¶1God exists. Christ is Lord. And he established the Catholic Church. I'm not kidding. I just converted to Catholicism.
¶2Conversion is a change of heart and mind. And that just happened. >> Okay, here we go, Joe. All of us creators in this space are jumping on board with our assessments and criticisms of your recent reconversion. You are certainly entitled to change your mind and follow your own path in life.
¶3No no problem there. Everyone's giving their takes on your decision, which is understandable. In our corner of the world, you're a public figure, and many of us have engaged with your ideas. I'm going to give my take on your reconversion, and it's probably a unique take in a lot of ways from what others are saying because, well, you guys know me. I'm going to base this critique in the argument from trauma.
¶4And to be honest, I'm not sure if Joe is aware of this. It boils down to this, and I'll just say it up front. Joe is giddy and all aglow over his newfound or refound love for Jesus. He's now defending the Christian God he believes is real and active in our world, but would Joe be able to accept that his God is an abusive monster for millions? That a man as supposedly intelligent and skeptical as Joe Schmidt, who has formed or at least agreed with some of the most influential philosophical arguments against God in his academic career, and I'm aware that Joe leaned heavily on the psychophysical harmony argument as the first domino in his reconversion, an argument that actually was not his, that a man as intelligent as him could now dismiss all his own and others' former arguments against God is, well, beyond reason, which maybe should be the new name for his channel instead of majesty of reason.
¶5Welcome to the channel, you guys. I am so glad you're here. I'm H.G. Roberts, author of On Monsters and Phantoms, and my focus is on the mental and emotional harm Christianity causes and how it makes us think worse about ourselves and the world around us. I was a Christian for 25 years, led worship in a music ministry, then escaped due to severe religious trauma.
¶6And if you want to know the formal, academic, and psychological definition of religious trauma so that you don't confuse it with church hurt, it's down below in the description. And please watch all the way to the end. I have an important update on the Heathens documentary film that I participated in. As far as I could tell, Joe was never one to openly talk about the mental and emotional harms of Christianity. His arguments were always couched in the more philosophical side of the equation, the more pragmatic side, if you will.
¶7And what's strange to me though is that in many ways emotion or vibes or feelings led Joe back to Christianity, specifically Catholicism, when you watch his announcement video. And lo and behold, the argument from trauma rests in the emotional side of Christianity. So now more than ever, in my view, Joe should contend with the arguments that I make and the research that I provide. Joe, if God gave you all the feels to convince you that he's real and good and worthy of your devotion and worship, then are you ready to contend with all the feels millions have of being emotionally and psychologically abused by this monster and his religion you now find so palatable? And are you willing to listen to why we know God as an abuser?
¶8I don't expect the argument from trauma to make you second-guess your recent reconversion. After all, feelings and vibes are awfully difficult to overcome, but I would hope it would at least give you pause and curb your enthusiasm just a bit. The thing is, you now have even more platforms than ever to share your testimony and reasons for reconverting. And you know the world is watching and listening. And you're going into this sadly a little blind, I'm afraid.
¶9I suppose I expect you to see what I and the millions of others who suffer or have suffered from religious trauma see in terms of the problems with Christianity. If you now saw the problems maybe as you once did, you wouldn't so blithely dismiss or forget about these problems. They're just as real today as they were when you were an agnostic. Over the years Joe, you've built an audience who trusted you and who felt that their real harmful experiences with Christianity were validated and understood by you. In many ways you helped represent the story of the traumatized whether you knew it or not or whether you were trying to or not.
¶10I've cited you before in some of my early videos as someone who made rational arguments that could easily be applied to religious trauma or at the very least validated our reasons for not believing in this God. You didn't have the duty to represent the traumatized. You didn't owe us anything. I know that was never your mission. But it's mine.
¶11And when the millions of us who are legitimately traumatized by this abusive God watch you romp around gushing over God now, it actually hurts. It's confusing and it feels disingenuous. Maybe we feel a bit betrayed by you, but again, you don't owe us anything. You're always free to make your decisions and change your mind. But you seem to understand without directly saying it what we were going through, what we experienced and you sometimes even put into words what we couldn't.
¶12You perhaps sympathized and empathized with us even if you weren't trying to. And we were like, "Here's an intelligent young man with a platform who sees what we see. He gets it. This God is evil or at the least has malevolent properties. We're not making this stuff up." Christians who have deconverted constantly say, "Once you see it, you can't unsee it." I suppose that platitude isn't as airtight as we thought it was because Joe, you used to confess to see it.
