Megan Phelps-Roper

00:023 two one yes are we live not yet pause hold YouTube some sort of a struggle yeah we're live okay how are you you're a Wheeler Walker Junior fan I see um I maybe I will be you will you never heard of him before I hadn't I confess that's okay um so first of all thank you thanks for doing this appreciate it yeah no problem what is it like I mean I guess this is the best way to get this started what is it like being a person that grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church for person on the outside for me I when I think of that I think of like this crazy hateful angry environment filled with like really mean people that say horrible things about gay people and all sorts other folks but I meet you and you're super nice you seem so normal that is the conundrum so I mean a lot of the things the words that you just used to describe the church that's definitely not how I experienced it

01:11growing up for the most part um I mean my family outside of when they're not on the picket line they're I mean incredibly kind and gentle and and compassionate and and I think the biggest misconception about the church is that they're motivated by hatred um and in their eyes it's the definition of loving what we we thought we were doing what we were doing was loving our neighbor so in the first time that phrase appears in the Bible it's in the context of when you see your neighbor sinning you have to rebuke him not just like watch him wander off on this way to hell so that was how we saw it we thought we were warning people and and giving them the only hopeful message um that could save them from eternity and hell was there ever any dissent amongst the the people that were in the church about like how the message is being distributed like if you're holding up a

02:00sign that says God hates and uh a gay guy was being buried at a funeral and you guys were there protesting with those signs like there was ever anyone inside the organization that was like hey this is not the way to do it these people are suffering and mourning not really I mean once once my grandfather uh it was he was the one who kind of um developed that strategy he thought so you know this the example for funerals if somebody if they're burying somebody uh so a soldier say or a gay person uh it's an example of the curses of God so God says if you uh obey me I'll bless you and if you disobey me I'll curse you why soldiers so several times in the scriptures uh it's this connection between the sins of the nation and uh the P the punishments so for instance in the Book of Judges it says they chose New Gods then was war in their Gates uh and and then um in the

03:01books of the Kings it says they um uh there fell down many slain because the war was of God and then in the book of Hosea it says uh they have deeply corrupted themselves therefore I will remember their iniquity and I will visit their sins though they bring up their children yet will I beve them there shall not be a man left so it's these these threatenings These Warnings from God that if you disobey me I'm going to curse you so we would go to these soldiers these soldiers funerals uh to warn the living to say that if if if you don't want to be likewise punished you have to repent you have to change your ways and and obey God now people that are also hardcore Christians uh that also follow the word of God very closely but still would see like what you guys were doing at these funerals holding up these signs protesting where a soldier who supposedly gave his life for our

03:54freedom right supposedly they're over there fighting so that we could be safe here and that yeah you guys are out there with these signs like there had to be a lot of people that have like-minded views in Christianity but still were furious at you people yeah absolutely and and from our perspective um we thought that they were substituting their righteousness for the righteousness of God so they were upset that we were out there giving this message that was 100% biblical in our from our point of view and they God calls that compassion when he sends his servants with his message so we thought even though they call themselves Christians they're ignoring these you know vast swaths of the Bible that that support what we were saying and how we were saying it so I mean there was definitely a lot of a lot of push back from people on all sides but and especially from um other Christians but

04:45we just thought they're not really Christian because they're not following this like we understand it w so you guys were pretty much solidified in your opinion it was a consensus it's like everybody thought you were doing the right thing right so I mean so that when the soldiers funerals when the was protesting it was in June of 2005 that we started protesting soldiers funerals how was it brought up so my grandfather had been so 2005 so the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan you know he'd been you you see these things on the news uh and he he was I mean the funerals like what was going on at the funerals and he said these aren't funerals these are patriotic pep rallies and they're saying all these things about God Bless America well God isn't blessing America God is cursing America so we have to go and and give a different message um so that's how it came up initially um but so I

05:33went to my first soldiers funeral protest in then the following month in July of 2005 and before I went so you know every time we would go to these like I was protesting from the time I was 5 years old so when you go out on the you know to these protests a lot of times there would be uh media there you know people asking questions and I I wasn't sure how I would answer if somebody asked me why are you at this funeral I didn't I wasn't sure how I would answer it so like I felt very when I found out I was going I thought I thought I need to um I need to understand this so I went to my mother and she brings forth those verses that I just quoted to you and several others we sat down as a family as we did every night um you know to read the Bible and to talk about world events and you know the church's interpretation of these uh events in light of their understanding

06:23of the scriptures so you know she goes through and explains this you know very carefully and because her answers came from the Bible I was that was my my Foundation was that the Bible is the infallible word of God and that it's true no matter what any human thinks and that we have a duty to obey it 100% no matter no matter what I think or feel otherwise I have to bring my thoughts and opinions in line with this so even though I had a lot of trepidation at the beginning about going to those funerals uh I very quickly acclimated to it you know as you do when in an environment like that where everything depends on you falling into line now what was it like when you first did it like what was the reaction to other people you know other people's reaction to you MH so that very first one it was in Omaha Nebraska and it was incredibly tense um so there was

07:19a bunch of cops we always every time we would go to protest somewhere we would contact the police to make sure that there would be a police presence um because because people were tempted to and did you know would come after us physically and try to assault us and and again this it happened with some regularity so from the very earliest days of the protesting we uh you know my mom and her generation had made this decision to who I should say many of them are lawyers so they would you know write letters from you know as as attorneys saying we're going to be coming we're going to be protesting in your city uh people this is what we do you know we hold signs on public sidewalks we are not violent we so explaining what a pro what our protest looked like and then and then saying if you want to avoid you know uh these kind of like violence that often happens uh be there

08:11so this first one how old were you in 2005 I was 19 so you were a kid you know but a grown kid and you know you're with your parents and this is the first time you're protesting a veteran what what was that experience like so I'm standing uh across the we standing across the street from the church like I said it's it was very solemn very quiet there were which is not was not normal really for protests a lot of times we would be out there you know singing and chanting and and making it was a big public display um but this was uh like I said incredibly tense nobody was really talking nobody was really moving um uh and you know the family was you know pulled up in a and I think it was in a limousine across the street and the family got out and and looked around uh and saw us and did they know you guys were going to be there beforehand mhm because we always would publicize that

09:04we would send out news releases so they were aware that we were going to be there um and there were a bunch of I think they were Marines uh like in dress blues standing there and they they looked incredibly angry and and upset but like I said it was it was like it felt like at any moment if something happened like that the whole situation could explode but again so the cops having the cops standing there and so it was um it it was it was it was pretty uh it was it was really tense what kind of things were they saying to you guys they weren't saying anything like none of this like what I was trying to say it's really unusual um for protests like that we a lot of times we would be exchanging you know we would we of course would be yelling about Bible verses and the hatred of God and you know they would be talking about love and tolerance and how we're wrong and not Christian and but at

09:52this one it was it was very quiet it wasn't always like this so pretty quickly you know once again once we became acclimated to to those protests um and also there have you heard of the Patriot Guard Riders it was a group of motorcyclists uh who decided to and they formed like in uh across the country so in every state there was a group of these uh motorcyclists who when they found out we were going to be protesting somewhere they would go and you know rev their engines so that our words and songs and such wouldn't be heard by the family uh and and they would you know hold American flags and try to block you know it's always it's putting a buffer between us and the family and uh so when when that started to happen it became almost like a game sometimes and you know in hindsight I this makes me cringe and and but but it became like this game of trying to like show that we were going

10:48to get our message across no matter what any human being wanted because we knew we were so sure that this was what God wanted wow what made you leave uh a lot of things it it started my very first sort of conscious doubts came from conversations on Twitter so wow yeah something good got done through Twitter yeah lots of good things I also met my husband there oh there you go while I was still at the church it's kind of is he an atheist uh I don't know that he would use that word to describe himself actually I was just talking to Sam about this and I was like when people the problem with the word is when people when you say atheist people think jerk and well so many people do so many people think that like oh you're absolutely certain that there is no God and so it's it's a word that I hesitate to use to describe myself too but but I'm not a I'm not a Believer I don't even like to

11:42say I'm not a Believer because I I love people I believe in people and that there is so much hope and and for people and that we can I don't know anyway so so conversations that you had on Twitter did what do you like what what doors did they open in your mind right so I got on Twitter and it was like an extension of the picket line right so we go out there with these picket signs and you know people would come up to us and ask us questions and so it was this it was a constant uh a constant conversation and so I got on Twitter to take that you know to to the internet to to reach more people and so one of the first things I did when I got on Twitter was to attack this Jewish man named David Abbott ball who ran a Blog called julicious he was listed as the second most influential Jew on Twitter uh on this who's number one um I actually can't remember not memorable not part of my

12:35story I guess but um you can check it it's the jta's list if you want to okay but anyway so he was listed as number two and uh so he responded initially with uh you know sarcasm and and kind and hostility um but pretty quickly he sort of changed tactics and started instead of like mocking me although he still did do that some too um he was asking questions about our picket signs and I started asking him questions about Jewish theology because I I wanted to better know how to counter it you know to from the scriptures I was sure that they were wrong Jews killed Jesus and and they reject him as the Messiah and so all of these things um so um right so we're having this back and forth and this goes on for about a year and during that year I actually met him twice I I protested him twice once so you went to his functions or was he giving speech like where was he so in

13:30Long Beach actually at the julicious festival they had this this Jewish cultural Festival what a great name yeah it's great he's great um so he right so he was going to be there uh and you know I went and I was protesting him uh and he came out to the picket line and it was it was one of those like very Rowdy pickets there was a bunch of uh counter protesters like and they were it was I don't know guys dressed as like the Easter Bunny and Jesus and you know it actually got pretty so I was actually super got violent well yeah and the cops this I told you we called the cops like the cops were just standing there watching people like actively assaulting us like hitting us and so we're like walking around trying to you know to not be hid because we're not going to hit back we weren't like I said the church is very against violence like they're not going to be violent to people or

14:19defend themselves just just to so I was actually really glad when David came out because he became like a buffer between me and the rest of the counter protesters because everybody could tell that he was you he's wearing his delicious shirt and whatever anyway so so the conversation continued there and then also at another protest uh six or seven months later um and then uh not long after that second protest were talking again and he was asking about one of our signs that said death penalty for and you know of course I'm reiterating why the church believes that because in the Book of Leviticus God calls for the death penalty for gay gays and and then in Romans one in the New Testament uh it's reiterated says they that commit such things are worthy of death so um and so so I'm telling David these things and he says um it's like yeah but didn't Jesus say let he

15:13who is without sin cast the first stone and I said what we always said to that which was uh we're not casting Stones we're preaching words and he said yeah but you're advocating that the government cast stones and I remember you know this is through Twitter and so I I see this message and I I kind of gasped and I was like I had never connected that Jesus there of course he was talking about the death penalty specifically about the death penalty and we were advocating it and so I wasn't sure how to respond but he David kept kept going he said and and what about this member of your church who had a child out of woodlock and I said what what about it like that's this is another point you know people it was it was you know common knowledge people knew about this and would throw this in our face and we would say the standard of God isn't sinlessness it's repentance so she doesn't deserve that

16:05punishment because she repented she stopped you know she wasn't having premarital sex anymore and she knows that it's wrong and she changed her mind and she changed her conduct which is what repentance is and he said yeah but she would have been killed if you had instituted the death penalty for that sin and it was the first time again that I connected that if you kill somebody as soon as they sin they you lose the opportunity to repent and be forgiven and so again so I'm I'm just sort of staring at my phone and you know in topa cans say he's in Jerusalem and I really quickly ended the conversation I don't even remember quite how but it was just sort of this like I had I didn't know how to handle this because like I said the church is full of lawyers they're very intelligent and their arguments and their theology for the most part is very well constructed and

16:56super consistent and so for there to be this you know this this hypocrisy this contradiction I didn't like my brain was felt like I was exploding so I went to a couple people in the church including my mother um and the response was feel free to stop me at any time by the way I feel like I'm feel best here no um so she she reiterated the same verses that I had told David that that supported our position but she didn't address the contradiction and when I seemed unsatisfied with it uh she said I was getting wrapped around an axle and uh just sort of you know push it aside and the the response was so just to shut shut me down uh and then to move on to the next thing which is it's a very human thing right when somebody puts something in your face that that is this contradiction that you're not ready to deal with or that you can't you you you know what I mean you compartmentalize

17:48you kind of sort of push it aside and try not to so the way that I dealt with it was to uh stop holding the sign because I knew that if somebody asked me about it I I could couldn't defend it cuz I didn't I didn't believe it but there was nothing else I could do at that point and but the importance of that conversation this is obviously just one small contradiction one small inconsistency and a vast you know we still I still believed that everybody outside the church was basically completely wrong and and evil and or delusional and that the church was basically right except this one point did anybody ever feel that it was bad do use slurs like to use some sort of insulting term for gay people instead of saying God hates gay people so at the very beginning they did use the word gays why did they change it well so my grandfather would say that gay is a misnomer these people aren't happy

18:45they're committing suicide and they're they're evil and abominable and they have no peace God has taken their their peace they're not happy so gay is a misnomer and so the word the word they say like Amos in the Book of Amos there's a uh it's translated Firebrand there so my grandfather would say the word is an elegant metaphor and it's um gays you know a b are a bundle of sticks right uh used for kindling so gays are they they burn in their lust one toward another and they fuel the fires of hell and the fires of God's Wrath so it's an elegant metaphor Grandpa Gramps would say um do you know what the original metaphor was really supposed to be you mean from the Bible no no the word oh no actually means a bundle of woods a bundle of uh wood and they would use that expression to describe a woman because a bundle of wood is burdensome like carrying around a bundle of wood is very

19:44burdensome so when they would call a woman a they were saying that she was burdensome so when they would call a man a they would say that he is burdensome like a woman like a bundle of wood like a non- manly man that can't get work done you know along those lines right and then it became used by people erroneously saying that it was about burning them and that they would burn gay people because they would burn of wood that's not really the case just sounds cool yeah I actually had never heard that before yeah yeah if you look see if you can find that Jamie Google that uh the original term meant burden bundle of wood and burdensome like a bundle of wood cuz I mean think about like carrying a bundle of wood especially if you didn't have a truck it's a huge pain in the ass that's kind of what the source of it was wow yeah know I had no I had no yeah people

