Leaving Christianity with John

John San Nicolas is a writer, researcher, and content creator who likes discussing religion and politics. In 2025, John received his Bachelor's degree in Religious Studies and Philosophy. Now, he writes for his weekly column, Faithful Politics, on Patheos.com. He also works as a researcher for the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies, using network science to study religious debates on social media. In his free time, John makes videos breaking down often heated and controversial issues about philosophy, religion, and politics. When he's not working on research or writing, John loves spending time with his wife and their dog, catching up with friends, going for walks, and reading westerns, philosophy, and fantasy. You can follow John's work on TikTok, Instagram, Patheos, and Substack!

TikTok: @religionwithjohn
Instagram: @religionwithjohn
Patheos: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithfulpolitics/
Substack: religionwithjohn.substack.com (http://religionwithjohn.substack.com/)

Show Notes 

16:07 - St. John of the Cross OCD was a Spanish Catholic priest, mystic, and Carmelite friar. He is a major figure of the Counter-Reformation in Spain, and he is one of the 38 Doctors of the Church. 

25:46 - Affirming theology is Side A, not Side B

32:14 - Catholicism doesn't necessarily teach that sex without procreative intent is sinful, since Natural Family Planning is permitted. One early example of promoting this form of natural birth control was in 1853, when the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary permitted it only if a couple had "grave reasons." Instead, Catholicism holds that is sex is practiced within marriage intentionally without procreative potential, it is sin.

43:27- Emperor Ashoka's Edicts in the 3rd century BCE were written promoting religious tolerance among sects. The 12th Major Rock Edit reads: "whosoever honours his own sect or disparages that of another man, wholly out of devotion to his own, with a view to showing it in a favourable light, harms his own sect even more seriously."

45:42 - Consider for example the evolving slave code. In Exodus 21:3-4, it is stated that a slave who is released in his seventh year of bondage will be sent off alone. If he and his wife were married before entering bondage, the couple leaves together. But if the master gifted his slave with a wife, and if the couple had children, the wife and the children would remain with the master. In Deuteronomy 15:13-14, however, freed slaves are to be sent away with plentiful gifts, although no mention is made of a freed slave's wife.

48:13 - See for example Leviticus 17:10-16, which prohibits both Israelites and sojourners from consuming blood, or Leviticus 20:1-6, which establishes the death penalty for any Israelite or foreigner who worships Molech.

51:01 - Arkansas, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas are states with constitutions bar persons who do not believe in a supreme being from entering political office. These policies cannot be enforced even though they remain on the books because of Torcaso v. Watkins (1961). In this case, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled religious tests unconstitutional.

1:17:08 - The stories of Mohammed receiving the Quran come from the Hadiths, although Muslims believe that it is the Angel Gabriel/Jibril who tells Muhammad, "Read!" in Surah Al-'Alaq 96.1

1:19:48 - Gold & Greed: The Hunt For Forest Fenn’s Treasure

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello everyone, I'm Zach, host of the Boiled Frogs Podcast, and I'll be starting a new series on this channel where I interview people who specialize in religion and philosophy. I've started this series to try and answer questions I and many others struggle with about religion and specifically Christianity, and I've had many of these conversations in private, but I've opened up this discourse to the public so that the questions I have or stances I take can be challenged, and I or anyone listening can gain a new or different perspective on these issues. So please feel free to interact with us either over email or on social media. My first guest is John San Nicholas. He is a writer, researcher, and content creator who discusses religion and politics. He has a degree in religious studies and philosophy and works as a researcher for the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies. I really enjoyed my conversation with him. I hope you do too. Thanks for listening. So, like many others, I found you with your video of leaving Christianity. And um I then went on to look at the rest of your content, kind of dive down into like your thoughts, the things you research, and um I really enjoyed it. So I reached out and wanted to get on.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Yeah, no, I'm excited to be here, Zach. Um I, by the way, for people who are maybe tuning into this episode for the first time, Zach has a really great episode, episode one of Boiled Frogs on the Bride of Christ cult. Um it's gonna overlap somewhat with with what we have because we have kind of similar experiences, but yeah, thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Uh thank you so much, man. I'm uh I'm really excited to have you on. Um, can you give me a little bit more of your backstory, like how you grew up, what you're studying, and you had a run-in with a group of your own.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yeah, so I grew up uh in the non-denominational evangelical world. So we're talking coffee shop churches, we're talking contemporary worship services, and uh throughout my childhood, my parents and I, we kind of church hopped like every other week uh between the same three Calvary Chapel churches. And so it was pretty, pretty interesting. A lot of people think that uh non-denominational churches are all the same, uh, but they're very different. So like two of them were kind of like small town rural churches, and then the other one was like a suburban, like white middle class megachurch. Um and so like the cultures, the even like the theology, even though they're under the same denominational umbrella, like it was often pretty different. Um and so right now is a little bit of foreshadowing, like I I'm really interested in like the social scientific study of religion. And so kind of from that experience of like seeing different contexts, different communities, uh kind of gave me like an eye for like, okay, how how do these churches differ from one another instead of thinking that all all communities are the same, all churches are the same. Um and so uh from a very early age, I always remember like really being into the Bible. Like I kind of and it wasn't just because I was taught to think this, but like I really did believe that the Bible was a source of wisdom, it was a way that we could pursue the good, that we could pursue communion with God. And so I was also I was always very studious. And one one of the things uh for me was that whenever I would go to Sunday school, um, there was there were so many other kids who were just there because it was just kind of like their their parents would drop them off so that they can have like the Sunday morning off to themselves, or um, you know, just they were just, you know, we were just kids. Uh and I I was always like, why isn't anyone taking this seriously? And so I started to go to the adult services, and it was even worse there because like, um, I mean, we weren't like mainline Presbyterians, and for me, my understanding of Christianity was always like, well, if you're gonna be Christian, you have to really commit to it, like all the way. You can't, like, it's like what Jesus says like you're you're either hot or cold, and if you're lukewarm, I'm gonna spit you out. Um, and so that had always been my my like view of Christianity, but I at the same time I grew up with like the reality of Christian communities being kind of very loosey-goosey with with their religion and kind of like non-committal. Um, and so that had always been a source of frustration for me, like as a as a little kid. Um fast forward to middle school and high school, uh, had like the typical like kind of falling away from it. Um I wasn't really living up to uh Christian morality, stuff like that. Uh, but then I finally faced like a moment of decision in my freshman year, where I was like, okay, I can either uh you know continue like uh being very self-centered, um just kind of like pursuing my selfish ambitions, or like I need to be serious and actually be like a Christian. Um and so this is where uh that group comes in. So uh the last reformation, that's the name of it, is not so much like a like a unified group um as it is like a movement. And so it starts uh this movement is like a hyper charismatic movement. So they're very they're huge on speaking in tongues, performing miracles, uh telling the future, prophesying. Um and these are people Yeah, and these are people that like believe that if someone dies, like they could raise them from the dead. Um, because like they look at like the longer ending of Mark where Jesus says, uh, those who come after me will do greater things than me. Or he doesn't say those who come after me, but he's talking to his disciples, saying, like, you will do you will do greater things than me. Um and they're like, Yeah, like I could totally raise someone who's dead if I wanted to. Um and so just don't want right, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Just don't tell don't test the Lord and don't make me do it. Um but yeah, like this this movement is started by a man named Torbin Sondergaard, and he's uh he's a European, I forget which country he's from. I think he's from Denmark. Um But yeah, Sondergaard had this, he he kind of it was so interesting because like he had the same view of Christianity as I did, where like if you want to live authentically, you have to live like how the earliest, earliest Christians lived. And so for Torben, he you know, he looks at this apathy and complacency in modern Christianity and he says, Well, why aren't we seeing any miracles anymore? And why aren't we seeing signs and wonders? And so that's like his his big thing. And from my like experience of like just watching his, you know, videos and his thoughts, I don't think he ever knew that that had already been done. Like that there was like a whole Pentecostal movement that came from um, you know, California, um, or even throughout Christian history, like the Montanists who in early church history were the ones who were like, look, like we can speak for God directly, we can prophesy. Um, which by the way, they were condemned as heretics by the church. Um are you are you talking about the Azusa Street Revival or like the Jesus movement? Okay, yeah, the Azusa Street Revival, the the Pentecostal Pentecostalists. Um and so yeah, he like he wanted he he had a deep hunger to like see this stuff again. Uh and so his whole movement was based on that. Um and so like Pentecostals, uh, the last Reformation has this thing where you you go into the water, full body immersion, and you get baptized in the spirit. And of course, like Pentecostals, like you have to come out and you have to start speaking in tongues. Um, and so to go back to like my story, like I never had a run-in with this group, but there was a member in my family who went to, I think it was Hawaii, where they were having like a revival, and they got baptized in the spirit and they like went into the rabbit hole of like, you know, just hyper charismatic world. Um and so they baptized me. So like I was going through like a really hard time in my life um at the time when I was like, should you know, should I be all the way in with my faith or should I not? Um and so yeah, like we, me and my uh my relative, we were like talking about all this stuff, and it started to resonate with this this sense that I had that like, yeah, like if you it's all about the authenticity, like it's all about the the pure devotion to like what Jesus actually said and like carrying the cross, carrying that burden. And I was like, yeah, like let's do it. Let's do it. And so yeah, I got baptized in the spirit, and even looking back, like it was an extremely powerful experience for me. Like I felt it's it's we it's weird how like our belief systems structure our experiences. Like I felt when I came out of the water, uh, that I like it felt like goosebumps and kind of like also kind of like water. Um but like I felt this kind of like armor of God kind of thing. Like, like I felt the helmet and then the breastplate and then the belt and then like you know, all the way down. And like I felt it was like very empowering. It was very powerful experience. Um and yeah, like after that, I spoke in tongues a couple of times. Uh I healed a couple of people's migraines. Like a lot of the healings have to do with like very like it just like addressing people's symptoms. So like a lot of headaches, a lot of like aches, um, which by the way is a very common technique in a lot of religious traditions. Like you take these like um, you know, these outward symptoms and you do something to distract someone from it, and then all of a sudden it's gone.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Um can can I uh interject? So uh when you were speaking in tongues, um what like how what what what was your thought process then? Did you just feel like it came on to you? Did you feel like you were forcing it? Um like do you just explain that?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah, the first I mean the when I got baptized, I did feel like I was forced to do it. Because like the person baptizing me, another relative of mine, um they were like, just just try it. And I was like, I don't know if I have it, and they were like, just try it, just try it. And so I was like, I just started speaking like gibberish. Um but then like this like the spiritual sensation that I had started to like get channeled in that process of uh the technical term is glossolalia, just like letting your mouth just just like sputter and and yeah, just go. Um and so yeah, like a vet it first started as like kind of awkward and unsure, but then like it it turned into like you know a spiritual exercise on its own. Um and I think the the idea is like you give you give up your words and your voice to God and you just let God like speak through you. And like that sounds a little bit culty, but it's not about getting authority for yourself. It's just like an act of submission to God. Like you're not trying to like prophesy over anyone else. Um But yeah, so like I think kind of relating to to cult, um, the last reformation I think is a great example of like when people think about cults or uh what scholars prefer to call new religious movements, they tend to think about very high control groups that are very like sectioned off from everyone else. Um but the last reformation is a is an example of a new religious movement that isn't like that. Like I was affected by it and I never even met the guy, you know, the founder of it. Um so it's is like a very interesting example of like how this influence, religious influence, spreads like beyond the movement itself.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Yeah, and his his idea is one I've definitely heard before, and I hate to say it, um, but I almost like agree with him. Uh like, you know, in the sense of like if you're gonna do something, really do it. And like, you know, and and I feel that that that's why it was appealing to you as well, um, because that was kind of your personality. But I mean, uh I I'm I'm not Christian anymore. Um, but I would say if I was Christian, I would probably view it the same way that he that he views it, you know what I mean? On on paper. I I haven't seen like many of his um uh talks or anything. And what I have seen seem kind of performative and um uh it it kind of puts a bad taste in my mouth just with the way he does things and some of the things he says, and like the, you know, I'm I do things the right way and nobody else does type thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah, he he is a little bit strange, and I think I think he had a run-in with the law at one point. I never got like any details with that. Um but yeah, it it it's very the other thing about like hyper charismatic Christianity is that although it takes like the spirituality of Christianity very seriously, it can also become very self-centered. It's like look at look at all all the things that I'm doing. Like you, like you were saying, but like even even when they couch it as like like I'm just a vessel for God, like it's still putting the spotlight on you and how important you are, which is also like like I had started to feel that way towards like the end of me being in that kind of Christianity. Um and then I went into like a reformed era. Um But like yeah, like for me, Christianity had always had also been like, you know, one, you have to commit yourself to it if you're gonna be Christian. And two, you also have to die to yourself and actually like make yourself it's like it's not about you. It's not about you, right? You're part of something bigger, um, which I think gets lost in a lot of a lot of modern Christian movements.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

