#974 - Megan Phelps-Roper

June 8, 2017

Megan Phelps-Roper is a social media activist, lobbying to overcome divisions and hatred between religious and political divides. Formerly a prominent member of the Westboro Baptist Church, she left the church with her sister Grace in November 2012.

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hi what's up ladies and gentlemen I'm going on a big fat and it starts June 23rd in Minneapolis Minnesota and then June 24th I'm in Indianapolis oshit we're moving we're groovin got a lot of shit happening lot of dates all of them are available along with ticket Links at Joe Rogan dotnet forward slash tour a lot of the shows are sold out we've added second shows to a lot of places including those first two Minneapolis sold out the first show pretty much almost full maybe maybe a couple tickets left a hundred tickets up yourself and then the same thing with Indianapolis is a few scattered tickets remaining for the first show but tickets available for the second show JoeRogan.net/tour go there check it out be happy

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alright we got through my guest today

her name is Megan Phelps and she is formerly of the Westboro Baptist Church and if you've heard of them they're the church that was founded by her grandfather Fred Phelps and they are the ones that protest the funerals of gay men with those horrible signs that say godhatesfags they show up at the funerals of of soldiers that have died and they Proclaim Proclaim that the soldiers are dead because people have not follow the word of God and extremely hateful and controversial group and she was a part of it for most of her life she's been out for four and a half years and is a really fascinating podcast first of all she's a very very smart person very articulate very well-read and was

just unfortunately born into this terrible situation or maybe after talking to her I mean not in her perspective probably but in the perspective of many others I think

fortunately born into that environment not unfortunately because she gives some incredibly unique inside to us to me during his podcast and teether listening to it of what it's like to grow up being a really intelligent very curious person who's trapped in this insanely rigid ideology that's a also extremely hateful

she's brilliant really brilliant and really courageous and I think you can enjoy the shit out of this so without any further Ado Megan Phelps

The Joe Rogan Experience

wheeler Walker jr. fantasy so first of all thank you thank you doing this appreciate it I guess that's the best way to get to started what is it like being a person that grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church for a person 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 also tell the folks that I meet you and your super nice 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 growing up for the most part I mean my family outside of winning on the picket line there I mean incredibly kind and gentle and and compassionate and I think the biggest misconception about the church at their motivated by hatred and in their eyes it's the definition of loving what we we thought we were doing what we were doing was letting her neighbor so in the first time that phrase appears in the Bible it's in the context of when you see your neighbor sending you have to rebuke him not just like watch him wander off on this way to hell so that was how we thought we thought we were warning people and and giving him the only hopeful message that could save them from eternity in hell was amongst the the people that were in the church about like how the message is being distributed like you're holding up a sign that says godhatesfags and

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

there fell down many slain because the war was of God and then in the book of Hosea it says they have deeply corrupted themselves therefore I will remember their iniquity and I will visit their sins will they bring up their children yet will I believe them there shall not be a man left said it's he's threatening Z's warnings from God that if you disobey me I'm going to curse you so we would go to the soldiers the soldiers funerals at to warn the living to say that if if you don't want to be likewise punished you have to repent you have to change your ways and and obey God know people that are also hardcore Christians that also follow the word of God very closely but still would see like what you guys were doing it these funerals holding up these signs protesting where a soldier who supposedly gave his life for our freedom right supposedly they're over there fighting so that we could be safe here and then that you guys are out there with these signs like there had to be a lot of people that

like-minded views in Christianity but still work furiously to people shooting their righteousness for the righteousness of God so they were upset that we were out there giving this message isn't that was 100% biblical in our from our point of view and they God called that compassion when he sends his servants with his message so we thought even though they call themselves Christians they're ignoring these give me a vast swaths of the Bible that that support what we were saying and how we were saying it

so I mean there's definitely a lot of a lot of pushback from people on all sides of it and especially from other Christians but we just thought you're not really Christian because they're not telling us like we understand that so you guys were pretty much solidified in your opinion it was the consensus seems like everybody thought you were doing the right thing right so 2005 that we started protesting soldier's funeral was brought up so my grandfather had been since 2005 so the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan you see you see these things on the news and he he was definitely the funeral was like what was going on at the funeral and he said these are funerals these are patriotic pep rallies and they're saying all these things about God Bless America will God isn't blessing America was cursing America so we have to go and and give a different message so that's how it came up initially but so I went to my first soldier's funeral protested and then the following month

July of 2005 and before I went so you know every time we would go to these things from the time I was 5 years old so when you go out on the unit Cities protest a lot of times they would be media there little people asking questions and I wasn't sure how I would answer that 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 you when I found out I was going I said I said that I need to I need to understand this so I went to my mother and she brings for us those verses that I just quoted to you and several others we sat down as a family as we did every night you need to read the Bible and to talk about world events and you know the church's interpretation of these events in light of their understanding of the scriptures so you know she goes through an explain this in a 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 is true no matter what any human sinks and that we have a duty to obey at 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 this funeral so I very quickly acclimated to it you know as you do when you're in an environment like that where everything depends on you falling into line

no what was it like when you first did it like what was the reaction

the other people are you know other people's reaction to you. Very first one that was in Omaha Nebraska and it was incredibly tense so there was a 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 because people were tempted to and did you know what come after us physically assault us and again this happened with some regularity so from the very earliest days of the protesting week but you know what my mom and her generation had made this decision to who I should say none of them are lawyers so they would need to write letters from you know as attorney saying we're going to be coming or going to be protesting in your city this is what we do we know we hold signs on public sidewalks we are not violent Wii so I explaining what a what are protests look like and then

and then saying if you want to avoid you know these kind of like the violence that often happens be there so this first one how old are you in 2005 at 19 so you were a kid you know about the grown kid and you know you're with your parents and this is the first time you're protesting of Veteran what was that experience like across this for sale across the street from the church like I said it's very solemn very quiet there were which is not was not normal really for protest a lot of times we would be out there in a singing and chanting and and making it was a big public display but this was like I said incredibly tense nobody was really talking nobody was really moving and you know what the family was you pulled up in a and I think I'm going to limousine across the street and the family got out and and looked around and saw us and didn't know you guys were going to be there before him because

I always would publicize that we would send out news releases so they were aware that we were going to be there and there were a bunch of I think they were Marines 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 happens like that the whole situation could explode but again that's why the cops having a cop standing there so it was it was it was over it was pretty intense time for a protest like that we owe a lot of times we go to be exchanging you know we would do it for us to 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 not Christian but at this one it was was very quiet it wasn't always like that so pretty quickly you know once again once we became acclimated to do the protest and also there

have you heard of the Patriot Guard Riders was a group of motorcyclist who decided to and they formed like an across the country so in every state there was a group of these motorcyclist who would I found out we're going to be protesting somewhere they would go and you rub their engines so that are words and songs and such wouldn't be heard by the family and and they would be no hold American flags and try to block in a bit as always it's putting a buffer between us and the family and so when when that started to happen if it became almost like a game sometimes and in hindsight I just makes me cringe and and

but but it became like this game of trying to like show that we were going to get our message across no matter what any human being wanted because we knew we were so sure that this is what God wanted

what made you leave a lot of things it it started my very first sort of conscious doubts came from conversations on Twitter so allow something good got done through Twitter yeah I was just talking to Sam about this was like when people the phone with the word it cuz when you say 80's people think jerk and like some 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 not a Believer I don't know I'm not a Believer because I I love people I believe in people and that there is so much hope and and four people in that we can I don't know myself

right so I got on Twitter and it was like an extension of the picket line right so where are you go out there with these picket signs and you know people would come up to us and asked us questions and so it was as it was a constant a constant conversation and so I got on Twitter to take that you know to to the internet 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 block of judicious he was listed as the second most influential Juju on Twitter on this end of my story I guess but you can check it if the GTA's list if you want to join us but anyway

so he responded initially with you know sarcasm and and cut and hostility the pretty quickly he's heard of change tactics and started instead of like mocking me although he still didn't do that time too he's asking questions about her picket signs and I started asking him questions about Jewish theology cuz I wanted to better know how to counter it you notice from the scriptures that they were wrong Jews killed Jesus and and they reject him as the Messiah and so all of these things so back and forth in this goes on for about a year and during that year I've actually met him twice I protested him twice actually at the Jewish Us festival they had this this Jewish cultural Festival

bright side he was going to be there and I went on I was protesting in

and he came out to the picket line and it was it was one of those like very Rowdy Pickett there was a bunch of counter-protesters like and they were it was I don't know guys dresses like the Easter Bunny and Jesus and you know it was actually got pretty violence I was actually stupid and the cops called the cops like the cops were just standing there watching people like actively assaulting is like hitting us and so we're like walking around trying to not to not be head cuz we're not going to hit that we weren't there like I said the church is very against violence like they're not going to be violent to people or defend themselves just just too so it's 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 just wearing a Steeler shirt and whatever anyway so so they send you there and then also another protest at 6 or 7 months later and then

it's not long after that second protests were talking again and he was asking about one of our signs that said death penalty for facts and you know course I'm reiterating why the church believes that was in The Book of Leviticus God calls for the death penalty for gay gays and and then in Romans 1 in the New Testament it's reiterated to the days that commit such things are worthy of death so and so light and telling David these things and he says so yeah but didn't Jesus say let he who is without sin cast the first stone and I said what we always said to that which was not casting Stones were preaching words

and he said yeah but you're advocating of the government cast stones

and I remember and this is all through Twitter besides I see this message and I kind of gas 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 wedlock

and I said what it what about it like that this is another appointment of people over you know common knowledge people knew about this and what though this interface and we would save the standard of God isn't sinlessness it's repentance so she doesn't deserve that punishment because she repented she stopped me. She wasn't having premarital sex anymore and she knows that it's wrong and she changed her mind and she changed your contact which is 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 send that you lose the opportunity to repent and be forgiven and so again so I'm just sort of staring at my phone and you know in Topeka Kansas he's in Jerusalem and I really quickly end of the conversation don't even remember quite how but it was just sort of this like I hadn't I don't know how to handle this because

like I said the church is full of liars are very intelligent and their arguments and their theology for the most part is very well-constructed and super consistent and so for there to be just you know this apocracy does contradiction I didn't like my brain was it felt like I was exploding so I went to a couple people in the church including my mother and the response was feel free to stop by anytime 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 she said I was getting wrapped around an axle and I just wrote If we don't push it aside and over their response was so just to shut me down and then move on to the next thing which is a very human thing right when somebody put something in your face that that is a contradiction that you're not ready to deal with him that you can't it's you you know what I mean you come in life