20:40use it wrong and the real problem is the people that use it wrong are like gay activists and they try to say how horrible that word is because it was used to represent how gay people were burnt but there's never been like a time in history where like there's a whole series of gay people that were like burnt you know it's just like they drowned witches and things were done like real specifically but it's never been like a thing what do we got here the word has been used in English since the late 16th century is abusive term for women particularly old women a reference uh to homosexual sexuality May derive from this uh why does it have to be so weird the way got it oh okay yeah I can read like there uh blah blah blah so there it is an alternative possibility is that the word connect did with the practice of uh fagging in British private schools in which younger boys performed potentially

21:37sexual duties for older boys although the word was never used in this context H but the big one means the bundle of wood the bundle of sticks what's that Jamie what do you got something awkward to be carried as right to yes exactly burdensome so that's where it comes from it really didn't have anything to do with burning people but like they will they'll repeat it like to to make a big Point like a big dramatic point but it's you know it's melodramatic you would think I would know this given our uh respective histories but I literally have never heard this in my life yeah it's an important distinction for why people use that term because it's really just that they're annoying I mean it's really just you know they just think of some non- manly man who can't get things done and he's probably crying all the time and he's burdensome my experience of gay people

22:33since we left which is obviously much more uh maybe reflective of reality uh has not been that at all what has it been like un impossibly wonderful don't overcompensate because because you're getting out of this bad environment I'll take you down to Santa Monica Boulevard to some of the gayest spots on Earth you'll see dudes with cut off shorts and you'll change your tune be like what are they doing well I mean I'm not trying to like to paint everybody with the one brush now either but they've been amazing as soon as they start being attracted to men something happens they become different than every other I mean like just people right like just other people so I mean right after we left like uh at first I thought we have to hide from the past forever my sister and I I should say left together um how old were you guys so I was 26 I was almost 27 and did you have a long conversation

23:21before you did it many it was about four months between when I first talked to her about leaving so what was the first initial convers and how did you gather up the courage to even sort of breach the subject uh it was really terrifying and awful uh because I mean I remember from the time I was very young um there's this passage in Deuteronomy that my mom would quote and it's about you know if somebody uh if if you're you know friend somebody close to you your relative somebody comes up to you and says uh let us go and serve other gods like somebody secretly says to you those things uh you have to Stone them and you the one that they came to you're supposed to be the first one to and my family is not stoning people um what would they do though if it said it in the Bible and someone said hey we got to we have to serve this golden cow so they we also have in the New

24:11Testament it talks about rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesars andto Gods the things that are God so we also have to obey the law of man we have to obey the law of so and we're so we're not supposed to be um just so the law of man supersedes the law of God we're we're supposed to be obedient to the laws of men but also I mean they this this's kind of a complicated um a little bit theology where it sort of undid a lot of the Mosaic code that we didn't actually have to follow those things but honestly I I don't know I I think it's the whole I think it's like the death penalty for a thing so like if they still believe that that punishment is is applicable then then we should be trying to convince the government lobbying the government to like with those signs right so um so that I it was you know my sister if I went to her and said these things to her she could easily have

25:01turned around and and told my parents not as a it's a culture of tattletales not out of bad intention but because they believe that they're trying to help you right they don't want you to go down a bad path so so you know when I it was it was the I first thought of leaving on it was July forth and I was with my sister at the time and when it first occurred to me that I might that I might have to leave the church or that the church might be wrong I thought I had to leave like that second because if it even occurred to me that me I didn't belong there and that God was going to punish me and that I I just felt like immediately so much guilt and like I was a betrayer but was all your social life connected still to the church yeah and was this where had you already known your husband by then I I had yes so he corrupted you he was definitely part of it so but like it wasn't like that it's

25:56like the beginning like so so he was just another person on Twitter at first um and it was was it was like friendly conversation and this went over the you know for the course of several months um I don't know eight eight or eight months or so seven or eight months uh and then and it was never there was never anything you know about feelings or you know relationships or all that stuff is totally forb no nothing like that like not even like not even anything like nothing like it's just I my mind didn't work that way there is there can be no relationship like that with Outsiders but Outsiders Outsiders wow so you know and you I I actually thought I was never going to get married because most of the people in the church about 80% or so of the people in the church there's only 80 people or so anyway or my immediate and extended family so I thought there's no

26:48way that I'm going to I'm just not going to get married she just accepted that it was it wasn't it wasn't like an like an easy thing at first but it was just it was just the facts on the ground you know like so the facts on the ground were you had to date someone inside the church there was only 80 people in the church they're all your family you can't date your family yeah wow I mean I should say there were a couple of people my age here like and they came they had just joined the church like you know that but I had no like I had no interest in any of them and no slim pickings and not wow and uh but yeah it's it's it was kind of strange but I so I actually had a dream about meeting and I should say also my husband at the time I didn't know he was totally Anonymous on Twitter like it's just his words I didn't know what he looked like I didn't know you know his name or where he lived or

27:42anything about him uh except except these words um and he was uh he was just curious and kind and and that sort of and he loved people and so he would sort of always be pushing pushing the conversation back to like I'm giving just like I told you all those verses about protesting funerals and why we have to go and do this and the importance of it and why we have to thank God for these tragedies because God is Sovereign and he's in control so I'm I'm talking about the I'm scripturally like the justifying all these things and he kept pushing it back to because he's not super well versed in the Bible um so he didn't know how to he's like I I see that the Bible says these things but what about the family like I just cannot imagine going and doing these things to to people and so this is all happening like on as I'm so I'm also still having conversations on Twitter with so many

28:38other people so it's like Twitter became this like empathy machine for me like so it's not just like on a picket line where people are butting heads and you know arguing and debating and and yelling and it it's I'm yes having these they can be kind of aggressive conversations but I'm also seeing like photos of their cats and them you know exchanging you know joking with their friends and so I'm seeing a side of people and sort of being immersed in this community in a way that I had never been before and wow so it was really it's like I'm trying to say like when you say why did you leave like there's it took it was so much sort of happening you know around this time so when by the time this like pile up of things um you know and I'm processing it as I'm going through this I'm also talking to my sister uh and and she was the only and other people in the church but she was

29:33the only person if I ever had a doubt or or a question Ora like if I thought we're doing something wrong here she was the only person who would say yeah you're right that doesn't make sense that I should say my sister is um creative and artistic and had like a little bit of reputation for being kind of rebellious not as like submissive as my me and our other sister um so it was this this Dynamic of uh you know between the two of us where she was the only person I could fully articulate my thoughts and feelings to um and so when I first thought of leaving and I turned around and I thought I literally I was we were painting at a friend's house painting the walls and I I turned around to set my paintbrush down I thought I had to go and leave that second and I turned around and saw my sister and uh I thought I can't leave without talking to her so the next day I um she came home

30:30from work over the you know lunch hour and we would always like go up to my room and we were talking about all these doubts we were having and I was crying and I put my head in her lap and and I couldn't even like articulating the idea of leaving was too much like it's it's terrifying um and it's just seemed like impossible and I said um what if we weren't here and she saidwhat do you mean and I said what if we were somewhere else and so that starts this conversation where you know I cannot let go of all the things that I thought that the church was doing wrong that our where our theology was wrong where we were applying it wrong I mean in a way that that was destructive and unscriptural um and she kept pushing the conversation back to we're never going to see our family again we're going to lose everyone and everything that's ever been important to us there is no hope

31:28outside this church all the things that we had learned about Outsiders that you know that they were evil and they they could never truly love each other or care about care about one another they're really just enabling one another on the path to hell so and so this this back and forth you know goes on for about four months before we finally actually left and uh it was as as bad or worses than I could have imagined but to get back to the well let's get to that bad or worst you could have ever imagined so I should so you left how did you leave uh we were talking to my parents and you know and it was another another issue had come up and I I couldn't we couldn't it was a battle that we weren't going to fight again we we we kept I should say in those four months I kept trying to to articulate these doubts in a way that the church would accept like trying to

32:23convince them not being as open like But as time went on I became more and more open about about these questions and doubts um and I I just I I couldn't we couldn't fight it anymore I just looked at Grace and I said we have to go and cuz we and I should say also we had already been packing like we had we had started packing our things about a little over a month before that and we had started like taking boxes to our friend's house um and with the understanding he's actually our he was our high school English teacher um that we had kept up with on Twitter and he you know I we basically told him you know if something changes if the church changes and these things get better uh then we'll we'll take all our stuff back and just pretend like none of this ever happened and he was just you know understanding and compassionate and and really supportive um but so we had

33:19done all this stuff already but we actually had to go and pack the rest of our things so we walked out of our parents' bedroom and went and started packing and you know people started coming my brother and some of the elders and my aunt my cousin you know people I we were very close like our whole my whole life revolved around the church and so to look these people in the face and say that you know this the you know the US them mentality it it the bonds that are created in environments like that are incredibly strong at least they were in our church and again most of these people are also my family um so it was it was awful uh and I'm you know crying and packing and trying to explain to them why why we're leaving and I can hardly talk you know be just just I was so overwhelmed but um we actually had to go back the next day with a U-Haul to get the rest of our stuff our parents

34:17helped us pack it's not it's not one of those uh like there are some or groups like that where they don't want you to leave they'll they'll try to stop you from leaving like I heard um the Scientology the mavage I can't remember Ron Ron yeah he was talking about like phys like actual um obstacles to you leaving like physically like they're not going to you can't get out of the gate like nothing like that you know my they always would say this is a volunteer army and if you don't want to be here then you don't belong here so it's just the uh it's the threat of losing everything and everyone Elation MH yeah yeah being ostracized by and just sort of expelled into this world that you believe and have always believed is is evil and without hope and doomed so how did you do it how did like you're you you got all your stuff packed people are coming in they're saying yeah I mean

35:06like they're they're they're trying to convince us but once they understand that we're not being convinced that that you know they they walked away so I mean that night our dad dropped us off at a hotel and then Jesus Christ yeah like it's it's it's so immediate that you become this you become other you become an outsider like in the next morning when we went back I rang the doorbell I rang the doorbell to your own house and I lived in that house from the day I was born wa so you felt like you had to ring the doorbell like this is not my world anymore yeah wow Grace was like why did you ring the doorbell and it was like there's there's no other there's there is nothing else like it's this is not our home and this is not so we go and you know we're packing all of our things it was just it was awful just a I had been in those four months I had been so terrified of cuz I I know

35:57knowing what was coming like just imagine you're going to lose everyone in your life that they're just you're just going to like you're not going to like how your parents met and fell in love or like your grandparents and family recipes and photos and memories and what did the house looks like I'm like taking photos and voice recordings and just all the time like in every it was just it's it's overwhelming it's just wow um but did was there also like a feeling of relief was there also a feeling of like we actually did it I'm actually doing it it's actually happening I'm going to get away from this I know this isn't real I know this isn't right did you understand that it was a cult so I was really against and I still don't intend not to use that word I mean it's it's it's a fine shorthand I guess for some there are aspects of the church that are not cultist for sure like like

36:47what I just St saying like there's no they're not trying to get your money they're not trying to like the not some charismatic leader trying to have sex with everybody's wives and children or whatever it's it's nothing like that it's but there are definitely aspects that are a cultish the the fact that you can't there is no such thing as agreeing to disagree like that's and the the penalty for disagreeing uh is so high like so there are things like that that that are definitely cult-like but um but I was definitely I was not in that in that moment I was not okay with using that that term for sure right it it was definitely a it was it took a lot of time and well it's a derogatory term but what it represents is an IDE ology that a group subscribes to it doesn't necessarily have to have all the negative ramifications of an ideology for it to fit into the category of a

37:34cult right yeah and I and I totally understand that now which is why like you know if somebody says it I I sometimes will will say there are things that aren't qu like and explain what I think is not but I'm also I don't do it every single time like I understand that it's that it's a so you get all your stuff after you ring the doorbell you're gone and then how do you like enter into the world did you have a job back then or did you have a job with the church it was a job with the church looking for the uh Law Firm so it's Jes home job family life just just everything all at once um and then also of course you're going into a world that I had just spent my entire life you know protesting and and just it's so crazy when I look back now at at videos which I couldn't do for a long time but there's tons of videos and interviews and documentaries that you know where I'm I'm answering all

38:27these questions and I I it's it's crazy to me were you there when Louis THU came out to do the documentary did you talk to him while he was there yeah both times he he was the first time it was uh he was really super nice um you know he came and we were like making egg rolls together and like going bowling and jumping on the trampoline and and yeah he would come to picket and and it was really funny because like there so he came for three weeks like but three weeks like a month like one month he came for a week and then the next month came for another week and then came again so the first time like I didn't know anything about him or who he was really I mean I knew he was from the BBC obviously and that um but I hadn't seen any of his stuff and then before he came the next time uh I was supposed to be studying for a test or something I was in college and uh I was procrastinating

39:16so I look on YouTube and find this documentary that he did do do you know the one the um white supremacy than Nazis Louis and the Nazis so I watched that entire documentary and I was like ah like I know what his uh angle is like it's the oh these poor kids they were raised in this and they don't know any better and at the time I was kind of indignant cuz I was like I I'm a thinking person you know like I at all my life growing up like I it was never just like I explained about the solders funerals like I never just just went along with something like I wanted to understand why I needed to understand that it was scriptural and from the Bible and so if you could show me that then but like I'm a I'm a curious person so but I just had never obviously questioned like the the most foundational premises of our belief system which is the Bible is the infallible word of God and

40:07Westboro Baptist Church are the only ones who have who can understand it correctly I just I just never I never really got got past that because if it was in the Bible and it made sense to me then it was fine so anyway so I was kind of indignant when I saw what Louie was trying to do like we're just poor children and and um so and I went and told my family and so then everybody you know everybody knew about it um this you know what he was doing and I remember telling him something about how he was it was Insidious what he was doing because he was not being honest he was being really friendly but not being honest about what he really thought about us uh anyway what did he say to that well he said actually he actually addressed it specifically in the second documentary he said you've been saying this but but I've never pretended to agree with you I've never I I've been