No, it really does. And um something I was gonna point, so you said like it it uh it almost focuses on you and puts the attention on you when you're in that mindset. And I saw in one of your videos you were talking about uh one of your reasons for leaving Christianity um was that you were always raised, and tell me if I'm getting this wrong, uh, you were raised almost to believe like everybody that's not Christian is like their desires are evil, uh almost, or at least bad, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:28

No, yeah. Um that's like the kind of um so in in theology that's called theological anthropology. So like the theological study of like human nature. And every every kind of Christianity, every denomination has its own anthropology. So the anthropology that I was raised in, uh, you could say that it was very pessimistic about human nature when left to its own devices. And so the big idea in like the sort of coffee shop church that I was like raised in in that cultural environment was like apart from God, like if you're not part of our group, then we can't trust you, morally speaking. Um, we have to assume that like anything you do is just purely out of selfishness, purely out of this distorted desire. And the big one of the big ideas, which I actually think is is quite true to how the New Testament understands sin, is like you're idolizing something if you're not pursuing God. Like it's not it's not just like, oh, like maybe you're just apathetic about where you go after you die. Like, no, like your whole life, it necessarily is based on some kind of idol that's that's consuming you. Um so yeah, that that video was was pretty interesting because I got a lot of I got a lot of pushback from Christians who who come from a different anthropology, like a different way of viewing human nature. Um what was what was pushback, if you don't mind? No, yeah. So from a from a lot of uh Catholics who are very familiar with like the mystical tradition of Christianity, um one person had cited two mystics in particular. I think one was John of Damascus, and then the other one was Teresa of Avila, who talk about um this, and which, by the way, maybe in the show notes, uh I'll I'll look and see if that's right, and then we can correct it. Um these people talk about apathy and they take it seriously, uh, and they say that this is actually a sign of of sinfulness. Like this is something that Christian theology can explain, where people are just indifferent. And um, the person I was talking with described it as like a spiritual slumber, and they said that that's actually what we're facing. Like it's not that we're facing these idols that wanna that wanna draw us in. Um it's that we're all kind of asleep, uh, which is kind which is kind of a very it kind of resonates with a lot of like Eastern traditions, like Buddhism, like this this notion that like you have to be awakened or you have to be enlightened or you have to be liberated because you start off with this, these illusions. Um But yeah, like you're spiritually asleep, and what Jesus does is he comes so that you can wake up and so that you can uh be put on fire for God, uh, and that you can you can enter into love with God. Um and so I hadn't I hadn't ever really engaged with that side of Christianity, um, of like taking apathy seriously. Because like as far as my reading of the New Testament goes, um, and as far as like the theology that I was raised in goes, like there there is no room for apathy. Um and so that's why there's always this like culture war mentality that like anyone who's not us, who's not Christian, is like against us and they're persecuting us and they want to like the scientists are putting fossils in the ground so that people don't believe in the Bible. Or um like this, you know, the scientists are making vaccines so that you can have the mark of the beast. Um like it's never people never just do things out of like good intent.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

So it creates like an inattitude of obviously like us first them, and then also that like we're doing it right and they're not, it can also lead to like that self-righteous kind of view as well.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

I I think the New Testament does give us like a very negative view of human nature, but I think the standards get raised whenever you are in the Christian community. Like you it's not like like Paul said in in I think Romans, he said, like you were once like them. And that's a really important thing to remember whenever you have that view of human nature, like you were also once like them, you're still prone to these mistakes. Um and so you need to focus on yourself instead of focusing on all these other people. Um like one of the one of the one of the one of my favorite quips like in when I was still like studying theology was like instead of saying hate the sinner, oh hate the sin, love the sinner, it's hate my sin, love the sinner. And so it's this focus on like my own imperfection instead of trying to like critique everyone else's imperfections. Like that was that was always the kind of like orientation that I had personally had. It's like I I didn't really care about like what other people were doing, especially outside of the church. But like when when hypocrisy happens in the church, that's when you need to like call it out.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

