‘Angry Atheist’ Podcast Features Interview with Atheist Pastor

March 2, 2012 By Hemant Mehta 9 Comments

The Angry Atheist just put out an interview he did with a pastor who’s secretly an atheist. While the pastor’s not currently in the pulpit, his story is just fascinating.

What caused him to lose his faith? It started with the “end of the world” theories, he says. Later, his graduate school classes pushed him away from faith even further. From there, he and his wife began to lose their faith together. It’s inspiring, really :)

If you hear any parts of the interview we should pay special attention to, please leave the timestamp in the comments.

(via The Angry Atheist podcast)

Filed Under: Coming Out, General 9 Comments
About Hemant Mehta

Hemant Mehta is the chair of Foundation Beyond Belief and a high school math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago.

  • Neil

    At about the 5:30 mark the former pastor describes a very interesting processing of coming to doubt through learning more about the history of the church. In particular, he talks about how he came to realise that far from eternal verities, his  own faith community held to a theology focused on Thomas Aquinas. His beliefs weren’t fundamental to the life of Jesus but to the medieval church in Europe.

    • Annie

      I enjoyed that part too.  He talked about studying Thomas Aquinas and realizing his world view was 1,000 years old.  I think that is something the atheist community should focus on… the idea that religion and belief in god/s is antiquated.  They served their purpose for humans in the past, but we have no real need for mythical beliefs now.

  • snoofle

    This is well worth a listen in its entirety, but the pastor mentioned the “God Hates Amputees” website as being something he had no answer to at 38.30, and at the end, from about 51 minutes on, he discusses the fear that religious people have about God, the Devil and the reaction of their families, and how this affects their reaction to atheists.

  • Anonymous

    Anyone know any atheist leaders who are secretly christian? A funny thought that just came to me.

    • snoofle

       Well, ,if it’s secret, we wouldn’t know, would we? People lie about their true feelings all the time, so there may be someone.

    • Anonymous

      Well, it’s entirely possible, but the pressure to keep quiet would mainly come from a fear of the reaction of only the group she or he leads, not society as a whole. It’s the overwhelming social pressure to conform to the religious—primarily Christian—norm here in the U.S. that keeps so many atheists closeted. It’s not quite the same to compare the reverse, as the dynamic is definitely not the same. (Apples and oranges and all that.)

    • Anonymous

      Well, it’s entirely possible, but the pressure to keep quiet would mainly come from a fear of the reaction of only the group she or he leads, not society as a whole. It’s the overwhelming social pressure to conform to the religious—primarily Christian—norm here in the U.S. that keeps so many atheists closeted. It’s not quite the same to compare the reverse, as the dynamic is definitely not the same. (Apples and oranges and all that.)

  • Austin G

    Sound hermeneutics would never conclude that Jesus was supposed to come back in 1997, riding on a comet. When interviewing former pastors, he should make sure to interview pastors who lost their faith in God rather than faith in their own ability to interpret the Bible.

    • snoofle

      I don’t recall him saying Jesus would be riding the comet (although I didn’t take notes), just that it was a sign (or so he believed).  Those are easy enough to find, if you’re looking for them.  And that part wasn’t all that led him to lose his faith.