you become pastor-ized? That's why... They put me in this big milking tank

and they just kept swirling the shit till i was past like did you grow up wanting to do this work i was this was this something that you just yeah tell me about your process getting there before we move away from it yeah absolutely so uh i grew up so central rural minnesota uh yeah absolutely Central, rural Minnesota. That's gross. Yeah. Absolutely. Non-pasteurized. So we're out there. My grandfather was a dairy farmer, by the way. Really? Pasteurizing shit.

Yeah, absolutely. That's not how I became a pastor, though. But so small town. It's very pastoral up there, though. Just saying. Yes, yes. Landscape-wise. Well, we had a cow. We had a cow.

You're milking this for all it's worth. One time I was trapped out in the pasture. Thanks, Garrison Keillor. $5 million. We had a pasture with a cow. Just one cow at a time, though, and we would butcher it, and that would provide enough beef for two years, and then we'd get another cow

and butcher that. Anyway, moving on. He's trying to. I'm's trying to try trying so fucking hard all right hard at the glory hole okay all right so basically the long and short of it is is in junior high kind of got sucked into the whole youth group vibe mostly because i was a total fucking loser and didn't really have any friends. But so because I didn't have any friends, like youth group and church just kind of like pulled me in. And my parents, my mom was kind of involved. My mom was pretty involved. My dad wasn't really involved at all at that point. So it was really it wasn't like I was brought up this way. It was just like I was drawn to it personally. And then in the summer before

my high school year, our youth group took this trip to D.C. to go to this conference, put them by this group called Youth for Christ. And they did this pure evangelism super conference, they called it, where we were. They brought in teenagers from all over the nation. And just sort of the whole idea was to give you the training and the resources. It was an eight-day conference. And to give you the training and resources you needed to win the world for Christ. And first of all, starting off with just like filling you with the kind of Jesus excitement you would need to really even want to give a shit enough to carry your faith. What's that like? Like, did you, I mean, were you all in at that point want to give a shit enough to carry. What's that like?

Like, did you I mean, were you all in at that point? Like, are we just trying to get wasn't at that at that point? Like, I went into the conference going just like, yeah, you know, I just want to go and have a vacation for my parents. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, absolutely. That's all I wanted. Go.

You meet girls. You hang out. Whatever. Exactly. But then over and over and over standard comfort stuff it's fine shit throw lesbians around whatever needs to happen it doesn't matter fuck uh but yeah no but then it like grabbed me by the fucking balls or the heart or whatever the hell it was and and uh you know hook line and you know the whole fucking sinker and uh and so i left there and i was just like on

on fire you know they pump you full of music and rock bands, Christian rock bands and all that and pull your heart into it. And I jumped on board the Jesus train. I rode that thing hard as long as I could. And, uh, but so I left there. So then in high school, I go back, I come back. And that year in high school, I start, uh, I begin like this ministry initiative in my high school.

I start doing prayer groups and Bible studies in my high school. I start doing, then the next year I start doing like worship services in my high school, all this shit. And, uh, and so then it just became clear, like, well, I need to go on and become a pastor, you know, this is what I want to do. So you figured this shit out in high school, in high school. Well, at first it was more, I want to do like youth ministry. So it was, I mean, it was Baptist. Okay.

So Baptist General Conference was the specific Baptist because there's so fucking many of them. So you're a Baptist. Yeah. So you're a Baptist. You're at this point thinking about, are you thinking about

becoming a pastor at this point? Like this is sort of like percolating in your head. And what does that entail? Like, do you have to go to like school? I was going to be my question. Yeah. How much Bible Institute or something?

Or I might've went to the Moody Bible Institute. Did you? Yeah. So, I mean, so my 10th grade year, did you slam your door and be like, you don't know me because Moody?

No, it's a different moody. Oh, yeah, yeah. It took me a moment. But yeah. Nobody understands me here. Different kind of moody. I'm so pissed.

And now I'm so sad. And now fuck all of you. So, yeah. But yeah, my 10th grade year, I went to a mission conference that our church did. And it was like, wow, this is what I want to do. I want to use my whole life to serve Jesus and capture the world for Christ. And but then quickly it was like, well, I want to do youth ministry. I want to be a youth pastor and do like cool shit with teenagers.

I was a teenager. So, of course, that's what I wanted to do as a profession. And so and that's what I went to Moody for my 10th grade year. My senior pastor at that church he was like hey you should check out this place called moody they just like do miracles and transform people into miracle workers you need to go there i didn't know what it was so i'm like okay well then i'll apply and it was the only college i applied to i got in and uh so hard to get into yeah is it moody by i i don't mean this shitty like i'm genuinely curious like is it are these because i don't know at all

how any of this works i didn't grow up religious like is it is it is it a challenging curriculum is it challenging to get into or are they just like holy shit somebody wants to do this work and they're excited we just want young excited people will take them and their money like which is it yeah or is it a combination i'm just curious how that works It's kind of a combination of the two. So, I mean, academically, is it as rigorous? You know, you would get, you know, you would get a mix of perspectives. So, you know, which I suppose is probably the case with any college, with anything. But so, like, you know, at Moody, you'd have students who transferred in from other universities. And they're like, whoa, they take this shit so much more seriously here.

And they provide so much fucking busy work and all this shit. And one time Joe Stoll, who was our president at the time, he got up and he's like, OK, so we just want you all to know, like, we're testing you here. The Lord is testing you. Our goal is to give you so much fucking work. He didn't say fucking, but, you know, that was the idea to give you so much work that you have to choose between whether or not you really want to work hard enough to have an A or whether or not you want to put God, prioritize God above that. And so what do you want most? Like, yeah, it was kind of like, do you want to have like a full life that is centered around Jesus or do you want to have a life that is so focused on study that in order to get a's and so it's kind of like you know whatever they just you know snowed you with i have i have more like do you major in pasteurization yeah so homogenization

so so weird we just studied the past year the whole time it crazy. I know that guy like the back of my hand. Is that what you major in or do you major in like English, lit? Or do you major in like regular? I mean, you know what I mean? I just don't know. I don't know how any of this works. No, it's great. So in order to be a pastor, really it all depends on your denomination.

Right. So some denominations are much more structured. You have to go to that denomination school. And getting your seminary education is all tied into you're getting your ordinations. And you have to be ordained to get a church. And it's very structured and all to the book. With the more free-flowing denominations like Baptist, Pentecostal, things like that. So for me, it's much more open they can be okay not usually sometimes like a small segment that are yeah yeah yeah absolutely like in a circus and

shit because church is like a circus and shit so um but yeah so basically like within kind of the baptist movement which the whole idea is each church is autonomous no one has if you're a baptist church no one no overseeing body no one at all has the right to tell you how to do your shit oh really fully on your own that's what baptist and that's why they kind of franchise yeah absolutely and that's why it can vary so widely all the way from westboro baptist church where they're fucking insane and you know picketing funerals all the way to groups that are much more moderate and you know what we would don't stone all the way to groups that are much more moderate. And, you know, what we would don't stone gays, you're saying that don't stone gays or even pro gay marriage.

Do they get gays stoned? Is that an option? I don't know. I just, yeah. Opposite ends of the spectrum. You had this whole thing like when, when during Obama's first run, you know, there was kind of this rise of what was called the evangelical left, which it was, you know, they were mostly democratic voters.

They were pro social justice. And yet they also believed that the Bible was the inspired word of God, but they translated it in more progressive ways. And they just all voted Trump, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't heard anything about the evangelical left lately. I got to ask a question. So like many people, when they believe they believe because they had a reason to believe it wasn't just that they wound up, um, uh,

hearing it from their parents or whatever that like, not only did they hear it from their parents, but then they also had moments in their life that reinforced their belief, miracles, things, crazy shit that happened to them. You were going to be a pastor. So my question is, was there some crazy shit in your life?

Like, was there a thing that you thought was a miracle that ever happened to you before? Yeah, an inspired experience. Yeah, something that... Yeah, yeah, yeah. So nothing that I would have called a miracle. But yeah, I mean, I regularly saw God working in my life. What was that like? have called a miracle. But yeah, I mean, I regularly saw God working in my life. What was that like?

