¶1A few days ago, I got the news that one of my favorite agnostic or atheist YouTubers and philosophers, Joe Schmid from Majesty of Reason, recently announced that he had reverted to Catholicism. I'm an agnostic/ atheist YouTuber who started my work in philosophy after I left Catholicism. Hearing this news and the endless commentary online made me think of how traumatic my experience was in moving from one group to the other. Today, I want to provide you my list of my ten commandments of talking to someone who left your social group. As a niche but somewhat looked to voice in atheist versus Catholic dialogues, I feel the responsibility to make sure that atheists in my audience are told in no uncertain terms to not perpetuate the traumatic and tribal warfare I experienced when I left Catholicism for atheism.
¶2Hopefully, this will be easier on Joe in reverse. I watched Joe's entire 3-hour Pines with Aquinus interview before it went live on YouTube, and I certainly have thoughts about his arguments that he offered in his first YouTube video. I'm about to leave for a work trip before I can offer a response online here. So, I figured it would be fitting to give you a super rough outline of how I think atheists should behave. And these are the things I wish someone had told the Catholics in my life before I left for atheism.
¶3Commandment number one, we shall always keep someone at the center of their story. We shall not view their life decisions in terms of wins or losses for social movements. I spent years as a culture warrior for my traditional Catholicism. Everyone in my public high school knew me as the superconservative Catholic guy who would talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime about Catholicism. And my friends in high school, youth group, and college saw me as the zealous guy who wasn't afraid to stand for my beliefs.
¶4And I organized my groups to help fight for causes that we believed in. When I made my public announcement that I was no longer Catholic, I know many people who immediately ignored me in the center of my story in favor of making my story about them or their group movement. I felt betrayed. The group that told me they cared about me so much and where I met so many of my closest friends never actually cared about me as soon as I was no longer useful to their political or religious projects. Did they ever care about me or just the role or the cog in the machine that I could serve for their cultural endeavor?
¶5I worry that both Catholics saying that Joe's reversion is a win for Catholicism as well as atheists saying Joe's reversion is a loss for secularism are more concerned about what Joe's story does for them rather than Joe Qua Joe which part of my philosophy joke here. The terms we use in speech are important because they frame the terms that we think in. I think language around I'm so happy for Joe or I hope that Joe is okay is something that will keep everyone grounded in Joe as a person rather than Joe's story is going to be useful for my religious endeavor or Joe's story will be weaponized against my group to make us lose cultural steam in our political fight. I hope that people can welcome Joe into their groups because they love Joe as Joe rather than perform a ceremony of welcoming Joe because he has an online platform that they can utilize to win culture war points. I want you to watch messages this week around if people are happy that Joe converted or they're happy that Joe is happy because he converted.
¶6Commandment number two, we shall remember that the most real version of someone is the one they are now. We shall not resuscitate the version of someone we simply liked or were used to. I remember the night I came out on Instagram to my family and friends. I had just ran a 100m ultramarathon and was so incredibly nervous for how people would react. family, friends, mentors, co-workers, teachers, spiritual leaders, and more.
¶7Only knew me for part of my life's journey. For some, a few times in passing over the course of a few months, and for others, a few times a week as a friend for years. I thought that the worst reactions would be people cutting me off. But I was wrong. Some four years since I came out, I continually feel the most disrespected when people refuse to let go of who they knew me as, or worse, tell me that I must be 247 the version that they knew me as for only a few hours a month.
¶8I've woken up every day for my 24 years in my body. And I'm the only one who will ever know the full picture of what it's like to be me. And technically, we all only ever know a version or parts of what someone else is like. I don't think it's bad to remember who we knew someone as or be concerned if someone changes unrecognizably, especially all of a sudden, but the only real version of someone is the one that they are now. As an atheist YouTuber, I refuse to be seen only in terms of my work online.
