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Graceful Atheist Podcast

Graceful Atheist Podcast

David Ames

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1 Creator

A secular humanist podcast about Secular Grace after deconstruction and deconversion. The podcast takes an honest look at stories of faith transition from a life-altering faith, to doubt and deconstruction, to deconversion, and finally, to a thriving graceful life post-deconversion. My name is David, and I am trying to be the Graceful Atheist. Join me and be graceful human beings. https://gracefulatheist.com/ Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist
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Top 10 Graceful Atheist Podcast Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Graceful Atheist Podcast episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Graceful Atheist Podcast for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Graceful Atheist Podcast episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Graceful Atheist Podcast - Jennifer Michael Hecht: Doubt A History
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05/16/19 • 83 min

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 influenced other secular writers and thinkers. This book has strongly influenced my other two favorite books Greg Epstein's Good Without God and Katherine Ozment's Grace Without God. Both of which quote Doubt throughout. Jennifer proved to be as profound a thinker as her reputation makes her out to be. It was my privilege to attempt to keep up with her in this interview. I am indebted to Jennifer for coining the term "graceful life philosophy." My concept of Secular Grace is an attempt to live a graceful life philosophy. "Great believers and great doubters seem like opposites, but they are more similar to each other than to the mass of relatively disinterested or acquiescent men and women. This is because they are both awake to the fact that we live between two divergent realities: On one side, there is a world in our heads— and in our lives, so long as we are not contradicted by death and disaster— and that is a world of reason and plans, love, and purpose. On the other side, there is the world beyond our human life—an equally real world in which there is no sign of caring or value, planning or judgment, love, or joy. We live in a meaning-rupture because we are human and the universe is not." -- Jennifer Michael Hecht Links: Jennifer Michael Hecht's website: http://www.jennifermichaelhecht.com/ Books: Doubt: A History https://www.amazon.com/Doubt-Doubters-Innovation-Jefferson-Dickinson/dp/0060097957/ The Happiness Myth https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Myth-Expose-Jennifer-Hecht-ebook/dp/B000PDZFTS/ Stay: A history of suicide and the philosophies against it https://www.amazon.com/Stay-History-Suicide-Philosophies-Against/dp/0300186088/ Review: My review of Doubt: A History https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/review-doubt-a-history/ Recommendation: My story on the Deconversion Therapy Podcast https://deconversiontherapypodcast.com/2019/05/09/15-remembering-the-humor-of-rachel-held-evans/ 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/
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Graceful Atheist Podcast - Bryan: Ex-Apologist

Bryan: Ex-Apologist

Graceful Atheist Podcast

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01/30/23 • 86 min

This week Arline guest hosts interviewing Bryan the Ex-Apologist. Bryan grew up in a deeply fundamentalist church. Not only did they believe they were the True Church, they were taught they they were the Only Church.
Bryan spent his teen and young adult years preaching, evangelizing and heatedly debating others. He was convinced he had all the right answers and other people needed those right answers. He sees his younger self as a “jerk for Jesus.”
Realizing he was wrong about a single theological issue, he began to wonder, How do I know what’s essential and what’s not? If there was absolute truth in the world, Bryan was determined to find it. He has come a long way from the fundamentalism of his youth, and you can find his current counter-apologetics research and writing at The Ex-Apologist blog.
Links
The Ex-Apologist blog
https://theexapologist.com/
Email
[email protected]
Interact
For quotes, recommendations and more see the full episode show notes
https://gracefulatheist.com/2023/01/29/bryan-ex-apologist/
Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion
Support the podcast on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist
Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/
Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/
Deconstruction
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/
Attribution
"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
https://makaihbeats.net/
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Graceful Atheist Podcast - Brady Hardin: The Life After

Brady Hardin: The Life After

Graceful Atheist Podcast

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09/05/19 • 84 min

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/
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Graceful Atheist Podcast - Daniel: Office of the Skeptic

Daniel: Office of the Skeptic

Graceful Atheist Podcast

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10/10/22 • 85 min

This week’s guest is Daniel. Daniel is a social scientist with a master’s degree in psychology. He grew up in the United Church of Canada, but church wasn’t a huge part of his life until high school. He then went to bible college and worked in ministry. He tried to experience God like others were, but it just wouldn’t happen. He took on the “Office of Skeptic,” for himself. He hoped it would both help his faith and the church. He could articulate questions and doubts that others couldn’t. Were these miraculous stories true? Was God really even there? If so, what the hell was he doing? Unfortunately, this only kept him in the church longer than he needed. By 2020, he’d been an agnostic theist for years and was finally seeing the harm done in North America by White Christianity. Now Daniel writes and speaks, sharing his knowledge with those struggling with addictions and other mental health needs. He no longer looks to the supernatural for miracles but knows how much human connection is the true healer. Links Here’s How Religion Imprints Us — Even When We Walk Away https://www.templeton.org/news/heres-how-religion-imprints-us-even-when-we-walk-away Religious Identity and Morality: Evidence for Religious Residue and Decay in Moral Foundations https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167220970814 Interact For quotes, recommendations and more see the full episode show notes https://gracefulatheist.com/2022/10/09/daniel-office-of-the-skeptic/ Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversionSecular Grace https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/Deconversion https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/Deconstruction https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/ Attribution "Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats https://makaihbeats.net/
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Graceful Atheist Podcast - Sarah: Deconversion Anonymous

