August 27, 2025 • 66 mins
Leave us a voice message here!
In this powerful episode, we dive deep into the challenges of growing up within a strict religious environment that demands viewing the world solely through a biblical lens. From the impact of purity culture and extreme dogma to the suspension of critical thinking and the burden of proof in faith, this conversation exposes the harmful ideologies ingrained in some Christian communities. Join us as we explore the struggle to question, deconstruct, and ultimately break free from a worldview that leaves little room for doubt or alternative perspectives.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for updates, and support the podcast on Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee to help us continue sharing these important stories!
#TrueCrimePodcast #CultSurvivor #ReligiousTrauma #ExposingCults #FaithDeconstruction #CultStories #SpiritualAbuse #ChurchAbuse #LifeAfterCult #BreakingFree #SurvivorStory #TrueStoryPodcast #PodcastRecommendations #HealingJourney #CultAwareness #ExposingTheTruth #CourageToLeave #ManipulationAndControl #ApplePodcasts #SpotifyPodcast
In this powerful episode, we dive deep into the challenges of growing up within a strict religious environment that demands viewing the world solely through a biblical lens. From the impact of purity culture and extreme dogma to the suspension of critical thinking and the burden of proof in faith, this conversation exposes the harmful ideologies ingrained in some Christian communities. Join us as we explore the struggle to question, deconstruct, and ultimately break free from a worldview that leaves little room for doubt or alternative perspectives.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for updates, and support the podcast on Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee to help us continue sharing these important stories!
#TrueCrimePodcast #CultSurvivor #ReligiousTrauma #ExposingCults #FaithDeconstruction #CultStories #SpiritualAbuse #ChurchAbuse #LifeAfterCult #BreakingFree #SurvivorStory #TrueStoryPodcast #PodcastRecommendations #HealingJourney #CultAwareness #ExposingTheTruth #CourageToLeave #ManipulationAndControl #ApplePodcasts #SpotifyPodcast
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
The world tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
The Worldwide Church of God presents Herbert's w armstrong and.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I'm here to bring you the truth.
Speaker 4 (00:11):
No one else is telling you the things that God
is telling you through me.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
He's speaking through me the Lord.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Let me experience what it is to be a new bride.
You know, I'm not worried about what I'm about to say,
though it may be graphic. We're coming to the Lord
and if you can take it, beyond.
Speaker 5 (00:32):
The veil is the chamber.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
That's the wedding chamber. The Lord told me that.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
But from then on, visions begin to come. When this
comes up on me, it produces the vision. I'm able
to tell people what's wrong with them, what they must
do in life, and the sins that they are holding
back in their life. God is going to be moving
vitally in fot like he has before both judgments of.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
The Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Cult Next
Doore Podcast. Before we get started with today's episode, I
want to remind you follow us on our socials, Facebook,
Instagram and TikTok. We also have that newer way to
connect with us, which is to leave a voice message
with a question or a comment, and we might feature
it on the show. You can find that link on
(01:19):
our Instagram bio or at the top of the episode
description for the episode that you are listening to right now,
follow that link, click record and send us a voice message.
I also want to do our double portion club shout
outs as always Shanda and Chase, Heather Bartlett, Carla and
Julia B. Thank you all for supporting the podcast. You
deserve your shout out. If you would like to be
(01:42):
in the club, listener, it's ten dollars a month to
get ad free episodes and a shout out, Or you
can pay five dollars a month to support the work
and you'll get add free episodes and we'll send you
a holographic Cult next Door sticker. So today's episode is
with Taylor Graves. I hope you all enjoy listening. Thank
you so much for taking out some time and coming
(02:02):
and joining the Cult next Door podcast today.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Absolutely, thank you for having me.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Yeah, we're so glad you're here. And for full disclosure
to our listeners, I know Taylor because Taylor and my
oldest son spent I guess like a year and a
half in a religiously affiliated school and I think was
that like around seventh grade.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
I went the last quarter of seventh grade and then
all of eighth grade.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
Oh okay, yeah, and we were just talking thank goodness
that that school only went to eighth grade because then
my kids went elsewhere. But anyway, so I know you
a little bit through that, and so obviously I assume
that you were very religious. But then I think it
(02:51):
was a couple of years ago you posted something on
Facebook and I it made me think whatever. It was like, Okay,
something's going on with Taylor. And I remember asking Ryan,
I'm like, is Taylor an atheist? And he was like,
I don't know. I was like, do you not know?
Like I need to know. But so then when we
(03:13):
did our call out, you know, asking for guests to
come forward and share their stories, you reached out and
I was really excited about that because I want to
hear the story. I know you have an interesting background,
and so I'm not sure where you want to jump in,
but let's just get it started and find out.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
All right. Yeah, So I mean the story that I
will get to happened at a different organization. So that
religiously affiliated school did have some obvious issues that were
pertaining to religion and all of that, and the doctrine
and everything like that. But actually that was very minor
(03:55):
compared to how I grew up before then and after them.
So when I was in first grade, my mom put
us in a program called Classical Conversations, and it is
a homeschool group that meets once a week at a
church that's willing to host our homeschool program. And so
(04:17):
that program caters to kids in kindergarten all the way
through their senior year of high school. And so when
you are up until sixth grade, you're in something called Foundations,
and that's where you do a lot of memorization. So
you learn history songs, you learn how to skip count
(04:39):
and they put it to music. You learn the elements
of the periodic table, you learn Latin conjugations, you learn
how to speak Latin in terms of some Bible verses.
So we learned the first chapter of John in Latin.
And so every week we also would make a presentation.
(04:59):
So every kid from first grade through sixth grade has
to put together. It can be a one to two
minute presentation about anything you want when you're little, it
can be your favorite toy when you're in sixth grade.
It could be about Joan of Arc or the Crusades
or something a little bit more complex. So the way
in which they taught content, I am all for that,
(05:23):
putting things to music, memorization, the psychology behind learning that
they have applied was brilliant. And my mom saw that,
and we grew up Christian, and so she saw that
it was religiously affiliated. It was Christian, and so we
just immediately got sucked in and it was It was
(05:45):
great for a while, and we didn't realize the damage
it was causing at first. So this group was initially started.
I can't remember what year they started, but it was
a group of mothers that didn't like how the public
school was teaching their children, and so they started Classical
(06:06):
Conversations in one of their basements. And then it grew
and now there's we call them ccs throughout the nation,
and I think some of it's international now, so it
has grown exponentially.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
Okay, so Classical Conversations it's a group, but it isn't.
Also a very specific curriculum that they create and everyone's
doing the exact same curriculum.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Okay, yes, and for Foundations it is the exact same
thing Okay, so you go through cycles. So you go
through cycle one, cycle two, and cycle three, and that's
where you learn. One of them might be world history,
one of them might be American history, one of them
focuses on chemistry, one of them focuses on biology or whatever.
(06:55):
And so since I attended from first through sixth grade,
i went through each cycle twice, so you learn the
same thing. Sixth graders are learning the same things as
first graders, and so that's how it was. And my
mom would also add some additional curricula, such as math,
(07:16):
so skip counting doesn't really do it. So she would
bring in a program called math u C which was
an amazing math program. I still love it. It is
religiously affiliated, but you don't have to do that. The
way in which they taught math was great. So she
would bring in extra things like that to supplement what
CC wasn't doing. And that's what you're supposed to do
(07:37):
when you're that age.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Now, when you get to be a little bit older,
you start going to foundations, but you also start going
to what's called essentels. So after Foundations, you would go
to this room where the fifth and sixth graders would
go for just a couple hours, and that's where you
learn more about writing in in English, diagramming sentences, writing papers,
(08:03):
and things like that. Once again, the way in which
they taught was great. The writing and the speaking that
was amazing. Little did I know that doctrine was being
woven through everything and it just sneaks up on you.
And so I was being brainwashed without knowing it. My
(08:27):
parents were being brainwashed without knowing it. And once you
hit seventh grade, you start going to challenge. It's called Challenge.
So seventh grade is Challenge A, eighth grade is Challenged B,
and then high school is Challenges one through four, and
that's when it starts getting funky, a little more funky
(08:50):
than it was already being. So I went to Challenge A,
and then we moved, and then at the last quarter
I went to the religiously affiliated school and all through
eighth grade, so I skipped the last part of Challenge A,
and I skip Challenge BE altogether. And since the school
didn't have a high school, then I went to Challenge one.
(09:12):
So that's where things started to get especially weird. But
I remember questioning religion when I was twelve and I
was told that God wants you to ask questions, and
you are It's okay to ask questions, but you have
to reach the same conclusion. So you can ask questions
(09:35):
as long as you come to the right conclusion that
God exists and that these are the rules you follow.
So I started Challenge one, and you learn some Latin.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
You learn.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
The Challenge one does physical science, so you learn about
tectonic plates, you learn about the weather and things like that.
But they do bring in curriculum at that point. You
don't bring in any outside curriculum normally because Challenge takes
care of all of it. So they bring in the
science textbooks, the math textbooks, the history books. You have
(10:14):
to learn all these Latin things and all of that,
which on the outside sounds good. So when you're learning
about this program, you're like, yes, that's great. They also
teach via the Socratic method, which is how law schools teach,
So I starting law school, am now familiar with the
Socratic method. Once again, on the outside, it sounds amazing.
(10:39):
But then during the last semester of Challenge one, they
started incorporating things like dating, so they started telling us
to read certain books and papers and speeches by religious
(11:00):
leaders that tell you how to date. And that's when
so purity culture is implemented at a very early age,
especially for girls, of course, yes, and it became even
more so because now you're getting to the age we
were probably going to start dating, so we were taught
that dating's a sin. You should do courtships. So everything
(11:23):
has to involve your parents and all of that. So
this is when purity culture is brought in. And it
was an assignment. You had to read it, you had
to write about it, and you have to write. When
I was fourteen, one of the assignments was to write
a list of qualities that I want my future husband
to have, and they have to involve.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
God, and it's a husband, a husband.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
A husband. And I was fourteen. Yeah, and we were told,
you know, of course, you dress modestly. You don't want
to cause your brothers in Christ to stomach and all
of that. So very much into the purity culture thing.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
And also, I mean also it's that women are responsible
for the mistakes of men, and so we are the
we are the ones who have to safeguard them from sinning.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yes, it is our responsibility, and that's what we were
taught it is our responsibility to make sure that our
brothers in Christ don't stumble. So we have to dress modestly.
And what did that mean?
Speaker 5 (12:36):
Were there are specific rules?
Speaker 1 (12:41):
It depends on the family. So how this program is
structured is you have your students and then in order
to be a tutor, you're not allowed to call them teachers.
In order to be a tutor, you have to have
a child in the program, so you have to believe
in the program enough to put your own child in it,
(13:02):
or you have to be a graduate of said program
to teach. So it depends on the family. So some
people were like, you can't show your knees. Some people
were like, you can't it's the fingertip rule. Some people
were you can't show your shoulders. Some people it was
(13:24):
this rule, you know, it has to your strapped fingers.
Some were fore fingers. So that was very that was variable.
In my household. I couldn't wear shorts above the knee
ever until I got like in my later years of
high school and my mom started easing up a little bit,
(13:47):
you know, like this is a little extreme.
Speaker 6 (13:51):
But then, yeah, that's how it was in my house.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
We had to specifically look for shorts that were no
shorter than the mey.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
And we wore a lot.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Of skirts, a lot of skirts, So I that was
a lot of my wardrobe. I mean at the school,
you saw me wearing a lot of skirts. And that
was not a rule, but it was implied you want
to be as modest as possible because it's your fault
if anything happens to you. So it was out of
(14:32):
fear and out of fear of being blamed if something
did happened.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
Or called.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Very insulting names if something happened, or if you dressed
a certain way a certain way.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
What about makeup is that involved?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
They actually didn't didn't talk about.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
That, Okay, No, it was all about you know, makeup
was meant for seduction. That was the purpose of it.