40:57pretty pretty honest about it um and I'm an atheist I don't believe that what you're doing is right I don't believe the Bible is the word of God da um and so I of course and he's right he was exactly right um but I definitely couldn't see it at the time um well you leave you get out and then what do you do do you get a job so I thought immediately so I my degree is in finance so I went through business school all these people saying you know start saving for retirement immediately did it us so and you know we believed that the Doom of the world was emminent so I never really did that um so end of days type stuff yeah yeah so you were thinking that because of all the sin one day there's going to be a reckoning and all the Christians are going to vanish y destruction is imminent was one of our signs did you guys ever watch that movie was those those terrible two terrible

41:53movies with Kurt Cameron uh about the apocalypse m God damn Left Behind no oh they're so good you should watch them you said they were terrible I will watch them they are terrible but they're so good they're so bad that they become like oh my god what the is this did you ever meet Kurt Cameron no I want to meet that dude no I it's really funny uh you listen to Sam's Sam Harris's podcast yes so his episode with Lawrence Wright he said something like Lawrence Wright said said something like author of going clear the book on Scientology yes yes he said um he talks about Freud the narcissism of small differences and I was like oh my God yes like we other Christians like were some of our our biggest targets and we it would be like the smallest things like for instance there was like one church that we had some kind of like very little affiliation with in the early days of

42:48the picketing and uh then their women started to cut their hair those women women are not allowed to cut their hair you're not allowed to cut your hair at all we weren't allowed to cut our hair at all yeah no oh my God that's hilarious because of a Bible verse you know what does the bible verse say uh it's First Corinthians 11 14 I think actually it says a woman's hair is is her glory it says don't you know doesn't nature itself teach you that it's a shame for a man to have long hair but a woman's hair is her glory and it's given to her for a covering so H and and it says a long hair right so my grandfather interpreted that to mean uncut which again like I I I did not we didn't believe in interpretation at the church like the the fact that he was adding something into the Bible that wasn't there before because obviously you can have long hair without and still

43:36cut it yeah but uh but it's like if long hair is good then uncut's better so in the story oh he had his rules oh what about clothes like how do you reconcile the fact that you're not supposed to wear two different types of cloth so that so the the church sees this as uh the distinction between the ceremonial law of Moses and the law so the ceremonial law is like mixed fabrics and keeping kosher isn't it like penalty by death of mixed Fabrics I actually can't remember but but we something Preposterous like that we didn't worry about it though because we thought these passages in the New Testament said you don't have to follow those ceremonial laws so we didn't worry about it but did you guys spend any time researching the actual history of the New Testament like how it was constructed so not I mean some yes but not really because in our minds uh God is Sovereign right so the church

44:29believes in predestination so God controls everything and everyone so so God controlled the construction of the New Testament as well exactly right even though it was done by men it was God's will to have it be so it was all God's word yep exactly how convenient mhm that's a nice little like you just don't have to you don't have to ask those questions because but what about the fact that it was like Constantine wasn't even a Christian until his deathbed is that because God didn't want it to be that way it's just it doesn't it's irrelevant that's a nice sweet loophole if you could just say that it's God's will God knew the entire time don't worry about it but it's a bunch of men wrote it yeah but they did it because God let them do it right but then the question is which version which is another question like I I sort of instinctively avoided it's like atheists

45:14would ask this question like why the King James version yeah and uh you know you can't really answer because gramp said so like right that's not did we actually say that my grandfather was the found like Pastor first Pastor the only Pastor for you know founded the West robst Church I don't think we did but I think everybody kind of knows hopefully everybody knows Grandpa Grandpa was Fred Phelps rights yes exactly um anyway just wanted to close that Loop um so it's just but like what was the what was the thought process behind like just accepting that kind of stuff like did your grandfather ever bring up the even older versions of the Bible that they were finding like what was his thoughts on like the Dead Sea Scrolls and things along those lines just didn't address it because it just didn't matter because again just it's all God's word anyway it's God's will it's God's word it's so

46:05it's so fascinating when someone's so rigid with their belief system it's like this is it and this is and as long as you believe that it's all God's will it's like oh well it's God's will seriously but the New Testament was written by Constantine a bunch of Bishops and God's Will and God let him do it right right right oh okay and and not just let him do it but caused them caused them for it made it happen he knows what he's doing yep absolutely every every word of our conversation the church would think that this how does God allow all the you know sodomy and all the crazy going on why do God allow that so this is why I'm not a Christian anymore oh you got confused and you're like what the well so there's this passage in Romans N9 well it's not it's not the only reason I should say but but I have really I have real trouble with this and I think it's it's

46:52still hard for me to say I think this is evil but I think this is evil there's this passage in in Romans 9 that talks about um it gives us analogy of God as Potter and humans as clay in his hands and it uses the example of Jacob and Esau who in the Bible Jacob and Esau were Twins and it says while they were yet in the womb before either of them had done good or evil God loved Jacob and hated Esau and it so it paints this picture of God you know it says what if God willing to show his wrath and make his power known endured with much longsuffering the vessels of Wrath made for Destruction so it says God created some people as vessels of Mercy people that he loves and others as vessels of Wrath made for Destruction so made for the express purpose of destroying them of torturing them in Hell For Eternity so and then so he it's Paul who's writing he he paints this picture god making you

47:51do all of the things that you do and then blessing some and cursing others and he says well you you're going to ask me then why does God yet find fault for who has resisted his will right so if God's making you do it why is he punishing you for it right if God's making you do a horrible thing and you resist his will you can't resist his will right and so he makes you do it and then he punishes you for it and the answer is you don't get to ask that question oh it says nay but oh man who art thou that repliest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast Thou made me this you just don't get to ask that question and to me so this is I've asked like for I spent a long time talking to Christians uh and you know people of well mostly Christians because it's obviously it's New Testament so and but also talking to Jewish people about the Old Testament

48:41and found so many of the like interpretations so many of our beliefs are not they're not fully supported by by the Bible and that there are so many different ways of interpreting so many of are the more destructive of our beliefs but that one I have not found any explanation for that passage that's anything that makes any kind of sense that's consistent with the text and and not evil and I just I didn't I thought I couldn't ask that question for so long when I was at the church right I thought I just have to accept this this is the truth and nothing that I feel or think matters against it um but now I I can't not think of course I cannot ask the questions yeah that's got that had to be so it's also strange when you read the passages in the Bible and they're in thou and th and you go wow like what a weird like you're reading something in a style of communicating and thinking that we don't

49:43even use anymore like how strange is that like how like if you had a conversation with a rational person and they they started talking and thou and thy you'd be like what are you why are you using those words like what's going on here are you okay okay like are you a crazy person but as long as you're quoting some ancient stuff you're allowed to do it like and it just it's sort of highlights how bizarre scripture really is and how bizarre these ideological imperatives these ideological like uh Pathways that are just completely rigid and carved and St you have to follow them but then you're listening you like you don't no one even talks like this anymore like this is such a strange end they didn't even talk like that then when they wrote it because you're dealing with something that was in ancient Hebrew and then it was translated to Latin it's translated

50:31to Greek and by the time it gets to English like boy what a terrible game of telephone you know that the grape vine right so it's just these are questions that I never thought I could ask or that again that it didn't matter because if God or you know for ordained all of it then then it wasn't relevant but there's also a I mean like there is so and this I was talking to Sam Harris about this this morning he like there's so many things in the Bible that I find so much good there also and and like the language is something that like yeah I know it sounds so weird to people but to a lot of people but uh like the King James like I I grew up like again I my mother was reading this to us every every night and so these words uh there's actually a passage that says I found thy like talking to God I found thy words and I did eat them and they were unto me the joy and rejoicing of my

51:23heart right so it was this thing where I I loved it I I loved I loved these ideas I I thought I thought it was the truth and I thought it was like the definition of goodness because God did it and God said it and but even now like there's this one passage that I I really love it says um by long forbearing as a prince persuaded and a soft tongue breakthe bone that last like that's that's it's it's a soft tongue breaketh the bone that that phrase I love the imagery I love the like cuz you know um I did this T talk a few months ago and and uh you know and it it was kind of about this like modern political discourse this this um tribalism this is becoming this you know these calcified you know positions and and failures of empathy and and uh like people think that because you know they're so sure that they're right that they're position is the right position they're willing to

52:23talk to the other side in ways that they're just it's just it's terrible it's the way that I did it at the church it's the way that it's you know that dismissive condescending you know just hostile aggressive right they're the enemy and that's like it that's not also cult like and people don't respond to it like they respond it's this whole uh complimentary Behavior right it's like somebody approaches you a certain way you tend to respond in kind so if somebody comes to you in kindness and compassion you tend to respond you know in in that that way also and when you are angry and aggressive and hostile like it just elicits the same reaction people get defensive right and uh but that that verse I I love that verse it's a beautiful vers well there's obviously some wisdom from what those people were writing down and trying to translate what that wisdom was and there's some

53:17really fascinating passages to me it's always been most fascinating as a time capsule like when I read it I'm like well regardless of who translated this regard this is still a thousand year old book at the very least in terms of you know or 2,000 years old like that alone is really amazing when you're reading the thoughts and the ideas of how someone was perceiving the world 2,000 years ago or roughly you know it's there's something to it where you're it it also solidifies in my mind how briefly human beings have been conscious of their time here on Earth 2,000 years ago is not very long I mean it seems like an incredibly long time for a person who only lives to be 100 but in terms of the the age of the the human race itself which I think they just backdated again they found a new discovery where they pushed back the oldest known human being by over a thousand 100,000 years

54:21yesterday some new discovery some new bones wow so now they know modern human beings have been around for at least 300,000 years it's probably going to go back even further than that they don't even know but um but that's so cool like I was goingon to say I actually think um Rob wolf oldest homo Sapient species discovered in Morocco yeah what does it say what time okay yeah at 100,000 years to the history of modern human fossils these bones are from early anatomically modern humans our own species Homo sapiens with a mixture of modern and primitive traits international team of anthropologists paleontologists and evolutionary scientists report a pair of papers published on Wednesday in the journal medicine journal Nature um evolutionary what was what was Evolution talk like back at home um we didn't believe it did how old what about dinosaurs young Earth creationism one of

55:21the elders said something like um God brought baby dinos on the ark really yeah I I they didn't make it yeah they drown I don't know we we just it it's not a we just at any time there was any conflict or apparent conflict between the Bible and uh evidence you know physical evidence um we just believe the Bible like because of course yeah it's the Bible MH wow um but what you're saying about like ancient wisdom like yeah there was this uh so my husband um he got super into paleo a few years ago and uh he read um John Durant's book uh the Paleo Manifesto and he made me read one chapter of it and it was called Moses the microbiologist and Rob wolf I was going to say Rob wolf mentioned it on your podcast whatever that was a few weeks ago or whatever um and it's so fascinating to like when you read Leviticus like without the context of you know the time and and the time they

56:19were living in um like it a lot of it just seemed like I remember whenever we read be reading this at home you know as a family like there was just so much of it that just seemed like incredibly tedious and like what are we supposed to be getting out of this like I don't even so I read this chapter and it was so like incredible talking about like the Jewish the the the rules about washing your hands which is like of course the the simplest and most effective form of uh you know hygiene and and prevent you know preventing pathogens and and infectious disease anyway it's like super fascinating like how how many of those laws make sense like what you were allowed to eat and what you weren't allowed allowed to eat because of um because of um not eating pigs was all sorts of parasites they carry right and then not eating like cats because cats eat like rodents who also carry anyway

57:06but it's like it's super there's so much detail in there and it was it's incredibly fascinating so like there's when you think about like just the history of humanity and how this book has shaped people's lives for so long it's it's it's really uh it's really it's really fascinating well it is an amazing piece of historical literature you know I mean and it's amazing that so many people have not to use the term but use it as gospel I mean it's the right term right and P it just I always feel strange whenever I read it whenever I read it I feel strange thinking about all the momentum and all the history that has been altered by these words and by the application of these words and your own history I mean your own life was essentially Guided by the application of the interpretation of these words that were thousands of years old I mean that is bizarre but then what's even

58:03more bizarre to me is that Twitter is what snaps you out of it is that interacting with people through online was this open Forum exchange of ideas and especially in Twitter where it's this 140 character limit yeah that's it it really bugs me that Twitter gets such a bad rap cuz it saved your life you should have a t-shirt this ISS Twitter saved my life I I I I think I might actually do that I actually I went to Twitter actually a year ago and I'm going next week too um I'm joining their trust and Safety Council oh really yeah that's always sounds so orwellian to me and I found out some of the people that are on it and they're they're full of there's a lot of BS social justice Warrior nonsense going on in that Council I'm definitely not on the censorship or you know trying to like stop people like Shadow Banning people I think so I don't I just don't know

58:58enough about all of that stuff like I'm but obviously like I'm definitely on the side of of I mean I want people to be able to control their experiences on Twitter of course like so I mean you should be able to like um should definitely be able to block people and mute people and all that stuff that's all well and good right that's what I mean like so you should control your experience but like trying to stop people from cuz like obviously if somebody's when it's when it's criminal when people are threatening and it's violence and threats of violence I think that of course should be illegal it's illegal shouldn't be allowed on the platform but I agree and harassment if you're harassing people or trying to get people to harass people like soliciting harassment right to others like hey let's go go after Megan she doesn't believe in God's word anymore let's go

59:40get her right like those kind of organ using the platform for any sort of a up way like that yeah yeah but I'm obviously much more on the side of like the importance of the marketplace of ideas and being able to it's everything mhm absolutely because people so many people we we come come to these we come to bad ideas in so many different ways sometimes we argue ourselves there sometimes we're influenced by other people but the way out of it isn't to pretend or to to push it out of the public sphere it's to engage it to shed light on it and to publicly argue against it so that other people who might be tempted or starting to go down that path will understand in other words we need to have people who can articulate and defend good principles and to argue against bad ones so that the good ones will rise to the top absolutely I mean that's everything that's human discourse in general and

60:26that's one of the main problems with really rigid ideologies is there's no room for that and then you just like it's God's word and this is it and you just have to trust it and there's baby dinosaurs on the ark and you just got to go okay and because of that that that like I have a friend who was Mormon and she was Mormon for a long time and then she they just sort of like drifted away they decided it was kind of silly and then they they read into the church and they started like what how did this get started and they they just decided maybe we should spend some time away and so they eventually left and one of the things that she said that was really fascinating she said um I'm really susceptible to like like someone who's a artist so like she's like I'm easily influenced like too much so she's like growing up in this fundamental environment this fundamentalist you know where you don't