That's probably uh another reason that you um you cited leaving Christianity um was like their view on like um like you know LGBTQ um stuff, right? And that probably that attitude you have or that that view you have uh kind of opened your eyes to see that. Can you can you walk me through that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Yeah, so we could yeah, let's talk about uh sexual ethics. So this was maybe one of the major reasons for why I left Christianity. So I think I think when it comes to like holding conservative views on sexual morality. So like thinking that uh being trans is wrong or that two men or two women in loving each other is wrong, I think it's a lot easier to hold that view whenever you're in like a cultural enclave or like when you're like in a subculture that shields you from that, which is what I saw a lot. Like a lot of the people that I grew up with in church, and even as a young adult, these were people who were homeschooled, uh, or like church was everything to them. Like that was their whole community, that was their whole sh uh social life. On the other hand, like I had gone to public school my whole life, and I didn't really try, like except for evolution, like whenever I was in elementary, like I didn't really try to resist um learning stuff. And a lot of my learning came from like knowing other people. Uh and so especially like in high school and more so in college, like I knew I got to know like a lot of amazing people and friends who are gay or lesbian or trans. And growing up with that negative anthropology, like I had always been taught like really messed up things. Like um a lot of people caricature uh trans folks as like being obsessed with their identity and like they just need to like find the right intersectional label to describe themselves as. Like, like uh, I don't know if you saw the meme of like the diversity Olympics. It's like when you're when you're in the diversity Olympics and your opponent is like a a trans uh one-legged hijabi poly, whatever, like polyamorous hijabi. Yeah, yeah. Um, like that's how people think that trans people think. But like whenever I like, you know, talked with my trans friends and like watched like trans people tell their stories, like it's not that they're obsessed with their identity. Like that's not it at all. Like it's it's not this sort of like idol to them. Um it's really more about having the available categories and available norms that society has to offer don't describe them. And they can't really find um like a secure footing in the categories that exist and in the categories that have like that have like like quote unquote like normalcy to them. Um and so like that was that was like a big thing where I was like, okay, well if that's if that's not how people are really thinking about that, then like what is actually wrong with that? And also like where like what verse in the Bible talks about this at all?

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Yeah. I I was going to ask you and maybe I'll let you keep going, but maybe we could go into as well like like the Bible, like the Bible's view on on homosexuality, the m uh early Christian's view on it, modern Christian view on it. And then um get just kind of break that down a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yeah no uh so yeah even though the Bible is not like it doesn't address trans identity at all, um it does address homosexuality. So uh one big thing that a lot of and I guess this is still contentious like in scholarship. So that this is my like opinion on someone who's like read the scholar the scholarly debates. There's a scholar named Mark Preston Stone who did this whole review of like this debate about like does the Bible actually say anything about homosexuality at all? And so he walks you know he walks people through these different camps of like um you know the the traditional interpreters who say that like when Paul talks about arsenicoitai, um, which just means like betting with man or like man better, um when he says that those people will not inherit the kingdom, like he's talking about like even with like he's not just talking about like pederasty, he's talking about like loving consensual relationships between people of the same sex. He also says, you know, there's other people who say that that's just about pederasty. So pederasty was a very common practice in the Greco-Roman world where um a young boy or a young teen would be a sexual partner with a an adult male. And so this was like a very exploitative kind of thing. And it also had to do a lot of with with uh reinforcing like male dominance. So like as as an adult like that the the adult partner would assert his dominance and the younger partner would take on like the submissive role. And so like people were saying well maybe that's what Paul is talking about. Like he's just talking about pederasty and saying that that's wrong. And then there's other people who uh you know say that like well actually that's about something different or you know whatever. But the the thing that I like about Stone is that he concludes his article with saying that we have to we have to recognize that a lot of these debates are being shaped by these decades-long uh movement of like people advocating for LGBTQ rights and especially in countries like America that takes on a religious valence of like it's not just like we have to have the right to marry, but also making this moral argument that like God would also approve of this. And so a lot of this scholarly debate is shaped by ongoing political dynamics. And Stone says that it's totally possible that Paul is still talking about what we would see today as consensual loving same-sex relationships. And so when I read that um it kind of changed something in me because at the time that I was reading that article like I was like I was going through this this process of like can I become an affirming Christian? Can I become I think it's called side B uh theology and still be like a Christian while also being affirming. But then I was like well you know what like a lot of the a lot of the debates and arguments that say that like the Bible doesn't talk about homosexuality and it's not to to like diss on these scholars but like yes it has to do it's you you can't read it without thinking about the political climate that we're in. And I mean if if Paul was talking about pederasty and if he had this theology of like uh marriage being an image of Christ and the church and the fact that like the gendered nature of that metaphor like it can't it just can't apply to like a same-sex couple because like Christ is like like the husband mirrors Christ uh because he leads and he loves and then the wife mirrors the church because she submits like these are very explicitly gendered dynamics. And so like even if you were to say that like well maybe Paul was talking about something other than homosexuality, like it still kind of puts same-sex couples in kind of like a secondary status because they don't have that Christchurch symbolism. And so like that sort of exclusion uh in Paul's theology was very troubling to me. So I just I I kind of gave up on like becoming an affirming Christian.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Uh yeah yeah I had I had like a similar um like realization and I I'm gonna go on for just a second but like I I originally thought that all like being gay was was a sin. Like it was it was bad. You couldn't do it the Bible says so that's really as far as I went. And then when I looked into like up apologetics a little more you know I was like so why is this wrong? And then um you know early like early Christians seem like it was just following God said so that's because then later on you know as like you know LGBTQ rights are are pushed and and fought for uh they try to justify it. So it comes into okay well it's not natural and then it was you know and they're not procreating um so I started looking at things as like what is the impact on society and I wasn't really seeing like a uh downside to the impact of you know same sex marriages and and um the the other argument is procreation um and then as far as procreation I'm I'm interested to see your uh thoughts on this uh what do we do with like Paul's call to celibacy because if this if this gay couple the the sole reason because we've we've exhausted our list of other things it could be uh why it's wrong is because they're not procreating and that's what people were called to do like in the beginning by God what do we do with the apostles' call to celibacy because I believe it wasn't just Paul that called to it right it was it it was others as well um we see it most strongly in Paul but we also see it in Jesus where he says uh you know one one of the hard teachings is like you have to become a eunuch for heaven like if you I I I forget gosh I'm like it's kind of sad because like I'm starting to lose my memory of all these all these things.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Um yeah no mem maybe you remember it better but he says like uh blessed are they who become eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven um and and it and he th and then he adds like it's it's gonna be hard for a lot of you to accept this teaching. Um and so like yeah like even in I mean Jesus himself was celibate. Uh he was you know he was homeless and celibate. And so yeah I mean but I I I guess in the Hebrew Bible I'm not sure that we see a lot of calls to celibacy just because like it's so concerned with like constructing this you know this group of people um called the Hebrews or called the Assembly of Israel. Um and so yeah like I guess uh celibacy would kind of be antithetical to that that project um but yeah like whenever I was looking at uh the Catholic defense of like their condemnation of homosexuality um I found that actually to be like the strongest one on offer because like the one that you were saying about like the impact on society that was like one that I had like grown up with and had found most compelling when I was like in middle school or whatever. Um but like I think on the one hand like it's pretty it's like really messed up whenever you like think about it from an outsider's perspective of like you want these people to suffer and to fail in life because you want to hold this belief that they're wrong. So you're just like kind of expecting and hoping the worst for them uh just so that your beliefs can be protected. Um but yeah like I was also the same way like I didn't see any evidence of that and like I even like got to know a lot of people who like had grown up with like gay parents or lesbian parents and they're like you know they're like even even better people than I am.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

I remember I was talking to one of my friends uh he studies this stuff too and um he was saying you know research shows that a child with you know a mother and a father or a father in the house uh like you know that they just have they're they're the most successful it has like the biggest impact um and that's great when we're talking about you know families that are put together well and you know that that that's great obviously that's probably like best case scenario for a child but there's a lot of children that don't have a family so wouldn't at least one parent or two parents be better than the foster care system and on top of that the the other argument is that they do they have like scientific intervention for you know to create life and I've known lots of Christians that have gotten like IVF which is that you know that that that's a scientific intervention. So why do we we draw the line for same-sex couples using it and we say no that you know that's not natural but then a Christian couple can go ahead and have scientific intervention for their right conception.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Right yeah a lot of yeah a lot of these defenses kind of fall apart the Catholic defense though is like that's one that I haven't really been able to piece apart yet um where they have a very and this is like the historic Christian sexual ethic where like it's a very teleological view of what sexuality is for. And I mean basically in the Catholic tradition and and some Orthodox uh traditions is that like the the marital act is sinful. It's not just like you know like it's not just like morally neutral like it's sinful if it's done without procreative intent. And like because I took a I took a course in on sex and religion and we kind of went through like the history of how religious ethics have developed across traditions. And yeah like learning about learning about the Catholic tradition uh which if there's any Catholic listeners who have a different reading on this please please let us know in in the comments uh because I would I would love to hear it. Um yeah when I learned that you know there's such a negative view of sexuality in like historic Christianity uh that was kind of like earth shattering for me because like this the the Christianity that I grew up in was very sex positive. And like a lot of people kind of caricature Christians as all being like very negative on sex, but like like in in in the churches I was in like as long as you're married, like there's nothing wrong with like enjoying it and like with enjoying your with enjoying your partner um un just under that one condition. Right. But I mean yeah like for centuries Christians have taught that that's not true. Like it's only it's only for procreation. And of course with like uh I think it was John Paul II released uh Theology of the body where he talks about how sex also has like a unitive function with couples, uh not just a procreative function. Um like that's true. But like there's still that sense that like without that procreative intent like it's like it's wrong. It's morally wrong, even if you two are married.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

So would would Catholics um not condone marriage between like a man and an infertile woman or uh a man and a woman that aren't planning to have children?