Explain that, because I'm not realist. I don't know what that would even entail. Yeah, absolutely. He comes by and he vacuums. I would like that. He wipes down the tables. You know what? Can he fucking move the couch and get the goddamn socks out from underneath it? So dirty in here. So dirty. But see, one day you're vacuuming

and the Bible you were missing couldn't find anywhere. You found it under the couch while you were vacuuming. And that's God who planted the Bible under your couch? And that was God showing you that your Bible was under there. I think you're a pretty bad Christian if you left

your Bible under the couch. If you misplaced your Bible. Man. It's stuff like that. I think you're a pretty bad Christian if you left your Bible under the couch. If you misplace your Bible. Man, is that? But yeah, but I mean, it's stuff like that. I mean, it's just simple. Yeah. Super simple stuff. It's I mean, I tried to stay away from I worked really hard at not over spiritualizing shit like that.

So I stay. I was leery of shit like that. I encourage others to kind of be leery of that. So I stay, I was leery of shit like that. I encouraged others to kind of be leery of that. Like, listen, you found your Bible under the couch, not because you were praying and God performed a divine miracle, but because you lost it under the couch and now you found it just like you also found your fucking pen, you know? So that was more, I think I would like to, maybe others would disagree, but I think I was a little bit more of a rationally minded Christian and pastor. Um, but yeah, things like that. So, I mean, like kind of, you know, the beginning stages of my faith is my faith was forming.

You know, there were like sort of these kind of big prayers that I prayed that all of a sudden, like I look back and I'm like, wow, like that actually happened. This was kind of a big thing. So maybe that was God that answered it. You know, so like we talked about that conference, that pure evangelism conference. So, you know, and I also mentioned that, like, I didn't have any friends when I was in junior high. And so, um, or at least not, I don't know, whatever, not, not what I wanted anyway. And, uh, and the more girls. Yeah, well, that's true too. none of them were girls yeah well that's true too i can relate so before before i'm going to the conference like i'm getting ready for the conference and i read over this brochure and it's promising it's going to like transform your faith and you know give just put you on fire for jesus and all this shit um which is a good thing on fire with satan is bad but on fire for jesus is good it depends on why you're on fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like

it's also a different part of your body. You know what I mean? On fire for Satan is always your anus. It's weird because I just get that after Mexican food. I was going to say those scorpion peppers or whatever. Indian food sometimes. Depends. Sometimes it's worth it.

You know? What are you going to do? Roll your windows down. You know, what are you going to do? Yes. Roll your windows down, you know, whatever. You know, when the shit feels really good, it's just a good fucking shit, you know? So, yeah. So where you want to weigh yourself after like, oh, my God. You like high five your wife. Come look. I see what I did.

I can fit in my suit. You come out, check your vertical. You're just like, holy shit. Really? Holy shit. I don't even know anymore. At the Pure Evangelism Conference. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Which is different than the Pure Evangelism. That's a racist one. Well, at the Pure Evangelism Conference, there was a purity rally. That's disgusting. Where we declared ourselves to stay virgin until we were married, which you guys, which I did, by the way, winning. Did you guys put like your rings together and be like form of a virgin?

Like, is that a way? That's all of us. Forget it. Right. I don't even know. But yeah, but now, so leading up to this conference, I had this like fucking 17. I'd have been like, I don't know. I'd have got 13 and a half. I'd have fucking like fucking 17 i'd have been like i don't whatever it takes i'd have got me 13 and a half i'd have fucking like fucking engagement rings like fucking bling i make it rain with those fucking things catch one who got just but that's why you get married when you're fucking

20 years old that's and i'm no for real for real yeah i got married when i was 20 is it because yeah yeah because i want to fucking fuck. Why the fuck would you get married? I don't know. I don't know. I feel a lot of pressure right now. Why would you get married? Damn it. What the fuck?

Was your wife evangelical too? Yes. And I actually in high school led her to place her trust in Jesus. I led her to the Jesus train. Wow. Yes. And that was actually part of her. So she was, seriously, my wife.

So she was DTF until you found your girl. Right. And then she locked up like a fucking clamshell. She was the hottest girl in school. She was the hottest girl in school she was the hottest girl in school in yearbook for our yearbook she was voted to you know you know the yearbook hall of fame where you vote on shit most likely so she was voted two things most likely to i i have some really go ahead yeah class flirt and most secretly desired for a date and so and then in our junior year of

high school so i'm standing in our junior year of high school, so I'm standing in the hallway, just like staring at her like a creepy fuck. And I was like, again, I can relate. And I'm like, God,

she is so amazing. This is your miracle. This is one of them. Yeah. God works in mysterious ways. And I said, I said, God,

she is so amazing. I've got to put it in her butt. Just what? If you would like to bless me, I said, if you would like to bless me, I would like to bless her. If you would like to bless me, Lord,

I said, now I can only date girls who trust in Christ. Okay. Okay. Super Jesus like me. I can't date anyone who's not because I took the shit series. Yeah, that's so right. And so I said, I said, God, if you would like to bless me, lead her to trust in Jesus, join the

train with me, and then lead her to me. Join the train sounds like a different thing. Jesus train. Jesus train. Jesus train. No, no, no. It's just two people. Well, it's three. Because every marriage has Jesus. Wait, every marriage

is an MMF fucking threesome? Jesus is always in the caboose. That's a thing, though. That's a thing. You got a figure cover with Jesus? Evangelical churches teach that like any any marriage that's going to be strong is a is a what a fucking cord of three knots or three ropes or whatever so it's it's the husband the wife and jesus and you work together because if it's just you and your wife it's not going to be a strong you know what you do if you're if you're

evangelical you get the set of three butt plugs and you name one the Father, one the Son, and one the Holy Spirit. And so you can always both be penetrating three different sizes. It's like small, medium, and large. It's like, which one's the big boy? Like the three fucking bears. Like the three bears.

She keeps saying, that's not it. That's not just right. That's not just right. That's not just right. Oh, but that one, that's just right. All right. So you've got these trainer butt plugs and she's a flirt.

And then I led her to Jesus and she was the only girl. She was my second date and my first girlfriend. Yeah. And we got married, saved ourselves from marriage, got married, had kids. Yeah. 20. 20.

All right. I'm 20. We're married for 13 years. Two kids. Congratulations. 13 years. Yeah. And my kids are fucking awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. Scary as fuck. How old are they? Awesome. 14 and 12. Wow. So you've been married 13 years?

Yeah. Well, we were. We were. I'm not married anymore. Okay, because I was like, wait a minute. I was like, hold on a second. This motherfucking former evangelical can't even fucking add. No wonder. I saved myself.

I just thought maybe she was standing at the altar like this, you know, 14 and you're married 13. No, no, no. I see what you mean. Okay, all 14 and you're married 13. No, no, no. I see what you mean. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Yeah.

No, we got, we were divorced in 2013. Okay. Gotcha. The stereotype is, and it's stereotypical because it often happens. It's a stereotype for a reason. So the stereotype is that with former preachers like me who become non-believers and come out as non-believers or at least come out to their who become non-believers and come out as non-believers or at least come out to their spouses as non-believers, the stereotype is that when divorce happens,

it happens because the spouse can't handle the fact that you don't believe in God anymore. Sure. And so it's actually a thing where it's like you broke your vows because your wedding vows were made before God. They were built on the foundation of God. It's in a church. Right. It's filled with prayers. Like, they are literally your marriage from a Christian perspective with a Christian.

I mean, obviously, if you don't have a Christian wedding, it's different. But so the mindset is, is your wedding was performed. It was built on a covenant with God. And now you don't believe in God. So you have by no longer believing, you've ripped out the foundation. So the marriage is now no longer valid. And the still believing spouse has an obligation to divorce and leave you what yes in some in the more now that's more fundamentalist most evangelical most like yeah i have to do that

but i don't want to so yeah or just won't don't even think about it that way you know so and my wife she never thought about it that wasn't our For us, it was more just it with all the shrapnel of all the shit of my own deconversion and leaving the church. And just that just changed everything so profoundly that it just no longer made sense for us to stay together. I was just curious if that because there are some people who that is a real problem. That is a genuine, real problem that they somebody, you know, we get messages from people all the time and they'll say, oh, you know, I don't know that I can tell my wife that I'm a non-believer.

