Doug Hendricks (Doug) shared a presentation about the Salt Lake Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation at an Oasis Salt Lake meeting.
Doug Hendricks’ talk focused on the newly established Salt Lake City chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) and its goals in Utah. He outlined the two-pronged mission of FFRF: (1) promoting the advantages of being free from religion for individuals and (2) defending the separation of church and state. Hendricks noted that while the latter is relatively non-controversial, promoting secularism and the benefits of leaving religion may be perceived as “offensive” in Utah’s religious climate.
He highlighted wasmormon.org as a valuable resource for sharing personal faith transition stories, encouraging individuals to contribute their experiences as a form of support and visibility.
He shared personal experiences of leaving the Mormon faith, highlighting the difficulty of growing up in a devout religious environment and questioning church teachings. He described encounters with church leaders who dismissed his doubts rather than addressing them. Hendricks also emphasized how religious dogma in Utah has led to real harm, particularly for LGBTQ+ youth facing rejection from religious families. He recounted tragic cases, including a student who took his own life after being rejected by his family, attributing such harm directly to religious influence.
Hendricks proposed various initiatives for the FFRF’s local chapter, including combating religious coercion in Utah schools, supporting ex-polygamous individuals, and advocating for non-religious students who feel alienated. He invited the audience to engage in activism and emphasized the importance of providing a community for those who feel isolated due to their non-belief.
It is my pleasure now to introduce our keynote speaker today, Douglas Hendricks. He is currently spearheading work to establish a Salt Lake Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. He expects that most of us may know some of the national things that the FFRF is doing, so he is going to mostly talk about what they’re doing in Utah, which we may not be aware of, and maybe talk about exploring some collaboration opportunities.
Doug is a recently retired engineer/physicist/educator who spends some of his new-found free time volunteering with the Holding Out Help organization assisting people who need help after escaping from polygamous-based religious cults. We’re familiar with that organization here. When he’s not doing this volunteer work he travels the world, looking for beautiful scenery to photograph, capture on video, or just gaze at in awe.
He was raised in a devout Mormon home but while in his early twenties he left the church despite family members pleading with him not to since they were sure that his decision would lead to his eternal damnation. The jury’s still out on that. [laughter]
Doug: Thank you. Yes, I am a little worried about that last one, but not too much. Yes, I am Douglas Hendricks and I am one of the people who is spearheading the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Salt Lake Chapter, which just barely got approved. Just eight days ago we got word from the national office that our application has been approved. We are now an official chapter. [applause]
This quote right here pretty well summarizes the two-pronged mission of the national Freedom From Religion Foundation, “Being free from religion is an advantage for individuals, it’s a necessity for government.”
So there are two prongs to this. One of FFRF’s missions is to promote the advantages of being free from religion for individuals. The other part here is protecting the wall that separates church from state. People have been fighting against that wall for a long time, chipping away at it. Right now, we’ve got people in office who want to bulldoze that wall to the ground. FFRF is standing up and saying “No”. “That wall needs to be protected.”
Douglas Hendricks, Why a Salt Lake Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Presentation at The Oasis Salt Lake Meeting, March 2, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ALzhiyybo
What you see here are some clips from a newsletter that FFRF puts out ten times a year talking about the things that they’ve been doing to protect that wall. They’ve had a lot of success. Sometimes the judges rule against them, so they haven’t had total success. These are the kinds of things that the FFRF has done at the national level. Here are a few things that it has done locally. Even though we haven’t had a Salt Lake Chapter here we’ve got like 250 members throughout Utah, in FFRF and when they see something shady going on they’ve been notifying the national office and the lawyers jump right on that. So here are a couple of letters. I won’t go into any detail, but you can see that Alpine School District was promoting religion in a way that they should not have so the FFRF lawyers said, “You need to stop that”. The American Leadership Academy was doing it, the Canyons School District was doing it, the city of Riverton was doing it, the Nebo School District was doing it, and the Davis School District was doing it.
So these are the kinds of things that the FFRF has gotten involved in. And so as I and the other people locally here, as we got together and we’re asking ourselves, “What do we as a local chapter want to do?”Absolutely positively we want to continue this. We want to do it better. We want to do it more successfully. So for sure, this is going… This is one of the key activities and possibly the only activity. What I mean by that, is the other part of the FFRF message about educating people about the advantages of being free from religion. Well, especially here in Utah, that could be a little bit controversial. I like to think of it as playing defense vs playing offense. So as long as we are protecting the wall that separates church from state, I view that as we’re playing defense, and that’s pretty non-controversial. Everybody I’ve talked to agrees, “Yes, for sure we want to do that.”
