Dr. Michael Friedman is a Co-Founder of Hardcore Humanism. Here we talk about his personal story, ideas, and development of Hardcore Humanism.
*Interview conducted June 6, 2020.*
Scott Jacobsen: So, what’s in the family’s personal story to set a ground framework for some of the discussion today?
Dr. Michael Friedman: Yes. So, I think that there are two strands of the story that are relevant to developing Hardcore Humanism as a concept. For me, one was as a trained clinical psychologist. I was struck by the times, frustrated by how almost every approach to understanding and treating people started with the same fundamental premise that: if you come into our office, there’s something wrong with you and we have to figure out what it is and we’re the only ones who can do it. So, maybe it was a psychodynamic approach and you have this deep, dark, unconscious conflict that happened, maybe, before you were in cognitive therapy where you have these cognitive distortions or irrational flaws that was a lot of a language. Or maybe, it is a behavioral approach where your reinforcement systems were done incorrectly or whatever it was.
It all was some fundamental way of saying that you’re crazy for lack of a better way of saying it, except for humanistic psychology. Humanistic psychology, a quarrel with this notion that people have fundamental value. The approach to treatment which depending on who you look to as the philosopher or therapist for unconditional, positive regard, which is acknowledging the working people and helping them actualize. They could become the person that they wanted to be. I think that one of the things that happened as I was training, humanistic psychology had fallen out of favour in terms of research and things like that, because they fundamentally disagreed with the concept of any scientific approach. They didn’t think it captured the human experience. So, they rejected that.
And so, I think that in terms of studies or grants, or anything like that. It didn’t lend itself to that world. So, it became marginalized as far as more of the more popular theories at the time, e.g., cognitive behavioural therapy and interpersonal therapy, which became more popular because they took an empirical approach. So, I was working with people. I started to notice that those models didn’t seem to work for me, personally. I didn’t like applying them. I didn’t like sitting, having someone lay down on a couch, and sitting behind them or being a blank slate, where I was only nodding and withholding any reaction, I didn’t enjoy pointing out their logical errors. It didn’t feel right to me.
And so, what I noticed, there was this rhythm that started to happen where it was basically, “How do I pull away the things that interfered with people’s development? How do I help them understand and find their purpose? And how to help them really work hard to get it?” Those seem to be like the three ingredients that needed to happen for somebody to get better. What happened on the separate side was that on a personal level, I started in my 30s. I started playing music for the first time. I never had done that before. I had always seen a band that was a cover band. I thought it was like the greatest thing in the world because I have never seen that. So, I said to my friend, “I want to sing a song in a bar band, like once. That’s like a goal of mine.”
So, I tried out before a band that was like an alternative rock band. I can’t sing. So, what happened, I went into the audition. I thought they are all going to be people like me who didn’t have experience. But they sounded like professional musicians. They asked me to jam with them and sing based on what they were doing. I was like, “I do not even know how to sing, like I can’t.” I thought I might be able to sing like a track with a couple of songs and then I will excuse myself. So, it was so upsetting. I was sitting there for like a half-hour. He didn’t say anything. The audition was only a half-hour, so I read it to the end. I got so upset that I started screaming into the microphone and then the audition was over.
And so the guy called me back, he said, “We’re going to do an alternative rock band. But I think with your voice, I was thinking, maybe, we could do more of a thrash or a hardcore band.” I remember saying to him, “This is awkward. I do not know what those words mean. I feel bad because I appreciate what you’re saying, but I do not know what you’re talking about.” So, eventually, I learned about the genre. I learned that my style was a little bit more appropriate for that. I’d never listened to that music growing up. But then we wound up playing together for about ten years in a band that was called out Zero, which was basically a local band. But we played together for about ten years and we did three records. We would like to play.
And we had these little moments, where we got to Boston; we went to Chicago. It changed my whole way of looking at things for a couple of reasons. One was that I hadn’t been so excited about something in a long time. I have always grown up loving music and listening to music over and over and over again. But I do not have any talent for it. So, the idea of playing music was not something that ever occurred to me. But all of a sudden my playing shows at these places that others have been playing at like Continental or going up to Boston and then playing with these bands that I had heard of before that were on the radio – opening for them. It was really special.