¶9Similarly, I desperately hope that people who enjoyed Joe as an agnostic YouTuber who they watched on their screens can let that version of Joe move on. Joe gets to wake up every day as a full person, not as someone forever trapped in your YouTube homepage to watch as a teacher. And similarly, I hope that Catholics don't see Joe as the guy who exists in their phone screen to reassure them of their social group when they experience doubt. Content is certainly a commodity online, but I hope that we never trap content creators into resin casts to turn into a commodity whether they like it or not. Commandment number three, we shall listen first and then we shall listen again.
¶10We shall never forget that whether due to blind evolutionary forces and/or a god, we have two ears and one mouth. When I first left Catholicism, I remember a few Catholic friends reached out to me. In talking with them, they inevitably asked the question, "Why did you leave?" And every time I answered that question honestly to the best of my ability, everyone took it as an attack. And for years afterwards, and even still to this day in person, I almost always refused to answer the question from Catholics about why I left the church. The other week though, I was listening to a group of Catholic sisters who made the claim that why does the church not do a sort of exit interview when people leave?
¶11not as a way to bring them back, but rather as a way to learn to become a better church. In the same way, what is it that atheists can learn from the fact that Joe has chosen to revert to Catholicism? People refusing to listen doesn't actually change the fact that he did revert. In his videos, Joe didn't have a ton of criticisms to levy against his experience of agnosticism, which check out my other video on why I think that might be the case. But I hope that Joe's agnostic friends can make sure that when Joe shares why he left, he feels like people are actually listening to him.
¶12I wish any of the Catholics in my life had taken the reasons that I left as feedback or even just lent a shoulder to listen to my story. And I hope that people can be there for Joe, too. I, for one, watch his almost 4-hour video on why he left before making my own public commentary on it. I certainly have thoughts, but I'll be listening to it again and really trying to listen before I begin to think about a response online. For our family and friends, I hope that our only response though is just listening.
¶13Commandment number four, we shall listen to the words someone says and ask them what they mean by those words. We shall never put words in someone's mouth or assume the words they do say mean what we think that they say. In conversations around LGBT topics and religion, there is so much fighting over if someone is using the right words to describe their story rather than listening regardless of if they use the right language. When I came out publicly and said I'm gay, the Catholics in my life started telling me they couldn't believe that I said my entire identity was my sexual orientation. I was confused at first and asked them where I had said that.
¶14They often replied that they knew I meant that when I said the words I'm gay and they know that anytime someone says those words, they mean that their entire identity is their sexual orientation. That's when I realized we were using different vocabularies. The words I was using to communicate an idea were being overwritten by what other people thought those words meant. While listening to Joe's story, I hope everyone can take the time to not just sit there and analyze as what I mean by listening, but rather that they put in the mental effort to focus on the words he's using and what he's saying about his story on his own terms. If it's a family member or friend who's changing worldviews, ask them what they mean by certain words.
¶15And when you're confused about why they made decisions, ask them to clarify, so that you can understand, not so that you can pigeon hole them. I would guess that the way your group has told you that the other side thinks is probably not how your family or friend actually thinks. Commandment number five, we shall assume that the reasons someone has told you for changing beliefs are the reasons they have for changing their beliefs. We shall not assume the reasons we think they have are the ones that they do actually have. As someone who shares their story online publicly in front of millions of people every year, my least favorite comments are ones of people telling me why I changed worldviews.
¶16I have hours of content online telling people why I changed worldviews and have dozens of reasons that I give why in very in-depth content. It could not be easier for someone to know why I left Catholicism and became an atheist. It's crazy that someone online who's never met me and has also never watched any of my content is able to tell me why I left. When news first broke of Joe's reversion, I know a few people who texted me that they thought it was because of XYZ reason or another. Please don't do this to Joe, especially publicly.
