Bad At My Religion

Richard Ostler is a believing Latter-day Saint, a former bishop of a congregation of about 300 young single adults, and the host of Listen, Learn & Love, a podcast where LGBTQ members and others tell their own stories. At 65 he still sustains his church, and he still runs marathons to manage how much of it troubles him.

The conversation starts with heavenly parents and a pre-earth life, then moves to what he has changed his mind about. Ten or twenty years ago he would have defended the priesthood ban. Now he calls it a mistake. He says the church's position on gay members is unsustainable, and he is privately praying for it to change, though he doubts it will happen in his lifetime. Josh presses him on where they differ: if doctrine moves with the politics of the day, why keep a strict framework at all, and how can someone be born good and also be told they are living in sin?

They land on shame and what can replace it. Richard's God asks the prodigal son, "Tell me what you're learning." Real men have broken knees and see therapists. A marriage can hold two politics and raise six kids. "Zion," he says, "is unity in purpose, not unity in sameness."

About Richard Ostler: Richard Ostler is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a married father of six, and 65. He hosts the Listen, Learn & Love podcast and writes on Substack about sensitive topics, including LGBTQ members, working through sin, and mental health challenges, to help people know God loves them.

Listen, Learn & Love podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/listen-learn-love-hosted-by-richard-ostler/id1347971725
Substack: https://papaostler.substack.com/
Website: https://papaostler.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/papa_ostler
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richard.ostler.5

Chris Shelton grew up in Scientology. His parents joined when he was three, he went on staff straight out of high school, and at 25 he signed the Sea Org's billion-year contract. He worked for the church for 25 years before he left in 2012, and within a year he had been declared a suppressive person and cut off from everyone he knew inside. Today he hosts the Speaking of Cults podcast, holds a master's degree in coercive control, and wrote What Now? A Practical Guide to Life After a Cult.

This episode turns the show's question around. Most people are bad at their religion. Chris lived his all the way. He and Josh go through what Scientology teaches, from Dianetics and the reactive mind to thetans, the OT levels and Xenu, a name Chris never heard in 39 years inside. They talk about why smart people believe it, why certainty is the hook, how auditing produces a feeling of awe and then tells you what it means, and Josh's own years as a Pentecostal worship leader learning to move a room.

Chris ends on where he stands now: no afterlife, the universe itself as the closest thing to God, and every answer held as the best one he has for that day. Josh ends with a question of his own: maybe the point was never being good at your religion at all.

About Chris Shelton: Chris Shelton is a former cult member who escaped Scientology and now educates about coercive control and helps people recover from traumatic coercive experiences. He hosts the Speaking of Cults podcast and wrote What Now? A Practical Guide to Life After a Cult.

Website: https://chrissheltonmsc.org
Speaking of Cults on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@chrissheltonmsc
What Now? A Practical Guide to Life After a Cult: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GWJ2VXWV

Bill Reel converted to the LDS Church at 17, became a bishop at 29, and started a podcast while still bishop to defend the faith. He was, by every measure the church uses, very good at his religion. The research he did to help people stay is what took him out, and in 2018 the church excommunicated him for apostasy. Today he runs Mormon Discussion Inc., a nonprofit network of podcasts, and works as a trauma-informed coach for people leaving high-demand religion.

Josh came in expecting Bill to turn the premise of the show on its head, and he does. Bill says you can be a really good Mormon without being a good human being, and that for years he was the first and not the second. They talk about a church run on appearances, the rule that it is wrong to criticize leaders even when the criticism is true, the documentary history that ended his faith, what happened to his family, and why he doesn't miss being certain.

Where they land: Bill no longer believes in a personal God, but he loves the big questions and is sure of a few things it isn't. His advice for anyone, believer or doubter, is to watch for dogma and to go with the most rational answer until new information comes along.

About Bill Reel: Bill Reel is the founder and executive director of Mormon Discussion Inc., a nonprofit focused on examining Mormonism, supporting faith transitions, and helping people rebuild meaningful lives after religious deconstruction. He is a longtime podcaster, public commentator, and certified somatic-informed trauma coach whose work explores religion, psychology, institutional accountability, and healing from high-demand systems.

Mormon Discussion Inc.: https://mormondiscussions.org/
YouTube: Mormon Discussion Inc.: https://www.youtube.com/c/MormonDiscussionsInc

Justin McSweeny was raised Catholic, was refused his First Communion as a boy because his parents were divorced, and walked away from church at 15. A health crisis at 41 sent him back to meditation and then deep into philosophy. Today he calls himself an ignostic, a word coined by Rabbi Sherwin Wine: the question "does God exist?" can't be answered until someone says what "God" means. He holds his beliefs loosely on purpose, and he runs the IdeaCast interview series and illuminelife.org.

