eX-skeptic

What happens when suffering shapes your picture of God?

For Paul Snyder, the God he rejected as a young boy seemed harsh, distant, and impossible to please. Growing up amid fear, family brokenness, rejection, and disappointment, he concluded that if God existed at all, He certainly wasn't good.

By the age of twelve, Paul had reached a po...

What happens when your search for truth leads beyond philosophy and into the unexpected?

Mark Schneider is a former skeptic whose life was marked by profound questions about meaning, purpose, and reality itself. Though raised in a nominal Catholic home, faith became irrelevant to Mark early in life. As a young man, he embraced a materialistic worldview and searched desp...

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Growing up in a deeply Christian home, Shayla Perez assumed that faith was simply part of her family tradition. But as she entered her teenage years, skepticism began to grow. Questions about suffering and whether Christianity was actually true led her into ...

For decades, Charles Murray assumed what many educated people quietly assume - that religion belonged to an earlier age and that science had rendered belief in God unnecessary. He wasn't hostile to faith. He simply left it behind.

But over time, questions he had never fully examined began pressing in. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why does the universe app...

Is Christianity true because it works, or does it work because it's true?

For years, Ellie Long was convinced that Christianity was nothing more than a story people used to cope with life. Raised in a secular environment and embracing atheism at a young age, she wrestled with despair, depression, and the belief that life ultimately had no purpose beyond birth and death.

What happens when anger, disappointment, and painful family experiences shape your understanding of God?

For Rich Robison, faith wasn't something he was searching for. Raised in a fractured home and moving 26 times before graduating high school, Rich eventually rejected God altogether. His anger toward his earthly father became anger toward any heavenly Father, and athe...

What would cause someone with both emotional and intellectual reasons to reject God to reconsider?

Mark Haville grew up in the UK in an abusive home with no religious foundation and little reason to believe God was real. Science, suffering, and life experience all seemed to point him away from faith. But an unexpected encounter with a persistent Christian neighbor, a st...

What does it cost to build a life without God?

For Anh Le, it meant carrying everything - his identity, purpose, success, and morality, alone. Raised without religious commitment and shaped by a worldview rooted in self-reliance, Anh believed meaning and fulfillment was something you created and earned.

And for a while, it seemed to work...

What if the biggest barrier between you and God are the quiet lies you’ve believed about Him your entire life?

Jeremy Gronau carried those lies for years, formed through trauma, loss, and a lifetime of trying to prove his worth. After growing up without a clear understanding of the gospel, Jeremy built his identity on achievement, strength, and performance, ultima...

What if being brilliant, successful, and disciplined still isn’t enough to save you from fear, obsession, and self-destruction?

From the outside, Lisa’s life looked enviable—PhD, postdoctoral research at a leading medical school, and a rising career in behavioral health. But beneath the surface, she was unraveling: anxiety, eating disorders, addiction,...

What happens when atheism is taken seriously all the way to its logical conclusions?

For Luke Thornton, raised in a deeply secular culture in the UK, honesty about those implications led not to certainty but to discomfort and eventually to an argument he couldn’t ignore.

Luke Thornton grew up in northern England in a culture where ...

What if the worldview you trusted most began to crumble under its own weight?Chris Wright grew up in a deeply Christian home, surrounded by Scripture, church life, and belief. But as he moved into adolescence, competing ideas like evolutionary theory, cultural pressure, and hidden personal struggles pulled him steadily away from the faith he knew.

By the time he reached...

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What if denying Christianity felt like freedom—but that path slowly revealed itself to be hollow?

In this episode of eX-skeptic, Jana Harmon sits down with Grenville Kent, an Australian theologian, filmmaker, and former...

What if the questions that once pulled you away from faith could be the very questions that lead you back?

That’s exactly what happened to Matt Schmidt. As a naturally inquisitive kid, Matt felt the weight of questions that no one around him could answer — questions about science, origins, morality, and whether the Bible could be trusted. With no guidance or...

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Before she became one of today’s leading Christian thinkers, Nancy Pearcey walked away from Christianity. Disillusioned by shallow answers and a painful home life, she turned instead to atheism, relativism, and Eastern spirituality in search of somethi...

What happens when faith feels like pretending, and you can’t live with the disconnect anymore?

Erika Diaz-Castro, a wife, mom, and Bible teacher who once lived a double life—publicly religious but privately wrestling with doubt, shame, and the pull of self-fulfillment. Her story traces a winding path through skepticism, identity confusion, new-age spirituali...

Have you ever tried to find peace by walking away from God or from the judgment and expectations that once made faith feel heavy?

Heather Sewell shares her story of running from faith and searching for peace. Raised as a pastor’s daughter, Heather learned early how to wear masks and manage secrets. As her family’s struggles deepened, so did her confusion abo...

What if you’re content with life, confident in science, and still quietly curious?

Dr. Jim Small, MD, PhD, pathologist, professor, and lifelong scientist was raised without faith and felt no need for God. Science explained the world well enough. But through marriage, community, and simply showing up at church, curiosity began to stir, not from crisis or doubt, but...

What happens when a brilliant researcher, once convinced God was nothing more than a cultural artifact, decides to take a second look?

In this episode of eX-skeptic, Dr. Lee Holcombe shares his remarkable journey from faith in childhood, through skepticism and intellectual dismissal of Christianity, to a surprising return to Christ. With a career spanning electrical eng...