My guest this week is Joel Berry, the podcast host of the Petty Prophet Podcast. Both his blog of the same name and the podcast are from the Christian believer and politically conservative perspectives. Joel is very much a believer. He had listened to the Graceful Atheist Podcast and was curious enough to initiate a conversation. [Due to fundamentalism] I think that I was teetering, when I was 19, …, and I was deciding which direction to go with my life, teetering in my faith a little bit, and I joined the military, became a Marine Corps infantry man. Within a year I was in Fallujah. [I was] a sheltered kid, [a] home schooled fundamentalist. I am taken out of the [United] States, out of my Christian bubble, and I spent a year in Iraq. … I had a little Bible in my flak jacket that I read when I could. Joel meets me in an honesty contest in which we both push each other but also take the time to listen to one another. I think it makes for a compelling conversation. What compels me about Christianity? I think the first thing was that, and this is experiential … , I was taken out of a Christian world … and I open my Bible and I read the words of Jesus in the Gospel and the words of Jesus really drew me in, there was something about that man that seemed other worldly and amazing to me. Joel experienced a deconstruction from a fundamentalist form of Christianity. He left the IFB. He left a fundamentalist Calvinist theology. But he maintains in his words “a childlike faith.” [I got into] aplogetics, the reasons to believe, the reasons for my faith, but all that stuff it’s all arguments, none of it is completely conclusive, and there is still an element of childlike faith involved. This is a 20 Questions with a Believer episode. Joel and I take turns asking each other questions and then crucially allowing the other person to answer. Links Joel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoelWBerry The Petty Prophet Blog: https://thepettyprophet.com/ The Petty Prophet Podcast https://thepettyprophet.com/homepage/petty-prophet-podcast/ Interact In the final thoughts section I make reference to this tweet: https://twitter.com/GracefulAtheist/status/1218199410682691594 Joel brings up several episodes he has listened to. Here are links to those episodes: Laura Anderson: Adverse Religious Experiences: https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2019/10/31/laura-anderson-religious-abuse-and-religious-trauma/ Matthew Taylor: Confessions of a Young Earth Creationist: https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2019/06/20/matthew-taylor-confessions-of-a-young-earth-creationist/ 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/

And what else would you want from life except to connect with other people … and to talk about things that matter and ask the big questions? My guest this week is Marie D’Elephant the host of the Everyone’s Autonomous podcast. Marie has a powerful and unique voice in the secular community. She is passionate about her own autonomy and the autonomy of others. What is next? Since none of that is real, what is going on and how do I want to live? Her new podcast jumps off where Everyone’s Agnostic leaves off. What to do now after a faith transition. The podcast “hosts conversations about reclaiming our autonomy and advocating for the autonomy of others through the lens of recovering from religion.” OK, I’ve been heard, I understood what happened, how do I resolve this, how do I move forward? We discuss existential dread, the fear of aging and facing death. Marie talks about her work on Everyone’s Agnostic and taking on managing Dave Warnock‘s Dying Out Loud tour. Mostly we talk about autonomy and how you can discover yours. I love this autonomy and this is the life that I want to live! Links Everyone’s Autonomous Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/everyones-autonomous/id1485253552?mt=2&app=podcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/s_autonomous Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/everyonesautonomous/ Interact Dave Warnock Episode: https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2019/08/08/dave-warnock-dying-out-loud/ 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/

What happens when you are married to a person based on your mutual faith and one of you deconverts? My guest this week is Sarah who is a believer married to a former Christian and now atheist deconvert. Sarah describes herself as “born again.” She is a dedicated Christian who is very active in her church preaching and teaching. Her integrity, honesty, and heart for people come through with shining colors in this interview. After many years of marriage that was predicated at least in part on their shared faith, her husband informed her he had deconverted and was no longer a Christian. He goes on to blogging and podcasting about his atheism while she continues to teach and preach at her church. As you might imagine, this was and is a difficult process of transition for both Sarah and her husband. This decision that you made on your own affects us; it affects both of us. The core of our relationship was centered around church and being Christians. We talk about the complexity of being Unequally Yolked. She describes what it felt like when she learned her husband no longer believed. How do they discuss the Bible together? How do they handle their daughter and the Alpha Course? We explore ways to make a marriage work when one spouse believes and the other does not. This has been a major theme of Secular Grace: that relationships are valuable and worth keeping even when we disagree on faith. And it is our job to love our friends and family through our deconversion process. This is a 20 Questions with a Believer episode (formerly known as A Believer Interviews the Graceful Atheist). Sarah and I take turns asking each other questions and then crucially allowing the other person to answer. Links Recovery From Religion has a resource page with a section entitled: Spouses/ Partners With Mixed Belief Systems (from a secular perspective) https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/religious-resourcesUnequally Yolked (from the Christian perspective) https://thriveglobal.com/stories/what-does-it-mean-to-be-unequally-yoked/ Interact If you are a believer and would like to have a 20 questions honesty contest with me on the podcast, get in contact: [email protected] Secular Grace https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/secular-grace/Steps of Deconversion: Telling your family and friends https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#in-and-out-of-the-closet 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/