Josh and Justin talk about why suspending judgment brings peace, whether a person living a steady life needs morality at all, a $20,000 weekend in Vegas, the story of Eden as a fall into self-awareness rather than sin, and why "authentic" is a construction too. Josh pushes where they differ: whether greatness requires obsession, whether life without an afterlife has a purpose, and whether we can judge people like Tom Brady for chasing theirs.

They land on social media, AI, and a generation looking backward for a future it can't see. Justin closes with three keys to practice for the next 30 days: ritual, dialectic and disruption.

About Justin McSweeny: Justin McSweeny lives in Florida with his wife and a couple of itinerant cats, and works as a plant inspector. He hosts the IdeaCast interview series on YouTube and Spotify and runs illuminelife.org, a free virtual workshop for personal inquiry and development.

illuminelife.org: https://www.illuminelife.org/
IdeaCast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ideacastilluminate

Father Augustine Wetta has been a Benedictine monk at Saint Louis Abbey for 30 years. He teaches high school, coaches rugby, turns the Psalms into rap, and wrote Humility Rules, which has sold over 100,000 copies. He met his first monk on a bus in Rome while fending off a pickpocket, and he once told his abbot he was a terrible monk. The abbot agreed.

Josh and Father Augustine talk about going all in on a faith when your vows leave no exit: Saint Benedict's way to end an argument, why love can grow out of commitment, and why you will marry the wrong person. Then they disagree about AI. Josh builds with it every day and sees a crisis of purpose coming fast. Father Augustine uses it to write rap songs, doubts anyone can predict the future, and says no machine can say Mass or become flesh.

They land on the practical: shame, honor and virtue signaling, humility as truthful self-knowledge, why the closer you get to God the smaller you feel, and one thing anyone can try for the next 30 days.

About Father Augustine Wetta: Father Augustine Wetta is a monk of Saint Louis Abbey in Saint Louis, Missouri, where he teaches high school and coaches rugby. He has degrees from Oxford University, Rice University, and Middlebury College. Father Augustine grew up on a tropical island, where he learned to surf and was nearly eaten by a shark.

Father Augustine Wetta: https://www.augustinewetta.com
His psalm raps: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/corvuschristi/ran

Michael Hirtzel is a Civil War historian, documentary filmmaker (Calcutta is My Mother), author of The Papa Bull, and a PGA apprentice who teaches golf in Florida. He was raised in the Assemblies of God, moved through the evangelical world, landed in Calvinism, and is now seriously considering becoming Catholic. He and Josh have known each other for years, and this is the conversation they kept having offline.

It starts with a confession: the older Michael gets, the less he expects good things to happen. From there they dig into where the shame in their shared upbringing came from, why Romans 7 has to be read into Romans 8, why churches are afraid to preach grace, and the part nobody warns you about: when grace finally took the guilt away, Michael's drive went with it and he felt dead inside. Josh presses on purpose instead of performance, on who Jesus actually spent his time with, and on why the people most capable of empathy carry shame the heaviest.

The second half is about sacredness: a baptism party with no mention of God, home groups that never talk about Jesus, worship leaders pulling levers, and what draws Michael to a Latin Mass and to prayers written eight hundred years ago. They end on fasting, and a promise to record the next one four days into a fast.

About Michael Hirtzel: Michael holds his Masters in History with a focus on the Civil War and still teaches periodically as a professor of History. He also directed and produced the acclaimed documentary Calcutta is My Mother and wrote the self-help book The Papa Bull. Golf has also been a lifelong passion for Michael and he is a PGA Apprentice. He currently works as the Director of Instruction at GOLFTEC in Carrollwood, FL.

Arpan Patel is a software engineer turned Vedantic seeker. He spent fifteen years in the United States, moved back to India, and now writes on the Upanishads and the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra. He grew up Hindu, kept asking questions nobody around him wanted to answer, and landed somewhere most people don't expect a Hindu to land: the scriptures never define God, there is nothing after this life, and that is exactly why spirituality matters.

Josh comes at it from the other side. Raised fundamentalist Christian, he believes a divine intelligence sits in every atom and that death is a transition, not an ending. Over two recording sessions they press on each other's frameworks: whether religion should evolve, why ritual without meaning is worthless, why the Buddha gave two opposite answers to "does God exist?", whether our natural state is joy or sadness, and what the point of being spiritual is if this life is all there is.

They end up closer than either expected. Arpan calls it nothingness, Josh calls it God, and both agree the work is the same: go inward, be honest about what you find, and do the thing you love while you are here. Arpan's one practice for the next 30 days: every night, go to bed assuming you will not wake up tomorrow.

