This is thinking in public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about

front-line theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Mola, your host and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Bill Zuckerberg is a professor of sociology and secular studies at Pittser College in Claremont, California.

In 2011, he founded an interdisciplinary Department of Secular Studies at Pitts

College, the first of its type in the nation.

He's the author of several books including Faith No More and

Society Without God. He blogs for Psychology Today and The Huffington Post. His most

recent work is Living the Secular Life, new answers to old questions.

I'm looking forward to my conversation with Professor Phil Zuckerman.

Professor Zuckerman every book has a story and my sense is that this book story

has a great deal to do with your personal story.

Can you tell us how they intersect and how the book came about?

Uh, sure. Well, I'm a third generation non-believer.

Most Americans were raised with some kind of religious faith,

and those that have abandoned it have done just that.

They were raised with it, and for various reasons, and we could speculate why they lost it or they walked away from it at some point.

I never had that experience. I was never raised to believe in God. I was never told there was a God. My parents were non-believers and

believe it or not all four grandparents of mine were non-believers. So and I grew up in a pretty

secular part of America. I grew up near Santa Monica, California in the 70s and 80s.

I didn't know a lot of religious people. I never saw families going to church on Sunday mornings.

I actually never went to someone's house where they said

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