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Yeah I mean so with the first case they kind of go the Aristotelian route where they're like well even though how how do we how do I t articulate this? Even if this one individual woman or man is like infertile or uh like unable to conceive like the fact that they are still in this class of people who on average can do such a thing like that makes it okay which I'm like uh I don't know if that's like really that one is kind of shaky to me. But like that's the justification. Um I see and so but then the second example you said was like people who are planning to have kids like in the future or no no like like people that are like we're getting married but we don't want children. Oh I see yeah so that's that's another one that like that would be sinful. Um and like again for me like like I had always been taught by my parents like wait as long as you can until you have kids. Um and so like I'm married right now and I'm like I don't want to have kids right now. And the fact that like if we would have been Christians uh like five centuries ago that that would have been wrong is like a that's a crazy thing to think about. Um and it's very different from like the coffee shop church that tries to be more positive about sexuality at least for married couples. Um and so yeah like but but I think where I was going though was like Catholics have that as like the telos like the end of like the marital act is procreation. Um and so that's a strong argument. Like you actually have something that's like solid logic. But the thing with teleological arguments though is like when you say that something exists for a purpose and outside of that purpose it's wrong, um that can be like it's difficult to evaluate but like we know when it's wrong um like after we've learned that it's wrong. So like for example for example like Aristotle who that argument comes from like the teleological argument comes from um for example said that like with people some people have it in their nature to be slaves and some have it in their nature to be masters and that's a teleological thing. Like that's what their function is that's what their purpose is. And so like yeah like you can't really argue with that but you know that it's wrong. You know that it's wrong. And he also had that with like his scientific system where like it's in the nature of things to tend downward. So like the reason why an acorn falls is because it's in its nature to tend to the ground um which is like that you know that makes sense like I I see the logic but also like that's not why that happens.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Yeah and I did I was it C.S. Lewis who finished that that off by saying I've met no man that's uh worthy of being a master or something like that. Um I I I might be misspeaking on who it was but um that that that kind of brings me to another point which is like we see these things in the Bible that we would absolutely disagree with today. So like slavery women's rights or you know seeing women as property and whatnot. And we can look at that and say there's there's these things like okay so like slavery and I and I heard uh um somebody arguing for this the other day they said God does not give consent he gives instruction on slavery. And if we like like because in the early verse I believe it's Exodus there's like you know basically like uh commands on how to do it or you know what you should do if you have slaves. And if you replaced like okay God gives instructions on how to sexually assault somebody but not consent, you go that's in that's insane. So like we clearly think that slavery is wrong in this day and age. Yeah and even though even though there's instructions to it in the Bible. So if we if our morals can evolve and we kind of see you know we we change the the direction of where we're going can we look at other things in the Bible like uh you know homosexuality and say these things are also you know outdated for lack of a better term or like we see that that too is wrong and we can change your view on that as well.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Yeah exactly yeah I think I do think like when you're entering into like these uh debates about like the legitimacy of like a given religion like sexual ethics is probably Christianity's biggest weakness um because like even when it comes to like with all the Epstein stuff going on with all the files being released um uh I I've I've been seeing a lot of Christians um taking like the moral high ground um over like m like a big thing right now is like uh as we've seen more Muslim immigration into like European countries the apologetic scene has really shifted towards like trying to debunk Islam and so you know there's there's a been a lot of people who say that like like Millicent Sedra who's like an Australian MAGA uh pastor even though she's in Australia um has been saying like you know all these Muslims are bringing in these these values these sexual values that aren't antithetical to Christian civilization and like she cited like uh the Prophet Muhammad having like a six year old wife uh whom he consummated the marriage with when she was nine which yeah that's wild that is really wild um but like in Christianity there is no condemnation of pedophilia and so like that was something that we needed secular ethics to condemn. And that was like a big lesson for me because like I had always thought again like the Bible was the source of wisdom. Christianity is the source of goodness but there was a lot of things that we had to evolve like you're saying to see that are wrong. And oftentimes this came from like just the context of like like for slavery like the context of being oppressed was really like the the foundation for black theology um from like Frederick Douglass uh anywhere from from Douglas to Martin Luther King to say like actually this is wrong and like to identify with um with with the Hebrews leaving out of Egypt and saying that God will do this for us today. Like that didn't come from white theologians who were either slaveholders in the uh slaveholding South or uh northerners who were benefiting from the southern economy of slave reproduction.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

That kind of brings me to another question of like is secular morality like I obviously I think modern secular morality is heavily influenced by Christianity but like I I've heard people argue that it is like our drive for like like better morals so to speak is solely due to Christianity's influence and that without Christianity's influence we actually wouldn't strive for those for better morals. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Well I think yeah that's a a really interesting question. Um the the civilizational argument for Christianity is one that's very popular due to like a lot of people like Tom Holland who wrote Dominion uh which was basically this book about like how Christianity shaped the West and has given us everything good in Western civilization. But like as someone who's like studied the horrors that Western civilization is capable of, uh especially Christian Western civilization, um like that argument just falls flat on its head. Like the horrors of like colonization, which like that's a lot of people just think that that's like academic woke garbage. But like I come from two cultural backgrounds that experienced colonization. Like uh my my dad is from Guam, which is like uh an island in the Marianas in the Pacific um and we experienced like 400 years of Spanish Catholic colonization. And so that erased a lot of language a lot of uh architecture a lot of culture um and also a lot of identity a lot of uh ethnic identity and then my mom is from Mexico and so that was also colonized by the by the Spanish for like a very long time um which then like the colonization was very very violent in Latin America extremely violent um and so like yeah like colonization there was slavery um and like pe you know people will often say well like well the the Muslims also did slavery and they also did colonization um which is not really a complaint that I like get like if you're trying to defend Christian civilization you don't do it by saying well all the things that we did bad the other people did too because like if you if you have morality if you really have morality uh you should be doing the good and not um just being like well hey like I don't don't expect too much of me because this is just what people do. Um so yeah like when I the but the other thing though is like when people say that like the values of like religious religious tolerance, freedom of conscience, when they say that these things are that they come from Christianity, um I can always tell that they are only familiar with Christian history and Christian values. During the months leading up to the 2020 election, um Vivek Ramaswamy, so he was one of the Republican presidential candidates, he's a a Hindu, he was asked about like are you going to defend Judeo Christian values if you get elected president? And he had this really like great monologue where he was like well you know like I appreciate Judeo Christian society. I appreciate the very best that it has to offer but what it has to offer is not unique to it. Like these values that we hold dear Hindu values, their Buddhist values, their human values. And that was like that, that was like the big thing, uh, the big point that he had made, which I don't think gets brought up a lot. Um, because like it's kind of like one of those things where like to hold this belief that your civilization is so unique, you have to only be exposed to your civilization and not others. Like a lot of these, like, for example, uh in India, there was this, uh, I I don't remember the name of this document, um, but it was it was authored by one of the royalty who said, like, we have to tolerate all of these religions in our land. And so, like, there was religious tolerance in India before Protestants, like a thousand years later, figured it out. Um, and so, like, yeah, like a lot of people say that and they make that argument, but it comes from a very short-sighted view of like what Christian values are. Because, like, as as Vivek said, a lot of these Christian values are just human values.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Um, do you think that like from the text or you know, from evidence in the text that God intended for our morals to evolve?