I'm try not to so the way that I dealt with it was to stop holding the sign cuz I knew that if somebody asked me about it I I couldn't defend it cuz I didn't I didn't believe but there was nothing else I could do at that point

but the importance of that conversation this is obviously we're just one small contradiction one small inconsistency and Avast you know we still I still believe 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 I thought you some sort of insulting term for gay people instead of saying God hates gay people he wants my grandfather would say that gay is a misnomer these people aren't happy they'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 until the word fag they say it like Amos in the Book of Amos there is a it's translated Firebrand there so my grandfather would say the word fagg is an elegant meta firm

and it's gays but the facts are a bundle of sticks right use for kindling so gays are they are they burn in their last one toward another and a few all the fires of Hell in the fires of God's Wrath so it's an elegant metaphor Grandpa Grandpa's I'm Ono actually means a bundle of woods a bundle of wood and they would use that expression to describe a woman because a bundle of wood is burdensome my carrying around a bundle of wood is very burdensome so when they would call a woman a faget they were saying that she was burdensome so when they would call a man a faggot 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 in all those along those lines and then by people

erroneously saying that it was about burning them and that they would burn gay people because they would burn faggets of wood that's not really the case

I had on school yeah I actually had never heard that before you see if you can find that Jamie Google that the original term faget meant burden of a bundle of wood and burdensome like a bundle of wood has been thinking about like caring a bundle of wood supposed to be didn't have a truck huge pain in the ass that's kind of what the source of it was use it wrong in the real problem is the people that use it wrong I like gay activists and they try to say how horrible that word is because it was used to represent how gay people are 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 8 Round witches and things work done like real specifically but never been like a thing what we got here

the word faget has been used in English since the late 16th century is a abusive term for women for tickly old women a reference to homosexual sexuality made derive from this otherwise it have to be so weird with the practice of sagging and British private schools in which younger boys performed potentially sexual duties for older boys although the word faget was never used in this context

but the big one means the bundle of wood

the bundle of sticks what's that Jamie we got something awkward to be carried is exactly burdensome so that's where comes from really didn't have anything to do with burning people but like they will they repeat it like two to make a big Point like a big dramatic point but it's you know it's melodramatic but I've never had this in my life distinction for why people use that term cuz it's really just that they're annoying

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 these burdens them actually much more maybe reflective of reality has not been that impossibly wonderful you'll see dude with cut off shorts and you'll change your tune everybody with that one brush I know either but amazing Smiley stop being attracted to men at first I thought we have to hide from the past but my sister and I should say left together

memes about 4 months with between when I first talked to her about leaving the first initial conversation and how did you gather up the courage to even sort of breach the subject I was really terrifying an awful because I mean I remember from the time I was very young and there's this passage in Deuteronomy that my mom would quote and it's about you know somebody if if you are you close to your relatives somebody comes up to you and says that let us go and serve other gods like somebody secretly says to you those things you have to stay on them and you the one that they came to your supposed to be the first one to invite him is not stealing people in the Bible and someone said hey we got to we have to serve this golden cow we also have a friend in the New Testament talks about rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are got so we also have to obey the law of man we have to obey the law of iso and weren't so we're not supposed to be

so long man supersedes the law of God where we're supposed to be obedient to the laws of men but also I mean there this is a kind of a complicated a little bit at the ology where it is sort of Undead a lot of the Mosaic code that we didn't actually have to follow those things but honestly I don't know I think it's the whole I think it's like the death penalty for a fax things like a if they still believe that that punishment is is applicable than then we should we try to convince the government lobbying the government to like with those signs it went to her and said these things to her she could easily have turned around then 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 I don't want you to go down a bad path so so

we don't and I it was my first thought of leaving on it was July 4th and I was with my sister the time and when it first occurred to me that I might that I have might have to leave the church at the church might be wrong I thought I had to leave like that second because if it even occurred to me that meant 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 who was all your social life connected still to the church already known your husband by then it like it wasn't like that so I took the beginning like so so he was just another person on Twitter at first and it was like friendly conversation and spent over the last several months I don't know 8 or 8 months or so 7 or 8 months and then it was never and there was never anything you know about feelings or your relationship

what time does total for veterans no nothing like that like not even not even anything like nothing like it just did my mind didn't work that way in that there is there can be no relationship like that with Outsiders but about 80% of the people in the church is only 80 people are so anyway or my immediate and extended family so I thought it was like an easy thing at first but it was just it was just the facts on the ground you know I got I could actually had to date someone inside the church there's only 80 people in the church are all your family can't get your family fuck yeah wow I should say there were a couple of people my age they had just joined the church like we know that but I had no interest in any of them

I don't know and not but yeah it's it's kind of strange but I so I actually had a dream about meeting today I should say also my husband at the time I didn't know he was totally Anonymous on Twitter like I said it's just his words I didn't know what you look like I didn't know you know his name or where you lived or anything about him except except these words and he was he was just curious and kind and and that sort of he loves people and so he would sort of always be pushing pushing the conversation back to his like I'm getting it was like I told you all those verses about protesting funerals and why we have to go and do this in 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 talking about the scripture like the justifying all these things and he kept

get back to cuz he's not he was Super Bowl first in the Bible so he didn't know how to act like I see that the Bible says these things but what about the family like I just cannot imagine going and doing these things to people and so this is all happening like on as I'm I'm also still having conversations on Twitter with so many other 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 your people are butting heads and you arguing and debating and and yelling and it it's yes having he's going to can be kind of aggressive conversations but I'm also seeing like photos of their cats and then you know exchanging and joking with her friends and so I'm seeing a side of people tired of being immersed in this community in a way that I had never been before and so it was really it's like I'm trying to say I like when you say why don't you leave like it in there so it took it was so much sort of happening around this time

so when by the time this like pile-up of things and I'm processing it as I'm going through this I'm also talking to my sister and and she was the only other people in the church but she was the only person if I ever had a doubt or a question Aura like I thought we were 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

creative and artistic and had it like a little bit of a reputation for being kind of rebellious not as like submissive as money in our other sister so it was just this Dynamic of in a between the two of us where she was only person I could fully articulate my thoughts and feelings too and so when I first thought of leaving and I turn around and I thought I literally was your 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'm going to tell my sister and I thought I can't leave without talking to her so the next day I she came home from work over the 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 start like articulating the idea of leaving was too much like a it's it's terrifying and if it's just seems like impossible and I said

what if you weren't here and she said what do you mean

and I said what if we were somewhere else and so it that start this conversation where you know I cannot let go of all the things that I thought that the church was doing wrong that are part where I see ology was wrong where we were applying it wrong I mean in a way that that was destructive and unscriptural 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 outside this church all the things that we have learned about The Outsiders that you know that they were evil and they never truly love each other or care about care about one another they really just enabling one another on the path to hell

so instead of this back-and-forth you know goes on for about four months before we finally actually left and it was as as bad or worse as they could have imagined but to get back to the roots get to that ever imagined so we're talking to my parents and you. And it was another another issue had come up and I I couldn't we couldn't it was a battle that we were going to fight again saying this for months I kept trying to to articulate these doubts in a way that the church would accept like trying to convince them not being as old as time went on I became more and more open about about these questions and doubts

and I just I couldn't we couldn't fight it anymore I just looked at Grace and I said we have to go and go away and I should say also we had already been packing like we had we had started packing her things about a little over a month before that and we had started like taking boxes to our friends house and with the understanding he's actually our he was our high school English teacher that we catch up with you on Twitter

and he basically told him you know if something changes if the church changes and these things get better then

well it will take a lot of stuff back and just pretend like this never happened and he was just you know understanding and compassionate in and really supportive but so we had done 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 peanut people started coming my brother and somebody Elder is in my aunt my cousin your people that we were very close like our whole my whole life revolves around the church and so to look these people in the face and say that you know what this the end of the Austin mentality the bonds that are created an environment like that are incredibly strong I wish they were in our church

and again most of these people are also my family so it was it was awful and I'm tryna crying and packing and trying to explain to them way why we're leaving and I can hardly talk you know if you just decide I was so overwhelmed but

next day to go back the next day with a U-Haul to get the rest of her stuff or our parents help this pack it's not it's not one of those like there are some or groups like that where they don't want you to leave they'll try to stop people eating like I heard on the Scientology that miscavige yeah he is talking about life is like actual obstacles to you leaving like physically like you can't get out of the gate but nothing like that you know might 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 it's the threat of losing everything and every lunch now being ostracized by and just sort of X-Files 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 thick yellow your stuff packed people coming in there saying not being convinced that that you know that they walked away so I mean aren't that night or dad dropped off at a hotel and then that you become you be coming outside or at least in the next morning when he went back I rang the doorbell I rang the doorbell rang the doorbell but does not my world anymore so we going you know we're packing all of our things it was just it was awful just

I have been in those four months I've been so terrified of cuz I'm not knowing what was coming like this imagine you're going to lose everyone in your life if they're just you're just going to like you're not how your parents met and fell in love or like your grandparents and family recipes and photos and memories and what did the house look sound like taking photos and voice recordings and just all the time like every it was just it's just it's overwhelming it's just

but did was there also like a feeling of relief was there also 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 it was a cult so I was really against and I still don't attend not to use that word I mean it's it's it's a fine shorthand I guess for some other aspects of the truth or not coltish for sure like what like what I just said there's no they're not trying to get your money not turn out 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 coltish the fact that you can't there is no such thing as agreeing to disagree like that's and the the penalty for disagreeing is so high like so there are things like that that that are definitely quote like but but I was definitely a guy was not in that in that moment I was not okay with using that that term for sure it was definitely it was it took a lot of time and

what's a derogatory term but what it represents is an ideology 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 call right yeah right I totally understand that now which is why I like you know if somebody says it I sometimes will will say there are things that aren't school I can explain what I think is not but I'm also I don't do it every single time I understand that that's 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 Law Firm so it's home job family life just does everything all at once

and then also course you're going into a world that I just spent my entire life you know protesting and run and just so crazy when I look back now at videos which I couldn't do for a long time but there's tons of videos and interviews and documentaries let you know where I'm at I'm answering all these questions tonight it's it's crazy to meet you there when I was there yeah both times he was he was the first time it was he was really super nice 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 put gas in it was really funny because like this he came for 3 weeks like but 3 weeks like I'm not like one month he came for a week in the next game for the weekend and came again so the first time like I didn't know anything about him or who you was really bad news from the BBC obviously in that but I hadn't seen any of his stuff and then before he came

the next time I was supposed to be studying for a test with me I was in college and I was progressing so I look on YouTube and find the documentary that he did another one though white supremacy than 90 luminosities play watch that entire documentary and I was like like I know I know what his angle is likes it's them all these poor kids they were raised in this they don't know any better and at the time I was kind of indignant so it's like I'm thinking person you know like I at all of my life growing up like it was never just like I explained about the soldiers funerals like I never just just went along with something like I wanted to understand why I needed understand that it was scriptural in from the Bible and so if you could show me that then but like a curious person so but

