An Ex-Catholic Humanist Explains on How To Face Fear And Find Meaning Without God

"My strength comes from knowing myself. I'm not living life at random." 

Christopher Ejugbo is a Nigerian-born humanist and risk management professional. Raised Catholic and once an altar boy, Christopher now lives a life grounded in reason and self-knowledge rather than faith.

In this deeply personal conversation with host Lola Tinubu, Christopher shares his journey from Catholic Nigeria to finding freedom in the former Soviet Union, and finally drawing a permanent line with religion in the UK. But this episode goes beyond deconstruction. Christopher reveals the practical tools he uses to navigate life without prayer: SWOT analysis for decisions, accepting mortality without fear, and building meaning through self-examination.

This is about what replaces faith when you let it go. About recognizing that churches offer community, not answers. About understanding why religion thrives where social services fail. And about discovering that strength comes from knowing yourself.

🎙️ In this episode

• From altar boy in Nigeria to living religion-free in the former Soviet Union
• How UK Pentecostal churches recruit lonely international students
• The moment Christopher stopped going back to church
• Replacing prayer with life skills: analysis and self-knowledge
• Why people stay in church for entertainment rather than belief
• How missing social services drive religious dependence in Nigeria
• Finding liberation to enjoy religion as culture without believing

Thanks for listening to the Secular Sankofa Podcast, produced by the Association of Black Humanists (ABH). If you enjoy the show, please follow, rate, and review — it helps more people discover Black humanist voices.

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🎙️ Podcast produced by Humanise Live a podcast production agency based in London, serving charities, companies, and individuals across the globe.

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🎶 Music: Icy by Jeff Kaale

Transcript

Welcome And Big Question

Lola Tinubu 0:04

Welcome to Secular Sankofa, the podcast of the Association of Black Humanists, a space where we speak boldly, think freely, and live consciously. Here we have honest and unapologetic conversations about race, belief, power, and liberation from a black and godless point of view. My name is Lola Tenumbu. I'm your host today. Today we are going to explore life, leaning, and resilience through honest conversation. Today's episode is a special one. We are talking about how people navigate life challenges, worries, anxieties, and even positive emotions, joy, happiness, fulfillment without belief in God. With me today is someone I consider a good friend, a brother. It's a very thoughtful voice. It's an atheist, a humanist, Christopher Ejugbo. Thank you so much for being here, Christopher.

Christopher Ejugbo 1:25

Thank you very much, Lola, for having me.

Growing Up Catholic In Nigeria

Lola Tinubu 1:29

First, before we dive into it, please tell us briefly about your religious upbringing and how important faith was in your early in your early life. Well, that's a big question.

Christopher Ejugbo 1:45

Obviously, um I was born and raised in Nigeria to a Catholic family. Being a Catholic was part of the identity, it was part and parcel of my life. I was baptized as a child, attending church on Sunday and participating in all the Catholic activities like saying the rosary, saying morning and evening prayers, praying before meals, attending catechism were just part of life that didn't need to be questioned. And I also went to a Catholic school, so I had the full marination into the Catholic faith, and it was just part of me. And I was an altar boy, which I voluntarily joined and seemed to enjoy the ritual. And at some point, many people thought I'll become a priest, but I'm happy I never went that direction. But yeah, it was a very important part of my life growing up. But I think it was more of a cultural part of me growing up rather than deeply religious part of me. In fact, it was something you took for granted or something you had to do because it was just part of you that you didn't know otherwise.

Lola Tinubu 3:04

But did you said it was cultural, it was part of you, but did you believe in the man in the sky?

Christopher Ejugbo 3:12

I think the idea of whether I believe in the man in the sky, I think that not believing comes with a consequence of if you don't believe, then what else? Really, in fact. So there are times where it was something that was difficult to imagine, that there was no creator. It was something that at a very young age, it was something that was difficult to fathom. I think there's a different question about the nature of this creator and what he wants from us, he, she, it, whether heaven and hell existed, whether God actually watched over us, what version of God is true. There were doubts about those ideas, but directly saying there was no God was really far fetched in that respect.