¶13Now you have unseen what you used to see. It's clear Joe that you never experienced religious trauma, but you certainly seem to understand how one could be driven to it, or at least I thought you could. And you called out the God guilty of the abuse, and we were grateful for you for sending that message. So yeah, it hurts. As you sink deeper into your new love for Jesus, do you now look at the traumatized with scorn, as silly, as deceived by Satan, as hostile to God, as wrong, as unfortunate collateral damage, so God can achieve some mysterious greater good, as just people who want to sin and be their own gods?
¶14Are you going to adopt that awful Christian narrative, or do you still see us as humans who have suffered or are still suffering under the oppressive and atrocious religion you're now defending without good reason, when reason was your brand? Just a few more clips from his re-conversion video that I'll respond to. And look, it's it's not about Joe necessarily. It's about anyone who sort of backhandedly says, "Hey, I've awakened to the truth. How is it you can't see what I've seen?" And I get that's kind of my channel's mission, too, which is to basically ask Christians, "How come you can't see what I see?" I get it.
¶15We're all wired differently, and I acknowledge that. I just want to be sure this side of the house remains represented in the broader conversation. >> After some time, the the problems for theism and Christianity just kept mounting and mounting, and eventually I lost my faith. It happened sometime around 10th grade. I came to conclude that atheism is true, so God does not exist.
¶16And I also thought that naturalism is true. So, you know, at bottom, the world is just fundamentally indifferent. You know, there's no fundamental purpose, there's no fundamental mindedness. At bottom, as Richard Dawkins says, it's just blind, pitiless indifference. You know, the natural world is all that there is.
¶17At the time I thought that that was just the best explanation of the data. >> So, Joe, you saw the mess of the Bible and you lost your faith, but you lost it for philosophical reasons or the evidence didn't rise to an acceptable level for you, whatever. I bet one problem you never truly saw was considering or engaging with the real harms of Christianity, the reality of religious trauma. And look, I've not seen everything Joe's made. I've not read all of Joe's material, but in all his Philbro material I've seen I've never seen him contend with the idea that Christianity can and does harm millions and how that happens.
¶18This God he now suddenly finds so lovely and beautiful and righteous and holy and just is for millions their worst abuser. And we have the academic research and psychological and cognitive understanding to tell us how and why. We also have all of the personal testimonies. If personal testimonies work for Christianity, they can certainly also work against Christianity. If emotions can lead you to Christianity, aren't emotions capable of leading you away?
¶19Of course, we talk a lot about more than just emotions here. We dig into the cognitive, psychological, and sociological research. So, I said a lot of these same things when I critiqued Sister Faith a while back and I'll say them to you, Joe. Christianity, as Pargament's theory on religious coping tells us, has become a source of positive coping for you. It now benefits you socially and individually.
¶20Despite your former skepticism, you had latent positive associations with Christianity in some form or fashion that predisposed you to now see this God as good. That happens in people. It's documented in the research. Positive coping has constructed a worldview that now works for you. You know how to use it for your gain.
¶21But Joe, are you aware of negative religious coping or shattered assumptions, scrupulosity, fragmentation as Catherine Keller and I discussed. Are you aware of trauma bonding and Stockholm syndrome? Do you understand how a hyper fantastic imagination in a traumatized OCD person will make it very difficult, if not impossible, to perceive God as good? Do you understand that sacred imagery like a crucifixion or the murder of Egypt's firstborn and hell induce traumatic responses for some people regardless of how they feel about Jesus? Are you aware of catastrophic thinking and how that arises and how the Bible exacerbates it?
¶22Are you aware of how the doctrine of original sin and inherent worthlessness negatively impacts those who have been abused as children? Are you aware that the doctrine of satanic influence and demonic possession is a source of severe detrimental religious psychosis and debilitating intrusive thoughts for some? Do you know what limerence is and how that can form an unhealthy and unstable attraction to Jesus? I know you know about confirmation bias, echo chambers, and liking bias. What about functional versus maladaptive fear and who might gravitate to which based on their life experiences?
¶23Do you understand the science behind childhood attachment disorders and how those can impact one's attachment or detachment from the divine? Can you reconcile heaven and hell now? Do you understand rosy retrospection and positive illusions and motivated reasoning? My guess is you could explain these concepts far better than I can, which makes me question how these concepts, when applied to Christianity, somehow now elude you. Do you understand adverse childhood experiences and the cortisol flood and how that rewires a child's brain development such that they might be more prone to religious trauma because of obsessive-compulsive rumination?