I don't know that I can tell my husband I'm a non-believer because if I do, it could really ruin our marriage. And I'm still doing all the same stuff I've been doing forever. I'm still going to church. I just don't believe in it. It's driving me nuts. And, you know, what do you say to that person? You know, they're in love with someone, but that other person, that love's conditional.

That love is conditional on whether or not they're still a believer. Absolutely. And it's crazy. It's a bad situation to be in. So we run into that all the time. I'm just curious if it, you know. So a good friend of mine, Dave, and he's at the Clergy Project, serves on the board with us and everything. But he, Dave came from a more fundamentalist background than I did. And so his wife stayed with him.

But when he came out, just to family, at first privately, to them, that I'm no longer a believer. That's why I'm not pastoring anymore. His children, his grown children, stood up and said, okay, well, you know this means we can't associate with you anymore. Holy shit. Kids? Yeah. You don't have a covenant with your kids, Bill, do you? But the more fundamentalist, more far right

words, side tradition, there you have to fucking... It's almost like Jehovah's Witnesses and shit, where they gotta shun you. Like disfellowship and shit? Yeah, so it's like that. So they're like, since you don't believe in God anymore, they got to shun you. Like disfellowship and shit? Yeah, so it's like that. So they're like, since you don't believe in God anymore, we have to shun you. You're not allowed.

And that sucks, too, because if they would have done that when they were younger, he wouldn't have had to pay child support. Right? You know what I mean? Man. That's bullshit. Like, fucking shun me when you're young. That way I don't have to put you through college, you little shit. Exactly right.

But all of a sudden my Tuesdays and Thursdays free right up. Sorry. But no, but so he and Thursdays free right up. Sorry. So he hasn't seen his grandkids in years. So his grown children don't let him see his grandkids. He saves a lot on grandchildren gifts, though. Christmas is cheaper. I'm looking for a downside.

You guys and your fucking humor. Always laughing about shit. Damn it. Nothing's that serious. I do, though, genuinely, though, feel awful for that. That's terrible. No, it's terrible, right? It is terrible.

You spend your whole life raising these children, and then they're just like, yeah, this other thing is more important. Well, that fucking sucks because you taught them to be religious. Yeah. Right? Right? No, that's fucking true. You taught them to be religious, and then it. Right. Sure. Oh, that's fucking true to be religious.

And then it turns out a bites you in the ass and you're like, well, fuck, fuck me. I fucked that over. So fuck me. Yeah. Gee,

that's terrible. Yeah. That's a month. I didn't even think of that, but that's true. It's history. It's his fault. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Fuck. The other guy to be a Nazi. And then he kills you. It's just terrible. It's is awful. You got a Jewish guy,

like way back in the 1920s, being like, yeah, this Nazism shit. It looks like it has some potential. It's going places. I can't believe I just said that. You fuckers are pulling this shit out of me. He's like walking to the chamber and he's like, it looked good on the front end.

It looked good on the front end. This guy walked in thinking he was like, no, I'm never going to tell a Nazi. I'm sitting at home listening to this cognitive dissonance shit. I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe some of the shit they say. And now here I am making jokes about fucking Nazis

and Jews. As soon as you enter the glory hole, your fucking morals go right down the drain. Which is good. All right. So tell me about your Which is good. Shot in my face. All right. So tell me about your deconversion. How did that, how did that process take place?

So, yeah, I mean, I mean, it's not an easy, it just all kinds of shit. I mean, so it was like a two year process where, you know,

it begins, you know, as an evangelical whose faith, whose everything, your morality, your sense of ethics, everything. I was all the way hard.

Your day job, your morning, every single thing you're doing is revolving around this. But it was all centered not just on ministry or on church or even on faith in God. It was all, everything was rooted in specifically in the Bible. And so for me, what really was the beginning of the downfall of it all was as I began to have bigger questions, stronger questions, questioning the Bible's credibility. And as a good Christian, as a faithful Christian follower of Christ,

you have a problem. You seek out God in prayer. God, I have this issue. God, this shit with the Bible, it's not making sense. I'm looking at this huge question. Help me, help me. Take me into that.

With the credibility? Yeah, so I'm going to make a presumption. Tell me where I'm wrong. Not your first rodeo with the Bible. No. Right? No. Real familiarity with it.

Comfort level with it. You know it. You're teaching it. This is the way, the truth, the life, light. I don't know which it is. You're on this thing, right? Yeah. It's life.

So what changed that? I know. I know. So what changed? We looked it up like a week ago. So what changed that? I know. So what changed? We looked it up like a week ago. Trading in the flashlight for the flashlight. Anyway, yeah. So, I get

it then. I get it then, actually. Ask and answer. It's a good trade, actually. So why was it all of a sudden? I would trade every flashlight I own. Literally be in the dark forever. I don't care. If I've got a flashlight, I'd prefer to be in the dark. Are you kidding me? I don't know.

I don't want to look at that shit. I'm in that room. Well, who says I got to use the flashlight alone? It's true. You know? It's just that I'm so alone. That's terrible. All right.

So what changed about the bible that all of a sudden you're dubious of pieces of it that you previously i presume we're not like where those questions come from how does that genesis begin so genesis begin catch it oh genesis one is all poetic so no i mean so it's this long line of what I call the desk drawer where it's like, OK, so everything that you're comfortable working with studies and whatever, it's all on like the desktop of your mind. OK, that's where you're working with shit. Anytime something, though, maybe it's an archaeological study that says that, you know, findings show that the city of Nazareth was destroyed 500 years before it comes into the biblical timeline where Jesus was born or whatever it was. So these

studies come across and you're like, oh shit, well, this contradicts or challenges my biblical perspective. It doesn't fit. And so rather than leaving it on the desktop where you're working comfortably with everything, you open that bottom right-hand desk drawer and you toss that article in there and you throw it to the periphery, to the side.

And the idea is not that it doesn't matter, but that, well, for now it doesn't make sense. It doesn't fit. You know, one day when he wants it to make sense, he'll make it make sense or another study will come along that will validate the biblical perspective and disqualify this study. They're eventually going to find there eventually Noah's Ark on the mountain. Exactly. Eventually, they'll find another study by another guy to disqualify this one. So for now, I set it to the side to the periphery and I don't worry about it in that bottom right hand desk drawer. And so just, you know, over years of just every time that happens, you just throw it down there, you throw it down there, you throw it down there. And, you know, I can't say exactly what study it was, but eventually it's like you open the desk drawer to throw one more article down there or

one more critique against the Bible down there. And then you go to slam it shut and it doesn't slam shut. It's like all of a sudden and then then you look down and it's like, and then the shit's just overflowing. And you're like, oh my God, like there's all this shit that I've shoved to the side. Sure. That doesn't make sense. And now it's like all before I just wasn't paying attention to it. Now, all of a sudden I'm looking at it like all together collectively and it just, wow, this is overwhelming. That's. That's interesting because for some people it's the exact opposite. It's like one moment. There's a moment.

But yours was more gradual building until it finally overwhelmed you. But it's mostly, for some people out there, there's a moment where they're like, holy shit, this doesn't make any sense. And the thing that strikes me about that analogy is that it has to really matter to you that you are always trying to be intellectually honest.