Doubt, Hell, And Skepticism

Lola Tinubu 4:07

So was there a particular moment or was there a particular experience, or was it a gradual process that led you away from whatever you believe that you used to believe? Do you want to share that?

Christopher Ejugbo 4:22

I think it's been a long, prolonged process with lots of up and downs, sometimes going deep into religion and sometimes questioning the whole and concept of religion itself. So, in a way, as I said, it created community, it created explanations to things I wouldn't even call it explanation. It stopped you from having to think about things, basically. You know, it's easier to just say this is what you have to do. You didn't have to think much about that. Did those things make sense to me? I don't think they ever made sense to me. I didn't think the idea of burning in hell for life made sense to me. I didn't think the idea that God watching over us made sense to me much. I have always had a lot of skepticism about the supernatural in general. I've always been inclined to philosophy, I've always been inclined to think that actually made sense to me. So as a young person in my teenage years, when I listened to people who try to, in a way, suggest there could be other alternatives, those things attracted me. Even I would say as a teenager, even the idea of it, the theory of evolution, something I thought I wouldn't say have the full basis, but for me, it was something I was open to in a way. And there are a lot of things that never made sense to me, really. And I think that for many people around me, they felt that they believed blindly. I believe there are things they, you know, they brushed aside. I remember my parents, especially my dad, from even reading the Bible because he thought it was going to get us confused, which is a very Catholic thing, you know. I did do those things very secretly. I secretly started getting myself aligned with Pentecostal churches because those people were so much Bible-based because I wanted to understand what they were doing. But a lot of things made me so skeptical. I attended events where people spoke in tongues and I couldn't explain those things to myself, you know, essence, what it meant. And I don't think I attended events when people, some you know, so-called powerful preachers, were trying to heal people by laying their hands on them. I don't think I ever believed those things that, you know, they could make someone on a wheelchair to start working out, to make someone blind to start seeing all those kinds of things. So even though I stayed religious, I wouldn't say I was stayed religious, I didn't have any other alternative, but I always had my inner skepticism about those things. But at the same time, I think that the structure that religion provided kept me attached to it. So it was good to wake up on Sunday and know exactly where you are going to. It was easy to have special days in the calendar, you know, there's Christmas, there's Easter, there is whatever you have to do. The rules and order it provided seemed to have been useful in a way. And for me, so the problem is even when I had doubt about religion, but I never thought about what you replaced it with. And that is where the big challenge happened.

Leaving Home And Losing Religion

Christopher Ejugbo 7:28

But the first time I really stepped out of religion completely was um I left home as a teenager, I got a scholarship to study in the former Soviet Union. So I was free from my parents, I was free from every influence. I landed in a country where religion wasn't the order of the day. I was among my peers, you know, fellow young people who didn't care much about that. If people were interested, they could look for churches. But as soon as I got there, I never thought about religion. I saw that being away from it never affected me. I was surrounded with my mates, we had things to do. Um I think I started finding religion actually ridiculous from that point of view because there were some people who insisted on still importing Pentecostal religion and the all this loud speaking in tongues and banging on objects and the kind of display of holiness, really, for you know, demonstrative holiness really for that people have. I just couldn't get that. But at that point, you know, I still thought, well, I can't stand this kind of thing. But my Catholicism was okay because it was light. You could just go to church on Sundays and just don't have to get involved in all those kinds of things, really. But I think if someone asked me at that time, so do you think God there's no God? I might have said probably no, but I wouldn't have said it confidently because still the idea of, you know, if there's no God, then what? But over the years, things evolved, and when I found myself really lonely or feeling down,