61:20question anything and you just go along with the word she goes it leaves me really vulnerable to like being influenced and I was like wow that is fascinating she's like I'm really gullible I'm like wow yeah it's like her her structure of how she her questioning muscles were like wobbly and weak and atrophy they just didn't have any pep to them that's exactly the word I use also about the decision making because if somebody else is always making the decisions you never have to like the answer is already there for you you don't have to figure it out for yourself so on both of those fronts like when after my sister and I left it was this sort of like more or less constant you know processing and and asking these questions so like I would have these so for instance uh like back to gay people after we left right so uh I got this guy wrote an open letter like he'd been

62:08somebody that I had sparred with on Twitter quite a bit um and threaten to pick it but never actually did he wrote an open letter after uh my sister and I published this statement essentially just this short explanation that you know we had left and that we regretted hurting people and that uh we were trying to find a better way to live basically just because we had been so public at the church it it seemed like we had to it it seemed like and also it's complicated but anyway so we we did this he writes this open letter in response and invited us to church over at um Hollywood United Methodist Church ah uh and he this he was gay he is gay um and he's a gay churchgoer he is yeah and how does he recogn reconcile all the anti-gay stuff I was going to say so you you said um you know earlier like just the accepting like whatever you find it in the Bible so therefore you have to

62:59accept it and just go along with it no matter you know what evidence or whatever uh seems to contradict it or whatever I was going to say like I encountered people for the first time including uh um I'm actually not sure how he reconciles it I think it has to do with the love of Jesus and and you know Grace and you know just that's the Old Testament and and whatever I'm not exactly doesn't the New Testament represent it does it does homosexuality right yeah so I honestly don't really know uh just like la la la not listening well so that's what I was going to say like I remember encountering for the first time Christians who were willing to say like yeah I know the Bible says that but I I think that applied at a different time or I just don't believe that well I know dude I know more than one that has a an Old Testament Bible quote tattoo MH like hey you got to read

63:49the whole book man says don't get tattooed you can't just you can't go God I'm really into what you're saying like no not right you're not even listening but like that like I think that's it's it's honest right like to be able to to say like yes I I I think this is good and to but to have the wherewithal to say like yeah this this is good and this is wrong there's a Bible verse actually that says hate the evil and love the good and I love that I mean and I want I say hate like what I'm talking about I'm not never it's never about for me it's about people it's about ideas like I think there are a lot of bad ideas uh and so I try to well anyways that there are a lot of bad ideas and there's a lot of people that get defined by bad ideas and I think in that in that way the Bible is a lot like people in that like you could take a really good person who does something stupid does something

64:41wrong does something bad and it doesn't mean they're a bad per you can't say like you are this time you ran this red light and hit that car or you are this time where you whatever whatever you did that you shouldn't have done that you may have done impulsively or what for whatever ever reason like that doesn't necessarily Define you it's a moment in your life but we love to find moments like that and say that's you Tiger Woods that is you you are bad I don't like you now I hate you like no matter what you do in the future you will be defined by this moment that you got drunk and drove a car or whatever the it is it it's it's so frustrating and you know now like like the we we the tendency now on did you read John Ronson's book yes you did I he he yeah so you've been publicly shamed yes like that that tendency that we love it to well and my family like

65:33this this it's it's it was incredibly judgmental like even within the church um it became even more so um towards the end of you know before my sister and I left where like everything this is the way that my sister and I started talking about it after we left it was like it's like everything that looks bad is bad and everything that looks good is also bad like you once you if you can if you identify a person as some kind of Troublemaker or you know you you can just read into the worst intentions and motives when it's it's just as likely that it's it it isn't that like to generalize the worst sorry it's getting under your jaw and so we're losing some of the sound sorry sorry that's okay I kind of talk a little bit soft too sometimes um but and you just don't want to generalize the worst about people and and and make it make that their entire identity right and there's a tendency to

66:24do that with people that are also they they're terrified of scrutiny coming their way so what they do is they cast it all out on others instead of looking internally instead of looking at their own actions and they like to find a fault in a person and then that is their main focus and you see people me that is why tabloid journalism is so fascinating you go to the supermarket and you know you know Matt L's doing cocaine oh look at that you know it's like right there in front of you whether or not it's real who knows but it's like I want to see how he got caught what did he do wrong what this person and do he's doing drugs or whatever whatever anybody's doing she's leaving him for her she's a lesbian and this all this stuff that we love when someone is someone did something bad then everybody's watching it we love it because we all know that there some creepy that we've done

67:13that if somebody found it and then everybody started talking about you'd be horrified so when you see someone getting caught publicly shamed and then this giant pile on it's very attractive to us in some weird way and almost cathartic and almost a relief that it's not us you know but it's so dangerous right because when when you make it when the penalty for speaking up and possibly Mis stepping in these very and and I don't the whole idea of like microaggressions like I like fundamentally like it's this like and I understand like I'm not saying like I think it's really important like I've said this so many times like how we talk to people like it matters how you talk to people but if we're always looking for for a offense we're going to find it right and so but so the problem is like when you know people say something maybe not quite in exactly the right way or

68:06they like the way that we punish people like when we make the penalty so high you know for so just to go back to John's John Ronson's book The Justine Sako you know she tasteless joke on Twitter to her 170 followers or whatever and then it blows up and her entire life is over yeah people don't know the story do you remember the joke uh yeah I'm going to South Africa hope I don't get AIDS uh just kidding I'm white yeah exactly and that turned her life inside out right and I don't mean to say like I'm not saying like I'm just saying there has to be more to get biblical Grace like there's yes there's this uh there's this writer that I love actually uh and she says that uh the language of public discourse has lost uh the how she put it it's public discourse has lost the language of generosity like and that I think that's really it's really terrible but like so when we make the

69:04cost of misspeaking or or of of maybe not saying things in exactly the right way like when you make that cost so high what it does is it pushes out moderates and what you end up with people on both you know two ends of these extremes and they're the only ones talking and then it just it just again reinforces this this you know calcification and US them and you know tribalism and it's it's it's dangerous I think you're 100% right I also think there's something that's going on where when you see someone do something really stupid like Kathy Griffin holding up ahead of Donald Trump I think we realize that in our worst day with our worst thought process worst circumstances that could easily be us in the worst if you grew up in a up way or you have some imbalance in your personal life or maybe you have some chemical imbalance or you're depressed or and then you make a PO judgment call

69:56or you get reinforced by other people around you that are fools as well the next thing you know you're doing something dumb and that is that's why we like watching people balance and do handstands on the top of buildings because we know that we've taken risks we know we've done something stupid you can identify those aspects of human behavior in other folks and when they're doing something particularly terrible there's a certain amount of relief that it's not you and there's a certain amount of fascination of how will this play out and a certain how is this person going to recover from this all that stuff is very very intoxicating to us as these tribal animals that live together and understand how valuable it is to have the love and support of your peers and then that hate is so dangerous the ostra ostracizing of the a person from the group The alienation of them

70:48from the social Community the the the knowledge that they have that people are talking about them all the time in an evil way Griffin she's on American she need going to burn in hell and all this that is going to be just eating away at her and we know it and it's one of the reasons why we like to concentrate on it there's a a certain amount of weird sort of voyerism that's involved in any any sort of a public misstep that people have and then the Pyon by and a lot of people are just very very unhappy with their lives and so when someone else does something screwed up that they can take away some of the f focus of their own missteps and focus it on this person and throw rocks and there's also just the sense of of I mean righteousness yeah right self-righteousness the the um and this is why there's um did you see Sarah Silverman's new Netflix speci no I

71:42haven't seen it yet uh so she it gets to a point and she's talking about like going out to a picket a Westboro picket uh and oh wow and I I actually had seen she talked about this on Bill Mah a few years ago too and I just remember like I I knew knew her as this like I didn't really of course know her anything specific except her her comedy she seemed kind of just kind of loud and and a little I don't know she would say things that would always make me cringe like just very like like very blunt and so you listen to her comedy while you're in the church a little like not a lot to sneak it no like they're they're really like they're constantly they call themselves they're the Watchers right so they are looking around the landscape and seeing like how the word of God applies to all these people they have to in order to to comment on what's going on they have to know what's going on so

72:26what people are saying and and the trends and and and things um so so yeah so I when I saw her on Bill Moore I expected her to be I don't know like hostile and and whatever about the church when she started talking about them but what she said uh what she said was at least on on the special the way she put it was I am them like she went out and was was talking to members of of my family and you know she said we have to see them as human and she was like kind to them on the picket line like told a she said I told the duty joke or whatever you know trying and the picketer I guess one of my cousins or something like snickered you know when she when she makes this joke uh we have to see them as human and then maybe they'll start to see us as human and the way she put it on the on the Netflix special was I am them like I am the product of my experiences and so are

73:16they and you know the only way you can you know change those things is to add to the those experiences like to introduce like David did on Twitter with me and my husband like introduce these ideas in ways that that people can actually hear them and and be moved by them yeah we love to categorize people into these rigid boxes that are unchangeable and that you are this person and you will always be this person you are my enemy and you think this and you think that and you're a dirty liberal and you're a disgusting Republican and we have these weird ideological boxes that we love to shove people into that's a perfect example of that I mean if they were little kids and they grew up in that church and they're 7 years old do we really believe that they would have the wherewithal and the understanding of the the full spectrum of human behavior to say that this is wrong and then we shouldn't be

74:04protesting at this gay person's funeral and we shouldn't be holding up these signs to say God hates does God hate or not like are you right grandpa like who who would have the Mind what's incredibly Brave is that you deep into your 20s have this Revelation and then have the courage to escape and so I want to get back to that like what was your job like what did what was the first job you got uh so I didn't get a job immediately I thought I had to I thought I have to be responsible like of course I'm with my sister like we had some money say just we lived at home we didn't have a lot of expenses like we we used our money to travel across the country picketing but we still we still had some money that's hilarious yeah we got to get out there and piss people off well we and it was it was I thought that was the greatest like I thought like it was always exciting like oh are you going on this

74:58pick a trip yeah I'm going to Los Angeles God so it was just like a part of life you guys used to pick it Scientology a little that's hilarious yeah I remember doing it in Clear Water once too it was super boring like there was nobody out there you got a rank the pickets by like I don't know George W Bush's second inauguration was like insane oh was it and then there's like Scientology oh yeah that was like post 911 it must have been really rough to hold up those signs yeah especially we had a that said thank God for 911 oh God damn it and it was like we were stationed like at the intersection of these three streets and they were blocked off for the parade so like he finishes his inauguration speech and this like huge crowd of people like hundreds of whatever how many oh my God thousands of people like flood down this thing and then they're stuck in this in

75:43this intersection waiting to go right past us on this sidewalk and so there was like this uh you they're seeing this like thank God for 911 and it was right after the tsunami 2o uh so my mom had a was holding the thank God for the tsunamis or whatever and um like so people are just enraged by the time they actually got to us so like we're standing like right at the edge of these barricades like so on the other side is the parade route and so like you know people were like jumping like some guy jumped on my back like on one another like stealing signs and like jumped on your back yeah like so I'm but I was like leaning over the barricade so he couldn't steal my signs sorry I'm not getting away from the mic and uh so like one of my cousins actually like gave his signs to another church member and then was like standing on on top of a trash can like going come on you guys like

76:28just just don't worry about them they're not worth it they're not worth it like this is my cousin who was you know just because it was so it got so physical like you know people and like the cops so he was saying you guys aren't worth it he was trying to yeah pretending he one of them yeah exactly oh wow yeah that one got pretty yeah pretty got pretty dicey but did it get violent like the guy who jumped on your back like what did he do so he I I'm holding my signs and I'm like like I've tucked myself into this barricade like there's nothing else he can do so he and there was like there was I should also say there were cops just on the other side of the barricade just like like every 5 feet there was a cop I think there said there was like maybe 14,000 cops in DC that day CU first imigration after 911 so anyway but so I mean and the cops were mostly just standing there like I

77:12look over the guy gets off and um look my my brother is standing next to me who's seven or eight years he would have been like early 20s and uh um this I see and when he jumped over the barricade cuz the way people were coming after us and this cop like pulls out a a you know Club to and making us get back over the like jump back over on the other side like with these people who are and not really doing anything but it it did you expect the cops to risk their lives even though you're obviously provoking people I mean you're obviously putting yourself in a situation where you're saying something incredibly insulting and just devastating to all these people that lost friends or loved ones on 9/11 or in the tsunami or or have family members that are gay I mean did you guys really expect the cops are going to take the beating for you or the cops are going to

78:04get involved oh for sure I we thought that he like it's their job right but if they didn't you would never do what you did then right like what if what if someone passed some sort of a law saying listen you guys know what you're in for we have no desire to help you there will be no police presence would you still protest well we did that some some cops did respond that way did they say like there will be no pre police presence whatsoever yeah and some where was that at can't remember but it happened more than once yeah for sure and uh like sometimes the cops would we'd say we're going to come to protest this you know something and and they would say you know you can come but you can't hold that sign or you can't they would tell you step on the flag or whatever sometimes they would tell us in advance sometimes they would wait till we got there you guys step on the flag yeah

78:45like we desecrating the flag was a big we saw it as an idol and you know the American flag is an idol actually my mom got arrested I had a we were in Nebraska and um uh my little brother that we protesting a soldiers funeral and we were like far away from the church um but there was a group of people on the other side of the street and they were all holding American flags all the way from from the road all the way up this you know the long entry to the to the church we were quite far away and uh my brother was 9 years old at the time and he did what he always did which was uh you know put down lay the American flag on the ground and stand on top of it and hold a picket sign and within like a couple of minutes uh like nine cops showed up uh and started talking about arresting my mother uh for flag mutilation and contributing to the delinquency of a minor and uh so before

79:34they do the arrest you know again my mom and my uncle were both there and they are both lawyers and my uncle's like uh you know Johnson versus Texas the Supreme Court said in that case that uh you can even you can mutilate not only can you mutilate a flag you can even burn it and uh and that's perfectly lawful and one of the cops was like we're not in Texas we're in Nebraska so like this is obviously a Supreme Court case so it's and he said Supreme Court has jurisdiction all over the country so in other words I guess what I'm saying is like the the way that sometimes the they did sometimes there were really good cops who did their job and were super professional and didn't let their beliefs about our you religious beliefs or their what they thought about our message get in the way of them doing their job but sometimes they did sometimes they would threaten