SPEAKER_00 45:08

I think I think it is I think there is like it it depends on what we're talking about. So, like we can see it from the Old Testament to Jesus or the Hebrew Bible to Jesus, um, where for example, in Acts, when Jesus appears to, I think it was Peter, um, you know, Peter was told to go minister to this Gentile, but Peter was like, I I don't want to, like, he's unclean. He's a gentile. And then Jesus shows up and he says, like, look at this, look at this meal that I've made. Like it has every kind of food, like it has the food that's allowed and not allowed in the Torah, and come and eat because all things are pure. Uh, I think he says, I have made all things pure. Um, and so like that's an example of like, which I think for for liberal Christians who want to make like the affirming argument, that is actually a really good source to make that argument, where like you had something that was prohibited in the Torah, and then Jesus comes along and says, actually, this is okay. Um there's also, I mean, this is also kind of you get this from like a more deep, like in-depth reading of of uh of the Torah, of like reading Leviticus, um, Deuteronomy, numbers, where you can see the law evolving from book to book. Um, and so like I don't have any examples right now on hand, but like I encourage listeners to like go look through these books and like see how the law changes over time. And there's also verses where it's very clear that like this is meant to be a living law, kind of like how we talk about like a living constitution today. Um which is also like for more uh evidence in the Bible, which is also what we get from Paul, where he says, like, there's the letter of the law and then there's the spirit of the law. Um and so yeah, I I guess all that all that to say like it can evolve. But one of the things that has always been the issue in Christian history is like how much can it evolve and which things should it evolve on? Because like it took it took some time, but like, you know, Christians today are like, yeah, like slavery is wrong. And they would even think so in a theological sense. Um, but then all you know, today there's also issues like women doing ministry or uh same-sex unions, or um, I guess I can't really think of like any other hot button issues right now, but like, yeah, these are things that Christians are actively debating. I think the problem is when, you know, some Christians or even just people of any religion, um they think that the morality should not change ever, because in every single religion, morality always evolves.

SPEAKER_02 47:51

Do we see God as um condoning um free speech and freedom of religion? Also depends on that.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

I mean Yeah, I mean in the Hebrew Bible, uh we definitely do not see freedom of religion. Um because you know, the ancient Near East at that time was it's so it's so I love to like think about this, where like, you know, you have each people group and each like the status of each group directly correlates with like the status of their god. Um and so that's why we see like such a warrior bent in the Old Testament God is like, yeah, like the status of the Hebrews was based on their military success, their financial success um over others. And so, yeah, I mean, God would would kill, or he would demand that people be killed in the Hebrew people if they were to worship any other god. Um that's the fur I think that's the first commandment in how uh Christians count them, and I think the second commandment in how Jewish Jewish folks count the the Ten Commandments is like thou shalt not have any other gods before me, or else you're gonna die for it. Um and I th I'm pretty sure like even if foreigners were to enter the land of of Israel, like I think they would face sanctions for worshiping idols. I'm not sure what the sanctions were. It might be death penalty, I'm not sure. Um But yeah, I mean, when we get to the New Testament, it's not so much about having freedom of religion. Because like for their like for you to promote freedom of religion, you have to kind of have this nation-state perspective. And like the the Old or the New Testament church did not have a nation that it ran. Uh they were they were in a nation-state that wanted them persecuted. So, like, of course, they wanted to have freedom for themselves uh and they didn't want to be persecuted. Um, well, some did. Like Origin definitely wanted to be persecuted in like the third site uh third century. Um but yeah, like you don't get this like this political sense of like freedom of religion um in the New Testament.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

Because I've heard I've heard, you know, that the the er early America, like when America was founded, like the speech freedom of religion is contributed to like Christian beliefs. And I was thinking about that and I was like, I don't know if I agree with that. Um and I you know I I thought I'd ask you about it.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Yeah, well that that comes from that comes from the Protestant experience of like, I mean, there there weren't really like religious wars in the way that uh popular history has it. But like there was a lot of religious violence between Protestant denominations. And people found out that, like, okay, if we become tolerant of each other and if we respect each other's conscience. And uh this was something that like Richard Baxter uh came up with, which Baxter was actually an inspiration for C.S. Lewis when Lewis uh wrote Mere Christianity. Baxter said, uh, you can have the essential doctrines that we all agree on, and then we can dispute the non-essentials. So, like this, this sort of like uh fundamental, non-fundamental, essential, non-essential distinction was also very important. Um yeah, that that's what the founders had received, but they also had their view of like essential doctrines. So like there was a very throughout the early American nation, there was a lot of skepticism about whether atheists, for example, could be moral people. And this is what I say, like the anthropology I was I was raised in, it's not unique to coffee church uh coffee shop churches. Like even in early America, where we had like very educated, uh, very wealthy Christians, um, there was this sense that like there's still some people that if they're apart from God, we can't trust them. Um and so yeah, like that's that's been a a topic of conversation lately. How like in in a lot of state constitutions today, there's still this sense that like, you know, if you if you enter office, you should be a Christian or you should be able to swear some religious oath, um, which is not really enforced, but like that's that's uh a sign of like how it used to be. Right. Um so yeah, there was freedom of religion in early America, but people were excluded. Uh atheists were excluded, Catholics were excluded. There were a lot there's a lot of anti-Catholic persecution uh throughout American history. Um And so yeah, it's kind of that idea that like we got better at freedom of religion the more that we secularized, the more that we had more people coming in and you know, had these these um these religious differences get confronted and compared and and navigated. So yeah, I don't know. I guess you could credit Christianity, like like the at least Protestants with religious liberty. But again, like it was restricted, it had to expand over time.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

Right. Okay, okay. Um, and are you uh so are you you're an atheist now? So you've you've uh fully, fully left?

SPEAKER_00 53:03

Yeah, um I had I had grown like whenever I started getting like I guess intellectually engaged with my faith, um, as like a like high schooler, maybe sophomore, um I I was like I was hooked on like the atheist versus theist debates. Like that was like my entertainment on like in the evenings. And so what that what that let what that allowed me to do to do was like to strengthen my religious worldview, but then also to like construct how atheists view the world. And like, because like I I always like to do this, uh, whether it's like thinking about people who think differently politically or religiously, I like to like build a profile of like how how do they view the world in a way that like is like very coherent and very strong. So I was I was building up this like alternative worldview this whole time. Um and it ended up being that like the the two worldviews that really had made the most sense to me was like either Christianity of like a like a theologically conservative bent. So like being the kind of Christian that like reads with the church fathers or has an appreciation for Christian tradition, or to be an atheist. Um because I I I had always kind of questioned like the ideas that like you can't have morality if you're an atheist, or you can't have purpose if you're an atheist. Like these were things that I was like, that sounds like just it's too easy of an argument, and it's also not very strong. And so that's kind of what I had defaulted to. Um I was never really about like the spiritual but not religious kind of vibe. Um But yeah, I mean, where I am right now will probably change in the next like five years or 10 years, but um, that's that's where I am right now.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Gotcha. And let's say, you know, they this this is just for fun, but like I have like certain um qualifiers or you know, like like this has to happen for me to believe again. Um do you have anything like that for like this is what it would take for me to believe and follow and do all this?

SPEAKER_00 55:11

Honestly, the I think the the major thing would be for me to realize that I'm wrong about sexual ethics. For me to realize that, like, oh, actually like being affirming is not seeking the good, or being egalitarian when it comes to gender is not seeking the good. Um, like I would have to become like very conservative in my in my sexual ethics to become Christian again. Cause like, I mean, ethics is has always been like very important to me. And I feel like in most debates like about religion, people don't really take ethics that seriously. Um, but for me, I'm like, if if if something is true, it also has to be good. Like, not just in a limited way, like it has to be the good. Um and where I am right now, I think that I can seek the good better than I than I could when I was a Christian. Um, but if I have a a distorted perception of the good, that would bring me back to Christianity. If if if Christianity actually does, upon like a second glance, have a better conception of the good than all the other religions in the in the world. But that's like a lot to ask for, though. That's a lot to ask for. Because like, yeah, like yeah, like I just I I I've seen, I think to like touch on gender real quick, um, one of the things that I've learned being married is just how little Christianity prepared me to be a good man. Um because like a lot of gosh, um, a lot of the you know, talk about like the loneliness epidemic in Gen Z, like in our generation, I think has a lot to do with like, you know, women who are our age who like are done with putting up with what generations of women women have had to deal with in history. But then a lot of a lot of a lot of our male peers are still kind of stuck in the same entitlements of like um having a woman who like does all the cognitive load when it comes to like what needs to be done around the house, what needs to be done for our lives to be good, um, or like raising the kids, and then like the dad just doesn't really have all that much responsibility. Like a lot a lot, I think a lot of our male peers are still expecting that. And there's a lot who want to get out of it, but it is very, very difficult. Like I'm still I'm still getting out of that because I was raised in a very traditional uh gender norms like household and culture. Um and yeah, like Christianity did not let me develop in the ways that I needed to to be a good husband. Um like it was kind of like relating it back to like this bigger conversation about secular morality. I had to become secular in order to be better.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

Interesting. Very interesting. I'm sure, you know, uh modern Christians would argue with you that, you know, how Jesus treated women and you know, how they were uplifted, they they would point to that and say, this is actually, these are examples of how you should. But I I totally understand what you're saying because like I I felt the same way in the group I grew up in. I mean, women were very looked down upon. And you could easily point to many verses in the Bible and say, and this is what I have, this is how I justify that.

