This week’s show is a Deconversion Anonymous episode.
This week’s guest is Seth. Seth was the oldest child in a large homeschooling family who attended attended mostly non-denominational churches. He was always studious and had read through the Bible multiple times before adulthood.
In high school, Seth made his faith his own and dove deeply into Youth Earth Creationism. He studied at a state university and a few years after graduation began work at The Creation Museum.
“It was a dream come true for me but also turned into not-a-very-good experience…”
While living near the museum, Seth was introduced to a fringe religious movement he describes as “Messianic Judaism meets evangelicalism meets conspiracy theories.” In the Hebrew Roots movement, Seth discovered teachings he’d not encountered before and some doubts began to creep in.
[Sharing the gospel] I went into detail on all the doctrine and as I was saying I realized I wouldn’t believe it if I were hearing it from somebody else.
Over the next year, Seth continued to experience conflicts between YEC and Hebrew Roots. The two ways of thinking were at odds—flat earth or round, scientific cosmology or the broken body of a leviathan?
My faith “tendon” was getting stretched and stretched and stretched.
There was a point … it felt like part of my brain just broke and almost in an instant I realized I couldn’t believe anymore.
By 2020, Seth realized he was an atheist, no longer able to convince himself to believe again.
So, finally realizing that I didn’t believe and admitting to my self I was an atheist was some of the most terrifying moments of my life on an emotional level.
“I was climbing up that slope the whole time, getting closer and closer to God and then…I stepped over the edge, and I just plummeted.”
Recommendations
Books
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Youtube
- Paulogia
- Viced Rhino
- Godless Engineer
- AcapellaScience
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/
Support the podcast
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist
Paypal: paypal.me/gracefulatheist
Attribution
“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats
gracefulatheist.com 