Church As Community In The UK

Christopher Ejugbo 9:02

it seemed that religious groups were the first place to turn up, to turn to. And not because you are turning to God, but you are turning to community. And I think this is what religion has been very successful in doing, creating that community. I remember also many years ago, many years later, and after maybe about 20 years ago, when I arrived at a student again in arrived in Cardiff, Cardiff University, right at the train station, there were some Pentecostal churches with groups, knowing there will be new arrivals to the city. And you are basically there recruiting people, offering to give you a ride to the student accommodation, offering to leave your contacts with them, basically offering you some kind of assistance and support if you need it, without mentioning religion in any way, really. In fact, you know, and that was fascinating because in our society, there was no other person did that. Even the universities you signed up for didn't do that. They just gave you the address, arrive there, turn up on certain days. But these religious groups thought they could actually just offer some services and just pick people up. You know, someone calls you up once in a while, check how you are doing. But of course, by doing that, they also tell you that they're church and they have services on Sunday or they have what they call it weekly meetings you can join, or all those kind of things. And I found that attractive, really, not because I was so much wanted to go into God, but I just thought, wow, this is a community of people you could join, really. So I find myself going back to church specifically because of that, because here are people who are offering real community. I'm in a new city, completely alone by myself, and there are people offering you to support you, to help you, to be friends with you, with no conditions attached. But my doubt still continued because I go into those churches, I see what they're preaching. I mean, the theology never makes sense to me. You know, I you know, sometimes I stay there frustrated, all this running around, all this speaking in tongues, all this supernatural things that never made sense to me. Sometimes I'll sit there asking myself, what the hell am I doing here? So my journey became so much in out, in out, in out. Each time I felt I needed a community. Even when you think here, a friend of mine asked me a few days ago, imagine if you're completely lonely, depressed, whatever, where would you walk to now that doesn't require a ticket, doesn't require signing up churches.

Lola Tinubu 11:27

Right? This is why we are having this particular session, this podcast session. Because one struggle that I've had as an atheist is I found that we talk a lot about science, we talk a lot about reasoning, we talk a lot about logic. And what you are saying, yes, we are building humanist communities, we are working on that, we are progressing with that. But sometimes I still find that when we are in meetings, it's still about sometimes we criticize religion, and we are still talking about a lot about science, and then there is that emotional side, there is still something that I'm still thinking we still need to work at. So I want to trace your history, I want to go back. So you went from Nigeria and then you said you went to Russia, and it was in Russia for the first time that you found a space that was not as infested, if I will use that word, infested with religion as you as you have it in Nigeria.

Drawing A Final Line

Lola Tinubu 12:42

So when you came to the UK and then you went back to church because of community, when you did leave religion, how was that? When you then made that decision that okay, I'm going to walk away from religion, the final, how did you find dealing with that?

Christopher Ejugbo 13:05

Okay, I think I know the time when I drew that line and say no going back, and I never went back. Because I think it's difficult to know what exactly what the trigger is, really. In fact, but it must also more of um, you know, personal issue, going through very difficult moments, a bit depressed, asking myself a lot of questions about life and meaning of life, and um things about where do we get meaning, what makes sense to you? And uh I think I I just came to a conclusion, first of all, that religion didn't actually offer any answers to this about life in general. And I think I also became disappointed that I think I see people who claim to be religious, including priests, including pastors, and I just think that they're just being honest with themselves, really. In fact, so I have real contact with people who talk to priests who I knew that being priests was just a day job to them, but actually, outside of that, they they didn't really care about anything else, really. In fact, you know, I've seen priests who um, you know, the times when I was going to church say things about, I mean, there are so many cases and many events that I attended. I remember going to an Anglican church, a priest who was reading a place, he was reading something from the Bible that says something against divorce, which the Bible was kind of saying that you get married to someone, you stay with them for the rest of your life, that divorce is not allowed, and if you get divorced, you should never marry again. So he raised the place in the Bible, he started preaching. Obviously, in modern day and age, it's difficult to convince a modern British audience, really. In fact, you know, when they're 50% of divorce of all marriages, really in fact. So I saw how he was preaching things like that, and the the kind of the rigmarole to say yes, even though it's written in the Bible, but yeah, but yeah, my own daughter has also been divorced. And I saw a lot of rigmarole, people finding lee ways to get themselves out of what is written. So my question is like, why bother with the Bible if you don't want to say what it says anyway? You still want to live your life, you still want to use your reasoning to arrive at things, right? So all this idea that our morality is based on the Bible is for me, just I had a lot of reason to question that really in far because people are not living based on what is written in the Bible, they just claim oh, it's the word of God, or all this kind of thing. But when you make people make their decision, they do things differently. So for me, I mean it got to a point where I knew that none of that made sense anymore. Really, people are just doing what they thought was right, and I saw, and also at the point of my life where um we had more access to the internet to read things to YouTube and all those kind of things. I listened a lot to different people really for. I'm also remember doing a course by Yuva Harari on this platform called Coursera and going through that and seeing how life can be explained without having an external being doing it. Really, how we create meaning, how actually we can build meaning. There's no intrinsic meaning in life, really. It's meaning that we create. Of course, I became fans of people like Christopher Hitchens and the rest of the people, really. There was a time I would listen to all sorts of things non-stop, and those things made a lot more sense to me than any other thing that religion had to offer. I think it was at that time that I decided that there is no question I needed to answer, that religion provided the answer, and that I got better answers elsewhere. And I think that was the time when I basically drew the line, and actually, that was the point I knew there was no going back really far. Because when was this? Probably happened, you're talking about 15 years ago now.