SPEAKER_00 58:24

So yeah, I guess like what I was saying, like doesn't it's not so much about the Bible, like what the Bible has to say about gender, because I don't think it has a lot to say about gender roles. Like whenever whenever Paul says like the the husband is the head of of uh of the wife and Christ is the head of the husband, like there's not like what a lot of um complementarians today say about like how the man has to be the provider and he has to be the spiritual leader and he has to be like the decision maker. Like that meaning is not in what Paul is saying. Like they're projecting that into what Paul is saying. And like, you know, these norms about wives being like submissive and and always being sweet and always being nice, not complaining and not bickering. That's not what Paul is saying, right? Like they're injecting that meaning into what Paul is saying about marriage and gender norms. Um and like, yeah, you're right. Like Jesus was very egalitarian for his time. Uh like it is true that a lot of rabbis and Pharisees would not they wouldn't go near women. Like they did not want to hear what women had to say, they did not want to see women in in in public. Um, and Jesus was very different than that. I think what I was talking about is like more so how Christianity gets lived out. Um, women are often relegated to like a secondary class like member of churches. Um, they're often excluded from theological conversations. Um, I mean, when you have like especially in coffee shop churches, like the men's retreats, like the church will pour milli, like not millions, they'll they'll pour a whole bunch of money into men's retreats. And then women, you know, women have like maybe like one year they'll do the book of Esther. The other year they'll they'll talk about like uh Mary and Martha. And like it's just the same, the same, maybe like five major female characters in the Bible, and the church won't really go all out on it the way that they'll do for the men. Um and yeah, like the the the lived gender roles too, about like I just see like the the Christian way of doing marriage is so easily um it so easily leads to there being like um like exploitation or manipulation or you know, the the the husband getting away with a lot of stuff while the wife has to like carry the burden for both of both of the people. Um and it's not j I'm not just saying that from like an academic standpoint, like I've seen this happen. And I see, you know, a lot of women who are handling these things and putting up with like um like that old saying about like how, you know, as as a wife, they not only have to mother their children, they also have to mother their husband. Like I see that happen. And I also see them trying to psych themselves into being grateful for it because it's a blessing from God and it's it's you know, they're doing the right thing and they'll get a reward on the other side of this earth. Um that's not to say though that like every Christian marriage is like that. Like I I see, I do see healthy Christian marriages. Mar marriages is just like hard, because like you have two people who are imperfect. Um, and yeah, like it's gonna be it's gonna be difficult to try and like you know, be the best partner that you can be. And it's not that religion makes it better or that being secular makes it better. Um, really, it's like about like what what decisions do you make? And how are you loving your partner and how are you uh humbling yourself to learn about like what your shortcomings are and and and all that. Um but it's just from like my experience of seeing that be so prevalent in Christian communities.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

Um and the other thing was like the moral teaching on abortion. Um and so yeah, like growing up Christian, I had never really questioned like the dogma of like life begins at conception and therefore like all abortion is equally morally wrong, or even just like the sense that like abortion is wrong. Because one of the you know, one of the big things for um women in our generation is like when you look at the public opinion polling, like abortion is like the the issue f among liberal Gen Z women. Um and you know, they're doing a lot of work to like challenge this narrative of like like accepting that abortion could be morally wrong, but then like trying to like justify at least for like the exceptions. Like a lot of people are are you know pushing back on that and saying, like, well, no, like this is not morally wrong. Like it it's it's solely the person's choice. And if you're infringing on the woman's right to choose, then that's morally like that is what's morally wrong. And so that was one of the conversations that we had had. Um, which, yeah, I don't I don't know if you had ever thought of about abortion too as like a reason for why you left.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:04

Yeah, I mean, and I I'm probably on the same line, same lines as you, like originally, like I thought, and this is a huge, huge topic. I mean, we we we we don't we don't have to get into all the ins and outs of it, but um just just to touch on it, like um I believed, you know, that it was killing, you know, killing a baby, like, you know, for the majority of my upbringing. And then it like I also don't um I don't think Christians are wrong who have that view, like if that's what they believe, is what I mean. Because like if you're trying to tell people how they can live and what they can do, like I take issue with that. If your belief is that a a life is being taken and that is where you that's why you're up in arms, like I can at least respect that belief. Yeah, as far as abortion goes, I I'm along the lines of people can do what, you know, it's their choice ultimately.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:57

Yeah. Like I I guess ethic ethically I'm agnostic on it right now. Like I haven't really thought about it too much. What really had changed for me was like uh because like one of the one of the big critiques about um religious cultures is that, and this includes Christian civilization, is that you you have like often child marriage, like very institutionalized. Like it was very common among uh the medieval elite for girls to be wet at like 14 or 15 years old. Um in the Byzantine Empire, sometimes it was like 13 years old. Um, and the only way that people didn't marry that young was when they economically could not afford to do that. Like most most peasants married at like 20, anywhere from 20 to like 20, 25, maybe. Um and like you know, you you hear often, and this is true, that like in in marriages, it's often the wife who drives the culture and keeps culture alive, which is like another example of like how women shoulder the cognitive burden of like, you know, making sure that these ways of life uh survive. And so like if that is true, if women are the ones who are per perpetuating culture and religion within the household, um, it's better for them to be married off as young as possible. And so like that's why in a lot of religious law, like in Jewish law, in canon law, the age of marriage for girls is like as soon as they hit puberty. Um so like, you know, the less time that women have, that girls have to develop their sense of self, their beliefs about the world, the more likely that once they're locked into a marriage, that they're gonna perpetuate the religious system that they grew up in. Um and so like, you know, that that's a lot of like the you know, the oppressive nature of gender norms, um, childbearing as like the way to lock them into that. Um when I when I thought about it in that way after reading like critiques of religious culture, um, and when I thought about like the abortion debate, I was like, this is actually. a really important thing for women's freedom. Like it's it's it's not just about like the abortion. It's like it's about you know people being able to like cultivate themselves and not to get locked into this this way of life that might not be the best for them.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:16

I I think that the majority of Christians again would push back because they say the cost well like the cost of you working on yourself or you know building what um growing as a woman is the cost of a life. But but I definitely I definitely see where you're coming from and I feel like a lot of the people who talk about it don't take like the individual into um into account uh you know like how how was it conceived?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:41

What is the child's life like you know um all all these different things so yeah yeah it's a it's a difficult it's a difficult like ethical argument or not argument but like an ethical debate. Because like it is very like even now as like an atheist I'm like yeah it's a pretty strong argument um that that pro-lifers make um but yeah still need to still need to do some thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

I wanted to uh talk to you a little bit too um this is another big topic um the historicity by the way I learned that word from you um a lot of Christians will say um if the resurrection did not happen then the gospel means nothing uh and you know what what uh all that that hinges on um we could elaborate on that but why is the resurrection so important and do we think it happened hot hot button question um I yeah so I guess we could talk about like why is it so important so there there's a verse in one of Paul's epistles where he says that if Christ be not risen then we are of all men to be most ashamed.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:52