So it kind of that was in that that was
ingrained an hour purity culture.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Okay, No, they never they never talked about makeup. I
do know red lipstick was seductive and you should never
wear red lipstick. I'm wearing red lipstick because I can.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
Wear it every day, right, That.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Was the only thing though. They they didn't care about
Neil polish. Yeah, it is so variable though, because my
experience with CC is in the Bible belt. I went
to Springfield, I went to Neo show, and I went
(15:43):
to Joplin. So take that how you will. I mean,
there could be a c C in Washington that doesn't
care as much, you know, but their their motto for
every c C in the world is to know God
and make Him known. So they are implementing the Matthew
twenty eight right off the bat. That is your job.
(16:04):
Your sole purpose on this earth is to make is
to love God and make God known, to tell people
about it, and to convert. So that is your entire purpose.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
To harass other people. I felt like that, yeah.
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I remember in Challenge A when we had to read
a book about how the earth couldn't have just happened
and how creation is the only explanation for why we're here.
And my dad was amazing. He kept his his strong
(16:48):
head in this because he was like, that doesn't make sense, guys,
And you can read that, but I want you to
think like that doesn't make sense if you think about it,
you can. I can't believe everything that you read or
what people are telling you. And so I remember telling
my tutor, I don't think this is right. I don't
(17:10):
think that the world was created in six days and
that dinosaurs lived with humans and the earth is only
six thousand years old. I don't believe that that is right.
That doesn't make sense. And so at that point I
had classmates trying to convert me. Even though I was Christian,
(17:30):
I wasn't Christian enough. So I was told that because
I believed in old Earth, that I was going to
burn in hell forever. I was in seventh grade and
I was told that by my very closest friends at CC.
And the only reason that they would want to be
(17:51):
around me is because I was a project. I wasn't
a friend. I was a project to convert to the
right and true way of thinking. And this had nothing
to do with believing whether Jesus was the son of
God and died for our sins. That it was completely irrelevant.
(18:11):
And at the time I believed that, which should be
grounds enough to call myself a Christian, but it wasn't.
I had to believe exactly like they did. Yeah, and
so I was already facing some issues. But I just
remember thinking, Okay, if this is what I have to
believe to be accepted and to not burn in hell, forever,
(18:33):
then I guess I'll do it because I don't want
to be isolated. I don't want to disappoint God. And
so I just kind of kept going along with that,
and I was miserable, I mean, just trying to believe
something that I had questions about and couldn't justify.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
But what didn't they say about, you know, carbon dating
in other ways that we know that Earth science it's fake.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
It's fake. It's put there by the devil to deceive us,
and it's fake. So even if somebody doesn't believe that
the that the devil deliberately put these methods or put
the dinosaur bones in the ground to deceive us, then
they were They're not real. They're fake. We I'm gonna
(19:23):
call out another organization that needs to be called out
because it is awful. It is hurting people and it's
not true. Everything they teach is not true. And it's
called Answers in Genesis by Kenham. And I will call
that out and I will name drop that every day
because it is so harmful. If you are not being
(19:47):
taught science, people will die.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
It is.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
It is integrated in everything. It's in medicine, and it's
in architecture, it's everything. So you have to be well
versed in science. And if you are not able to
allow yourself to learn and to learn something outside of
(20:12):
the dogma that you have been taught since you were born,
because you've been put in Sunday school since you could see,
then you will be brainwashed. And you, even if you
are a good person, you are going to be brainwashed
into thinking and doing things that you would not normally do. No,
(20:36):
and it's unbelievable how this happens, but this happens every.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
Day all around us.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yes, and I want to get to the story that
I would like to say woke me up, but it didn't,
and now looking back, it should have. And that is
when I went to Team Pact. And this is an organization.
(21:05):
It's nationwide and if not every state participates, most do.
So that's where you go to the state capitol. It's
catered to homeschoolers and it's a conservative Christian organization that
a lot of CC kids do. So I went in
high school and that's where you learn. On the outside,
(21:27):
on the shell, it sounds great. Once again, what CC
advertise is a great education, so they do teach you
how a Bill is passed, how committees work, how the
House and the Senate operate, what the branches of government
are in all of this, and I thought that, wow,
this is amazing. I'm learning a lot of things that
(21:49):
most kids don't get to learn. I get to go
to the state capitol. I even got to meet my representative.
I mean, it was just great. And we got public speakers.
We got a couple every day and they were all
Republican except for one. And before that, one Democrat spoke.
(22:10):
We every year that you go to teen Pact, there's
a designated leader. It's always a man. By the way,
every time I've gone, it's been a man. Maybe it's
changed since then, I don't know, but it was always
a man. Yeah. And before the Democrat, the one Democrat
we had all week speak, he warned us. He said,
(22:32):
now this is a Democrat. They do not believe the
same way we do. His views are going to be wrong.
And you just need to have a biblical lens. So
that's what we were taught in CC. You have to
have a biblical lens, a biblical worldview if you must,
that's what they called it. And so everything you see,
(22:56):
everything you experience has to be through the lens of
the Bible. So that is your truth. And if something
isn't mentioned in the Bible, it's not true. Carbon dating
isn't in the Bible. It's not true. Right, Vaccines aren't
in the Bible, it's not true. Yeah, So that's their
standard of truth. And so when that Democrat spoke, you
(23:20):
are already taught to not even listen, but to make
him think you're listening. So we were taught to make
him think you're listening, but don't because he's wrong and
we're right. And at the end of the day, every
night we go in this church and I'm getting shaky
thinking about this, and that's where we have a dinner
(23:46):
of all ages, boys and girls, and then we go
into the chapel of the church, so the worship space,
and they do some songs. But this is where they
hold a church service that also incorporates politics, because we're
at the state capitol and we have to have a
(24:08):
biblical worldview when we're thinking about politics. The first night
I was fourteen. The first night was about homosexuality, which
is a hot topic for a bunch of Christians. You know,
that's one of the biggest sins, right, and of course
the good old story of Sodom and Gomorrah. You know, yeah,
(24:30):
we've heard all about that. Yes, so we hear about
how Lot has these strangers that come to his house
seeking somewhere to stay for the night and a hot meal,
and they're, you know, secretly, three angels and any but
he doesn't know that. So he lets him into his house.
(24:51):
And then there's a mob of men coming and saying, Hey,
we want to have sex with these three men that
just came into your house. And Lot says, no, you
can't do that, that's not right. Here are my daughters.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
Oh I know that kills me when I read that.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, literally, here are my daughters. And he sends his
daughters out to be gang raped. And we listen to
that story, and at the end he said, the moral
of that story is it is better to rape a
(25:29):
woman than it is to be gay.
Speaker 5 (25:32):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And I was a fourteen year old girl in the
midst of fourteen to seventeen to eighteen year old boys,
and they were teaching this, if you feel like you
might be a homosexual, it's better to just go rape
a woman. And that still haunts me, and I wish
(26:00):
that that would have been the moments that would have
woken me up. Yeah, and just what are we learning?
What does this come to? I thought we were going
to the school that would teach the Socratic method, how
to memorize things, how to learn Latin, and at the time,
(26:22):
you know, learn about God and all of that. And
I remember feeling scared. But it's okay, because this is
what God wants. And I justified it, and my fourteen
year old self justified that, and.
Speaker 5 (26:44):
That you were groomed.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I will justify that all those years. It's almost like
it led up to now you are able to accept
the most extreme form of dogma of doctrine. And the
only way that you could accept that raping a woman
(27:07):
is less of a sin. First of all, that contradicts
that God sees all sins the same, so you know,
the Bible contradicts itself a million times.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
But besides that, the only way that you could ever
accept that is if you are brainwashed to the most
extreme level. And this is happening in Missouri. This is
not Saudi Arabia, this isn't some war torn country where
(27:40):
we have suicidal bombers or and this is in Joplin, Missouri.
Jefferson City, Missouri at the time. Yeah, and so many
people are being brainwashed. And I was wondering whether or
not I was literally talking with you whether or not
I should drop these organizations because I know people still
(28:04):
that are in this and they don't realize how bad
this is. And you might be thinking, well, yeah, but
that was just one time, or it's not that bad.
You don't realize what it is doing to you, and.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Well it goes along with a lot of other a
lot of other really destructive ideologies about women. Yes, yes,
you know, I think I just read something about I mean,
we all know this. Evangelicals fundamentalists often talk about like
(28:46):
they justify like a teenage marriage, you know, to these
elders in the church or whatever, and they cite biblical
scripture to justify that. And like how many churches don't
do anything about abuses on towards women in the church.
(29:07):
They protect the men. And you grow up with that
and you know you're not going to be protected if
anything happens, and without them saying you are worth less
than everyone else, that is the message that you're getting,
even if it isn't said in those words. By saying
(29:29):
that it's like it'd be better for you to be
gang raped than for this man to love another man
or whatever. You know, Yes, and without realizing it, I
think that like seeps really deep inside your body, your psyche,
and it impacts the way that you view yourself and
(29:49):
the way that you interact with other people. And I like,
that's I mean, we could do so many episodes on
purity culture, but that it's just just in city damaging.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Oh, it's awful you are as a person.
Speaker 5 (30:05):
Yeah, well, I mean I do as well, and I've
been out of it for so long because it's just
so ingrained. Yes, it's so ingrained, and that you know,
with the patriarchy, you don't even like things like I
don't know if at the time when you were at
at that it was a capital, yes, at the capital,
Like did you think at the time, Oh, you know,
(30:27):
it's always a man who's leading this, right. It's like
I'm still recognizing those things now, yeah, yeah, you know,
and I'm like, oh, that's a result of this internalized
patriarchy that we have exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, it's it's incredibly damaging and that could be you know,
I could go on for days on purity culture as well.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
I mean, I'm sure we've experienced very similar things being women,
you know, and just being taught, but I will you know,
we we were taught that our worth is in our
sex life. That's that's our worth.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
And as in what you can provide to a husband.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yes, and I was told that if I were to
have sex before marriage, I would have to explain to
my future husband what I had done and see if
he still wants me.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Yeah. I heard that as well. Yeah. Yeah, it's the
whole it's the whole thing of being tainted and dirty.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Were you ever compared to like aw chewed, what piece
of gum? Trampled rose?
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (31:41):
Yes, yep, But I never heard that directed towards men.
I know they weren't supposed to have premarital sex, but
I never I don't ever remember hearing any emphasis on
male virginity.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
No, it was like looked down upon. But that's that's
the extent of it. I mean, it was not, it
was not you were men were not compared to a
wadded up piece of paper or a chewed up piece
of gum. No, they were never compared.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
I never heard that once. No, I'm so sorry that
that that you experienced that. That's I don't even know
what I would feel like being in a room full
of boys and hearing that. Did you tell your parents
about that afterwards? Like? Is it obviously like struck a
(32:36):
nerve for you at the time?
Speaker 1 (32:38):
It did, But I don't know if I at the
time it did strike a nerve because I was like,
I'm that makes me scared, but I justified it, and
so I thought, if my parents let me go here,
then this is this is right, and this is in
(33:01):
no way a blame on my parents, right. You know,
they had no idea. They thought, once again, the shell
that they advertise is that you're going to learn some
amazing things about politics, and so they thought and with
cc they genuinely believed with their whole heart, especially my mom,
that they were giving us the best education possible and
(33:25):
that's what a good parent wants to do. And I
know that they blame themselves for this, because we are
all working through our religious trauma right now, and I
know my parents blame themselves, but it's not they were brainwashed.
