This Changed Our Minds About Girl Defined (Zelph Collab Reaction) 

Love you both! 💜✨

I don’t want anybody to take this as me speculating as to what is going on in Bethany’s head, but in my own deconstruction process, by the time I was saying things like “Hey who knows, maybe I’ll change my mind eventually!” I had actually already changed my mind and was simply looking for permission and validation to accept that. Again, I don’t know if that is how Bethany processes change, but from the outside, it reminded me a lot of myself and my coming to terms with the fact that I no longer wanted to be a Christian.

The idea of girl defined collabing with a non christian youtube channel is literally blowing my mind.

When Bethany describes how she feels more distant from God right now, it reminds me so much of when my deconstruction started. I empathize so much with what she is going through.

The thing that struck me is the deeper tone in Bethany’s voice, she sounds so much more authentic and possibly the ‘real’ her?

Still blows my mind that the Barbie movie triggered all this.

Speaking from experience with the LGBTQ stuff. It took me a few years after deconstruction to go from "it's wrong" to "to each their own, (but I disagree)" to "slay queen". There's a lot of baggage to be unpacked from our upbringings. I honestly think that it's super healthy for Beth to have the second line of thought already even while she's still holding fast on being Christian. Also, I find it so funny when Christians attribute learning to be better Christians from atheists. Especially when they don't even know that they're learning from atheists. It's happened with me a few times with my in laws, and I find it super fulfilling.

That loss of community as one deconstructs is difficult. And the loss of a "relationship" with a diety can hurt as much as any relationship loss.

Im an atheist. In that Bible Belt south. Pro hairstylist with 99% Christian clients and 100% Christian coworkers. Im afraid I’ll never speak openly about my beliefs to those people. I have maybe 3 friends/acquaintances I speak openly with. I’m in fear of losing my livelihood over it. So I always look forward to servicing my atheist clients 😂

Thanks for talking about this. I also have been wondering if the fundie snark community has become populated with less people who are deconstructing, and more people who just wanna make fun. I used to have some meaningful conversations with people breaking down these harmful beliefs, but I actually just left for good after this whole situation because it feels like no one is interested in talking about stuff rationally, they just wanna be mean. As someone who used to be a fundie, the lack of empathy for the brainwashing a lot of these people have undergone is very alienating for me.

I clicked this notification just as fast as I clicked on the original Zelph on the Shelf video. So excited to hear your guys' reaction to this. Bethy is so much more human to me now, and I find it intriguing that having an atheist husband has made her a better Christian.

Bethany acknowledging that experience of “I legit don’t know what to do.” and saying how she just feels like “someone just tell me what to do” resonates with me so much. The worst parts of deconstruction revolved around feeling so trapped in that thought. For me it was humiliating and so frustrating.

I think it would be awesome to see Drew and Dav have a conversation

I do know very open minded Christians who unpacked part of their faith and remained, ultimately, Christian. If Bethany wants that for herself, I hope she connects with more people like her counselor who can help her along that path. It's clear how much pressure she is under and I just hope she finds support.

Its amazing that Bethy is so public with this because it'll give more people courage to change. Or make people realize they can.

Religious people have a shift in their beliefs in real time is always a fascinating thing to see.

27:07 ironically I got into the anti SJW stuff due to being a Christian. Religious or not, some people just want to hate people for the sake of it. Once I learnt how the complex the world is, I've found it much easier to avoid taking extreme positions

I am bisexual and my partner is trans. It is nigh impossible for me to hold space for people who are so anti-lgbtq+. To "give them a chance" to be better. I do think what Dave and Bethany are going through is interesting and I commend them for being open and documenting it. But I want an apology, or some sort of contriteness for what they've done and the harmful rhetoric they've spread. Or she's spread- I don't think Dave actually did any of that.

