My guest today is Matthew Taylor. Matthew is the host of the Ask an Atheist Anything podcast and the co-host of the Still Unbelievable podcast. He is the primary editor and contributing author of the book Still Unbelievable. His blog is entitled Confessions of a Young Earth Creationist. Matthew's deconversion story includes growing up in the mission fields in Zambia, a young Earth creationist education, the divorce of his parents and dramatic spiritual experiences. Friends began to challenge his rejection of evolution and podcasts began to give him natural explanations for his spiritual experiences. He began to be disappointed in the apologetic arguments as compared to scientific explanations. Deconversion was challenging and Matthew took a long time to tell his wife of his loss of faith. Matthew wants to help others through the deconversion process. He recognizes that it is a lonely process and that what we need most is another human being who has been through it too. "Suddenly I realized I could no longer be a Christian. The suddenly doesn't describe my journey, the suddenly describes my awareness." "If I am there when you deconvert, my response is not 'hallelujah,' my response is 'how are you? Do you need a hug? Do you need a friend?'" Note: Both the Still Unbelievable book and podcast are responses to Justin Brierley's Unbelievable podcast and book. Justin's podcast brings atheists and theists together for debate. Justin is considered an honest moderator. His book's subtitle is Why After Ten Years of Talking with Atheists, I'm Still a Christian. Matthew's and his colleagues' responses take aim at those reasons.
Links: Matthew on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/vteclimey Confessions of a YEC blog:
https://confessionsofayec.wordpress.com/ "God takes the good people early" post:
https://confessionsofayec.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/god-takes-the-good-people-early/
Reason Press:
https://reasonpress.net/ "Still Unbelievable" the book:
https://reasonpress.net/SU1E
Podcasts: Still Unbelievable
https://anchor.fm/still-unbelievable Ask An Atheist Anything
https://anchor.fm/reasonpress
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/