So the only way that your breakdown happens is if you're really trying all the time to believe true things and to be intellectually honest, right? for a lot of people, and I think there's a lot of studies that bear this out, there are a few things easier than to compartmentalize the things that we don't like to put in that drawer and to just forget them, to be okay with them. In fact, I know there's studies that say the more challenging something is to you, the more it reinforces dearly held beliefs, right? And I don't remember what it's called, but it's got some catchy name I can't recall. But I think the only thing that breaks that down is that if more important than those defense mechanisms those psychological defense mechanisms intellectual honesty so it strikes me as interesting that that's there had to be that moment where it's like

fuck yeah i'm gonna break down my my sense of honesty and integrity is in question if i don't address this is that does that seem absolutely. Absolutely. So I I was raised. So I had this fiery fundamentalist grandfather who was like the he wasn't Baptist. He hated or maybe not hated Baptist, but he was kind of anti Baptist for whatever reason. But he had very much that Baptist independent spirit. I have the spirit of God in me and nobody, you know, the spirit of God within me, which teaches me truth. And nobody can correct that because I have a pipeline to God and nobody can supersede that. And so he taught me from the moment I was young. Does he sell food buckets?

Does your grandfather sell food buckets? I know a guy. Oh, serious. You know what? He was probably a big fan of those who did sell. yeah those buckets yeah absolutely absolutely but anyway uh but so like for me like i would from the time i was little raised to seek truth above all else nothing matters seek truth over authority because i was regularly told church leaders often fuck shit up church leaders they don't know everything just because they have their fancy degrees it kind of an anti-intellectualism from him very much very much so okay and so it's just because they have fancy degrees just because some moron moronic board put them in a place of leadership doesn't mean that they know truth and from his the bible alone is truth seek truth above all else

and so eventually fast forward years yeah i come to a point where I'm going, well, wait a minute. What if my, what if in my pursuit of truth, uh, I begin to realize that, you know, it's, it's not even in the Bible either. Sure. And since I had years, a couple of decades worth of just inputting in me, it doesn't matter if your family cuts you out. And, and he would tell me that truth before family truth before community truth before everything, truth is more important than anything else you can ever do. And so that was instilled in me from the time I was young. And so it just made sense.

Then once I began to see that truth was beyond the Bible, well, I've been instructed my whole life to seek truth over everything, even family. So of course I did. You've got a story called the Bible is the truth, right? And truth before everything else. And then at some point, the Bible and truth are no longer reconcilable. And so you've got a crossroads. You got that crossroads. And for you, truth wins out. And I think that's a real interesting spot to be in. So you deconvert over the course of two years. You start going down this road of inevitability, the dominoes start falling. The questions don't add up. I'm making some assumptions. You tell me what I'm wrong. No, absolutely. And then what happens?

Yeah. I mean, well, I, eventually it became clear. So, and I went through because my, my whole, you know, my psych, just my whole sense of identity was incredibly wrapped up within this whole Jesus thing. And so as I was edging toward the point of edging is great. I know. Right. I almost, I almost stopped for a moment and that wasn't intentional, but then I was like, oh fuck. I love fucking edging. Like three minutes, seconds. Sorry, I love fucking edging. I get like 30 minutes.

Seconds. Sorry, seconds. So that's embarrassing. Well, I mean, you know, when you're edging with Jesus, since he is the third of the three in your marriage. Yeah, that's weird. Is that kind of creepy? You look up that kind of creepy? I keep looking behind. You good too, bro? Can we meet in the middle of the house?

The Holy Ghost is like a black fist dildo. Are you ever intimidated? What do you got? What are you working with? You go second. My mother. Let me tell you about my mother.

Okay. That's a weird transition. I'm just saying. Drew, we don't know each other, but this segue makes me feel a little uncomfortable. So my parents are awesome. They're both very much still Christian believers, very much so, okay? And a lot of this has kind of broken their heart, but I'm not from the more fundamentalist tradition where you cut them off.

No, I'm from the more moderate evangelical where, well, no, you continue to love them. You know, you still pray that God will save them. They believe I'm going to hell if nothing changes. So they still pray for me that I won't go to hell, that I'll come back and all that. But they're super like, they try and be supportive. They work so hard at it.

Seriously, my parents are fucking amazing. And so my mom, like she listens to like podcasts I'm on and things like that. So I'mB supportive. They work so hard at it. Seriously, my parents are fucking amazing. And so my mom, she listens to the podcasts I'm on and things like that. So I'm telling her, Mom, you don't listen to this one. Drew's mom, I'm so sorry. Drew is a real nice young man.

Drew's mom, Drew's mom, this is for you. Are you single? Drew's mom, you an edgy? This guy's mom, this is for you. Are you single? Drew's mom. You an edgy? This guy's like, I never will tell her. I will never tell her. I will never say it. There's somebody

beating him nearly to death. He's like, I'll never say I was on that show. I'll never admit it. I'll never admit it. Here's the thing is, I haven't told her yet not to listen. She could be listening right fucking now. I haven't told her yet not to listen. She could be listening right fucking now. I haven't told her yet. So we just we have to catch her. Better catch her. Catch her before it airs. It airs on Monday. You have three

days. It's like fucking 48 hours. It's like ticking down. The first 48, right? But you know somebody's gonna send a clip or something to my mom and be like, you really have to hear what he said. Well, Tom, the

swing is still in effect. I would go so far as to say that this show is in full swing. It's still in full swing. It is in full swing. We're getting into the swing of things, and if you want to get into the swing of things. Hey now. Right? Hey now. Transition, motherfucker. You can go to adam to get into the swing of things. Hey now. Right? Hey now.

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With juice. Come on. Did you get involved in the Clergy Project before you left religion or did you get involved after? Yeah, it was after. So I actually left the church, embraced atheism in 2012. And then I went a full two years before I, you know, before I knew of a single other pastor, religious leader who like, I thought I was completely isolated.

I thought I was like the only, you know, one in the world like me. And then it was in 2014 where I discovered the clergy project. And at that point, the clergy project, it started off as a project, you know, now it's its own 501c3 nonprofit. But in 2011 is when it started off as a project you know now it's its own 501c3 non-profit um but in 2011 is when it started off so and then i didn't discover it until 2014 two years after i had totally you know finished my deconversion so i i want to take you one step back then we'll talk more about the clergy project but like you know i'm a little fascinated so you you dedicate your whole life from high school forward to being a minister

and then you leave ministry. What do you do for work? No, no. What I mean is huge. You spend your whole life being a doctor and you're like, fuck it, I'm not a doctor. You have a degree from Moody Bible Institute, right? Yeah.

I have a BA. I'm not trying to be shitty. It's such a terrifying thing to do it's everything that that's like the number one concern yeah i mean really finances are the number one concern but that's connected to your right right to your profession you do on wednesday when you wake up exactly so um sorry after that you're asking me well that's not right when you wake up. It's 9.17 or whatever now. I get up at 9.16. You've got some good porn on your phone.

I got the ass egg here. No worries. Ass or pussy though. I mean. Oh, shit. All right. But yeah, no. ass or pussy though i mean the mouth okay all right yeah all right but yeah no i mean i mean hi drew's mom hi drew's mom how you doing hey drew's mom ass or pussy what is wrong with that's a legitimate question why as i was mentioning my mother i was just like why this is this cannot be good this cannot be good but i, I was just like, why? This cannot be good.

This cannot be good. But I was bringing... Is it a mood thing? I brought her in with such noble intentions of how I was saying, don't listen to this. Is it flag day? She needs to know not to listen to this. Oh my God.

Someone is going to tell her. Some fucking heretic in Malacca, Minnesota is going to listen to this to try and scope it out. Because that's what they do is they find like... So even for the shit that no Christian should be exposed to, someone

has to know what it's like so that they can report back to the funeral. They're the scout. And so somebody's going to scout this out. They're going to be like, oh, my God. Yeah. But how bullshit is that? Like, I'll take this one for the team.

It turns out blowjobs are terrible, guys. Yeah. Research. I just want to say one star at the glory hole. I gave it a yelp review. I will say the glory holes in Minnesota are about two stars. They're about two stars. All the guys have beards.

I'll tell you what. All I know is St. Paul is not a saint. Hi, Juice Mom. But no, you know. Oh, you betcha. Oh, you betcha. Oh, you betcha. Oh, you betcha.