Coping Without Prayer Or God

Lola Tinubu 16:54

You've talked about churches, religion providing community, the emotional support. But in terms of difficulties, when people are worried, when people have fears, when there are certainty, people turn to prayer to deal with those moments. So, without prayer, how have you been dealing with your emotions, your worries, your normal human feelings, especially the negative ones, without praying, how do you deal with this?

Christopher Ejugbo 17:31

I have to say, I'm just thinking a little bit and just telling myself, I suppose the advantage I have here is that growing up in a Catholic church, prayer was actually something that was memorized and just said. You went and said your hell marriage and our lost prayer, and you were not really linked to anything in your life, really, in fact. So it wasn't really something you turned you turned to for any sort of emotional support. But on the other hand, those things were automatic, right? There are things that for me, even when I didn't believe in God, during all my ups and downs, there were culture, for example, you start before you eat your food, you want to say the sign of the cross and you cross yourself, right? If I stop and say, Why am I even doing this? But because it became part of you, you know. And also there was one saying, someone said, a quote, someone I heard someone say that the biggest challenge for an atheist is that you are grateful, but you don't know who you are grateful to, right? It is this kind of thing that life is full of coincidences, right? And because I know you're focusing on the negative thing, but sometimes even on the positive things, really, in fact, you have an amazing coincidence, really, in fact. And you also, oh my god, thank you, God, my god, how lucky I am. But you get used to giving credit to an external being for doing that, really, in fact. And at some point, you still kept saying, Thank you, God, or you can't say that there's no God to thank, really, in fact, it's just a coincidence that it just happened.

Life Skills That Replace Faith

Christopher Ejugbo 18:52

But coming back to negative stuff, I think, yes, as you said, for emotional moments, people always turn to religion or times of difficulties, and it doesn't matter whether you joined the religious group or whether you went into silent prayers or whether you went into your yeah, silent prayers, really, in fact. But along with my transformation and giving up religion, there's also great moments that happened in my life that you know, because I started exploring how to live life, really, in fact. I started reading books, and my bookshop would be full of things with personal development, really, in fact, that have books here about getting things done, the habits of highly effective people, and all of those kind of things. I was also lucky to have a background, an academic background in risk management and project management and getting things organized. So, one of the things that occurred to me was you use all of these skills to get complex work done, like engineering and all those kinds of things. You can apply those things in your life, right? So for me, I turned into getting myself a lot more organized. I discovered that someone I told myself, why don't you do your own SWOT analysis? So the SWAT analysis you have your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities, and threats. I tell you, those are one of the things that transformed my life completely. Because my life didn't become chance anymore. So the SWOT analysis basically, these are all my strengths, which I can rely on. These are my weaknesses, which I'm very much aware of. These are the threats I face, these are the opportunities I have. Everything is in front of me, no surprises anymore. Think of all the worst case, because I think the worries in life is all the worst case scenarios that things can go wrong, all those kinds of things. But I've proactively identified all of those worst-case scenarios. I have them in front of me. And some of them I have, well, if this happens, this is what I can do about that. If that happens, I might have to accept it. And some of those things include things you can do in terms of people. If I'm worried, if I'm depressed, if I'm stressed, who do I talk to? These are all those kind of proactive thinking you do really far. It's about self-introception, understanding yourself, who am I? You can also ask yourself, what is it that makes you happy? Right? Just make a list of 10 things that make you happy. And you list those things. Make a list of people you call your friends, and make a list of things that can go wrong, and which of them can you go to? What are the worst things that can go wrong? You know, if you lose your job, this is what can happen, really. Even if you fall sick, this is what can happen. And