¶24I've done videos on all of this and you can find them in my psychology of religious trauma playlist. But, my bigger question is, do you actually care and actually respect the data and research, or dismiss it? You can have all the feels and the vibes you want. I get it. I had them, too.
¶25Visions, movements, encounters, tears, falling on my knees in worship, chills, dreams. I've been there. I did this video on the magical experience and encounter I had with God when he called me to share the gospel through my music. I know how powerful these emotional experiences can be. They're real.
¶26They cause action. They distort reality. They shift belief. You should know how they manifest psychologically in our minds. This stuff is simple to you, Joe, yet you now dismiss it.
¶27>> These are like some new arguments for theism that I've never come across. And the host behind the channel was just like super loving, but also incredibly intellectually rigorous and sophisticated. So, I binge-watched all of his videos, and woah, they just opened my eyes to this new world of like academic theist philosophy. So, the person behind the channel, as I came to discover, was Dr. Josh Rasmussen.
¶28He's a Christian philosopher. And at the time, he was publishing a book with Alexander Pruss called Necessary Existence, defending all these new and interesting contingency arguments for God's existence. And he was just like popularizing and publicizing that cutting-edge work in his videos. And so, you know, after I binge-watched these videos, I was like, "Woah, there's way more to theism than I thought. Um there are all these new and interesting arguments that seem really forceful to my mind.
¶29But hey, I still got [clears throat] some objections." >> So, Joe, an intellectual Christian philosopher helped open your mind to a rich and robust world of theistic arguments. Fantastic. Could little old masters-educated me, who wrote a memoir about religious trauma, reopen your mind to arguments against God, specifically the argument from trauma, that you've likely never considered? Since intelligent minds who write intelligent-sounding papers convinced you of God's existence and benevolence, can I show you some academic papers written by peer-reviewed scholars that might convince you of the other side? I'm not I'm not here to debate you, Joe, by the way.
¶30I know you'd kill me in a debate because I'm not a skilled debater. That's not what this is about. This is just simply about intellectual honesty and having a conversation. I know the benefits of Christianity. I've lived them.
¶31My wife still does. Are you willing to acknowledge that the other side exists and needs to be taken seriously? >> So, it's striking to begin with that there are any laws of physics at all. But, let's suppose there are. Even then, it's pretty surprising that those laws of physics have constants that even have life-permitting ranges to begin with.
¶32I mean, after all, we can imagine a hordes of different laws, many of which are much simpler than the laws that we actually have, which would preclude basically anything interesting or valuable happening. You know, basically like it is a law that there's a single particle which just like vibrates for all of eternity. You know, I can't get anything interesting or particularly valuable in such a world. But, we didn't get a world like that. Instead, the law structures that we have are at least compatible with life.
¶33And not only that, but these law structures, the form of these laws, they contain certain constants or fixed values. And those fixed values need to fall within exceedingly narrow ranges in order for life or basically anything interesting to develop. So, like we sort of hit the complete cosmic jackpot there. And then even then, we weren't done. In addition to that, the laws of nature actually match the contents of the universe so as to result in temporal evolution.
¶34And then even when you get temporal evolution, it's surprising that conscious subjects evolve cuz we can imagine a world which is physically just like ours, but where consciousness doesn't exist. And so, it's actually quite striking that consciousness exists. And not only does consciousness exist, but it's paired up very fortuitously with the physical world. >> Joe talks about the power of fixed values and the almost impossible probability for these fixed values, like universal constants and laws of logic, coming into existence apart from a creator. It's just a fancy argument from design.
¶35Joe, here's what I always say in rebuttal to the design argument. If God is a perfect designer, and he designed our minds and understands how they work, then he would understand how they either maladapt or get rewired chemically and developmentally through things like childhood trauma, thus predisposing someone to OCD tendencies, which can and do lead to religious trauma through the hell and original sin doctrines and so much more, despite asking for healing. We have tons of new research on the cognitive and physiological ramifications from childhood trauma. Minds don't all work the same way. You're making the assumption, Joe, that how your mind receives, interprets, and applies the God vibes is how other minds should do, which completely ignores a whole swath of psychological temperament theory, epigenetics, life experiences, and cognitive filters or schemas.