Adults and kids alike are brainwashed, and they genuinely believed
(33:48):
with their whole heart that this was what's best for us,
and that's all I can ask of a parent, exactly,
And I mean they're wonderful parents, and we're all there
for each other at this point, and we're all still
working through this and I've told them this story now
(34:10):
and I've told them other stories, you know, like it
with the purity culture and things like that, and we're
just all working through it as a family.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
But I'm so glad me too, you are. I mean,
it's hard, no matter what to deconstruct, but to be
kind of on an island by yourself is really hard.
I know there are a lot of people experiencing that
and feeling like they're alone. Yes, but yeah, I'm glad
that you have each other because I think it makes
(34:41):
the process a little bit less painful, and I almost
think it's helped speeds it up. It does.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I feel like it does, because we can talk to
each other, and I know not very many people have
that where I know it's a very lonely process. And
even with my family, it was a st a very
long process to deconstruct because this being that I thought
I could rely on. I started and actually, my view
(35:09):
of Christianity is not why I'm an atheist. My bad
experiences within the Christian Church have nothing to do with
why I'm an atheist.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
Yep, exactly, so too.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, I've had people say, well, it's because of your
bad experience that you're an.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Atheist, and that one bad experience.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
Right exactly. That to me, that is I know they mean, well,
but it's so insulting to my intellect. Yeah, and I
at the school that you and Ryan both attended. I
was in the process of deconstructing then, but it was
(35:52):
it was somewhat early, and there was a person I'll
tell you later. Yes, you would corner me literally.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Every time I think I know who you're talking.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
Yes, I'm sure you do. Every time I went to
that school unless I could avoid it, and she would
always want to talk to me about religion. And you know,
she knew that I didn't go to church anywhere, and
she's like, well, you know, you had a bad experience.
(36:25):
We just need to find you the right church.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
That's what I've been told so much.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
She kept saying that, and I at some point, you know,
I just kind of like smiled and just nod my
head because there's no point, Like I just didn't feel
like I could ever get across that it's not the church.
Like I'm critically thinking about everything now, and there's a
whole lot that does not add up and does not
(36:50):
make sense outside of being totally indoctrinated. Like, you know,
if I was just walking on, like if I just
arrived on this earth and I'm looking around, there's no
way on earth that I would be believing all of
this stuff. Yeah you know what I mean, because it
does not make sense. Yeah, that was where I was at,
(37:12):
and so it was a matter of taking that ingrained
indoctrination and trying to set that aside and look at
everything with fresh eyes, not having a goal in mind.
I wasn't trying to be atheist or trying to be Christian.
I was like, I just have to I just have
(37:32):
to look at this as objectively as I can. Yeah,
you know, and in the beginning I wanted to still
be Christian. I really tried me too. Yeah, you know,
it's like you really cannot make yourself believe something.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Exactly Well, and to your point earlier, I think we
maybe talked about this last week or it sounds very
familiar and recent. But the idea of you have this
being that you can then rely on go to in
times of need like that being gone. That's not comfortable,
Like it's not something you decide like you God, like,
(38:10):
I don't like that. I think a lot of people
who had an experienced this think that that's what it is,
and it's like, no, it could not be further from
the truth. It's very uncomfortable to come to a realization
that you don't believe that thing, and it's not fun
to be in a time of crisis, however large or
small it is, you have that thought. I know I
(38:32):
do even still now where it's like I want to
pray about this and I'm like, yeah, I know, but
that's it's like a fallback automatic because that's comforting and
that's natural and human. I think to be like I
need help with I lost something, let me go over here,
and then that's gone. So I think that's a big
misconception just among people who haven't experienced maybe what sounds
(38:55):
like all three of us have in this room.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
Well, I mean, isn't that why religion really was created
in the first place. It was like helping people make
sense of bad things that happened and death and famine,
and you know, even early on, yeah, exactly, or you know,
the days getting shorter and winter, and you know, it's it.
(39:23):
I think that people felt like they needed something and
that we're at a point I feel like in the
human experience where we know more now just feels like
how it feels very outdated.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Yes, and I feel I heard this from a person
I like to listen to and stuff, and he said,
religion is our first and our very worst attempt at
under standing the natural world. Because when we had lightning,
well that's scary. We don't know what that is. Well,
(40:05):
it's got to be zeus. The rain has to be
tears from a higher being. You know, we have illnesses,
and of course the bad things that happen, well I
must have pissed off the higher being or you know,
there must be an evil being, you know, and then
you start creating this and how can we control people? Well,
(40:29):
we we make rules. We make rules, and we say
that this higher being told us to write the rules,
and so now we can control and we can control
mass amounts of people. And I don't like what that
person's doing, so I'm going to add a rule. And
it just gets so so damaging, and I mean, you know,
(40:54):
I'm just telling you, guys things that you guys already know.
I mean, you've already experienced this. But it is another
thing that I've heard is God is an ever receding
pocket of ignorance because you start to be able to
explain things scientifically. Well, now we know what lightning is, now,
(41:15):
we know what rain is, now, we know it all
those things, and so yeah, but God does it this way.
That's how God does it, That's how he created it.
So then then you're trying to still fit. I'm picking
on Christianity because I'm in the Bible bell that's what
I know the best, right, But now that's how he
does it because I can't let go of God.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
I can't.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
That's scary, that's uncomfortable. And I want to believe that
someone loves me all the time, unconditionally unless I don't
believe in him, and then I'm going to burn in
hell forever. But we're not going to think about that.
We're just going to threaten people with that. And I'm
just going to tell the first half of that, which
is Jesus loves you. I'm not going to tell you
(41:57):
the or else clause that we don't talk.
Speaker 5 (42:00):
Don't look in the old testing.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Yeah right. We're not going to talk about how the
Bible justifies slavery, or how to beat their slaves enough
so that they don't die, but if they do die,
then you have to pay a penalty. We're not going
to talk about how if a woman gets raped, then
the rapist has to pay the father and then has
to marry the girl. We're not going to talk about
(42:22):
child trafficking. We're not going to talk about how the
Israelites slaughtered so many thousands of people, committed mass genocide,
how God punished and had boys mulled by bears because
they called someone bald.
Speaker 5 (42:39):
We're not going I mean, these killing all the first borns.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Right hardened his heart. So we're going to take away
free will from Pharaoh, harden his heart, and we're going
to kill all of these innocent firstborn children of these
poor Egyptian families that have no responsibility for anything that
God or Pharaoh is doing. So, even if I did
(43:04):
believe in a god, which once again this has nothing
to do with why I'm an atheist, Even if I
did believe, and there was so much evidence that it's
overwhelming that there is a God that exists, I would
want to punch him in the face. Yeah, he's a monster.
Speaker 5 (43:20):
Yeah, exactly exactly how I feel. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
I can't say that better.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
As you can see, I've got a lot of yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (43:33):
No, the mental gymnastics and the cognitive dissonance that people
have to engage with to make sense of all of
these things, and those are you know, the ancient things,
but you know, fast forward to I always think of
the Holocaust, six million people, Yeah, six million people, Like
(43:59):
I heard and say, you either have to believe that
this is a God that can't do anything, so he
isn't all powerful, he can't do it, or he just
doesn't care chooses not to. Like, there's no I've never
ever heard a single Christian apologist explain that well, and
(44:21):
I do not ever want to hear God works in
mysterious ways that is bs.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Or things happen for a reason, because I.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
Don't understand the people who actually grew up believing that
God was all good all the time, and that he's
so loving and he's a perfect father and our fathers
was to be modeled after him. Because I grew up
(44:51):
absolutely frozenly terrified of God. Yeah, I mean, because we
did have a heavy emphasis on the Old Testament, and
then you know it does talk a lot about God's wrath,
his anger even I mean that's in the New Testament
as well as like you know, coming back and you know,
smiting the people, and it's there was just I wanted,
(45:18):
I wanted to love God and I wanted to feel
safe and protected, but I was terrified. Yeah, and that
was the motivation for me to try to not make
mistakes and not quote unquote sin. Yeah, and that would
just extend as a child. Do like I have a
(45:39):
bad attitude. Uh oh, like something bad may happen to
me now if I don't like straighten up. Yeah, Like
did you have that view of God like a like
you were scared of God?
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yes? And no. So we were taught that God is
a loving god because we also we did have emphasis
from the Old Testament, of course, because Christianity is basically
Judaism part two. You know, you just have the second
half of the story, right, and so we did have that,
but we also had Jesus and how Jesus was loving.
(46:20):
He went to the sick and the poor and the needy,
and he fed the five thousand and he you know,
brought somebody back to life, and he healed the sick girl,
and you know all of these things, and that he's
just a wonderful person because he's God and he can
do no wrong. Right, So we were also taught all
of that. So I would say that I had less
(46:41):
of a fear based relationship with God, but there was
also you still incorporate the Torah in Christianity, still incorporate
the Old Testament, and so there was this fear factor.
But also even if you were to ignore the Old Testament,
it is still a fear based religion because hell and
(47:07):
if you some people say that hell is not explicitly mentioned,
but we hear Jesus talk about the gnashing of teeth
and how you're you know, not gonna enter the Kingdom
of heaven. And so if you believe it's hell, or
you believe it's gnashing of teeth or fire or whatever
(47:27):
it is, it's gonna be an awful experience that you're
gonna have to go through if you don't believe. I mean,
in Romans, you know, I'm the tries, the Son of God.
Whoever believes in me, you know, that's what you have
to do to be a Christian and so there is
still that fear, and Jesus seems more loving in the
(47:54):
New Testament. But if you are following the doctrine of
the Trench, which if I understand correctly, most Christian denominations
do incorporate the Trinity, which was first of all, that
concept of the trinity was established much later. Yeah, like
counsel Council Nicia. So anyway, so we're notwithstanding that he
(48:23):
was the same person.
Speaker 5 (48:24):
Yeah, it's saying yesterday, today, and forever.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yeah, so he is the one that killed so many
people in the Old Testament. And if we're going to
ignore the Old Testament, then you have to ignore the
ten Commandments, both versions of them. So yeah, pick which
one you want and then ignore it because it's the
Old Testament in a way. You know, I've heard that
as well. And so you don't you don't win. You
(48:52):
can't have an argument for this.
Speaker 5 (48:54):
No, and yeah, and to me, it kind of doesn't.
It's irrelevant in a way if it's like, oh, but
Jesus a son taking out the Trinity. Jesus a son,
Like he's kind and he came and did all these things. Okay,
but I'm still terrified because his dad.
Speaker 7 (49:12):
Yeah, genocides people and gets really angry and has a
terrible temper and yeah, yeah, I mean so like that
doesn't like make me feel better.
Speaker 5 (49:24):
No.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
What I also find interesting, maybe interesting isn't the right
word disturbing about this too, is it came to me
when you were speaking earlier. I think that Evangelical Christianity,
at least as we know it in the US, anyway,
these are things that they don't often talk about or
(49:47):
want to when you're kind of speaking back to some
of the things, especially in the Old Testament, that are
very uncomfortable for Christians to talk about, like instructions about
slaves and rape and these and the stories about you know,
the bay and the buoys that you know, they were
calling him old baldhead apart from the murder, apart which
I don't think happened has always been one of my
(50:08):
favorite stories, that it's so like out of control from him,
what is happening. Murder isn't funny, but that story is
like he got mad because they called him baldy. Get
these bears out here, kill them kids. Anyway, that aside,
what I find disturbing and interesting about that is that
I think if you boil it down, while most people
(50:30):
would be very uncomfortable, they would, because of their worldview
of evangelical Christianity, come to the same conclusion that, yep,
that actually is justified, that is moral. And that's what
I now find most disturbing, and I think you guys
probably do too, is that that's not something that's talked about,
but I think it was.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
I forget.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
I can't remember the pronunciation of his name, but there's
a Christian apologist that was on a podcast I was
listening to.