The other part… promoting the advantages of a life that is free from religion, well, I can see how that could be considered ‘offense’ and some people say that when you play offense then you come across as offensive and they get offended, and so we’re kind of struggling with that. What you see here are some YouTube videos where one of the co-presidents of FFRF has been very active going out there and giving talks and participating in debates, and making videos where I can see how people would say, “Whoa, wait a minute”. “He’s on the offense. He’s attacking.”
As I talk with the other members of the Salt Lake Chapter here, do we want to do this kind of stuff? Would it be maybe counterproductive to our more important mission? One of the reasons why I’m here is because I want to get feedback from you about what you think about that. You’re a group of free-thinking people. If we were to do stuff like this here in Utah would you think that “that’s crossing the line. You should maybe not do that”?
I’m going to bounce a couple of ideas off of you today and during the Q and A session, I’d really like to hear your thoughts. Whether you think this would be acceptable, or is this crossing the line? I mean, ideally, this is the way the world should be. We don’t bother you. You don’t bother us. Everybody peacefully coexists. Absolutely this is what we would prefer. Unfortunately, real life is a little different.
“My religion says I can’t do that.” “OK. No problem.”
“My religion says YOU can’t do that.” “Not OK. We’ve got a problem.”
Douglas Hendricks, Why a Salt Lake Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Presentation at The Oasis Salt Lake Meeting, March 2, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ALzhiyybo
So… This is something I see happening a lot. Especially here in Utah. So anyway, we have now formed a Salt Lake Chapter. We even have a website up and running now. So if you go to the website and scroll down near the bottom you’ll come to a paragraph right here, that says “What we do” and… “To be honest, we’re still figuring that out”. But one thing we’ve decided we’re NOT going to do… A lot of the local chapters of FFRF have socializing events. They get together periodically just to socialize with like-minded individuals. So we asked ourselves, “Do we want to do that?” and we decided we were not going to do that. And you guys [Oasis] are my number one reason why we’re not going to do that. You guys are doing it, and you’re doing it well. So I see absolutely no reason to duplicate what you guys are already doing. So if you look on our website you’ll see a link to your website. Now I didn’t ask for permission before putting it on there. If you don’t want it there… Oh good. Alright…
So…Let’s set aside the part of the mission where we’re defending the wall between church and state because I think that’s pretty non-controversial. Let’s talk about some of those other things we might do. Well, one thing that FFRF has done, that we might want to continue doing. We’ve got a billboard here saying, “I’m an atheist and I vote. “So basically we’re saying, “Hey, we exist”. “Can you please at least acknowledge our existence?” I mean, is that asking too much?
Douglas Hendricks, Why a Salt Lake Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Presentation at The Oasis Salt Lake Meeting, March 2, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ALzhiyybo
This is very similar to what another Utah-based group did. Here’s a photograph that some of you might recognize and in fact, some of you might be in this photograph. Does anybody want to admit to being in this photograph? No? I’m in it. That’s me, way back here. This is about fifteen years ago and so, this group put together some funds and got this billboard that says, “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone. “Now, you might say, well, “Kind of a waste of money”. Billboards are expensive. If that’s all you’re going to say, why would you bother? Well, I can tell you from personal experience, when I was a teenager if I had seen a billboard like that, it would have been a tremendous comfort to me. Because, as Angie mentioned earlier, I was raised in a very devout Mormon home. But as I was growing up, I saw all sorts of things that just did not make sense to me. Logical contradictions, doctrinal contradictions, all sorts of things. And so as I was growing up, I kept track of these. And I even had a three-ring binder, a pretty thick three-ring binder where I kept all these things. When I got to be a teenager, I went to my parents, and I went to my local church leaders, and I kind of laid things out and I said, you know, “This is what I’m seeing”. Can you help me with this?
Over here on the left side, we have all these things that I’m seeing that lead me to believe that the church isn’t what it claims to be, and on the right side, I’m trying to compile a list of all the reasons why I should believe that the church IS what it claims to be. As you can see, I’m not getting many things on the right side and the few things I have on the right side are pretty sketchy. So I said, “Can you please help me with this?”I talked with my parents. I talked with my church leaders, and what I got was basically the Jedi hand wave. You know the one I mean. “These are not the droids you’re looking for.” Right?
They said, “These things that you think you’re seeing, don’t really exist”. Well yeh, I think they do.” These things that you think you’re seeing aren’t really important. “Yeah, I think they are. And then the big one is, they say “Satan is the one who’s putting these thoughts in your mind. You need to stop listening to Satan.” So I really struggled with this. Some of the church leaders I talked with were pretty good about going in and talking specifically about these things and what are the strengths of the arguments and the reasoning here but not all of them were.