Sarah: Deconversion Anonymous

Graceful Atheist Podcast

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04/02/20 • 68 min

This week’s show is a Deconversion Anonymous episode. My guest this week is Sarah. Sarah is a co-author of the book “Still Unbelievable!” She is a regular poster on the Unbelievable? discussion boards. Sarah has a unique blend of down to earth perspective and an intellectual rigor. Sarah grew up a Christian. She was a part of the Shepherding Movement which is now considered a cult. She has moved from the Anglican church, to (British) Baptist, and then to Charismatic Vineyard churches. Until she began to research her own faith. What she found was an utter lack of evidence and a confusing morass of conflicting information. She describes her search for validation as “going forensic” as she studied apologetics, philosophy, cosmology and evolution. Ultimately, she could not keep god on “life support” and she is now an agnostic. Links Reason Press and the Still Unbelievable! book https://reasonpress.net/ “Sophie’s” Story https://reasonpress.net/SU1E/Sophie1 https://reasonpress.net/SU1E/Sophie2 Skeptics and Seekers https://skepticsandseekers.squarespace.com/blog/x-tians-part-one-what-christians-who-stay-need-to-know-about-the-christians-who-dont Justin Brierley’s Unbelievable? podcast https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable Interact Deconversion https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/Secular Grace https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/Send in a voice message to the podcast: https://anchor.fm/gracefulatheist/message Support the podcast here. 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/
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Graceful Atheist Podcast - Logan Thomas: Beyond Belief

Logan Thomas: Beyond Belief

Graceful Atheist Podcast

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01/25/21 • 90 min

My guest this week is Logan Thomas who blogs at Beyond Belief. Logan interned at St. Andrews, a famous church in the UK. He went on to Bible college and eventually perused a Master’s degree in theology where he studied biblical studies, biblical languages, history and textual criticism where he began to question. After discovering his sexuality, Logan came out during his internship at St. Andrews. He discusses coming out twice. He started with a more progressive view on homosexuality. But between the Church’s stances and the biblical texts, he realized these things could not be reconciled. We discuss the differences between UK and US churches handling of the LGBTQ community. Logan cares about the truth. As he was deconstructing what he believed about the bible based on what he was being taught at Bible college he came to a point where he could no longer believe. Logan tells his story with a great deal of honesty and self-reflection on his former faith. Now Logan has a social media presence where he blogs and creates videos asking questions about faith and doubt. Links Beyond Belief Blog https://www.beyondbelief-blog.com/ Twitter https://twitter.com/itsbeyondbelief Instagram https://www.instagram.com/its_beyondbelief/ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw-jiLmRFSpxKuSldp7bzEQ/ Interact Full Show Notes https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2021/01/24/logan-beyond-belief/ Deconversion https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/Secular Grace https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/A Humanist Podcast https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/podcast/ Rate and Review the Graceful Atheist Podcast Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/graceful-atheist-podcast-1136736 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/
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Graceful Atheist Podcast - BONUS: Bryan the Ex-Apologist

BONUS: Bryan the Ex-Apologist

Graceful Atheist Podcast

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02/03/23 • 33 min

Enjoy the rest of Arline and Bryan, the Ex-Apologist, in this bonus episode. Bryan goes into more detail around apologetics and counter-apologetics.
Links
The Ex-Apologist blog
https://theexapologist.com/
Email
[email protected]
Interact
For quotes, recommendations and more see the full episode show notes
https://gracefulatheist.com/2023/01/29/bryan-ex-apologist/
Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion
Support the podcast on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist
Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/
Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/
Deconstruction
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/
Attribution
"Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats
https://makaihbeats.net/
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Graceful Atheist Podcast - Randal Rauser: Conversations With My Inner Atheist
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10/05/20 • 77 min

