If I’m Really Honest

What happens when a minister stops believing, but religion has become his career, community, and identity? Former Pentecostal minister Duane Grady joins Jamin Coller for a conversation about changing beliefs, leaving ministry, and the human cost of being honest about doubt. Duane is president of The Clergy Project, which supports current and former religious professionals who no longer hold supern...

Dan Barker is a former evangelical minister, author, musician, and co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. In this conversation, Dan reflects on leaving the ministry, changing deeply held beliefs, building a meaningful life without faith, and defending the separation of church and state. DAN BARKER: Freedom From Religion Foundation: https://ffrf.org/about/ffrf-board/dan-barker/ Books...

Dr. Kipp Davis is a biblical scholar specializing in the Dead Sea Scrolls, early Jewish literature, and the history and transmission of biblical texts. In this conversation, we examine what the Dead Sea Scrolls actually tell us, how scholars evaluate ancient manuscripts, and where popular claims about the Bible can outrun the evidence. KIPP DAVIS: Research: https://independent.academia.edu/KippDav...

Will Gervais is a cultural and evolutionary psychologist who studies religious belief, disbelief, morality, and how human minds make sense of gods. In this conversation, we explore why some people believe while others do not, what psychology reveals about atheism and religion, and the assumptions both believers and nonbelievers often get wrong. WILL GERVAIS: Official website: https://willgervais.c...

Rolf Potts is a travel writer, essayist, and the bestselling author of Vagabonding and The Vagabond’s Way. In this conversation, we explore what meaningful travel can teach us about attention, freedom, identity, and building a life on purpose. ROLF POTTS: Official website: https://rolfpotts.com/ Books and essays: https://rolfpotts.com/books/ Vagabonding on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Vagabo...

Peter Boghossian is a philosopher, educator, former Portland State University professor, pioneer of street epistemology, author of A Manual for Creating Atheists, and coauthor of How to Have Impossible Conversations. We discuss intellectual honesty, why changing your mind should be considered a virtue, friendship across ideological lines, the difference between virtue-based relationships and triba...

Bryan Caplan is a New York Times bestselling author, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, and one of the world's most influential libertarian economists. He's the author of The Myth of the Rational Voter, The Case Against Education, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, Open Borders, Build, Baby, Build, and several other bestselling books....

Phil Halper is a science communicator, astrophotographer, creator of the Before the Big Bang series, co-author of the acclaimed book Before the Big Bang, interviewer of many of the world's leading cosmologists, and co-author of one of the largest surveys ever conducted of physicists' views on cosmology. In this conversation we discuss what physicists actually mean by "the Big Bang," why many scien...

Ali Lapper is an internationally acclaimed artist, disability rights advocate, author, television presenter, and former subject of one of Britain's most iconic public sculptures. Her monumental portrait, "Alison Lapper Pregnant," stood on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, making her one of the most recognizable disability advocates in the world. In this conversation, Ali and I discuss disabil...

Unabridged, FULL episode: https://youtu.be/rlCFKSxoOp0 Jeran Campanella was one of the most recognizable voices in the modern Flat Earth movement, creator of the Jeranism YouTube channel, speaker at Flat Earth conferences around the world, featured participant in Netflix's Behind the Curve, and one of the Flat Earth representatives selected to travel to Antarctica for "The Final Experiment." In th...

Marine biologist Hal Whitehead has spent more than four decades studying whales, pioneered research on sperm whale culture, helped transform how scientists understand whale societies, and authored groundbreaking work on animal culture and cultural evolution. In this conversation, we explore whether whales have culture, how sperm whales pass knowledge between generations, why some scientists resist...

Gary Noesner spent more than 30 years with the FBI, served as Chief of the FBI's Crisis Negotiation Unit, led negotiations during the Waco siege, helped reshape modern hostage negotiation training, and authored the influential book Stalling for Time. In this conversation, Gary and I explore what actually works when people are at their worst. We discuss the lessons of Waco, why negotiation should a...

