Episode 129 - Apostate contributing Author interview -Tim B - Still Unbelievable!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Episode 129 Apostate Contributing author Tim B.
This is Matthew, and in this episode still of Leafhood, I'll
be interviewing Tim, who is a fellow contributor to the book
Apostate. See the show notes to link to
the book are the podcast and items we mentioned in this
discussion. Hello everybody.

(00:27):
Welcome to another episode of It's Still Unbelievable.
This is Matthew. Now this time I'm doing another
interview. You will already know by now.
If you don't know, then shame onyou.
But if you do know, thank you for staying with me.
I'm going to bore you silly for many more episodes yet.
I wrote a chapter for a book. By the time you're hearing this,
the book will already be published and out 6th of January

(00:49):
is the date of launch for the book.
This will be after that, I am pretty sure.
But we're recording here at the in the beginning of December.
So Christmas hasn't yet happened, but we're going to
pretend that it has and we're inthe new year.
So happy springtime to all of you lovely listeners.
So the guest I've got on today is a fellow contributor to the
book. So I'm hoping this will be a

(01:09):
nice two way conversation and talking about deconstruction,
what it's like, what what the hurts are, what the pitfalls
are, and what the process of writing a chapter for this book
has been. So Tim, welcome to Still
Unbelievable. Thank you very much for joining
me today. Pleasure to be here Matthew.
Thank you for having me. Right.

(01:30):
So Tim, fellow apostate, howeverwe want to call each other the
the book that we've been involved with is called
apostate. I can't remember the rest of the
the title and a lovely lady by the name of Sarah Backela, who I
have already interviewed and theinterview is a couple of
episodes back. Check the show notes and check

(01:50):
the back catalogue if you haven't already listened to that
interview, listeners. And she's put this book
together. There's 21 of us, I believe,
who've contributed chapters to this book or people with varying
what, how should I put it, varying periods of time between
leaving Christianity and arriving at deciding to write
this book. So, Tim, tell us a little bit

(02:13):
about what briefly how you heardabout the book, the apostate
book, why you chose to put yourself through writing a
chapter for that, and then we'llget into talking about some of
the experiences around writing. Absolutely.
So I wrote my chapter only I believe about a month or two
after I sort of came out as as atheist.

(02:37):
I had confessed to my wife only a couple of months prior and
during her own process of deconversion, she was looking
for some resources and discovered the Deconversion
Anonymous group on on Facebook and through the community there.
There was a lot of great supportand a lot of discussion.

(02:58):
And one of the people there was Sarah, as you mentioned earlier,
she was part of that Facebook group and she at one point
solicited some authors for this,for this book that she was
putting together. And because the experience for
us was so fresh and so recent, it felt like a good opportunity

(03:20):
for me to express myself and to kind of process what I had just
gone through. It's something that I, I was
also going through some therapy at the time because leaving
Christianity is pretty traumaticand one of the things that my
therapist recommended was to, tojust talk about it.
And so this was a great opportunity.

(03:41):
That is, I think therapists advising to talk about things is
really good. There's a danger when we go
through something like this and I was certainly guilty of it.
In my own journey. I'm staying quiet and suffering
in silence and it's not very good for our mental health and
not very good for the relationships we have with our
closest loved ones. When it eventually does come

(04:02):
out. I guess I'd like to dig more
into your into why you decided to do that because it feels to
me. So I'm 15 years out.
So for me writing this was putting down together bits of a
story that I've already told multiple times.
So for me, sitting down and writing it, the chapter pretty
much wrote itself. You know, it was about 3 days I

(04:22):
think of sitting down for a couple of hours each time,
sticking it all out. And I ended up having to cut
lots out of it because I think Iwrote several 1000 words at
first and then ended up editing,editing it down.
But for you, when you're still processing that, a lot of the
bits that you're processing are still very fresh and and raw.
Do you think you did benefit from doing that so soon?

(04:46):
I think so. I actually, obviously during the
writing process, there's a lot of requests to go back and, you
know, make any edits during publishing process.
And I had to resist a couple of times, you know, reading through
it and wanting to rephrase or reword things in a way that made
more sense to me now. But I specifically resisted

(05:07):
doing that because I wanted it to be as close to my state of
mind on just leaving Christianity as I could.
So by the time we finished editing, I was about a year out
from D conversion. But when I first wrote this, I
was maybe, you know, two or three months.
Right. So even writing it must have

(05:29):
evolved with the way you were involved evolving post
Christianity. Absolutely.
So I believe I say in my chaptersomething about, I think I wrote
it within a week of coming out to my dad.
And that was a that was a prettyrough scene, but certainly it

(05:49):
was a big influence on how I viewed my own departure as well
as how I viewed Christianity. And I think as time has gone on,
I mean, the, the stages of, of grief, right?
Going through a lot of the trauma of separation from my

(06:10):
community and trying to discovera new one.
So a lot of things have settled down emotionally, but I hope
that some of the the more raw emotion is is visible in the
chapter. I certainly found that in
reading your chapter and it certainly comes across that the
tentativeness that you had abouttelling your father came across,

(06:35):
and I certainly identified with that.
Me telling my father was actually over the phone and
under rehearsed. I was going through a difficult
patch in my life and he suggested a counsellor, which
surprised me for starters, that he suggested a counsellor and
then he followed it up with a Christian counsellor, of course.

(07:00):
And I, I needed to shut this armof conversation down.
So I said to him, well, I'm atheist now, so it wouldn't be a
Christian councillor and took him aback.
And that gave me the perfect opportunity to move the
conversation on. And we've, we've not discussed
it since. So it was I, I laugh at it now,
but I, I think my dad is still smarting a little bit from that

(07:23):
and doesn't quite know how to follow up on the conversation.
And this was almost five years ago now.
So it's one of one of many things that we just don't
broach. Yeah, absolutely.
I've, I've been in sort of a similar situation.
It's, it's, we haven't, I haven't seen my parents since I
came out to them. And I don't know yet what the

(07:47):
holidays are going to look like.It's, it's going to be
interesting to see what that looks like.
So. So five years ago and and how
long ago was your actual departure?
It was about 15 years ago, 15 years ago.
Yeah, so you waited quite a while to talk to your dad then?
Yes, my dad and I have had a scratchy relationship and I talk

(08:09):
about it a little bit. If you go back to some of the
episodes we've done listeners where we've myself, Andrew and
David, we've, we started talkingabout our stories, the long form
format. We've done 2 episodes.
So I'll talk a little bit about it there.
But yes, because of the, the fundamentalist religion that I

(08:31):
form of Christianity that I grewup in and my parents divorced
when I was nine years old, Thosetwo combinations were just a
perfect storm for me to have a, I have a tumultuous relationship
with my father and that is exactly what we've had.
And the weird thing is my, my mum dying 15 years ago kind of

(08:52):
helped to spearhead us into a better relationship.
So, you know, when my mum died, we hadn't spoken for about 3
years, maybe four years. And my aunt, bless her,
orchestrated a reunion between US and basically said to my
father, you know, he's your son,his mum has died, he needs you.

(09:13):
And he reached out and we've we've not had a hiccup since
then, which I am genuinely thankful for, but you know, off.
So my dad is very much, I suspect we again, it's among
those things that we don't talk about.
I suspect that he's fearful thatif he says the wrong thing, it
could go back into another period of silence and that will

(09:36):
be it. We will never speak again and I
think that he does not want to go into that territory and I
don't blame him for that. So if we've got a comfortable
relationship now, why risk it bytouching onto subjects that will
be sensitive for one or both of us?
Yeah, absolutely. I'm, I'm interested to see where

(09:59):
my relationship is going to go with my parents and my sister as
well who's who's also deeply religious and fundamentalist,
which I remember hearing when I heard your interview on the
graceful atheist. I remember hearing some of of
your background. And of course, I, as I'm sure
you read in my chapter, I also grew up in a quite

(10:21):
fundamentalist take of of Christianity and definitely
something I think we have in common there.
Yes, I read that and I definitely had an affinity with
some of the moments that you described in your book.
And it's it's comforting to hearthat you know other people with
a similar story because it tells, it helps to tell you that
you're not crazy, you haven't made a terrible mistake, that

(10:44):
there is some sanity behind the thinking that you've done.
It's nice to have that positive feedback through a, a shared
negative experience. But yes, I look back very dimly
on the fundamentalist indoctrination which I had and,
and I'm very happy to call it indoctrination.
In fact, weirdly, I was calling it indoctrination before I even

(11:08):
left Christianity. You know, we would talk to other
people and they will say, how did you become a Christian?
I said, well, I was a child in the missionary environment.
I was indoctrinated. No, let's just be honest about
it. There was no other way I was
going to be a Christian. Yeah, I mean, my it, I had a
similar experience. The church that I grew up in was
not that shy about the term indoctrination.

(11:30):
They they knew what they were doing.
And I remember at one point my parents had told me that they're
hot take, which was that good parenting in their eyes was was
just indoctrinating your children with the beliefs that
you want them to have. And that's a really unfortunate
approach, not the approach that I'm taking.