Speaker 5 (51:00):
It's a.
Speaker 4 (51:01):
It's like a k N name Nektel or something. Somebody
will check me in the comments about it. I can't
remember his name, but it's actually a couple of brothers,
but there's one that's the primary apologist, and he was
pressed on this podcast about some of these stories and
essentially like they don't have a good answer. They just
(51:22):
come to the conclusion like, well, actually it is moral
because God is the moral law giver. And there it's
all these gymnastics. But when you actually, let's boil it down,
what do you actually think about this deity that did
these things? Not only did it, but said like this
is right? And they come to the conclusion like, well, yep,
it is right, and you know all those children that died,
(51:45):
like they're going to have an opportunity now to know God.
It's this type of stuff, it's like to me. To
me now, it's like, well, this is just disgusting, Like
you don't actually have a real answer for this, yeah,
any moral basis. You're just you find a way to
make it okay. And that, to me is the most dangerous,
insidious part of evangelical Christianity is that even the most
(52:07):
well meaning people boil it down. You actually think that too,
And that's ingrained in here, even if you're kumbaya. God
is good all the time. God can't be wrong. And
if this is where our worldview points, then it justifies
all kinds of things. It just does. And so if
(52:28):
that's where you get to to where anything can be justified,
like you've lost the plot, Like you've lost it now
you're not making decisions yourself about what you actually believe
is right or wrong. You've got something else that's above
you that's dictating. And when I kind of came to that,
not that that in particular was what was the main
(52:50):
factor in my deconstruction. That was one of them though,
where I thought, like, you know what, if I can't
actually believe this, if I don't believe this is true
or right, then I'm just not going to I'm not
going to force myself to say, yes, I accept that,
so anyway I kind of want to.
Speaker 5 (53:08):
You can't anymore than you can make yourself believe in
Bigfoot or you like, you can't just say i'm I mean,
you could say the words, but it's not like internalized yeah.
Speaker 4 (53:23):
And it's not always a matter of uh, you know,
apologetics on either side. Like sometimes even when i'm I'm
it's not might not be me talking to somebody when
I'm listening or watching something, you have that urge to
want to explain why you believe how you believe now
(53:44):
type of thing. And for me, like I don't actually
feel that, I don't feel strongly, that strongly that I
need to do that to explain what I think to
most people, because what it boils down to for me,
however I articulate it is that looking at the Bible
(54:05):
and the concept of the God of the Bible and
these things, I just don't find it compelling to be true.
Like that's it for me. I don't find it to
be true, and I'm not going to accept it and
say yes. If I just don't, I can't believe it.
Speaker 5 (54:20):
No, And honestly, it shouldn't be on the person who
doesn't believe to explain why they don't believe something.
Speaker 1 (54:26):
Yes, Like the burden of proof is on someone who
makes a claim. I'm a student lawyer, so the burden
of proof always rests on the person making the claim. Yes,
So if you are claiming that the Christian God exists,
so we're just going to start with that the Christian
God exists, We're not even going to go with and
(54:48):
Jesus as his son and the Bible's you know, yeah,
even on that basis, right, I should not have to
explain to you why I don't believe that. You should
explain to me why that's true? What is your evidence?
And the burden of not going to hell should not
(55:09):
be on me?
Speaker 5 (55:10):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
That's that's ridiculous. And if you think about that for
like two seconds, that doesn't make sense. So I've had
people say that, well, why don't you believe? Why why
do you believe?
Speaker 5 (55:23):
Right?
Speaker 1 (55:24):
And you and you don't get to say that it's
because the Bible says, so.
Speaker 5 (55:29):
No, that's like the worst part is like trying to
prove the point by using the very object that that's
in question. Yeah, Like no, you can't use the Bible. Yeah,
to prove the Bible.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
Exactly, I could write in a notebook that the sky
is read all the time and.
Speaker 5 (55:52):
In your backyard, and then someone will dig.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
And well, okay, why do you believe the sky is red? Well,
the book says, Well, why does the book say, Well,
because God says, how do you know that? Well, the
book says that God says that the sky's red.
Speaker 5 (56:07):
It's just circles.
Speaker 1 (56:09):
You're trapping yourself in a logical box that you can't
get out of. And when it comes to like the
thought of creation and things like that, I mean, if
you get to say that there is a person or
a being that created the earth out of absolutely nothing,
and that thing does not need a creator, but everything
(56:32):
else does need a creator, then that's you have committed
so many fallacies. And you don't get to say that
the Big Bang isn't real. Because I've got more evidence
for the Big Bang than you do for a magical
wizard in the sky making the earth out of nothing.
Speaker 5 (56:53):
I would.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
Wizard. Right, it'd so much more interesting. I know, Harry
Potter to right, it's just these logical boxes that I
used to use.
Speaker 5 (57:10):
Yeah, me too, that's too. Yeah, it's really sad to
think about because you know, there's like so much confusion
in there, and and some of the times I would
just hit a wall and be like, I can't think
about that anymore.
Speaker 1 (57:24):
Yes, that's what I would do as well.
Speaker 5 (57:26):
I just I don't know how that's true, but I
just it is so.
Speaker 1 (57:30):
Yeah. And I was told when I would ask questions,
you know, well, God wants you to have faith. Oh,
you need to just need to have faith God, God
does it this way. And that's just true. So you
just need to have faith. And faith is considered a virtue,
and I don't understand that it's not. It's it's a
(57:52):
gap in logic.
Speaker 5 (57:53):
Yeah, you are.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
You are allowing religion to occupy a part of your
mind that you would not do to anything else. You
would not blindly believe that two plus two equals four.
You would not blindly believe that you would not in
any other area of your life. You are using logic,
you are using evidence. You're having evidence based practices. Even
(58:20):
if you don't realize it, but you suspend critical thinking
in this one area of your life. And I don't
know why we can't apply critical thinking to every area
of our lives. Why does it have to be suspended
for this and it doesn't have to.
Speaker 5 (58:37):
Be for me. The only problem I start having a
problem when Christians attempt to push their beliefs onto other people,
or when it becomes intertwined into laws. And yeah, I'm
(58:59):
sure you have opinions about that, definitely. That is where
I'm just like, no, no, do not touch the separation
of church and state. Don't come knocking on my door.
I didn't ask you to come over, Like I have
the internet. I'm like living in the twenty first century,
(59:19):
Like I know about religion, I know about Christianity, Like, yeah,
I just that's so frustrating to me and also super hypocritical.
Just as a side note, because I've heard so many
Christians say that, you know, like Pride Month or just
pushing you know, gain us on us because there's a
(59:42):
because there's a freaking rainbow flag in someone's window, or
there's a parade that you can completely avoid if you
don't want to participate. And I'm like no, who's pushing
their ideologies on people who it's always it's always the
Christians doing that. They're not seeing all of them. But
(01:00:03):
you know, I mean I literally just the other day,
two people showed up at the door. Yeah, you know,
and I know they mean well, and they're doing what
they're told to do and when they think it's their mission.
But just like, spare me with the gazer trying to
like push themselves on us. Give me a break. You
guys are literally the only people doing that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
Yeah, Christians are so Christianity is so used to winning
that when something even attempts to challenge that, they view
it as persecution.
Speaker 5 (01:00:36):
Yeah, there's a huge persecution complex.
Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
Yeah victim.
Speaker 5 (01:00:40):
Yes, it's difficult persecution. Yeah, I know. I saw it. It
was so funny. This is just a side note. I
saw this reel of this guy who's like, you know,
I may lose followers for this, but like I believe
there's one God and he's the God of the Bible.
And and somebody was making fun of him being like
(01:01:00):
you think you're gonna lose followers, like.
Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
You're gonna make followers. You live in.
Speaker 5 (01:01:05):
The Bible belt and you live in a nation like that, uh,
you know, like primarily Christian, and like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (01:01:15):
Yeah, I always feel like, do you want to be
persecuted and you're just trying to figure out how you
can claim that because I do, I'm not seeing it.
Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Yeah, it's much harder to be atheist to me. Yes,
oh yeah, I mean because you're you're viewed. We were
just talking about this earlier. People think that if you're
an atheist, you can't have morals, you don't know what
the right thing is to do. Why don't you go
around like raping and murdering people because you don't have morals?
(01:01:47):
And I was I literally told you this. If I
have to have a set of rules written two thousand
years ago and the threat of hell to not go
around and murder somebody, then I'm not a good person.
I should want to do good because I want to
do good, not because there's this being telling me to
(01:02:08):
go love my neighbor telling me to go do things.
And if I don't, then I'm gonna If I don't
believe in the being, that I'm gonna go to hell.
I want to help people, genuinely, I genuinely want to
help people. It's not because somebody's telling me to. So
that just doesn't make sense. But when you have been
(01:02:30):
taught in dogma, you can only think in dogma. So
when you have someone that is outside of dogma, like
an atheist, know our God is not Darwin. Know our
God is not science or evolution. Know our God is
not the Big Bang theory. Our God is not ourselves.
That we don't have a god. We don't believe that
(01:02:51):
there's a god. And when you are thinking in dogma,
that's hard to comprehend. You have to have a god.
So you try and make it an issue of idols,
and it's not. I I You're just you a Christian.
(01:03:11):
I'm picking, once again picking on Christianity. A Christian is
an atheist to every religion except Christianity. So I am
just one step further than you. That's it, that's it.
I still don't believe in Islam. I still don't believe
in Buddhism.
Speaker 5 (01:03:26):
I still don't.
Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
That's the way you feel towards those religions is how
I feel. I don't believe it exactly, but also towards yours.
Speaker 5 (01:03:35):
So they should be able to understand that. But they.
Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
Right, Yeah, I'm just a little more atheist than you are.
Speaker 5 (01:03:44):
Ricky Gervais said that to Stephen Coleberry's like, I just
believe in one less God.
Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (01:03:51):
Well, and the idea of the which I've heard and
read even from our dad, like the god of self concept.
I think your point is I hadn't thought of it
quite that way, Like it doesn't quite compute that there
could be an absence of a god entirely. Well, you've
(01:04:11):
made yourself exactly. What that translates now is like you're
deciding what you think and what you want to do.
You're not letting my interpretation of what this guy says dictate.
Speaker 5 (01:04:23):
It's like okay, Like yeah, Like.
Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
It's it's just so hard to comprehend when you're in
that because I used to think that way too. Yeah,
I used to think that atheists had a different God,
you know.
Speaker 5 (01:04:34):
But to you, to your point, basically, Dad was God
in that scenario because it was his interpretation and he's
getting to bend and twist and make all all the
rules so.
Speaker 4 (01:04:51):
Well, and for the people who have listened to the
podcast up to this point, like you'll understand this, like
it that became even more pronounced. Yeah, to where literally
like I'm hearing from God and then that's when you
really have gone off track. But that again the point
of this podcast. That is not.
Speaker 5 (01:05:11):
Rare.