One thing I've noticed about Bethany in all the videos I've seen with her is how much more relaxed and natural she seems to be when she talks more openly about Dav changing and her own views growing. In the Girl Defined videos, or even in earlier videos with Dav in which they were trying to present a certain vision of their life, she seemed much more wound-up and intense, as if she was in overdrive trying to convince people, there was a preachy urgency about it. They way she speaks when talking to other people is so much nicer to listen to. Ultimately I don't think it's about whether she fully deconstructs from religion or not - it's more about whether this process she's going through helps her become a more open-minded and empathetic person (and if she does, will she have the integrity to admit it publicly, knowing she's risking her livelihood?). I do like the side of her I'm seeing in her recent videos with Dav, though, and I wish her well in this process. I wonder how much faster it would go if she wasn't being pulled back by the GD channel. How wonderful it would be if she came out on the other side and rebranded herself as Girl Re-Defined to talk about how her views broadened.

This is a great video so far. She's where I was about 7 years ago, I think. When I came back from the Middle East and noticed how "Christians" were toward Palestinians, that's when I started to question everything. Of course God not changing me after praying for almost 20 years that he would make me not ga played a huge part, but it just all wasn't lining up. So then the journey began. I cried so much during that time. It's tough.

I've noticed a lot of people in the subreddit make the argument that Bethy is undeserving of redemption until she apologises for (the very real) harm she has caused. I find this so difficult because (a) While that would be great, Bethy is clearly not ready to face the harm she has participated in and if she ever does, it will take a long time to process and accept before she's near ready to apologise. Expecting anything otherwise is unrealistic. (b) She isn't going to reach that stage at all, if she ever does, without people reaching out and showing her kindness. Its like people want to see her come to redemption overnight through shunning and punishment, when that just doesn't work. It never works. This mindset is just as ignorant as evangelicalism.

Pausing the video here at 36:53 right after Taylor said, "We're shooting ourselves in the foot." As an ex-christian-turned-atheist..... YES. THIS. I've been a metalhead for longer than I've been an atheist. I started listening to metal when I was 13. I became an atheist at 19. The amount of anti-christian antagonism that I endured during those 6 formative years as a christian metalhead is utterly absurd and did absolutely fucking NOTHING to open me up to atheists and their perspectives. I literally ended up getting kicked out of a metal facebook group for nothing except being a christian in the community. It was bullying. Straight up, that's what it was. It was bullying. I wasn't even being annoying about my christianity at that time. I wasn't proselytising to anyone, I didn't go out of my way to tell people I was a christian, I would just sometimes post about metal bands I liked that happened to be christian bands, and all hell would break loose. I would get dogpiled. People posted memes about murdering christians. And, as I mentioned earlier, it culminated in my getting booted from the group literally just for being a christian. This situation was not helped by the fact that my atheist friends at the time found the whole situation amusing more than anything else. They weren't angry or indignant on my behalf. They never once expressed how unjust my treatment was. They just kind of chuckled and moved along - I maybe got lukewarm sympathy if I was lucky. At this time in my life, ALL atheists were shitty reddit atheists to me, because I had never met any other kind. I had never met an atheist who was willing to engage with me in good faith and have a constructive conversation about our differing perspectives. Typically, any good conversations I had were with agnostics or people from other religions. Do you think, dear reader, that these interactions and experiences facilitated the kind of environment where I felt I could question and deconstruct my beliefs safely and without judgment? Or do you think it simply reinforced my pre-existing christian persecution complex? You don't get three guesses - the answer is quite evident. And now, as an atheist, I've been on this never-ending journey of grappling with conflicting feelings and perspectives - feeling resentful toward christianity and the religious trauma it has left me with, while still trying to hold space for, and be respectful of, people who remain in the christian faith. Allowing myself to feel the catharsis of snarking on christianity, while also being mindful of showing grace and understanding to others who are still christians. It's a constant dance, and I'm not sure I'll ever master it. But at the very least, I'm making a hell of a lot more effort than those horrible, spiteful atheists who made it their life's mission to drive me out of the metal community just because I was a christian at the time. That's what I carry with me. I will always remember how that felt. No matter how frustrated I get with christianity and its proponents, I NEVER want to make anyone feel the way I was made to feel at that time. So yes, with the kind of attitudes and behaviours we see in these snark subreddits, we ARE shooting ourselves in the foot - and shooting the targets in the heart.