And when the apologetics revival happened after like the four horsemen of new atheism like Dawkins, Hitchens, Sam Harris came about, like a lot of people went to that verse and they were like, okay this is Paul isn't really making like a theological point here like he's making a philosophical point that like if the resurrection is true then automatically like every single claim at least what they think to be what Christianity claims like every single claim in Christianity is automatically true. And so it's a very in in philosophy we call that foundationalism where like a a system of knowledge is based on a singular or maybe like a set of foundational beliefs. And so yeah I think right off the bat there's like a question of like did Paul really mean to say that like if the resurrection is true, like that's how we prove everything else? Because I think for like for Paul like it was the resurrection but it was also like the appearance of Jesus and like forgiving Paul even though Paul was like a persecutor of the early church um like that and and and also like justifying him before the law. Like those those were more important to Paul I think than just like the historicity of the resurrection was. So there's there's an interesting conversation to be had there. But as far as like the historicity of the resurrection goes um so like when I was a Christian I used to do like apologetics kind of content. Um and this was one thing that I like thought about the most um and so basically how the argument goes so like for for a lot of people who might not be religious and not really familiar with this debate is that people who defend the historicity of the resurrection um will treat the gospels as historical sources. And so for some people that seems pretty like facetious and kind of like a just so story like, oh well let's let's use our religious text to prove what the religious text says. But this is this is a valid thing to do. In fact like in in Buddhist studies, like we can know that the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama was a historical person because like the you know the texts uh there's there's so many texts and like the stories are so historically accurate that like yeah this has to have been about some dude you know this has to have been about a real person. And so the same thing with with the Gospels with the gospel accounts um you know you have four gospels uh each were kind of written as sort of like ancient biographies about Jesus of Nazareth um they all have different viewpoints and different ways that they present Jesus as well as different ways that they present his culture um like for example like uh Matthew and Mark reflect Jesus' Jewish background better than Luke does um Mark presents Jesus as a very enigmatic figure who anytime demons say oh my gosh you're the son of God he says don't don't say that to anyone uh whereas in John Jesus is more he's more out outspoken about himself he says I am the vine you are the branches I am the bread of life um I'm the living water he who drinks of of it will never perish um very much about like look look at my divinity uh look at look at my importance and my significance whereas in Mark that's not the case at all uh biblical scholars call that the messianic mystery of Mark um and so yeah like peop these these apologists will use these accounts of Jesus and say like okay if we treat these as historical sources what does it say about Jesus as a historical figure not just as like a religious figure of this movement. But when it comes to the resurrection in particular um it it's it's kind of difficult to like establish it as a historical event. Um so if this will be of value for both religious and and non-religious listeners. When we talk about modern historical method historical method addresses only natural uh occurrences so like Jesus uh going to Galilee or uh being from Nazareth like that's that's a naturalistic phenomenon. But when it comes to supernatural phenomena um history cannot say anything about what happened. Um so like with with uh Siddhartha Gautama being under the Bodhi tree and attaining enlightenment or ner uh or yeah enlightenment um that we can say that he was under the Bodhi tree and we can say that people believed that he attained enlightenment but we can't say historically that he attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. The same thing with Jesus uh and the resurrection historians cannot say in their capacity as historians that Jesus rose from the dead what we can say historically is that Jesus was crucified he was lain in a tomb somewhere um and there's questions about like where was that actually was it actually uh Joseph of Arimathea's tomb um and then we also know historically that people believed that he had risen again but we cannot say historically speaking that any miracle actually occurred um so the historical argument is kind of weird because like you take something that is naturalistic and you use it to try and prove something that's supernatural. So already like you're kind of at a disadvantage there. I think one of the bigger one of one of the strongest things that apologists will say is that we have multiple accounts of this resurrection happening. We have you know a tomb being found by either a woman or a group of women we have Jesus appearing to the women or not appearing to the women and Jesus is appearing to uh a sort of set of disciples or maybe like a different set of disciples. He does this at different times. Uh and so like yes we do have multiple sources but one of the things that um critical scholarship has shown on the Bible is that these sources are not independent. And these sources are also written uh not based on eyewitness accounts directly but on on decades of oral tradition. So these are like the two main things that had kind of led me to be pessimistic about the historicity of uh of the resurrection. So to address the oral tradition part first, um the earliest gospel was the gospel of Mark, which historians pinpoint at being written anywhere between 60 and 70 CE. And so Jesus probably died around 34, 35 CE, um assuming that he was 30 years old. And so we have 30 to 40 years without any written account of what happened. And so uh what a lot of historians say is that um in the early decades of of the Christian church, these stories were circulated via oral tradition. And so it wasn't until like the first kind of generation of of Christians were starting to die out, either through persecution or just through maybe old age, that you started to have these stories and traditions encoded in text form. And so right away these are not books that were based off of direct like it wasn't like when when Jesus gave like a a speech or a sermon that someone was like transcribing it, right? Like these are things that had to be preserved in collective memory and events had to be conserved conserved in in collective memory. But then you also have this finding from critical scholarship that a lot of the gospels were based off of each other. So like Mark was written first in 70, Matthew and Luke came later, maybe around 80, 85 CE, so 15 years later. And we can see and people did this like in the first centuries of the cr of the Christian church uh where if you put the gospels alongside each other, you try and match them up, not only do you find a lot of differences in how the stories uh conflict or differ, uh, but you also see how Luke and Matthew pull from direct passages in Mark. And Matthew and Luke also share passages that we don't know where those passages come from, but like word for word, they share common passages. And so a lot of historians will say that okay, well there was Mark as a source for Matthew and Luke. And there was another source that we'll call it Quell or Q, um from which Matthew and Luke also derived a lot of sayings of Jesus. And so and then John came much later maybe like 85 to 90 CE, uh whenever Nero uh burned the I think it was Nero's persecution of of the Christians was was what happened in 90 um where j John just has like a completely different view of like what happened with with Jesus. Like that's why Matthew Mark and Luke are called the synoptics they see together and then John is not part of the synoptics. And so yeah I mean like given those two facts that we're not dealing with eyewitness accounts that these are not independent accounts um and that these accounts are based on oral tradition that that changes the the terms of the debate completely. Like we're not looking at accounts of Jesus rising from the dead we're looking at accounts that encoded oral traditions decades long of Jesus rising from the dead. Right. And so like also given like the just improbability of someone rising from the dead um that's that's kind of like the nail in the coffin uh if you if you don't pardon the uh pardon the pun. But yeah so like that's that's my sort of way of thinking about the resurrection right now. I do have to say though like there is some promise for these arguments for Jesus's resurrection because when we look at like other miracles in other religious traditions, like for example in Islam with Muhammad uh getting the uh the Quran from the angel Gabriel, that's not multiply attested. Like there it's only the Quran and maybe maybe hadith I don't know if if there's if that story comes from hadiths as well. But it it's not multiply attested meaning that there's multiple sources that talk about it in the way that the gospels talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:17

But then like again we don't have multiple sources we have multiple uh encodings of oral tradition so there there's like promise there but there has to be more work done I think in like disputing the age of the gospels uh disputing these questions about oral tradition um but yeah that's that's where I I am right now in thinking about the resurrection okay um no that's great man and um I have I have like is some similar thoughts as well um the weird thing that did it for me on the resurrection well multiple things um well I'll start with this actually so like I feel like human psychology was not taken into account for like the early stories of this like the eyewitnesses the the people hearing from eyewitnessers or so on and so forth and like I feel like the the disciples early on like their world got rocked when the when Jesus was crucified you have like this is the person they believe is like their savior this is their messiah and correct me if I'm wrong but like the Jews had like a different view of what the Messiah would be than what we understand it today. Yeah that's right they did not expect their messiah to die um they did not expect a resurrection um so they have this this person that they're looking up to all of a sudden he's taken from them and um there's this re there's this documentary this is kind of out of the left field but it's a documentary about uh it's called like something fern but this guy who hides treasure and he puts out this this quest for people to go find this treasure and people spend years and years and years and people die you know looking for it and there's this group of people that uh they believe that they are the ones they're these young young kids you know like early 20s or whatever they really believe that that they're so close to finding this treasure and then when they don't find it uh like they they can't they can't come to terms with it so they they make up these other scenarios where he actually left them money in their will or like they did find it but they found like the the essence of the treasure not the treasure itself and so in you know because what they had what this gave them was hope and that hope was taken from them. So instead of just being like that sucked you know this is over they made up these scenarios to where they still they can still hold on to that hope. And um it it was just interesting to watch because you know my my evidence is anecdotal growing up in a cult and then working you know in mental health for like 15 years I've seen people do mental gymnastics with their mind. You see like I just really feel like looking at that situation that the the and you know it would only take a couple the disciples um perhaps concocted a story and I'm aware this is this is my view I'm not you know I'm not saying this is this is what happened or the or the view of everyone um I feel like they concocted a story to to somewhat like keep Jesus alive you know for lack of a better term in in their life and for others. And if we look at you know UFOs or you look at Bigfoot or or other things that people believe in but have never seen um you know allegedly uh we uh we see how easy it is for somebody to say I saw this and this happened and then another person to go yeah I you know I saw it too or there it is and you know um like that happens all the time and so I think it would take one person um to say I I can fix this you know what I mean or maybe they even did maybe they really think they saw like in Paul's case I think Paul really think he saw um Jesus I don't think he did I think it's much more likely that he had some kind of like um you know psychotic episode sorry for saying that but but I I really I I I feel like that's much more likely like you were saying like do we believe in like all these things happened and like somebody was resurrected from the dead I feel like Occam's razor we can cut that down and be like no I think and um and and I feel like that's what caught on because uh Christians in defense for the resurrection a lot of times they'll say people died for this um and people dying for their beliefs that's happened throughout history for things that Christians would totally discount as actually being legitimate. Um so that doesn't surprise me um its origins I personally like I said I personally believe it was them trying to come to terms with Jesus being taken from them. And then the one thing that never made sense to me was the guards at the tomb. Um so we um and I think you and I talked about this a little bit but um the uh first of all what what we know about crucifixion back in the day is part of the uh part of the process is they were left on the cross this was like part of the part of like the Romans um punishment and so not a lot of people were taken off immediately after death um I'm not saying it's outside of the realm of possibility because this was obviously like a a big figure at the time but the Romans consented to his crucifixion so it makes sense to me too that they would follow through with you know their norms on it but I'll concede that maybe he was taken to a tomb. Um and it's you said it sounds like there's some evidence for that of a tomb.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:46

