Julia Sweeney is well known as a former star of Saturday Night Live (she was the androgenous 'Pat') and numerous other television and film roles.  In the freethought community, she is best known for her one-woman, self-describing monologue “Letting Go of God.”   A film version of her play (possibly making an appearance at next year’s Sundance Film Festival!) was shown at this year’s FFRF conference. As an introduction, Julia presented the ten biggest lessons she has learned since the play has come out.


1. People want to be good.
We all know what it feels like to do a good deed or do someone a favor.  We like that feeling.  However, many people in our society ascribe to their churches the good feelings they get from doing good through outreach programs, when we could just as easily be helping people without the church.

2. A code of behavior is necessary.
Think 12-step programs.  They are relatively effective at helping people recover from addictions or other problems.  Is their predominantly religious nature really helping people, or is their success due to their prescribed code of behavior?  

3. People want to be in a club.
We like to belong.  We’ve all wanted to be in the club since we were kids, and churches provide an excellent club in our modern, insular society.  

4. People love to hate.
People just love to hate things or other people.  Plus, it makes you feel closer to those other people in your club (see above) if you all collectively hate something or some group of people.

5. The market does not like informed customers.
Yes, capitalism supports uninformed customers.  The simple reason is that an uninformed consumer can be made to feel insecure and then sold product after product with the promise that it will fill that insecurity – all while not actually filling that perceived need.

6. Bashing other religions is easier and more fun than understanding them.
This hardly needs any explanation.  Why take the time to learn about another culture when you can so easily make jokes and slurs about them?  

7. Mostly, people are not introspective.
People are almost assuredly not thinking about deep issues.  In fact, Julia admits, “I don’t think people are really thinking about anything!”  But this makes them easy prey for churches and other institutions that just tell them what to think.  

8. People are not comfortable not knowing the answers  to difficult questions.
Most of us can relate to this.  Life is full of difficult questions, and not knowing the answers can make us a little uneasy.  Again, it’s an area where a church can come in and hand over the answers, and comfort along with it.

9. We've evolved to the point where we can be comfortable not knowing the answers to those difficult questions.
Freethinkers the world over are proving that we, as a species, have reached the point where we do not need to rely on superstition to give us easy answers to tough questions.  It is possible to admit ignorance, and move on with our lives.

10. Life is meaningless.
Says Julia, “This is not good ad copy.”  And she’s right.  While we can all personally derive meaning from our individual lives, ultimately those individual lives have no real meaning in a cosmic sense. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but Julia says that once it’s taken, it becomes a lot easier to just live.