Podcast Link.
August 23, 2008 – Guests: Ernie Chambers and Katha Pollitt
Saddleback abomination. Religious test for office. Homophobia on parade. Supreme misunderstanding.
5:20 Ernie Chambers 2nd appearance; discusses his case against god; omnipotence & omniscience precludes service. the case was brought specifically because courts should be open to any body for any reason (the way the law reads in Nebraska) he goes through a few of the counts against god listed in the lawsuit.
18:40 Catha Pollitt, flocking to faith; Obama’s complete betrayal of the constitution, with his announcement to continue the faith based initiative.
She qualifies her bile with her intention to continue her support for Obama. I find this blind subservience to any political faction sad & disgusting.
2007 Archive episode.
August 25, 2007 – America is not a christian nation
Convention blurb
5:15 theocracy alert. Texas pledge modification (how about no pledge? My children do not pledge) David Vidder, latest conservative hypocrite. Bill Moyers’ religious judgment error with Martin Marty. God’s warriors.
20:30 Ed Buckner has a chapter in Everything You Know About God is Wrong with the title America is not a christian nation. To some of us, this is not news. Decent interview all the same.
2006 Archive episode.
August 26, 2006 –The Evolving Religious Assault on Evolution: Lawrence Lerner
Neo-Nazis protesting on women’s equality day. Only Turkey has a smaller percentage of people who accept the proof of evolution than the US. Evolution left off list of acceptable low income US education grants. Pope sacks astronomer. Coulter smears Darwin (earns label of coultergeist)
Larry Lerner representing the Fordham Foundation and the report he co-wrote www.edexcellence.net on science standards in the classroom. The discussion revolves around the problems of setting and maintaining education standards, and the evolving nature of creationism.
Kristen Lems & Dan Barker sing The Preacher & the Slave
Freethinkers almanac.
There are those who say Dawkins goes too far in his attack on religion. That he fails to understand the true nature of religious mystery; that his criticism relies on a parody of faith that he himself set in place, and that people do not take seriously anymore. those who make that objection tend to belong to the mild kindly end of the religious spectrum. these days we should be in no doubt of what the other end of the spectrum is like and we might remember that no social structure ever gives up power because it wants to. If some parts of the christian church are decent and tolerant today, it is because the crusaders and inquisitors and witch burners have been shamed and stripped of their authority by the great critics of religion, some indeed who belonged to the church itself. But all of whom were accused in their time of going too far.
Philip Pullman
we don’t trust numbers to build up a cause; rather we look at principles, to the truth and the right.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Editor’s note
This article ended a year spent detailing individual episodes of Freethought Radio, a task I set myself almost on a lark after being told by FOX news that the show should never be heard on American airwaves. As you can tell from the spotty work done on some of the episodes, it was a task that I regretted taking on long before I got to the end of the year that I set as my goal.
Freethought Radio still isn’t accessible on an individual episode basis on the Freedom From Religion Foundation website. You have to go to the archive page and hunt and peck for the individual episode you are looking for. I have also stopped listening to the podcast on a regular basis. I still catch the odd episode when I have need of something different to listen to, and there is a episode in the queue that looks interesting to me.
The format of the show has never changed and neither of the two hosts of the show really seem to understand how to conduct a radio show that isn’t grindingly repetitive. They have at least managed to stay on the air, week in and week out for nearly fifteen years now. This is more than I can say for other podcasters out there.