Yeah so I I'm not I I can't really say much on like the the tomb the question of the tomb um and also yeah like why would the Roman guards post people at the tomb? It seems it seem it seems like if if that if that is really fabricated in the narrative then it it's it very much goes with I think it's Matthew where uh Matthew points he like or whoever wrote Matthew refers to a rumor that the Pharisees had spread that the disciples had stolen Jesus's body. Right. And so like it seems like a literary device that would have been inserted into the oral tradition if the Pharisees were also saying you guys stole his body and then they could say well how could we have stolen the body because there were tombs there there was a stone and there were guards right um which I I don't know I think I might be getting this wrong but I think Pilate in one of the gospels instructs them to put guards at the tomb uh because the Pharisees asked him to this is this this is where um the dots weren't connecting for me is you have the the exactly like Matthew's defense of like you know that story that the the body was just stolen he says you know in Matthew it says there are Roman guards placed there.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:59

The story of that is that the Pharisees asked Pilate to place guards at the tomb because they had heard that Jesus said he was going to die and be resurrected. My my my my problem with that the hole in that theory for me is that the disciples were shocked that he was killed and resurrected. So the people that followed him around every day and listened to his teachings seem to have no idea that he was going to be resurrected but the Pharisees I I I don't see how his disciples would not know but they would know um and then have foresight to ask for guards to be placed at the tomb.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:37

Right. Well and that's something that comes from the Mark tradition where you have that messianic mystery because Mark makes it very clear that the disciples never understood what Jesus said when he was talking about like this is who I am and this is what I've come to do. And especially when it comes to like yeah when he talks about the resurrection like the disciples just didn't get it. And so yeah because Mark was was the first one to be written Jesus was probably like that. Like he was probably very enigmatic about himself. And so yeah like if he did prophesy about his resurrection it was probably very cryptic and it wasn't until after the disciples believed that it happened that they were like oh okay that's what he meant by this. So yeah you're right like it is very strange that the Pharisees would know um which I mean also applying a historical method though I I think if I'm not mistaken Matthew is the only gospel in which that is is seen um I'm not sure that it's in other gospels um but yeah the the the math the Matthew tradition the Matthew gospel was very much trying to be like an apologist uh against the Pharisees so that's that's why we see so many of those story elements like the guards and and the Pharisees yeah I've I've heard that about Matthew that that he it the or the Matthew the writer's Matthew that it works as like uh an apologetics like book essentially and it's more like um you know you it shoots the arrow and then it paints a target around it type thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:06

Um that's a good way to put it but uh um yeah that's that's what that's what really did it for me and then I so I just I just don't I just don't think it happened. Um I'm always open for evidence. Uh you know if anything comes up I'm I'm there for it. Um do you have any uh do you have anything else you want to uh want to share or go over? Um what what are you studying right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:34

Well right now so I'm working with a Catholic institute that's run out of LA um so I so my undergrad kind of started as like pursuing like a vocation for theology and because like I thought that my calling was to become a theologian and specifically a political theologian who looks at like what are the political implications of Jesus's message. Even when I was still a Christian like towards the end of my faith journey like I had started to move Towards the social science direction because I got really involved in these debates around Christian nationalism, where a lot of sociologists are talking about this ideology that is supposed to say that America is a Christian nation and should be that way and the faith should inform our policies, our international relations, and so forth. But one of one of my like critiques of that, like knowing the evangelical world so well, is like on the one hand, not all evangelicals are like theocratic nationalists. Like they may want they may have like an imperial bent where like, yeah, like they do want to see the gospel spread to every corner of the world. And yeah, like they think that if you if you don't have that, then you're like morally depraved and and untrustworthy. But they don't want national domination, I think for the most part. Um like they, yeah, sure, they have like the culture war angst uh around like trans issues or queer issues or immigration. Um but yeah, like not every not not every evangelical wants like a totalitarian theocracy. And there's also like some issue that I took with like how these social scientists measure Christian nationalism. Um, like the most popular literature from sociologists like uh Samuel Perry or Andrew Whitehead uses like a six question survey to measure this what's supposed to be like a really important, really encompassing ideology. Um so like asking people like, I think America is a Christian nation, or I think that Christianity should inform our policies, or uh, I think our politicians should be religious. Like the like these these beliefs are not necessarily nationalistic, except for maybe the first one. Um and so yeah, I think because like I I really, really like the social scientific study of religion. Like I think it's very important for us to just acknowledge like how important religion is in our world. Um, because a lot of people don't think that religion really matters. Like a lot of people think that religion is just all about control and all about um, you know, manipulation and brainwashing. But like, no, like religion is a is a really important part of like our our politics, our culture, our history um across the world, no matter which religion it is. Um and so like, yeah, like seeing this burgeoning literature on Christian nationalism, uh I've cut I've I'm kind of wanting to provide deeper nuance on like what what it is that evangelicals think when they think about politics. And like not just that, but like what are the different factions uh of people who have these like political camps. Um so like that's that's that's a little bit related to the work I'm doing right now at this Catholic Institute, where I'm looking at how people debate Pope Leo's political preferences. So during Francis's Spontificate, Pope Francis was like very clearly uh a progressive Pope. Like he he talked a lot about uh immigration, he talked about a lot about economic justice, um, climate care. But he was also very kind of like, he didn't really talk about the more like conservative coded Catholic teachings like like uh like gay love, for example. Like uh whenever when he was asked about it, or maybe this was during one of his homilies, he was like, Who am I to judge? That was his big thing. Um and so Francis did a lot, I think, to popularize Catholicism among like more secular liberals. Um, but he also he also alienated a lot of conservative Catholics with how he treated like uh, for example, like conservative bishops and and priests he would just kind of like ostracize if they kind of like stepped out of line. Um and he would also call like conservative Catholics like backward and just kind of like, you know, kind of der derogatory labels because Francis was like he wasn't afraid to to spark some controversy. Um but with Pope Leo, uh Leo is more of a mixed bag. Like um he is very vocal about what he calls gender ideology. He's very vocal about like how uh heteronormative marriage is like the bedrock of society, and that's what's really gonna solve uh world peace. But he's also very critical of capitalism and uh very critical of the Trump regime and how they have handled immigration policy. Um and so there's a lot of debate uh both online and like in periodicals and whatever. I'm looking at like social media debates about like what I mean, is he progressive? Is he conservative? Um, and it's been really, really like fulfilling work. Um I had thought that I wouldn't get to do like an academic job after undergrad. So I'm I've I've been really glad to like have this research job in because I'm right right now I'm taking a couple gap years uh before applying to PhD programs. Um I'm leaning towards political science um right now. But yeah, so that's that's what I'm studying right now. I'm still I'm still thinking a lot about evangelicalism and politics. Um but yeah, I'm trying what I've noticed with my content though is like the both of my platforms on TikTok and Instagram, uh they expect like the alg algorithm expects me to do like philosophy stuff, which like I enjoy. Uh but whenever I talk about like like politics and data, like my videos don't really they they don't they don't get pushed out very much. So I'm kind of in this in this space right now where I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with with my platforms right now. I don't know if I if I'm gonna like focus it more towards philosophy or focus it more towards my research. Um or maybe maybe both. I mean, I'm kind of like anti-niche when it comes to like what people do online.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:51

Dude, well, I really enjoy your philosophy stuff and your religion stuff. So obviously my vote goes there. But I mean, I had a couple more questions, but uh did did you say you have to go pretty soon?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:01

Yeah, I I I gotta get going. But this has been this has been fantastic. I've really enjoyed this this episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:06

Dude, yeah, John, I appreciate it so much. Thank you so much for taking your time to talk, for uh imparting some knowledge. Um, where can uh where can people find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:15

So you can find me at Religion with John on TikTok, Instagram, and I'm starting to post on Substack. Hey, all right, yeah.