I had a meeting with a General Authority. The local leaders weren’t able to answer my questions so they said, “Hey, how about we set up a meeting with a General Authority?”And if you’re a Mormon, you know, a General Authority, that’s the highest you can get. Right? So I said, “Yes, I would love that.” So I sat down the the General Authority, and I laid out my arguments. He’s silent for a while. Then he leans forward and says, “Tell me, Doug, have you been thinking impure thoughts?” [laughter]
What a cop-out! Oh man, what a low blow. I would really… I was just a timid teenager, he was this exalted man, so I had to be very careful in what I said. But now that I’m no longer a timid teenager, boy would I ever like to have another conversation with that man! But anyway, all the people around me were telling me, “Look Doug, you’re delusional” “You’re seeing things that aren’t real.” and “The church is OK. The problem is you.” So I was experiencing a lot of angst, anxiety, and in fact, I would even say torment. I was experiencing very real torment. Now, this was back in the days before the internet. So like I said, that billboard would have been very appreciated.
Now that we’ve got the internet, things are a lot different. There are a lot of places you can go on the internet to find out that you are not alone. This is my favorite one. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with wasmormon.org. I like this one because the people who post their stories on this website, they’re just ordinary people. They’re not professional podcasters. This isn’t John Dehlin or Alyssa Grenfell. These are ordinary everyday people and so you go there and listen to [or read] their stories, and it’s really soothing. I don’t know if any of you have posted on here, if you would like to post on here, I highly recommend it. You can do it anonymously if you want to.
Douglas Hendricks, Why a Salt Lake Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Presentation at The Oasis Salt Lake Meeting, March 2, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ALzhiyybo
Boy, I would have loved this. And by the way, if you want to post your story here, it’s really cathartic, to do that. And how do I know that? Well, because my story is on here. So if you want to know some details about me, you can go right here to find out.
But what I want to focus on today is the fact that I felt alone. I was tormented. It was… it was just terrible. So I finally got to the point where I said, “I’m outta here”. I’m leaving the church, and in fact, I’m leaving the state of Utah. I wanted to be totally free from religion. So I went to California… Silicon Valley specifically. That’s why I have this image here. So yeh, my background is physics and engineering. I made computer chips, and I loved it, but the thing I especially loved about living in California was that, for the first time in my life, I was free from religion. And it was glorious. And all the bad things that I’d been told about what will happen to you if you leave religion… none of them happened. Life without religion was glorious.
Now, after a couple of decades in California my wife and I are talking, “What do we want to do with the rest of our lives?” and so I thought, well, I’ll give back. I’d like to give back to society. I thought I’d like to be a teacher. So, we could have stayed in California where the cost of living is really high, or we could come back to Utah, where the cost of living is better, and we’ve got world-class ski resorts only a thirty-minute drive away. So, a lot of advantages to coming back to Utah, but…there are also some potential disadvantages. This is a meme right here that I think you’ve probably seen before. [laughter]
So this was very much on our minds but we decided to come back to Utah anyway. So we’ve been here, surrounded by religion and yet, we’ve been able to live a life that’s free from religion. Well, there are a couple of people who just will not stop trying to bear their testimonies to us, but we can deal with that. For the last several years I’ve been a teacher.
Douglas Hendricks, Why a Salt Lake Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Presentation at The Oasis Salt Lake Meeting, March 2, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ALzhiyybo
I’ve had several people ask me, “Hey Doug. What’s the deal with this picture?” “What’s the story behind that?” It’s just, that I teach physics and one of the projects I have my students do involves rockets. So I kind of came to be known as The Rocket Man, and one of my students created this for me, and I just love it. Students are such wonderful human beings. It’s been such a pleasure to associate with them. This just reminds me of all my positive experiences with my students. I love it.
Here we come to the big question. Some of you may be wondering, “OK Doug… You’re living a life here in Utah that’s free from religion, and you’re perfectly happy.” “So if you’re so big on freedom from religion” “how about the other way around?” “Why can’t religion be free from YOU?” OK, Very valid question. Why do I feel the need for a Salt Lake Chapter of the FFRF? Well… Although religion is no longer harming my life, religion has caused tremendous harm in the lives of my students, and other people I care about. A study was done a couple of years ago, on Utah high school students, and more than ten percent of the students in Utah identified as being either L, G, B, or T. The torment that I felt when I was a teenager is nothing compared to the torment that my students feel. This editorial cartoon in the Salt Lake Tribune very accurately describes what many of my students have been feeling.