About Arpan Patel: Software engineer by profession, gardener by passion, and philosopher at heart. A sincere seeker exploring spirituality and philosophy, committed to uncovering the deeper truths behind misconceptions within Hinduism and other religious beliefs.

YouTube: Arpan Patel - Upanishad Journey: https://www.youtube.com/@ArpanPatel-UpanishadJourney

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:38 From software engineer to Vedantic seeker
3:04 Raised Hindu in India, questioning in the US
6:35 Religion as a stepping stone to spirituality
11:20 Should religion evolve?
13:52 The trad trend and ritual without meaning
20:10 Why we avoid looking inward
23:42 Religion and spirituality have nothing to do with each other
25:10 No definition of God in the Hindu scriptures
31:15 If God appeared tomorrow, what would change?
32:21 Why the Buddha gave two opposite answers
36:42 Death, cremation and whether anything continues
38:12 Purpose or pure coincidence?
44:49 Thousands of gods, each one a symbol
48:37 Consciousness, the Big Bang and the limits of knowing
53:33 Is our natural state joy or sadness?
53:53 Part two: why our default state is sadness
58:26 Do monks and sadhus have it right?
1:00:10 Putting spirituality first in a material world
1:07:05 If this life is all there is, why be spiritual?
1:29:19 Nothingness, the soul and reincarnation
1:37:01 Do trees have a spirit?
1:39:39 I call it nothingness, you call it God
1:44:42 No afterlife as the strongest motivator
1:50:02 The purest definition of spirituality
1:55:09 One practice for the next 30 days
1:57:59 Individualism, family and crabs in a bucket
2:07:35 What to read, and closing thoughts

A noble death is ACCESS to life

That’s the real reason why suicide backfires

Humans are on a spiritual loosh farm, a prison planet being milked for negative energies

The only way out is to re-connect with the Divine directly and transcend the constraints of this realm

That’s why Jesus was able to perform miracles and speak so simply and clearly a child could understand it - he understood the way to the source is within

For whatever reason each of us is here -those of us who are genuinely souled, not NPC’s- there is free will only to an extent

The journey is set and determined by fate and/or our willingness to endure pain in order to grow spiritually

We have to be wiped of conscious understanding or the journey and the work wouldn’t be real - after all why would you ever be afraid if you know the dog is on a chain and can only bark, but never reach you?

The funny thing to me is that Christians will accept the story of Job, God making a bet with the Devil in narcissistic arrogance and destroying many lives just to make a point about his worshippers…

But those same people will be vehemently angry and scoff at the idea of a spiritual loosh farm where demonic entities are allowed to feed on our fear, and it is up to us individually to transcend and “win” the game by denying them those lower frequency emotions

The despondency, the grief and shame and fear and anger that are present in suicide loses the game to the dark spiritual machine.

Maybe that means you have to play again, maybe that means your soul becomes one of them, there are many theories - I have zero interest in finding out because my desire is to learn grow and evolve toward Truth and enlightenment

If the story is already written then my only role is to learn MY lessons in order to develop

and eventually I’ll be granted the open doorway to LIFE

which is accessed through the transition that is death

Only a soul at peace passes through that gateway unscathed

Which means my soul earthly aim must be targeting peace, and joy, and love

Whether as a monk or as a political pundit, as a rich man or as a garbageman,

the end game is identical

EARN LIFE

Which means live in such a way that material bodily death will reward your spirit’s integrity for the higher purpose

By allowing you to reconnect with source,

Life itself

When it's a charismatic variation of the religious framework, if you close your eyes it's nearly impossible to tell if you are in a pentecostal Christian gathering or a charismatic Catholic one...

Yet both sides would be staunchly against the 5% differences in their house of worship decor and the theology.

Is that truly of "God", is one side really right and the other really wrong?

Or is the truth found merely within, through one's own direct connection with the Divine?

GUEST: Terry Tucker, Author & Speaker
BIO: Terry Tucker is a speaker, author, and podcast guest on the topics of motivation, mindset, and self-development. Among his diverse professional roles, Terry has been a marketing executive, a hospital administrator, a SWAT Hostage Negotiator, and for the past thirteen years, a cancer warrior. He is the author of Sustainable Excellence: Ten Principles To Leading Your Uncommon And Extraordinary Life and a featured author of Perspectives On Cancer: Stories Of Healing, Hope, & Resilience.
FAITH: Cradle Catholic who has been battling terminal cancer for 13 years. Death should have taken me several times, however, my current purpose is God using my malignancy to show people his love, mercy, grace, peace, healing, and compassion.