My guest this week is Janice Selbie. Janice is a Registered Professional Counselor (RPC) in Canada helping people through religious trauma syndrome. Janice is the director of the Conference on Religious Trauma. Janice’s personal story of fundamentalism, tragedy and eventual freedom is inspiringly and honestly told on the episode. Was it possible that everything I had believed had been wrong? CORT2020 is sponsored by the Secular Therapy Project (a division of Recovering from Religion) and by Journey Free, which is Dr. Marlene Winell’s organization. Use the discount code GA036  for $60 off a standard ticket. Janice also provides a workshop called “Divorcing Religion” using the analogy of divorce to help people out of fundamentalist religion. It might take a tragedy (or more than one) to shake you lose from your cognitive dissonance. This episode is another in the series of mental health professionals who specialize in religious trauma, religious abuse and the emerging term Adverse Religious Experiences. Links Conference on Religious Trauma https://cort2020.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wise_Counsellor https://twitter.com/divorcereligion Secular Therapy Project https://www.seculartherapy.org/ Journey Free https://journeyfree.org/ Interact Series on Adverse Religious Experiences https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/category/adverse-religious-experiences/ 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/

My guest today is Brian Peck. He is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) who specializes in religious-based trauma in his private practice and who helps guide individuals through their deconversions with evidence-based practices online. His practice is called Room to thrive and Brian describes it as “secular therapy for human well being.” It is trauma-informed therapy and coaching. Brian has had a huge impact on me and my thinking. It was a great pleasure to get to pick his brain. You can hear me learning in real-time during our discussion. If you have survived trauma (of any sort), your nervous system did exactly what it needed to do to survive. This episode is another in an ongoing series of mental health professionals who specialize in religious trauma, religious abuse and the emerging term Adverse Religious Experiences. We humans need community to survive. Links Room To Thrive https://www.roomtothrive.com/ Twitter https://twitter.com/RoomToThrive Facebook https://www.facebook.com/RoomToThrive/ Viral "Trauma is not your fault (period)" post https://www.facebook.com/RoomToThrive/posts/2496151297329417 How and Why We Believe https://lifeaftergod.org/059-how-and-why-we-believe-part-1/ Interact I quote Brian in my article on the Steps of Deconversion https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/Adverse Religious Experiences series: https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/category/adverse-religious-experiences/ 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/

My guest is Laura Anderson. We discuss religious abuse, religious trauma and the difference between them. Abuse is the thing that happened to you. Trauma is the experience that your body or nervous system has as a response to the thing that happened to you. Laura is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the State of Tennessee, a Professor of Psychology and an Approved Supervisor through the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). She has a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy and is in the final stages of completing my completing her Ph.D. in Mind-BodyMedicine at Saybrook University. Laura specializes in complex trauma, religious trauma, religious abuse, and purity culture. Laura has developed a manual for mental health professionals on Adverse Religious Experiences and Religious Trauma which is available on her website. This is a resource for both mental health professionals and those who have experienced adverse religious experiences themselves. Use the discount code: RELIGIOUSTRAUMA15 for $15 off the price of the manual. Links Website: https://www.lauraandersontherapy.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ms_elleanderson Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ms_elleanderson/ Interact On the show, I mention my writing on the steps of deconversion and “doubling down” that can be found here: https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/ Send in a voice message to the podcast: https://anchor.fm/gracefulatheist/message 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/