I just had never obviously questions like the the most foundational premises of our belief system which is the Bible is the infallible word of God and Westboro 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 was fine so anyway so I was kind of indignant when I saw what movie was trying to do like we're just poor children and and so and I wouldn't told my family so that everybody you know everybody knew about it this you know what he was doing and I remember telling him something about how he was his Insidious what he was doing because he was not being honest using really friendly but not being honest about what he really thought about us

anyway what he say that he said actually actually addressed 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've been pretty pretty honest about it 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 that enough until he's right he was exactly right but

I guess I can see that the time

will you leave you get out and then what do you do to get a job so I thought immediately my degree in finance weather be in school all these people saying We believe that the Doom of the world was eminent so I never really did that so you were thinking that because of all this in one day there's going to be a reckoning and all the Christians going to vanish movie was this terrible too terrible movies with Kirk Cameron about the apocalypse goddamn Left Behind now they're so good you should watch him which I will I will watch terrible what they're so good there's so bad that they become like oh my god what the fuck is this Jeremy Kirk Cameron

no I it's really funny you listen to Sam Harris podcast SO2 episode of Lawrence right he said something like Lawrence right that said something like I clear the book on Scientology if he said about Floyd the narcissism of small differences and I was like oh my God yes like we other questions like we're some of our biggest targets the smallest things are there was like one church that we had some kind of like very little affiliation with in the early days of the picketing and then their women started to cut their hair when they are not allowed to cut their hair what is the Bible verse say that's 1st Corinthians 11:14 I think actually it says that a woman's hair is her glory don't you know doesn't nature itself teach you that it's a shame for a man to have long hair but I will

hair is her glory and it's given to her for a covering so long hair right so my grandmother interpreted that to me uncut which again like I did not but we didn't believe in interpretation at the church like that the fact that he was adding something into the Bible that wasn't there before cuz I was thinking of long hair with out and see if I can flowing hair is good then uncut sweater so and what about clothes like how do you reconcile the fact you not supposed to wear two different types of cloth so that is over there at the church these that says that the distinction between the ceremonial law of Moses and the moral law ceremonial laws like mixed fabrics and keeping kosher as snow by death of mixed Fabrics actually can't remember but we just don't worry about it though because we thought these passages and New Testament said you don't have to follow the ceremonial laws

we didn't worry about it but did you guys spend any time researching the actual history of the New Testament like how is constructed so I mean some yes but not really because in our minds God is Sovereign rights of the church please see destination so God controls everything and everyone so God control the construction of the New Testament as well it was God's will let you have it so it was all God's work

what's up you just don't have that you don't have to ask those questions until his deathbed is that because God didn't want it to be that way it's just it's irrelevant it's God's will God knew the entire time don't worry about it? How do you sort of instinctively avoid it is like atheist would ask a question like why the King James version and you can't really answer it because I said so like that's not to say that my grandfather was the fountain like Pastor first Pastor the only Pastor for the sound of the West Baptist Church cramps Fred Phelps

but like what was the what was the thought process behind by just accepting that kind of stuff I did your grandfather ever bring up the even older versions of the Bible that they're finding like was his thoughts on like the Dead Sea Scrolls and things on those lines just didn't address it because it just didn't matter because again just all God's word anyway so it's so fascinating when someone so rigid with their belief systems like this is it and this is as long as you believe that it's all God's will By Golly Wow it's God's will seriously put the New Testament was written by Constantine the bunch of Bishops in the other day and God let him do it for all the sodomy and all the crazy shit going on why does God allow that sell this is why I'm not a Christian anymore

well so there's a passage in Romans 9 was not it's not the only reason I should say but but I have really a real trouble with us and I think it's is it so hard for me to say I think this is evil but I think this is evil is this pathogen in Romans 9 that talks about it's this 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 did when he saw our Twins and says while they were yet in the womb before either of them I done good or evil God love Jacob and hated Esau and it took this picture of God you know it says what if God willing to show his wrath and make his power numb and do art with much long-suffering the vessels of Wrath made for Destruction so it says God created some people as vessels of Mercy people that he loves and others is vessels of Wrath made for Destruction so made for the express purpose of destroying them torturing them in hell for eternity

so and then took all his writing he he paints this picture god making you do all of the things that you do and then blessing some and cursing others and he says will you know what you're going to ask me then why does God yet find fault for who is registered as well

right so you guys making you do it why is he punishing you for it answer is you don't get to ask that question no man who are the other replies against God so the thing form say to him that formed it why has Thou made me this he just wanted to ask a question and to me I saw this is I've asked for I spent a long time talking to Christians and you know people of mimosa Christians cuz I was his New Testaments oh and also talking to Jewish people about the Old Testament and found so many of the like interpretations so many of our beliefs

or not they're not fully supported by by the Bible and that there are so many different ways of interpreting so many of our the more destructive of our beliefs but that one I have not found any explanation for that passage that says 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 him but now I I can't not think of course I cannot ask the questions

job it's got to be so sore it's also strange when you read the passages in the Bible and their bowel and thigh and you go wow like would have weird like you're reading something in a style of communicating and thinking that we don't even use anymore like how strange is that like Australia have you had a conversation with a rational person and they they were started talking and DOW and die you do like what are you why you using those words like what's going on here are you okay I got you a crazy person but as long as you're quoting some ancient stop you're allowed to do it like in it just it sort of highlights how bizarre scripture really is and how bizarre these ideological imperatives is ideological like Pathways that are just completely rigid and carbon so you have to follow them but then you're listening you like you didn't even talks like this anymore I guess is as such a strange and didn't even talk like that then when they wrote it

is you doing something that was an ancient Hebrew and then it was translated to Latin is translated to Greek and by the time it gets to English the Grapevine questions that I never thought I could ask for that again that it didn't matter because God knows you know for ordained all of it then it wasn't relevant but there's also 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 unlike the language is something that like yeah I know it sounds so weird to people but it's a lot of people but I like the King James like I I grew up like I got my mother was reading this to us every every night and so these words there's actually passage that says I found like like talking to God I found i words and I did eat them and they were on to me the joy and rejoicing in my heart right so it was this thing where

loved it I loved I love these ideas 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 guy said that I I really love it says Zone by long forbearing is a prince persuaded and a soft tongue break at the bone

that last like that's that's it it's it's a soft tongue break at the bone that that free they love the imagery I love the like cuz you know I did the Ted Talk a few months ago and and I see how it is kind of about this like modern political discourse this this tribalism this is becoming listen to these calcified you know positions and and failures of empathy in

Anda like people think that because you know they're so sure that they're right that their position is the right position they're willing to talk to the other side in ways it just it's just a terrible the way that I did at the church it's the way that it's you know that dismissive condescending you know just hostile aggressive and that's like it does not even people don't respond to it like they respond to certain way you tend to respond in kind so if somebody comes to you and kindness and compassion you tend to respond you know and in that that way also and when you are angry and aggressive and hostile like a just Alyssa's the same reaction people get defensive end but that that verse I will. I love that verse from what those people were riding down

trying to translate what that wisdom was and there's some really fascinating past is to me it's always been most fascinating as a time capsule like when I read it I might full regardless of who translated this regard this is still a thousand-year-old book at the very least in terms of 2,000 years old that alone is really amazing when you're reading the thoughts in the ideas of how someone was receiving the World 2000 years ago or roughly you know it's still something to it where you are it also solidifies in my mind how briefly human beings have been conscious of their time here on Earth 2000 years ago is not very long I mean it seems like an incredibly long time for personal lives to be a hundred but in terms of the the age of 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 hundred thousand years yesterday

some new discover some new bones so now they don't 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 but that's so cool like I was going to say I actually think of Rodrick Rules oldest Homo sapiens species discovered in Morocco

yeah

want to say

time okay yeah

add a hundred thousand 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 in the national team of anthropologist paleontologist and evolutionary scientists report a pair of papers published in Wednesday in the journal medicine journal Nature evolutionary

what was the most Evolution talk like back at home how old was baby dinos on the ark I don't know we just anytime there is any conflict or apparent conflict between the Bible and evidence see no physical evidence we just played the Bible like because it works but what you're saying about like ancient wasn't like there was this song to my husband he got super into paleo a few years ago and that he read John Dorrance book The Paleo Manifesto and he made me read one chapter of it knows Called Moses the microbiologist and Robb wolf wolf mentioned it on your podcast or whatever that was a few weeks ago or whatever

so fascinating to it like when you read Leviticus like without the context you know the time and the time they were living like it a lot of it just seems like I might be reading this at home we know as a family like there's just so much but this seems like an incredibly tedious and like what are we supposed to be getting out of this like I don't even know so I read this chapter and it was so like incredible talking about like this is it in Jewish at the the the rules about washing your hands which is like of course the the simplest and most effective form of hygiene and and prevent running pathogens an Ender eye Texas 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 to eat because of because of its all sorts of parasites in Cary right and then not eating like cats because cats eat there so much detail in there and it was incredibly fast things like there

it 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 it's really it's really fascinating and amazing piece of historical literature and I mean it and it's amazing that so many people have not to use the term but use it as gospel mean that it's the right turn right and it's just I always feel strange whenever I read it whenever I read it I feel strangely 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 when your on life was essentially Guided by the application of the interpretation of these words that were thousands of years old I mean that is just bizarre but then what's even more bizarre to me is that Twitter's with snapshot of it is that interacting with people through online was just open forum

exchange of ideas and especially in Twitter where it says hundred forty character limit that's such a bad rap my life I think I might actually do that actually year ago and I'm going next week too I didn't bring their trust and Safety Council really yeah that's always sound so orwellian tonight but I found out some of the people there full of shit social justice Warrior is going on and I'm definitely not on the censorship or you know trying to like stop people like I think I saw I don't I just don't know enough about all that but obviously like I'm definitely on the side of of and I won't be able to be able to control their experiences on Twitter of course I like so I mean you should be able to like

right that's what I mean like so you should control your experience but like trying to stop people from cuz like I always say somebody's I think that it is it's illegal but I agree and harassment if you're harassing people or trying to get people to harass people like you it was soliciting harassment right I'll just like hey let's go after that again she doesn't believe in the gods word anymore let's go get her using the platform for any sort of a fucked-up way like that the importance of the marketplace of ideas and be a bit late because so many people come to these we come to bed ideas and so many different ways sometimes we argue ourselves there in front of other people but the way out of it isn't a pretend to push it out of the public sphere it to engage it to shed light on it and talk publicly argue against it so that other people who might be tempted