My guest this week is Randal Rauser. Randal is, in his own words, “a systematic and analytic theologian of evangelical persuasion.” He is a professor of systematic theology, apologetics, and worldview at Taylor Seminary. Randal has written a number of books on apologetics and atheism. I first became aware of Randal’s work around 2017 when I read “Is The Atheist My Neighbor.” At least in the circles, I am a part of, Randal is considered to be a fair and honest apologist and is widely regarded for “steel-manning” atheist arguments before giving his arguments against them. This week we discuss his new book, “Conversations With My Inner Atheist.” In this book, Randal personifies his doubts as an interlocutor named Mia, My Inner Atheist, who presents the atheist, humanist and naturalistic arguments against his faith. Randal shows real vulnerability in several of these dialogues and often leaves the matter without a satisfactory conclusion by either party (believing Randal or non-believing, Mia). As you might imagine, I have some thoughts on these matters most of which I express in the Final Thoughts section of the podcast. We also discuss a recent back and forth between Randal and Ian Mills of the New Testament Review Podcast fame on the topic of methodological naturalism. Links Blog https://randalrauser.com/ Twitter https://twitter.com/RandalRauser YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/RDRauser Books Conversations With My Inner Atheist https://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Inner-Atheist-Christian-Apologist-ebook/dp/B08G4ZWLY7/ Is The Atheist My Neighbor https://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Neighbor-Rethinking-Christian-Attitudes-ebook/dp/B0118FX8E0/ Interact My Critique of Apologetics https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/critique-of-apologetics/ Full Show Notes including links to the Randal and Ian methodological naturalism discussions https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/?p=5839 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/
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Graceful Atheist Podcast - April Ajoy: Evangelicalish

April Ajoy: Evangelicalish

Graceful Atheist Podcast

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03/20/22 • 70 min

This week’s guest is April Ajoy, viral Tiktok’r, youTuber and podcaster. She is a “recovering conservative humorously detoxing religion.” April had a unique childhood. She was homeschooled and spent half of each year in Pentacostal spaces and the other half traveling the US with her family, singing and evangelizing. Her parents were evangelists and her grandfather was a pastor of a megachurch, so even as a young person April had seen cracks in the traditions and beliefs. She didn’t see them as systemic, though, only random, separate incidents. Over the next decade, tragedy hits April’s family and God does not step in to thwart it, a family member comes out to her and she realizes she cannot continue believing much of what white Christianity has painted as “good news”. Today, much of April’s childhood beliefs have been dissected and thrown out, but she is loving others in a much deeper way. She still considers herself a Christian and is fighting injustices in her own creative way. “Humor is how I cope with trauma.” On social media, April tackles all the difficult subjects—white supremacy, misogyny, purity culture, the absurd things evangelicals post online and more! She brings levity and fun to serious topics in a way that will make you laugh out and that is good medicine. Links TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilajoy Instagram https://www.instagram.com/aprilajoy/ Twitter https://twitter.com/aprilajoyr Evangelicalish on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/c/Evangelicalish Interact Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/deconversion Full episode show notes https://gracefulatheist.com/2022/03/20/april-ajoy-evangelicalish/Secular Grace https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/Deconversion https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/Deconstruction https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/#deconstruction/ Attribution "Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats https://makaihbeats.net/
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This week’s guest is Judah. Judah grew up “Church of God, Pentecostal adjacent,” where Judah’s father was convinced, “God is alive in these people.” By eight years old, Judah was speaking in tongues and absorbed into eschatology—the study of the end times. Around ten, at a more “separatist” church, the family started homeschooling. His church and family were convinced they were right and everyone else was wrong. Answers in Genesis was the science curriculum, but Judah was also exposed to science on public television. As a teen, another pillar began to crack. Judah believed his attraction to guys and girls was sinful. It felt like God was two opposing forces—one god you lean into for love and grace, the other shames and condemns you. Judah doubled down on young earth creationism and repressing his sexual attractions and dove deeper into eschatology. The family’s eschatology changed over time, but 2012 was the year the end of the world would come. Eventually 2012 comes and 2012 goes. This undid Judah. He spends the next three years learning what else was not true, debunking creationism, conspiracies and various theological matters. Judah was a more liberal Christian for a while but eventually science and logic led him to become an agnostic atheist. He came out with his beliefs to his family in dramatic fashion and hasn’t looked back. His future is in his own hands and whether his family takes responsibility for their beliefs and actions during his childhood is in theirs. He now lives a life true to himself and his own values and ethics. Links Judah’s blog https://jmedic.medium.com/ Interact Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group! Deconversion https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/Secular Grace https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/ Attribution "Waves" track written and produced by Makaih Beats https://makaihbeats.net/
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FAQ

How many episodes does Graceful Atheist Podcast have?

Graceful Atheist Podcast currently has 201 episodes available.

What topics does Graceful Atheist Podcast cover?

The podcast is about Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Podcasts and Philosophy.

What is the most popular episode on Graceful Atheist Podcast?

The episode title 'Jennifer Michael Hecht: Doubt A History' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Graceful Atheist Podcast?

The average episode length on Graceful Atheist Podcast is 71 minutes.

How often are episodes of Graceful Atheist Podcast released?

Episodes of Graceful Atheist Podcast are typically released every 7 days.

When was the first episode of Graceful Atheist Podcast?

The first episode of Graceful Atheist Podcast was released on Mar 14, 2019.

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