Cass Midgley and Bob Pondillo interview Corinna Nicolaou, author of "A None's Story: Searching for Meaning Inside Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam" Corinna is a writer whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Texas Observer, Salon, and Narrative Magazine, among other publications. Her commentaries have aired on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and her writing can be found on her blog, One None Gets Some: Looking at Life Through the Lens of Faith."A None's Story" has been reviewed in the New York Times, Shelf-Awareness and Publishers Weekly.   We're going to flip the show upside down this week. We normally interview people who were raised deeply religious, usually Christian, and then deconstruct their childhood faith to various degrees of unbelief. Corinna is the opposite--she was raised completely secular and yet in her 40's she had something of an existential crisis and wondered if she wasn't missing out on something. The majority of the human population identify with some religion or another. She wondered why and set out to see what all the hubbub was about. Today she identifies as a None, but has gleaned a little bit, here and there, from the major world religions while discarding the bullshit. Her measuring stick is, "if it helps me love people, I'll take it; if it tells me certain people should be my enemies, I throw it out."   She joins us from Washington state via Skype. It's a decent conversation at first but really picks up in the end. Still it may not be for everyone; Corinna is very graceful towards the major world religions, in a kind of a naive way, to be honest. She was never burned by religion like many of you.  She has two masters degrees and teaches writing at Washington State. I think there's something here for us to learn if you're open minded. Though she remains a devout none, Nicolaou's experiences reveal points of contact between the religious and the unaffiliated, suggesting that nones may be radically revising the practice of faith in the near future.We taped the conversation on November 18th, 2017. We interview people you don’t know, about a subject no one wants to talk about. We hope to encourage people in the process of deconstructing their faith and help curb the loneliness that accompanies it. We think the world is a better place when more people live by sight, not by faith. Please subscribe to our podcast, and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, you can support us monetarily in two easy ways: you can pledge one dollar per episode or more through Patreon; that’s www.patreon.com/eapodcast, or leave a lump-sum donation through PayPal at our website, www.everyonesagnostic.com. The smallest contribution is greatly appreciated. Credits:"Towering Mountain of Ignorance" intro by Hank Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3v3S82TuxU Intro bumper "Never Know" by Jack JohnsonThe segue music on this episode was created by the Barry Orchestra found at https://barryorchestra.bandcamp.com/ Corinna's Blog site Amazon for her book Publisher's site for the book