80:23to arrest you you know my our parents if they brought children they would take their children away from them you know things like that but but we absolutely expected them to to do their jobs like that that was and this is the Supreme Court yeah I I mean I know you're not justifying it but it's from the point of view of something like me uh someone like me I I would say don't bring any cops there no if you if you start that kind of at a funeral or for Soldier and a bunch of people come by and beat your ass well then don't do that again because you're pissing people off and you're hurting their feelings and you're dealing with someone who's already emotionally scarred those cops need to be out there stopping robberies and you know breaking in enterings into people's houses and car jackings and that's what they're supposed to be doing they're not supposed to be like helping out people

81:16who are intentionally provoking and emotionally uh disturbing people right but I mean so obviously from the church's perspective it's like this it's these are sincerely held religious beliefs and the First Amendment like what good is the first amendment like this obviously this uh but it's not a First Amendment issue like the F but because the it's no one in an official position is saying you cannot speak well so compare that to like the campus what's going on on these campuses right where so you think that the cops shouldn't be there to protect those people they're they're provoking people and making them angry well it's a different sort of a scenario um I think the cops should definitely be there to prevent violence on campus for several reasons one reason because I think you're dealing with very young very impressionable people who make very poor choices and feel Justified because

82:05they're around a bunch of people that also have like-minded ideas a lot of peer pressure a lot of um diffusion of responsibility that comes from these Mass groups of people that are acting and the mob mentality that comes along with that I think it's very very important to protect them from themselves and it's it's a hot button issue I think protesting at a solders funeral is just gross I agree with you yeah I mean I know you do I know you do I mean but I'm just saying like I don't think the cops have a responsibility to save you from being gross yeah I just I I don't know I mean obviously this was a Supreme Court case it became a did you know that that it this there was a case where we were sued by the the church and yeah I do remember that how and how'd that play out uh it it went first they they won a $10.9 million verdict against us at the trial court and then it was reversed at the

82:57appeals court and the Supreme Court said 8 to one they have it's the constitutional right for them to do this this is their religious beliefs they have a right they were especially because I mean sometimes I will say like I I described to you that very first picket soldiers funeral picket that I went to like that was very close quarters you know we were right up on top of them like if we had chosen to sing or you know that you know they would have hurt us but in a lot of instances we were way far far away like in that the instance went to the Supreme Court they were more than a th000 ft away there was like a hill the family didn't see church members you know things like that it there was uh so I mean they have a right to do it who has a right well the the church I mean okay they have a right to decide they have a right to do it to say horrible things

83:44about someone who just died or someone who lost a son or a daughter in war yeah I think obviously I I don't I think it's terrible that they do do it and that was actually one of the things you know before my sister and I left that was one of the I wasn't going to hold a sign that I didn't believe was true and I wasn't going to go to any more funeral protests right but do you think that the police should I mean they're they're operating on tax dollars and it's a a limited amount of resources tax I mean we're taxpayers right I mean sure you are but do you think that the resources should go get out of the we right I know I know I'm but do you think that really that the cops that's the an an intelligent and adequate and fair use of resources to go and protect a bunch of troublemakers so I it depends on what how do you how do you feel about the First Amendment like it's it's it's the

84:34principle of the thing rather than the applications like this is just one application like so so who's to decide whether not right that's that's the whole idea so who what we have not entrusted our government to decide what opinions are acceptable and what aren't so they they don't they don't get to have like so right but it seems like you're organizing this so if you're organizing this sort of uh and antagonistic display where you know you're going to hurt someone feelings in a very dangerous time don't you think you should hire your own security like why should the police have to be there to secure you because because this it's the law like they they are supposed to you know protect like the again what what good are so First Amendment rights right the like to be able to to say it's it doesn't protect popular speech right because popular speech doesn't need

85:20protection unpopular speech needs protection so it's just again it's the but the police are really there to enforce laws to right but they're they're just assuming is going to go bad okay so for instance like go just back to the campus thing for a second you have these people who have announced we're going to go protest this person we're not going to let them speak even though they've been granted permission by the you know everybody like they're going they should be able to speak right we're not going to let them speak because we don't like their message so if the cops know that that's going to happen like so so what happens like I'm just trying to about it they let them shut it down but I'm saying I I think that's wrong I think they they should be able they should go and like so this is what you think the cops should be a is what it's called right I think in in and like the cops

86:05can't say well obviously this is still back to like it's not if the cops say well you can't speak because you're likely to cause a riot or people to you know some some kind of disturbance like they're not allowed to do that based on like if it's just this is religious opinion we weren't saying we want you to hurt us we're not trying to provoke you to hurt us we're trying to deliver this message that we think is the truth of God right so it wasn't there's a difference between like deliberately provoking and inciting violence like deliberately inciting violence and what we were doing which was you know trying to Pro Proclaim this message that we thought was the truth our goal wasn't violence like we didn't want violence that's why we contacted the cops right we were going to attack them and and we didn't want to be attacked we just wanted to be able to exercise our rights without fear of

86:57without fear of of violence that's that's the principles of of our democracy right um so I see what you're saying and I think that it's it's gets a little weird when we're talking about people giving speeches on campus and then having other people shut down those speeches because I think that the people who are protesting have as much right especially if it's in their school they have as much right to voice their concern for this message as the person does distribute that message and if the police come along and say we're going to shut down the distribution of this message most of the time they do it when things are out of hand so an excellent tool for someone who's trying to silence people is to make sure that things get out of hand I mean which is why so that having the cops present like and and letting both sides have their voices without res the ability to resort to

87:47violence so this is the whole idea like we would in these letters that would go out to the cops was that the idea of having a buffer zone like a like yes we're we want to Proclaim our message we want you to be out there too like we loved and honestly we loved it when counter protesters were there because it just brought more attention to our message which yeah I understand that but I just think that you shouldn't obviously it's not you anymore but I just do not think that anybody especially from an offensive group like that should be able to allocate resources that are public use like police well so we obviously we didn't make the decision we didn't make the decision to for them to like they decide like okay well is this likely going to like so they can either proactive and set the buffer zone or be reactive like we're calling the cops because we're

88:28getting punched or whatever and cuz like they're going to go out no matter what so we we when even when they would say we're not going to protect you we're we would go right I mean there were obviously there were rare situations where uh so for instance like uh when Gabby gords was shot in Arizona uh we had a couple of um an FBI agent actually and a a guy from the local police department come and say like you shouldn't go and cuz there's a 9-year-old girl who had been killed yeah and the church said they were going to protest her funeral oh Jesus and uh so they said I don't think we can protect you like this it's too volatile it's too uh and so in that case we didn't we actually didn't go that's kind of a chick and response actually I was going to say uh like so so the the thing is so I was there during this conversation and I heard my mom was explaining that we weren't going to go

89:19um it actually had more to do with Logistics like we couldn't get there like playing and whatever like we just couldn't get there so I was like okay like that's fine like I hear you but it's so reasonable it's so fascinating to talk to you cuz you're such an intelligent reasonable person it's almost impossible for me to imagine until I see like the little bit of resistance to the idea of this being a First Amendment issue and the police there then you kind of go back to the church I could see it boil up inside of you well it's just like I we were talking about this a little bito I me just the whole the importance of discourse in the marketplace of ideas this is one yeah like like again I I I just think it's so important and I think it's important you know because obviously my own personal experience makes me such a believer in well you've gone on a journey through free speech

90:11that most people never experience free speech that you don't even agree with anymore right yeah which is even more crazy so let's go back to your first job what was it what was the first job um I worked at a um very briefly like so I should say my sister and I we were in it was a couple months before I actually got a job um we spent the first month with um a cousin of mine who had left the church a few years earlier she lived really close she had left her as well yeah so you guys knew some people had made it out right but like the thing is it there's there's so many my sister calls them mind right so like the thing about people who leave is that they are demonized more than anybody else like even more than gays or Jews or any other Outsider it's ex-members who get the worst you hear the worst things about them because they knew the truth and they rejected it right so I was when

91:05it when when I thought of leaving like the last thing on my mind was that I could go to an ex-member I thought you can't trust them they're evil like so it's it's just this whole um this intensely negative instinctive reactions to to those things but obviously I overcame it and I reached out to her a few weeks before we left and she was amazing like within I hadn't talked to her in three and a half years and had said all kinds of terrible things you know about her um after she left but um but she was wonderful uh and she said like within like 30 seconds of like when I when she understood that I was you know planning to leave uh I want you to come live with me and wow it was it was amazing and uh so kind and so I lived with there for about a month um my sister was still in school so she was we were traveling back to can to Topeka sorry it's like so it's a half an

91:55hour from my cousin's house you know four days a week while she was still in school and so we were constantly running into our family driving by the pickets because they pick it every day in Topeka several times a day and uh like at the grocery store and on campus and so it was just we needed to get away so we ended up going to Deadwood South Dakota um my brother had been a fan of the TV show and uh and it just seemed like a a nice quiet like place so how many people went with you it was you your sister and your brother no it's just just you and your sister and my sister yeah did anybody else join you after a while I have a brother who left about a year and a half after my sister and I did wow and I have another brother who left about eight years before I did WOW mhm so now there's seven there's 11 kids so seven are still at home and four of us are out do you talk to them yeah the the

92:46people who are out yeah what about the people that are in no they they won't have anything to do with us wow which just like you talked to your mom mom no no uh they I but the thing is like so back to Twitter like that's how I know what they what they're up to like I I see phot like they post photos like I'm been watching my little brothers grow up on through photos on Twitter and you know see what my parents what my moming it's awful I mean it's it's I'm glad I'm so glad to be living now and not you know before social media where I can actually see these things and and know what they're up to and a little bit about how they're doing you want to reach out I do you do yeah I mean I do on on Twitter you know this is great about Twitter um sometimes like I have they blocked me on my main account um they block you not all of them but a lot of them did your mom block you uh she

93:42actually created she she got kicked off of Twitter at one point so she had to create a new account so she didn't block me on her new account yet um but uh she blocked you in older account yeah wow yeah that's deep yeah when your mom blocks you on Twitter that's a big thing right when you look and you see that you're blocked what is that what is that lump in your throat like just the way you'd imagine like I can't believe like it's so hard to think back to like I was incredibly close with my mom and I I love her and I miss her like I used to make coffee for her every morning and like we'd go on walks together and we walk time you spoke to her um well actually I I saw her at a picket a little over a year ago she didn't she didn't say anything to me she didn't even talk to you no she she couldn't like a baby that came from her body loved you and raised

94:39you she can like it it's there it's it's so like when I think about like when I was at the church and this is one of the hardest things to articulate I mean to that the feeling of like when somebody leaves like there is no interaction so some people would ask like well what if you saw her at such a place you know wherever at the grocery store whatever like what what would you say they would ask me this while I was still at the church and it it's so it's like uh the only thing I can compare it to is like it's like dividing by zero like the situation does not exist like there's nothing there the idea of trying to talk to her it it's impossible right and and that's so crazy that's the cult that's the part for yeah it's the like in Jehovah's Witnesses they call it uh disfellowshipping right yeah they all have it excommunication Scientology has it they all have it it's one of the ways

95:33they control people the fear of alienation is becoming like them yeah exactly so they'll talk to gay people they'll talk to people with rainbow shirts on they'll talk to ex soldiers they'll talk to those people they won't talk to you right that's insane but this is get your mono acid why not doer um one of the like great things about Twitter and and just the internet in general is that it's a thing where so like they obviously like my little brothers for instance like they are you know hearing all this bad stuff about you know my sister and me anybody who leaves they'll they'll hear bad things about us but the good thing about the internet is that they can go on they can go to my Twitter account and see what I'm actually saying so I'm still I go through these phases where like I I I I will tweet and then I get like I can't I just like the the fear of judgment I

96:27guess from my family and I just I just choose to focus on other things and not post things on Twitter but like I still I follow them on this other account that I created that's not blocked right and it's just WBC accounts so like and I see like things that they say and uh like doctrines that I now believe are unscriptural and so like I will tweet them you know verses like that this contradict you like and try to like basically doing what I was doing for them now against them like just in this right in these instances and and so there is some engagement a little bit with my family on Twitter because especially because of Any like anything that I do publicly so maybe something about this I don't know but like when my TED Talk came out there was a couple of Articles and like people were tweeting it a lot and and uh so my uncle and my aunt both were tweeting tweeting me and

97:17tweeting about me and so I was you know we're having this reparte I guess like just you know going back and forth about these these Bible verses and and debating and so all of that stuff is it's it's I I hope well at some point hopefully will have we'll have some effect and in some ways it already has so like the day that I left there was a we're going to get to that job sometime soon don't worry about it the day that you left the day that I left my one of my cousins you know came into my bedroom while I was crying and packing and I was asking like just very calmly like this is my best my best friend she was a year older than me is a year older than me and uh she's asking me why we're leaving and I'm describing a lot of things and one of the I describ specifically two signs uh one of them was the death penalty for and another one was can't repent and uh she sent me a

98:11message the next morning and like I I was describing verses that I thought you know contradicted those two signs and uh the following morning she sent me a message a text message super early in the morning just like uh just chewing me out basically like that that I know that that Leviticus and Romans one like the death penalty like there's no there's you have no argument like so so what's your really your problem and uh so and then for a while after I left like those signs were like everywhere like she's holding my cousin changes her profile picture on Twitter to her holding those two signs like screaming into the camera and like one of the elders like making a snow angel with those two signs and it's like so they're just like doubling down on this right and uh so this goes on it's like during during this time like I'm talking about it in like giving a

98:56few interviews like talking about it there like on Twitter a little bit um like reiterating the verses that contradict them and then like after more than two years like I wake up one morning and I check you know I'm checking their Twitters and uh there was a blog post and they said uh about that can't repent sign and I was like oh my God it's like like open the blog post and it's uh for the first time ever they had publicly disavowed a sign and using the same Bible verses that I had been and I know this is like a a very small point in the grand scheme of things right but that's that's reason that's critical reasoning but but like so this is this is the goal right so like to knowing this is like what do do you know the story behind it I don't I don't it was after my my brother left so I don't really know you know no nobody who's left since then I also I have two two