¶17As I record this video on the night of Sunday, August 23rd, Joe has announced that he's making a multi-hour long video about why he changed his mind. Please, for the love of whatever is above, do the work to listen to his halfhour video on his channel, or if you have time, the three-hour video that's coming out on the other channel, and even if you want to go above and beyond the 10 plus hour series when he publishes it. People deserve the bare minimum respect to have their vulnerable life stories be told as they tell them, unless there's some overwhelming reason to think otherwise, which I have not seen. Commandment number six, we shall remember that people don't know literally everything when they make their decision for the first time. We shall not lambast someone for how their views affect other people if they have not thought through that, at least at first.
¶18I was Catholic for 7 years and learned a lot about Catholicism over the course of those years. And when I first left, people told me much about what my life was going to look like and what consequences I was going to suffer and how it was going to affect other people. Seemingly, all of these things fall into two categories of one, lessons I had to learn for myself, or most of the time, two, a complete projection and things that never came true. People often told me that I was going to destroy this country by leaving the church and they got mad at me for future ways they thought my decisions were going to harm someone else. And guess what?
¶19None of that came true. Similarly, I know a few atheists who've told me that Joe's joining a religion that harms XYZ people group or Joe hasn't thought about X Y and Z. To that I say you're probably right. And furthermore, Joe hasn't told us as of this recording that that's why he joined. So, please shut up for now.
¶20In our own heads, we can project on reasoning to other people's decisions. I have plenty of criticism of Joe's approach to LGBT topics in his Pines with Aquinus interview and other private communications that I've seen and I won't be afraid to speak out about those in the coming weeks. At the same time, I think we all have to realize that people don't make decisions about us as a primary guiding force for why they made decisions for themselves. Joe didn't revert to harm you specifically. I didn't leave the church to destroy this godly country or anything like that.
¶21Commandment number seven, we shall practice empathy because the person making the announcement is probably more afraid of you than you are of them. I remember coming out for the first time and people were scared to either hear my announcement or they were afraid of how I would react to their reaction about my announcement. Truthfully, I was way more nervous to hear their reaction than they were of my announcement. I was really nervous and almost scared of the people I cared about most when I told them the news that I had left and came out. Joe has said multiple times in his interviews that he's worried about how his atheist, agnostic, and LGBT friends are going to react.
¶22Not that we can't be honest or that someone can never receive push back. But if Joe's story is anything like mine, I would guess that Joe is more scared of how we'll react than we are of him. Please make sure that this is not a bad experience for Joe as he makes a decision for his life. Commandment number eight, we shall recognize that they are an adult. Unless your close family are friends, you shouldn't even try to change them.
¶23If you can change them, first reflect on if you should first. When I first came out, so many people reacted like I was asking a question when I made an announcement. I got so annoyed when even my announcement that I had left the church got interpreted as me asking for people for reasons to rejoin the church. Please know that my decision was my decision is what I wish I could have told these people. I don't need someone to fix me or change me, especially if I don't ask, even if they think it's for the better.
¶24In Joe's case, even if you think he's experiencing mental health concerns, please remember that he's an adult and your comments online aren't going to change anything or help him in any way, let alone be helpful at all online. If Joe says in his videos that he's looking for reasons to become agnostic, feel free to share them with him. But I have not heard that in his content. So, I encourage the atheists in my audience to be the bigger man and respect Joe's decision to join the church once again. I know personally that I'll be making reaction content to some of Joe's commentary about why I'm not convinced at all by the miraculous case for Catholicism.
¶25But that will be for general audiences to hear an outside perspective online. But in those videos criticizing Joe's reasons as reasons that you should join, I want to make sure that my language respects the fact that Joe is in charge of Joe's life. And I don't know what religious persuasion is going to be best for him because I'm not him. Commandment number nine, we shall remember that people always change. We shall never cut people off because that's probably what their new social group wants you to do.