What I noticed happened when I did that, the world split into two parts. There were the people who were either super psyched for me or, at least, supportive, even if they didn’t get it or dig it. Then people who were like, “Huh?” I had people who I had been friends with for decades. It is like people who came and asked, “Are you that disturbed? I do not get what you’re doing.” I got all the screaming and the thrashing and the jumping around, and you’re on the floor and all this stuff. It was powerful for me because what I realized was that there was something happening in my life that was similar to what was happening with my patients, which was I had this thing in India. It was like a little bit different from how I came into the world. it was like I did grew up in the world with hardcore punk and thrash metal. I grew up in a world with I listen to rock and I listen to hip hop.
But it was much more mainstream to a certain degree. it was interesting how upsetting it was, like the way different people treated me. Those things and sifting through that and being like, “I want to play this music.” Then all the things that went into being an independent band, like writing songs, recording them, playing shows, and promoting, and contacting labels and contacting radio stations. It was an exhilarating experience. But I realized that I was starting to play out a lot of what I was doing clinically. I didn’t even realize I was doing that clinically. I didn’t know. When I started seeing at myself, I said, “Oh, maybe, that’s what I should do even more,” and fast forward a little bit, I’d always done more academic work.
And so, I do grants. I’d study depression, treatments for depression, and people with chronic disease, doing anything in the pop world was a, “No, you never do it. You do not write pop books. You write articles for science, peer-reviewed scientific articles.” When I got out of academics, which coincided with when I was playing music, I worked with this company that, basically, was a preventative health care company. They basically said, “Listen, it is our 100-year anniversary as a publicist, go out there and write as many articles as you can, put our name under it on topics having to do with health.” So, I did that for a while. Then I was writing an article on the LGBT community. What happened was the guy who produced our second album, the guy, Joey Z., from the band called Life of Agony, which was like a New York metal hardcore band.
Their singer was the first heavy metal transgender singer and had come out as transgender. So, instead of me talking about the LGBT community, I’d written a couple of articles on that topic. I was like, “Maybe, I should talk to her.” When I talked to her, and I got her perspective, I was like, “This is a lot more fun than what I was doing before.” So then, I started calling up anybody who I knew, who was a hero of mine. So, I would look up online. I’d be like, “Here’s Barry Beck,” who was a hockey hero. I grew up with Barry. I was a Rangers fan of Barry Beck, who was a famous Ranger hockey player; or Theo Fleury and others, then I would contact different musicians.
So all of a sudden, I started doing it a lot. Then I noticed that almost all of those people who were successful went through that same process. They had a point in their life where people thought they were weird people, thought they were different people, thought that their ideas were unconventional. They had that choice point, “Do I succumb to this pressure, or do I move forward?” And they would move forward and then they would figure out, “What is it that I want to do in my life? What’s my purpose?” And then they would work intensely for it. So, all of that came together. So, now, what was happening in my clinical world and my personal life and then in my writing was all lining up, that’s where we came up with the idea of Hardcore Humanism. Because there was originally this thing called Hardcore Punk, and there was Punk.
We’re going to be more intense. We’re going to be more revolutionary. We’re going to be more aggressive, more confrontational. So, “We’re not Pop. We’re Hardcore Pop.” So, the idea was like, “We’re not going to be humanists. We are going to be Hardcore Humanism.” So, old school Humanism, I think it did a great job in helping people feel like unconditional, positive regard and the freedom to go and do what they wanted. But I have learned a lot doing behavioural medicine where there’s a lot of stuff that you could do that still helps you along the way, which I do not think robs you of your sense of who you are as a human being.
And I think that from most of the things that I worked with, whether it was sleeping better, eating healthier, exercising, any of those things, it was a lot of work. So, we developed the Hardcore Humanism philosophy, which is, basically, three things. It was not so nuts, which is the idea that people might tell you you’re weird. You might think you’re weird. You might think you’re off crazy. You do not fit in. But our view is like, “No, that’s you. That’s your uniqueness. That’s something special about you. What is that purpose-driven health, which is the idea, you want to organize your life in the context of your purpose, which helps a lot. We can talk about that more later, which helps a lot in terms of how to move forward and understand the choices that you make.