(11:54):
I prefer to teach my children tothink critically and to think in
a way that challenges themselvesand challenges the things that
they hear and the things that they surround themselves with so
that they can develop an appropriate reaction, whatever
that might be for them. But it's not indoctrination, and

(12:15):
it's certainly, at least to my mind, a healthier approach to
dealing with the world. I absolutely agree.
Education should be a time of learning, yes, but learning in
an inquisitive way. You know, in the UK we have this

(12:37):
thing called forest schools where children are encouraged to
basically be out in, in woodland.
Obviously it's supervised in thelesson format and there there is
a, a process that they go through, but there's very much
an encouragement to experiment, to touch, to feel, to learn how
things are. And that's the best, best way to

(12:58):
learn. You know, even as adult in my
place of work, you know, there'sone particular colleague I work
with who's very good at telling us things and that's very good
at easing us through the learning process.
And I'm still only six months into this new job.
And I find that things that I'm being told I need to be told
multiple times before it sinks in, whereas things that I

(13:20):
learned by actually doing it, I pick up so much quicker.
And that's true when you're a child and it's true when you're
an adult in the workplace. And you know, that is exactly
what we need to encourage our children.
So yes, this indoctrination thing was terrible.
I had memory verses in the boarding school hours at in
Zambia. So every school day started with

(13:42):
reciting a verse, usually from aNew Testament, and the you
tended to be we start, we would start at verse one in a chapter
at the first day of term and we would see how far we got through
the term time. And by the end of term we're
expected to recite the entire chapter up to the point of the
daily memory verse. So every day wasn't just

(14:04):
learning a new verse, but keeping on remembering all the
verses prior. How much do you still have
memorized? Very little, to be quite honest,
very, very little. But somewhere in my possessions
I've not thrown it away. I do have a little New
Testament. And then it is written, gifted
to Matthew for reciting. And it was one of the, I think

(14:27):
it was more than a chapter, one of the letters of Paul in the
New Testament. Or or at.
Some point. Letters of Paul, depending on
which one we're talking about. Yeah.
So it clearly wouldn't have beenone that went in for pages and
pages and pages, but clearly 1 long enough that it it took some
effort. So I, I genuinely can't remember

(14:47):
which one it was. I, I practically, I really
genuinely don't care enough if I'm on this, that's good.
But but yes, I I have this New Testament inscribed where so I
can prove that I have learnt oneone letter of Paul at some point
in my past. But now I.
Yeah, our our church did less Bible memorization and a lot

(15:10):
more apologetics studying. So rather than memorizing
verses, which surprisingly I didn't do as much of, but
instead we would read through like systematic theology books
and discuss all of the different, you know, types of
world religious systems from a Christian perspective.

(15:32):
You know, not not very objectiveat all, but it was, it was meant
to be like this cover of why Christianity is better than
every other belief. But it was a, it was exhaustive
and it was years and years and years of study along lines like
that. Doctrinal study, apologetic
study, all that. Yeah, that's one of the things I

(15:52):
really struggle with and that touches on one of the things why
I do this podcast and why I makethe critiques that I do.
There is definitely a Christianity is definitely not
the only one that's guilty of this.
Pretty much all the religions are guilty.
Now, you mentioned that Islam isespecially guilty of it.
Any kind of educative or teaching environment is always

(16:17):
framed around leading you to a specific predetermined
conclusion, and I was certainly a victim of that in my
schooling. Yeah.
I mean, it was always presuppositional ISM, right?
The idea that you have to presuppose the Bible and
presuppose God before you deriveany other truth.

(16:40):
And it was and, and my church, surprisingly, a lot of folks in
my church rejected presuppositional ISM.
They believe that you could arrive at the conclusion of God
through basic. I mean, we would call it
science, but of course they didn't apply it scientifically
or rigorously. Things like the cosmological

(17:01):
argument, the TV, logical, the this and that.
Learned all of those growing up and it was pretty convincing to
me at the time, but certainly started to fall more and more
flat as I got older. Yeah, yes, I'd like to pick that
up in a bit, but I'd like to getmore of the picture of the

(17:21):
education that you had because you talked about education and
learning at school, I mean at church.
Was your school environment homeschool or did you go to school?
It was a charter school which was heavily conservative leaning
so there was still like. I remember my 5th grade teacher

(17:42):
showing us videos of animals that disproved evolution and
nonsense like that. So there was a there was still a
heavy Christian bias in the school, even if it wasn't
officially a Christian School. So that was schooling and then
and then, yeah, church itself. We had an hour of school on

(18:03):
Sunday and then the sermons werean hour and a half at least.
It depended on the day. It depends on what mood the
pastor was in, but they were extremely long sermons.
And then on Mondays we had a Bible institute, which was three
hours of doctrinal studies and apologetics and sometimes world

(18:24):
religious systems and just all kinds of very heavy, rigorous
indoctrination. Wow, that's.
I was going to say. To young people.
Yes, well, and, and that was that was kind of the environment
that my parents were. It was a, it was an extremely
small church. I mean, that type of

(18:44):
Christianity is not appetizing to most and for the reason, but
it's the type of environment that my parents wanted.
So the church itself was only like, you know, I think at the
its largest it was probably 30 people.
And I think right now it's probably closer to like 10 or
15. But that's very nose deep in the
books all the time. But see though, in a way I can

(19:07):
actually respect that because what they're trying to do, and
they probably believe it genuinely, is that they're
trying to lay a, an educational and a knowledge foundation to
make the, the word of God and belief intellectual.
And I can certainly respect whatthey're trying to do.

(19:29):
I mean, obviously, I think they're wrong in their
conclusion, but I think the approach that they're doing, I
think garners some kind of admiration in the sense that
they are try with the tools they've got to give a firm
intellectual foundation, which is better than I ever had.
I agree and I that's one of the reasons I left was because so so

(19:53):
if you're familiar with genetically modified skeptic, a
YouTube in America, he has a great video that was something
about how Christianity gave him the values that caused him to
leave Christianity and. That was very much my
experience. I, I learned critical thinking
by studying these world religious systems in church and

(20:18):
having the church point out, oh,here are the logical fallacies
of, you know, Jainism or Taoism or Islam or whatever it is.
And walking through all of thoseand just internally while I'm
hearing this lesson, thinking like, you know, well, we sort of
do the same thing, don't we? But you know, ours, we, we have,

(20:38):
we have God, we have, you know, whatever, like whatever excuse I
was telling myself. But the point was that that I
was taught to question things, just not Christianity.
And so once I finally got aroundto applying that inquisitive
approach toward my own faith, that was the first domino, I

(20:59):
guess. And that is inevitable when you
expose children to that. And we were talking before we
come on this call about our approaches to bringing up our
children. And we're talking about the
value of having children that question their parents.
Now, we both want our children to be like that.

(21:20):
There is an inherent risk in giving children that freedom as
they might then turn around and decide I don't like the way
you've done things. Yep.
And and all I can say to them isI don't either there's, I mean,
you know, my oldest right now is7.
So she's not quite to the age where she's really challenging

(21:43):
or parenting or anything like that, although I'm sure that
they will come very soon. But I to, you know, my relief,
she has exhibited a lot of the inquisitiveness and the
curiosity that I've been hoping that I could pass on to them.
And I agree, it's it's by far the most healthy and positive

(22:03):
thing that you can provide to children.
Yeah, there's few things that make me want to cry internally
more than seeing the the will and the enthusiasm of children
being beaten out of them, for lack of a better phrase.
Right. And I feel that that definitely
happened in my early schooling environment under missionaries,

(22:25):
which is just a terrible thing to have to say.
But that is the fact of of what happened.
Left school to then left home. Eventually still a creationist.
Yes, so I went to college at a school that was just a couple
hours away from where I was bornand took a few years of not

(22:49):
doing too much church, although I read my Bible quite a lot and
I would still happily. I, I prided myself and I talk a
bit about this in my chapter, but I was very proud of how
smart I thought I was. And I'd like to, I like to take
that into debates and arguments with, with other folks about

(23:10):
theology. So I, I remember in particular,
I had a friend who was Catholic and he and I got one lunch one
time and, and debated, you know,my fundamentalist Protestant
take versus his Catholic take and which one was more
Christian. All kinds of little episodes
like that where I, I loved to challenge people with their

(23:32):
faith and, and show them my own.I thought this was how you
witness was that you beat them down with your intellectual
understanding of the Bible. That was sort of how I was
raised. But this sort of fed into my D
conversion because eventually I started doing this on the

(23:54):
Internet. And of course, arguing on the
Internet is famously the most positive and productive way to
spend any amount of time. And I spent time doing it and
eventually it actually did yieldsome positive things for me,
although I didn't recognize it at the time.
But every once in a while, somebody, somebody on the

(24:14):
Internet would have the patienceto sit down and explain exactly
how stupid I really was. And and I wouldn't have a
response to it. And those episodes added up and
added up and made me really start taking a harder look at
things. Yes, it was quite interesting
reading your chapter and gettingto that point because you did

(24:37):
it. You clearly did it far more
often than me because I had my one instance of an Internet
meeting with people who I also knew in real life and and
respected. And I came away from that very
bruised feeling very humiliated and determined that I would
never let that happen again. But you, it appears, went back

(25:00):
for more. I so I, I absolutely did go back
for more, but not usually on thesame topic.
So I think the one that I talk about in my chapter had to do
with evolution. And certainly once I got that
beaten into me, I still would call myself a creationist, but I
stopped arguing about it and I stopped sort of taking it up as

(25:24):
a, as a fight worth having because I knew that I, I, I
think I had sort of subconsciously knew or I quietly
knew, but wouldn't admit to myself that I just didn't have
the evidence to back up my side.But I would still go back and I
would debate, you know, like maybe age of the earth or maybe,

(25:44):
you know, Catholicism and why Catholicism was wrong and, you
know, Christianity was, or Protestant Christianity was, was
better. Or maybe I would talk about
Islam or whatever. But I would find other ways to.
I was, I was a very belligerent person on the Internet, very

(26:04):
willing always to, to bring it down and, and get in the mud and
figure out exactly. And I, I don't think I ever got
nasty about it, but certainly I,I liked to argue.
It ended up serving me well, butit was not probably the
healthiest way to deal with things.
No, I think there's something about certainly the way I was

(26:26):
taught Christianity which gives an undue confidence in the
rightness of your position. Absolutely yes.
And for me, learning that thingscould be held tentatively and
you could argue it, but be prepared to change your mind
when presented with something took me way, way, way too long

(26:49):
in life to learn that that was actually the intellectually
correct place to be. And accepting that and realising
that was a proper wow moment forme.
And that's probably the moment that was, if we want to talk in
metaphors, was that pulled away the keystone that let everything

(27:09):
else start to fall behind it blind.
I needed that one moment. And I think that intellectual
integrity moment, was that the keystone moment for me.
Yeah, I, I would say exactly thesame.
I I, I discussed it a little bitin my chapter, how a close

(27:30):
friend of mine basically broughtme to that point where I had to
face my own like, am I being honest with myself?
And he did so by by asking this question.
We were, we were talking about there were there had been like
aliens or something in the news.Not, you know, kind of like we
have today, right with the drones that everybody.