One of my students, when he finally got the courage to come out of the closet and tell his parents that he was gay, their response was…”Homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. If you don’t repent of this horrible sin, you can not live under our roof.” In the end, that’s exactly what happened. They kicked him out. He was just a high school kid, and they kicked him out of their home in the name of religion. So yeah, religions can do terrible harm.
Now, there’s another student I’m going to tell you about. This other student was especially close to me because he really liked physics and so he would come into my room during lunch time and he would sit down and we’d talk about physics, but we’d also talk about just life in general. He would tell me about his hopes and his dreams, his fears and his anxieties and this was far and away the source of his fears and his anxieties. Well, I don’t want to go into details, but let me just say that that student is no longer alive, and it wasn’t a traffic accident that he died in. That hit me hard. I hold religion directly responsible for that student’s death, and there are so many others.
The suicide rate among LGBTs is just, significantly higher. I hold religion responsible for his death. So that’s why I cannot sit still. That’s why I think somebody needs to stand up.
Now, a couple of other cases. So that’s number one on the list of why I can’t leave religion alone, but there are many others.
What you’re seeing here is a website from one of those alternative high schools that students go to when they’re not being successful in their regular school, they send them here. A large fraction of the student body are pregnant girls. Now the reason given for why they send the girls to this school is because these schools supposedly have resources that the other schools don’t. There’s definitely some truth to that argument, but I think there’s a lot more to it than that. I have reason to believe that what’s happening is…
Well, you know, the dominant religion here in Utah teaches that sexual sin is second only to murder in severity. So imagine that you’re a teenage girl who’s pregnant, and somebody drops THAT bomb on you. “You’ve committed a sin that’s second only to murder.” Wow. The parents of the other kids in the school, you know, the “virtuous girls,” don’t want their daughters associating with this “sinner”. They’re afraid that her sin might rub off on them, that it’s contagious somehow. I’ve seen instances where that was the reason these girls were sent off to these alternative schools. It strikes me as so wrong.
Now, up until now I’ve talked about a lot of very dark and depressing things. I need to change the tone here. Let me tell you an uplifting story. One of the girls in my school… one of my students……wonderful kid. She got pregnant when she was a senior. But her parents were not shackled by the chains of religion. Her parents said, “We do not consider you to be a SINNER” Now obviously you made an unwise choice and boy is that unwise choice ever going to complicate your life, but we do not consider you to be a SINNER. We don’t want to shun you. We don’t want to pull you out of your normal school and send you off to this school. You need your friends around you now, more than ever. So they went to the principal and said, “Hey, can she please stay at this school even though she’s pregnant?”And to his credit, the principal said, “You betcha!” And she stayed.
Her friends were so wonderfully supportive. She finished out the year. She got her diploma. So many girls in her situation don’t, but she got her diploma. And in fact, on graduation day when she walked across that stage to get her diploma, belly out to here, looked like she was eight and a half months pregnant. When she walked across that stage, you should have heard her fellow students cheer her. It was so wonderful. I will cherish that memory for the rest of my life. Whenever I’m losing faith in humanity, I pull out that memory and just bask in the glory of that memory. Life can be beautiful if you’ll just throw off the shackles of religion, or religious dogma. OK, you might not want to say “religion”, but “religious dogma”? Throw off the chains of religious dogma.
I forgot to set the clock here when we started. I don’t know how we’re doing for time. How much time do we have? [You’ve got about three minutes.] OK, so I’m going to skip through some things. There’s a lot of stuff that I could talk about. You might think that polygamy cults are just a small thing but Tonia Tewel has been here from Holding Out Help and so I hope you know it’s not just a few people, and it’s here in Salt Lake. One of my students, one day she stopped attending school. The parents said well, we’re going to homeschool, that’s the reason her parents told the office that they’d decided to homeschool her. But her friends told us the truth. Her friends told us that she ended up getting married to some creepy old guy who already had several wives. Religion is causing direct harm here in these situations.
So me and my friends at the Salt Lake Chapter of FFRF, we’re wondering, “Is this something we want to get involved in?” Now this is a subject we have to be SUPER careful about because there are, there is at least one religion in this state, that teaches young children that “Polygamy is OK.” “If God commands it, you’ve got to do it.” If you’ve been watching the news, you know the story behind these things. So, if we, at FFRF were to talk about this it’s potentially a very dangerous place to go. “Criticism of church authorities IS NOT ALLOWED.” and “It does not matter that the criticism is true.”