99:48actually of my cousins have left since then also um but none of them have any understanding of like of of what happened so I don't know I and I'm not I'm not trying to take credit I should also say like well it doesn't matter it doesn't matter like it just what it matters is that this idea gets yeah this idea gets into their head that what they're doing it's this is not in any way the teachings of Christ right I mean like the thing is like some some of it is some of it some of it is yeah but like there's like huge not the God hates stuff well like so it's so crazy because like this is something that I didn't realize until after we left also but like uh um we thought remember I told you about love thy neighbor like they have a sign Love Thy Neighbor equals rebuke right because that's in Leviticus 19 that's how it describes you know love so mourning your neighbor when you see

100:40them sinning so they don't go to you know they have an opportunity to repent um but the one time like so in the New Testament uh Jesus is is talking with this guy and the guy says like how do I inherit eternal life and he says well Jesus is what does what does the scripture say and he says to love God and to love your neighbor and he says you're right he says and who is my neighbor and Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan so it's like this do you do you know the story um How does it go it's um so this man it says this man falls among Thieves and they beat him and leave him you know half dead they beat him until he's half dead or whatever and you know steal his clothes and and leave him there and then it says a priest goes and sees the man and he crosses the street and walks by on the other side and then a levite who's also like dealing with the things

101:31of God right um he go does the exact same thing crosses and and goes on goes on his way doesn't help him and then the Samaritan uh stops and binds up his wounds and puts him on his own says puts him on his own beast and takes him to an inn and gives the inkeeper money to take care of him and says anything that you spend more than this I'm going to I'll pay you back when I when I come again um so he's like actually practically taking care of him so Jesus says and who do you think which which of these was neighbor to the man who fell fell among Thieves and he said he who has Mercy on him so in other words what I'm saying is like we reduced loving our neighbor to preaching to picking to putting words on signs and going out and Publishing them that's what we thought loving our neighbor was but the one time the example that Jesus gives is not preaching like they they didn't go like

102:23the Samaritan didn't go and say like this happened to you because you're a sinner repent he went and helped him right and so like where was that on our picket signs where was that in your practice Yeah like why didn't exactly exactly like why why didn't we why didn't we make that an issue for ourselves like a a primary part of our Theology and why didn't we encourage others to do it too anyway so again this is something that I didn't realize until after and it was I was talking to a couple of um Christian friends of mine who who pointed that out and I was like I cannot believe I missed that like all those years like and what's crazy is like the in in the story the priest and the levite are the people who are like dealing with the things of God right so they're presumably preaching it's not enough like that's not that's not the Fulfillment of that yeah so anyway

103:14there's like so many of these things that I just couldn't see when I was at the church because again you're you're in this it's it's kind of an echo chamber like clearly we had access to the outside world and we're having these discussions but the problem with that discussion is that in a lot of cases people just didn't understand what our theology actually was how we actually thought which is why you know David Abit ball making this you know julicious like the fact that this was an ongoing conversation that he really got into the nuances of our Theology and could really understand where I was coming from to be able to make the point in a way that I could understand and that's I mean I'm kind of in a position to do that with my family now anybody any of us who leaves and who understands you know can can try to push back in a way that's a lot more effective than people who just don't

104:01understand where they're where they're coming from so you get this job yeah so I go to Deadwood my sister and I go to Deadwood and uh we were only going to be there for a month and and then we're going to go back and Grace was going to go to school and then I was going to get a job um and then I was in Deadwood for a couple of weeks and I was like I I could I the idea of going back to Kansas and like being back in in the shadow of the church and like seeing our family all the time and like seeing them and not like it's it's constant like being face to face with rejection from the people that we love the most and like the idea of going back to that environment like I my cousin was wonderful and I I love her dearly like I just couldn't go back there so like the day before we're supposed to leave Deadwood uh Grace decided to try out for a play there and uh and agreed to stay

104:50with me so we changed like all of her classes to be online and anyway so we're and we're staying with Jehovah's Witnesses which we didn't know that when we booked it it was an Airbnb my first our first Airbnb it's like beautiful old house in the Black Hills and uh um so yeah like they they thought at first when they realized like what was happening like who we were we started having these conversations and then we find out they're Jehovah's Witnesses and they they thought at first that we might be disfellowshipped Witnesses before they realized that was we were at the church uh anyways it was just like this these insane conversations about um you know Doctrine and Theology and ration and and it was just so mind-blowing to see that there were other ways of understanding these texts that are consistent with the text but totally different than we understood anyway the

105:33husband Dustin uh is co-owns a marketing company in Deadwood so I took a job there part time W so what is your process or what's the journey from leaving the church going to Deadwood and then becoming sort of a self-proclaimed atheist like how do you how do you completely remove yourself from the shackles of ideology or did you no so it's it's um it's definitely a I didn't want to do I I don't think it's possible it's not like a a switch flips and you're just everything that you knew is gone but you're obviously very rational yeah so it was like each each time we'd be presented with a situation that that uh so like gay people or Jewish people or these like Jehovah's Witnesses it was obviously I had the instinctive responses to their ideas um and so but each time I would feel you know feel something it would the I would just like ask myself these questions you know what

106:35am I feeling why am I feeling it is this just instinctive what is the evidence like does what makes sense like it's sort of like having to to to to try to reconstruct like like actually look at the evidence again like starting from scratch basically uh in a lot of ways so so each time we're presented with these situations like you know it's cuz obviously like there's all these like so for instance gay people like that actually didn't take that long to change like because I I had met a lot of gay people like while I was at the church and and they after we left and you know we're talking to them and I'm like you know I I thought I was doing the right thing and and they and I'm sorry like I didn't I didn't intend to hurt to hurt you or to to say hurtful things about you like I thought I thought it was the truth and now I don't know what the truth is I don't know I

107:28don't know what I believe I don't know I don't know what I'm doing um and like people I mean they responded to that I mean like they were really understanding um and and empathetic in a way that I never imagined people would be like given how I don't know if you've seen like uh it's it's really hard for me still to to go back and watch some of those videos because it's so it's I know exactly where I was coming from from at the time but it's so like the arrogance and the condescension and the certainty that we were right and now of course knowing like all the reasons why I don't believe those things it's a very strange strange Dynamic but anyways like the fact that people were understanding in spite of that long history of all those things that I had said and done at the church um was was was overwhelming and and and wonderful um but anyway so like being I was basically my sister and I

108:22were basically putting ourselves over and over um we were hadn't been in Deadwood for very long when I got a message from David it was on my on my birthday and I I told him that we had left and uh you know he he saw had stopped tweeting that's he knew something was up cuz I had stopped tweeting several months earlier and uh so he invited us to come to the julicious festival which was a few weeks later it's like end of February or something beginning of March and uh I had just at the jeici festival like 3 years earlier and all these like negative associations and feelings about Jewish people but realizing I don't know anything about Jewish people like we've been protesting the synagogue in in Topeka like all my life but I have I don't really know what like other than you know just generally Jews killed Jesus and you reject him as the Savior so therefore they're like without hope

109:15but I didn't know really much about Jewish theology I didn't know anything about Jewish people like I'd never really spent time with them so so I wanted to go to the Festival my sister and I did um because we wanted to um we wanted to meet Jewish people and like do this whole it's this examining process like what do we believe in why and what and and we got so much like light and sort of wisdom from other people like learning what they believed and why you know so and then David said yeah but you have to you have to speak at the festival and I was like no no this is not happening like I I can't I cannot imagine facing these people that I have spent so many years like I thought I just it just seemed impossible and it terrified me right to be coming face to face with people and and I had hadn't even been out of the church the three months yet so it was it

110:06was really scary um but my sister was like we're going like she she knew that um we needed to have this experience of of like of learning about Jewish people and if the cost was we have to talk about it fine and also said later she knew I would do most of the talking so I like okay fine but so we we went and and we we spoke there and then I thought okay that's great now we're going to like we need to figure out like Grace and I kept saying we want to do good like that that had been the motivating principle of our life was to do good and now we realize we did so much damage and and uh so anyway so we were trying to find a way like we didn't know what to do like how how do you move forward from there and so we we just just we didn't know um so we were kind of drifting that whole first year we we basically I think a month was the longest we spent anywhere we were um you

111:02know we went to visit ex-members of the church you know who were across the country my dad's family who we never knew growing up because they were never part of the church so I mean like we we had seen them like they would come visit for a few hours sometimes or maybe a couple they were allowed to visit even though they were for a while but then several years before we left they cut off all contact with his family there also it had been very limited already but then so you haven't spoken to your dad either so he spoke to his family yeah his his parents and his his brother um and how do they feel about all this my my grandmother I called her um about a month a little over a month after we left one of my first nights in Deadwood and I I told her we had left and she just immediately started crying and she said I I've been waiting for this for 30 years like she had my older brother had

111:49one of my older brothers had left since since my dad had the church is what she was saying you know she my dad's parents are so they're they're amazing people like his dad is it was career Air Force he retired from the from the Air Force um and they're they're wonderful people and all we could see of them was well they're divorced and remarried they're they're going to hell they're a bad influence and like it what's it's it's insane to me now to think like my grandmother has been without her son like her son for decades and how painful that that must be like I've only been it's been four and a half years since I left and what am I going to be doing in in 30 years like how am I what is what is the and I don't know it's a crazy Journey that you've been on for just four and a half years it's really insane really like when did it solidify in your head that you were going to like identify or

112:50like speak out as a non-believer this morning I mean like so I was I was actually talking to to Sam about this a few months ago like because like there's there's there's part of me that like I mean when I said when a lot of a lot of people hear jerk when they hear atheist right and uh I don't use that word for myself atheist I don't either and and and it's because like it it entails like it seems to bring in like this idea that you're so certain you're certain there's no God you mock people who are religious you don't like them and all this and I I I don't feel that like and I also feel like I am I'm open to evidence you know like I haven't like decided there is no God it's like I just I just don't see the evidence and so I I don't believe and if there is evidence like I want to know like I and again I talk to religious people all the time and I think about theology a lot I just I

113:44can't not like it also becomes there's a there's a group mentality involved in atheism and there's I one of the reasons why I was reluctant to identify as an atheist is that so many people were asking me to identify as an atheist like would do you give a why do you want me to come out I told you I'm not religious like but especially especially the idea that there cannot be a god like or there cannot be any sort of a higher power and that after you die it just ends yeah like how do you know right exactly and that's exactly where I am it's not a knowing for certain that there is no God it's a I just don't believe there's so little we know about human life yeah forget about the idea of the possibility of afterlife or the possibility of what Consciousness is the possibility of what this concept that we call a soul is what what is that or forget about psychedelic

114:39experiences and what do they represent and what what what do they represent when they're coming from what essentially is human neurochemistry there's the most potent ones are chemicals that exist in the brain they're endogenous to the human body and what what are those experiences and how why are they so akin to religious experiences and why why do people even believe now especially these scholars in Jerusalem have connected the burning bush of Moses with the AAA Bush which is a bush that's rich in psychedelic chemicals and they think that it's entirely possible that Moses had a psychedelic experience in which he came back with all the laws that human beings are supposed to be living as proclaimed by the great spirit of the universe or whatever the hell he encountered like who who knows who knows but this idea that people love to say you know God is

115:30dead there is no God like that's just as silly as saying there is one right and and this is why like the like the whole process since we left like it wasn't uh like I mean first of all like the idea of choosing another belief system like I would like learn all this stuff about Jehovah's Witnesses and I'm like like okay yeah that's mostly internally consistent like I think there's a lot of I I I never was like tempted to join them or whatever and I should say they actually they're not they're not Witnesses anymore like they they've since yeah they left a little over couple years ago oh they left too huh yeah wow do you think that you guys leaving and having these intimate conversations with them in their home might have had something to do with that I I'm still really good friends with them like they're some of my best friends um I don't I don't think that it

116:14was that direct of a thing but it was a part of the whole journey yeah I mean I think so like we we would have these long conversations and actually was the craziest thing when I found out like that that they had left like it was it was Dustin and Laura are their names Laura it was her birthday and uh they don't Jo went say don't celebrate birthdays like I was I was talking on the phone and I didn't even know it was her birthday it's like I was we were talking on the phone for like over an hour and I was like telling her about all this all these things that I'd been thinking about and like and then at the end of the conversation she's like she's like well it's my birthday today and uh I'm celebrating it and I just like was shocked I I didn't say anything for a couple seconds like I I cuz I obviously like knowing what that and it was different it wasn't as like as much for

117:01them you know like it wasn't the same level but like I know the disorientation and the loss and the like all that it's complicated it's like you don't want to just be like oh my gosh I'm so glad you're out of this because they think they believe some things that are really kind of nuts but but so I was just like very cautiously like like I don't know what happened but just know that I I mean I I'd always like loved and cared about them and and you know like but I was so eager to have these convers like to to understand what had happened with them and it's kind of just just following the like how much internal inconsistency like when you were saying earlier about the the whole idea about the Bible being the infallible word of God like oh that's a neat trick there's no way you can argue around that this is why like it's I think internal inconsistency like in the doctrines

117:44themselves like that's seems to be a really important way to get to to get in to get through that like like to AR the seed of Doubt yeah because that's you have it's finding the inconsistency in these two beliefs that allows you to maybe question the bigger things the bigger principles and anyway just I think it's it's important to ask the questions no matter what you believe it's important to question and to always be looking and examining for new evidence because like you you talk about this a lot but like confirmation bias and and cognitive dissonance like these these things that um keep us locked into these belief systems and and impervious to change not even impervious but like like resistant to it we want to be like open and and so this is I I mean I still try to do this and this is why like but do you do you ever want to like grab your mom and go you got to listen to me

118:35for an hour just let's talk I would if she I would love to talk to her if she would listen to me but she she just won't even look at you no like if you knocked on the door rang your door bell uh that that's happened a couple times not me my sister and like they Clos the curtain the window and turn off the lights inside that that happened once wow but um yeah they they they won't and this is why you think it's possible she might hear this yeah she would listen to this I think it's I think it's possible I mean I think I think somebody at the church will listen to it for sure I mean so this is the thing like when people leave like everything that we say any of us who leave that we say and do publicly the church pays very close attention to it like when I was at the church I did the same thing and partly it's a like needing to know like what they're saying