HOW TO CONNECT:
Motivational Check Website: https://www.motivationalcheck.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terry-tucker-9b5605179/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/motivationalcheck
X (Twitter): https://x.com/terrytucker2012
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sustainableexcellenceauthor/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2CUA6R1zP2ZcjzhzGKWkQ

Check out Terry's book on Amazon called Sustainable Excellence, Ten Principles to Leading Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life

Full bio details coming soon but I wanted to post the week’s episode! Learn more about Mike at his website TheGutterGospel.com.

EPISODE: Ø8
GUEST: Dean Simone, Actor/Musician/Writer
BIO: Dean is an actor, writer, filmmaker, and musician, with a recurring role in the upcoming Netflix series, Gringo Hunters. His film GAME DAY, which he wrote, produced and starred in has received critical praise. He was Jim Beam in commercials and print for years. His band The Smokin’ Cobras have played from Tokyo to Dodger Stadium. Dean’s been blessed to have worked with many iconic talents over the years. Most importantly, he's a family man.
FAITH: I consider myself a Non-Dualistic, Catholic Taoist with a strong Stoic philosophy.
SPIRITUAL BACKGROUND:I believe that there is one God with many names. I'm a devout follower of Jesus Christ and believe he gave us the blueprint to life.

HOW TO CONNECT:
https://deansimone.net/

EPISODE VIDEOS:
Rumble | YouTube

Rabbi Avi Kahan joins us for a powerful discussion about Judaism and finding God through debate of Law, while living as a good human

EPISODE: Ø7
GUEST: Rabbi Avi Kahan, Arbitrator/Mediator/Coach/Rabbi
TITLE: Avi Kahan is the founder of a premier conflict resolution center specializing in arbitration, mediation, and case management for high-conflict disputes. With deep expertise in halachic and civil law, he provides strategic guidance to individuals and organizations, ensuring fair and practical resolutions. His approach blends traditional wisdom with modern legal insights, fostering solutions that uphold justice and harmony.
FAITH: Judaism
SPIRITUAL BACKGROUND:Avi Kahan is dedicated to guiding individuals through life’s most challenging conflicts with wisdom, compassion, and a deep commitment to Torah values. He believes that even in moments of division, there is an opportunity for unity, seeing conflict resolution as a path to restoring harmony and uncovering divine purpose. Rooted in halacha and spiritual insight, his work seeks to bring clarity, peace, and a higher sense of justice to those in need.

HOW TO CONNECT:
https://Hadin.org

EPISODE VIDEOS:
Rumble | YouTube

God's oneness is the fundamental feature of nature. Division is sadly the fundamental feature of humanity. Which one does religion promote?

Selected highlights from the conversation with Patricia Marin.

Listen to the the full Bad At My Religion Podcast episode with Patricia here: https://bad-at-my-religion.castos.com/episodes/episode-4-patricia-marin-sufism-islam-and-genuinely-seeking-god-1

What if we are intimately connected to God's divine consciousness and our purpose is specifically intended to assist with a grander process of evolutionary creation?

Peter von Irle: a wide-ranging historical look at religious belief systems, the question of if God created evil, and the importance of respecting your temple in this spiritual simulation. This episode was 2 hours packed with unique ideas and ancient threads sure to challenge and inspire.

EPISODE: Ø6
GUEST: Peter von Irle, Adventure Capitalist
TITLE: Recovering International Tax Attorney + GP Counter-cyclical PE Fund. Anti-fragile Maverick.
FAITH: Seeker
SPIRITUAL BACKGROUND: From a tightly-wound Fundamentalist upbringing to grace, freedom, and Love in The Way.

HOW TO CONNECT:
https://sullivanhart.com
https://ProhibitedCapital.com
https://MavericksProject.org

EPISODE VIDEOS:
Rumble | YouTube

Amy Chanthaphavong joins us from London to discuss Buddhism, Christianity, and success in the modern world while living one's faith.

EPISODE: Ø5
GUEST: Amy Chanthaphavong, a Chief Purpose Officer finding beauty in dark places
FAITH: Christian
SPIRITUAL BACKGROUND: Raised as a Buddhist in a traditional Lao home, Amy encountered the love of Christ at the age of 21 whilst in University. For over 20 years, she has and still is, learning how to walk with God in a personal and intimate relationship. It has been a beautiful, difficult, wild and supernatural adventure.

LEARN MORE:
Amy guides executives and startups through purpose-driven growth strategies. Distilling organizational purposes into compelling narratives that drives measurable results, her methodology helps leaders craft authentic brand stories, forge stronger market positions, and align company culture with strategic objectives.

HOW TO CONNECT:
https://www.sharingamy.com
YouTube: @SharingAmy
https://sharingamy.substack.com/

Patricia Marin on Sufism, the truth about Islam, and the importance of self-awareness and genuinely seeking God from the heart

Gabriela Cruz joins the pod from Mexico to talk about Catholicism trending with celebrities, the Hallow app, and the Trad movement