About three years ago I came in to Big Think
and I talked very strongly and very passionately
about atheism, how I did not believe in God.
And over the past three years I opened my
heart to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
and the Holy Spirit filled me.
And all of a sudden I realized that everlasting
life is possible by following in the ways
of Jesus Christ our Lord.
I have since then dedicated my life to Jesus
Christ.
I have joined the Church and I will live the
rest of my life and die as a Christian in
service and in joy with Jesus Christ Our Lord.
I’m just fucking with you.
For a minute, just for a minute did I – just
for a second did I have you going?
Just for a minute?
Can you imagine how much money I would make
if I could just convert to re – I don’t
have to convert.
If I just pretend to convert.
Can you imagine if I just took and threw away
my atheism, if I threw away my morality and
said I was religious and went out and started
preaching?
Can you imagine the amount of money I would
make.
But what good if a man gained the whole world
but lose his soul.
No.
I’m still an atheist.
I’m still doing fine.
I just spoke at a Young Americans for Liberty
conference, you know, a lot of conservatives,
a lot of people that are too young to be wearing
suits were wearing suits.
I liked them.
And afterwards a man came up to me probably
20 years old and he was slight in build, very
dark complected and he said to me I wanted
to talk about this during your lecture but
I was very, very frightened that there were
cameras there.
And I said well there were cameras there so
at least you’re not frightened by UFOs.
You’re frightened by spiders, something
that’s real.
I can respect that.
I made this kind of light of his wording there.
And then he shut me up because then he said
my family is from Pakistan and everybody in
my community is a devout Muslim.
And my mom and dad are devout Muslims.
And I’m an atheist.
And if I said that while you were speaking,
if I raised my hand and said that with the
cameras on, said that declared a statement
I’m an atheist.
My mom and dad would not kill me but they
would disown me and they would never speak
to me again.
And I would be an apostate and it is not unlikely
that someone in my community would kill me.
And he didn’t mean that figuratively.
He didn’t mean that word kill like comedians
mean it.
He meant they would take his life away.
Now I know Ayaan Hirsi Ali so I know he wasn’t
bluffing.
And then it got worse because then he said
and yet with my dark skin and my straight
black hair 
the other side considers me Muslim and wants
to get me out of the country and treat me
badly.
And I hear Trump giving his speeches against
people of my ancestry.
And I realize that there’s nobody for me.
Nobody.
And he said I want to talk to you because
– and this is him saying this – he said
some stuff about me being the only one who
would understand which is clearly not true.
Everybody understands.
Virtually everybody understands.
But, you know, as an atheist Christopher Hitchins,
my friend, my hero, my mentor even though
he isn’t much older than me but he’s so
much smarter.
He used to say, you know Penn, if you dislike
Christianity you must dislike Islam much more.
Now I want to be very careful about this.
Islamaphobia is the wrong word.
Islam is an idea.
Muslims area people.
You’re allowed to hate ideas.
You’re allowed to disagree with ideas.
You’re not allowed to hate people for their
ideas.
It’s the wrong word.
It’s just the wrong word.
We have to be more careful.
Islamaphobia is not racism.
Saying anything against Muslims is.
You can say Christianity is wrong and have
friends who are Christians.
You can show full respect for Christians.
You’re not Christianityaphobic, you know.
You’re just saying no, I have a different
idea.
That’s what America is.
And I believe my feelings as an atheist change
somewhat when that man speaks to me because
of my heart.
Yes, Islam is wrong.
Yes, Christianity is wrong.
Yes, Judaism is wrong.
I believe that like I believe I breathe.
I don’t doubt that ever.
But right now Muslims, those who believe in
Islam really need our help.
There’s refugees who are suffering in a
way that history will not be kind to us for
ignoring that.
We must love them.
We just embrace them.
We must help them.
Even if they believe things that we know are
wrong.
The chances of a terrorist believing in Islam
are pretty good.
The chances of someone who believes in Islam
being a terrorist are very, very bad.
Very little chance of that.
We took into Nevada – I live in Nevada.
We took nine people from Syria in the entire
state of Nevada.
That’s how many we welcomed.