(27:50):
Yeah, I was reading that on the on that weird website we don't
talk about anymore and somebody was going full conspiracy on on
some of that. It's insane.
Yeah, I mean, there's, there's always, there's always stories
like that. So this was, I don't know, six
or seven years ago, similar stories that we were just

(28:11):
chatting about over lunch. And he had asked me if it turned
out that aliens existed, if theyshowed up and said we're here,
we exist, we came from such and such a Galaxy, whatever.
Would you still believe in God? And boy, that question sucked.

(28:31):
I I had no as a fundamentalist right, we have this very narrow
view of what's possible in the universe and what's allowed by
the very strict borders of Scripture.
And so for me, admitting that there could be other intelligent
life seemed to me to be rejecting the idea that, oh, man

(28:52):
is made in the image of God. And that's kind of where our
intelligence comes from, right? As we are this special, super
special thing that only could have come from a divine creator.
And so this idea of aliens was like, well, no, you know, that
couldn't be possible. But then how do you answer that
question, right? If aliens show up, basically

(29:13):
he's asking, are you able to admit that you were wrong?
And it took me a very long time to realize that's what he was
asking, because I was not able to admit that I was wrong.
I, I floundered and waffled a lot and, and gave, you know,
some weak excuses of, you know, oh, that's not the reality we
live in. And it's a nonsense question.
But it wasn't. It was a very straightforward

(29:34):
hypothetical, and I just didn't have the the bravery to ever
admit that I could be wrong at the time.
Yeah, that's that's a frustrating place to be, right.
Look back on moments where I hadto say, but I think Matthew,
really just saying you're wrong is not the end of the world.

(29:57):
But there's something weird about the way we're taught this
kind of level of Christianity that showing any weakness could
crumble the entirety of the faith.
And I've not been able to put myfinger on what it is.
But I don't think it's the people that teach us because
it's all over the place. I think it's something that's

(30:19):
endemic in the belief system itself, but I can't identify
where it comes from. I would agree with that.
There was a, there was another episode of The Graceful Atheist
that was talking about the psychology of apologetics and it
was absolutely fascinating. I've listened to that episode
probably 5 or 6 times. And one of the things he talks

(30:43):
about is this whole concept of in apologetics, there's this
this sort of buffer where we areallowed to doubt as Christians,
but we're not allowed to. And I love how he put this.
He said we're not allowed to doubt successfully, right?
We're not allowed to doubt in a way that actually compromises
our faith. And so apologetics is wrapped

(31:04):
around this idea of, you know, you can doubt as long as you
trust that God's ways are higherthan ours or as long as you
believe that God has a plan to wrap it all up, right?
That's how they cover up the doubt.
So you can doubt, but you cannotdoubt successfully.
And that that stuck with me. That's been kind of a

(31:24):
cornerstone of my D conversion was this idea of doubting
successfully. Yeah, that's a bit of a well
made with that really, isn't it?It oh man, I I will remember
that moment forever. I was driving home from work
when I successfully doubted the story of Noah's Ark in the
flood. Yeah, so those, those key

(31:48):
stories from Genesis were the first things to go for me.
And I think in some way that's anatural place to go, especially
for somebody who used to be young earth creationist, because
those stories are key to young earth creationism.
But it seems that every other option that that humans have

(32:08):
very easily does away with those.
Even old Earth creationists can be very happy to twist those
stories in the Old Testament into what they don't say.
Lots of people can say they're very happy to say that the flood
was just a local event or didn'teven happen at all, or that the

(32:31):
Tower of Babel was just a metaphor to try to explain
different languages. Even the old Earth creationists
are very happy. Sorry Old Earth Christians, I'm
very happy to dismiss these stories as ancient narratives
and ancient tales that are inserted into the Bible as a way
of showing the way God works without actually being literally

(32:54):
true. It seems to be uniquely the
creationists that hold on to those stories with the with the
grip that they do. Yeah.
And, and it's funny because I think my particular brand of
Christianity that I grew up with, one of the things they
were very successful at is convincing me that a literal

(33:16):
interpretation of Scripture was the only quote, you know,
legitimate way to be a Christian.
And that that is to say, like, if you don't believe the Bible
literally, then all you're really doing is picking and
choosing what to believe out of the Bible.
And that doesn't really count, at least in our mind.
And because of that, I went straight from fundamentalist

(33:41):
Christian to atheist pretty muchovernight because it was that
being convinced that, OK, well, if I can't buy Noah's Ark, if I
can't buy a six day creation anda young earth, what is the point
of any believing any of this? There's no point in believing
in, you know, Christ being killed and resurrected because,

(34:03):
you know, that's also not scientifically valid.
You can't you people don't actually raise from the dead.
And I have just as much evidencefor that as I do of Noah's ark
in the flood, which is to say none at all aside from somebody
wrote it a long time ago, like, OK, that doesn't do anything for
me. So, yeah.
So it was a, it was a very hard turn around for me from, from

(34:27):
fundamentalist Christian to atheist.
But on this side of it, now I look back at Christians who do
that, who are able to, you know,recognize the, the folklore and
the, the mythical tales of, of Genesis and recognize correctly

(34:48):
that those are just myths and folklore.
And I, I used to despise that side of Christianity, but now
it's like, well, at least they are keeping up with modern
science. At least they're not rejecting,
you know, the obvious reality that we live in.
And so now I have a bit of respects toward that side of

(35:10):
Christianity, even though I still, you know, very much
fundamentally disagree with their faith.
At least they're not disagreeingto the point of, you know,
plugging their ears and going LaLa, La, La, la to all of the
scientific evidence we have of evolution and the age of the
earth and all that. Yes, but they obviously still
affirm significant chunks of thereckless events in the New

(35:32):
Testament, and they have their own problems themselves.
You know, like the weird one demons into pigs which then go
and drown themselves. I mean, come on.
All kinds of stuff like that. I mean, like, I wonder I and I,
I don't know too many Christiansthat are the, the more liberal
version of Christianity like this.

(35:52):
But other stories from the Old Testament, like the the talking
donkey, do they take that one literally?
And if they do, like, what about, you know, as you said,
the demons and the pigs, do theytake that literally?
It's interesting hearing folks like William Lane Craig, who is
fully willing to admit the fictional nature of a lot of

(36:12):
those, you know, more ridiculousparts of Christianity, but then
still for whatever reason will defend things like the
resurrection of Christ. It's an odd disconnect and I'm
not really sure where and why they draw the line.
Yeah, and he does come up with some odd things like his who was
he who had to hold his hands outstretched so that the sun and

(36:35):
the moon stopped in the sky for a for a battle?
Was that Joshua? Holding up Oh, who held his
hands out? Moses, the moon and the sun.
Was it both? It may have been Moses.
Was it Aaron? Maybe.
OK, anyway, whoever was the the,the William Lane Craig
justification for that is is quite amazing.