Don't you know, don't you know, don't you know, don't you know. You go to the wrong one and there's a wood chipper on the other side. Oh! Well, somebody told me today, they said, when I said I was going to be, I was going to enter the glory hole. Right. Is what I said. And they said, well, either you're going to be on a podcast or they said, or just make sure there's not a dog kennel next door. You have to put your dick in the peanut butter first.

So anyway. So, anyway. So, what? It worked. Let's just go back to where you got distracted. I don't know. Something about fucking peanut butter with the dog. If your mom likes it in the ass. But I will go.

Oh, come on. I just accept it. It's my mother. Jesus. My mother. What the fuck is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? It's my mother.

You sick bastard she does just go slow it's fine he's leaving I'm done with this shit I'm done with it guys I came here I came here in good faith exactly what he lost He's sweating profusely. We just turned the air on. Good faith.

Exactly what he lost. From now on, I'm adding a clause that my mother cannot be discussed. Well, you brought her up. I didn't know about her. All right. So back on track. Focus focus you know though talking about scouts and christianity so there was this there was this organization this group whatever where they like they screen movies and then they they write about like there's a few of them actually

and then they write about like all the shit that's in the movie why why you shouldn't let your kids see it you Yeah, exactly. It's an Angelina Jolie movie that we watched for another show and they had this entire review of like the two scenes where you could kind of see her butt.

It's just awful. I can't believe you did that. I could easily dedicate 500 words to Angelina Jolie's butt. No problem. No problem. Do you go with the Holy Ghost on that one? I don't know.

Is it the Holy Ghost? Anyway. A lot of words. So I talked with this guy this one time where that was his role. His role was, and he saw himself as, at least he presented himself as someone who sacrificed you know and was willing to endure to watch all these horrible movies

to expose his mind to all this terrible film for the good of the church it's like a fucking sprinkler that guy. Okay, honey, I gotta go to work. It's Sunday. I gotta go

to work, you ungrateful bitch. Fuck me. So, for work, you leave ministry and then you're like, hey, I got a degree in telling people shit that's not right. So, yeah. Sales.

Sales and marketing. Well, I had two degrees. So I had a, you asked earlier about like what my degree was or something like that. So it was a, I had a BA in pastoral studies. Okay. From Moody. And then I had an MDiv for Master of Divinity at seminary, which is an MDiv.

You don't have to feel embarrassed. I have an English Lit degree. It's fine. We can all feel the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fine. Totally fucking easy. How's that continental philosophy?

All right. So you have no education. I mean, so so right exactly right it's totally fucking worthless so but no what i did though for me i worked out um during grad school in addition to pastoring i was also waiting on tables okay uh and so with the first i was at two churches the the second church was i was the lead pastor. I was full-time. The first church, I was like a staff pastor, and I was part-time. And so I did that part-time while I also waited on tables full-time at a downtown steakhouse. I got a crazy question.

Oh, shit. What does that pay? We'll edit this out. What does a pastor pay? I can edit it out. We'll edit this out. I have no idea. Super curious.

I can edit it out. We'll edit this out. Yeah, no, it's fine. I have no idea. Super curious. The average, and you don't have to edit this out, but yeah, the average pastor in the U.S. makes $30,000 to $35,000 a year. So that's average. That's below the poverty line, isn't it?

Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it is or not, but I think $25,000 is or something. Well, and when you think about how, I mean, the more fundamentalist you skew, the more fundamentalist you skew, the more likely you are to have, you know, more kids. And so, I mean, you've got six kids on 30 grand a year and your spouse isn't allowed to work because you're in a fucked up fundamentalist

tradition. Oh my God. And so, yeah, I mean, it's crazy. Like, yeah, I mean, there's so, I wouldn't take a shit for $30,000 a year. But that's where like the stereotype you were probably killing it though at the steakhouse you're probably getting as much money at the steakhouse as when i was a pastor when i was at well yeah i mean when i was at the steakhouse and i was at the church that first church part-time yeah i mean my my what i brought in at

tips in the at the steakhouse was three times what I eventually made as lead pastor of the second church. Three times. Just in Tips. I have no doubt of that. Yeah. I have no doubt of that. That's crazy. Yeah.

It's so cheap. And that's the way it is. Now, I mean, they'll throw in, though, other things that you wouldn't normally get. Get yourself like a fucking gold-plated helicopter or whatever. I've got to tell you, like, like if i'm gonna fucking make some shit up exactly that's gonna be prosperity i want to i want to fight you i know well no i know i know but seriously good intentions the whole time yeah no but i mean really though like i mean if so you get to a point where you realize it's all bullshit what are your options what do you want to do you

know i mean you can you can transition out and try and, and for me, what I did, so I used those connections from the steakhouse, my first church, I used that to, you know, I talked to the general manager there and I was able to be brought back and became the customer service manager of that same steakhouse. And that was my transitional career out of ministry so for me that worked out well you had a good option yeah but yeah but i mean you look back like at times like i wonder like huh knowing what i know now seeing what i see now like huh what are the options i could have used and yeah i mean don't don't fuck like honestly i loved being a pastor like i loved it uh i actually think it sounds like a great job and i don't mean

that i like i know it sounds like a great job doing positive things yeah i mean all the supernaturalist bullshit aside you are doing incredible work in the especially if you're on the more progressive end of things social justice community initiatives which i was i mean we were doing powerful shit you get to wake up and give a shit about what you do right yeah hold on no so i always say this, and we say this on the show all the time, I would probably have a lot more in common with an

evangelical who's far left than I would ever have in common with a Republican atheist. We're going to actually have a Republican atheist on next month. Really? Yeah, it's going to be exciting. I think we probably, before you even stop believing, we probably believed and thought a lot of the same things. So justice minded, you know, you probably wouldn't have voted for Trump if you were religious.

Oh, hell no. No, I voted for Obama both times as a pastor. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You knew he was black, though, right? Wait, you know what? I never actually read the news. I don't know. I just saw the name Barack. And since Barack is in the Bible, that's why I voted for him. Yeah. Nice. Barack was one read the news. I don't know. I just saw the name Barack and since Barack is in the Bible, that's why I voted for him. Barack was one of the judges. He was a good guy.

Barack is a positive figure in the Old Testament. Not there. Not in the Bible. Not as much. At least not in the Christian one. Is there Hussein in the Quran? Almost certainly is, right?

Right? I don't know. I mean, would there? I mean, I would think so. Maybe. Don't they all name it? It's like everybody's like Abraham in that religion. Abraham or Muhammad?

Muhammad. Yeah, sure. There's a bunch of Muhammad's. Oh, hell yeah. All Muhammad's kids were Muhammad. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about your book. You wrote a book.

Now, is this about your transition? Because the book is called The Rise and Fall of Faith, A God to Godless Story for Christians and Atheists. Now, did you write anything about yourself in that book? Did you write anything about your transition in that book? Or is it more sort of an open, just like how here's how I see it sort of thing? Yeah, absolutely. So it centers, if you will, on my story.

So the rise of my faith, the fall of my faith, and then the last part. Gotcha. The rise above faith. OK, so it centers on my story. the rise above faith. Okay. Um, so it centers on my story, but, um, myself and others that I kind of brought into the discussion of where, you know, as I'm gaining feedback from others to say, you know what, let's, let's see if we can do something more than just tell another story. Like whatever we all have a fucking story. It's whatever. Here's my, here's my fucking story. Um, but, and, and it's a good fucking story. Okay. But, um, but it's just another bullshit story. And it's a good fucking story, okay? But it's just another bullshit story. What can we do

that's different? And so what we did, we decided to take this and use it to really foster a bigger discussion. At least that's the idea, to foster a discussion between those of faith and those without. And so it centers on my story, but then we take it in like each chapter ends with a series of questions. Some questions are focused towards evangelical Christians, believers. Others are focused towards atheists and skeptics. Others just towards people in general, just seeking to kind of build bridges. It's so easy, for instance, for evangelical Christians to look at atheists and be like, oh, you guys, you have no moral core. You're evil.