¶36If you're going to lean on the argument for design, be aware of the flaws in this design. >> [snorts] >> This next clip is long, but it's worth it, so listen closely. >> But then, in my second year of grad school, I started coming across overwhelming evidence for miraculous phenomena. I mean, it started with certain people making videos about like Our Lady of Zeitoun, you know, this apparition on top of a Coptic Orthodox Church that literally like hundreds of thousands of people saw, in addition to tons of medically documented healing miracles associated with it. Another thing that kickstarted my journey here was that my friend Cameron Bertuzzi was interviewing a bunch of different like professional psychiatrists and deliverance ministers and exorcists and various other people who are on the periphery of deliverance ministry concerning demonic phenomena and manifestations that they've witnessed with their own eyes.
¶37And like here we're talking about like super recent in totally perceptually conducive circumstances with sane people, sometimes in the context of like multiple or even dozens of witnesses, and like things that it seems like it's really hard to be mistaken about, and which are like these, you know, complex multimodal experiences, where like, you know, the temperature of the room would just like instantaneously drop to freezing, such that the person can literally see their breath, and then become scorching hot, such that everyone in the room just starts like sweating. And testifying to things like, "Oh, you know, like a few days ago, I literally saw with my own eyes, and multiple people present also saw it, and they told me afterwards where like multiple things were just flying across the room of their own accord, and various other, like, instantaneous supernatural changes in facial structure, or eyes, or various other things, like levitation and so on. And I didn't actually believe these things for the longest time. I thought it was actually pretty implausible. But Cameron just kept pushing me.
¶38He was like, "Joe, watch the video. What's your explanation of this person's testimony?" You know, I'd like give these flailing, kind of implausible, naturalistic explanations for concerning which I have no independent evidence, and, you know, basically, I'm like having to divine from the armchair that these people are just like lying straight through their teeth, and then also like all the other deliverance ministers are in on it, and these are just like hydras or in on it, and then like also, you know, like the the government reports that we have to some of these phenomena are also like that the people who testified in those are just mistaken, and like dozens of other It's I was starting to shift in my seat. I was starting to become uncomfortable. >> Joe, miraculous claims seem to have a profound effect on your reconversion. Fair enough.
¶39Powerful and compelling stories, to be sure. But, you know what would be even more powerful, now that you're on team Jesus, and would bring me back to team Jesus? Is if you can actually do what Jesus said you will be able to do. I made this video a while back, and I put it to you, Joe, to prove that Christianity is real and true in your own life. Here's what the Bible says that true believers will be able to do through the power of the Holy Spirit living inside you.
¶40John 14:12 says, and and this is Jesus talking, "Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." Jesus did some pretty incredible miracles. I mean, water to wine, walking on water, healing, driving out demons, raising people from the dead, and and that's not the half of it. The Bible says the world can't contain the books declaring all his great works. And you're supposed to do greater things than him, Joe. Mark 16:17-18 says, "And these signs will accompany those who believe.
¶41In my name, they will drive out demons. They will speak in new tongues. They will pick up snakes with their hands, and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all. They will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." I know Jesus also says that the way to tell the true converts from the false converts is that they'll have great faith to move mountains. They'll have a love for their enemies.
¶42They'll demonstrate radical forgiveness. I mean, that's all awesome. But, you know, we can see non-Christians doing that mundane stuff all the time, every day. Other religions and worldviews lead people to those same things. Atheists do them, too.
¶43So, hard to call that proof. But, the proof comes with the healings, the miracles, the drinking of deadly poison, the handling of the venomous snakes, raising the dead, casting out demons, and doing bigger and better things than Jesus did while he walked the earth. That's sort of extra level stuff. That's where the real proof lies, according to Jesus. So, let's see it, Joe.
¶44Prove that you're a true convert. If you're a true convert, surely you can demonstrate those things to me. Forget all the miracles you've read about and seen videos about. Show me you can do more than what Jesus did. Show me the miraculous.
¶45Swallow some poison, raise the dead, get bitten by venomous snakes without taking antivenom meds beforehand. Turn water into wine, heal the sick, drive out demons, mine included if you think I've got one. I know. The the demon of apostasy. You should welcome the challenge.
¶46Truth can withstand any and all scrutiny. Don't let your reconversion just be about feelings, vibes, emotions, and academic arguments. Show us the evidence Jesus said you'll be able to show us. I don't care how many miraculous claims you heard that convinced you. Show me the miraculous yourself.
¶47This is what you believe. These are the truth claims bestowed upon you as as a believer. Prove it. I'd argue that you now have the responsibility to. >> I just said to myself like, "Listen, I can't imagine if I died right now and I saw Christ, I can't imagine having to tell him what I'd have to tell him by my lights as a non-Catholic.
