Graceful Atheist Podcast

My guest today is Brady Hardin. Brady is the co-host and creator of the Life After Podcast. Brady's story of deconstruction is a painful one. He dedicated his life to ministry at 14. He discovered he was gay, was honest about it and committed to never acting on it. He got married to a woman. He was doing everything "right" everything that was expected of him. My biggest "sin" w...

My guest today is Karen, the co-host and creator of the Deconversion Therapy Podcast. Karen is a comedian, a writer, and now a podcast host. She grew up attending Evangelical schools from grade school to Bible college. Everyone is good at something. I was good at being a Christian. Karen was so dedicated to Christianity she became a missionary with YWAM. After attending DTS, she and her husband mo...

My guest today is Dave Warnock. Dave was an Evangelical christian for almost 40 years. Many of those years were spent in ministry in one form or another. Dave decoverted around seven years ago. His deconstruction and deconversion cost him close family relationships. But he has found love, affection and support in the non-believing community. In early 2019 Dave was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig&#3...

My guest today is Alice Greczyn. Alice runs the Dare to Doubt website dedicated to millennials who are detaching from harmful belief systems. Alice tells her story growing up with purity culture, Christian Courtship and Alice's nearly arranged marriage. She describes being an atheist while surrounded by LA spirituality. She tells the story of cult-like acting classes. As a Christian she felt s...

My guest today is the Counter Apologist AKA John Lopilato. John is active on Twitter as @CounterApologis. He has a YouTube channel called Counter Apologist. He is also one of the new co-hosts of the RealAtheology podcast. John has taught himself philosophy, apologetics and counter apologetics. In fact, he learned apologetics in a desperate attempt to keep his faith. Ultimately, he found the apolog...

My guest today is Andrew Knight. Andrew is the host of the Still Unbelievable podcast and co-host of the Ask an Atheist Anything podcast. He is a contributing author to the book Still Unbelievable. Andrew has been a Recovering From Religion peer support agent helping others through their questioning. He promotes the message: "Let's talk about human problems from a human perspective. Human...

My guest today is Matthew Taylor. Matthew is the host of the Ask an Atheist Anything podcast and the co-host of the Still Unbelievable podcast. He is the primary editor and contributing author of the book Still Unbelievable. His blog is entitled Confessions of a Young Earth Creationist. Matthew's deconversion story includes growing up in the mission fields in Zambia, a young Earth creationist...

My guest today is Erik Carlson. Erik is a secular humanist and an atheist. His background in the sciences and biology led him to question his young Earth creationist and Calvinist faith tradition. Discovering his sexuality led him to question the morality of his John Piper inspired Christianity. All of which culminated in deconversion. Erik's humanism is evident in his focus on loving people o...

Lisa: Secular Sobriety My guest today is Lisa. Lisa runs a YouTube channel where she shares from her life experience, recovery from substance abuse and humanistic values. Shortly after getting into recovery, Lisa also deconverted. We discuss what it was like to go through recovery and deconversion almost simultaneously. Lisa shares about secular alternatives to the 12 steps like SOS and SMART Reco...

My guest today is the producer and subject of the podcast, Hiding in Plain Sight . Tom is a non-believer living in the UK. He decided to explore the hidden things that surround him that he has so far left unexplored. He takes on the task of a search for meaning within the Christian framework. The Hiding In Plain Sight podcast is very well produced, it has its own original music and it takes an hon...

Today's show is a Deconversion Anonymous episode. Sassy Atheist is on the show. Sassy has a YouTube channel where she honestly describes her deconversion and her earnest desire to help others through the process. Hear her heart breaking story of a broken relationship with a loved one because of her deconversion. Sassy's search for truth included Episcopalianism, Catholicism, Evangelicalism...

My guest today is Jennifer Michael Hecht. Jennifer is a poet, an author, an award winning academic and an intellectual historian. She has written numerous books from a secular perspective. I asked Jennifer to come on the show to discuss her book Doubt: A History and its profound effect on me post-deconversion. She is one of my intellectual heroes. It is hard to express how much this book has influ...

We throw around the term religious trauma but what exactly does the term actually mean? On today's show, my guest is Kathleen B. Shannon. Kathleen is a physiotherapist. She is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Washington state and a Listened Professional Counselor in North Carolina. I asked Kathleen to be on the show to talk about religious trauma from an expert's perspective. What doe...

On today's episode my guest is Kimberly Stover. Kimberly works in the space of losing religion recovery. She describes this process as as having three phases: Reflect, Recover then Rise. Kimberly and I discuss religious trauma syndrome, the #EmptyThePews movement, how narcissism relates to Evangelicalism and rising up out of recovery. On Kimberly's site she has resources for those in the p...

Today's show is a Deconversion (not so) Anonymous episode.  In these episodes, people like you who have gone through a faith transition can tell your story either anonymously or in all your glory. It is your choice. If you would like to tell your faith transition story anonymously or otherwise get in touch with me at gracefulatheist@gmail.com or @GracefulAtheist on Twitter. On today's epis...

Have you noticed on this side of faith, you cannot escape references to meditation? I have to admit I am a bit of a skeptic when it comes to mediation. So I decided to have my friend and colleague, Andrew McLeod, on the podcast to help me understand what the practice of insight meditation is all about. Andrew has been practicing meditation for 20 years, he has been on multiple silent retreats and...

On today's episode I am finally getting the opportunity to discuss the topic I am most interested in: Humanism or what I call Secular Grace . It is ultimately about answering the question, "how do we live life well post deconversion?" Rather than looking backwards, it is looking forward to learning to thrive as a human being. My guest today is Jim Palmer. Jim is an ordained minister, r...

Today's show is a Deconversion (not so) Anonymous episode. In these episodes, people who have gone through deconversion or faith transitions tell their stories anonymously or otherwise. On today's episode, my guest is Matt Cook from Toronto Canada. Matt was a former evangelical missionary to Pakistan and a preacher who lost his faith about six years ago. Matt is not your typical deconvert....

This is the first "A Believer Interviews the Graceful Atheist" episode.  In these episodes, I will have believers on who I have grown to trust interview me. Rather than try to argue with them I'll see if I can get them to understand why I no longer believe. The idea is to reverse the roles and have the believer in the skeptics seat asking the questions. As deconverts, we may find ourse...

This is the first of the Deconversion Anonymous episodes. In these episodes, people who have gone through deconversion or faith transitions tell their stories. On this episode, Susan from Scotland tells us how she grew up Presbyterian but began to ask hard questions at a very early age. She felt empathy for those who were different from herself and recognized a lack of empathy in the church leader...

Welcome to the Graceful Atheist Podcast My name is David and I am trying to be the Graceful Atheist. I am a humanist . And I believe that human connection is the most profound experience one can have. It is this human connection that will be the focus of the podcast. There are three main themes that I want to explore: Faith Transitions, Secular Grace and Self Honesty. Faith Transitions The first t...