Speaker 4 (01:05:12):
M yeah, for someone to say like, actually, I'm I'm receiving,
even if they're not saying quite like what our dad did,
where I'm literally hearing audibly all day. Like that's one
thing that that makes it a little like a step
up where it's like, oh okay, but it's makes no
real difference between that and I'm you know, the Holy
(01:05:35):
Spirit is, you know, influencing me in this way to
do it's in actuality. It's not really that different. Just
one sounds crazier, but that is not uncommon. Like that's
the scary part is that, you know, religion, and in
particular evangelical Christianity, that is a common theme. Now like
(01:05:57):
I you know, the Holy Spirit is impressing upon me
any type of thing. It's like, well, okay, it like that.
Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
That's true though, yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 5 (01:06:07):
Yeah, so it just kind of doesn't apply to the
cult leaders. Yeah, none of that applies. Yeah, So God
special boy.
Speaker 4 (01:06:22):
If you like this episode, please go leave us a
five star rating and review wherever that is if it's Apple,
Spotify or another service, it's really helpful. And don't forget
to subscribe so that you can get notified to when
we have new episodes and updates and things like that. Thanks,
and we'll talk to you all again next week.
The world tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
The Worldwide Church of God presents Herbert's w armstrong and.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I'm here to bring you the truth.
Speaker 4 (00:11):
No one else is telling you the things that God
is telling you through me.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
He's speaking through me the Lord.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Let me experience what it is to be a new bride.
You know, I'm not worried about what I'm about to say,
though it may be graphic. We're coming to the Lord
and if you can take it, beyond.
Speaker 5 (00:32):
The veil is the chamber.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
That's the wedding chamber. The Lord told me that.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
But from then on, visions begin to come. When this
comes up on me, it produces the vision. I'm able
to tell people what's wrong with them, what they must
do in life, and the sins that they are holding
back in their life. God is going to be moving
vitally in fot like he has before both judgments of.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
The Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Cult Next
Doore Podcast. Before we get started with today's episode, I
want to remind you follow us on our socials, Facebook,
Instagram and TikTok. We also have that newer way to
connect with us, which is to leave a voice message
with a question or a comment, and we might feature
it on the show. You can find that link on
(01:19):
our Instagram bio or at the top of the episode
description for the episode that you are listening to right now,
follow that link, click record and send us a voice message.
I also want to do our double portion club shout
outs as always Shanda and Chase, Heather Bartlett, Carla and
Julia B. Thank you all for supporting the podcast. You
deserve your shout out. If you would like to be
(01:42):
in the club, listener, it's ten dollars a month to
get ad free episodes and a shout out, Or you
can pay five dollars a month to support the work
and you'll get add free episodes and we'll send you
a holographic Cult next Door sticker. So today's episode is
with Taylor Graves. I hope you all enjoy listening. Thank
you so much for taking out some time and coming
(02:02):
and joining the Cult next Door podcast today.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Absolutely, thank you for having me.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Yeah, we're so glad you're here. And for full disclosure
to our listeners, I know Taylor because Taylor and my
oldest son spent I guess like a year and a
half in a religiously affiliated school and I think was
that like around seventh grade.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
I went the last quarter of seventh grade and then
all of eighth grade.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
Oh okay, yeah, and we were just talking thank goodness
that that school only went to eighth grade because then
my kids went elsewhere. But anyway, so I know you
a little bit through that, and so obviously I assume
that you were very religious. But then I think it
(02:51):
was a couple of years ago you posted something on
Facebook and I it made me think whatever. It was like, Okay,
something's going on with Taylor. And I remember asking Ryan,
I'm like, is Taylor an atheist? And he was like,
I don't know. I was like, do you not know?
Like I need to know. But so then when we
(03:13):
did our call out, you know, asking for guests to
come forward and share their stories, you reached out and
I was really excited about that because I want to
hear the story. I know you have an interesting background,
and so I'm not sure where you want to jump in,
but let's just get it started and find out.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
All right. Yeah, So I mean the story that I
will get to happened at a different organization. So that
religiously affiliated school did have some obvious issues that were
pertaining to religion and all of that, and the doctrine
and everything like that. But actually that was very minor
(03:55):
compared to how I grew up before then and after them.
So when I was in first grade, my mom put
us in a program called Classical Conversations, and it is
a homeschool group that meets once a week at a
church that's willing to host our homeschool program. And so
(04:17):
that program caters to kids in kindergarten all the way
through their senior year of high school. And so when
you are up until sixth grade, you're in something called Foundations,
and that's where you do a lot of memorization. So
you learn history songs, you learn how to skip count
(04:39):
and they put it to music. You learn the elements
of the periodic table, you learn Latin conjugations, you learn
how to speak Latin in terms of some Bible verses.
So we learned the first chapter of John in Latin.
And so every week we also would make a presentation.
(04:59):
So every kid from first grade through sixth grade has
to put together. It can be a one to two
minute presentation about anything you want when you're little, it
can be your favorite toy when you're in sixth grade.
It could be about Joan of Arc or the Crusades
or something a little bit more complex. So the way
in which they taught content, I am all for that,
(05:23):
putting things to music, memorization, the psychology behind learning that
they have applied was brilliant. And my mom saw that,
and we grew up Christian, and so she saw that
it was religiously affiliated. It was Christian, and so we
just immediately got sucked in and it was It was
(05:45):
great for a while, and we didn't realize the damage
it was causing at first. So this group was initially started.
I can't remember what year they started, but it was
a group of mothers that didn't like how the public
school was teaching their children, and so they started Classical
(06:06):
Conversations in one of their basements. And then it grew
and now there's we call them ccs throughout the nation,
and I think some of it's international now, so it
has grown exponentially.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
Okay, so Classical Conversations it's a group, but it isn't.
Also a very specific curriculum that they create and everyone's
doing the exact same curriculum.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Okay, yes, and for Foundations it is the exact same
thing Okay, so you go through cycles. So you go
through cycle one, cycle two, and cycle three, and that's
where you learn. One of them might be world history,
one of them might be American history, one of them
focuses on chemistry, one of them focuses on biology or whatever.
(06:55):
And so since I attended from first through sixth grade,
i went through each cycle twice, so you learn the
same thing. Sixth graders are learning the same things as
first graders, and so that's how it was. And my
mom would also add some additional curricula, such as math,
(07:16):
so skip counting doesn't really do it. So she would
bring in a program called math u C which was
an amazing math program. I still love it. It is
religiously affiliated, but you don't have to do that. The
way in which they taught math was great. So she
would bring in extra things like that to supplement what
CC wasn't doing. And that's what you're supposed to do
(07:37):
when you're that age.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Now, when you get to be a little bit older,
you start going to foundations, but you also start going
to what's called essentels. So after Foundations, you would go
to this room where the fifth and sixth graders would
go for just a couple hours, and that's where you
learn more about writing in in English, diagramming sentences, writing papers,
(08:03):
and things like that. Once again, the way in which
they taught was great. The writing and the speaking that
was amazing. Little did I know that doctrine was being
woven through everything and it just sneaks up on you.
And so I was being brainwashed without knowing it. My
(08:27):
parents were being brainwashed without knowing it. And once you
hit seventh grade, you start going to challenge. It's called Challenge.
So seventh grade is Challenge A, eighth grade is Challenged B,
and then high school is Challenges one through four, and
that's when it starts getting funky, a little more funky
(08:50):
than it was already being. So I went to Challenge A,
and then we moved, and then at the last quarter
I went to the religiously affiliated school and all through
eighth grade, so I skipped the last part of Challenge A,
and I skip Challenge BE altogether. And since the school
didn't have a high school, then I went to Challenge one.
(09:12):
So that's where things started to get especially weird. But
I remember questioning religion when I was twelve and I
was told that God wants you to ask questions, and
you are It's okay to ask questions, but you have
to reach the same conclusion. So you can ask questions
(09:35):
as long as you come to the right conclusion that
God exists and that these are the rules you follow.
So I started Challenge one, and you learn some Latin.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
You learn.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
The Challenge one does physical science, so you learn about
tectonic plates, you learn about the weather and things like that.
But they do bring in curriculum at that point. You
don't bring in any outside curriculum normally because Challenge takes
care of all of it. So they bring in the
science textbooks, the math textbooks, the history books. You have
(10:14):
to learn all these Latin things and all of that,
which on the outside sounds good. So when you're learning
about this program, you're like, yes, that's great. They also
teach via the Socratic method, which is how law schools teach,
So I starting law school, am now familiar with the
Socratic method. Once again, on the outside, it sounds amazing.
(10:39):
But then during the last semester of Challenge one, they
started incorporating things like dating, so they started telling us
to read certain books and papers and speeches by religious
(11:00):
leaders that tell you how to date. And that's when
so purity culture is implemented at a very early age,
especially for girls, of course, yes, and it became even
more so because now you're getting to the age we
were probably going to start dating, so we were taught
that dating's a sin. You should do courtships. So everything
(11:23):
has to involve your parents and all of that. So
this is when purity culture is brought in. And it
was an assignment. You had to read it, you had
to write about it, and you have to write. When
I was fourteen, one of the assignments was to write
a list of qualities that I want my future husband
to have, and they have to involve.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
God, and it's a husband, a husband.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
A husband. And I was fourteen. Yeah, and we were told,
you know, of course, you dress modestly. You don't want
to cause your brothers in Christ to stomach and all
of that. So very much into the purity culture thing.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
And also, I mean also it's that women are responsible
for the mistakes of men, and so we are the
we are the ones who have to safeguard them from sinning.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yes, it is our responsibility, and that's what we were
taught it is our responsibility to make sure that our
brothers in Christ don't stumble. So we have to dress modestly.
And what did that mean?
Speaker 5 (12:36):
Were there are specific rules?
Speaker 1 (12:41):
It depends on the family. So how this program is
structured is you have your students and then in order
to be a tutor, you're not allowed to call them teachers.
In order to be a tutor, you have to have
a child in the program, so you have to believe
in the program enough to put your own child in it,
(13:02):
or you have to be a graduate of said program
to teach. So it depends on the family. So some
people were like, you can't show your knees. Some people
were like, you can't it's the fingertip rule. Some people
were you can't show your shoulders. Some people it was
(13:24):
this rule, you know, it has to your strapped fingers.
Some were fore fingers. So that was very that was variable.
In my household. I couldn't wear shorts above the knee
ever until I got like in my later years of
high school and my mom started easing up a little bit,
(13:47):
you know, like this is a little extreme.
Speaker 6 (13:51):
But then, yeah, that's how it was in my house.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
We had to specifically look for shorts that were no
shorter than the mey.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
And we wore a lot.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Of skirts, a lot of skirts, So I that was
a lot of my wardrobe. I mean at the school,
you saw me wearing a lot of skirts. And that
was not a rule, but it was implied you want
to be as modest as possible because it's your fault
if anything happens to you. So it was out of
(14:32):
fear and out of fear of being blamed if something
did happened.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
Or called.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Very insulting names if something happened, or if you dressed
a certain way a certain way.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
What about makeup is that involved?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
They actually didn't didn't talk about.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
That, Okay, No, it was all about you know, makeup
was meant for seduction. That was the purpose of it.
So it kind of that was in that that was
ingrained an hour purity culture.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Okay, No, they never they never talked about makeup. I
do know red lipstick was seductive and you should never
wear red lipstick. I'm wearing red lipstick because I can.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
Wear it every day, right, That.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Was the only thing though. They they didn't care about
Neil polish. Yeah, it is so variable though, because my
experience with CC is in the Bible belt. I went
to Springfield, I went to Neo show, and I went
(15:43):
to Joplin. So take that how you will. I mean,
there could be a c C in Washington that doesn't
care as much, you know, but their their motto for
every c C in the world is to know God
and make Him known. So they are implementing the Matthew
twenty eight right off the bat. That is your job.