119:24so that you can have a good explan like you can counter it effectively game yeah you're scoring P points MH and uh but so this is why another reason why it became evident that I couldn't hide forever like if I hiding following the rules you know pretending like none of this happened like not causing any waves for the church like that doesn't change anything like the only thing that helps is is talking about it like and and in because here's the other thing like even if I like privately in in letters like there's things that I sent to my parents or other church members like they're not going to I mean they're probably not going to share those with my siblings and if they do it's going to be with a whole bunch of you know words against me at the same time so like it's it's only by talking publicly can you you know that's how they can actually see who you

120:14really are and what you really think and what you've really gone through without the filter of look at what these hores are doing right things like that like it's it's uh do you think your kids or your your brothers and sisters are going to hear this I think some of them definitely might definitely might do do you have hope that they'll eventually bolt I I I do I hope that they not not because of Any I hope they can hear the reasoning and see see the consequences of what they're doing for other people and that a lot of it I mean is scriptural and so even even by their own understanding like they they're there are things that contradict them I I hope that they change their minds and at the very least I hope that the church continues to to moderate to not be so a lot of their new signs are things like uh another one of the big things for me was imprecatory prayer right which is

121:14this idea of the word imprecatory imprecatory MH never heard that word praying for curses for your enemies right oh God right so we did this you pray to curse against your enemies um often yeah wow that seems incredibly non-Christian right but there's a like David King David oh yeah so it's Old Testament though right it is that's true well see this is the thing so like you know we we took that as an example for us so he prayed for his enemies for their children to be fatherless and for their wives to be widows and so he's you know praying for God to do all these you know bad things to is that the Romans he was praying against the Romans no it was David uh Philistines okay yeah um and Saul I guess but um but so we took that as an example him praying against his enemies so after we left I sent uh it's I you know contacted my it is my dad and uh talked about this problem so like

122:13David also had a lot of wives but we don't take his example as that men should have many wives what about that and why well it's because contradicts what Jesus and the Apostle Paul said about marriage being one man one woman for life right so Jesus that's the new way right so and Jesus and Paul both also said they talked about loving your enemies bless them that curse you and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you so you're supposed to be praying for the good of your enemies right and so it's it's it's a contradiction right and so anyway it's another like a long time like there's been like a bunch of sermons like so now my grandfather passed away um three years ago and so now there's eight elders and they're the eight pastors and my my dad is one of them so there's been a series of sermons on imprecatory prayer since then and they're like it seems like it seems so

123:09confused because like on the one hand they're still kind of justifying it but also it just seems like you're trying to reconcile things that aren't reconcilable right so so but a lot of the so they stopped I should say there used to be a flyer that went out every like Friday and it used to say like thank God for 15 dead soldiers we pray for 15,000 more and so it would list all the soldiers who had died that that week and uh within a like after like eight months you know my dad gave a sermon about imprecatory prayer like at the time when I first you know said that you know there was uh he put out a video news uh explaining like why imprecatory prayer is the thing and and it's supported by the Bible 8 months pass he gives a sermon about loving your enemies within a couple weeks that flyer was changed and now it doesn't say that we pray for 15,000 more um I haven't seen the what's

124:03the first part is the first part still thank God so they they say because God is Sovereign you have to thank him for everything so the fact that these so still thank God for 15 dead soldiers yeah so the second part what I'm just trying to say is like there there has been some moderation and a lot of the new signs are things like be reconciled to God and Christ are hope things like that like that are not God hates facts like those are I think that's I think that's Improvement at the very least even though there are still obviously these these harsh things as well yeah so there's some adjustment and some consideration MH um so you don't talk to your dad anymore either right no one no um is wow is there anything that you think that you can do other than continuing to speak and continuing to to do what you're doing that's going to reach them so I mean I I'm almost finished writing

125:03a book I'm nearing the is it a book to them it it's it is both for them and also for for other people there's part of the that's kind of what I was getting at like almost like you writing a book like letters to my mom and dad so it's not it's not it's not written quite that way uh not as a I I actually did consider doing it that way but uh eventually ended up like right now it's based on um each chapter is based on a relationship that sort of brings us like the starts with my mother and then my grandfather and sort of like coming into this ideology and then the process of all the like the mental machinations of of leaving and like how my mind changed over time and then what's happened since we left like and I hope that by you know for my family I hope that by articulating these things in in a way it's like obviously we're we're sitting here and even if we talk for like

125:54however many hours like there's only so much that it's not the same as having it written in a way that's hopefully very clear and and and and just honest to the experience like in as much detail and and Clarity with as much detail and clarity as possible like I think that that's I hope that that will will be effective and at least showing them that there's a different way there are other ways of of understanding these things and so I do hope that um I guess I also hope like in my TED Talk I I I have I I feel really um like hesitant about like trying to teach anybody anything at this point you know what I mean like because I spent my whole life telling other people how to live and now to be like well you guys no I got this like now I got this like you know like right it just the idea of like of insinuating even in any way that I have something to tell people about anything like I I'm I

126:59I really don't like that idea at all and the only reason I did the John Ronson actually is the one who reached out to me about about doing it because he it was a thing that he was curating an event that he was curating curating and uh so I wrote the first draft of the talk and and the curators you know came back afterward it's like well it's like this is how can we avoid the mistakes that you made and so like and I went back and like took examples from David and my husband and the way that people on Twitter engaged me that actually helped helped change things but so so it's not explicit in that way in the book but I hope that just by talking about this and telling the story is like I when I read accounts uh of people who have gone through similar situations it it's so helpful to me like to realize like my family like yes they man their activities are are they're

127:52extreme and like they manifest themselves in very strange ways to most people but they're very common very human flaws and if if anything that if I talk about this in a way that helps other people see it in their own lives or that you know will resonate with people who have gone through similar things like that's I think I I that's I want to do that I want to do as much good with these experiences as I can because just because I that's how my parents raised me honestly right but their argument of course would be you know you were so right and so uh convinced when you were with the church now you're so right and so convinced now that you're outside the church how do you know you're right now so the latter it's not the same it's not the same at all like I'm not I do not walk through the world with the sense of with that sense of certainty and and in in my position and righteousness of my

128:46position I I'm asking questions and I'm I'm trying to explain what why I believe differently now than I did I'm still asking the questions though like I never stop like you know what I mean it's it's it's just it's such a fundamentally different way of of engaging the world I do know what you mean but if I was on their side and I was trying to pick holes in your statement which is what they seem to do right if they're listening to the things you say they're listening to things you say so they can counter them with some sort of a Bible quote or some sort of a a more articulate opinion right if I was listening say you were so convinced when you with us now you're so convinced but now you don't even have God yes so how could you be right so the thing is you're duded the Satan's serpent scales are covering your eyes don't they say like that yeah yeah yeah this is

129:35another um another one of the paradoxes that I realized before I left so there's this verse and again this is one that my mom would quote all the time growing up and with such urgency like she needed us to understand this and and the verse was uh the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked and who can know it right so so I thought the heart was good home was what the heart is no I thought I thought heart is like people being sweet and so the human heart is inherently and according to the church is inherently deceitful right wow okay but the problem is they also talk about uh the heart as being like that's how we know that the Bible is true because God puts an unction on our hearts your deceitful little heart yes exactly so you're at the end of the day it's always our own Hearts like it's our hearts that say okay well I'm going to follow the Bible no matter no matter

130:30what or in other words at the end of the day each one of us is always making a decision it's just that for them they they think that Outsourcing it and saying that oh no it's the Bible it's like well you're the it's your I tried to articulate un when I did Sam's Sam Harris's show a couple years ago like but it's that I read it actually in his book like that's what helps me like it's it's your own moral impulses that are authenticating the truth of the Bible right so at the end of the day it's still you it's still your judgment your the Judgment of your own deceitful heart so again from their perspective so I guess what I'm saying now is like I'm not when I when I talk to my family when I'm addressing them like it's it's with these questions like I know how you understand these verses but what about these things that contradict them right I'm not saying you're wrong I'm saying I

131:25can't see how you're right because of these verses like how do you do this how do you understand this and what about verses that contradict other verses in the Bible That's they the church doesn't believe in that that that those contradictions exist so when you talk about those contradictions which are pretty clear what what do they say well so the Lord Works mysterious ways good night kids right there's there's always that like if if you think there's like for instance like back to the like Free Will sorry the predestination thing the god designing people to go to hell and then holding them responsible right so there's this this is a contradiction right this the idea that you are responsible right you're man's responsibility and God's sovereignty they don't go together right such an awesome quote can you say that quote again man's uh sorry the man's responsibility and God's sovereignty

132:17they do not go together right but the quote in the Bible the way it's phrased um oh which the naid old man who art thou that repliest against God yeah okay yeah uh shall the thing form say to him that formed it why hast Thou made me thus yeah so yeah so it's that those ideas are inherently they're inconsistent right they're contradictions and so Gramps I remember one day in in church he was you call him gr Gramps yeah sounds like such a cute name such an evil old dude no like I'm sure he's not he could be so he is your grandpa funny and and like it's so funny cuz like he could be funny oh hilarious really yeah was he a sweet guy to like sweet he would sing the song from the 40s and call us my great big beautiful doll like that's what he would he' call us and love bug and so you miss him yeah we sat you you didn't get to see him before he died cuz you

133:14left I I can't talk about that you can't not now I can't not unless you me to start crying I won't sorry that's okay um uh but but yeah he's thought there was like a legal reason he was no no no he was uh that's just that deep all the stuff you talked about yeah like you can't talk to your dad you can't talk to your mom but something about your grandpa yeah he's special yeah I'll tell you later okay okay but in the eyes of most people he was the booming voice yeah of hate for sure I and I I told understand it like isn't that so fascinating though that you could see someone in an intimate way you love them their family you get to see all the positive aspects of them and yet you get to see this Venom that he spews out to all the world and that that also represents you guys and your family and your ideology and you're behind this powerful leader he's the founder of all this right so

134:12essentially he's the man who created the the very bars that imprison your family right now I know and it's it's so and this is one of the things you know after after I left like thinking about like how did we get here you know how did we end up in this place it's an understanding of psychology or a lack of the problem with any sort of ideology rigid ideologies that are backed up by a deity is that there can be no questioning and as soon as there can be no questioning you're you're talking about human language you're talking about something that came obviously from the words of human beings they they wrote those words down they put them somewhere and now you're reinforcing this ideology anyone with even a basic understanding of how easily influenced people are and about our alpha male chimpanzee history or lower primate history we know that we're incredibly

135:03susceptible to influence and Incredibly susceptible to the whims of the group mindset and that this is imperative for survival these tribal instincts that we have imperative for survival and the reason why we made it to 2017 and that these play against us in the in forms of ideology and these very rigidly reinforced Behavior patterns I mean that is what that's what the and when the problem becomes atheism versus people who are theists or people who are Christian or Muslim or whatever the it is it has nothing to do with that honestly it's just about mind and about humans and about our our our inherent tendency to give into these these predetermined patterns of behavior to give us comfort in these patterns there yeah there is so much comfort in certainty yeah I mean it's it could be really frustrating all these sometimes all the rules and the like like you said

135:59very rigid but but after when I left the uncertainty was just this enormous weight like I had no idea like what enormous weight on you yeah right all of a sudden yeah cuz like again well one first of all like one of the things that makes doing things like this hard or like speaking publicly at all now that it's not like me like like with God on my side or whatever is the idea like now I'm standing on my own two feet like it's it's my own ideas and like who the hell am I you know just that the sense of like self-doubt and uncertainty and and like it's it's just it's it's it can be crippling sometimes um but but you just you have to keep going and keep asking the question like this is one of the things like you said uh I mean the whole another reason I don't like to call myself an atheist or or to call myself anything uh actually Sam sorry I cannot stop talking about Sam Harris um

136:55but he had this uh this video where he was saying like we shouldn't call ourselves atheists or secularists or humanists we shouldn't call ourselves anything we should just be good decent people living in the world and and challenging bad ideas wherever we find them like that's it's not about the I mean we want an identity like people crave identity and and belonging in this like the the in group like what you're talking about grams like how how much goodness I got to see him that like people on the outside never saw it's because of that you know in-group outgroup mentality like the the bond like I said earlier the bonds that are forged there it's so it's so enticing but but it comes at a at a huge cost and I didn't see that cost for a long time and so now this is another reason I don't I just don't like those labels it's not about the identity it's just

137:43about trying to find the best way we can to live in the world and and do as much good as we can I think there bumps in the road the evolution of culture I think that's what they are I just think we haven't figured out how dangerous they are and that we fall prey to them but they're also the reason why we got here in the first place because we did figure out these ways to bond together we did figure out these ways to identify with each other in this very extreme and very personal way and if it wasn't for those things who knows if we would have ever made it this far who knows but they've also they've also been able to people have been able to rationalize horrific acts through the use of this US versus them you know the our group versus the other yeah it's a a very strange aspect of what I believe is the Adolescent nature of Human Social and cultural Evolution which is where we're

138:33at right now we've come so far we think but really we haven't we haven't really been around that long I mean they're talking about this this modern human being they found 300,000 years ago God that's a blip blip it's it's a blink of an eye in terms of the the history of the world never mind the history of the universe mhm and I think that it's it's very dangerous When someone tells you they know it's very dangerous because you don't know and you're like well if they know I'll just listen to them and that's what we've been doing forever it's and I think people are recognizing more and more now that that is that's not safe it's dangerous and it it's an impediment to progress personal progress uh progress as a community we have just this insane instinct to join teams to the point where people they identify with certain patches of dirt I'm a Texan like oh you're a Texan so this is all

139:24okay you know hey I'm from New York oh you're from New York well that well I get you now I understand you you're in this nice little category you get to operate on these predetermined patterns now you know you've you don't even have to have your own beliefs you just adopt a conglomeration of beliefs that fit whatever category you fall into with your leftwing Progressive or right-wing conservative mhm it's it's we're it's we're really weird we're a really weird monkey just we're so strange and we're also aware how weird we are that's I was going to say like that is the that's where I feel so much and why I feel so much hope right because like the more awareness we have like the the better we can go about trying to sort of shore those things up yeah like see the pitfalls and then try to find ways around them but it takes people like you that are incredibly courageous that