Death, Fear, And Social Support

Christopher Ejugbo 21:28

also, the thing is that's also the accepting the inevitable. The fact that one day we'll die, you know, that's the most extreme now, really. For me, it's actually coming to accept it, coming so much at peace with it, like it's just a logical end of things. Because one of the things that you see people who are religious, you know, even though people believe they die and go to heaven, and heaven is amazing, the angels are flying and singing, and all those kind of things, but people are still so terrified of dying, which is just ridiculous. Don't you want to go meet Jesus? Someone you can be singing and Praising and worshipping and all the time, really in fact, you have an opportunity to go meet the person and you're so terrified of that. It doesn't make sense to me, really. In fact, so for me, there are a lot of things I just concluded. Were you going to die? Yeah, of course, you make the effort, you know, you don't want to die today because there are a lot of things in the world to enjoy and all those kinds of things. But if it happens, that's the end. But also, when you get to the point knowing that death is the end of it, you don't feel pain, right? It's gone. The pain of death is actually the people who live behind you, really, for your friends and relatives, they're the ones that will mourn you. But that extreme situation. So when you come to reconcile with that, what else is there to fear then? Of course, I'm also happy to live in a society where there's a bit of, how do I say, social support, really? Fine. Now you can easily get a doctor, go to a doctor, you can have the ambulance rescue you for your pension. You know, you make contributions into your pension scheme so that when you get the old, you have something to rely on. You know that if you lose your job, you're not likely to end up in the street. But that freedom helped me make decisions in life. Do you want to buy a property? Do you want to buy something you can afford? So basically, it just gave me the power to solve my own problem because I have identified those problems myself. And you see that there's actually nothing to fear anymore, really, for in life anymore, really, in fact. And this time, but it's a continuous situation, really, in fact, about even question of loneliness, really. I feel more comfortable with myself spending the weekend alone at home. I don't have this desire to anymore to go wake up on a Sunday and go somewhere and just clap my hand with some strange gestures. I don't even know what they're clapping for. So it's about self-knowledge, know thyself, basically. That is the thing, and I'm really fascinated by self-just not having need for religion anymore. There's no problem it's solved now for me, really. In fact, so that is the thing.

Lola Tinubu 24:05

Christopher,

Message to Listeners

Lola Tinubu 24:06

you've said you've said a lot, and I hope we have listeners, especially young people, not even young people of all ages, who are where we used to be. You and I used to be, where we were thinking, well, what will be our community if we leave this? I always say that a lot of people are in church, not because they want to, just as you said, they are in church for the music. They are in church because church can be very entertaining. Absolutely. So people are in church for the music. People are in church for some of the pastors are stand-up comedians. Very entertaining. This theater of healing, you have the audience participating in it as well. They want, you know, all this theater wanting, I hope people that are listening, some of our listeners are going through, they are still going to church and they don't actually believe, but they don't know what to do about it. I hope that they are picking up on things and they are able to make that decision. Because if I heard you correctly, in terms of dealing with fears and negative emotions or even positive emotions, it's about life skills. You said, know thyself. So it's about different life skills. And I think you also say something, this society helps you, because in case of an emergency, there is the ambulance, if you have health problems, you still have the hospitals. And I think at the heart of what you are saying, that is the message that we want to take back to our leaders in Africa. People are going to church because services are lacking, because of insecurity, because we need to get our act together and organize our society better.