I transitioned through deconstruction soooo much more graceful with y’alls videos. Thank you so much for that

I love Zelph on the Shelf. I found them sometime last year and I have watched many of their videos. Most of the time there’s at least a few points where I laugh out loud, and somehow near the end of almost every video, Tanner will say something that just makes me feel so at peace with my existence. They have helped me, at 44 years old, deconstruct my anger. It feels amazing. I think Sam and Tanner were just the right people to connect to Dav & Bethy. I would love to see a lot more growth from both of them, but this is a great first step. Putting it out there for the public to see has been really beneficial for others in similar situations, the comments under the original video prove that. We’ve all held some nasty beliefs in one way or another, and it would be good for all of us to sit with those and examine how long it took us to unravel them. Are we still unraveling? Have we worked to make amends if that’s at all possible? Maybe Bethy will apologize, maybe she won’t. She doesn’t seem to be in that spot yet, things are too new and too raw. I really can’t wait for Part 2 to see what other topics they cover! Here’s to continuing to grow as human beings.

This really resonated with me. My husband is still religious and his journey with my deconstruction has been difficult. Thank you for covering this video.

zelph is one of my favorite channels and id been waiting for this collab for months! so excited to hear your thoughts!

So glad that they support each other, where they are each at. To see Bethany learning to think beyond dogma is pretty special.

Zella on the Shelf were a huge part of me deconstructing Mormonism. I am so excited for them getting to meet Dav in real life!!!!

43:19 EXACTLY!! Changing your views takes time, and working through cognitive dissonance is hard. And there's also the thought that even though you may be questioning now, maybe you'll figure it out and "be firm" in your faith again later. So to openly express changed/changing views is scary and takes time.

Moving and heartwarming! However you want to call it, deconstruction or not, it is inarguably massively CONSTRUCTIVE. All the best to you, Bethany and Dav!

The excitement I had when I first heard dave bring up the Costa Rica trip and then I saw a reel with Bethany and Sam and my heart exploded and I was EAGERLY waiting for this collab. Big zelph fan and I'm so glad they did this

The biggest twist of 2024 😵‍💫 good for them though. They seem to have a beautiful marriage.

I LOVE that they are essentially filming their progress of evaluating their faith, and doing so in a healthy way, and as a married couple. I do wory that this will cause more mental strain on them, as they have to contend with all the internet's voices. However, i think this is a realy valuable media. For both those in and out of the faith.

Well dont get too excited. They are still releasing a transphobic book here soon.

I'm sure they're questioning the the stuff they say in the video. They might be concerned that the girl defined audience might turn against them for not preaching fundamentalist values

I'm in Alabama and I'm currently in a counseling group at my Dr's office. It's supposed to be a secular situation, but down here religion & religious talk is constantly being pushed. I'm so sick of it, but have to continue going in order to get my medicine. Everyone down here automatically assumes that you're religious.

Communities formed around shared hatred of others - this is how TERFs are made. It is incredibly important to recognize these patterns and try not to fall into them. Thanks for having this convo

I am so happy to see you two covering this, I love Zelph and you guys videos and messaging, and building these bridges to christians is a wonderful move towards a better future!

I made one humane comment on Fundie Snark before I knew better and got dragged and a formal warning from a moderator.

Hi Taylor, I’m a long time watcher of you both (since 2020) and loved this video. I have also been part of fundie snark since that time, and watching the downfall of it is sad. I think there’s worthwhile discussion to be had about fundamentalist creators (as someone raised in those circles) but bullying and assumptions have gotten out of hand. Already I have seen so many comments saying “I haven’t watched the antibot video but how can she blindly support Bethany”. It’s so wild that Drew mentioned this exact issue about only seeing summaries from people who disagree. I also saw someone encouraging everyone to not watch your videos as that’s “what you want.” The wilful ignorance reminds me of fundamentalism. Thanks always for your calm viewpoint and valid criticism of both Bethany and fundie snark.

Their video changed my perspective too, I’m so glad yall reacted to this!!!

I'm so glad to see Drew discuss his early deconstruction process and how he was "doing atheist evangelicalism" and how Taylor and he worked through that

I'm so so proud of bethany 💓 glad you guys covered this. Also bethany should go solo. I'm much more interested in her than Girl Defined.

Girl Defined was used by my church to condition me as a tween to be silent, subservient, and take the abuse. You may not remember their cruel lessons that were oppressive, abusive, and sexist, but I do.