starting to go down that path will understand otherwise 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 I mean that's everything that's human discourse in general that's one of the main problems with really rigid ideologies there's no room for that and then you just like it it's God's word in this is it and you just have to trust it and there's baby dinosaurs on the ark and just going to go okay and because of that that. Like I have a friend who is Mormon and choose Mormon for a long time and then she they just sort of like they decided it was kind of silly and then they they read into the church and they start like a 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 things she said it was really fast and she said I'm really susceptible to like like someone who's a bullshit artist

but she's like I'm easily influenced like too much so she's like growing up in this fundamental environment is fundamentalist you know where you don't question anything you just go along with the word she goes it leaves me vulnerable to like being influenced and I was like wow that is fascinating she's like I'm really gullible wow it's like hurt her structure of how she her questioning muscles really wobbly and we can atrophy they just didn't have any pep to them also about the decision making because if somebody else is always making the decision that you don't have to figure it out for yourself so on both of those friends like when after my sister and I left it was the sort of like more or less constant we are processing in and asking these questions like I would have these two friends inside like back to people after we left right so I got it this guy wrote an open letter like he's been somebody that I had sparkles on Twitter quite a bit and trying to pick it

but never actually did he wrote an open letter after in my sister I published this statement essentially just a short explanation that you know we had left and that we regret it hurting people and that we were trying to find a better way to live basically just because we've been so public at the church with it it seems like we had to it it seemed like and also a US is open letter in response and invited us to church over at Hollywood United Methodist Church and and how does he recognize reconcile all the anti-gay stuff

the earlier they just be accepting like whatever you find in the Bible see you there for you have to accept it and just go along with it no matter we know what evidence or whatever seems to contradict it or whatever I was going to say that I encounter and people for the first time including I'm actually not sure how he reconciled. I think it has to do with the love of Jesus and and your grace and you know just that the Old Testament whatever I'm not exactly so I honestly don't really know encountering for the first time Christians who were willing to say like yeah I know the Bible says that but I think that applied at a different time or I just don't believe that it has an Old Testament Bible quote tattoo like hey you got to read the whole book man

I think that's it sits honest right like this is to be able to to say like yes I I I think this is good and too but to have the wherewithal to say like yeah this this is good and this is wrong because I'm a Bible verse that says the evil and love the good and I love that I mean I hate like I'm talking I'm not never it's never about for me is about people too bad idea like I think there are a lot of bad ideas and so I try to help anyway so fine by bad ideas and I think you're not in that way the Bible is a lot like people in that you can take a really good person who does something stupid does something wrong doesn't it back and it doesn't mean they're bad you can't say like you are this time you ran this red light and hit that car are you are this time where you whatever it whatever you did that you shouldn't have done that you need to have done impulsively or what

whatever reason it doesn't definitely defined 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 I matter what you do in the future you will be defined by this moment that you got drunk and drove a car whatever the fuck is now like if we the tendency now on jury Jon Ronson book yes you did I hear so you've been publicly shamed like that that tendency that it will enter my family like this this it's it it was incredibly judgmental I can even within the church and became even more so towards the end of the year before my sister and I left we're like everything that this is the way that my sister and I started talking about it after we left was like it's like everything that looks bad is bad and everything that looks good is also bad like he wants you if you can if you identify a person as some

Troublemaker or you can just read into the worst intentions and motives when it's it's just as likely that it's it isn't that like a generalized the worst he is getting under your John's ordering some of the sound sorry but has the worst about people in and make it make that their entire identity and there's a tendency to do that with people that are also there they're terrified of scrutiny coming their way so what they do is they cast it all out on others instead of looking internally settle looking at their own actions and blue they like to find a fault in a person and then that is their main focus and you see people doing the Tabloid journalism so fast then you go to the supermarket and you know you know Matt Lauer's doing cocaine right there in front of you

induced doing drugs or whatever whatever anybody's doing she's leaving him for her she is someone did something bad then everybody's watching it we love it cuz we all know this is some creepy shit that we've done that if somebody found it and then everybody start 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 that's right because when you make it in the penalty for speaking up and possibly Miss stuffing and he's right I don't eat the whole idea of like microaggressions like I like fundamentally like it it's this like what I understand like I'm not saying like I think it's really important like I haven't said this was 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 fence where to find it and soap but so the problem is like when your people say something maybe not quite an exactly the right way or they like the way that we punish people it when we make a penalty so hi Jennifer it's just to go back to John's Johnson's book that Justine Sacco you know she tasteless joke on Twitter to her $170 or whatever and then it blows up and her entire life is over just kidding I'm white and turn her life inside out and I don't mean to say like I'm not saying like I'm just saying there has to be more to get the look like Grace like there's there's this this is writer that I Love Actually and she says that the language of public discourse has lost

that I should put in its public discourse has lost the language of generosity like this and that I think that's really it's really terrible but like so when you make the cost of misspeaking or or maybe not saying things exactly the right way like we make that costs so high what it does is it pushes out moderates and what you end up with people on both near two ends of the Indies extremes and now the only ones talking and then it just it just again reinforces this this you know calcification and ask them and you know tribalism and it's it's it's dangerous like it'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 and then the worst if you grew up in a fucked-up way or you have some imbalance in your personal life or maybe have some chemical imbalance or you're depressed or

and then you make a poor judgement call 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 top of buildings cuz 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 it's a certain amount of fascination of how will this play out and it's going to 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 ostrich ostracizing of the person from the group The alienation of them from the social Community the the the knowledge that they have that people are talking about them all the time any football

Kathy Griffin's cheese on Americans using a burn in hell and all that is going to be just eating a waiter and we know it that's one of the reasons why we like to concentrate on it there's a certain amount of weird sort of voyeurism that's an involved in any any sort of a public misstep that people have and then the pylon Buy in a lot of people are just very very unhappy with their lives and so when someone else does something screwed up but they can take away some of the 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 Netflix so she gets her point she's talking about going out to a picket I Westboro picket and and I actually had seen she talked about this one Bill Maher a few years ago too and I just remember like

I knew her as this like I didn't like I was know her anything specific except for her car, and she seemed kind of just kind of like a little I don't know she's very likely very blunt and listen to the church right so they are looking around the landscape and seeing like how the word of God who plays all these people they have to in order to comment on what's going on I have to know what's going on so what people are saying and the trends and and and things so so yeah so I went to her no more I expected her to be I don't know like a hostile and and whatever about the church when she started talking about them what she said what you said was founded on the special the way she put it was I am them but she went out with was talking to members of my family and you know she said we have to see them as human

and she was like I told her she said I told the dirty joke or whatever you don't try to end the picketers I guess one of my cousins or something like snickered you know when she when she makes us joke 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 Netflix special ways that I am then like I am the product of my experiences and so are they and they are the only way you can your change of things to add to those experiences like to introduce like David did on Twitter with me and my husband like introduced these ideas and ways that that people can actually hear them and and beat move by them I love to categorize people and sees rigid boxes that are unchangeable and that you are this person you always be this person you are my enemy and you think this you think that and you're a dirty liberal and you're a disgusting Republican and we have these weird audiological boxes that we love to shove people into that's a perfect example. I mean if they were little kids and they grew up in that church and there

7 years old do we really believe that they would have the wherewithal in the understanding of the full spectrum of human behavior to say that this is wrong and then we shouldn't be protesting at this gay person's funeral we shouldn't be holding up the signs that say godhatesfags does godhatesfags or not like that are you write Grandpa like who would have the mud what's incredibly Brave is that you deep in 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 it What was the first job you got so I didn't get a job immediately I thought I had to I thought I have to be responsible like I'm course I'm with my sister like we had some money saved just but we lived at home we didn't have a lot of expenses like we we use our money to travel across the country picketing but we still we still had some money so we're going to take a trip yeah I'm going to Walmart in Clearwater wants to get a rank up tickets by likes George W Bush's second inauguration was like insane and there's like Scientology

roughed up hold up those signs thank God for 911 streets blocked off for the parade so like he finishes his inauguration speech in the SEC huge crowd of people like hundreds of that whatever how many tons of people like flood down the saying they're stuck in this in this intersection waiting to go right past us on the sidewalk and so there was like this that are seeing this like to thank God for 911 and is right after the tsunami to so my mom had a thought it was holding the thank God for the tsunamis or whatever and I'm like some people are just in Rage by the time they actually got to us like we're standing like right at the edge of these barricades likes on the other side of the Parade route and so like if you were like jumping like some guy jumped on my back like I'm wanting another bike stealing signs and like jumped on your phone so like one of my cousins

I gave his signs to another church member and then was like standing on top of a trash can like going to come on you guys like just just don't worry about them they're not worth it worth it like just because it was so it got so physical like new people and like the cop shot in your back like what did he do like there's nothing else you can do I should also say they were cops just on the other side of the barricade just like every 5 ft there was a cop I think there's others like maybe 14000 cops in DC that takes his first inauguration after 9/11 so anyway so that they can the cops are mostly just standing there like I look overly of the guy gets off and look at my brother is standing next to me who's seven or eight eight years he would have been like early twenties

send this I see that he jumped over the barricade cuz the way people were coming after us and this cop like pulls out a club to making us get back over there and jump back around the other side like with these people who were and not really doing anything but it it was 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 saying something incredibly insulting and just devastating to all these people that lost friends and loved ones on 911 or in the tsunami or or have family members that are gay did you guys really expect the cops going to take the beating for you or the cops are going to get involved but never do what you did then write like what if what if someone pass some sort of a loss ain't 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 protests

and sometimes the cops would say we're going to come to protest the speed of something and they would say you know you can come but you can't hold that sign or you can't tell you step on the flag when are sometimes a telxon desecrating the flag was a bigot we saw it at the idle and you know the American flags and I got arrested I had a beer in Nebraska and my little brother liberal protest against holder's funeral and we were like far away from the church but there is 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 my brother was 9 years old at the time and he did what he always said which was put down lay the American flag on the ground and stand on top of it and hold the picket sign

send like a couple of minutes like nine cops showed up and started talking about arresting my mother for flag mutilation and contributing to the delinquency of a minor and so before they do the arrest you know again my mom and my uncle were both there and they are both wires and my uncles like you know Johnson versus Texas the Supreme Court said in that case that you can even you can you delete now I can you need to let it fly you can even burn it and that's perfectly lawful and one of the cops is like we're not in Texas or in Nebraska