140:17break out of the pattern and and and just paddle out into the the Waters of discomfort because that's what people have a really hard time doing people have a really hard time changing they have a really hard time taking chances they have a really hard time doing new things and you did all of it at once in one big burst and you separated from your tribe it was like so important to you that you separated from your tribe that's so hard yeah yeah for sure but it it's this is one of those things where like I mean I was was talking to David after I left before the delicious Festival we were sitting uh in the home of uh this Rabbi that I had protested earlier and and uh your Rabbi as a was the sign my sister held and like now like living with this Rabbi right like actually that's why I'm staying with here while I'm here you stay with a rabbi yeah Rabbi and his wife and

141:10they're they're four kids how is a rabbi a that you they you pay them and they make you feel good like they tell you what you want to hear because you pay them God that makes them a that case is a comedian a too I must be a yeah probably probably yeah they're totally you know it's whoredom it's prostitution but uh David what about people give massages I wouldn't go there well they're making you feel good you pay them lying to you it's lying to you okay so chiropractors would be horse is that how it would work I guess um but uh David was like um it's like you are your parents' children like I'm just like sitting there balling and and cuz I I felt like such a betrayer this is like again right after we left and uh and he said I said what do you mean he said well they're the ones who taught you to stand up for what you believe in no matter what it cost you and so I I I

142:11love that idea like that there there's still so much from home that I have held on to and that that still guides me uh it's just that I obviously had to it's just the the things that I now think are destructive and and hurtful and just not true not not consistent with reality um but that that gave me a lot of like a lot of Hope right well you you definitely seek comfort and ancient wisdom in quotes who me yeah yeah well it's hard like here's the thing like it's so I remember I was uh there's a New Yorker article that came out at the end of 2015 and so I I was doing interviews with the writer Adrien Chen who's amazing and he's an amazing writer just just generally not that just that article but like and so we're having these conversations like like we I think we spent three days together in Kansas talking like maybe six hours at a time and then on on the phone like three and four hour

143:07conversations regularly like it was so much like trying to really get across all of these all of this for him to really understand exactly how my mind changed and all the details and church whatever like and at one point like you know we're talking and and he asked me a question it was about the solders funeral I think and I just immediately started like quoting all these verses and like like whoa you just went into this mode like I could tell this is just like this like switching into this like like like it had been at the church like it's just not possible like even though I think that I don't believe the Bible is the infallible word of God but like I spent so much time like reading it and learning it and and memorizing you know Chapters at a time with my family and all this stuff so it's like it's right there it's always like and there like I said there is so much

143:52good in it so it's like I I don't know it's just I know what you're saying things that that are it's comforting when you said it's so it sounds so forign to hear the King James well like to me it was just sorry it's comforting yeah yeah yeah and it's it's familiar and it's and it's it's a part it's a part of my my home and my upbringing that I that I can keep as a person outside of it looking at it when someone starts spouting out biblical phrases and terms and and using these Parables and using these stories and passages in the Bible to justify things and then equating like certain aspects of modern thinking and behavior to those things to me it's almost like I'm looking at mathematics that I don't totally understand it's like I see what you're doing you're put you're plugging this equation in to achieve a desired result and this result is um uh a peace

144:46of mind peace of mind is what you're looking to attain and looking to attain justification for your lifestyle and actions and you can do so with this quote which is essentially like you're you're you're plugging in some sort of theoretical physics I mean it's a weird stretch of what I'm saying but what I'm saying is just like the feeling of it the feeling of it is like oh I don't like this well then you use this oh and then there that okay it makes this so it's all these little Tools in order to operate the mind on a more harmonious frequency for your own personal satisfaction and your your feeling of happiness and peace like you can feel comfort in the fact that you have quoted the Bible verses that explain your behavior correctly you've made the noises in the right order yeah and whether or not those noises make sense at all and then when in doubt you throw

145:40in like some weird principle like that God has a plan for everything so uh your doubts like we just stick that right in there and like okay good so that's like dark matter you know well where's all the mass Dark Matter there you go okay you know what I'm saying it's like it's an odd sort of a thing because the the desire outsources the the uncertainty and the and the lack of knowledge like you don't it's something I don't understand it's okay I don't have to understand it because somebody else understands it also you're using tools it's also like you're using these these phrases and these tools and these passages to achieve desired results internally as well as externally you you're you're using them to comfort yourself but you're also using them to to prove your point against these others and that's a big part of what's going on with this whole tribalism cult-like

146:34Behavior it's justifying your own patterns of thinking by demonizing and marginalizing other patterns of thinking yes okay so this is something that I I missed this for a long time too but like so my grandfather like I think I said earlier maybe the Christians were some of the biggest targets of the church we spent so much time uh like the minor differences yes exactly but I mean even like major differences like the hatred of God and you know like and you know people going to hell for eternity and and and why and all these things like like we we spent so much time Gramps would instead of saying we are the only ones who have it right westbo Baptist Church is the only true church in the entire world and I'm 100% certain of that it was a different strategy it was attacking every other version of Christianity every other understanding of of the Bible uh and so and it's like

147:26by default it's like well you you know exactly why all these people are wrong methodists and Catholics and whatever like and and you can articulate chapter and verse why they're all wrong and therefore the end like it becomes clear like we are right and we are the only ones who are right and everybody else is so it's just this it's it's so frustrating yeah so frustrating it's well I hate to use the word but it just it lacks Enlightenment CU it's dealing with conflict and it's dealing with finger pointing it's dealing with insults like just the the term God hates just using that like that in itself it's just like a giant red flag showing the errors of your thinking in order to even sit down and draw this poster like like this is this is not God's approach if there is a God of the Bible I mean if there is a God that's in charge of this whole thing and he's filled with love

148:25and he has a plan for us all you get super emotional when you're talking about this stuff don't you yeah yeah I see you're all worked up sorry no no don't apologize it's important look I mean it's amazing how well you keep it together without contact with your mom and your dad and your brothers and sisters and it's been four years how long four and yeah yeah um wow I totally lost my train of thought there it's okay you said something well I was talking about just that the insults and this attack yeah so like the way like I always you know we would say people don't it's not the method that's the problem it's the message it doesn't matter how we say the message people are still going to hate it like if you if you say you know God created most people to go to hell and we're we're among the only ones going to heaven and sorry suckers you know like people hate that

149:17message right um people hate the idea that you have to uh like follow this set of rules like you can't just live the way you want to live you have to obey these ideas as we understand them um like people don't like that message they don't want you telling them what to do so that's we would always make that argument and then of course and you know after when I was thinking about leaving it was like of course it matters how you talk to people of course it does and even the Bible talks about it so like you know in the New Testament uh Paul talks about you know to the Jews I became as a Jew and to the Greeks as a Greek and you know to the weak I became as weak it's like it's the idea is like you understand your audience and who you're talking to and you're actually trying to reach them you're not just self-righteously you know proclaiming this thing and saying get on board or

150:05you're doomed like it's it's there's there was no we had and we we sometimes could have those arguments oneon-one but like you know when we go out to these protests we're saying these things and it's so provocative and inflammatory and we knew it and we just did it anyway because we thought it was justified as long as it was true then it didn't matter how we said it or when we said it or to whom we said it it was a grieving widow or a you know a child whose father had just died or parents whose children had just died it's just it's it's insane to me now I I can't I have a hard time like so so much of my his of my past like I know why I believed what I believed but sometimes I when I see these these contradictions I think what was I thinking when we were reading these verses and I I don't I can't think of what they could be thinking now except that it's just that cognitive

150:56dissonance that yes just just just going past it and she oh yeah that sounds good but like not seeing you know there's another verse that talks about a a deceived heart has turned him aside so he he can't even say is there not a lie in my right hand like that's that's the feeling that I have sorry back to the you know quoting ancient they're great they're great yeah but anyway it's just this is why I think I think you're unique qualified to sort of translate those and I I that's and that's the thing like I that's that's why I keep I mean I want to keep asking the questions it's not just about you know I think my family feels they feel attacked I'm sure when I talk about this and why I don't believe it and you know when I send these messages on Twitter and and I I remember what that felt like you know hearing people people that I had loved speak against these doctrines and values

151:45that I held so so dear uh but I it's not because I'm trying to hurt them or or embarrass them or humiliate them it's because I I want to help them see right and if if I'm wrong about something then like I want to know that too so it's just it's always this like openness to to change and into I don't know finding a better way one of the things you did that's incredibly Brave is not just leave but when you change your thinking and change you have to admit that you up big you have to admit that your entire life has been essentially about propagating a lie mhm there was a I honestly you know Weird Al Yankovic yeah that he has a song that I remember listening to as a kid which song it was a everything you know is wrong Up Up Is Down black is white and short is long and I remember like in this process of like you know before we left like remembering that and being like I cannot believe I just

152:48thought of a Weird Al song but yeah that's totally what it like just just coming to terms with like how how how wrong and how how could this have been for my entire life and how can I possibly face this like in my own mind let alone to all of these people like I did it in front of the like in front of the whole world you know anybody who'd seen like all the documentaries all the times that I had so publicly defended all these ideas and now realizing like how can I possibly face that right and if you were ever running for office that's the first thing that pull out look at Megan Phelps in 2003 and the horrible thing she was saying that's what they do right yeah yeah well I think your your ability to say that you you don't agree with what you used to do and you are a different person now is so important for people to hear it's one of the most important things I think you're

153:40saying cuz people feel so imprisoned by their past it's a huge problem with human beings that you we repeat sort of the same patterns of behavior because even if they're wrong there's comfort in there's comfort in going back to those cigarettes there's comfort in in binge eating again there's comfort in gambling there I know this I know this crazy Rush of trying to find crack I'm going for it I mean there's a lot of weirdness in in human behavior patterns and what you've done is not just have real intellectual courage to just actually challenge your own personal thought processes and ideas and look deep into these scriptures that you've been following your whole life and find these contradiction explore these contradiction contradictions and try to debate them but also just to just to come out and say like I was making just big mistakes I think it's really hard to say

154:38I mean a lot of things but but two things just for people in general like I messed up yeah and I don't know yes and like we have to be able to I mean I think to be able to there's so and honestly like this is another thing like there's so much freedom in that in both of those ideas like I I said earlier like certainty there's so much comfort and certainty like you don't have to wonder you don't have to doubt you don't have to question you can just go on your way and know that what you're doing is exactly right and like there's so much comfort there but but in my experience it's a false certainty it's a false Comfort because you're you're you're going along if you're not if you're not examining if you're not like taking in New Evidence if you're not like saying I don't know it's like I don't have to have all the answers like I can just say like I'm doing my best this is where I'm

155:29at now like I'm I'm sure I'm going to like find something I'm I'm G to find something else that I'm that I've got wrong now and I'm going to keep trying to get I'm going to keep trying to get better like you don't want to become this static you know you want to be able to to grow and learn and understand and do better in as many ways as you can you're wrestling constantly with a dangerous and volatile Factor that's uncertainty Y and that that is people try to avoid that sucker as much as they can like I don't want that right just like learning to be comfortable there like I exist here and I exist in this uncertain space because it's honest yes I don't know I don't have to know I can keep trying to understand and and you know so it's that's why one of the most the weakest things you can ever see in a person is a person talking about something in a way where like like you

156:20ask them a question about something and they don't really know and they try to pretend they do start to pontificate yeah well you see it instead of saying God I don't know is that true instead or instead of being like open to the possibility of anything being outside of the realm of their understanding they double down they double down on their ignorance or they avoid it at at all costs and you see literally see like the little the Manan in the Machinery the ego just yanking on the gears frantically we all recognize it it's one of the fascinating things to me about religion in is that there we have this incred desire to become a part of a group I mean everybody does we we find comfort in these groups but we also can see the the gears spinning when someone does agree with something or someone does say something that resonates or so when someone says something that's

157:12contradictory we see the gear spinning we recognize that this is all some sort of a weird cognitive dance that we're doing to try to make make sense out of this temporary existence on a planet hurling through Infinity MH it's insane yeah it's but it's human and it's it's the human of today you know it's the human where we find ourselves existing and communicating that clearly is on some sort of path some sort of weird path of progress and of innovation and of of understanding that we're in the middle of we're in the middle of this storm of understanding and it's happening like clearly in your own life and you're living it out in front of the whole world yeah and on that note yeah maybe it's a good way to learn wrap it up we did already two hours and 45 minutes believe it or not yeah just flew by yeah um you're a brave person and I think you it's really important what you're doing

158:17it's massive really is super hard to do I'm sure thank you and uh the fact that Twitter is what started all off I love Twitter so much I just I cannot like even what you were saying earlier about like oh there's only 140 characters like like don't diss Twitter but here's the thing like it's so crazy like Twitter like the fact that it's only 140 characters like nothing taught me how to be more like I I'm very I'm verbose I talk a lot but like in writing and I do the same thing in writing but like on Twitter like it taught me to like distill my ideas and become concise and and it it stopped me from using that was one of the things one of the ways that I stopped like insulting people instinctively cuz like we we did it so much like we would write these elaborate insults like responding to emails and stuff like obviously on email you can write as much as you want but like on

159:05Twitter like so it's two things like one only 140 characters if I like throw in a you idiot like there's it just there's no space for it but also like when I did do that like there's this immediate feedback loop that you get so like you can watch the conversation derail in real time yeah and then realize like okay no I just need to not like cuz instead of like addressing the arguments like then you're saying like you know you like you don't know me they you know they'll answer and like it just it it stops anyway it stops the conversation like you want it to be about the the points or whatever it's like I learned so much about communication from Twitter and I just love it so much like it's just a tool like it depends on how we use it I use it a lot and I I learn a lot of things on it I mean I'm constantly being sent articles and that's where I found out about the

159:50300,000 year old human and I mean every day someone sends me something and I retweet it just it's a and that's how we got connected yeah there you go so there you go more Twitter yes um your book is coming out when I don't know yet I'm finishing the last draft uh and I I'm not even going to tell you the name right now because I really want a different name okay don't tell me yeah I'm not GNA tell you sorry what did you say Jamie I laugh oh okay um if people people want to see more of your stuff I know you have a TED Talk that's out there right uh my Twitter account is just Megan Phelps um yeah that's it well yeah there's going to be the book but uh well when the book comes out come back on again we'll do it again all right and we'll tweet out your book and let everybody know and I really enjoy this conversation thank you so much much thank you for being so brave too huge

160:43what you've done is huge for a lot of people listening to thank you so much all right thanks everybody see you tomorrow bye