Jan 5, 2018
Cass Midgley and Bob Pondillo interview Joel de los Santos. Joel currently lives in Canada but was raised in the Dominican Republic. His Christian journey started as Catholic, then Unity Church, following his parents lead, then he took his own path to evangelical charismatic non-denominational. He and his wife have two sons, his eldest is on the Autism spectrum. The audio is not the best for the first 21 minutes, but gets better and Joel's English is fast and a little mixed with Spanish, but these audio challenges can't keep his big heart and sharp mind from coming through.
Listener email:
Hi Mr.
Midgley,
I
have been listening to your podcast for about seven or eight months
now and have become a huge fan. While I'm not like many of your
guests who've de-converted, I struggled for many years trying to
"become" a christian, and suffered a lot of anger and confusion
about why it just wouldn't "click" for me and make sense like it
does for so many others. I
wasn't raised particularly religious, but we did attend church
pretty regularly until I was a teenager. When I was a young adult I
went back to church trying to become "Christian". I didn't throw
myself into it, honestly believing I would naturally have some kind
of epiphany and suddenly feel all the certainty that many of my
Christian friends felt about the bible. My best friend is a Christian who's heavily
involved in her church. She had always been the image of what I
expected I would be like once my "epiphany" came. I envied her
complete trust in god - despite the discordance I felt about the
bible and god's influence in the world. Well, it all started unraveling when trying to
start a family revealed that I had some medical issues that would
prevent conception. So we prayed... a lot. In the end, god didn't
answer our prayer, science did. We had a successful IVF cycle and
achieved pregnancy. And although we stood up in church and thanked
god for our miracle, I became bitter, angry, and confused
afterward. I carried around this bitterness toward god for not
giving me a pregnancy naturally. I paid thousands of dollars and
underwent uncomfortable medical procedures in order to have my
babies. I felt like god had cheated me. Finally though, I had my epiphany. I let go of
trying to make sense of a senseless god. The transformation has
been revitalizing! Finding your show has added to the peace I feel
with my newfound non-belief. One of my biggest conflicts about
giving up the search for god was, "What am I if I'm not a
believer?" The word atheist sounded scary and like something I
didn't want to be labeled as. This is something that your show has
really helped me with. Hearing the stories of your guests has shown
me that atheist is not a dirty word, goodness and kindness are not
dependent on belief in god, and I'm not alone in my
non-belief.
Thank you so much for the work you do. Your
podcast is bringing some good to the world. Sincerely, Jennifer
We taped this conversation on December 17th, 2017. We interview people you don’t 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. Also, you can support us monetarily in two easy ways: you can pledge one dollar per episode or more through Patreon; that’s 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
on this episode was created by the Barry Orchestra found at
https://barryorchestra.bandcamp.com/
Thanks for listening and be a yes-sayer to what is.
Joel's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Joymaker