¶48And I was just not willing to bet my soul on just like not only a single conspiracy, but just like a conspiracy of conspiracies that are just like conspiring to make it look as though Catholicism is true. >> So, we have a little bit of Pascal's wager thrown in here. And come on, Joe. I'm sure you can critique that into the ground. What do you have to lose if you believe that Christianity is true?
¶49Your dignity and integrity. You now side with a misogynistic god who condones slavery, commits genocide, murders children and infants, and punishes unfairly, excessively, unnecessarily, savagely, and barbarically. Your reputation is now staked to that god. He closes out his video with the story of Saint Mary Gray or Saint Maria Goretti. And I'm not going to comment on that.
¶50Brandon over at Mindshift recently covered that whole narrative. And he said what I would have said. So, I'm not going to repeat that. But Joe concludes all this with this. And I do want to comment on this.
¶51>> So, like what when I reflected on this story, I was like, this is such a profound and beautiful story of radical forgiveness, radical love, radical purity. And it's like, "Listen, whatever she's on, I want some of that." And so this was like one step along the path of kind of instilling within me a kind of magnetic pull, a kind of magnetic attraction to Catholicism. The same thing happened with uh St. Maximilian Kolbe. And of course I was already quite quite affected by the figure of Christ in the Gospels.
¶52You know, he speaks with this authority. Um you know, he's he's preaching like radical love of neighbor, like radical forgiveness, radical self-sacrifice. And that was already quite attractive to me. >> Radical love is compelling. It tugs on our emotions.
¶53Again, Joel, with the vibes and the feels. I I get that radical love is a narrative thread through Christianity. It's there. I felt it too for the 25 years I was a Christian. And it's fine to admit you are swayed by that, moved by that.
¶54But can you also be equally moved by radical harm, suicidal harm, psychosis, delusions, schizophrenia? These are the manifestations of religious trauma. These are the emotions, feelings, vibes, and thoughts that manifest through some of Jesus's most radical teachings, not about love, but about condemnation, violence, inconsistent judgment, and punishment, about exclusion, and about division. They're just as real as the love you feel. The harm is just as palpable, just as tangible.
¶55Jesus was radical both ways. He represents, in my view, the extremes of radical love and violence. It's hard to see this when you're steeped in the philosophical and intellectual proof for God, then you're basking in the glow of the miraculous or what you perceive to be the miraculous. But hopefully, when you come down off of that divine high, your wits will return and you'll once again engage these doctrines and claims with intellectual honesty. And if you can't do that anymore because this is all now more about emotion and vibes, then perhaps you'll be moved by the emotional appeals of those of us who have suffered greatly because of religious trauma.
¶56I mean, after all, if emotional appeals got you here, maybe the emotional appeals behind the darker stories will temper things a bit, you know, sort of balance them out. You mentioned the radical love and sacrifice of Jesus. May I present to you the radical harm his preaching and teaching causes. I've got these two videos that present a very different side of Jesus. Radical to be sure, but not radical positivity, but radical condemnation and harm.
¶57Do you have the courage to engage these ideas honestly, Joe? >> Oh, man. This is so wonderful. This is so beautiful. You have a change of heart.
¶58And so, God affected that within me. And so, it was the combination of the kind of head factors and the heart factors that ultimately culminated in that general confession. God is good. So good. >> I get that, Joe.
¶59Can you get how someone 25 years into Christianity can go from this is so beautiful to this is toxic and traumatic? Can the reverse be true? This is what my channel is about. I explain how and why this happens backed by cognitive and psychological science, empirical data, evidence, and humility. I have a whole playlist dedicated to God's immorality.
¶60This is not a story I ever dreamed of telling, nor ever wanted to tell, but I had to, just like you have to tell your story. Does God suddenly not condone and regulate chattel slavery in Leviticus? Does he no longer punish others' crimes by having women raped? Are you now okay with stoning women who don't bleed on their wedding night? Are you okay with demon possession, hell, the slaughter of infants and children, killing Egypt's first-born, is there now somehow archaeological evidence that proves all this is true?
¶61Have the biblical contradictions been erased? I can find radical love if I squint at the Bible just right. It's there, but can you open your eyes wide enough to see what we see? Or have you tipped over the edge of presuppositional bias never to return? If God's really got a hold of you, guess what?