So disappointed to see you all defending her. She can sit and say she is questioning God and her beliefs but she is still with Girl Define peddling still hateful rhetoric about the LGBTQ+ community, still trying to sell her courses about sex that give terrible advice. She was yet to apologize and has even said that her and her sister will never apologize for what Girl Defined preaches.

Oh awesome, I just watched Zelf's video a couple of hours ago, so I'm in the exact mood to hear what you guys think.

i watched the collab when it came out but i missed that bethany said she's in acbc counseling; i looked it up and they regularly publish some pretty weird and messed up stuff on their website! have either of y'all covered this before? from their "resources" page, may 22, 2024: "Who Will You Believe About Spanking? God wants parents to use discipline to show children the seriousness of sin and the great solution found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ."

Their collab made me so happy actually, was wondering if y'all would cover it!

its gonna be really hard for her she gonna lose a lot of fans and even some friends but you know she might gain a lot of fans and new friends too and what she will gain more in the long hall is her authentic self and thats something we should encourage in her

Just starting the video so maybe I'll change my mind later. But I'm pretty cynical, Dave's deconstruction seems to be authentic but I feel a lot of the new spin on it is just really good PR and marketing. This is definitely bringing in more money then the courses and to have 2 sets of very different audiences invested in your life and every video you make has got to be a boost in numbers. I'm curious where that money ends up at the end of the day if not just them, then the organizations they believe in. There's a rush to see them in a different way that I haven't seen them earn yet. Although Bethany does seem like a sweet person being likeable doesn't undue real harm that they did and are still doing.

"That gets me so hard." Are....are we still doing 'phrasing?'

This is one of over a million examples why people have become so cautious of so-called "allies". That entire self-righteous "both sides" rant was as shocking as it was predictable, or better yet, inevitable. I can't think of a single person belonging to any of the vulnerable communities targeted by fundamentalist Christians who would waste a single thought on them if they weren't so persistently and violently threatened. To even insinuate that their "snark" or even rejection of Christian fundamentalism is remotely equal to the harm done to them; to those who've survived is beyond privileged; I don't care if you identify as "queer". Finding some redemption for Bethany, for whatever that's worth, shouldn't come at the cost of targeting Bethany's victims. The most cynical part of me wonders if the mutual financial benefit of this cross-promotional symbiotic relationship that has formed between commentary channels like these is just out of opportunism and greed; not purely indifference to and contempt for marginalized people whose job it apparently is to accommodate bigots who hide behind a bible for their fear-mongering grift. Congratulations on your partnership. Don't spend your 30 pieces of silver in one place.

I really get where you two are coming from, I really do. I love both of your channels a lot and respect the two of you a great deal. I'd also like to add that it seems like over the last couple of months you have spent an inordinate amount of time talking about how toxic our side of the aisle can be. I get that it's important to point it out and to fight against it. But you are spending more time talking about how awful some of us in the movement are than talking about the goings-on of fundamentalist Christianity and helping others to explore deconstruction. I really hope this is not a trend that continues.

Zelph on the Shelf are such huge fans of Dav. I’m so happy for them :)

They’re getting so much praise and people ‘liking’ them now. But the damage they’ve done and the selfishness they’ve propagated their business on does not seem to be addressed by GD. They are benefitting financially from their public deconstruction. They are also benefitting socially in the ways that seem to feed their desire for public praise. They’ve had success on the backs of the queer community and women’s rights and so many others. While I agree that empathy is what we should give to GD because it’s what we’ve always asked of them- I still feel hurt by their actions and see them as part of the religious oppression machine. I guess what I am saying is: I don’t know how to feel about all of this and I just wanted to be heard. Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts. And thanks to antibot for adding to the discussion.

I have been watching Zelph for the past few years, Sam & Tanner are fabulous & genuine people!

Sincerely appreciated the fundie snark rant. I thought it would be cathartic but what I’ve found is it is not a safe place for anyone who has ever been involved with religious spaces.