¶26While I was becoming incredibly Catholic and had some of the worst takes on planet Earth, the people that changed my mind were the people who I knew couldn't be scared away by my ideas. My family and friends who never left me while I was Catholic were the ones that stuck around regardless of my beliefs because I knew that they were the ones who cared about me regardless of my ideas and specifically because I'm me. Inversely, when I left Catholicism, the people who immediately left my life were the ones I interpreted as never being interested as me as me, only me as a Catholic to play a role in their life. And a matter of fact, the Catholic movement I joined was hoping that I would cut people off who didn't approve of me being Catholic because they knew that that would mean I would be more socially isolated and never change my mind. I refuse to let my loved ones rage bait me into cutting them off either.
¶27For some atheists, I know, Joe's announcement feels like the end of Joe's story, and I find that inappropriate. Looking back, I wish I could tell all of my Catholic friends that my leaving the church was the start of the journey that I've been on since leaving and exploring multiple other religions and ways that spirituality can exist. And that's all been since I left. My leaving was certainly not the end of my story, even from a Catholic perspective. I despise the idea that you should stay in someone's life as an evangelization tool in either direction.
¶28But I think it's important to remember that staying with someone on their journey is an important thing if you care about them. And I'm not here to say that we should be nice to Joe. simply as a way to make him an atheist. Again, see my previous point about not changing people and respecting their decisions, but rather that I know that Catholics are hoping in some way that everyone in Joe's life cuts him off and pushes him away from skeptical spaces or outside voices. Why?
¶29Because they know that he will never return to those groups one day if he realizes that his experience of Catholicism is lacking. If you can't care about someone if they don't conform to how you think they should live their lives, then it's probably the right idea to leave. But if you do care about someone for real about them as a person, stick with them at least for a while longer because their story is just starting. Commandment number 10. We shall keep in mind that they've had a lot of time to process this decision and we shall not do our processing online or to their face.
¶30I have no doubt that and hold space for people in my life who were grieved by my decision to leave the church and come out publicly. All emotions are valid, but the appropriate venue for those people in my life to process their emotions was not verbalizing all of it to me to my face and making it my problem to deal with while I was going through a journey of my own. I hope that all of us were taught the lesson that if we don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all. And I'd like to advance that idea by saying that if you haven't processed the emotions of someone you care about making big life decisions, probably don't give them a stream of consciousness look into your inner thoughts. If you don't have anything valuable or honest or reflected on to say, probably don't say anything else at all.
¶31I maintain that there was room for atheists to be grieved in a certain sense by Joe's reversion. In the same way that I don't expect someone to not be grieved when I left Catholicism, especially if I was important to them, but take time to process those emotions privately or venting to a trusted friend or in therapy, but certainly not online or making it someone else's burden while they are going through something big. Anyone saying that Joe betrayed them or that it's sad to see Joe go away needs to reflect a little longer and ask what they wish their family or friends had said as they left religion. So, those are my ten commandments about interacting with someone who's left your social group. I think these are all guidelines are not absolute and I'm sure there's exceptions to them.
¶32I say this all to the atheists in my audience about Joe's conversion in particular. Not because I think that atheists are going to be bad people and generally speaking, I think atheists are way better at respecting someone's life decisions, especially if they don't think that Christianity is real. But I say all of this because I wish someone had told the Catholics in my life this very same thing. I left Catholicism and I'm now an atheist. I remember how hard it was for me to leave Catholicism and become an atheist.
¶33And I enjoyed having a warm embrace from the people that I care about now. I hope in the same way that Joe, wherever his journey takes him as people that care about him around him are interested in his well-being and don't use him as simply a tool or a cog in their machine. I will certainly have content reacting to his videos. And if you know anything about his story, you will know that some of the people that I interact with are very integral to his story. And so don't take this as a way that I'm saying that we can never make content about it or that it's not important, but rather that we first have to care about people and later we can do the culture wars.
¶34I hope that whether you are on my side or Joe's side or realize rightfully that there are no sides in discussions about people's lives that we can treat everyone with respect. If you want to get early access to my videos or join my private community, consider supporting the show on Patreon. And I will see you guys very soon with videos more about his conversion