Barrett Evans: The Contemplative Skeptic

Graceful Atheist Podcast

My guest this week is Barrett Evans, author of The Contemplative Skeptic. Barrett wrote the book for those who are skeptical but drawn to spirituality. A former evangelical seminarian and ex-Roman Catholic, Barrett is an agnostic who has retained a fascination with contemplative spirituality. Building on what he learned in his divinity, counseling, and historical studies, he draws on hundreds of religious and secular sources in an effort to combine honest doubt with the best of contemplative experience. It is proper to doubt. We discuss how honesty and humility lead to doubt. Barrett’s look at comparative religion reveals the reasons for doubt and the wisdom of a contemplative life. We ask what does it mean to be “spiritual.” The tremendous range of religious diversity is one of the greatest reasons for skepticism towards any particular religious belief. Links The Contemplative Skeptic https://www.amazon.com/Contemplative-Skeptic-Spirituality-Non-Religious-Unorthodox-ebook/dp/B085W7F7WB/ Barrett’s website https://www.americannone.com/ Honest Doubt https://www.americannone.com/post/doubt-and-the-good-life Twitter https://twitter.com/ContemplativeS4 Interact Secular Humanist Graces Thanksgiving secular grace sayings https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/secular-grace/ Steps to deconversion https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/ Critique of Apologetics https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/critique-of-apologetics/ Full show notes https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2020/11/15/barrett-evans-the-contemplative-skeptic/ 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/