You're communist. You're whatever. Most of it is true. Right? Most of it is true. But, you know, it's easy for them to look at that and say like that, you know, you make all these assumptions. And likewise, then vice versa for atheists to look at Christians, be But, you know, it's easy for them to look at that and say like that, you know, you make all these assumptions. And likewise, then vice versa for atheists to look at Christians, be like, you're ignorant, you're stupid.

You have no ability to rationalize your logic. Again, where am I? Also, it's true. But hi, Drew's mom. How are you doing? But so I bet she goes, but stop it. She does. I know. Don, but. Stop it! What? She does. I know.

Fuck. Don't embarrass me. Like in the shower. Don't embarrass us. That's it. I'm going. He's going now. He's done.

Conditioner is a surprisingly gentle lube. You don't know. You don't know. It stings a little. Not to me. Not to me. You're a thoughtful lover. I thought it'd feel good.

Oh, fuck. The worst decision ever. Worst decision ever was to come here. The second worst was to sit back down in the chair after i after i was halfway out the fucking door he goes out to have a drink with his buddies later i don't know i thought it'd be different at the glory hole but yeah not it wasn't so weird so weird and every in every glory hole video i've ever seen there's a girl on the other end of the wall but apparently it's usually a guy yeah i don't i don't know what the fuck that's the mystery of the glory hole it's usually a guy. I don't know. What the fuck? That's the

mystery of the glory hole. It's like the Trinity. You don't know. It's so weird. It's like the mystery of the Trinity. Like you just have to trust in the glory hole like you trusted in God. That's how it works. It's almost like those videos don't reflect the accuracy of life experiences. I mean, as long as there's not braces and shit, does it really matter?

Get the camera in there. That's weird. Where's the camera even go anyway fuck i don't even know you know get out of a glass we're talking about the book let's transition back to the book so you can make money let's be honest there's not really any money to be made in it no authors don't make a lot of no no no nothing at all but no but so but so, I mean, basically the idea was to create this, you know, foster this greater dialogue, and so there's various tools

and whatnot in there to do that. So, it centers on my story, but it's bigger than that. Yeah. So, have you transitioned from Christian evangelical pastor to humanist practitioner, humanist orator? are you evangelical about humanism

well i mean like evangelist yeah like i mean like do you evangelize the cause of humanism yeah well you know what i mean by that yeah yeah yeah maybe i mean maybe kind of so i mean yes am Kind of. So, I mean, yes. Am I a proponent of humanism? Abso-fucking-lutely. Am I someone, though? I mean, I've never, even when I was a pastor, I was never someone to like seek you out. I was never a big like witness or like proselytizer. Like I was like, whatever. Like I just want to build, when I was a pastor, I was like, I just want to build good community. Sure. And just do powerful shit. And honestly, i really don't care what you believe like i'll even as a pastor i was like did i believe in heaven and hell and that your actions make it absolutely but i was like

i'll just let god you and god sort that out in hell i did believe in hell okay and how was the thing that stopped me for believing so how was the thing that made me not believe in yeah yeah yeah because for me it was like there's literally nothing i could do on a finite timeline that could that could warrant an infinite punishment so for me i was i started thinking about hell and i was like that doesn't make any sense and actually for my wife it was the same thing hell is the thing that turned her into a universalist from a roman catholic because for her uh it was, it was just, it didn't make any sense. Like hell doesn't make any sense. Like hell is, hell is like the stupidest, dumbest punishment for, you know,

I looked at my neighbor's wife, wife's ass, and now I've got a demon with a fucking barbed cock fucking me. You know, it's like, it doesn't make any sense at all. It literally is. And, and I grew up when I grew up, um, the, the, the people, the people that would tell me stories, I was a Lutheran slash. My dad was a Lutheran. My mom was a Catholic. We grew up in the Catholic tradition. But the people who influenced me about religion were all not Catholic. They were all born-again Christians.

So for them, it was all about like, they're going to tell me about the worst shit that's going to happen. There's going to be fucking locusts in armor and they're going to eat your eyes out and it's going to be the end of the world. And this is a, and that's all I ever heard growing up. And I was terrified. I was terrified at the end of the world. I was absolutely like my whole life.

I was petrified of it. And I was also petrified of hell because they would talk about, because not only do they talk about the end of the world and Armageddon, they also talk about hell and how bad it is and how it's going to suck for you and man, it's going to be the worst because they're going to melt your eyes out and then they're going to put them back and then melt them again and then put them back and melt them again. Just like fucking make up your mind.

Like fucking torture porn. Exactly. That's all it is. And so for me, what really broke me of it, there was clearly a death of a dog which is weird i don't know it's weird a dog died you always minimize that but when your pets die it fucking hurts like it hurt like it hurt so much and it made me it shook me i was like because i had said i was an

atheist before yeah i was like i'm an atheist but i never believed it i still kind of had this sort of like you know because i was hanging out with people that were atheists and i was like yeah i guess i'm an atheist. I don't really know. But when my dog died, I was like, no, I'm a legit atheist now. And this is weird because I had like, you know, because now there's no more. So how? So connect that dot.

Like what with your dog dying? My dog dying. Confirmed that. Realizing that I was actually going to die. Because all my whole life I had thought I was going to live forever. And there was a moment there that I had forgotten about death. I didn't put those two things together. You're a young kid, so you don't think a lot about death.

And then death. How old were you? I was 22. Wait, but so you're 22 and you say like you thought you were going to live. I mean, you didn't actually think you're going to live forever. So I mean, so. Well, when I was the thing is, is I don't know that i was ever really truly an atheist i had said i was agnostic i was like i don't know what the real thing is and at this point i was looking through all kinds of

like buddhist books and like where am i like what do i believe i don't know what i believe yet and maybe i'll live on forever maybe i get reincarnated maybe but i don't think that this is it i think that you know there's something else yeah yeah and yeah, yeah. And then the dog dies. And I'm just like, fuck. Like, my life just turned upside down. I was like, I had... Did it flip turn upside down? Yeah.

It actually went like this. It twitched twice when it died, too. So, but no. But, like, the idea was... I just keep thinking Will Smith and my life done flip turn. Wait, what is it? Is my life done flip upside down? Done flip turn upside down.

Yeah. I never watched that show. You didn't watch Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? No, I didn't. I missed that show. Well, how do you know how to do the Carlton? I don't know how to do the Carlton. You don't know how to do the Carlton?

I don't know how to do the Carlton. Do the fucking Carlton. I don't know. I literally don't know. Do the fucking Carlton. I don't even know who Carlton is. Oh, we have so much work to do. Okay.

All right, so go on. So anyway, so the dog dies. I'm like, go on so anyway so the dog dies i'm like i'm fucking i'm like i'm like unconsolable for like five months like for five months of my life i was i was in pangs of anxiety that i can't even describe i was just like like and this it's almost certainly had to happen to you right like like the moment you left religion your your your brain is like oh shit i don't live forever holy fuck i'm gonna die one day and it's gonna be over forever i would love to know about that moment of existential realization where you realize like oh my god when i closed my eyes that last time there's nothing after that like what what is that what was that like because that you

never thought that before yeah i want to know about that moment. Your whole life you're like, because for me, it was fucking, it took me five or six months to get over that. It still scares me occasionally. It does for me too. Absolutely. You know what I do to get rid of it? I don't think about it. I'm scared because I think that I'm going to experience the experience of not being. Sure.

But there's no me and there's no experience. There's no one to receive the experience. And so that's how I console myself is that I won't, there's no one to experience the experience. And so that lets me set it to the side and be like, okay, what matters is. You got to read the apology. Okay. You got to read Plato's apology.

You got to just read it. It'll be just like before I was born. Yeah. Well, I think about that too. I think about that too. I think about that too, but I guess the impossible part for me, and again, this doesn't have to live in the show, but the impossible part for me is that

I have never not been for the entirety of the experience of me. Of you. I have been, right? Right. So I don't have an experience called what was it like before I was born. I don't have an experience called what was it like before I was born? I don't have that experience because there wasn't a me prior to that. So the challenging part is trying to establish the concept in a full and realized way of what it is to not be.