¶62You don't get to just tell these rosy stories. I hate to break it to you, but you have a very public history that won't allow you to escape your past and your arguments. You've signed up to defend an immoral monster you now claim is so good while millions suffer from religious trauma in silence, not because they want to sin, but because this Bible you conceivably now believe is true is an overwhelming source of cognitive dissonance and moral injury. Joe, I get it. Emotional priming is real and powerful.
¶63It led you here, and you may push back and say, "Hey, emotional priming is what led me to religious trauma." I'd argue the Bible did, and if the Bible as written collides with my mental and emotional state to cause religious trauma, then we have an imperfect, immoral God aware of the harm he creates because he's aware of the minds that would react to the Bible like mine did and millions like me in light of traumatic life experiences and circumstances. And that's about the worst kind of pain there is. I don't know you, Joe, and I likely never will. You don't owe me or anybody else squat. Do your thing.
¶64Just do it with your eyes open, my friend. >> [snorts] >> So you guys, this video is less about criticizing Joe and more about letting you guys who are in the midst of deconstructing and potentially deconverting to not abandon your critical thinking and not dismiss your real experiences just because a popular former agnostic reconverts to Christianity. None of that changes what you've been through and what you've seen. None of that erases what you know to be true in your own experience. None of that invalidates the arguments you've either made or embraced to back your position.
¶65I've got a video coming out soon that will talk about living beyond religious trauma. A bit about how to rebuild. Look for that one soon. And real quick, you're going to hear me continue to hype the documentary film Heathens I was asked to participate in. Please look for this post on the channel.
¶66It has a lot more details than I'm going to share here. Give it a thumbs up and join me on this incredible journey that's about to unfold. For those of you who have suffered from religious trauma or who have faced resistance in your deconstruction and deconversion, this film is for you and it represents your story. Some quick details. Heathens has officially been selected for the 29th United Nations Association Film Festival at Stanford University.
¶67The documentary was selected by jury from nearly 600 submissions from this year's festival themed Passion for Change. I'm one of five people featured in the film each navigating what it means to deconstruct and deconvert from Christianity. The gains and losses we experienced along the way and the inseparable friendships the five of us have made through our shared experiences. I started the filming process in October 2023 so this has been a long time coming. The film's producers discovered my book On Monsters and Phantoms and asked if I would be willing to share my story on camera.
¶68Of course I said yes. The whole reason I wrote the book and started this channel was to raise awareness of and educate people about religious trauma and expose how prevalent it actually is and hopefully help you through it by forming a vocabulary to help define what you've experienced and to connect you with others around the world who have similar experiences to yours. My castmates are from all over the US and have their own incredible stories and journeys to share. After the film officially hits the theaters, I'll have my castmates on for an informal chat about what's next for all of us. The premiere of the film at the United Nations Association Film Festival, you guys, it's only the beginning.
¶69They've lined up additional screenings and showings across the nation as we move through the fall. We hope it encourages more people around the globe to speak out about their experiences around cognitive dissonance and moral injury when it comes to religious belief and what it means to be honest with yourself and intellectually honest in general. There's much more about Heathens that I'll be able to share soon, including the official trailer and the website, so be on the lookout for that in the next month or two. In the description below is a link to the movie's landing page where you can sign up to receive important updates about the film's release and more. So, please go sign up.
¶70This is really our chance to tell the world about religious trauma and have our collective voices heard. You guys, I was just in San Francisco at the end of August for a private screening of the film with my castmates and I'll say this, the world isn't ready for this film, yet there's never been a better time for a film like this to challenge the world. This is going to be more than a movie, it's a movement. So, get ready. I appreciate you guys being here.
¶71Subscribe if you haven't. Share this with someone you know who is suffering so they don't feel so alone. And the best way to support the channel financially, if you can and you want to do that is to pick up your copy of On Monsters and Phantoms from Amazon. It's my memoir about severe religious trauma and deconversion from Christianity and leave a review. It's a raw and honest look into the diabolically harmful mind games that Christianity plays with us.
¶72I like to say it's the best non-fiction psychological thriller you're ever going to read. If that's your bag, then this is your book. Let me know via email that you bought it, so I can thank you in a future video. And I've got tons of reader reviews on onmonstersandphantoms.com. If you want to see what you're getting yourself into.
¶73It's a dark and it's a hard read. So until next time, let's continue to catalyze the conversation together about religious trauma to let those who suffer from it know that there is real hope and to let those who dismiss it know that it's real.