And then what we call “heavy fundamentals,” which is most of the things that you have to do in life are simple, but difficult. There’s nothing that I’m going to be able to tell you about your relationship with your mother that’s going to change the fact that the donut is better than the carrot. like, it is nothing that we’re going to do in therapy that’s going to help that. It is hard, until it is not at some point. You getting healthy eventually feels better. But in the beginning, going to the gym hurts, stopping smoking hurts, giving up drinking hurts, finding yourself in unhealthy relationships hurts because they’re usually gratifying at the beginning.
There are all kinds of things like that. So, the idea is: How can you put those elements together? And that’s the same with Hardcore Humanism. So, what we have is this philosophy and treatment program, but then we’re also going to do weekly interviews with an artist. We’re going to talk about having a podcast. We’re going to have them write articles about them. We do a video about them, so we can learn their process and particularly those three concepts, because, again, they almost always go through that cadence. It is a bit of a long story, but there it is.
Jacobsen: How does pushing the boundaries of the inherent goodness of people in a therapeutic context bring about a wider range of possibilities in which people can actualize their goodness?
Friedman: I do not know why we do this to ourselves, because nobody likes it. It is like bullying or like talking about people behind their backs or gossip in general. Like, we do not like any of these things. Nobody likes to be made to feel weird. Nobody likes to be made to feel that they’re bad. But somehow, there’s this process that we go through, where we always seem to be looking for the way that other people are caught. There’s this lingo for it, like “off” or “odd.” What it does is interrupts that fundamental sense of music, as in, you do not write the songs. You discover the song. It is like people can’t discover their song because there are all of these barriers that are put up.
And so, if you see, it is not about the inherent goodness of people, but that’s a big part of it. It is celebrating the uniqueness of people. The idea that differences can be special, that opens up a whole new approach to life. So, for example, in my life, if I had listened to a lot of the people who were looking at me, “God, why are you like that?” There are all these people growing up who are called the “Wallers” in my high school. There are all these people who they dressed all in black, their earrings and their tattoos. They listen to the music that, at that point, I thought was weird. I stayed away from them for the most part. In doing so, I probably made them feel bad about who they were; I got that done to me later on.
And if I had listened to those people, I wouldn’t have discovered this world, where, now, it drives my wife crazy. If I see somebody who’s dressed all in black, or if I see somebody who’s wearing a metal shirt or a hardcore shirt, my wife says, “Do you want to go talk to them?” I’m like, “Yes, I do.” I would have lost this thing that was so important to me. I would have lost this culture that’s important to me. I would have lost this world that gets me excited. I would have felt much like a drone. I would have felt like the dead in The Walking Dead. I wouldn’t have even noticed. Because looking back, I think about all the weekends that I didn’t have as much to do. Because when I started playing music, I, all of a sudden, always had something to do.
Because you always could be working on starting. You could always be going and seeing shows. You could always be passing out flyers. You’d always be in a query. You could always be working. You could always hang out with your friends, too. But this was something that was abstract. So, I think that if you allow that for people; they can figure out what’s organically the best thing for them to actualize. Because you do not know what actualization looks like for an individual. You may think, “I think you should be a doctor,” “I think should be a lawyer,” “I think you should marry this person,” “I think you should play this music,” “I think you should follow this religion,” but you do not know necessarily that’s the right path for that person. So, I think that the idea for us is to create that space. We’re not coming in with “this is who you are.” We’re coming in and asking, “Who are you?” If you do not know yet, then we can figure out how to peel away some of the layers that have gotten in the way, so that you can figure that out.
Jacobsen: Who’ve been some important precursors to some of this philosophy?
Friedman: I think Carl Rogers was probably for me in terms of a psychological standpoint. Victor Frankl with a lot of it. We call it Hardcore Humanism, but I think it has a strong central element to it. Sometimes, I struggle with the distinction between meaning and purpose. For me, meaning is often, “Let me look around at what I’m doing and give it a name, or give it a reason.” A purpose is something that drives behaviour more. I do not know if that’s a relevant distinction. But those are probably two; Maslow’s hierarchy for sure. I think that there’s a lot of people who influenced me later, like Martin Seligman was my advisor as an undergraduate, who founded Positive Psychology.
It is different how we do things. I think the orientation towards striving rather than surviving. Kelly Brownell, who was my advisor in graduate school, a lot of the things that behavioural medicine and integrating different theories came from him. Also, Howard Leventhal, I think he was a colleague of mine when I was doing academics, who made me think a lot about the concept of purpose in people’s lives. Quite frankly, if I were saying it, I think my parents were influential in the sense that they, in retrospect, had some things. The hard-working part, I think in retrospect that came from them because I saw them.