My guest today is Captain Cassidy. Cassidy blogs at Roll To Disbelieve on patheos.com. Her focus is on deconversion, counter-apologetics and generally describing the mind-warping nature of religion. Cassidy has an array of metaphors and analogies in her writing that make a vivid picture of what it is like to believe and then not to. Cassidy's "Extimony": She is a former Catholic, was briefly a baptist and then stayed a Pentecostal for a time. Until she realized the context of her faith mattered. While at a prayer group set in a normal university room “out of the context” of a church she realized it was all an act. She now describes herself as “a humanist, a skeptic, a freethinker and a passionate student of science, mythology, and history.” Join her “Commentariat,” a thriving community of commentators on her blog at https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/. Links Blog: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/ The Handbook for the Recently Deconverted https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/the-handbook/ The Unequally Yoked Club https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/the-uyc/ Newbie Guide https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/series-list-and-newbie-guide/ Pool of Faith https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/2018/02/18/why-i-rejected-christianity-then-and-now/ Conservation of worship https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/2016/06/03/christians-and-the-law-of-conservation-of-worship/ Doctrinal Yardstick https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/2019/03/04/the-doctrinal-yardstick-illustrates-a-serious-problem-with-christianity-lsp-81/ Atrocity Apologetics https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/2013/12/09/the-christians-guide-to-ex-christians-atrocity-apologetics/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/casmadeherroll Cat Photos! https://www.instagram.com/rolltodisbelieve/ 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/

My guest today is Bret Gallatin. Bret is a secular humanist activist. He is about to launch a new podcast covering secular matters and politics. What you believe affects everybody, it doesn’t just affect you. Bret is a pastor’s kid. More than that he is a member of a multi-generational Evangelical family. He was expected to go into the family business. He was on track to do so, going to bible college and working at the church’s radio station ministry. The easiest place to hide being gay is in the purity culture. Until questions about his faith and honesty about his sexuality led to his deconversion. On the path of grace, he began to question if his interpretation of the bible was correct. His coming out to his father who was also his pastor was a defining moment for Bret. https://twitter.com/BretG/status/1158427818130366464 At the end of the day, how do you know you are right? How do you know your brand of Christianity is right? Links Twitter: https://twitter.com/bretg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radbret/ Recovery From Religion: https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/ Interact: Send in a voice message to the podcast: https://anchor.fm/gracefulatheist/message 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/

Today's show is a Deconversion Anonymous episode. My guest today is Fred. Fred is a relatively new deconvert who is not entirely out as a non-believer. He has told his son, but no other family members including his wife. Fred grew up Catholic then his family discovered charismatic Catholicism. He has moved through various charismatic protestant churches during his adult life. He still participates in church with his family. Fred grew up in the '80s and lived through the Satanic panic, D&D panic and the Evangelical fear of Rock and Roll. While studying anti-cult apologetics against Mormonism and Scientology, Fred experienced the outsider test for faith. He began to question his faith which did not stand up to scrutiny. "Anyone who wants you to think that you can stand on the strength of your faith and get what you want is placing a burden on you because so many times what you really wish for will not come true and you will blame yourself." 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/

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” was to believe that the Holy Spirit actually changes people from the inside out and makes them more like God. Then he got divorced (you have to listen to understand why), was kicked out of ministry, lost his best friend and had his son taken away. He described himself as “God’s only forgotten son.” This was where his deconstruction started. Why am I the only one trying to do the Holy Spirit’s work for the Holy Spirit? He needs to do something. The ball is in his court. Today Brady is an openly gay man, a humanist and a deconstruction super star. You can find him on the Life After podcast, on Twitter and Facebook helping others through the deconstruction and deconversion process. Brady is dedicated to raising awareness of Spiritual Abuse, Religious Trauma, and Indoctrination. I can gaslight myself to be even more indoctrinated or I can take a second, get my head above water and realize: my logic has been drowning this whole time because I have been putting conclusions before evidence and trying to shove these narratives into real life instead of observing what is actually there and working off of that. In the episode, Brady breaks down how narratives affect our lives. The Evangelical narrative is restrictive and repressive. But we can choose our narratives: a narrative of freedom, self-expression and inspiration. [Narratives are] what we are using now, with honesty, as atheists and with responsibility to tell our own stories. Links Twitter: https://twitter.com/BradyHardin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thelifeafterorg/ Community group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thelifeafter/ The Life After Podcast https://www.thelifeafter.org/ Interact Send in a voice message to the podcast: https://anchor.fm/gracefulatheist/message 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/