Dear Penn & Teller,

I have recently discovered your show Bullshit! online and have devoured over a dozen episodes so far. Its been a thrilling series and I have thoroughly enjoyed the presentations. Its about fucking time some honesty was injected into the mainstream consciousness and I applaud you for having the courage to speak up.
About 2 years ago, I abandoned Christianity in favor of some personal honesty and responsibility. I was raised in a religious, though no terribly devout, atmosphere and while it seemed right much of the time, I was always bothered by niggling doubts. Furthermore, I was heavily interested in the occult, I suppose as a natural offshoot to believing in the afterlife. I researched (meaning I read sympathetic accounts) various occult and other pseudoscientific phenomena and became so familiar with their precepts and dogma that I daresay I obtained an encyclopedic knowledge of all that worthless bullshit.
This interest pervaded long beyond college but slowly I began to see that there was more to that garbage than I had realized. I began to read critiques of ESP, UFOs, Astrology, ad nauseum. I finally understood that occult phenomena did not stand up to real scientific scrutiny and was hyped in the media to an extraordinary degree. I left behind that bullshit but still refused to relinquish my faith in the Christian god.
I had always steered clear of the Fundamentalist Christians who honestly scared the shit out of me with their 9th century understanding of modern science and their desire
to turn the moral clock back a thousand years. Those are some scary motherfuckers, period. I was a moderate Christian of the same type that I suspect defines most of those who believe. Even so, when a respected clergyman (along with a host of other well-meaning Christian friends) told me with all sincerity that my gay brother was going to end up in Hell unless he changed his lifestyle it was very, very upsetting. No one with an ounce of human compassion wants to imagine anyone, let alone a family member he loves, tortured endlessly for eternity.
I had two choices to make: Either The Bible was the word of god and we as human beings had grossly misunderstood its edicts or it was all bullshit. I could not abide the thought that I would have more compassion and mercy upon my brother than an all-loving god. After all, who the fuck is he hurting by being homosexual? Seriously.
Once I discarded the purple shaded glasses, the world became a more frightening but more real experience. I prefer reality to fantasy even if it means a little extra anxiety. My first experience of skepticism was watching John Stossel on 20/20. I loved (and still love) his segments without realizing that skepticism, as a philosophy, was his personal motivation. Soon I read about James Randi and even though I had long since given the occult its proverbial walking papers, I enjoyed his unique style of debunking all that magical, pseudoscientific bullshit.
Now, I have found your show and it has been educational as well as a lot of fun! Keep up the good work and continue to bring some honesty and healthy skepticism to the table for discussion. Perhaps, you should take a look at all the bullshit the media promulgates (there is a ton of it) as fact and call them out on their sloppy, fucking journalism, unless of course youve already done so.

Jason

Jason,
Welcome to what some would call the dark side. We've rejected artificial light in favour of feeling around in the dark for something real.

Sure, we might not have a perfect picture that most religions try to sell, but at least what we find is real, however incomplete. Besides, I think that part of the fun is in the search for truth, in the being proven wrong, and in the learning of something new.

It seems that you are comfortable with your transition, but if you're ever having flashbacks, know that you've come to the right place to find like-thinking people.

Cheers,
Paul

Thanks, Paul!

Yea, I'd say it's a struggle at times because the indoctrination of religion over a lifetime is not an easy thing to shed. I was raised on it and was exposed to it nearly every day and it became a part of me for better or for worse. That's probably the hardest part of giving up religion in my opinion.

I used to think that oblivion after death would be the sticking point but actually it's kind of peaceful to consider that as opposed to an eternity of "X" "Y" "Z". Eternity is not a concept human beings can understand since we are finite. The idea that we will be around for eternity (or worse suffering for eternity) is pretty hard to swallow. I think at some point, I would want to say goodbye and poof...I'm gone.

Perhaps an afterlife does exist. Not in any spiritual sense but perhaps in a more mundane, scientific way. I've read quite a lot with regards to Quantum Physics and it's some strange stuff. So it wouldn't surprise me to die and become a quark or something odd like that :p

In either case, it's not really something I dwell on anymore. As far as I can tell, I have ONE life and I plan to enjoy it That's all any of us can hope for...many people in the world don't even have that luxury.