- Hi I'm Tam Wyn and I'm an atheist.
- Hi I'm Jonathan Manor and I'm a Christian.
- And we've been together for 13 years.
(soft electronic music)
- Whew, whew, whew.
- Why are you so giggly? - I'm not giggly, babe.
I'm sorry.
I'm just trying to, I'm trying to collect my thoughts.
(soft electronic music)
- I think I am an atheist because I feel like
the world already has enough problem as it is
and I feel like religion is one of those problems.
I know that sounds something that you don't--
- No I can actually understand that
because religion is politics, that's a really big thing
that happens in our world every single day.
I mean the reason why we fight is a lot of times
because of the things that we believe so I can understand
where you're coming from as far as why you chose
to be atheist but doesn't it kind of suck,
like you don't ever feel empty when you're atheist?
- Mm--
- Like, you just believe in nothing, like when you die,
just there's gonna be eternal darkness.
Like there's no afterlife.
- I think you think that I believe
in like absolutely nothing which is not true,
I believe in faith, I believe in hope.
And you can have hope and faith without having like
God in your life.
I feel like people that are Christian,
they use it as an excuse to say, like, oh,
I'm this but I'm a Christian so it's okay.
And I feel like if I'm an atheist then I could just be free
and not like be so judgmental.
- Well I'm a Christian because I feel like many Christians,
it's been instilled from us, in us since birth
and a lot of times our parents don't really give us
an option to be something else
but honestly, since I've grown up with it,
and you know, and it's always been in me, I feel it.
And a big thing that happened to me when I was child was
every night before me and all my siblings went to sleep,
my mother came in our bedroom
and then took some anointing oil
and doused our foreheads with it and did the crucifix.
And it was like a protective kind of like covering,
that type of thing, as we slept,
and that's just, these are some of things
that has stuck with me throughout my childhood.
For her to believe in it so much and for her to groom me
into believing it as well,
it just meant that, this is a very strong power.
This is a very strong entity.
- But stuff like that scares me actually.
(John chuckles) Like the cross and all that.
I don't even know how to do it.
- Father, Son, Holy Ghost, and you put a little kiss
in there too, you know what I'm saying?
- It's something that scares me.
- I like to do it with the kiss.
(gentle acoustic music)
- The first couple months was really hard for sure.
I mean the first couple years, the first two years,
we didn't have cellphones, we didn't have a car,
we didn't have jobs, so we were like 14, 15
and we made it work.
We saw each other once a month.
We would write letters to each other.
He would hand-write me letters
and I still have all of them actually in a box
with all the flowers he gave me that are dead
'cause I used to collect them but--
- Starting to kick up a good smell in the apartment.
- Actually I like the smell. - Oh my God.
See that?
- I think it smells beautiful.
It smells prettier, it smells better than--
- Dead flowers? - New roses.
I remember on one of those days,
your mom asked me what I believed in.
- She did not.
- She did. - She did not.
- And I wanted to say that I was Christian
just so I could get her approval.
- Well I just wanna say I apologize for that.
I didn't know that. - You don't have to apologize.
- It's the first time I'm hearing this after 13 years,
I mean, I kind of feel bad.
- You don't have to apologize. - That's why I don't talk
about it 'cause I don't want anything to be casted upon you.
You know what I'm saying. - I understand that.
(gentle acoustic music)
- I didn't really think about it.
I mean, especially not when I met you.
- Religion never really came to my mind growing up.
Like okay, he has to be Buddhist, blah, blah, blah,
'cause my family, my parents are Buddhist,
like my siblings, there's eight of us
and we're all different from each other which is crazy.
But I never, that was not something
that I thought about growing up.
(gentle acoustic music)
I think religion started affecting our relationship
when we started becoming young adults.
I think that's when your parents started asking me
to go to church with you.
Back when we wanted to move in together,
your mom would ask me to go to church
and I would feel totally uncomfortable
but I would still go because I love you.
His family, they're all pastors, they're all super religious
and I would go to church with you.
And the most uncomfortable time for me was
when everyone would feel the Holy Ghost
and start dancing around.
- (laughs) Oh my gosh.
- And I would have no idea what to do
and I'm just standing there like oh my God,
and everyone, I feel like his mom would just look at me
like side eye like is she feeling the music?
Is she feeling the ghost?
Is she really into this?
I think your parents would love me a lot more
if I was Christian.
I think that because of how religious your family is,
I think they would really want you to be with
someone that's actually into God.
'Cause they comment on my posts all the time
about God this and God that and I don't ever respond
or delete or anything but I feel like
because I respect them, they should respect me also
and not keep on pushing that towards me
and I feel like some of them do it from a good intentions,
and some of them do it from a bad place.
(gentle piano music)
- Oh God.
(laughs)
- I forgot that argument that we always have.
What is it when I ask you--
- You mean the one where it's like,
well if God exists, why's there so much evil in the world?
- Something like that.
I always ask John, like, if there's a God,
then why is there cancer?
Why is there this and why is that,
and then I get super emotional about it.
You know, why are the men raping kids that believe,
they're Christian, because then they do it
and then they say I'm a Christian, then it's okay.
That's their excuse.
I feel like I do take responsibility by the way
that I come off because it comes off like,
I'm not trying to hear anything, like yeah,
I hate these people, why are they doing this to these kids?