so like it's as long as a Supreme Court case so it's and he said stream court has jurisdiction all over the country so and otherwise I guess what I'm saying is like that the way that sometimes they did sometimes they work really good cops who did their job more Super professional and didn't let their beliefs about are your religious beliefs her and there was a thought about a message get in the way of them doing their job but and then they would threaten to arrest you know my parents if they brought children they would take their children away from them you know things like that but but we absolutely expect them to get to do their jobs like that that was in this is the Supreme Court

it's from the point of view of something like me someone like me I would say don't bring any cops there know if you if you start that kind of shit at a funeral or for a 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's already emotionally scarred those cops need to be out there stopping robberies and in a breaking and entering into people's houses and carjackings and that's what they're supposed to be doing they're not supposed to be like helping out people were intentionally provoking and emotionally. Disturbing people but I mean so obviously from the treasures perspective it's like this it's Caesars sincerely held religious beliefs in the First Amendment what good is the first amendment obviously the First Amendment issue because there is no one in the official position is saying you cannot speak

right where the cop should be there to protect those people there I think the cops should definitely be there to prevent violence iCampus 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 they're around a bunch of people that also have like-minded ideas a lot of peer pressure a lot of 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 a hot-button issue I think protesting at a soldier's funeral is just gross I agree with you I know you do I know you do I mean but I'm just saying like I don't think the cops have responsibility to save you from being gross

yeah I just I don't know I mean obviously this was a Supreme Court case if he came out did you know that that this there's a case we were sued by the the church and it went on the first day you they want to 10.9 million-dollar verdict against us at the trial court and then it was reversed at the appeals court in the Supreme Court said 8 to 1 they have it's the constitutional right for them to do this is their religious beliefs they have a right they were especially because I mean sometimes I will say it like that I described you that very first Pickett soldier's funeral pick up that I went to you like that was very close quarters you know we were right up on top of that like if we had chosen to seeing or know that they would have hurt us but in a lot of instances we were away far far away like in that Indian since it was extreme Court they were more than a thousand feet away there's like a hill that the Bates family didn't see church members you know things like that it there was so I mean

they have a right to do it the church in the son or daughter and War II think obviously I don't I think it's terrible that they do to it and it 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 can't believe it's true and I was going to go to any more funerals protest where would you think that the police should do their operating on tax dollars and it's a limited amount of resources right I mean sure you are but do you think this resources should go to the cops that's the end of inadequate and fair use of resources to go and protect a bunch of troublemakers

so I did it it depends on how you feel how do you feel about the First Amendment like at the it's it's it's the principle of the thing rather than the applications like it's just one application like so the whole idea of what we have not interested our government to decide what opinions are acceptable and what are so what date they don't they don't get too hot like so full of it seems like you're organizing this so if you're organizing this sort of antagonistic display where you know you're going to hurt someone's feelings this time because because this it's the law like that they are supposed to be no protect like that again what what good are the First Amendment rights to be able to to say it's is a protect popular speech right because robbers we just need protection unpopular speech needs protection so it's just against the police are really there to enforce laws what the lies you don't get

buddy Ryan it's something else for a second have these people pronounce we're going to go even though they've been granted permission by that you know everybody like that they're going they should be able to speak right we're not going to let him speak because we don't like their message so if the cops know that that's going to happen it was just reading about what they let them shut it down but I'm saying is I think that's wrong I think they still should be able to should go and like I said this is what they can't say well obviously this is still back to like it's not if the cops say get 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 FaceTime look at it if it's just this is religious opinion that we weren't saying we want you to hurt us we're not trying to provoke you to hurt as we're trying to deliver this

message that we think is the truth of God's right so it wasn't there's a difference between like deliberately provoking an inciting violence like deliberately inciting violence and what we were doing which was trying to Proclaim this message that we thought was the truth Argo wasn't violence like we didn't want violence that's why we contacted the cops we were going to attack them and and we didn't want to be attack we just wanted to be able to exercise our rights without fear of without fear of violence at that the principles of our democracy you're saying and I think that it's a it's a gets a little weird when were 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 has the person does distribute that message and if the police come

and say we're going to shut down the distribution of this message most of time to do it when things are out of hand sew an excellent tool for someone is trying to sign on to people's to make sure things get out of hand may not be present like in and letting both sides have their voices without the ability to resort to violence of 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 yes we're going we want to Proclaim my message we want you to be out there to look we loved and I honestly we love it when counter-protesters there because it just brought more attention to her message because I think that you shouldn't obviously sent you anymore but I just do not think that anybody especially from a defensive group like that should be able to allocate resources that are public use like Police pull over to like we didn't make the decision to write for them to like they decide like okay well is this likely going to look so they can either be proactive and set the buffer zone or be reacted like we're calling the cops because we're getting punched

wherever they're going to go out no matter what it was a wee wee when even when they would say we're not going to protect you where we would go where when Gabby Giffords was shot in Arizona we had a couple of an FBI agent actually and the guy from the local police department, and say like you shouldn't go and cuz there's a girl who had been killed in the church that are going to protest her funeral so they said I don't think we can protect you like this it's too volatile it's too and so in that case we didn't like we actually didn't go let's go response actually I think I was going to say I like so it's the thing is I was there and during this conversation in my heart my mom was explained that we were going to go it actually had more to do with Logistics like we couldn't get there like plane tickets and whatever like we just couldn't get there so I was like okay I hear you

reasonable 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 in the police go back to the church I could see it all up inside of you a little bit, just to hold the importance of discourse in the marketplace of ideas this is one like I like again 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 most people never experience free speech that you don't even agree with any more and more crazy

so let's get back to your first job what was it what was the first job I worked at a 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 we spent the first month with a cousin of mine who is also Church a few years earlier she was really close she would made it out there so many or sister called mine sucks but it's like the thing about people who leave is that they are demonized more than anybody else even more than khazar Jews or any other Outsiders x members who get the worst you are the worst things about them because they knew the truth and they rejected it right so I was when it came when it when I thought of leaving like the last thing on my mind was I could go to an ex member I thought

you can't trust them they're going to look so it's just this whole of intensely negative instinctive reactions to it to those things but I was overpayment and I reach out to her a few weeks before we left and she was amazing like within I didn't talk to her in three and a half years and had said all kinds of terrible things you know about her after she left but when she was wonderful and she said like within like 30 seconds of like when I eat when she understood that I was you know planning to leave I wish I can live with me and it was it was amazing and so kind and so

wherever there for about a month my sister was still in school so she was we were traveling back to Kansas to Topeka SRS xos half an hour from my cousin's house and you don't 4 days a week while she was still in school and so we are constantly running into our family driving by the pickets do they pick it everyday and Deepika several times a day and like at the grocery store and on campus and so it was just needed to get away to end up going to Deadwood South Dakota my brother has been a fan of the TV show end and that it just seems like a nice quiet like Play She and your brother I have a brother who left about a year-and-a-half after my sister and I did and I have another brother who left about 8 years before I did wow another 7-Eleven kids so 7 or still at home and four of us are out

do talk to them people are out yeah they won't have to do with us

I just like I'm not your mom

no no they might but the thing is like so back to Twitter like that's how I know what that weather up to like I said I see photo like they post photos like I've been watching my little brothers grow up on their photos on Twitter and you know see what my parents want him on his name it's awful I mean it's it's I'm glad I'm so glad to be living now and not before social media where I can actually see these things in and know what they're up to and a little bit about how they're doing I do I mean I do on on Twitter where is this is great about Twitter sometimes like I have big block me on my main account blocked not all of them but a lot of them she actually created she got kicked off of Twitter at one point so she had to go so she didn't block me yet

wow yeah yeah your mom blocks you on Twitter that's when you have a lump in your throat like just wait imagine like I can't believe I could 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 a ice to make coffee for her every morning in like where you go on walks together and we go on our ministry

well actually I I saw her to pick it a little over a year ago she didn't she didn't say anything to me talk to you she couldn't like a baby that came from her body loved you and raise you

she can't like it it's there is it's so like what I think about it 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 where ever at the grocery store or whatever like what would you say they would ask me that's why I was still at the church and it is so it's like a I don't think of her too it's 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's the it is impossible right and so crazy. The cult yeah they all have it they all have it it's one of the ways to control people the fear of alienation is like them so they'll talk to people still talk to people with rainbow shirts on they'll talk to ex soldiers still talk to those people they won't talk to you that's insane but this is when I had one of those like great things about Twitter and and I just the internet in general is that it's a thing where it's like they obviously like my little brother's friend looks like they are you hearing all this bad stuff about you know my sister and me anybody who leaves they all still hear bad things about us but the good thing about the internet is like they can go on they can go to my Twitter account see what I'm actually saying

so I'm so I go through these phases where I like I said I will tweet and I get like I can't I just like the fear of judgement I guess for my family I just I just choose to focus on other things and not post things on Twitter but like I said if I follow them on this other account that I created that's not blocked right and it's over just WBC accounts so I can I see liked things that they say and like a doctor's right now Bolivar unscriptural and so like I will treat them you know it's like this what does contradictory like and try to act like they still doing what I was doing before then now against them like you just in this and so there is some engagement a little bit with my family on Twitter because especially because of Any like anything's I do public way so maybe something about this I don't know but like my type. Came out there's a couple of Articles and like people were treating it a laden and so my uncle and my aunt both were tweeting tweeting

and tweeting about me and so I was never having this report I guess like this you know going back and forth about these things Bible verses in and debating and so all of that stuff it's it's it's I hope at some point hopefully will have will have some of that in some ways it already has so like at the day that I left there was a way to get to that job sometime soon worry about it the day that I left my when my cousin's you know came into my bedroom while I was crying and packing and it was asking that's just very calmly and likes this my best my best friend she was a year older than me is that your only and she's asking me why were leaving and I'm describing a lot of things and one of the I describe specifically two signs one of them was the death penalty for bags and other one was faxed can't repent

and she sent me a message the next morning and I was describing versus I thought you know contradicted those two signs and the following morning she sent me a message a text message super early in the morning just like just doing me out basically like that at and Romans one like that that definitely like there's no you didn't you have no argument like so so what you really your problem and 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 it's like so much like doubling down on that's right and that's this goes on during this time like I'm talking about it and getting a few interviews like talking about it they're like on Twitter a little bit like reiterating the verses that contradict them and then like after more than 2 years I wake up one morning and I checked you know I'm checking

neck sweaters and there was a blog post and they said about that fact can't repent sign and I was like oh my God it's like I open the blog post and it's a for the first time ever they had publicly diss about a sign and using the same Bible verses that I had been and I know that's like a very small point in the grand scheme of things right but that's reason it's critical reasoning but but look so this is this is the goal right so I thought it was after my my brother left so I don't really know nobody who's left since then I asked her if I have to be to actually of my cousins have left since and also but none of them have any understanding of like of what happened so

