I was raised as an Episcopalian but it never really clicked with me. I kind of struggled with that my whole life.

When I was at Stonybrook I kind of had an epiphany of that sort and kind of became between an agnostic and an atheist.

This may sound strange, but the apartment I was living in was infested with cockroaches. I used to watch them do their thing. And in watching them, I got this sense that it all just kind of evolved. It seemed like that was it, like we really didn’t need a god. I felt like religion was kind of comforting for people, but it is a made up thing.

Since then, I have been very comfortable with it. Before that I thought there might be something wrong with me because I didn’t click with religion. I guess in watching them, I became aware that they were like little machines. When I would turn the lights on, in the cabinets there were shelves. I would pull the shelves out a little bit so there was a little crack. Then I could push the shelf closed and crush them. I felt like they were like something you could program a machine to do. When the light came on, they would scurry into a dark crevice.