Day-in and day-out, they were focused on what they wanted. They were focused. They came from Brooklyn and didn’t necessarily have a lot of money in their pocket. We moved to a suburb right outside of New York City. They were about work hard, “Let’s make money, let’s save money.” We had a lot, but that was part of the point, and “let’s get money so that the kids can go to college.” Those are things that, I think, in retrospect would have resonated with me because I saw how diligent they had to be over the years to make that dream come true. They were very, very, direct about they didn’t have to have that. They could have been like, “Listen, we got out of the suburbs. We got out of the city. You’re in the suburbs now. You’re on your own.”
Their dream might have been, “We want to relax now,” which is totally fine if that’s who you are. So, I think that those have been some of the different influences over the years. Actually, probably, one thing I should say. So, this is the story. My wife without realizing it. I think this was set in motion. Because when I was transitioning out of academic work, we had started dating. I was telling her. I’m trying to figure out, “What am I going to do professionally?” I eventually wanted to practice. But she had come to our first shows. I started dating her a week before our first show. So, she came to one of our second or third shows, I think.
She sat down and was like, “Okay, so, let’s read it all out. What are your options?” She was like, “You can go into another academic psychology job. You can go to a medical and academic medical center,” which is where I was originally doing research. “You could go into a private practice, or you can become a professional musician.” I was like, “I’m sorry. What was the last one? Why don’t I become a professional musician?” I’m like, “Why are you saying that?” She said, “No, I saw you perform. I think that if you put in the time and the effort, then you could do that.”
I was like, “Oh, man. She must love me to think that.” What she saw was worthy of that praise. So, what I find, here’s a person in whose mind, it was like, “Oh, I’m supporting you. I could imagine that.” Now, I do not think that was justified on her part. Probably, now, she’d look back and say, “I think I was wrong.” But the point for me, in my marriage, she’s left me to pursue a lot of different things. Quite frankly, I’m not sure that a lot of other spouses would put up with it. She let me pursue doing Brazilian jujitsu.
She let me pursue being in a band. She let me like pursue this thing called Hardcore Humanism. She’s open-minded to Hardcore Humanism. We’re doing together. We co-founded, which is part of the reason why. We co-founded it together because she got a lot of the content and also the business stuff, which is more of the practical merging. But I think that she had that philosophy in a way that was different for me. It was different for me from other people I have known in my life. So, yes, those are all my influences.
Jacobsen: And that’s interesting, too. Because one of the main tropes in North American culture is the band dream of a guy, which is the opposite of the way that she saw it for you. So, the dream of pursuing a band in our popular culture is seen as a highly negative and immature thing. Whereas in your own marriage, it was seen as something to grow and explore and, therefore, was supported in a proactive and constructive manner rather than the opposite.
Friedman: Yes. I think that what was interesting was that the hardcore punk community. One of the things that’s interesting now. We have rock stars who are 70 or 80, but those are people who have been rock stars forever. But what you had in that community, in the hardcore punk community and to a certain extent, the metal community, especially in New York City, there are so many people here who come to be creative, and so few people can make a living on it. So, it is not a hobby. It is not a job, but it is a passion. You take it seriously. You do serious things with it. Even though, it is not like a big moneymaker, which had come from Hardcore Punk. That was a world that I didn’t know about, that DIY – put on your own shows. So, I was getting that experience and philosophy and reading about that in books like American Hardcore – all of that stuff. Then, yes, you’re right. When I was talking to her about it, she could see. It wasn’t about, “You have to do this for three months. If you’re not making a million dollars and a young star…” It was, as you said, “This can be part of a subtle way.” We read in a fairly conventional way. We’re married. We have kids. We have a house. I have a practice,
But there’s this other piece, or pieces in a way. I still have a new band, which I’m working with now. As I said, I am training in different martial arts. I do this thing. It is like the fact that she has been known to accept that, and in many cases, directly support it. Yes, it would have been a horror. I wouldn’t even have known it, but it would have been a horrible life for me if I didn’t have a wife who did that. I do not know. Again, I wouldn’t even have known what was wrong because I wouldn’t have been able to explore that stuff.