I don't know and I'm not I'm not trying to take credit by sauce I like this is not in any way the teachings of Christ so it's so crazy because like this is something that I didn't realize until after we left also but like we thought we were I told you about love thy neighbor like they have a son and love thy neighbor equals rebuke right cuz that's in Leviticus 19 that's how it describes you know loves morning your neighbor when you see him sending something to you don't have any event but the one time I saw in the New Testament that Jesus is talking with this guy and that guy says like how do I inherit eternal life and he says Jesus is what it what is the scripture say and he says to love God and to love your neighbor and he says you're right

who is my neighbor in Jesus tell the story of the Good Samaritan so it's like this do you know the story of man versus man falls among Thieves and they leave a half dad to be until this afternoon or whatever and Dave steals clothes and and leave them there a priest goes and sees the man and he crosses the street and walk by any other side and the levite is also like dealing with the things of God right he got does exact same thing crosses and and goes on goes on his way doesn't help them and then the Samaritan stops and buys up his wounds and puts them on his own he put them on his own beast and take him to an end and give the Innkeeper money to take care of them and does anything you spend more than this I'm going to I'll pay you back when I want to come again so he's like actually practically taken care of him so Jesus says and

how do you sync which which of these was neighbor to the man who fell fell among Thieves and he said he was Mercy on him so in other words what I'm saying is like we reduced loving our neighbor to preaching to pick it into putting words on signs and going out in publishing then that's what we thought loving our neighbor was but the one time example that Jesus gives is not preaching like they didn't go like that the Samaritan didn't go and say like this happen to you because you're a sinner repent he went and helped them and where was that on our picket signs 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 primary part of archaeology and why didn't we encourage others to do it too

anyway so this is something that I didn't realize until after I was talking to a couple of Christian friends of mine who pointed that out and I was like I cannot believe I missed that like all those years like crazies like the end in the story the priest and levite of the people who are like dealing with the things of God right so they're presumably preaching it's not enough that's not that's not the Fulfillment of that yeah so anyway there's there's so many of these things that I just couldn't see when I was at the church cuz again your ear in this it's it's kind of an echo chamber that clearly we had access to the outside world were having a discussion but the problem with that discussion is that in a lot of cases people just didn't understand what are theology actually was how we actually thought which is why you know David Ball making this like the fact that this was an ongoing conversation that he really got into the nuances of archaeology and could really understand where I was coming from to be able to make the point in a way that I can 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 Ken can try to push back in a way that's a lot more effective than people who just don't understand where they're coming from so you get this job and be there for a month and and then we're going to go back and Grace was school nurse going to get a job and then I was in Deadwood for a couple of weeks I was like I could get an idea of going back to Kansas and like being back in the shadow of the church and like seeing our family all the time like seeing them and not because it's it's constantly being face to face with rejection of the people that we love the most and like the idea of going back to that environment 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 Grace decided to try out for a play there

Panda and agreed to stay with me so we change like all of her classes to be online and and we're staying with Jehovah's Witnesses which we didn't know that when we booked it being my first our first Airbnb asleep beautiful old house in the Black Hills and see a liquid-based they thought at first when they realized what was happening like who we were we start having these conversations and we find out there Jehovah's Witnesses and they thought at first that we might be disfellowshipped Witnesses before they realize those we were at the church and it was just so mind-blowing to see there are other ways of understanding these texts that are consistent with the text but totally different than we understood anyway the husband Dustin is the marketing company in Deadwood such a good job there part-time

so what is your processor what's the journey from leaving the church going to Deadwood and then becoming sort of a self-proclaimed atheist how do you how do you completely remove yourself from the shackles of ideology or did you want to do it's not like I switch flips and you're just everything that you knew is gone situation that that so like people are Jewish people are these like Jehovah's Witness says it was obviously I had the instinctive responses to their ideas and so but each time I would feel feel something it would I would just like ask myself these questions you know what am I feeling why am I feeling it is this just instinctive what is

evidence like those what makes sense I can sort of like having to it should to to try to reconstruct like like actually look at the evidence again like starting from scratch basically in a lot of ways so so each time work when presented with these situations like you know it's cuz I feel like there's always like so friend since 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 I'm sorry like I didn't I didn't intend to hurt to hurt you or two 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 don't know what I believe I don't know

I don't know what I'm doing and people when they responded to that I mean like they were really understanding and empathetic in a way that I never imagined people would be like getting how enough you seem like it's really hard for me still take to go back and watch some of those videos because it's so it's I know exactly where I was coming from at the time but it's so like the arrogance in 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 very strange strange Dynamic but anyway it's like the fact that people were understanding in spite of that long history of all the things I had said and done at the church was was was overwhelming and and and wonderful

but anyway so I was basically my sister and we're basically putting ourselves over and over we were having been in Deadwood for very long when I got a message from David was on my on my birthday and I I told him that we had left and

you know he he saw it stop tweeting he knew something was up several months earlier and so he invited us to come to the Jewish Festival which was a few weeks later like end of February or something beginning of March and I purchase at the dealership 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 protesting the synagogue in in Topeka like all my life but I have no I don't really know what to say other than you know just generally Jews kill Jesus and they reject savior so therefore there like without hope but I didn't know really much about Jewish theology I didn't know anything about Jewish people like I've never really spent time with them so so I wanted to go to the Festival my sister and I did because we wanted to you wanted to meet you at people and thick to this whole at this examining process like what we believe and why and what we got so much like light

answer of wisdom from other people like learning what they believed and why you know so and then David said yeah but you have to if you have to speak at the festival and I was like

no no this is not happening like I can't I can't imagine facing these people that I have spent so many years I thought I just it just seemed impossible and it terrified me to be coming face-to-face with people and I had animal of the church that three months yet so enjoy scary but my sister was like we're going to like she she knew that we needed to have this experience have like of learning about Jewish people and if the cost was we have to talk about it fine and she'll also said later she knew I would do most of the talking so we went in 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 I kept saying we want to do good

I got that died in the motivating principle of our life was to do good and now we realize we did so much damage and and so anyway so we were trying to find a way I wouldn't know what to do like how to how do you move forward from there and so we just need to know so you're kind of drifting that whole first year we we basically I think I'm blunt with the longest we spent anywhere we were you know where to visit x members of the church you know who or a cross-country my dad's family who we never knew what growing up cuz they were never part of the church so I mean like we at least had seen them like they would come visit for a few hours sometimes and maybe a clear allowed to visit for a while but then my stuff before you left baby cut off all contact with his family they're also has been very limited already but either so you spoke to his family

about a month will it hurt my battery life on my first night in Deadwood and I told her we had left and she just immediately started crying and she said that I've been waiting for this for 30 years like she had my older brother at one of my older brothers had left since since my dad join the church is what she was saying you know she my dad's parents are so there's they're amazing people like his dad is it was clear Air Force we were tired from the from the Air Force and they're they're wonderful people and oh we could see of them was well they're divorced and remarried they're they're going to hell they're 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 and then 30 years like how am I what what is what is the I don't know so crazy

turn on for just four and a half years

it's really insane

when did it solidify in your head that you were going to like identify or like speak out as a non-believer

this morning I don't know I mean like so I was as I could talk to Sam about this a few months ago like that cuz like there's there's this part of me that like I mean when a lot of a lot of people here jerk when they hear atheist wrong and I don't use that word for myself 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 bad like and I also feel like I am I'm open to any you know like I haven't like decided there is no God 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 what I mean I talk to her all the time I think about theology a lot I just I can't not like it also becomes there's a there's a group mentality involved in atheism and there's one of the reasons why I was reluctant to

far as an atheist is that so many people are asking me to identify as an atheist so I could you give a shit why do you want me to come out I told you I'm not religious like butt

especially

especially the idea that there cannot be a God or there cannot be any sort of a higher power and that after you dye it just ends how do you know right exactly and that's exactly where I am it's not knowing for certain that there is no God it's a I just don't believe so we know about you in life forget about the possibility of afterlife or the possibility but Consciousness is there possibility of what this concept that we call a soul is what it what is that or forget about psychedelic experiences and what do they represent and what what what do they represent when they're coming from but essentially is human neurochemistry there's the most potent ones are chemicals that exist in the Brainerd. Janice of the human body and what it what are those experiences and how are they so akin to religious experiences and why why do people even believe now especially these scholars in Jerusalem is connected the burning bush of Moses with

The Acacia Bush which is the bushes rich and psychedelic chemicals and they think that it's entirely possible that would Moses had a psychedelic experience and which he came back with all the laws that human beings are supposed to be living by as proclaimed by the great spirit of the universe or whatever the hell he encountered God is Dad there is no God like that's just a silly saying there is one in this is why I like that like the whole process since you laughed like it was like the idea of choosing another belief system like I would learn all the stuff about Jehovah's Witnesses and I like like okay that's mostly internally consistent like I think there's a lot of they're not they're not with us anymore like they left a little every couple years ago

stations with them in their home might have had something to do with that yeah I know I think so we have would have these long conversations and actually I was the craziest thing when I found out like that that they had laughed like it was it was Dustin Laura other name is Laura I was her birthday and I don't celebrate birthdays so I can talk about him like and then at the end the conversation she's like she's like well it's my birthday today and I'm celebrating it and I just like was shocked I didn't say anything for a couple things like right cuz I obviously like knowing what that it was different and it wasn't as like as much for them you don't like it wasn't the same level of like I know that disorientation in the loss and

I call that it's complicated like you don't want us to like oh my gosh I'm so glad you're out of this because I think they believe some things that are really kind of nuts but but so I was just like very cautious to like like I don't know what happened but just know that I always like loved and cared about them and and you know like but I was so eager to have these covers like to understand what had happened with him and it's kind of just just following the like how much internal inconsistency like when you were saying earlier about the the lady about the Bible being infallible word of God in the cold that's a neat trick there's no way you can argue around that this is why I like its internal inconsistency like in the doctrines themselves like that's seems to be a really important way to get to get in to get rid of that likes to argue yeah because that's if you have tickets finding the inconsistency and needs to believe that allows you to maybe question the bigger things the bigger principles and anyways I think it's important

does it matter what you believe it's important to question and to always be looking and examining for new evidence because like yeah you talk about this a lot but they confirmation bias and and cognitive dissonance like these these things that keep us locked into these belief systems and end in prettiest to change not even in Perrysville like like resistant to it going to be like opening until this is this is why I like I do. Do you ever want to like grab your mom and go you got to listen to me for an hour just let's talk I would have she I would love to talk to her if she would listen to me but she just won't even look at you knocked on the door I rang your doorbell

that that's having a couple times not me and my sister and and like they close the curtain the window and turn off the lights inside the have that happened once but yeah they they they want

and this is why it's possible she might hear this should listen to everything that we say it must be any of us believe that we say and do publicly that your face very close attention to it like when I was at the church I did the same thing and it partly it's all like needing to know like what they're saying that you can have a good explanation like his usual effective leader and butt so this is why I 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 in like not causing any waves for the church might like it doesn't change anything like the only thing that helps is is talking about it like and end in because I hear that everything like even if I like privately in letters like her things that I sent to my parents are other church members like