(36:57):
Something to do with atmosphericeffects, making the sun look
redder in the sky, making it seem like it took longer to set,
but really it didn't. It was.
And it was like, God, really, that's where you're going to go
with that. So, so that was the stories like
that, excuses like that. That was my childhood.
I, I remember and I, I mentionedthis briefly in my, in my

(37:20):
chapter Anisotropic light Theory.
Have you ever heard of that? No, I explained it.
I may be familiar with what? You described it's utter
nonsense, but basically this is the fundamentalist Christian
answer to the Starlight problem.And for anybody who might not
know, the Starlight problem is the problem that we see stars

(37:44):
that are millions or billions oflight years away.
And that seems to be a problem for a world that was created on
the 6000 years ago. So how are we seeing stars that
are billions of light years away?
That's the Starlight problem in a nutshell.
Now the anisotropic light theoryis this ridiculous take that

(38:06):
maybe light travels at differentspeeds depending on what
direction it's headed. So the only way we have to
measure light is to basically point it at a mirror and measure
how long it takes to get to the mirror and back.
And that and back part was the part that apologists would latch

(38:28):
onto and say ha ha. Then maybe it travels at
different speeds. So maybe it travels faster
toward Earth and slower away from Earth.
So just for fun, after ID converted and I figured out all
of this was nonsense, I remembered that one.
And then I sat down and I did the math.
I picked out, you know, one of the stars that was really far

(38:51):
away and you know, however many billions of light years it was
to get to Earth and calculated how fast light would have to go
to get to Earth in say 2000 years.
Or to be generous, you could even say like 4000 years.
And then you calculate how slow light has to go away from Earth

(39:16):
to match up and make it average out to what we know is the speed
of light. And what it ends up doing is
creating a situation where rockets that we send in space of
the day are breaking the speed of light because the speed of
light goes slower. According to this ridiculous
anesotropic light theory, rockets go faster than light

(39:36):
would have to go. That was a very circuitous way
of of describing the problem with this theory, but basically
it breaks down very quickly and is a very ridiculous take on
physics. It is, it's insane.
Yes, I I remember reading some article about light reflecting
off a mirror. And it would take most it would,

(39:57):
it would the, it would take the the equivalent of the round trip
journey, just getting there. But then after the bounce, it
would be instant back again. And that was one of the ideas
being done. And I remember sitting here
reading, I thought. Wow.
How much energy is that mirror putting into that light particle
in order to produce that? And where is that energy coming

(40:20):
from? And why haven't they addressed
any of that? That is that's an excellent take
too. Like, yeah, that's that's not
something that really addresses.Hey, where does the cause a
change in velocity, right. And, and light is massless, but
it it's still requires energy inorder to change velocity.

(40:43):
And by velocity, of course, we don't mean speed, because light
famously does not change its speed, but a change in direction
does still require an energy input.
So yeah, that's a, that's a fascinating take.
I like that. So the whole thing, it is, yeah,
I'd forgotten exactly what the word was.
But yes, I'm familiar with what you've described.

(41:04):
I've read about it and I laugh every time because, as you say,
it is ridiculous. It is ludicrous.
It should not be taken seriouslyby anyone, and especially not
the people who are writing it. And the reason why they're
writing it, and they're writing it with a straight face, is
because they need something in order to be able to justify the
ludicrousness of the beliefs that they hold.

(41:25):
That's absolutely true. I hear a lot of similar stories
on Got Sick. Given is a YouTube who famously
debunks a lot of Christianity related arguments and there's
some there's some great stuff that she digs up, some of the
excuses that they come up with for the heat problem and the mud
problem and all of these. She is on my invite list.

(41:45):
I need to reach out to Gutsack Gibbon and invite her on for a
conversation. Still unbelievable.
I love what she does. I love the way that she presents
things and she does it with panache and style.
Everything about her is awesome.If you're not familiar with the
YouTube channel, go and look it up Gutsack Gibbon.
It's not a difficult phrase to forget.
And if I remember during the editing process, there will be a

(42:07):
link in the show notes to that YouTube channel.
Highly recommended. So on the subject end of YouTube
channel and other social media that attacks these kinds of odd
beliefs, at what point in your process, Tim, did you decide to
start looking and consume, looking for and consuming these

(42:30):
other ideas that are contrary towhat you thought, and what was
that like for you? So I think there were two break
points. The first was after I'd decided
that Noah's Ark was ridiculous. I did find some of those.
There's a YouTube who makes these little cartoons.
His name is Non Stamp Collector and they're very, yeah,

(42:53):
satirical. You know, whatever.
He does an excellent one on Noah's Ark.
And if anybody hasn't seen it, there is, there is profanity.
So, you know, it's not, you know, just be aware of that.
But it's absolutely hysterical, his satirical take on all of the
ridiculous things that would have had to happen to make
Noah's Ark work. So, but very little.

(43:14):
I mean, I, I looked at some of that and basically reassured
myself that yes, Noah's Ark is ridiculous.
But at the time, my attention was very consumed by how am I
going to live the rest of my life?
Because at the time my wife was still Christian and my kids were
still going to church. My, you know, everybody in my
life was Christian. So most of my attention was

(43:36):
consumed with that and less withconfronting myself with new
ideas. But after I confessed to my wife
and we talked through things andthen she eventually deconverted
herself, she actually was the one who found a lot of these
resources, including, you know, a bunch of podcasts and, and

(43:56):
including your own podcast, actually.
So unbelievable. She found most of these
resources and sent them my way. And it was a it was an
excellent, it was a relief for one thing, but it was also a
great way for us to both kind ofprocess things together.
So, yeah, after coming out to her, let's see it, it was about

(44:16):
8 months, I think after ID converted that I confessed to
her. And then a few months after
that, she started showing me these resources she and found,
including the Deconversion Anonymous group, where we were
invited to write this book, as well as your podcast, The
Graceful Atheist Podcast, Alex O'Connor, all kinds.

(44:38):
I mean, there's probably a dozenmore that I'm leaving out, but
yeah, it was kind of a journey we went through together after
we both left the faith. That's really heart warming to
hear. Tim, I love that you you did
that. The mistake I made was keeping
quiet until everything was a done deal and that created it

(45:01):
its own problems. And I always give people advice.
Talk early, be brave, talk early.
It is going to come out eventually and the longer you
leave it, the worse it'll be. Don't let fear grab a hold of
you. Talk early, please.
I. Absolutely cannot emphasize that
enough. So, so for my, I guess my

(45:22):
strategy, when I talked to my wife, it was already kind of a
foregone conclusion for me. But when I talked to her, I
didn't say it that way. The way I said it was, I've been
struggling in my faith. And that's very true.
I had been struggling in my faith, but it's it's an opening

(45:42):
that helped her to understand that this was not me arrogantly
rejecting Christianity. This was me in despair, losing
my faith and not sure what to do.
I wanted her to understand it. I wanted to communicate to her
that I was suffering. And that was the way that I

(46:04):
chose to do it. And I think that was a much
healthier approach then I I think some folks might be
tempted to say, why do you believe this?
Why do you believe that? And make it more of a
confrontation rather than a confession.
But yeah, I, I fully agree. Communicate early and often.
If you're having any doubts at all, start talking about them
now and. And even if it does mean that

(46:27):
the worst thing, the end of a marriage, is going to happen,
it's still better to talk early,because there you don't lessen
the pain by delaying it. Let me tell you that here and
now, from deep, bitter personal experience, it would have been
better for me if I talked early.It's something I can't change.

(46:50):
I can change somebody else from making the same mistake, I hope.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely agree. It's, I would, I would even go
so far as to say that talking early, especially if you're not
deconverted, if you're simply a a doubting Christian or an
uncertain believer, talking early can even prevent rifts in

(47:14):
a relationship that might otherwise happen.
Yeah, let's hope we can save some of those.
So back onto a positive note then, Tim.
So you did all this study, you and your wife, you, you studied
together. You went through some of the
cognitive dissonance of learningthings, which contradicted some
of your deeply held beliefs. So let's cut chunks of that out

(47:40):
and move towards a bit where youwere very prepared to say to
yourself for the first time, I am atheist or near atheist.
What was that like for you? It's been, yeah.
I mean, it's still, I'm relatively recent.

(48:01):
I'm only about a year, year and a half out from deciding that
I'm atheist. And it still is tough sometimes.
I mean, it's famously very tabooto be atheist, right?
Less so in the UK. I'm, I'm a little bit jealous.
There's a little bit healthier of a, of a culture of atheism

(48:23):
in, in the UK, but certain, especially in the US, it's very
taboo to not believe in a God. And that's been a little tough.
I, there are people that are noteven Christian, but you know
what, people that I work with that I trust and I can't talk

(48:44):
about stuff like this because it's offensive to a lot of
people to, to not believe in a God.
So I don't know. And, and it's, and part of the
part of the problem too, atheism, I think fundamentally
is the position of being willingto admit when there aren't

(49:07):
answers to a question yet. Abiogenesis.
I mean, we've, we've more or less, we have a, a solid picture
of how it probably happened. We haven't proved anything all
the way through yet, but it's still a tough question for an
atheist because we haven't proved anything yet.
And all I can tell a theist, cause a theist likes to say, oh,

(49:30):
we have the answer to any given question, to any given question,
whatever it is. Oh my God took care of that.
Whatever, you know, my, my God is, is the answer to that
question. And they, they pride themselves
on on having answers to, to any question.
And I, it was a very humbling thing for me to come to this
position of admitting, you know,what some questions we just

(49:52):
don't have the answer to yet. And that's OK.
We're, we're learning answers. There was Once Upon a time we
didn't have the answer to, you know, where lightning came from
or, or what disease. You know, the plague was not a
curse from God. It turns out it's actually, you
know, micro bacteria and and viruses that 'cause these
things. And it's OK to not know things

(50:15):
yet, as long as you're willing to learn them when the answers
show. Yes, yeah, absolutely.
That's great. And that, that is a brilliant
learning opportunity, that humility.
But it is interesting what you say though, about the way
atheists are viewed over where you are.

(50:35):
My childhood upbringing was one to fear atheists.
Anyone who was atheists was somebody who who hated me and
hated God, and I would suffer ifI would ever meet atheists and I
should stay away. And obviously when I did meet
them, eventually I found that the truth was far different from

(50:57):
what I've been taught. And so I'm I'm very glad that
I'm in a country where I can proudly wave the atheist flag
and I get no comeback. But I am aware.
That is there a flag I should get?
Four hats. Yeah, I wish there was.