Jacobsen: If I look at some of the history reflecting on it, of Humanism, a lot of it is quasi-liturgical, almost like someone’s in academia or reading a homily. It is dry and academic, in white collars, often. This Humanism, along with a few others that I could think of off the top, they’re more grounded. They’re more blue-collar. They require more, your body is involved in embodying that Humanism. A lot of the Humanism – that I have seen through – is bookish. It is of the head. So, it is a different flavour of Humanism that I think should get a lot more attention.
Friedman: I appreciate that. Yes, I do not think I ever explored other than reading that. That might be the parallel of what you’re saying, and why it didn’t resonate with me fully. Yes, I always felt as if I was reading it. As you said, it is academic. Also, it comes from me, personally. I do not particularly find happiness. I feel like there’s a lot of things in society that are about reducing anxiety and being happy. Those seem like the priorities. For me, I do not know. It never resonated with me. I remember seeing Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins, who were saying in an interview: It didn’t seem like you guys were having fun as a band.
He was always like, “The fun for us was making that album. The fun was playing a good show.” He was like, “A lot of other bands had a lot more fun than we did.” But, of course, they all sucked. I think that that was because I remember seeing sex, drugs, and rock & roll bands. I do not have anything against that. But that’s who you are, and that’s authentically who you are. But I remember, I do not know if you have ever seen Bruce Springsteen in concert. I have never been a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, but I saw him on the “Rising” tour about 20 years ago. He was probably like in his 40s, 50s. But he got on stage. He’s got millions of dollars. He has top records. He’s already in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
And this guy was playing shows like he was 17. If he didn’t get it right, he was never going to get out of Jersey. So, when people would ask me in the future, “What music do you like?” I was like, “I like jazz music.” I like the music where the person understands the power of that moment. It is how important it is. For me, how important my rock stars have been for me, it wasn’t even one of them at that point, quite frankly. The shows were important for me, the pulsating energy. If you do not get down, and if you do not appreciate that, I do not know what you’re doing.
And it was interesting because I interviewed someone from The Lumineers, which I do not know how they are in Canada, but they’re a big band here. They’re on the radio. I do not know if he heard directly or there was a story where Bruce Springsteen would say to his band, “For every show, you didn’t earn this.” I was like, “Yes, this is not about reducing anxiety. It is not about happiness. It is about the power of purpose.” That’s about touching in. So, for me, getting back to your question, it is that heat.
It is like when you have therapies. It is clinically interesting. You want to go with the passion, and where the heat is. I feel like, “What’s the point of all this if that’s not where you’re at?” Look, another person’s passion may be being completely chill. But if that’s you, and if that’s your passion, that’s the thing that you crave, fantastic. If your vision is being on a beach, and sitting and, basically, doing nothing and watching the waves, then that is you. You feel like that’s fantastic. I love that. It is not for me. But I want it for what you’re saying about that heat, that intensity. I do not know for me is what makes it particularly human. To me, it’s what we’re here for. That’s the same thing, “What’s ultimately good in people? What’s special about people? What makes us human?” We have that capacity. So, to me, if it is not focusing on that, “What’s the point?”
Jacobsen: One band that stands out, in that regard, without any formal identification with that humanistic philosophy would be the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Their way of approaching, the way they play the music, what they sing about, and the way they seem much more in the heat, they seem much their authentic selves rather than some false self.
Friedman: Yes. It is always one of the things. When there’s someone who’s in a band that I find has that a lot of times, not all the times, but someone in the band or multiple people came out of that hardcore punk scene. We definitely did come out of that. He has that intensity when he plays. You can’t imagine him playing a show without sweating profusely. There’s no way. Usually, the Red Hot Chili Peppers with that funk, rock, and punk.
But I appreciate their more mellow side, because I think you’ve got another thing, as an example. I always found it odd, which is not particularly humanistic. When we have this abusive relationship with the rock stars, we want them to go out on limbs for us, so we want them to take all the risk. We want them to put in all the effort or whatever, when we find something that they do right, which is: We grab onto it. We freeze-dry it. We repeat it. What I do, I listen to the same songs over and over again. I love it.
And then if they go off, and if they do something that’s different, “What the hell? They do not care about their audience.” We didn’t understand. The way that we got that special thing was not because they dressed, basically, as if we’re walking in line. They were creative. They were going to love it. Sometimes, they find something, that formula, which they love. And it works. There are bands like Rage Against the Machine and Foo Fighters. So, I think it covers it a little bit with some of the stuff. But it is always striking to me how that chance will like “turn”. Where the media will turn on a band, that’s the reasons why I like doing interviews.