I'm not going to I mean make the, 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 I guess it's only by talking publicly can you that's how they can actually see who you really are and what you really think and what you really gone through without the filter of look what these tours are doing things like that like it's

it's a do you think your kids are your your brothers and sisters are going to hear this I think I'm definitely might

definitely might you have hope that they will eventually

bolt II 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 unscriptural and so even even by their own understanding like that they're there are things that contradict then I hope that they change their mind at the very least I hope that the church continues to to moderate to not be so are a lot of their new signs are things like a

another one of the big things for me was imprecatory prayer right which is this idea of us were imprecatory to like praying for Chris's for your enemies right oh God right so we did this for you to curse against your enemies so often yeah wow that seems incredibly non-Christian right but there's that like David King David So year old testament it is that's true you know we took that as an example for us so he prayed for his enemies for their children to be father lesson for their wives to be widowed and so he's praying for God to do all these you know bad things to the Romans use fragrance the Romans call I guess but but so will take that as an example right so after we left I sent me to contact in my is my dad

and I talked about this problems like David also had a lot of wives but we don't take his example as that men should have many wise and what about the vibe it was because Jesus and the Apostle Paul said about marriage thing one man one woman for life right so 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 and so like a long time like there's been like a bunch of sermons like so now my grandfather passed away 3 years ago and so now there's eight Elders know the eight Pastors in might my dad is one of them so there's been a series of sermons on impact Atari prayer since then and there at like it seems like it seems so confused because like

on the one hand they're still kind of justifying it but also it just seems like it didn't turn your trying to reconcile things that aren't reconcilable so-so but a lot of the so they stop and say there used to be a flyer that went on every like Friday and that used to say like thank God for 15 dead soldiers we pray for fifteen thousand more

inside it was list all the soldiers who died that that week and within expect after like 8 months you know my dad gave a sermon about imprecatory prayer look at the time when I first you know said that you know there was you put out a video news explaining like why I'm parked right by the Bible 8 months pass he gets a sermon about loving your enemies within a couple weeks that flyer was changed and now it doesn't say that we pray for fifteen thousand more I haven't seen the Universe part was the first they say because God is Sovereign have to thank him for everything so in fact that these was still on for 15. Told Ya Ear has been some moderation and a lot of the new signs are things like be reconciled to God and Christ Our Hope things like that like that are not godhatesfags like those are I think it's I think it's Improvement the very least even though there are still obviously the

these harsh things as well

so there's some adjustment and some consideration so you don't talk to your dad anymore either right no one no

is that 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 I mean I I'm almost finished writing a book I'm nearing the Little Brook to them it is both for them and also for four other people there's part of the what I was getting at a book Letters to my mom and dad so it's not it's not it's not written quite that way not as though I actually did consider doing it that way but eventually ended up like right now it's based on each chapter is based on a relationship the start of brings us like that starts with my mother and then my grandfather and sort of like coming into this ideology and then the process of all this like the mental machinations of of leaving in 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 our take

putting these things in

in a way it's like I was at work were sitting here in the evening we talked for like how 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 just honest it experience like in as much detail and and Clarity it with as much as young as possible like I think that that's I hope that that will will be effective in at least showing them at that there's a different way there other ways of understanding these things and so I do hope that I guess I also hope like in my TED Talk I I I have I have I feel really 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 know I got this like now I got this like the idea of like of insinuating even in any way that I have something to tell people about anything like I I'm I really don't like that idea at all and the only reason I did that at Jon Ronson actually is going to reach out to me

about doing ecstasy it was a thing that he was creating an event to use creating creating and so I wrote the first draft of the talking and the curators going to come back after I was like well this is how can we avoid the mistakes that you made and so and I went back in like took examples from David and my husband the way the people on Twitter engage me that actually helped help 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 stories like I when I read accounts of people have gone through similar situations it it's so helpful to me like to realize like my family like yes they made up their their activities are a kind of their extreme like it if I send something 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 others

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 that's all I want to do that I want to do as much good with these experiences as I can because just because I thought that's how my parents raised me honestly but you were so right and so 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 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 with that sense of certainty and and and in my possession and righteousness of my position I I'm asking questions and I'm I'm trying to explain what why I believe differently now that I did I'm still asking the questions that like I never stopped like you know what I mean it's it's it's 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 things you say so they can counter them with some sort of a Bible quote or some sort of a more articulate opinion I would say you were so convinced when you with us now you're so convinced but now you don't even have God so how could you be right thing is diluted the Satan has serpent scales are covering your eyes for this Paradox is that I realized before I left so there's this person against one of my mom make was good quote all the time growing up and with such agency like she needed us to understand this and in the versus the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it right so so I thought the heart was good home is where the heart is like people being sweet and sour

the human heart is inherit land of corn to the church is inherently deceitful right okay but the problem is they also talked about the heart as being like that's how we know that the Bible is true it says God puts an auction on our hearts yes exactly 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 what or it in other words at the end of each one of us is always making a decision it's just that for them they they think that Outsourcing it and saying that I would know it's the Bible like you're the it's your that I tried to articulate son on Sons but I did Sam's same here sister of 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 judgement your the Judgment of your own deceitful heart so again from their perspective so I guess what I'm saying now it's like I'm not when I like talk to my family when I'm addressing them like it sits with these questions like I know how you understand these verses but what about these things that contradict time I'm not saying you're wrong I'm saying I can't see how you're right because of these verses like how do you do this how do you understand this that's that the church doesn't believe in that that those contradictions existed you talk about those contradictions with your pretty clear what what do they say works in mysterious ways tonight right as well there's always that like if if you think there's a friend since like back to the lake Free Will by the predestination thing that God designing people

go to hell and then holding them responsible so there's this addiction right that's the idea that you are responsible right your man's responsibility and God's sovereignty they don't go together right it's an awesome quote who said that quote again man's man's responsibility and God's sovereignty they do not go together phrased which Naval man who are the other plastic in sky castle make me this so yeah so it's that those ideas are inherently there inconsistent right there right there contradictions and so Gramps and work one day and in church he was

old hilarious really yeah my great big beautiful doll I got the Love Bug and so yeah sorry you didn't get to see him before he died cuz you left

I I can talk about that

I can't stop crying I'm sorry but but yeah he's like you can't talk to your dad you can't talk to your mom but something about your grandpa

he's special I'll tell you later but in the eyes of most people he was the booming voice of hate for sure and I I totally understand it last night 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 do you get to see this Venom that he spews out all the world and then. Also represents you guys and your family and your ideology and your behind this powerful leader he's the founder of all this right so essentially he's the man who created the very bars in prison your family right now now and it's it's so this is one of the things you know after after I left like thinking about like how did we get here it'll how did we end up in this place to understanding of psychology or lack of the problem with any sort of ideology Bridget ideologies that are backed up by a deity is that there can be no question

and as soon as I can be no questioning you talking about human language you talking about something they came obviously from the words of human beings they they wrote those words down they put them somewhere and now your reinforcements ideology anyone with even a basic understanding of how easily influence people are in about our alpha male chimpanzee history or lower primate history we know that we're incredibly susceptible to influence and Incredibly susceptible to the whims of the group mindset and that this is imperative for survival is tribal instincts that we have imperative for survive on the reason why we made it to 2017 and that these play against us in the in forms of ideology and he's very rigidly reinforce Behavior patterns that is what it did slipped up the end when the problem because of atheism versus the people who were deists or people who are Christian or Muslim or whatever the fuck it is it has nothing to do with that honestly it's just a

mine in about humans in about our entire inherent tendency to give into these these predetermined patterns of behavior to give us Comfort Inn these patterns that yeah there is so much comfort in certainty yeah I mean it's it can be really frustrating all these sometimes all the rules and that like 8 like I said very rigid but but will after I left the uncertainty was just this enormous wait like I had no idea 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 with God on my side or whatever is they do like I'm standing on my own two feet like it's it's my own ideas and like who the hell am I just that the sense of like Self Doubt and uncertainty and and like it's it's just it's it's saying sometimes

but but you just you have to keep going and keep asking the question because one of the things like you said I mean the whole another reason I don't like to call myself an atheist or or to call Michael many actually Sam sorry I cannot talk I can let him here but he had this this video or he was saying what we shouldn't call ourselves atheist or secular Sr humanist we can cause those that we should just be good decent people living in the world and and challenging bad ideas where we find them I guess it's not about the I mean we want and identity and belonging in this like the beat. Cramps like how how much goodness I got to seeing him didn't like people on the outside never saw it's because of that no the in-group out-group mentality like at the boss like I said earlier the bonds that are for 3rd so it's so enticing but

but it comes in at a huge cost and I didn't see that cost for a long time 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 about trying to find the best way we can to live in the world in and do as much good as we can I swing through bumps in the road me evolution of culture I think that's what they are I just think we haven't figured out how dangerous they are and that do we fall prey to them but they're also the reason why we got here in the first place cuz we did figure out these ways to bond together we did figure out these weight identify wheat with each other in this very extreme of a person away 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 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 it's a very strange aspect of what I believe is the Adolescent nature of Human Social and

troll Evolution which is where we're at 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 three hundred thousand years ago blip to the blink of an eye in terms of the history of the world never mind the history of the universe and I think that it's it's very dangerous When someone tells you they know it's very dangerous cuz you don't know until football say no I'll just listen to them and that's what we've been doing forever and and I think people are recognizing more and more now that that is that's not safe it's dangerous and it's an impediment the progress personal progress progress as a community we have this is insane instinct to join team to the point where people they identify with certain patches a dirt I'm a Texan like all your texting so this is all okay and I am from New York OU from New York will that will I get you now I understand you

you get to operate on these predetermined patterns now you know you you don't even have to have your own believe she just adopt a conglomeration of beliefs that fit whatever category you fall into it with your left-wing Progressive Era right-wing conservative it's weird it's we're really weird we're really weird monkey it's just we're so strange and we're also aware how weird we are that's why 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 that the better we can go about trying to sort of sure those things up see the pitfalls and then try to find ways around them break out of the pattern and and and just paddle out to the the Waters of discomfort because that's what people have a really hard time doing people have a really hard time changing their really hard time taking chances they are really hard time doing new things

and you did all of it at once in one big burst and you separated from your tribe was like so important you these separated from your tribe that's so hard now for sure but it's this is one of those things were like I mean I was talking to David after I left before the delicious Festival you're sitting in the home of the rabbi that I protested the earlier end and you're right by is a whore was the sign my sister house in like home. I like living with this red light right here yeah right by his wife in there they're for kids I was around by hore that you you pay them and then make you feel good like I tell you what you want to hear because you made out of that case is a comedian or two