(51:18):
I do have a couple of T-shirts that hint at something like
that, but I do need a still unbelievable T-shirt.
I need to go on somewhere and get something made-up that but I
I just haven't thought of the right pithy slogan yet.
But yes, I I definitely need something like that.
But yeah. So yes it but it's weird for me

(51:39):
to think that there are places in America where it's unsafe
potentially to out yourself as atheist.
And I can't help but think, how weak must your religion be, if
you must, if you fear somebody or dislike somebody or distrust
somebody who's different from you to the extent that you make

(52:02):
it unsafe for them to identify themselves?
There's a very strong political movement that I'm sure everybody
is aware of. But this, this movement of
Christian nationalism in the United States is, is stronger.
And it's, it is very unfortunatebecause it's not just, you know,

(52:24):
atheism and non Christians, unfortunately, it's, it's also
this fear of people who are non Americans, you know, people who,
who have skin that's a differentcolor.
There's, there's a lot of hatredtoward migrants right now.
And I, I believe the UK is goingthrough kind of a similar thing.
But yeah, it's, it's a, it's a similar problem, right?

(52:45):
You know, Christianity has this fear and hatred of atheism to
the point that many of them wantto make it illegal or at the
very least, they want to cram their beliefs down the throats
of us and our children in schools.
And it's a, it's a similar thing, unfortunately, with the

(53:05):
people of a different race that they're, they're so afraid of it
that they just can't tolerate having a different tribe
anywhere nearby. It's a, it's a very tribalistic
perspective and it's, I get it. It's, you know, we're sort of
evolved to to think that way, but it's really unfortunate when
it causes pain for others. Yeah, we've gone in a bit of a

(53:25):
cycle here in the UK. It's well known that the 1970s
and 1980s were a period in the UK of terrible race riots and
there was a lot of people, specifically black people who
came over from the Caribbean whosuffered greatly at the hands of

(53:47):
it was here of the mods and rockers, the punk and all that.
There are a lot of racists that the British National Front were
were a big much bigger picture in society at the time.
And the skinheads as well. Mustn't forget the skinheads,
always known for violence, oftenassociated with football matches
or or soccer over your your partof the world.

(54:10):
And yes, so the 70s and 80s werea dark period in UK history for
race and things improved throughthe 90s, through the noughties.
And now it looks like we're regressing again.
And it's, it's quite sad to see this time it's not against the

(54:30):
the Caribbeans and the black Africans.
It's against the slightly less black Asians, but you know, not
white. Regardless, people from a
different part of the world. The other with a capital O.
Yes, yeah. And it's very, very sad to see.

(54:50):
But it's also creeping into people from parts of Europe.
So they'll still have a white skin, they'll just have the
wrong accent. But it's creeping into those as
well. And yeah, fascinating from a
sociological perspective. But I'm not a sociologist.
I'm just a human. And I'm a, I'm a software guy,

(55:12):
you know, I don't do people. I do technology, but it's very
sad to see. Yeah, it absolutely is.
And it's even even worse to to be living through it.
We're fortunate to be in a statethat is a little bit more
shielded against that kind of culture, but who knows what the

(55:32):
next four years are going to look like?
Yeah, it's with being so close to constant to Europe, we get a
lot more migration for, for workand things like that.
And it used to be that people from Western Europe, you know,
sort of France, Italy, Germany, all, all those countries will
come to the UK on a regular basis for a bit of work

(55:54):
experience, a bit of travel experience, see the world,
experience different cultures and you know, then move on
again. And it was great being part of
the United Europe where people were free to, to do that.
It's, it's great to harmonise with your neighbours like that.
But what I saw, I was reading something about migration Lady

(56:15):
and the UK has actually had morepeople from our near European
neighbours leave the UK than enter the UK for for the first
time in a very long time. And it's purely because of
what's going on here. We've made our own country and
attractive to our wealthy neighbours and they're leaving
us. And the people that are coming

(56:35):
over are people from countries where life is harsher and we've
not made the UK harsh enough yet, so it's still better for
them. And it's quite, quite sad to
think that people are in such dire need, in such poverty, in
such strife and at risk of so much in their countries that

(56:55):
even with the UK being like it is, is still a better place for
them in their mind. It's a rough world out there.
Yeah, so we we've done grist grist slightly so this thing
through. So that must have you were
talking about your wife passing you some atheist material.

(57:16):
I'm trying to get my head aroundthe idea of somebody who is
still a Christian sending the link to Still Unbelievable to
their questioning partner because we are definitely not a
podcast that would help you withyour.
No, I would. I would say by that point she
was not a Christian. It was it was more like after I

(57:37):
had confessed to her and told her all of the specific things
that I was struggling with at the time, Noah's ark was sort of
the the biggest problem that I had.
But I've had a lot more since then.
After I had kind of dumped all of that on her.
She had her own questions that she wanted to explore.
And her way of finding answers to those questions was to, you

(58:01):
know, reach out to to the socialMedia Group to reach out to
other people who had had doubts about Christianity.
Right. And then looks around for
answers. And yeah, I, I don't, I don't
believe that by the time she wassending me those resources, I
think she had already left Christianity, even if she didn't

(58:22):
necessarily. I don't know if she was still
using the word Christian to describe herself at that point,
but I think for all intents and purposes she had.
She had already jumped off the boat.
Do you think when when your wifejoined you on on that journey,
do you think it became more likely then for the two of you

(58:44):
that you would both leave Christianity?
Or do you think there was still a chance that you might both
rescue some kind of faith from the ashes?
That is a good question. I would say, at least for me, I
had already been pretty fairly convinced that Christianity was

(59:06):
was nonsense. I think it took her a bit
longer. We did spend some time exploring
like more spiritual versions of Christianity.
Some, I don't know. There, there was a there was a
little bit of that, but I think I think coming from
fundamentalism, liberal Christianity as I OK, so I've

(59:30):
used that term before already. I should clarify what I mean by
that when I say liberal Christianity.
That was the the phrase that my fundamentalist Christian
teachers used to describe Christianity, which didn't hold
to a literal word for word interpretation of scripture.
So we were, at least. I was already pretty repulsed by

(59:55):
liberal Christianity for not being honest enough to hold
strictly to the scriptures that they claim to believe in.
So for me, once I flipped that switch and I decided that I
wasn't fundamentalist anymore, it was a pretty hard flip to to
atheism or at least agnosticism,but pretty quickly to atheism.

(01:00:18):
And then for Katie, I think it was a little bit more gradual.
She did, excuse me, Katie being my wife, she did spend some
time, as I said, exploring softer options of Christianity.
But ultimately, I think just from the resources we were both
exploring decided that there wasn't really anything that
offered a lot more in terms of verifiable truth.

(01:00:42):
We had Christianity that turned out to be ridiculous.
So you know what else you got? Yeah, you're, you're describing
fairly accurately my, my own journey in terms of that thought
process. I did spend quite some time, I
can't remember how long, I did spend quite some time trying to

(01:01:03):
formulate what lighter form of Christianity I will be
comfortable with. And part of the problem is, as
you already said, when you come from that form of fundamentalist
Christianity, you're already tuned into looking down on
softer Christianity. So to make that palatable, it's

(01:01:24):
got an uphill battle already anyway.
And then when you put into it all of these issues which cause
you to doubt things that really make that level of Christianity
attractive anyway. And you've pretty much killed
all those. If you can't accept the miracles
and you're struggling to accept the resurrection of of Jesus or
even the justification for the fall of men.

(01:01:47):
Those are two key points of Christianity.
And so when you try to build a asofter, gentler, more loving
form of Christianity on top of that, you haven't really got a
lot to work with, so you may as well just ditch the whole lot
and go straight for humanism. Yep, that was that was the exact
conclusion I came to myself. There was there wasn't much left

(01:02:08):
to grab onto once I discounted the supernatural bits.
Yes, I think I felt intellectually for myself.
I had to give it a fair hearing,otherwise I felt if I just
jumped straight to atheism and rejected everything about God, I
was opening myself up to accusations of not really
thinking it all through. So I felt to satisfy own needs,

(01:02:32):
I had to sit on liberal Christianity, for lack of a
better description, for as long as I possibly could to try to
make it work. Because if I didn't and I
rejected it, I needed, I would have no reason to, no
justifiable reason for rejectingit.
So I felt that I needed to give it due diligence.

(01:02:52):
But looking back it it was a Class, A waste of time.
Well, I mean, it's, it's, I would say it wasn't because you
were still engaging in critical thinking, right?
You still wanted to say, OK, what was the what's the most
intellectually honest way I can engage in, you know, challenging
this faith that I held for so long?