Because I want people to see the process. Why on earth would you want your musicians to walk in a straight line? Go to the factory and do the same thing every day, so, it has always been striking to me. If someone’s experimental, or if their heart changes, the Chili Peppers 30 years ago, may be different than the Chili Peppers now, what’s authentic to them now may be different. If people do not let them do that, or if they do not appreciate that, I feel like you lose all the richness of the artist. You lose all the lessons that you can learn about the artist. It can apply to your own life.
Jacobsen: Where can people learn more about Hardcore Humanism?
Friedman: I got a www.HardcoreHumanism.com. We’ve got all the stuff up there. The podcast and videos are not; we’re recording them right now, so they’re going to be live in about six weeks. But the articles that we’ve done in the past are different topics that we talked about. There’s a philosophy that people want to get in touch and they want to do coaching or therapy or whatever it is, depending on the situation. They can get in touch with us there, but it is pretty much all there.
Jacobsen: Any final feelings or thoughts and conclusion based on the conversation today?
Friedman: No. Honestly, I appreciate you reaching out. It is always great. I always enjoy talking about the stuff. I love it when people share whatever it is that they’re doing with me. So, I would say that everybody is thinking about those three principles. If you’re sitting there, and if there are people calling you weird or calling you off, obviously, people are pointing out that there might be something that’s a little bit different if it is harmful. But a lot of times it is something that other people do not like. It is the type of music or the way you dress or the way that you approach religion or the way that you approach your work or what field you want to go into and think to yourself, “Watch out for that.” Listen, it is, “Is this helping me grow?”, or, “Is this harmful for me?” “Someone is helping me figure out who I am,” or, “Is this something imposing on me what I should be onto you.?”
And so, similarly, think, “Who am I, and what am I trying to do in this world?” Know that as you figure that out, you’re going to have to work hard for it – do not be concerned. If you come upon your purpose, you can’t find your dreams. It is not easy because everyone is in a league of their own. If it was easy, everybody would do it, but keep at it. Because, if who you are, and if what you’re trying to do, and if you’re working hard for it, you’re either winning or you’re learning. You’re getting closer, or you’re learning the ways that are not getting closer. Over time, it is difficult for that not to work.
Jacobsen: Sir, thanks so much.
Friedman: Ok, great. Thanks again.
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Founder of In-Sight Publishing and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal (ISSN 2369-6885). Jacobsen works for science and human rights, especially women’s and children’s rights. He considers the modern scientific and technological world the foundation for the provision of the basics of human life throughout the world and the advancement of human rights as the universal movement among peoples everywhere.
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Canadian Atheist is an independent blog with multiple contributors providing articles of interest to Canadian atheists, secularists, humanists, and freethinkers.
Canadian Atheist is not an organization – there is no membership and nothing to join – and we offer no professional services or products. It is a privately-owned publishing platform shared with our contributors, with a focus on topics relevant to Canadian atheists.
Canadian Atheist is not affiliated with any other organization or group. While our contributors may be individually be members of other organizations or groups, and may even speak in an official capacity for them, CA itself is independent.
For more information about Canadian Atheist, or to contact us for any other reason, see our contact page.
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About Canadian Atheist Contributors
Canadian Atheist contributors are volunteers who provide content for CA. They receive no payment for their contributions from CA, though they may be sponsored by other means.
Our contributors are people who have both a passion for issues of interest to Canadian atheists, secularists, humanists, and freethinkers, and a demonstrated ability to communicate content and ideas of interest on those topics to our readers. Some are members of Canadian secularist, humanist, atheist, or freethought organizations, either at the national, provincial, regional, or local level. They come from all walks of life, and offer a diversity of perspectives and presentation styles.
CA merely provides our contributors with a platform with almost complete editorial freedom. Their opinions are their own, expressed as they see fit; they do not speak for Canadian Atheist, and Canadian Atheist does not speak for them.
For more information about Canadian Atheist’s contributors, or to get in contact with any of them, or if you are interested in becoming a contributor, see our contact page.
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Image Credit: Photo by Yohann LIBOT on Unsplash.