BROADCASTS.com

Cass Midgley and Dr. Bob Pondillo interview Josey Woltersdorf. Josey is 24 years old, the eldest of 12 children, homeschooled and raised on a farm til he was 18. \xa0I think you\u2019re gonna love his genuineness, and his simple yet intuitive engagement with the reality in which he now finds himself. \xa0

Josey's insular Christian upbringing did not prepare him for the real world and as he entered it, his enthusiastic devotion to the love of his young life\u2014Jesus\u2014diminished under the scrutiny of his inquiring mind and it's access to the internet. Imagine the confusion when his internal compass for identifying love, integrity, and truth steered him away from the corruption and dishonesty he saw within his own dearest world-view: Christianity. The Christian obsession with sexual purity and shaming locked Josey in a gerbil wheel of guilt and self-hatred with no hope of victory. The taboo forbidding that religions place on sex produces the opposite result through psychological reactance and it can backfire on those wearing a self-imposed spiritual chastity belt. The epidemic sexual pathology within the Catholic priesthood is a perfect example of this. Human sexuality is a river that cannot be stopped and only overflows in improper ways when dammed. \xa0

During our talk, Josey refers to a court case involving charges against him that could have landed him in prison but didn\u2019t; the details of which he was not at liberty to discuss publicly for legal reasons. But the significant impact it had on his personal formation he does talk about.

I received an email this week from former guest of the show on episode 110 named Aaron. Like our guest today, Josey, Aaron is a young man at 21 years of age, but unlike any of our guests he is blind and dependent on his Christian parents, who don\u2019t know he\u2019s an atheist nor that he\u2019s gay. He\u2019s working towards a college degree while earning income as a computer programmer. He sent me a song he\u2019d written and produced which I\u2019ll play at the end and a link to the YouTube is in the show notes. It\u2019s also available on iTunes and Spotify. In his words, \u201cIts a punk-rock type song about a Christian who's desperately trying to hold on to their beliefs, but ultimately doesn't and is happier without Christianity.\u201d

I asked Aaron for an update on his circumstances and he wrote back, \u201cUnfortunately little has changed in my life, so the situation is pretty much exactly the same as when we last spoke. I'm very good at playing it safe so there usually aren't any holy shit moments where I've slipped up big time. I've got a part time job working with a company overseas in addition to my own development work and part time college so that could, in the long term, further my independence. \xa0The problem is, and this is why I wanted to go on your show back in August, and its also why I published this song, is that I want to be out there in circles of atheism. \xa0I can't help my current situation, but I want to be able to get my voice out in the sense that, maybe I can't be open to the people around me about the damage that Christianity has dealt me, but I can hopefully enlighten other people who aren't as sure about their religion or maybe encourage atheists to be more passionate, because its the lack of passion that causes bad things like the Trump election. It can equally be said that passion's what got us into this mess, both presidentially and religiously, but passion is essential to get someone out to vote and to encourage other people to vote, as well as encourage people to speak up about atheism in their communities. If it were about logic, Clinton would have won the presidential race by a landslide. Its hard to look into the future and live for 2 or 3 years from now when I could be more free, if it indeed could be that soon. So I've often said that its what little activism I can do from my corner that keeps me going when I inevitably ask the question, "Why the hell do I even bother?" I'm sure you can understand that.

If you\u2019d like to correspond with Aaron, his email is aaron@atheist.com

One last thing, I\u2019m trying out a little experiment where I commit to do nothing I don\u2019t want to do. Because when I do something I don\u2019t want to do, I become susceptible to resentment. In the spirit of \u201chonesty is the best policy\u201d and establishing boundaries, I want to be honest with people when I don\u2019t want to do something, whether it's hang out, or if I don't want to continue this conversation. I think we avoid this level of honesty in order to avoid hurting people. But in so doing, we miss the opportunity to teach them what agency looks like. How much personal maturation and evolution could take place if we all practiced this? People might stop taking it personal when you say, \u201cI don\u2019t want to do this or that\u201d if they themselves practiced that same level of honesty and self-determination with you? And what intimacy is to be fostered here? Could we not say that all level of complaining is rooted in doing things we don\u2019t want to do? \xa0So perhaps to cease complaining, criticizing, and condemning starts here. To purge one\u2019s life of bitterness and resentment, should we not stop looking for others to change and instead, change ourselves? Does this not empower us to navigate our world as one who knows what they want.