I’d like some feedback from you during the Q and A session. Is this something we might want to try, or is this something we should stay the hell away from? Would it be counterproductive? One thing that we as an organization do is service projects and fundraising. That’s something we’re thinking about doing.
Douglas Hendricks, Why a Salt Lake Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Presentation at The Oasis Salt Lake Meeting, March 2, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ALzhiyybo
You guys already know about Holding Out Help, because they are a wonderful organization. So I’ve been talking with them about, “Are there some ways that FFRF could maybe work with them?” Do some service projects and some fundraising. So we can do that.
Let me bounce another idea off you. One that’s hopefully a little less controversial. I trust you know that Utah state legislators, in their infinite wisdom, passed a law requiring that every school in Utah must display the phrase “In God We Trust,” and it must be prominently displayed. That’s part of the law, it has to be prominently displayed. So, what about the kids who come from families who don’t trust in God? Who don’t believe in God? When they walk down the hallway, they have to walk past this sign that sends a very clear message. It says, “If you don’t trust in God, then in the eyes of this school, the word WE does not include YOU. You are an outsider.” This is something that I feel very strongly about. It’s wrong, and I’d like to make some efforts to maybe do something about it.
I am now retired, but when I was a teacher, I made up this sign and put this sign in my classroom. Yeah, so the state legislature says that you are required to put these words on the wall. So I said, “OK. They’re on the wall.” But, that’s a very exclusive message. Let’s send an inclusive message. Let’s let everybody know that “Regardless of what you do or do not believe regarding religion, everyone is welcome in this classroom.” So, like I said, that was a sign on my wall when I was a teacher. I have since retired, but I went back to my school, in fact, just Friday I was there and I saw that the teacher who took over my classroom did not take down that wall [sign]. [applause]
Douglas Hendricks, Why a Salt Lake Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Presentation at The Oasis Salt Lake Meeting, March 2, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ALzhiyybo
I would like to get a grass-roots effort going where people try to get things like this. Go to your school and say, “Hey can you put something like this up?”I have several extra copies of this if anyone’s interested, I have some copies. [We have a table out front for that.]
Douglas Hendricks, Why a Salt Lake Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Presentation at The Oasis Salt Lake Meeting, March 2, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ALzhiyybo
Now here’s another sign that I put up in my classroom. When that one student who I told you about when he died, and I said, “I’ve got to do something.” I put up a banner in my classroom that looks like this. OK. [laughter and applause] So when the Utah State Legislature says, “You can’t have a pride flag in your classroom.”I say, “Pride flag? What do you mean? This is a teaching aid for physics, talking about the wavelengths of light.”[laughter] And by the way, I have several of those as well.
So these are the kinds of things that I hope would be non-controversial. I’d like to get your opinion on that. I know I’m running really short on time. Here’s one thing that I know I don’t have enough time to talk about. Let me just… Twitter version, real quick. I hope you know that Utah has always ranked near the bottom in education spending. Either second to the bottom or third to the bottom. Some years I think it was the very bottom. Now, you might say, “Yes, that’s horrible, but what’s that got to do with religion?” Well. I could tell you a story that would make your blood boil, but I’m out of time, so I won’t.[laughter]
But there is a Q and A session. [laughter] OK. So I’m out of time so let’s skip that. Alright, so, if what I’ve said today piques your interest at all in the Freedom From Religion Foundation, this is the website for the national organization. This is where you can go to become a member. If you’d like to know more about the Salt Lake Chapter, here’s our website. If you’d like to contact us for any reason, here’s the email address. And so now, Q and A time, I’d like to hear from you. What do you think about those ideas? Do you think those are things that are worth talking about? or are you thinking, “No Doug. Don’t go there.”
Douglas Hendricks, Why a Salt Lake Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Presentation at The Oasis Salt Lake Meeting, March 2, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ALzhiyybo
Doug’s own personal experience of growing up in a devout Mormon family and eventually rejecting religious dogma resonated with many in the room, especially those who have struggled with similar issues. His invitation to readers and listeners to consider supporting the Salt Lake Chapter of FFRF or sharing their own stories of faith deconstruction was a call to action for anyone who has felt marginalized or disillusioned by their religious past. As Doug discussed the organization’s goals and the support it seeks for its activities, he encouraged the community to share their thoughts, ensuring that their collective voice is heard. He also provided links to FFRF’s website for those interested in learning more or getting involved.
If this talk resonates with you and you feel ready to share your story, consider joining the wasmormon.org community, a platform designed to amplify the voices of those who have left the Mormon church. Sharing your experience can not only help you process your journey but can also offer support to others who may be struggling with similar questions or challenges. Your story matters.