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 over ideology. He is hopeful for his generation's ability to make positive change in the world from the secular, scientific and political perspectives. And he has good advice for those in the process of coming out: "Protect yourself, do it in your own timing." Erik's book recommendation: Velvet Rage by Alan Downs https://www.amazon.com/Velvet-Rage-Overcoming-Growing-Straight/dp/1611746450 Help for coming out: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/get-help-now/ https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/ Just for fun: Erik mentions Lady Gaga's song Born This Way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw I mention Sam Smith's Lay Me Down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaMq2nn5ac0 Interact: Send in a voice message to the podcast: https://anchor.fm/gracefulatheist/message Deconversion Anonymous episodes: https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/category/podcast/deconversion-anonymous/ Attribution: "Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Makaih_Beats  Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/