One of the chores we have to do as ex-Christians is get our identity back from Jesus. This starts by getting to know one\u2019s self, liking one\u2019s self, and showing up as one\u2019s self. In so doing, we would be introducing ourselves to the communities we orbit. People would know us, and trust us, and gain clarity of our strengths and weaknesses, that we've spent most our lives trying to hide from people.

In order to stop doing what you don\u2019t want to do, it may be helpful to get answers to the following questions when facing choices:
Is this something I care about?Does this conflict with my values, personality, or style?\xa0Is this how I want to spend my time?\xa0Will this light me up?\xa0Is this something I need in my life right now?

Gaining personal agency and identity can seem selfish...in an ugly way. And even though selfishness is not at all what we\u2019re going for here, there\u2019s no way around focusing on yourself while you\u2019re establishing your place in the world. In setting such a goal--to not do anything you don\u2019t want to do--we have to acknowledge that it\u2019s complicated and you will have to compromise, or should I say, get to compromise. For example, you probably don\u2019t want to go to work, but you also don\u2019t want to be without income, so you compromise. You may not have the time or energy to sit by your loved one's bedside in the hospital, but if you do it, and you've become of powerful volitional person, you and everyone else who knows you will understand just by the mere fact that you're there, it's because you want to, in spite of the toll its taking. People will start to learn that wherever you are, you're 100% there. \xa0That's a desirable reputation. Hell, that's a desirable life. To be known? To be seen? Isn't that one of the greatest human desires?

I have to add here some pitfalls to avoid in this exercise:\xa0Entitlement and Disconnection.\xa0

By entitlement, I mean overdoing the sense that the world owes you anything, or that you deserve certain things just because you want them, which is the mistake of placing conditions or expectations on your own happiness. As a good friend posted on FB this week, \u201cHappiness is an outlook not an outcome.\u201d If you haven\u2019t discovered contentment with your life as it is, no amount of circumstantial change is going to appease the human appetite for hedonism. My admonition today is don\u2019t do anything you don\u2019t want to. That is not to be confused with do everything you want to. \xa0

The second pitfall is disconnection, and by that I mean from others. In your pursuit of self, don\u2019t forget that no man is an island. You don\u2019t exist in a vacuum, and you won\u2019t develop maturity in a vacuum. Real emotional health is fostered best within a community. Don\u2019t close yourself off from the feedback of trusted, loving friends, or better yet, professional therapists. \xa0

To guard your heart from resenting circumstances and people, especially the people nearest and dearest to you, you owe it to them to not do anything you don't want to do. \xa0

\xa0

We taped these conversations on March 25th, 2017. We interview people you don\u2019t know, about a subject no one wants to talk about. We hope to encourage people in the process of deconstructing their faith and help curb the loneliness that accompanies it. We think the world is a better place when more people live by sight, not by faith. Please subscribe to our podcast, and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Our show is available on most podcast platforms. \xa0Also, you can support us monetarily in two easy ways: you can pledge one dollar per episode through Patreon; that\u2019s www.patreon.com/eapodcast, or leave a lump-sum donation through PayPal at our website, www.everyonesagnostic.com. The smallest contribution is greatly appreciated.

Credits:
"Towering Mountain of Ignorance" intro by Hank Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3v3S82TuxU
Intro bumper "Never Know" by Jack Johnson
The segue music is on this episode was created by Aaron, former guest of the show on episode 110

Thanks for listening and be a yes-sayer to what is.

Aaron\u2019s song on YouTube