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Sarah Haider was born in Pakistan as a practicing Shia Muslim. She moved to Texas and, in her late teens, began reading the Qur’an critically. It wasn’t long before she became an atheist. In 2013, she co-founded Ex-Muslims of North America, where she advocates for the acceptance of religious dissent and works to create local support communities for those who have left Islam.

We spoke with Sarah about why it’s dangerous for Muslims to leave the faith even in the United States, what the New Atheists get right and wrong about Islam, and why we need to stop using the word “Islamophobic.”

Notes:

At the 21:00 mark, I accidentally say an incident involving Ayaan Hirsi Ali being protested by students occurred at UCLA. It was actually Yale. Apologies for the error.

Also, if you haven’t seen it, Sarah gave an excellent speech at the 2015 American Humanist Association convention. It’s worth your time to watch it.

David Smalley is a former Christian musician who became an atheist after studying psychology, sociology, world religions, and his own faith. He soon turned into a secular activist.

He was the editor-in-chief of Secular World and American Atheist magazines, the author of Baptized Atheist, and co-founder of AtheistAudiobooks.com. His Secular Media Group will soon release a children’s book titled Tiny Thinkers: Charlie and the Tortoise.

You may know him best, however, from his incredibly popular podcast Dogma Debate which has tens of thousands of weekly subscribers.

We spoke with David about why it’s so important not to be an angry atheist (if you can help it), what it takes to be a successful podcaster, and why he’s so passionate about atheist activism.

Notes:

Here’s the link to Dogma Debate’s #Iam4th campaign. You can also become a member of Dogma Debate and support the work David is doing.

We also spoke about a special episode of his podcast in which he spoke about death with his daughter. You can listen to that episode here.

Shawna Leneé is an openly atheist adult film star who has appeared on the cover of Penthouse and won an AVN award for “Unsung Starlet of the Year.” She left the adult industry temporarily, at which point she attended college began a couple of small businesses, but she’s back making movies now. (You should assume everything in this interview is NSFW.)

We spoke with Shawna about why she believes her atheism is the most controversial thing about her, whether she meets a lot of religious people on set, and what she plans to tell her kids about her career.

John W. Loftus should be a Christian. He attended and graduated from Great Lakes Christian College, Lincoln Christian University, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where he learned under apologist William Lane Craig.

But he’s spent the last several years debunking the faith.

His books include Why I Rejected Christianity, Why I Became an Atheist, and The Outsider Test for Faith. His latest book is strangely called How to Defend the Christian Faith.

I spoke with John about the worst argument Christian apologists use, how learning the Bible caused him to leave the faith, and whether rejecting Christianity is the same thing as becoming an atheist.