(01:03:13):
And and I think that's that's right.
Or, or as I've heard it described, also Bayesian
reasoning. I have you heard that term
before? Yes.
Yeah. So, so for anybody who hasn't,
Bayesian reasoning is basically this idea that instead of having
a thing that you know, and then learning contradictory

(01:03:35):
information and then rejecting the old thing and picking up the
new thing in whole, just like inBayesian statistics.
Instead, you would simply average the new information with
the information you have and continue that process until your
position slowly changes over time.
And that's, that's a healthier and, and more honest way, I

(01:03:58):
think to, to address that. So it's good that you're holding
yourself accountable like that. I I was not so so I was not so
good at that when I left, but I'm working on it.
So once you decided then that you're out and bless you, your,

(01:04:19):
your wife joined you with the journey.
I, I envy that I, I genuinely do.
What was that process? What was the emotional response
entirely like? Because many people call it a
grief process. I certainly dealt with it like
it was a grief process. This whole idea of throwing

(01:04:42):
away, that's not really what happens, but let's just use that
phrase anyway of throwing away something that was treasure to
me for such a long period of time.
There is a grief. There was a grief process that I
went through. And there were times when I
wondered, you know, now what do I do with my life?
And yes, while I did rejected for intellectual grounds, the

(01:05:04):
emotional response to rejecting it was difficult.
So did you go through a grief processing period as well?
Absolutely it was. It was quite complex for me.
So within a week or two after realizing myself that I wasn't
convinced of Christianity anymore was around the time that

(01:05:27):
my 4th and final child was born.So that had a lot of mixed
emotions, right? I had all of this terror of not
knowing if I was going to have afamily anymore because I, I'm
rejecting this lifelong faith. So there was all that terror
and, and uncertainty and anxietymixed with this joy of having a

(01:05:49):
new child that was pretty traumatizing.
And then for the next several months, I think I mentioned it
took about seven months for me to, to finally talk to my wife.
I spent basically every drive toand from work just talking
through, you know, imaginary conversations of, of how I could
possibly say this in a way that doesn't immediately result in,

(01:06:12):
in my divorce. Our, our faith was a very, very
critical part of our relationship.
I mean, we got married in a church and, and made our vows on
the idea of me being the spiritual leader of the family
and all of this. And it was and, and I knew that
and I knew that if she had decided to divorce me, that she
would have been absolutely justified in doing so because me

(01:06:37):
being an atheist is not the person that she had chosen to
marry. So absolutely the grief process,
the angry atheist phase that, that, that I think most people
go through. I'm probably I, I still got a
bit of that. I'm still hanging on to, to some
of that. I don't know if that's the
healthiest way to process this, but still a little, little angry

(01:06:58):
about some of this. And a lot of the, the grief is,
is still there. We, we have multiple groups of
friends that we used to spend week like at practically every
weekend, we would have friends over who were Christian friends
and play board games with them and, and things like that.
And we haven't talked to them in, in about a year.

(01:07:20):
And it's, it's tough. I'm well, yeah.
I mean, and there's a rebuildingthat goes on, right?
You're, you really are. I mean, you talked about
throwing away, but it, it reallyis like you're, you're throwing
away a community and a culture that, that you built your entire
life around and without that faith, even if the faith is
bogus, right? Like some people, and I know

(01:07:42):
some people who hold on to it anyway, even though they don't
believe it because they don't want to lose their family and
their friends and the life that they built.
And that's, that's fair. I get that.
But I, I just couldn't, couldn'tkeep that in, I couldn't live a
lie like that. So I took the harder path and
thankfully it paid off but it was rough going.

(01:08:03):
Yes, it is absolutely. Have you ever heard the phrase
fake it till you make it? Absolutely, yeah.
And I I did that for quite a while, but thankfully didn't
have to for too long. I could never do that.
I I did try. We had this weird scenario at
home for a while. I was, I stopped going to church

(01:08:23):
and it was, it was convenient because my wife and I started to
develop a difficult relationshipwith the pastor of that last
church. Lots of reasons.
I will not go to any of them here.
It's not appropriate. And I used that as an excuse to
not go to church. But really the reason why I

(01:08:45):
wasn't going to church was because I no longer believed.
And this is part of the cost of when you stay silent.
And then we relocated and it was, oh, you're going to start
coming back to church again now,Matthew.
And I was like, there's something I need to tell you.

(01:09:05):
But I did go to church for a while and it was hard.
It was really hard. And I, I did think to myself for
a while, can I really do this? Can I?
And I eventually just had to saythat I, I can't do this.
I need to stay at home. I cannot go to church and

(01:09:26):
fortunately that wasn't the end of my marriage and we have
recovered from that. But yeah, I couldn't do it.
I tried but I I just couldn't doit.
Yeah, I had to set myself an ultimatum.
I remember after I had left, I was trying to get up the courage
to talk to my wife about it. And conveniently, we were going

(01:09:47):
through Genesis in, in our Sunday school.
And so I told myself, all right,as soon as we get to the bit
about the flood, first I want tohear what they have to say
because, you know, maybe, maybe,maybe I was overreacting.
But the day came and he talked alot about the flood and the
excuses he gave were just as weak as I had heard from anybody
else. And, and then it was, it was

(01:10:09):
that evening actually, that I sat down with her over laundry
and, and started talking about, all right, hey, I'm, I'm really
struggling with this. And I, I laid out some of my
concerns and yeah. It's, it's hard having that
conversation, isn't it? It's.
Boy, it was really. Difficult, yeah.

(01:10:30):
A lot of tears, I mean, not justnot just during the
conversation, but in the months and weeks leading up.
I tried, I, I'm, I'm sure you probably tried to when you felt
your face slipping. I, I prayed a lot for my faith
to return and I, I would cry myself to sleep sometimes

(01:10:54):
praying for for my faith to to be restored and, and just never
did, which was ultimately one ofthe things that convinced me
that it wasn't there to begin with.
Yeah. And I think we, there's a point
here where we need to make some very some definitive
clarifications in the language that we use in case there's

(01:11:14):
anybody who is either still a Christian or in those early
stages of questioning Christianity and looking for
resources of what the experienceis like of leaving and what
causes people. We've talked about the process.
We've talked in language of us leaving Christianity or us
rejecting the the Christian God.But in reality, that's not

(01:11:37):
actually what it is. We're recovering from something
that harmed us and hurt us, and if there's any rejection going
on, it's actually God who's rejected us because we didn't
choose to leave Christianity. We fought tooth and nail to keep
that faith. We never wanted to step away

(01:11:58):
from faith. We wanted faith.
We begged for faith. We prayed to God in tears.
We would have swept blood if we could to keep that faith.
That was what we wanted. And it wasn't until that faith
was dead that we were actually able to stand up and say, oh,
actually it's not so bad, really.

(01:12:21):
But it wasn't until that point happened that we actually could
have said, we like it like this.We want it like this.
Up until that point, we fought against losing.
We begged for acceptance. We begged for a sign.
We begged for more faith. We begged for ways to have
faith. We begged for people in their
lives to help us have faith. We talked to people, we did all

(01:12:44):
sorts of things or for the express purpose of keeping faith
to God. We never wanted to leave.
We never rejected actively. We were rejected.
We are now recovering. That is absolutely right.
I mean, I couldn't have said it better.
It it was it's an accusation that especially as a Christian,

(01:13:07):
I remember. Yeah, I mean, and any Christian
is taught that people leave the faith because they are rejecting
God, right? I I remember being taught that
so many times, right? That, Oh, and an atheist is just
a person who really hates God and, and is rejecting this moral
framework that God has set up. And they, they just don't want

(01:13:28):
to follow God's law. And that's why they're rejecting
God. And, and it's, it's such a
fascinating thing to then go through the process to, to be
fighting so hard to keep my faith because I knew, right?
I imagined that, oh man, if I, if I lose my faith, I could be
tortured for eternity. It's a scary thing, right?

(01:13:51):
So I, I fought and I fought. And it's not just, you know, the
fear of hell, but it's the fear of losing your partner.
It's the fear of losing your community.
It's the fear of, of being wrongafter all, and then being, you
know, judged and found guilty asa result of that.
It's, it's absolutely a terrifying experience on the

(01:14:12):
front end of it. And then and then on the back
end, it's, it's a relief. You're like, oh wait, I don't
actually have to be afraid of being tortured for eternity
because that would be a ridiculous thing for any loving
God to do. Yeah.
And then some unthinking cock crumble on the Internet goes and
suggests that that all of that stuff that we went through, it

(01:14:34):
was just us being selfish or wanting some kind of sin in our
life which was binding us, and that we just walked away from
God. And so it was an easy thing to
do. Right.
I've, I've heard it said that leaving Christianity made me a
better Christian. And it's, it's so I, I genuinely
feel that that's true, especially coming from

(01:14:55):
fundamentalism, which, which hadan extremely judgmental and, and
self-righteous perspective toward the rest of the world.
Leaving that and coming to a perspective without an all
perfect judging God, suddenly it's so much easier to love

(01:15:15):
people and it's so much easier to respect other people who are
just trying to live their lives.So yeah, I'm, I'm a better
Christian for having left Christianity.
I can say that. So talking of being better, what
changes did you notice about yourself expected and unexpected
in that in your recovery processsince you've left?

(01:15:37):
My anxiety has gone down tremendously.
That was that was a huge 1 and Ididn't it took me a while to
notice it as a Christian, even though you assure yourself and I
was part of a sect of Christianity, as I believe you
were too that believed in in eternal salvation, right?
That once you're saved, you're saved right.
So even believing that, though, there's always this fear of

(01:16:00):
judgement, right, That that, oh,I had an impure thought and
that's an offense against the almighty, all powerful creator
of the universe. Even though we're told that you
don't have to worry about that because your salvation is
eternal, it's still a tremendousamount of anxiety.
Oh, you just pissed off the mostpowerful being in the universe.