(16:04):
Your sole purpose on this earth is to make is
to love God and make God known, to tell people
about it, and to convert. So that is your entire purpose.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
To harass other people. I felt like that, yeah.
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I remember in Challenge A when we had to read
a book about how the earth couldn't have just happened
and how creation is the only explanation for why we're here.
And my dad was amazing. He kept his his strong
(16:48):
head in this because he was like, that doesn't make sense, guys,
And you can read that, but I want you to
think like that doesn't make sense if you think about it,
you can. I can't believe everything that you read or
what people are telling you. And so I remember telling
my tutor, I don't think this is right. I don't
(17:10):
think that the world was created in six days and
that dinosaurs lived with humans and the earth is only
six thousand years old. I don't believe that that is right.
That doesn't make sense. And so at that point I
had classmates trying to convert me. Even though I was Christian,
(17:30):
I wasn't Christian enough. So I was told that because
I believed in old Earth, that I was going to
burn in hell forever. I was in seventh grade and
I was told that by my very closest friends at CC.
And the only reason that they would want to be
(17:51):
around me is because I was a project. I wasn't
a friend. I was a project to convert to the
right and true way of thinking. And this had nothing
to do with believing whether Jesus was the son of
God and died for our sins. That it was completely irrelevant.
(18:11):
And at the time I believed that, which should be
grounds enough to call myself a Christian, but it wasn't.
I had to believe exactly like they did. Yeah, and
so I was already facing some issues. But I just
remember thinking, Okay, if this is what I have to
believe to be accepted and to not burn in hell, forever,
(18:33):
then I guess I'll do it because I don't want
to be isolated. I don't want to disappoint God. And
so I just kind of kept going along with that,
and I was miserable, I mean, just trying to believe
something that I had questions about and couldn't justify.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
But what didn't they say about, you know, carbon dating
in other ways that we know that Earth science it's fake.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
It's fake. It's put there by the devil to deceive us,
and it's fake. So even if somebody doesn't believe that
the that the devil deliberately put these methods or put
the dinosaur bones in the ground to deceive us, then
they were They're not real. They're fake. We I'm gonna
(19:23):
call out another organization that needs to be called out
because it is awful. It is hurting people and it's
not true. Everything they teach is not true. And it's
called Answers in Genesis by Kenham. And I will call
that out and I will name drop that every day
because it is so harmful. If you are not being
(19:47):
taught science, people will die.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
It is.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
It is integrated in everything. It's in medicine, and it's
in architecture, it's everything. So you have to be well
versed in science. And if you are not able to
allow yourself to learn and to learn something outside of
(20:12):
the dogma that you have been taught since you were born,
because you've been put in Sunday school since you could see,
then you will be brainwashed. And you, even if you
are a good person, you are going to be brainwashed
into thinking and doing things that you would not normally do. No,
(20:36):
and it's unbelievable how this happens, but this happens every.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
Day all around us.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yes, and I want to get to the story that
I would like to say woke me up, but it didn't,
and now looking back, it should have. And that is
when I went to Team Pact. And this is an organization.
(21:05):
It's nationwide and if not every state participates, most do.
So that's where you go to the state capitol. It's
catered to homeschoolers and it's a conservative Christian organization that
a lot of CC kids do. So I went in
high school and that's where you learn. On the outside,
(21:27):
on the shell, it sounds great. Once again, what CC
advertise is a great education, so they do teach you
how a Bill is passed, how committees work, how the
House and the Senate operate, what the branches of government
are in all of this, and I thought that, wow,
this is amazing. I'm learning a lot of things that
(21:49):
most kids don't get to learn. I get to go
to the state capitol. I even got to meet my representative.
I mean, it was just great. And we got public speakers.
We got a couple every day and they were all
Republican except for one. And before that, one Democrat spoke.
(22:10):
We every year that you go to teen Pact, there's
a designated leader. It's always a man. By the way,
every time I've gone, it's been a man. Maybe it's
changed since then, I don't know, but it was always
a man. Yeah. And before the Democrat, the one Democrat
we had all week speak, he warned us. He said,
(22:32):
now this is a Democrat. They do not believe the
same way we do. His views are going to be wrong.
And you just need to have a biblical lens. So
that's what we were taught in CC. You have to
have a biblical lens, a biblical worldview if you must,
that's what they called it. And so everything you see,
(22:56):
everything you experience has to be through the lens of
the Bible. So that is your truth. And if something
isn't mentioned in the Bible, it's not true. Carbon dating
isn't in the Bible. It's not true. Right, Vaccines aren't
in the Bible, it's not true. Yeah, So that's their
standard of truth. And so when that Democrat spoke, you
(23:20):
are already taught to not even listen, but to make
him think you're listening. So we were taught to make
him think you're listening, but don't because he's wrong and
we're right. And at the end of the day, every
night we go in this church and I'm getting shaky
thinking about this, and that's where we have a dinner
(23:46):
of all ages, boys and girls, and then we go
into the chapel of the church, so the worship space,
and they do some songs. But this is where they
hold a church service that also incorporates politics, because we're
at the state capitol and we have to have a
(24:08):
biblical worldview when we're thinking about politics. The first night
I was fourteen. The first night was about homosexuality, which
is a hot topic for a bunch of Christians. You know,
that's one of the biggest sins, right, and of course
the good old story of Sodom and Gomorrah. You know, yeah,
(24:30):
we've heard all about that. Yes, so we hear about
how Lot has these strangers that come to his house
seeking somewhere to stay for the night and a hot meal,
and they're, you know, secretly, three angels and any but
he doesn't know that. So he lets him into his house.
(24:51):
And then there's a mob of men coming and saying, Hey,
we want to have sex with these three men that
just came into your house. And Lot says, no, you
can't do that, that's not right. Here are my daughters.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
Oh I know that kills me when I read that.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, literally, here are my daughters. And he sends his
daughters out to be gang raped. And we listen to
that story, and at the end he said, the moral
of that story is it is better to rape a
(25:29):
woman than it is to be gay.
Speaker 5 (25:32):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And I was a fourteen year old girl in the
midst of fourteen to seventeen to eighteen year old boys,
and they were teaching this, if you feel like you
might be a homosexual, it's better to just go rape
a woman. And that still haunts me, and I wish
(26:00):
that that would have been the moments that would have
woken me up. Yeah, and just what are we learning?
What does this come to? I thought we were going
to the school that would teach the Socratic method, how
to memorize things, how to learn Latin, and at the time,
(26:22):
you know, learn about God and all of that. And
I remember feeling scared. But it's okay, because this is
what God wants. And I justified it, and my fourteen
year old self justified that, and.
Speaker 5 (26:44):
That you were groomed.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I will justify that all those years. It's almost like
it led up to now you are able to accept
the most extreme form of dogma of doctrine. And the
only way that you could accept that raping a woman
(27:07):
is less of a sin. First of all, that contradicts
that God sees all sins the same, so you know,
the Bible contradicts itself a million times.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
But besides that, the only way that you could ever
accept that is if you are brainwashed to the most
extreme level. And this is happening in Missouri. This is
not Saudi Arabia, this isn't some war torn country where
(27:40):
we have suicidal bombers or and this is in Joplin, Missouri.
Jefferson City, Missouri at the time. Yeah, and so many
people are being brainwashed. And I was wondering whether or
not I was literally talking with you whether or not
I should drop these organizations because I know people still
(28:04):
that are in this and they don't realize how bad
this is. And you might be thinking, well, yeah, but
that was just one time, or it's not that bad.
You don't realize what it is doing to you, and.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Well it goes along with a lot of other a
lot of other really destructive ideologies about women. Yes, yes,
you know, I think I just read something about I mean,
we all know this. Evangelicals fundamentalists often talk about like
(28:46):
they justify like a teenage marriage, you know, to these
elders in the church or whatever, and they cite biblical
scripture to justify that. And like how many churches don't
do anything about abuses on towards women in the church.
(29:07):
They protect the men. And you grow up with that
and you know you're not going to be protected if
anything happens, and without them saying you are worth less
than everyone else, that is the message that you're getting,
even if it isn't said in those words. By saying
(29:29):
that it's like it'd be better for you to be
gang raped than for this man to love another man
or whatever. You know, Yes, and without realizing it, I
think that like seeps really deep inside your body, your psyche,
and it impacts the way that you view yourself and
(29:49):
the way that you interact with other people. And I like,
that's I mean, we could do so many episodes on
purity culture, but that it's just just in city damaging.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Oh, it's awful you are as a person.
Speaker 5 (30:05):
Yeah, well, I mean I do as well, and I've
been out of it for so long because it's just
so ingrained. Yes, it's so ingrained, and that you know,
with the patriarchy, you don't even like things like I
don't know if at the time when you were at
at that it was a capital, yes, at the capital,
Like did you think at the time, Oh, you know,
(30:27):
it's always a man who's leading this, right. It's like
I'm still recognizing those things now, yeah, yeah, you know,
and I'm like, oh, that's a result of this internalized
patriarchy that we have exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, it's it's incredibly damaging and that could be you know,
I could go on for days on purity culture as well.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
I mean, I'm sure we've experienced very similar things being women,
you know, and just being taught, but I will you know,
we we were taught that our worth is in our
sex life. That's that's our worth.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
And as in what you can provide to a husband.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yes, and I was told that if I were to
have sex before marriage, I would have to explain to
my future husband what I had done and see if
he still wants me.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Yeah. I heard that as well. Yeah. Yeah, it's the
whole it's the whole thing of being tainted and dirty.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Were you ever compared to like aw chewed, what piece
of gum? Trampled rose?
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (31:41):
Yes, yep, But I never heard that directed towards men.
I know they weren't supposed to have premarital sex, but
I never I don't ever remember hearing any emphasis on
male virginity.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
No, it was like looked down upon. But that's that's
the extent of it. I mean, it was not, it
was not you were men were not compared to a
wadded up piece of paper or a chewed up piece
of gum. No, they were never compared.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
I never heard that once. No, I'm so sorry that
that that you experienced that. That's I don't even know
what I would feel like being in a room full
of boys and hearing that. Did you tell your parents
about that afterwards? Like? Is it obviously like struck a
(32:36):
nerve for you at the time?
Speaker 1 (32:38):
It did, But I don't know if I at the
time it did strike a nerve because I was like,
I'm that makes me scared, but I justified it, and
so I thought, if my parents let me go here,
then this is this is right, and this is in
(33:01):
no way a blame on my parents, right. You know,
they had no idea. They thought, once again, the shell
that they advertise is that you're going to learn some
amazing things about politics, and so they thought and with
cc they genuinely believed with their whole heart, especially my mom,
that they were giving us the best education possible and
(33:25):
that's what a good parent wants to do. And I
know that they blame themselves for this, because we are
all working through our religious trauma right now, and I
know my parents blame themselves, but it's not they were brainwashed.
Adults and kids alike are brainwashed, and they genuinely believed
(33:48):
with their whole heart that this was what's best for us,
and that's all I can ask of a parent, exactly,
And I mean they're wonderful parents, and we're all there
for each other at this point, and we're all still
working through this and I've told them this story now
(34:10):
and I've told them other stories, you know, like it
with the purity culture and things like that, and we're
just all working through it as a family.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
But I'm so glad me too, you are. I mean,
it's hard, no matter what to deconstruct, but to be
kind of on an island by yourself is really hard.