29:00 This whole section, I went through the same thing. The early 2010's, the Armored Skeptic, Thunderfoot, Atheist + thing that happened etc. I see the same thing in politics, particularly when informative shows get intermixed with comedy and politics (like John Oliver's Show or The Daily Show, etc.) 32:45 Its interesting you mention that. Its been one of the complaints about social movements recently, rallying behind common enemies as an identity. It can be effective short term, but it leads to more internal strife and brings a whole slew of issues. An example of the opposite, of using a positive identity to build coalitions is the Civil Rights Movement.

love this commentary, and well done Zelph and Bethany& Dave

24:15 it's so interesting because fundiesnarkuncensored came about in response to similar frustrations with the OG fundiesnark being more focused on bullying than criticizing. now there's fundiesnarkysnark... but it also seems toxic. maybe it's just the fate of all snark subreddits. I liked using them to discuss new videos in the fundie and responding-to-fundies space, but it is hard to bear the self-righteous bullying now.

I also appreciated the fundiesnark rant. I feel exactly the same way. Fundiesnark has lost the plot.

I was raised Christian, but I think I was always atheist at heart. I went to lots of different youth groups and asked so many questions. I never got satisfactory answers to my questions. Never got the warm, fuzzy, this feels right. I never subscribed to the anti lgbtq rhetoric (even though o was 100% raised to be against it). At the start of college I went through a phase where I was pretty sure I was agnostic. As I got into my middle to late 20s I finally realized that I was straight up atheist. I think the hardest part of going from someone who believes in a god to someone who doesn’t is the loss. Every death of a loved one you go through is suddenly permanent. You have to come to terms with the idea that you will never see them again. And all of a sudden you’re mortal too. It’s scary, and it should make you live your life as a better human.

As a queer person I think you’re being too quick to justify Bethany’s behavior. I mean good for her for having a good relationship with her husband, but how hypocritical is it of her to recognize how important her bond to him is and choosing to be together even tho it’s not the perfect biblical marriage she had envisioned, but not extend the same understanding to homosexual couples?

Antibot, Zelph on the Shelf, AND a sick Megadeth TShirt in the same video. This is good.

I'm excited to see how this collab goes and how deconstruction is handled by someone more empathetic than Paul!

I'm reminded of Ben Shapiro saying he would not welcome a gay person into his home or go to a gay person's party, and it sounds like Bethany is not like that.

I’ll give it two years and Girl Redefined will make its debut…

Oooh been waiting for this!!!

I really don’t think the people in the snark community have any concept of the difficult transition of deconstruction or the intensity of family and “church family” pressures to not express these kinds of vulnerable, raw thoughts. I am honestly gobsmacked by Bethany sharing such a full throated support of Dav and her willingness to own up to feeling distant from God. Knowing where her family comes from, doctinally, she is surely facing intense heat for saying those things out loud at all, much less in public.

1:04:46 Bethany is leaving open the possibility of changing her mind later. This is important.

Excellent video, and just wild to see the steps she has made! Happy for her!

1:23:44 I wonder if Bethany hearing & experiencing the backlash from her Christian community will cause her to retreat back into it as an avoidance strategy, or if it will push her further away.

Thank you for this. There's so many negative reactions to Zelphs video that I think are uncalled for. It was honestly a great first step and insight into her shifting views.

Your makeup is STUNNING in this vid 🤌🏻🤌🏻

1:12:43 on your point about that apologist's work as "poison" and the need to show compassion for people at every stage of the process: Maybe it's helpful to remember that those who spit poison were often the first to swallow it down. No one *willingly* swallows poison, just like no one intentionally joins a "cult." There's a deep, originary moment of (self?)deception at the core of so many toxic people. And that's fucking sad, however you slice it.