Christopher Ejugbo 26:05

I think you summarized it very well because what when you mentioned about security, it just makes one thing that makes me laugh is that if you go to many homes in Nigeria, I mean in the southeast, and on every door, people have stickers. This house is protected by Jesus or picture of Mary or Cross or anything really, which is so ridiculous, really far, you know, because that's the only thing people know, right? Of course, in modern society, you have a security services that is working well. People will have CCTV cameras to actually give them real protection for them homes, really, for which actually work because you can go home and see who passed around your house, who is coming in your house. But there, people believe that the only thing to protect you is to have those stickers by your door. I've

Why Religion Thrives Where Services Fail

Christopher Ejugbo 26:49

been to, I have to say, since I left Nigeria, I have not visited much, but it's ridiculous. For example, the few times you get on a public bus or coach and they spend the first 10-15 minutes saying very loud prayers, really, God bless the tire, bless the road, play though, cast out all the demons and all those kinds of things. And then the driver starts driving recklessly. And you think yourself, really, you know. If you could all follow traffic rules, if the authorities could have whole roads without potholes, if you could have traffic lights and have speed limits, the road will be safe. And you will not have to say those loud 20-minute prayers before you leave every journey. One thing you you said about this idea of religions being entertaining, one of the things I've actually realized, especially in recent years with being an atheist now, really, in fact, at a mature age of being an atheist, is the liberation to actually enjoy the entertaining part of religion. If you get what I mean. So, for example, as I said, I was brought up in a Catholic home. I love Latin Mass. Reading for you know, I still remember Latin Mass. I can still recite the credo and the Lost Prayer and all of those things in Latin. Just wake me up anytime and throw me into a church where they're singing or that singing in Latin, I will be there reading fine. So when I travel, I like going into churches reading fire. I like the architecture, the design, the story, all the countries I've been traveling around Asia for the past two and a half years. Everywhere I go, churches, I work in there, the architecture, the story. Even for me, the idea of hearing people reciting Hail Mary in Vietnamese, for example, or in Philippines, or it's just fascinating. I'll actually just sit down there and just I'll say, wow, this is amazing, really, to see people do that and see, even just as an observer, observe people's dedication to in their own ways, really, and see how religion has been interpreted, interpreted really in different places. I walk into temples, living in Taiwan, really. In fact, you want to walk into every temple, they have the gods, the statues, the gold, everything, really. But now you go there as a liberated person, really. I love the entertainment, I love the architecture, but I don't really care what you believe in all of those things, really.

Enjoying Religion As Culture

Lola Tinubu 29:17

So there is a song when I was a believer that I used to love. I don't know if you are familiar with this. The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord, is my strength, the joy of the Lord is my strength, the joy of the Lord is my strength, the joy of the Lord is my strength. What is your joy? What is your strength, Christopher?

Christopher Ejugbo 29:54

Oh wow, that's a very good question. I think I can just repeat exactly why I said my strength comes from myself about knowing myself. Really, honestly, my strength really comes from knowing myself, knowing that I can articulate what I want, what makes me happy, what doesn't make me happy, what to stay away from, knowing that I'm a self-examined person. Yeah. Really, in fact, that I'm not living life at random. I think this is really where my strength comes from, knowing that I have interests, hobbies, including listening to music or making friends or traveling and all those kinds of things. That's really where my strength comes from, honestly. And I think it makes me a very confident person, generally.

Lola Tinubu 30:44

I've never this will remain with me for the rest of my life because I've never really, I've never really thought of things in that way before. So this is a deep one for me personally, so that my strength can come from knowing myself. Thank you for that. Thank you so much for that, and I hope our listeners too can get to know themselves, discover themselves, and have joy and strength from that. I will never forget that. You can say amen to that as well now, already. Amen. Big Amen. In Christopher, thank you so much, Tristopha. You've been fantastic.

Christopher Ejugbo 31:32

Thank you very much.

Lola Tinubu 31:34

If you enjoyed today's episode, please follow us wherever you get your podcast. And don't forget to share and tell your friends. I've been your host, Lola Tinumbu from the Association of Black Humanists. This has been Secular Sankhofa. Until next time, stick boldly, think freely, and live consciously like Christopher.

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