I know there are a lot of people experiencing that
and feeling like they're alone. Yes, but yeah, I'm glad
that you have each other because I think it makes
(34:41):
the process a little bit less painful, and I almost
think it's helped speeds it up. It does.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I feel like it does, because we can talk to
each other, and I know not very many people have
that where I know it's a very lonely process. And
even with my family, it was a st a very
long process to deconstruct because this being that I thought
I could rely on. I started and actually, my view
(35:09):
of Christianity is not why I'm an atheist. My bad
experiences within the Christian Church have nothing to do with
why I'm an atheist.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
Yep, exactly, so too.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, I've had people say, well, it's because of your
bad experience that you're an.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Atheist, and that one bad experience.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
Right exactly. That to me, that is I know they mean, well,
but it's so insulting to my intellect. Yeah, and I
at the school that you and Ryan both attended. I
was in the process of deconstructing then, but it was
(35:52):
it was somewhat early, and there was a person I'll
tell you later. Yes, you would corner me literally.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Every time I think I know who you're talking.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
Yes, I'm sure you do. Every time I went to
that school unless I could avoid it, and she would
always want to talk to me about religion. And you know,
she knew that I didn't go to church anywhere, and
she's like, well, you know, you had a bad experience.
(36:25):
We just need to find you the right church.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
That's what I've been told so much.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
She kept saying that, and I at some point, you know,
I just kind of like smiled and just nod my
head because there's no point, Like I just didn't feel
like I could ever get across that it's not the church.
Like I'm critically thinking about everything now, and there's a
whole lot that does not add up and does not
(36:50):
make sense outside of being totally indoctrinated. Like, you know,
if I was just walking on, like if I just
arrived on this earth and I'm looking around, there's no
way on earth that I would be believing all of
this stuff. Yeah you know what I mean, because it
does not make sense. Yeah, that was where I was at,
(37:12):
and so it was a matter of taking that ingrained
indoctrination and trying to set that aside and look at
everything with fresh eyes, not having a goal in mind.
I wasn't trying to be atheist or trying to be Christian.
I was like, I just have to I just have
(37:32):
to look at this as objectively as I can. Yeah,
you know, and in the beginning I wanted to still
be Christian. I really tried me too. Yeah, you know,
it's like you really cannot make yourself believe something.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Exactly Well, and to your point earlier, I think we
maybe talked about this last week or it sounds very
familiar and recent. But the idea of you have this
being that you can then rely on go to in
times of need like that being gone. That's not comfortable,
Like it's not something you decide like you God, like,
(38:10):
I don't like that. I think a lot of people
who had an experienced this think that that's what it is,
and it's like, no, it could not be further from
the truth. It's very uncomfortable to come to a realization
that you don't believe that thing, and it's not fun
to be in a time of crisis, however large or
small it is, you have that thought. I know I
(38:32):
do even still now where it's like I want to
pray about this and I'm like, yeah, I know, but
that's it's like a fallback automatic because that's comforting and
that's natural and human. I think to be like I
need help with I lost something, let me go over here,
and then that's gone. So I think that's a big
misconception just among people who haven't experienced maybe what sounds
(38:55):
like all three of us have in this room.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
Well, I mean, isn't that why religion really was created
in the first place. It was like helping people make
sense of bad things that happened and death and famine,
and you know, even early on, yeah, exactly, or you know,
the days getting shorter and winter, and you know, it's it.
(39:23):
I think that people felt like they needed something and
that we're at a point I feel like in the
human experience where we know more now just feels like
how it feels very outdated.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Yes, and I feel I heard this from a person
I like to listen to and stuff, and he said,
religion is our first and our very worst attempt at
under standing the natural world. Because when we had lightning,
well that's scary. We don't know what that is. Well,
(40:05):
it's got to be zeus. The rain has to be
tears from a higher being. You know, we have illnesses,
and of course the bad things that happen, well I
must have pissed off the higher being or you know,
there must be an evil being, you know, and then
you start creating this and how can we control people? Well,
(40:29):
we we make rules. We make rules, and we say
that this higher being told us to write the rules,
and so now we can control and we can control
mass amounts of people. And I don't like what that
person's doing, so I'm going to add a rule. And
it just gets so so damaging, and I mean, you know,
(40:54):
I'm just telling you, guys things that you guys already know.
I mean, you've already experienced this. But it is another
thing that I've heard is God is an ever receding
pocket of ignorance because you start to be able to
explain things scientifically. Well, now we know what lightning is, now,
(41:15):
we know what rain is, now, we know it all
those things, and so yeah, but God does it this way.
That's how God does it, That's how he created it.
So then then you're trying to still fit. I'm picking
on Christianity because I'm in the Bible bell that's what
I know the best, right, But now that's how he
does it because I can't let go of God.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
I can't.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
That's scary, that's uncomfortable. And I want to believe that
someone loves me all the time, unconditionally unless I don't
believe in him, and then I'm going to burn in
hell forever. But we're not going to think about that.
We're just going to threaten people with that. And I'm
just going to tell the first half of that, which
is Jesus loves you. I'm not going to tell you
(41:57):
the or else clause that we don't talk.
Speaker 5 (42:00):
Don't look in the old testing.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Yeah right. We're not going to talk about how the
Bible justifies slavery, or how to beat their slaves enough
so that they don't die, but if they do die,
then you have to pay a penalty. We're not going
to talk about how if a woman gets raped, then
the rapist has to pay the father and then has
to marry the girl. We're not going to talk about
(42:22):
child trafficking. We're not going to talk about how the
Israelites slaughtered so many thousands of people, committed mass genocide,
how God punished and had boys mulled by bears because
they called someone bald.
Speaker 5 (42:39):
We're not going I mean, these killing all the first borns.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Right hardened his heart. So we're going to take away
free will from Pharaoh, harden his heart, and we're going
to kill all of these innocent firstborn children of these
poor Egyptian families that have no responsibility for anything that
God or Pharaoh is doing. So, even if I did
(43:04):
believe in a god, which once again this has nothing
to do with why I'm an atheist, Even if I
did believe, and there was so much evidence that it's
overwhelming that there is a God that exists, I would
want to punch him in the face. Yeah, he's a monster.
Speaker 5 (43:20):
Yeah, exactly exactly how I feel. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
I can't say that better.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
As you can see, I've got a lot of yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (43:33):
No, the mental gymnastics and the cognitive dissonance that people
have to engage with to make sense of all of
these things, and those are you know, the ancient things,
but you know, fast forward to I always think of
the Holocaust, six million people, Yeah, six million people, Like
(43:59):
I heard and say, you either have to believe that
this is a God that can't do anything, so he
isn't all powerful, he can't do it, or he just
doesn't care chooses not to. Like, there's no I've never
ever heard a single Christian apologist explain that well, and
(44:21):
I do not ever want to hear God works in
mysterious ways that is bs.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Or things happen for a reason, because I.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
Don't understand the people who actually grew up believing that
God was all good all the time, and that he's
so loving and he's a perfect father and our fathers
was to be modeled after him. Because I grew up
(44:51):
absolutely frozenly terrified of God. Yeah, I mean, because we
did have a heavy emphasis on the Old Testament, and
then you know it does talk a lot about God's wrath,
his anger even I mean that's in the New Testament
as well as like you know, coming back and you know,
smiting the people, and it's there was just I wanted,
(45:18):
I wanted to love God and I wanted to feel
safe and protected, but I was terrified. Yeah, and that
was the motivation for me to try to not make
mistakes and not quote unquote sin. Yeah, and that would
just extend as a child. Do like I have a
(45:39):
bad attitude. Uh oh, like something bad may happen to
me now if I don't like straighten up. Yeah, Like
did you have that view of God like a like
you were scared of God?
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yes? And no. So we were taught that God is
a loving god because we also we did have emphasis
from the Old Testament, of course, because Christianity is basically
Judaism part two. You know, you just have the second
half of the story, right, and so we did have that,
but we also had Jesus and how Jesus was loving.
(46:20):
He went to the sick and the poor and the needy,
and he fed the five thousand and he you know,
brought somebody back to life, and he healed the sick girl,
and you know all of these things, and that he's
just a wonderful person because he's God and he can
do no wrong. Right, So we were also taught all
of that. So I would say that I had less
(46:41):
of a fear based relationship with God, but there was
also you still incorporate the Torah in Christianity, still incorporate
the Old Testament, and so there was this fear factor.
But also even if you were to ignore the Old Testament,
it is still a fear based religion because hell and
(47:07):
if you some people say that hell is not explicitly mentioned,
but we hear Jesus talk about the gnashing of teeth
and how you're you know, not gonna enter the Kingdom
of heaven. And so if you believe it's hell, or
you believe it's gnashing of teeth or fire or whatever
(47:27):
it is, it's gonna be an awful experience that you're
gonna have to go through if you don't believe. I mean,
in Romans, you know, I'm the tries, the Son of God.
Whoever believes in me, you know, that's what you have
to do to be a Christian and so there is
still that fear, and Jesus seems more loving in the
(47:54):
New Testament. But if you are following the doctrine of
the Trench, which if I understand correctly, most Christian denominations
do incorporate the Trinity, which was first of all, that
concept of the trinity was established much later. Yeah, like
counsel Council Nicia. So anyway, so we're notwithstanding that he
(48:23):
was the same person.
Speaker 5 (48:24):
Yeah, it's saying yesterday, today, and forever.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yeah, so he is the one that killed so many
people in the Old Testament. And if we're going to
ignore the Old Testament, then you have to ignore the
ten Commandments, both versions of them. So yeah, pick which
one you want and then ignore it because it's the
Old Testament in a way. You know, I've heard that
as well. And so you don't you don't win. You
(48:52):
can't have an argument for this.
Speaker 5 (48:54):
No, and yeah, and to me, it kind of doesn't.
It's irrelevant in a way if it's like, oh, but
Jesus a son taking out the Trinity. Jesus a son,
Like he's kind and he came and did all these things. Okay,
but I'm still terrified because his dad.
Speaker 7 (49:12):
Yeah, genocides people and gets really angry and has a
terrible temper and yeah, yeah, I mean so like that
doesn't like make me feel better.
Speaker 5 (49:24):
No.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
What I also find interesting, maybe interesting isn't the right
word disturbing about this too, is it came to me
when you were speaking earlier. I think that Evangelical Christianity,
at least as we know it in the US, anyway,
these are things that they don't often talk about or
(49:47):
want to when you're kind of speaking back to some
of the things, especially in the Old Testament, that are
very uncomfortable for Christians to talk about, like instructions about
slaves and rape and these and the stories about you know,
the bay and the buoys that you know, they were
calling him old baldhead apart from the murder, apart which
I don't think happened has always been one of my
(50:08):
favorite stories, that it's so like out of control from him,
what is happening. Murder isn't funny, but that story is
like he got mad because they called him baldy. Get
these bears out here, kill them kids. Anyway, that aside,
what I find disturbing and interesting about that is that
I think if you boil it down, while most people
(50:30):
would be very uncomfortable, they would, because of their worldview
of evangelical Christianity, come to the same conclusion that, yep,
that actually is justified, that is moral. And that's what
I now find most disturbing, and I think you guys
probably do too, is that that's not something that's talked about,
but I think it was.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
I forget.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
I can't remember the pronunciation of his name, but there's
a Christian apologist that was on a podcast I was
listening to.
Speaker 5 (51:00):
It's a.
Speaker 4 (51:01):
It's like a k N name Nektel or something. Somebody
will check me in the comments about it. I can't
remember his name, but it's actually a couple of brothers,
but there's one that's the primary apologist, and he was
pressed on this podcast about some of these stories and
essentially like they don't have a good answer. They just
(51:22):
come to the conclusion like, well, actually it is moral
because God is the moral law giver. And there it's
all these gymnastics. But when you actually, let's boil it down,
what do you actually think about this deity that did
these things? Not only did it, but said like this
is right? And they come to the conclusion like, well, yep,
it is right, and you know all those children that died,
(51:45):
like they're going to have an opportunity now to know God.