Coming from someone who isn't a deconstrocting Christian but is mourning the loss of the realationship with a narcissist (which is surprisingly similar) I can only say one thing. It's incredibly hard to have your views changed because someone told you so. The most powerful way to let go is to come to the realization yourself. Or you'll keep staying in that bubble building more and more layers. Fingers in the ears screaming at the top of your lungs because you can't accept the truth. Because it's hard to do. I remember silently crying at the kitchen table at night, because my mom is the closest person to me I have. But she keeps hurting me over and over again with words and actions that it's hard to imagine a life without her but I have to. Finally coming to that term yourself and realizing it's better for you to let go is what will truly set you free. There is that initial shock of everything you know being false or warped. But at some point it'll all make sense, and you can finally set those boundaries and distance yourself from all the hurt. That's why people will instantly cut people out of their lives too. Because they go too long suffering at their hands (whether it's their behaviour or values and alignments with certain beliefs) you get to a point where you can't take it anymore and cut people that mean much to you in an instant. And that hurts even more. Because they're suddenlty gone and there's no-one to fill that missing gap, rather than you slowly removing a piece to add another. It's incredibly unreasonable to want people to just delete everything and drop all their negative beliefs. Because it's impossible. And most likely will keep them swimming in their delusions.

When you said "isn't deconstruction about encouraging critical thinking" resonates with me to my core. The whole Zelph potentially platforming bigoted views is bullshit. Social media exacerbates the "us vs them" mentality, the very thing that those of us want to escape from. When we see people with extreme views, we should not avoid them. In fact, all the more we should engage them in conversation to humanise each other. That is enough to cause cognitive dissonance to encourage evaluation of beliefs! If we can encourage people to be less extreme, it is a step towards progress.

I don't think Girl Defined will deconstruct. I think they are working on expanding their evangelical market.

Great video as always 🥰 Random comment: I love "editing Taylor"

Love the Killing is my business shirt Taylor. Always good to see a fellow metalhead

THANK YOU!! for reminding us to be kind, respectful, loving towards ALL people regardless of their mindset, because we are ALL humans, we all deserve respect. As I was listening to the way you were describing the deconstruction process and the "cognitive dissonances" stage of a person, I definitely went through that and now I can relate my own process with a video I just watched of what would happen if we went through a black hole, because at the beginning of my doubting many questions arised and I started to "make my own choices" so at first it was slow, maybe fundamental things started to change but one at a time, and then more and more questions and doubts and reasons started to pile up and it sped up so much that I was moving almost at the speed of light until I reached the point of no return and then I got spagettified lol but yeah, basically my last two weeks of being a Christian I was trying to hold on so much to my faith but there was really no going back, my mind was sprinting with thoughts and answers that made so much more sense than the ones I'd always gotten before.

I really appreciate you guys and how you constantly emphasize humanizing people and criticizing ideas, not people. I think it's super important to form your opinions first-hand. For me, that means watching the occasional Paul & Morgan or Girl Defined video-- not all of them, but some. Enough to make an informed opinion.

Let's goooo I was hoping you two would react to this! It's so good to see Bethany starting to learn to relax a bit, and as for Dave, I just genuinely like him as much as any atheist channel at this point, he seems lovely. Also, I've been a fan of the wonderful pair lovelies on Zelph on the Shelf for years, I used to support them on Patreon, so the collab was truly an event for me.

coming back to this after watching the original video and crying a bunch lol so thank you for linking it since im rarely on time for anyone's uploads hahaha also i think this has never actually happened to me but i had to re-subscribe to both yalls channels. i was sure i was already subbed lol wtf youtube smh

This is how interesting paul and morgan wish their 24 hours with was

Isn't painting the entire fundiesnark community as one thing, or reacting in one uniform way, the exact behavior that you're trying to advocate against? I'm on fundiesnark and I have never made a comment about a babies appearance (or anything that people cannot change about themselves for that matter). I didn't make assumptions about the collab between Zelph and Bethy but instead watched the part 1 video when it came out and commented my thoughts on it that came from that. I engaged in discussion with many other people on the subreddit who had done the same. And, for the record, my biggest concern about their video was coming from my queer perspective. I watched them engage in thoughtful dialogue for almost an hour and then at the end, I watched Bethy ask Tanner "what would you want me and my audience to know about you?" and poor Tanner responded by literally pleading for his humanity and trying to communicate that queer people aren't trying to destroy the world. After all of that, it felt like they wound up no further forward than when they started and Tanner was still in this completely toxic cycle trying to defend his very existence. It also came on the heels of Dav saying that he doesn't know what humans are "for" and therefore cannot judge if harm has been caused to someone based on that?? News flash for Dav -- its not up to a white man who has lived a life of privilege and power to determine if a marginalized group has been harmed. The whole video was honestly very frustrating to watch because simply saying you're open to something doesn't mean you are and they demonstrated that through continuing to engage in rhetoric that minimized harm and questioned the very nature of people's experiences. I love the idea of the collaboration and I love the idea of these conversations. It's vital to have safe spaces to allow people to shift away from hateful ways of thinking. But you also cannot further marginalize those who have been harmed by evangelicalism and that is such a tight rope to walk when creating content / making a business off of these conversations.