Because the entirety of my consciousness has been centered around the notion of being yeah right i know that that sounded like jibber jabber but like knowing that there will be knowing that i don't so think knowing that i don't have to exist forever like there's not the obligation where i have to exist forever like i there will be a day where i can just close the fucking door hang it the fuck up and just be done like is is freeing like in a way like as a christian i never would have thought that when i was a christian the idea of infinity was kind of terrifying just in the fact of like like just stressful like i don't know like i can't explain it no i i'm right with you there's anxiety with this idea of infinity and

the fact that like i would just continue and like maybe part of it was just the idea that like there would never be any rest like i could never just be done like to me there's something incredibly restful in knowing that one day I can just be done. I think Hitch said that. I think Hitch was talking about stuff like that too. Yeah, I don't know.

There's a, there's a comfort in one day that you'll be done. You know, one of the things that scared the shit out of me when I was a Christian was the heat death of the universe, because I was not, I was never a 6,000 year Christian. I was always a Catholic and Catholics believe most of the science,

right? So for that, for me, there's so much more rational, the heat in a way I was like, I'm going to watch everything slow down to near absolute zero. Where am I going to be? And what's going to be happening?

Like, because like, I mean, like, like, because you're, can I ask you about that? Because like,

don't you think that you're outside the universe at that point? I don't know the answer to the question. I always thought... Like you're up on a cloud watching it? I always thought you were just part of the universe. So I never really thought I was outside of the universe. I always thought the universe is us. Heaven is in the universe?

Heaven is a part of the universe. I could travel wherever I wanted. I could do whatever I wanted. I could be wherever I wanted. That never occurred whatever I wanted. I could be wherever I wanted. That never occurred to me until right this second. That was a possibility. Because I always assumed that heaven was another place,

a different dimension or something. There is no physicality to it at all. It's all magic. Not in a shitty way. I just thought it's all a magical place. There's the physical world and then there's the not physical world and they don't intersect. There's no intersection

between them. There are definitely some who, you know, some religious traditions where, you know, Christian traditions where it's like an actual part of this physical realm. Yeah, I mean, definitely historically speaking and as science

brought more information that kind of whittled down. But there's still groups today where, yeah, like they think like there must be like a like a black hole that leads to heaven and, you know, like an actual physical heaven. Really? And that's where God is. And yeah, yeah. No, for real. This is bullshit. This shit is fucking real.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know the specifics enough to be able to. But yeah, but no, it's real. So you had sufficient technology you could get there alive? Well, they would likely say that God would keep you from ever finding that sufficient technology. Yeah, okay, but. But yeah, in theory you could. If you didn't, yeah.

If your DNA has the technology, you're going to die. Ah, yes. That's what they would say. They'd be like, you've already possessed that technology. Yeah, but I guess like, I have never thought of it as not magic i heard i heard a tape when i was uh when i was seeking when i was when i was sort of falling out of religion and i was seeking other stuff and i was trying to find meaning in my own life i heard a tape of a guy who was telling a story about like he was a he was like, he was trying to make science and religion marry. And one of the things he was talking about was like, you know, we talk about, we talk about,

you know, uh, how we don't understand how certain things work and how, but he's like, God can step outside of time. And so another thing is, is like, God can step outside of the universe too. Right. Like, so like, those were the things that we were taught. Like that's sort of something that, you know, God is not, God is something who is, he's a thing that can act outside of the realm in which we sort of are stuck in. And I guess I always figured heaven was,

I always figured heaven was the same thing. I always thought no matter what. Tom, did you, what's your background? Did you grow up in a non-believing home? I know I grew up. So I didn't believe anything until I was six or seven and I lived with my dad and my dad was Methodist. But the Methodists are like, man, they're pig roasts in the habitat for humanity. You know what I mean? Like they are. And like, so you don't do a lot of these big metaphysical theological questions. It's really just like, hey, we should do some hard work for people that need help. Right.

And that's most of my memories of church. It's singing songs and like doing a pig roast in a block party. And like, I don't remember any shit about Jesus. I don't remember any of that shit. We didn't talk about that shit. No shit about Jesus. Wow.'t remember any of that shit. We didn't talk about that shit. No shit about Jesus. Wow. Yeah.

Very, very little. It was all about like, you know, my dad was a trustee. We went on Wednesdays and Sundays. So I went twice a week for a lot of, you know, for several years. I was the janitor for that church at one point. But it's singing, right? It's all singing and shit, right? Yeah.

Well, it's like, it's not all singing, but it was all focused on... The joke is maybe if I work hard enough, shit won't happen. That's the joke of the Methodist, right? So it's all about work hard, do good work, be a good person. How do we do good work? The idea that I came away from Methodism with was that there was a method and the method, right? Right. That's exactly. Yeah.

John Wesley's Methodism. Yeah. That's what it is. Method was how to be a good person and to do right by other people. And so that was most of what I remember church focusing on. Like, so it was not theological in that, in the same way. So I guess I feel like I made a lot of this shit up. And so I figured like you died, your body's gone. I just, I just never thought about it too much, but like you died, your body's gone. You go to heaven. Well, heaven's a

magical place where time and space are just different. Well, and I think most are that way, like heaven, God, it's like another realm realm it's almost like if you take like everything that is like okay so okay uh stranger things okay so you've seen stranger things great there's like a another realm like imposed upon the real one you know i mean like it's the same the same buildings the same everything's there but it's like a whole nother like layer upon it you know what i'm talking about so like that that's what it is it's like the same world the same everything's there but it's like a whole nother like layer upon it you know what i'm talking about so like that that's what it is it's like the same world the same god's there but like you just can't see him he's in like another realm but like you can interact but it's different so what what happened when you stopped believing what was the now you're talking about you know

with this sort of universal i think i think a lot of people probably relate to what you're thinking about especially people that are deconverted what is is it changing you the moment you stop thinking there's another realm? How does that change you? I mean, I went through, for me, so you have a lot of Christians, even evangelical Christians, who, where for them, even though they believe the Bible, they believe it's the inspired word of God and all that. Nonetheless, their like sense of morals, their ethics, like it's still like kind of, it's not necessarily a direct correlation with the Bible. Like they, they kind of set that apart and you know, they just kind of go with what makes sense for me though. Like everything, like I was on that jesus train hard

and everything was connected to it so once i set aside the bible like everything was up for grabs and once i no longer believed in god just like my entire world my whole sense of identity who i am what is right and wrong like i was the as far extreme as you can go with that, in terms of, I just, I had lost my moral core. I had lost everything. And I knew, I knew nothing, like because it was all tied to that. And now that was gone.

And so now what the fuck? Like, I have no idea. And so I- Rape somebody? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. No, I mean-

Roger's mom. Roger's mom. Roger's mom. It's cool. Son seems really nice. I did not rape anyone. I did not do any... You didn't murder anybody. No murders. Yeah.

You didn't steal a lot of money from somebody. Right? Yeah. A few liquor stores. You rob a few liquor stores to see what it feels like. You rape a few goats. I just want to know... And then suddenly you're a goat fucker. Just for a minute. What is that about? Just what does it feel like?

Yeah. I don't need to wear the jersey that says that on the back. A goat is one of God's creatures. All creatures great and small. Oh, that shit's tight. They're those little pellet poops for a reason. Yeah. But no, but what one note one note of interest

goes the wrong way what does that even mean I don't even know what that means Drew's very uncomfortable right now hi Drew's mom how you doing no but one note that is important maybe important uh so even though i

lost all moral core and seriously like i had i had with my faith i lost my moral core i lost any sense of i lost it all and was working to just reconstruct everything from scratch and uh even then no rapes, no murders. Like, even then, like, I still had... Can I back you up? But Christians, though, would say... I mean, you know the stereotype. Yes, because I know.

But even there, even though I did legitimate, most atheists have a moral... I had no moral core for a couple... for at least a year there. I just didn't know. But I still intuitively knew. It was right. I want to ask you, I want to back you up.

Did you lose your moral core or did you not understand? So did you not understand why things were right and wrong versus you know things are right and wrong. You're not going to go on rape and murder, right? Because you know you can't, but you're not sure why you can't.