Joel Salatin (@FarmLikeALunatic) is one of the world's most influential voices in regenerative agriculture. He is the co-owner of Polyface Farm, author of more than a dozen books, featured prominently in The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food, Inc., and numerous documentaries, and has spent decades challenging conventional assumptions about food, farming, government regulation, and sustainability. YouTube:...

Nicholas Christakis is a physician, sociologist, bestselling author, Yale professor, director of the Human Nature Lab, pioneer of social network science, and author of Blueprint, Connected, and Apollo's Arrow. His research has transformed how we understand friendship, cooperation, social contagion, tribalism, and the evolutionary origins of human society. For the Love of Science (YouTube): https:/...

Sean B. Carroll is one of the world's leading evolutionary biologists, a bestselling science author, former Vice President for Science Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Stephen Jay Gould Prize, and a pioneer of evolutionary developmental biology ("evo devo"). In this conversation, we explore Darwin's life and character, the evidence for...

Brad Duchaine is one of the world’s leading researchers on face perception. He’s a Professor and Chair of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College, co-founder of Faceblind.org, and one of the foremost experts on prosopagnosia (face blindness) and prosopometamorphopsia (PMO)—the rare condition where faces appear visually distorted. PMO: https://prosopometamorphopsia.faceblind.org/ Pros...

"Flat Earth Dave" Weiss of @flatearthdave is one of the foremost voices in the flat earth community. We talk about: * The emotional cost of changing your mind * Losing friends and family over beliefs * Distrust of institutions and authority * Why Dave walked away from a successful career * Whether truth-seeking becomes isolating * The psychology of conspiracy thinking * Why he believes Flat Earth...

"Professor Dave" Farina of @ProfessorDaveExplains is one of the internet’s largest science education and debunking channels. In this episode, I sit down with Dave Farina (Professor Dave Explains) to talk about conspiracy theories, anti-science thinking, Joe Rogan, flat earth, the psychology of belief, and why intelligent people can still fall for ideas that don’t hold up under scrutiny. We also di...

Dr. Daniel Whiteson is a theoretical physicist at CERN, a professor at University of California, Irvine, and a contributor to the discovery of the Higgs boson. He is also the co-host of the podcast “Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe” and author of popular science books exploring the limits of human understanding. What if physics isn’t actually “real”… but just the way humans happen to desc...

Mark Sargent  ⁨@markksargent⁩  is a leading figure in the Flat Earth movement. Rather than focusing on proving or disproving claims, this conversation dives into the experience of belief - what leads someone there, what keeps them there, and what it costs relationally. From frustration and fear to community and identity, this is a conversation about how humans make sense of the world, even when th...

In this conversation, I sit down with Dr. Joshua Bowen to explore - Where the Bible came from. - Whether the Bible actually endorses slavery - How ancient people thought about morality - Why stories like the flood appear across multiple cultures ...and why the Bible might become more interesting after belief, not less Guest Links: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalHammurabi Website: https:/...

Jonathan Rauch and I explore: *What happens when we lose religion… but still need meaning *Why truth feels harder to find right now *Whether Christianity is helping or hurting society *The role of religion in sustaining democracy *What deconstruction actually costs ...And whether it’s possible to keep the values of a belief system… without believing it’s literally true Cross Purposes: https://www....

Michael Shermer joins me to talk about truth - what it is, how we know it, and why so many of us get it wrong. We explore the difference between empirical truth and religious truth, why conspiracy theorists are often wrong (but sometimes right) and what actually causes people to change their minds. Along the way, we get into Bayesian reasoning, the role of emotion in belief formation, and whether...

In this conversation, I sit down with Eduardo Briceño to unpack what’s really going on there—and why that instinct might be the very thing holding us back. We talk about: *The hidden cost of “pretending” instead of being curious *How growth mindset actually works (and what people get wrong about it) *The role of gratitude in learning, resilience, and emotional stability *What it means to live a li...

Psychologist Michael Langone, longtime executive director of the International Cultic Studies Association, discusses manipulation, shame, recovery, religion, psychopaths, and the complicated psychology of influence. https://michaellangoniphd.com Superfan Page: https://JaminColler.com/iirh_Superfans #IfImReallyHonest #TeamPossiblyWrong