I must be a whore what are making you feel good and I'm lying to you directions to be horse is that how it works I guess but I David was like it's like you are your parents children like I'm just like sitting there balling and cuz I I feel like such a betrayer this is so I can right after we left and 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 will love that idea like that that there's still so much from home that I have held onto and that that still guides me 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 but that that gave me a lot of like a lot of Hope

well you definitely seek Comfort Inn ancient wisdom and quotes we came out at the end of 2015 and so I was doing interviews with the writer Adrian chin who's amazing and he's are an amazing writer just generally not the desire to go by like it's already have these conversations like like we always been 3 days together in Kansas talking likes me 6 hours at a time and then on the phone like three and four our conversations regular late like it was so much like trying to really get across all of these all the time to really understand exactly how my mind changed all the details and search whatever like and at one point like and I were talking and and he asked me a question it was about the Soldier's funeral I think and I just immediately started like according to all these vs. and I can say wow you just wouldn't do this mode like in until this is just like this like switching it is like feel like it might have been at the church like it just now

possibly even though I think that I don't believe the Bible is the infallible word of God but like I spend so much time like reading it and learning it in and memorizing your Chapters at a time with my family and all that stuff so it's like it's right there it's always like in there like I said there's so much good in it so it's like I don't know if it's just I know what you're saying is that it's comforting when you said it's so foreign to hear the King James like to me it was just so yeah 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 the 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 doing you put your plugging this equation into achieve a desired result and this result is a piece of Mind peace of mind is what you looking to obtain and you're 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 mean it's a weird stretch what I'm saying what I'm saying is just like the feeling of it the feeling of it is like oh I don't know why this will then you use this is that okay it makes this so

all these little Tools in order to operate the mind on a more harmonious frequency for your own personal satisfaction and you're feeling of happiness and peace like you can feel comfort in the fact that you've 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 in like some weird principal like that God has a plan for everything so fuck your doubts look need to stick that right in there not okay dark matter in the ditch the desire and the lack of knowledge like you don't understand

using these these phrases and these tools in these passages to achieve desired results internally as well as externally 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 Behavior it's justifying your own patterns of thinking by demonizing in marginalizing other patterns of thinking yes I miss this for a long time too but like some my grandfather like I think I said earlier maybe that Christians were some of the biggest targets of detergent much time like yes and you have people going to hell for eternity in and and Y and all these things like Nike we we spent so much time cramps wood instead of saying

we are the only ones who have it right Westboro 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 and so and it's like by default like while using you know exactly why all these people are wrong Methodist and Catholic send whatever like in 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 so frustrating

so frustrating it's well I hate to use the word but it just relax enlightenment

cuz dealing with conflict and stealing a finger pointing it's dealing with insults like just added the term fagg's godhatesfags was 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 this like this is this is not God's approach if there is a God of the Bible mean if there is a God that's in charge of this whole thing and he's filled with love and he has a plan for us all you have a super emotional we talk about this stuff. You worked up cause it's important. 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 4 years how long for a half

I totally lost my train of thought there

said something while I was talking about just that insults and less attack yeah I always 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 I can use if you say you know God created most people go to hell and we were among the other ones going to heaven and sorry suckers you know like that message right people hate the idea that you have to like follow this set of rules that you can't just live the way you want to live you have to obey Sadie's ideas as we understand them like you going to like that message then I want you telling them what to do so that's we would always make that argument and then of course you know after when I was thinking about leaving it's 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 Paul talks about you know to the Jews I became as a Jew into the Greeks as a creek

get up to the week I became as weeks like it's the idea is like use 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 for claiming this thing and saying get on board or you're doomed like it's it's theirs there was no we had and we sometimes could have those arguments one-on-one but like you know when we go out to these protests were saying these things and it's so provocative an inflammatory and we knew it and we just did it anyway because we thought it was justified as long as it was true and it didn't matter how we set it or when we set it or to whom we said it was a grieving Widow Aura you know it a child his father had just died or parents whose children had just died it's just it's it's insane to me now and I can't I have a hard time like so so much of my hits of my passlock I know why I believe what I believe but sometimes that when I see these these contradictions I think what was I thinking when we were reading these verses

and I don't have it I can't think of what they could be thinking now except that it's just that cognitive dissonance that just just just going past it and that sounds good but like not seeing another verse that talks about a i deceived hardest turn them aside so 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 unicorning it wasn't great but anyway it's just this is why I think it'll be qualified to sort of translate those and that's that's why I keep I mean I want to keep asking 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 it I don't know what that felt like you were hearing people that people that I have loved speak against these doctrines and values that I held so so dear

but it's not because I'm trying to hurt them more or embarrass them or humiliate them it's because I I want to help them see you 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 into into enough finding a better way but when you change your thinking and change you have to admit that you fucked up you have to admit that your entire life has been essentially about propagating a lie there was a I honestly hope that you know Weird Al Yankovic yeah I was at everything you know is wrong Up Up Is Down black as wide and short as long as I remember like in this process of like you know before we left like ruin that and being like

I got my juice out of a Weird Al song but yeah that's totally what it I can 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 I did it in front of the entire like in front of the whole world you know anybody would seem like all the documentaries all the time that I had so publicly defended all these ideas and now realizing like how can I possibly face that 2003 in the horrible things she was saying what they did right yeah yeah your ability to say that you will you don't agree with what you use to do and you are a different person now it's so important for people to hear is one of the most important things I think you're saying cuz people feel so imprisoned by their past it's a huge problem with human being

set you we repeat sore the same patterns of behavior because even if they're wrong there's Comfort Inn there's now for it and going back to those cigarettes there's Comfort Inn in binge eating again discomfort in gambling I know this I know this crazy Rush of trying to find crack I'm going for it when there's a lot of weirdness and 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 the scriptures even falling your whole life and find these contradiction spoilers contradictions 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 I mean a lot of things but but two things just for people in general like I messed up and I don't know and like we have to be able to I mean I think to be able to there's something honestly like this is another thing like there's so much freedom in that in both of those ideas like I said earlier like certainty there's so much comfort insert 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 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 I can just say like I'm doing my best this is where I'm at now like I'm I'm sure I would have liked find something I'm fighting to find something else that I might have got wrong now and today

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 and as many ways as you can and dangerous and volatile Factor that's uncertainty and. Does people try to avoid that sucker as much as they can like I don't want that just like learning to be comfortable there like I exist I exist in this uncertain space because it's honest I don't know I don't have to know I can keep trying to understanding and you know I'm so it's just wear one of the most the weakest things you can never see in a person is a person talking about something in a way we're like you like you asked him a question about something and they don't really know and they try to pretend they do text my ticket when you see it instead of saying I don't know is that true and said instead of being like open to the possibility of anything

and being outside of the realm of their understanding they Double Down The Double Down on the rig parents or they avoid it at all costs you see literally see like the little the band in the Machinery the ego just put on the gears frantically you can see that we all recognize it to me about religion in general is that there we have this incredible desire to become a part of a group we would everybody does sweet we find comfort of these groups but we also can see the the gears spinning when someone does agree with something or someone that does say something that resonates are or so when someone says something it's contradicting we see the gear spinning we recognize that this is all some sort of a weird cognitive dance that we're doing try to make make sense out of this temporary existence on a planet hurling through Infinity

it's insane but it's human and it's it's the human of today what's the human where we find ourselves existing and communicating that clearly is on some sort of some sort of weird path of progress and of innovation and understanding that we're in the middle of we're in the middle of the storm of understanding and it's happening like clearly in your own life and you're living and out in front of the whole world

yeah but on that note 2 hours and 45 minutes

you're brave person and I think you were is really important what you doing massive really is super hard to do I'm sure and the fact that Twitter is what started all of us with her so much I just like how you were saying earlier but like characters like 40 characters like nothing taught me how to be more I'm very Amber Rose I talk a lot but like in writing and I do the same thing in writing like on Twitter like it's hot mean to like to steal my idea then become concise and let it stop me from using that was one of the thing is one of the ways that I stopped like insulting people instinctively cuz like we do we did it so much like it we would write these elaborate insults like responding to emails and stuff so I can send email you can write as much as you want but like on Twitter like so it's two things at once on a lantern for the characters of ice like throwing up you idiot like there's 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 I can you can watch the conversation derail in real time instead of like addressing the arguments like then you're saying like you know you don't know me they were staying all the Lancer and like it just it it stops anyways that's the conversation like you want it to be about the the points are there's like Ellen so much about communication from Twitter and I just love it so much like it's just the two like we depends on how we use it and that's where I found out about the 300000 year old human and I mean every day someone sends me something and I retweeted just it's up your book is coming out when I don't know yet I'm going to tell you the name right now cuz I really want a different name

I wouldn't say jam if people want to see more of your stuff I know you have a TED Talk that's out there and my Twitter account it just Megan Phelps look and let everybody know and I really enjoy this conversation

thank you everybody for tuna to the podcast and thank you to our sponsors thanks to caveman coffee go to caveman Coffee Co. Com use a code word Rogan and save 10% thank you to ZipRecruiter go to ziprecruiter.com Rogen and you can post jobs for free thank you also to NatureBox

the right yes sorry I'm spaced out there thanks to NatureBox go to naturebox.com Rogan / 50% off your first order that's naturebox.com forward slash Rogan okay friends all right that's it for today but we have one more because Sebastian Junger famous War journalist journalist. Is in town do you want to do the podcast so he'll be on tomorrow so that's it that's it for today and that'll be the last one of the week tomorrow and I'll write hope you guys enjoyed the shit out of this podcast like I did isn't she brilliant she's doing it right I was wrong

Megan Phelps and thanks also again. Wheeler Walker Jr was earlier today and thanks everybody that was on this week I'm having a great old time

that's it ladies and gentlemen see you soon much love by

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