And why are they doing this to the world?
I feel like you don't know much about your own religion
so when I ask you questions to be more understanding,
I don't even think you want me to believe in God.
I think if you were a stronger Christian,
I think you would push it more upon me to be honest.
'Cause when I wanna know, you don't really say much.
- All right here's the thing.
I feel like simply because I do my best to, you know,
I can say I'm not the best Christian
but I do my best to represent Christianity.
I'm just the type of person to know enough
about the religion to make my own decisions
according to the religion.
There's a lot of things that I feel like, you know,
that's not in Christ's control that happens
to people, even the best people in the world.
These are things that are of the world
and because we live in this world,
these are things that we have to deal with as a whole.
That's why there's a lot of questions that I say
that I can't answer simply because it's not that
I don't have the answer,
it's just that I can only give you my interpretation.
A lot of times I just kinda just tune out
what other people have to say,
especially when it comes to religion
'cause they're not living pure lives themselves.
So a lot of times all you can do is just
stay in your lane and just do what it is
that you need to do and not focus on somebody else
because I mean let's be honest,
how many people in the church get caught doing crazy things?
It's a lot of 'em.
So-- - That's what I said.
They use it as an excuse. - Yeah I mean,
they use it as a pacifier.
People use religion as a pacifier.
- I remember I used to say all the time
that you are the only reason, the only reason in life
that I would even ever possibly because there's a God.
- Wow.
- Because I-- - Wait.
(sighs)
- No, stop, no but,
I think everyone that have you in their life
as a son, as a friend, as a neighbor,
as just a random person, I think everyone,
anybody that meet you is just so lucky
because you're just like, to me, I mean to everybody,
I think you're the best person in this planet.
Even though you joke a lot,
even when I'm trying to be serious.
- All right. - I think you are
one of the reasons why I would believe there's a God,
for sure.
- I really do appreciate you saying this.
That's real.
As far as my religion or my religion change, changing,
I'm not atheist but I'm more open to people,
other people having ideas about things
instead of just looking at them like, you're atheist, what?
You know what I'm saying, like because you are this person,
I've learned to accept that about you
and because I've learned to accept that about you,
it kinda opens my perspective to a lot more people.
- Would you like it more if I was Buddhist?
- I like you just the way you are.
- Do you?
- I love you just the way you are.
(gentle music)
- I definitely wanna teach them, 'cause like,
no matter what religion you come from,
being a decent human being, that comes from all religion.
There's so many religion out there,
I don't even know all of them.
You can be whatever--
- You know some people believe in aliens,
like that's a religious belief--
- They can still be a decent person and believe in aliens.
It doesn't matter. - Yeah of course they can.
- You can still be a good, you can be a Christian
and still be a bad person, you can still be atheist
and still be a good person.
- You can still be-- - A lot of people
don't see that. - Black and be a good person.
(sighs)
Had to teach that one to her parents.
- There's never a time where I wanna say like, oh,
I'm gonna make sure my kids are atheist.
No, 'cause I want them to be as free as possible.
I want them to do whatever they please
and at the end of the day, they have a good heart
and if it comes with good intentions,
then that's all that matters.
But I wanna add also when I was going to the temples,
I hated being there because they're so close-minded
in believing in Buddha
that they would judge everyone around them
and I definitely don't want my kids to feel that way.
- There was a time I definitely thought
that I would raise my kids just strictly Christian,
nothing else.
It was a time like in my life where
things were just really, really dark,
and then, somebody was like, hey I got the answer.
Here, why don't you pick up that bible over there?
I'm not saying that I used religion as an escape,
but I'm just saying it really, really helped me
in that time of my life to take a certain direction
and just as I became older
and as I became just more experienced
and able to make my own decisions,
that's when I was like, well, you know,
it's easy to kinda like catch a dying fish.
At that point I was like,
well I'm not saying my religion is a bad thing.
I love being Christian but at the same time,
I want my kids to make their own decision
and not be, and I don't wanna catch them
at a vulnerable time just to place it upon them.
I want them to make the educated decision for themselves.
- Yeah, for sure.
(gentle music)
- We actually value a lot that are the same.
I mean we care for the world,
we care so much for other people.
- I think we both care about family.
That's very, very important.
I think our connection is really strong
because we're so different, but we accept it.
Our personalities are so different
but we have a lot of, I think our hearts are so similar.
And I think that's what really, really matters.
(gentle music)
- Just learn to find the, learn to seek the true beauty
of people of who they are in their heart regardless
of what they believe in and if something, someone is really,
really worth it, then I think that you should
just accept them no matter what way,
shape or form they come in because if you get
into a relationship, you have to take the good with the bad,
everything that comes with it.
- I definitely think that we should focus on the good times
that we've had together no matter what religion you're from,
I don't think that's something that ever really divided us.
It definitely made us stronger,
it definitely made us question our relationship
but maybe we're so different it's a good thing.
Maybe we believed in God, both of us believe in God,
we wouldn't be so understanding of each other.
- I just think that people pay way too much attention
to religion and things that we've been trained
to go through since birth
rather than to make their own distinction
of what they truly believe so that that way
they can accept other people
or the things that they believe.
(gentle music)