Nine.
The number of fingers Jerry Garcia had – nine.
Nine – actually if it’s going to be Jerry
Garcia I think it’s nine.
Nine?
No it’s this hand – nine.
Jerry Garcia is not important in this discussion
Penn.
Get on with it.
Nine?
No is it nine.
Jerry Garcia – nine.
Nine.
Not nine families.
Nine people.
Nevada.
It’s a state, you know.
We’ve got to help those people.
Now how do I as an atheist say to Muslims
your religion is wrong, your terrorists are
crazy, this is dangerous, get over it and
then say I love you and you’re welcome.
Really, really hard.
I’ve got to tell you I know there’s no
God and because there’s no God we have to
reach out to Muslims.
We have to do God’s work because God’s
not going to.
And that love and that compassion is not going
to come from Allah and it’s not going to
come from Yet Wah.
It’s not going to come from Jesus Christ.
That love and compassion is going to come
from us.
Is it dangerous to embrace Muslims because
some of them will be terrorists?
Yeah, it’s really dangerous.
Do we have to protect ourselves?
Yeah, we really do.
There’s hard problems here.
Really hard problems.
And I don’t have any of the answers to it.
But I’ll tell you what the answer isn’t.
The answer isn’t standing up with hair that
looks like cotton candy made of piss and saying,
you know, we’ve got to keep these people
out of here.
We’ve got to keep these people out of here.
I cannot find any way that preaching hate
helps that situation.
And I defy you no matter how afraid you are
of terrorists to look at that man.
I’m so glad I don’t remember his name.
I’m so glad I don’t remember where he’s
from because in the incident that I talk about
him because I’m such an idiot I spill everything
that’s going through my head.
I might actually jeopardize his life but I
don’t know who he is so we’re safe.
I don’t know where he’s from so we’re
safe, except for Pakistan.
No, he was born in the USA.
Born in the – it doesn’t matter.
How do we do that?
How do we help people that have a religion
that’s wrong but that aren’t going to
kill us to be able to be part of us without,
you know.
We see it in France.
We see it in Belgium.
We see it in these places and these communities
that stay insular, you know.
This man says to me that my community would
kill me, these insular communities.
We’ve got to get back to the idea of an
America that was a melting pot.
We have to be able to have that guy that talked
to me after my lecture.
We’ve got to be able to have him just, you
know, be another guy.
That all of this, this long winded passionate
craziness that I’m spewing out with no answers
just comes down to we’ve got to stop judging
people by the color of their skin and where
they’re from.
I mean didn’t we learn that with the Irish?
Didn’t we learn that with the Polish?
Didn’t we learn that with the Africans?
Didn’t we learn that with every single group
of people that we’ve spit on and not welcomed?
I mean John Lennon said in a song called New
York City with the Elephant’s Memory Band
if the man wants to shove us out, we’re
going to jump and shout.
The Statue of Liberty said come.
New York City such a fucking badass city.
Yeah, you know.
The United States of America is a fucking
badass country.
And we are strong and we are brave and we
are loving and we’ve got to stop acting
like cowards.
We’ve got to stop acting like in every single
cupboard is a Muslim terrorist.
Yes, terrorism is a problem.
Yes, we have to protect our families.
Yes, the nightmare of these deaths is unforgiveable
and unthinkable.
But we have to remember that people are good.
If you look at the seven billion people on
this planet just about seven billion of them
are really good.
We can really trust them.
Can we please learn something from Las Vegas.
Learn something about gambling, right.
We know how the odds work.
We know the house always wins.
In this case the odds are always on someone
being good.
If someone walks up to you with dark skin
and straight hair looking like they’re from
Pakistan or Egypt or even Iraq, even Afghanistan
and they’re walking towards you the chances
are overwhelming that that person will be
good.
You’re not trying to fill an inside straight.
Your chances are way – in your advantage
they’re good people.
So how did my atheism change?
Well there’s no God and there’s never
a doubt about that ever.
But we have to make sure that when we’re
screaming that there’s no God we don’t
scream it so loud that we can’t hear someone
who is religious crying for help and know
that we have to help them.