It's this type of stuff, it's like to me. To
me now, it's like, well, this is just disgusting, Like
you don't actually have a real answer for this, yeah,
any moral basis. You're just you find a way to
make it okay. And that, to me is the most dangerous,
insidious part of evangelical Christianity is that even the most
(52:07):
well meaning people boil it down. You actually think that too,
And that's ingrained in here, even if you're kumbaya. God
is good all the time. God can't be wrong. And
if this is where our worldview points, then it justifies
all kinds of things. It just does. And so if
(52:28):
that's where you get to to where anything can be justified,
like you've lost the plot, Like you've lost it now
you're not making decisions yourself about what you actually believe
is right or wrong. You've got something else that's above
you that's dictating. And when I kind of came to that,
not that that in particular was what was the main
(52:50):
factor in my deconstruction. That was one of them though,
where I thought, like, you know what, if I can't
actually believe this, if I don't believe this is true
or right, then I'm just not going to I'm not
going to force myself to say, yes, I accept that,
so anyway I kind of want to.
Speaker 5 (53:08):
You can't anymore than you can make yourself believe in
Bigfoot or you like, you can't just say i'm I mean,
you could say the words, but it's not like internalized yeah.
Speaker 4 (53:23):
And it's not always a matter of uh, you know,
apologetics on either side. Like sometimes even when i'm I'm
it's not might not be me talking to somebody when
I'm listening or watching something, you have that urge to
want to explain why you believe how you believe now
(53:44):
type of thing. And for me, like I don't actually
feel that, I don't feel strongly, that strongly that I
need to do that to explain what I think to
most people, because what it boils down to for me,
however I articulate it is that looking at the Bible
(54:05):
and the concept of the God of the Bible and
these things, I just don't find it compelling to be true.
Like that's it for me. I don't find it to
be true, and I'm not going to accept it and
say yes. If I just don't, I can't believe it.
Speaker 5 (54:20):
No, And honestly, it shouldn't be on the person who
doesn't believe to explain why they don't believe something.
Speaker 1 (54:26):
Yes, Like the burden of proof is on someone who
makes a claim. I'm a student lawyer, so the burden
of proof always rests on the person making the claim. Yes,
So if you are claiming that the Christian God exists,
so we're just going to start with that the Christian
God exists, We're not even going to go with and
(54:48):
Jesus as his son and the Bible's you know, yeah,
even on that basis, right, I should not have to
explain to you why I don't believe that. You should
explain to me why that's true? What is your evidence?
And the burden of not going to hell should not
(55:09):
be on me?
Speaker 5 (55:10):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
That's that's ridiculous. And if you think about that for
like two seconds, that doesn't make sense. So I've had
people say that, well, why don't you believe? Why why
do you believe?
Speaker 5 (55:23):
Right?
Speaker 1 (55:24):
And you and you don't get to say that it's
because the Bible says, so.
Speaker 5 (55:29):
No, that's like the worst part is like trying to
prove the point by using the very object that that's
in question. Yeah, Like no, you can't use the Bible. Yeah,
to prove the Bible.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
Exactly, I could write in a notebook that the sky
is read all the time and.
Speaker 5 (55:52):
In your backyard, and then someone will dig.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
And well, okay, why do you believe the sky is red? Well,
the book says, Well, why does the book say, Well,
because God says, how do you know that? Well, the
book says that God says that the sky's red.
Speaker 5 (56:07):
It's just circles.
Speaker 1 (56:09):
You're trapping yourself in a logical box that you can't
get out of. And when it comes to like the
thought of creation and things like that, I mean, if
you get to say that there is a person or
a being that created the earth out of absolutely nothing,
and that thing does not need a creator, but everything
(56:32):
else does need a creator, then that's you have committed
so many fallacies. And you don't get to say that
the Big Bang isn't real. Because I've got more evidence
for the Big Bang than you do for a magical
wizard in the sky making the earth out of nothing.
Speaker 5 (56:53):
I would.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
Wizard. Right, it'd so much more interesting. I know, Harry
Potter to right, it's just these logical boxes that I
used to use.
Speaker 5 (57:10):
Yeah, me too, that's too. Yeah, it's really sad to
think about because you know, there's like so much confusion
in there, and and some of the times I would
just hit a wall and be like, I can't think
about that anymore.
Speaker 1 (57:24):
Yes, that's what I would do as well.
Speaker 5 (57:26):
I just I don't know how that's true, but I
just it is so.
Speaker 1 (57:30):
Yeah. And I was told when I would ask questions,
you know, well, God wants you to have faith. Oh,
you need to just need to have faith God, God
does it this way. And that's just true. So you
just need to have faith. And faith is considered a virtue,
and I don't understand that it's not. It's it's a
(57:52):
gap in logic.
Speaker 5 (57:53):
Yeah, you are.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
You are allowing religion to occupy a part of your
mind that you would not do to anything else. You
would not blindly believe that two plus two equals four.
You would not blindly believe that you would not in
any other area of your life. You are using logic,
you are using evidence. You're having evidence based practices. Even
(58:20):
if you don't realize it, but you suspend critical thinking
in this one area of your life. And I don't
know why we can't apply critical thinking to every area
of our lives. Why does it have to be suspended
for this and it doesn't have to.
Speaker 5 (58:37):
Be for me. The only problem I start having a
problem when Christians attempt to push their beliefs onto other people,
or when it becomes intertwined into laws. And yeah, I'm
(58:59):
sure you have opinions about that, definitely. That is where
I'm just like, no, no, do not touch the separation
of church and state. Don't come knocking on my door.
I didn't ask you to come over, Like I have
the internet. I'm like living in the twenty first century,
(59:19):
Like I know about religion, I know about Christianity, Like, yeah,
I just that's so frustrating to me and also super hypocritical.
Just as a side note, because I've heard so many
Christians say that, you know, like Pride Month or just
pushing you know, gain us on us because there's a
(59:42):
because there's a freaking rainbow flag in someone's window, or
there's a parade that you can completely avoid if you
don't want to participate. And I'm like no, who's pushing
their ideologies on people who it's always it's always the
Christians doing that. They're not seeing all of them. But
(01:00:03):
you know, I mean I literally just the other day,
two people showed up at the door. Yeah, you know,
and I know they mean well, and they're doing what
they're told to do and when they think it's their mission.
But just like, spare me with the gazer trying to
like push themselves on us. Give me a break. You
guys are literally the only people doing that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
Yeah, Christians are so Christianity is so used to winning
that when something even attempts to challenge that, they view
it as persecution.
Speaker 5 (01:00:36):
Yeah, there's a huge persecution complex.
Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
Yeah victim.
Speaker 5 (01:00:40):
Yes, it's difficult persecution. Yeah, I know. I saw it. It
was so funny. This is just a side note. I
saw this reel of this guy who's like, you know,
I may lose followers for this, but like I believe
there's one God and he's the God of the Bible.
And and somebody was making fun of him being like
(01:01:00):
you think you're gonna lose followers, like.
Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
You're gonna make followers. You live in.
Speaker 5 (01:01:05):
The Bible belt and you live in a nation like that, uh,
you know, like primarily Christian, and like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (01:01:15):
Yeah, I always feel like, do you want to be
persecuted and you're just trying to figure out how you
can claim that because I do, I'm not seeing it.
Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Yeah, it's much harder to be atheist to me. Yes,
oh yeah, I mean because you're you're viewed. We were
just talking about this earlier. People think that if you're
an atheist, you can't have morals, you don't know what
the right thing is to do. Why don't you go
around like raping and murdering people because you don't have morals?
(01:01:47):
And I was I literally told you this. If I
have to have a set of rules written two thousand
years ago and the threat of hell to not go
around and murder somebody, then I'm not a good person.
I should want to do good because I want to
do good, not because there's this being telling me to
(01:02:08):
go love my neighbor telling me to go do things.
And if I don't, then I'm gonna If I don't
believe in the being, that I'm gonna go to hell.
I want to help people, genuinely, I genuinely want to
help people. It's not because somebody's telling me to. So
that just doesn't make sense. But when you have been
(01:02:30):
taught in dogma, you can only think in dogma. So
when you have someone that is outside of dogma, like
an atheist, know our God is not Darwin. Know our
God is not science or evolution. Know our God is
not the Big Bang theory. Our God is not ourselves.
That we don't have a god. We don't believe that
(01:02:51):
there's a god. And when you are thinking in dogma,
that's hard to comprehend. You have to have a god.
So you try and make it an issue of idols,
and it's not. I I You're just you a Christian.
(01:03:11):
I'm picking, once again picking on Christianity. A Christian is
an atheist to every religion except Christianity. So I am
just one step further than you. That's it, that's it.
I still don't believe in Islam. I still don't believe
in Buddhism.
Speaker 5 (01:03:26):
I still don't.
Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
That's the way you feel towards those religions is how
I feel. I don't believe it exactly, but also towards yours.
Speaker 5 (01:03:35):
So they should be able to understand that. But they.
Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
Right, Yeah, I'm just a little more atheist than you are.
Speaker 5 (01:03:44):
Ricky Gervais said that to Stephen Coleberry's like, I just
believe in one less God.
Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (01:03:51):
Well, and the idea of the which I've heard and
read even from our dad, like the god of self concept.
I think your point is I hadn't thought of it
quite that way, Like it doesn't quite compute that there
could be an absence of a god entirely. Well, you've
(01:04:11):
made yourself exactly. What that translates now is like you're
deciding what you think and what you want to do.
You're not letting my interpretation of what this guy says dictate.
Speaker 5 (01:04:23):
It's like okay, Like yeah, Like.
Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
It's it's just so hard to comprehend when you're in
that because I used to think that way too. Yeah,
I used to think that atheists had a different God,
you know.
Speaker 5 (01:04:34):
But to you, to your point, basically, Dad was God
in that scenario because it was his interpretation and he's
getting to bend and twist and make all all the
rules so.
Speaker 4 (01:04:51):
Well, and for the people who have listened to the
podcast up to this point, like you'll understand this, like
it that became even more pronounced. Yeah, to where literally
like I'm hearing from God and then that's when you
really have gone off track. But that again the point
of this podcast. That is not.
Speaker 5 (01:05:11):
Rare.
Speaker 4 (01:05:12):
M yeah, for someone to say like, actually, I'm I'm receiving,
even if they're not saying quite like what our dad did,
where I'm literally hearing audibly all day. Like that's one
thing that that makes it a little like a step
up where it's like, oh okay, but it's makes no
real difference between that and I'm you know, the Holy
(01:05:35):
Spirit is, you know, influencing me in this way to
do it's in actuality. It's not really that different. Just
one sounds crazier, but that is not uncommon. Like that's
the scary part is that, you know, religion, and in
particular evangelical Christianity, that is a common theme. Now like
(01:05:57):
I you know, the Holy Spirit is impressing upon me
any type of thing. It's like, well, okay, it like that.
Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
That's true though, yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 5 (01:06:07):
Yeah, so it just kind of doesn't apply to the
cult leaders. Yeah, none of that applies. Yeah, So God
special boy.
Speaker 4 (01:06:22):
If you like this episode, please go leave us a
five star rating and review wherever that is if it's Apple,
Spotify or another service, it's really helpful. And don't forget
to subscribe so that you can get notified to when
we have new episodes and updates and things like that. Thanks,
and we'll talk to you all again next week.
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com