(01:16:25):
Great. And and there it's, it's
terrifying and it, and it produces so much anxiety that I
don't think we even realize thatwe're we're having.
And I, I didn't attribute it to that either until after the
fact. I was like, Oh, I feel so much
better now because I'm not terrified that, you know, every
time I I think something wrong or every time I have a doubt

(01:16:46):
that I'm, I'm being judged for it.
I can just think and I can just live my life without being under
constant inspection and constantgrading and constant evaluation.
What a relief. So that was, that was a big part
of it. I would say another change that
was pretty significant for me was my capacity to love people,

(01:17:08):
including my wife, but even including Christians, Like I
love my parents as a Christian, but it wasn't that wholesome.
It was, it was just kind of likea respect, you know, and, and
not too much more than that. But now on this side of it, I
just see my parents as just people.
They're not these perfect sanctified Christians, right,

(01:17:30):
That, that they sort of set themselves up to be, they're
just people and they make mistakes too.
And they are persuaded toward things that I'm not persuaded
toward. And then of course, like the
LGBT community, I'm suddenly able to, to care about them and,
and what they've gone through and what they continue to go
through all kinds of things likethat.
I'm I'm much more open toward other people than I ever would

(01:17:56):
have been as a Christian. Yeah, I echo very similar
thoughts. So thank you for validating my
own experience by showing that you share yours, which and
again, this is evidence that there are elements of certainly
the Christianity that we both held to that are destructive,
that are unloving. And it's not the people that

(01:18:19):
taught us. It is something that is endemic,
that is built into some forms ofChristianity and it is simply
there and we need to try to get Christians to realise that so
that they can improve their own religion.
Yeah, yeah, I wholeheartedly agree.
Because I find, because I'm alluded earlier, that, you know,

(01:18:40):
part of my fundamentalist upbringing meant that it created
conflict between myself and my father.
And I find that I'm far more forgiving of my father.
I'm far more chilled about his lesson, perfect attributes and
I'm OK to let them fly. Whereas there were times in the

(01:19:02):
past where would have evoked a strong emotional reaction from
me and then, you know, that would have then increased the
chances of, of us having anotherpoor experience.
Yeah. And he winds my brother up an
awful lot. And my brother is very stressed
in their relationship. And it simply doesn't stress me
as much as it used to. I think one of the things that

(01:19:25):
surprised me the most about leaving Christianity was I
suddenly found it much, much easier to admit I was wrong.
Even on really little things, things that are unimportant.
No, I created all sorts of ridiculous scenarios for myself
by publicly denying something that I'd done wrong to just to

(01:19:49):
try to get away with it as a Christian, because it was too
embarrassing to admit that I haddone something.
And it was crazy that whereas now I find that I make a little
mistake and I go, yeah, that wasme.
I'm sorry guys, what can I do tohelp put it right?
And it's done, it's over and theworld hasn't ended.
And I think to myself why, as a Christian, did I find it so

(01:20:11):
difficult to be like that? And it's we.
I can't again. I genuinely can't explain it,
genuinely didn't expect it and I'm so much of A better person
for it. Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more.
I, I think I'll, I'll attempt toanswer why a Christian has more
difficulty with it. And I think it's, it's what I

(01:20:33):
talked about earlier about doubting successfully.
It is blasphemous to be wrong, right?
If, if you're a Christian then and if you're wrong about
something, let's say I remember John MacArthur one time in like
the 90s said something about Christ being like he was

(01:20:54):
eternally God, but he was not eternally the Son specifically,
which was just kind of a weird take and whatever.
It's a lot of nonsense. But the point was that he was
in, in the eyes of other Christians, he was wrong about a
point of theology. And he had to do a lot of, you
know, backtracking and, and covering up to make up for it.

(01:21:15):
But it was blasphemous to so many of them.
And it for, for my own church, which followed John MacArthur's
doctrine, more or less line for line, they still rejected him
because of that, that slip up ofbeing wrong.
So there's, there's this massivepunishment as a Christian,
there's a, there's a huge stigmafor being wrong about anything.

(01:21:36):
And it's, it goes further than just social rejection.
It's eternal punishment. You know, if you're wrong about
this, then God may not be OK with, you know, you believing
that that Saints are, you know, incorruptible or whatever.
You know, whatever the the pointof doctrine is, you can't be
wrong about it as a Christian. And so you learn to just never

(01:21:58):
be wrong. Yeah, I really feel sorry for
Christians to get themselves tied up in all those kinds of
knots. I I really, really do, because
it was terrible for me. And I look back and I see those
moments and I think, golly, Matthew, why was it so hard?
You just created such a problem for yourself.
And there's a liberation. It's a holding your hand up and

(01:22:20):
go, hey, I messed up. Sorry guys.
It is liberating. It's it's so liberating to be
able to just own your actions and move on from them.
It relieves a lot of pressure. Yeah.
So let's change tack a bit then,Tim.
We've talked a little bit about our journeys, etcetera, but

(01:22:41):
let's get back to the book. That is what this conversation
is all about. It's about Apostates available
on Amazon and other places wherebooks can be bought.
I hope from the 6th of January there will be an audio book read
by the lovely Sarah at some point later in the year I hope.
She has certainly promised me that she is preparing an audio
book. So the editing process and your

(01:23:07):
words being edited. So you put your heart and soul
into your story, written it down, and then someone went and
change some of your sentences. How did you cope with that?
You know, they were, they were remarkably gentle.
The, the bulk of my story as written is more or less the
exact words that I used. There were, I think, two or

(01:23:29):
three passages where the editor simply said, hey, I'm, you know,
I'm kind of confused what you'retrying to get at here.
Or they might say like, it seemslike you're trying to
communicate this, perhaps you could reword it in this way.
And I was, I was open to all of that.
I don't think that for I, I imagine the editing process was

(01:23:50):
similar for for everybody else who wrote chapters here.
And yeah, it's, it's absolutely,you know what I wanted to say.
I, I, I have the one of the later drafts up in front of me
right now. And, and yeah, it's, it's
everything I wanted it to, to say.
And I hope, I hope it can help anybody reading it to empathize,

(01:24:13):
especially if it's a Christian reading it, I hope they can see
it and, and understand at least that we're people too.
We, we went through exactly whatwe went through.
And that's not because we tried to.
It's not because we wanted to. It's just as a thing that
happened. And if I wanted to be Christian
again, I could try, I could go to church, I could sing hymns, I

(01:24:35):
could pray, but I still wouldn'tbe convinced.
I still wouldn't be able to actually genuinely believe in an
eternal God of any kind. As much as as much as they may
want me back. I'm I don't know how that's
going to happen now. Yeah.
And wasn't that long ago that weall got emailed the final draft

(01:24:56):
and it was our first opportunityto see the stories that other
people have written and see our names next to a story title in
the table of context. What was that experience like
for you? Well, it was pretty cool to see
your name in particular. If, if you don't mind me brown
nose in a bit. It was.
Go ahead. Go ahead.
Well, it. Was it was kind of cool because

(01:25:17):
I had assumed that this was justkind of a, you know, just a
thing for a bunch of folks on a Facebook group to get together
and and chat about. But I had already heard of you.
I'd already listened to Still unbelievable, and I also heard
your interview on the graceful atheist and it was cool to see,

(01:25:38):
you know, one of those slightly more well known names in the, in
the community of former Christians contribute to this.
So that was, that was fascinating and it was I, I feel
absolutely honored to be part ofthis collection of stories.
And I I only hope that mine is worthy to add to the the

(01:26:00):
collection. Oh, it definitely is.
And thank you for those those kind words.
I really enjoyed being part of it.
It was since I heard about it, there was no way I was not going
to be part of it. So I was really pleased to jump
on boards, really pleased to read some of the other stories.
And yes, there's a couple of names, other names on there,
which I recognise too from the community.

(01:26:22):
And also just to know that there's people whose names I
didn't recognise who are on there and read their stories.
So don't feel like you're putting yourself down the tall
team. You definitely belong in the
company. It was good to read your story.
So thank you for, for your own contribution as well.
It was nice to read the story where I felt like I had some
affinity with it as well. I've already said, I said some

(01:26:45):
of the parts of your, your story, I thought, yeah, I, I
resonate with that. It's, it's nice to have that
experience that I had validated and confirmed by somebody else.
And so, yeah, thank you for for being part of that story as
well. And that experience.
And one of the things that is going to be a weird experience

(01:27:07):
for me because I have told my story in multiple formats in
various ways and I've blogged about it as well.
What I what I'm looking forward to, it's going to be weird, but
what I am looking forward to is hearing my story read, hearing
it in somebody else's voice. What do you think that's going
to be like for you? You know, I didn't even really
think about that until you brought it up just now, But

(01:27:29):
you're right. Hearing Sarah in her Aussie
accent describe my childhood anddescribe some of the
relationship challenges that I went through.
That's, that's going to be interesting.
I'm very much looking forward toit.
Maybe I'll use it as like a, a therapy exercise.
You know, hearing my own story kind of told back to me from
somebody else's voice might be healthy for me to, to reflect on

(01:27:53):
on what I've been through and the stuff that I still need to
go through. Journey's not over.
No, journey isn't over and I've already recorded an interview
with Clint Haycock from the Dismantling Doctrine podcast,
used to be called the Mind Shiftpodcast.
He's an American living over here in the UK.