You're not sure why. Yes. No, that's good. That's good. No, you're exactly right. I still had a moral core. Or maybe, you know, I mean... So some will say, listen, you know, obviously

the stereotype that we have all heard many, many times from the far right, whatever, is that many times from, you know, the far right, whatever is that, you know, without a God, you, because you can do whatever you want, you're going to go on and then you'll have other people say, listen, yeah, I can do whatever I want, but I don't want to rape and kill. And so I don't. And I mean, so maybe you could say that for me too. Like I, I did not have a recognizable moral core in that i didn't

know what it was and and honestly like honestly i was kind of open to whatever like i was just like you know honestly i don't know like i really am open to whatever and part of me kind of wondered if i would become like this terrible terrible evil person part of me kind of wondered is that where this is going because i was legitimately everything. But the important part is that, but I didn't want to rape and kill. But before I became a Christian or before I left Christianity, I was sort of seeking at a certain time. And I met, I knew this guy who had told me flat out, he said, I would steal from the register here if I knew there wasn't a punishment, if I knew God wasn't watching me. And there are people out there with the exact opposite thought of you that, you know, they would have said, fuck it. I'm a, you know, I, if there's nobody watching me,

then I'll do whatever I want. And so I think that there's, there's a spectrum. There's clearly a spectrum of people and morality that believe in God. Here's what I think. I think that people who grow up in that, whatever, bubble, they're told their whole lives that without God, this is what you'll want. And so they regurgitate that shit and say, oh yeah, if I didn't have God, I would want that. Because they just, not because... Not because they actually want it. Not because they actually want it and they're just restraining themselves.

I mean, maybe for some, that is the case. They do want that shit. And they're just working overtime to restrain themselves. Sure. Like Tim Baker. Yeah. But for most, they don't have to work to restrain themselves because they don't want it. Like, maybe it sounds kind of sexy and cool and fun, like in the movies.

But at the end of the day, they don't want all that goes with with it and so they'll restrain themselves with or without god yeah right you know what i mean like there's plenty of other there's plenty of other factors that prevent us from doing things that we know are wrong to do right so so so in order for you to do something that you know is wrong to draw the pull has to be greater than the push right yeah so i i would imagine it's like yeah i want to steal from register because yeah i you know i want money but it's like yeah but there's also law and order that's involved you know there's so many there's so many jobs right well and i mean the job pays you every week for fifty dollars yeah i'm gonna steal fifty dollars and lose 400 like yeah there's there's a hundred i wasn't even thinking about an employee stealing

from the register i was thinking about a guy wasn't even thinking about an employee stealing from the register. I was thinking about a guy on the other side of the table stealing from the register. But this is an employee. This is an employee who's saying I would steal from the register. But I agree with you.

I think generally speaking, generally speaking, most people do the things they want to do that they feel are right. And then after they've performed the action, they evaluate how they got to the action,

right? I don't think it works in reverse most of the time. And I could be wrong. I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. But I generally do believe that most people rationalize post hoc rather than into it, right? I don't think most people think into the situation. They think after I also think that those who believe, you know, not all people who are believers in a God have this particular brand of theology. day of justice, they are so much so betting on that day of justice that they just kind of allow, well, whatever shit happens today, however people are fucked over, they'll get their due in the end. And I think that breeds a lack of empathy, which may be obvious. I don't know. So I think that within that theological spectrum you have this you you find a situation where people are significantly less empathetic and so they're able to say oh fuck yeah yeah it's still from the register because they don't have that empathy but

once you lose that feeling of oh well god is judge and one day he'll write all wrong so yeah go ahead and fuck him today and one day they'll get their due where all of a sudden you take that out. It's like, wait a minute. No, this is everything. I think that that shift automatically, I mean, if, if you're decent fucking human, but if you have that potential, you're automatically going to become that much more empathetic because you realize this is everything that's there. Is that what humanism did for you? Did humanism snap you back a little? Well, for me, I actually considered myself a humanist before I was an atheist. So I actually consider myself a Christian humanist.

So kind of our dig, our perspective. That's like a cronut, right? That's like the same thing. Yeah, right? Yeah. Yeah. You got to wait a real long line. It's like, yeah.

Okay. All right. I mean. You get disappointed. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Hold on. Don't you say a word.

Wait, cronuts? Hold on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cronuts you get disappointed. Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. Don't you say a word. Wait, cronuts? Hold the, yeah, hold on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cronuts. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I want a fucking cronut. Donut or Danish? Oh, fucking donut.

Yeah, motherfucker. And cake all the way. I don't. Fucking A. Okay, hold on. One more question.

Cake donuts, right? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Danish fuck?

Yeah, he's a fucking Danish guy. Oh my God. Oh, wait, it's too much time in the glory hole. He just likes all that creamy fucking jizz down his fucking throat. So here's the other question.

That's my heart space you're fucking with right now. You're stuck at home and all you have is Neapolitan ice cream, right? That's the only thing you have. I feel the same way. I have the same thing. Big flash. That's it. Do you take a little

vanilla or maybe take a little straw or do you scoop across or do you scoop individually? Wait, what? You have to eat Nepali ice cream because the world is a shitty place. How do you scoop the ice cream? Individual? Because there's like different swirls.

Do you scoop across or do you scoop individual scoops? More likely than not. No, I would scoop across. Yeah. He's a good man after all. He's a good man after all. Here's the thing.

Clergy project, ladies and gentlemen. Here's the thing. You're awful. Is it fucking Neapolitan ice cream or is it a fucking mini box of pistachio in a mini box of vanilla or whatever chocolate. You're in a hellscape anyway. You might as well make the best of it and not scoop across. Because if you're stuck with Neapolitan ice cream, you can't throw it away and get

a good ice cream flavor. You might as well just eat the chocolate out of it and fuck all those assholes who scoop across like fucking crazy people. You scoop across. You're the type of person who would steal from the till. That's all I'm saying.

Check your wallet right now. Listen. I want whatever the experience is. I want the fullness of the designed experience. He was going to say divine. Yeah. Old habits die hard

unless you murder them because you have no moral center. Murderer. Hi, Drew's mom. Listen, I would rape the ice cream before I would. So, Drew,

if people were going to find your work, people were going to find your book, where would they look? Where is your mom? Stop it. It wasn't me. Far, far the fuck away from you. You fucking slimy asshole.

You brought her up. Yeah, so, I mean, where the book is, the book is on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, you know, stores, I mean, where the book is, the book is on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, you know, stores, wherever. We'll put a link in this week's show notes. Cool. But if people are going to find you

and the stuff that you do. So, drewbacius.com, just my name, and humanistcoach.com. I think you should spell that last name, man. Spell that last name? Yeah. All right, so, the first part is D-R-E-W, and then B-E-K-I-U-S.com. Yeah, that's how right. So it, the first part is D R E W and then B E K I U S.com.

Yeah. That's how I would spell it too. Drew bake. Fuck you. Drew bake is.com and then humanist coach.com. So, all right. Yeah. Yeah.

Thanks for joining us today. Thanks so much. You fucking assholes are a pain in the ass, but well worth the pleasure. So we want to thank Drew Bacchius for joining us today. What a great interview that was. It was a lot of fun.

How much fun was that? It's an interesting story, fun guy to have in studio. Yeah, we're hopefully going to have him on in the future. A really, really interesting, funny guy.

And Drew's mom, call me. We'll set something up. But we want to thank Drew for coming on. We'll leave all his information on the show notes. If you want to check out all the stuff he's doing, if you want to buy his book, or if you want to check out humanistcoach.com, we'll leave all that stuff on this week's show notes. Drew, thank you for coming in.

Great guy. That's going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo quasi alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead, pan, sales pitch, late night info docutainment. Leo, Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls,

Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense.

Expose your signs. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Thrust your hands. Bloody. Evidential. Conclusive. Doubt even this. The opinions and information provided on this podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. All opinions are solely that of Glory Hole Studios LLC. Cognitive dissonance makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any

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