I deeply appreciate how kind, compassionate, and empathetic you two are when you discuss these sorts of topics. So many of these atheist channels are judgemental and condescending. It's nice to know there are people out there to remind everyone that there is more to being a good person than being right about everything.

Yes, go watch Zelph. Sam & Tan are amazing.

Up to 1:09:37 and just to pipe in as someone who was pretty much where she is regarding purity/modesty; cognitive dissonance ebbs and flows based on who you're with. I absolutely found myself behaving and saying one thing around people I felt comfortable enough to be open with, and then retreating back into what I felt I had to say amongst the other circle. And I was believing two contradictory thoughts at the same thing because my brain had rationalised both things to be true, and either end was making me lean into that version of truth. So I think Bethany's cognitive dissonance is working the same way. She's being one person around Dav/Zelph, another around Kristen, but she's holding two thoughts at the same time and both will flourish in either camp the more she spends time in it. It's not an easy thing, in fact she's probably going to bed at night feeling these conflicting emotions (even guilt) after each thing because she's like, "well do I believe this or do I believe that? Maybe I believe both? But how can I reconcile both?"

Absolutely sick Megadeth shirt

When are you two going to do a collaboration with them? That would be an amazing discussion

I think Bethany has been very cloistered from anyone who thinks differently from her for the longest time, and now she is opening up to others, and we should encourage that. Even though she wants to make sure everyone knows she doesn’t “endorse” everything Zelph on the Shelf might think (I suspect she is specifically thinking about feminism and LGBTQ+ stuff here), she is showing signs of openness. That is a big deal. And we need to show generosity to her. And I agree with Taylor: “Snarking itself is not bad. But the medium in which you do it matters.” Also, regarding Bethany’s “I don’t endorse everything you guys think, and you probably don’t endorse everything I think” comment, I mean, of course she doesn’t endorse “everything” someone else thinks. I understand why some of us listening to this would hear underneath that, “We disagree about human rights and that’s okay,” it’s still true that no one endorses every single thing everyone else thinks. Deconstruction is also a process, and Bethany is learning. We should commend her for wanting to learn and consider other viewpoints, even though she still may have some problematic views. And we owe her patience, just as we needed patience for our own deconstruction process. And yes, I agree with what Drew says about the difference between Bethany Beal and Sean McDowell. She has actually moderated some of her views, and Sean has moderated none of his.

I might have missed it but I don't know why we're assuming Bethany is taking about LGBTQ+ when she's talking about secondary issues? My impression was that she was referring to things like letting a Methodist bless a meal or not telling a Pentecostal they're going to hell for speaking in tongues

For the bit about a community having differences beneath the surface, I am reminded of a quote from a letter between Thomas Jefferson, and one of his friends (I don't remember if Jefferson sent, or received this letter) that contained an excerpt that went something like "I am convinced that no two people believe in the same god, unless they have not put much thought into it". My source for this quote should be the book "Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson" by Gordon S. Wood

I think you've identified the way thinking you're better than someone is thought-stopping very well.

I am very happy to hear Bethany say that she would still love Davy and not cut him off if he were gay.

Apologia for bigots is not it.

I was just wondering about this, excited for your video! 😀

Wait Beth and Dav live in San Antonio??? I live in San Antonio! Now I’m hoping I run into them. 😂

Thank you for calling out the subreddit. I get that people have been hurt, and its totally valid that some would not want to have that conversation with someone like Bethany, who has been dishing out harmful and hurtful ideas and commentary. However, the way people go about it in the subreddit now, is indeed not helpful at all. What Zeplh are doing is not easy either, and really it is the only way to connect with someone who holds certain prejudices and harmful believes about others. Yall get it. Thank you.