A conversation with Todd Stiefel - S11.E11

Listening In

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4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2022

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

Todd Stiefel had nagging doubts about his Catholic faith during his youth. He says in college, he found the answers he was looking for...by walking away from his Christian upbringing. In this conversation, hear what led Stiefel to this decision as he and Warren Smith have a frank conversation about love, beauty, and truth. Stiefel is the founder and president of the Stiefel Freethought Foundation. He was the chair of the Openly Secular campaign. He is currently chair of the ScienceSaves campaign and is on the advisory board for Secular Coalition for America and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Listening In is a listener supported program produced by WORLD Radio. Additional support comes from Summit Ministries. Now We Live invites and equips Christians to propel faith into action. This free, worldview Bible study will spark rich discussions about some of life’s most foundational questions. These six videos from Summit Ministries offer life-on-life discipleship for churches, small groups, and families. Get free access today at summit.org.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Warren Smith and today you'll be listening in on my conversation with one of the nation's
0:08.4	leading atheist and a millionaire who is a huge funder of atheist causes, Todd Steifel.
0:17.4	As a believer I always had nagging doubts, like, parts of this just don't make sense,
0:25.2	like, parts of their self-contradition, their strange things that doesn't jive with even what I'm
0:30.9	seeing in the world around me. Regular listeners know that the vast majority of the interviews I do
0:38.4	hear on listening in are with guests who share a Christian vision of the world, our Christian world
0:44.9	view, but not all of them. I've interviewed atheist scholar Bart Airman on the program as well as
0:51.8	Bart Campolo, son of Evangelist Tony Campolo and a former Christian Evangelist himself before
0:59.6	he renounced his faith to become a humanist chaplain. Long time listeners might also remember my
1:06.0	conversation with former Christian musician Jennifer Napp, who is now a gay activist while continuing
1:14.2	her career in secular music. And to be honest, I've really enjoyed those conversations. They can
1:21.4	be frustrating, of course, after all I have to acknowledge that this program gives them a platform
1:27.6	to share views with which I disagree, or in some cases find downright repugnant. But conversations
1:36.4	with people who are not a part of the Evangelical echo chamber can also be enlightening and occasionally
1:44.6	even exhilarating. I think they provide opportunities to disagree in a civil manner.
1:50.9	And that's a skill that we all need to cultivate, especially me. And that's why I'm excited to have
1:57.3	Todd Stiefel on the program today. Because Todd lives here in North Carolina where I live,
2:03.6	I've known about him for more than a decade and I've even interviewed him for stories that I've
2:08.0	done in the past. He and his family made a fortune as technology entrepreneurs and Todd has
2:14.4	been using his share of the family fortune to fund progressive and atheist causes. He's the founder
2:21.8	and president of the Stiefel Free Thought Foundation. He was the chair of the openly secular campaign.
2:29.5	And he's also the chair of the Science Saves campaign. He's on the advisory board for the secular
	...

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