(01:28:15):
We've recorded a few episodes together and we were talking
about books and writing and audio.
And what I was saying to him wasreading my story still now it
brings up an emotion in me. It's a story I know well.
And writing it was emotional. I wrote it through tears when I

(01:28:39):
after I'd submitted my final draft and then sat on it for
however long it was. And I didn't read it again until
the the printed copy came out and I read it again.
And yet all those emotions came up again as well.
So I'm intrigued as to what it'sgoing to do to me.
When I hear somebody else read that story to me, I will

(01:29:01):
obviously listen to it for out of curiosity.
But I am kind of wondering if I'll still have that same
emotion or response when somebody reads it back to me.
And how will I feel about the the different emphasis
inflections that Sarah's put on the story?
Yeah, because they obviously won't be where I did it, you

(01:29:22):
know? And so that dicosity between the
story won't be read exactly how I would read it.
But at the same time, it's beingread by somebody who does this
kind of thing. And so the reflections will be
down to the interpretation of the reader.
And maybe that will give it a, apurer tone.
So looking forward to that listeners, you will hopefully

(01:29:48):
some of you will have read the book by now by the time that
this goes out. Please some feedback what you
think of some of the stories. Have you listened to the audio
book at some point? If you're listening to this
later on in the year, have give us some feedback please reason
press@gmail.com. I would love to have any and all
feedback on the various stories on the book, what you think of

(01:30:10):
what we've put together, becauseit's not impossible that
there'll be another one. I do raise this question with
Sarah in the interview that I'vehad with Sarah.
So any and all feedback, please send in.
It will be great. Any more thoughts that you want
to share about the whole processof being part of this project,
Tim? It's just that it's been an

(01:30:32):
honour. It's, it still is a little bit
raw for us. I mean, we, we are about a year
and a half out, but there's still folks in our life that we
haven't told yet who are deeply Christian.
So we'll see if, you know, maybethey'll, they'll hear about our
deconversion from this book. I don't think that their social
circles will overlap in such a way that they will.

(01:30:54):
But you know, if it happens, it happens.
And it was a very raw and liberating experience to be able
to, to talk about it in this way.
And I, I hope that that anybody reading it, I, I especially hope
that Christians read it and hearthe stories for what they are
and understand that the Christian perspective of leaving

(01:31:15):
the faith is, is absolutely not what the experience is like at
all. No, I hope, yes, I, I hope that
the Christians do get some kind of perspective of what's the,
the real experience of leaving Christianity is like and that
the narratives that many are sold, that many even repeats are

(01:31:36):
broken by the stories in in thisbook.
That would be one thing that I would absolutely love to hear,
as well as some encouragement and some hope for those who are
going through the same strugglesthat life doesn't have to end.
There is life after faith and weshould celebrate that.
Absolutely couldn't agree more. Well, thank you for the time,

(01:32:00):
Tim. That just leaves me really with
one more question to ask you before we say goodnight for the
evening, and that is having all the time that you spent reading
the Bible. Presumably it's a little less
nowadays, but from your knowledge and experience of the
Bible, do you have a favorite Bible character and who are

(01:32:20):
they? I absolutely do so it This is
probably an answer that you get quite commonly, but I'd say mine
has to be job. One of the things that my wife
and I did after leaving is we recently watched through the two
seasons of Good Omens. Oh, I love that season.
Oh, it's. So good.
It is absolutely hysterical and it's so powerful coming from an

(01:32:44):
ex Christian perspective to be able to see some of the
doctrines that you once held sacred and see like how how
ridiculous they really are in practice.
But there's a there's a bit in that series where they Crowley,
the the demon and the Angel. I forget his name at Azure FL

(01:33:08):
Thank you. Curly and Azure FL are are sort
of playing this not a game exactly, but they're they're
going over the person of Job andjust describing his experience
from from their perspective. And Azure, FL is trying to
figure out why God is totally fine with letting Curly do all
these nasty evil things to to poor Job, who's just just a

(01:33:32):
dude. He's just, he's just trying to
live his life. And if you read the biblical
account, it's so funny. He he's never told why he went
through all of that. He's nobody explains it to him.
Nobody bothers to tell him. Oh, hey, by the way, you were
actually like the subject of a bet between Satan and God.
Sorry, buddy, I know that your whole family was killed, but

(01:33:56):
here you can have some more family.
They're basically the same, right?
And it's, it's just, it's so entertaining.
It's such an entertaining story from this side of things to see
the the ridiculous lengths that that Christians would go through
to try to to try to justify their God.

(01:34:16):
Yeah, that scene where Job's wife and children are decimated
and then it's, oh, but you'll get twice as many as you had
before. And it was.
Yeah. But what about those ones?
Yeah, Those ones that died, those ones you took away.
Why can't I have those ones back?

(01:34:37):
And that it brought a new and fresh power to the atrocity of
that in that moment that even meand Alta looked and it went,
yeah, why did I never see that before?
I want to say freshness to the story, but I don't mean it in
that nice way whatsoever. It brought a new horror to the

(01:35:00):
story. And it was like, yeah, wow.
Yeah, God's A. It's it's horror, but it's also
like it's comedy horror because we know that that it's just
stories. Yes, It's not, you know, there
isn't some, you know, mighty dice player who's playing around
with his buddy Satan and trying to figure out, you know, let's

(01:35:23):
see what we can do to Job and see if he loses his faith.
It's it's very comedic from fromthis side of things.
And yeah, I was, I was just looking at the verse real quick
where it just where it talks about how God restored things to
Job and all it says is, oh, and he had seven sons and three
daughters and the Lord turned the captivity of Job like, OK,

(01:35:44):
cool. I guess that's problem solved.
You know, he, he lost his his wife and children before, but
you know, cool, God just gave him a few more and that's that.
Yeah, there's nothing that's nice about.
No justification, no clarification, just like, oh,
and God gave him more like, all right, I guess we'd just take
that. Yeah, yes, yes.

(01:36:06):
Quiet. I love the daughter I have,
thank you very much. I will not swap her for too.
Late. Exactly.
Exactly. It ain't gonna happen, frankly.
It's a good thing God didn't tell Job that he was the one
that let his family get taken inthe 1st place because Job.
Job's faith might have struggleda bit there.
If if Job had been told that Godlet all of that happen to him,

(01:36:29):
Job would have been like wait, you did that to me?
Seriously, what the hell was that for?
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's not a great, great move.
I don't think I've had a job. I have one of my more spiky
guests did say Job's servants. I think it's some of the people

(01:36:49):
who aren't even named that's alllost as part of this whole bet.
But they're so insignificant that they're not even named.
But you know, their lives are just castaway anyway.
There's a few of those. I mean, talk about like the
millions that were genocided in the flood, right?

(01:37:09):
We don't care about them. Their lives are insignificant.
They they were a mistake. They were God's oopsie.
And he, he just said, Oh, I, I'mregret this.
I regret making all this and just let's just let's just erase
it all and start over. All right, that, that sounds
great. So yeah, it's right.
But on the subject of things to watch Good Omens, if you haven't

(01:37:31):
watched it, I recommend it. And I've got off the back of
that, I'm going to go two more Lucifer.
I think it's on Netflix. I watched that last year.
Oh my word. I love that so much more than I
thought I would. It was kind of like AI want
something I can watch? Oh yeah, Lisa.
It's got quite a few episodes. You know, it's I can't even

(01:37:52):
remember when it started. It's got about 5 or 6 seasons.
I loved it all the way through. There's some really, really
clever representations in it andI don't really want to give any
spoilers, but there are some OldTestament characters that appear
and they are brilliant. But one tiny spoiler Eve turns

(01:38:15):
up and the whole thing of non consent comes up and it's like
yes. Yeah, there's there's a lot of
conversation about women and their role in the Bible.
Yeah, it's, it's good to see shows that that point that out.
Yeah, so. Yeah, I'll have to check that
one out. Yes, if you're an altar Lucifer
you really, really enjoy and theother one I want to recommend

(01:38:38):
because this was my deconstruction watching.
That's how old the season is. But it oh crumps.
I can't even remember the name of it now the two brothers that
went fighting demons. What's it called?
Oh. Supernatural.
Supernatural. Supernatural, that is just so

(01:39:00):
fantastic. I can't believe I've got that's
about 15 seasons or something like that.
But if you haven't watched it and you want some good outer
watching, again, that is utterlyfantastic.
And again, the thing that Supernatural and Lucifer have in
common is angels are the Dicks. The demons, you know where you

(01:39:21):
stand with the demons. The angels, you don't.
You can never trust them. They're always unreliable.
Good Ovens had a little bit of that too.
The Gabriel famously was was oneof the more difficult angels to
deal with in in Good Omens. Yeah, I just, that just comes up
again and again and again in allof these shows.

(01:39:41):
And when you go and open the Bible and read it, that's what
exactly what it's like. You know, the the God side is
unreliable, poorly commutative, and you don't know where you
stand. At least you know where you
stand with the others. Right.
Exactly. Exactly.
And it's hilarious when you see it by done by clever writers and

(01:40:02):
and actors on there. So yes, all those shows that's
that's that's Christmas sorted out for you.
Just go and binge and enjoy. Thank you so much, Tim.
Really enjoyed this. I believe we're someone's trying
to schedule a writer's Zoom callor something like that.
Hopefully everybody will be ableto have cameras as an excuse for

(01:40:25):
you to buy that webcam you've always wanted so we can all see
each other and share chat. Really looking forward to that.
Looks like everybody's going to be able to make that.
That's going to be great fun. Thanks again, Tim and business.
Until next time, be reasonable. Thank you, Matthew.
Thank you. Thank you too.
Thank you. You have been listening to a

(01:40:49):
podcast from Reason Press. Do you have any thoughts on what
you've just heard? Do you have a topic that you
would like us to cover? Please send all feedback to
reasonpress@gmail.com. You might even appear on an
episode. Our theme music was written for
us by Holly. To hear more of her music, see
the links in our show notes.

All Episodes

Episode 129 - Apostate contributing Author interview -Tim B

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 129 - Apostate contributing Author interview -Tim B