On to part 3 of my in-depth series on my favorite Atheist podcasts! Please, keep the excitement down to a minimum…

The Imaginary Friends Show

This podcast is controlled comedic chaos, presided over by one Jake Farr-Wharton, an Australian Atheist Superman. He gets some people on there he knows, and some guests, and they just basically riff off of each other and discuss whatever stories interest them, from an Atheist viewpoint. One of the regular bits done on the show are fill-in-the-blank questions presented to whatever coterie of fine people are on the show at the time. These questions are based on current news stories, and the objective is to come up the funniest shit you can think of. Giving the ACTUAL answer to the heretofore mentioned question is frowned upon, and is considered bad form. An awesome show, and fun listen.

The Scathing Atheist

This is one the big daddies of the Atheist podcasting community. The podcast is headed by the redoubtable Noah Lugeons, a wordsmith par excellence, who can spout more cool, cogent, and germane commentary in one minute than I can even think of in twice that time. He is accompanied by Heath Enright, an intrepid New Yorker who is fucking hilarious and crude as shit (like yours truly), and his honey-voiced wife Lucinda, who makes an appearance all too rarely for my taste. Together, this team offers up, dare I say, scathing and insightful commentary on the news of the day. They do the “30 seconds”, in which, in what is often over a minute, come up with clever answers to whatever topic they have a mind to concoct, such as “names of a strip club/convent co-op”. This is some high-quality shit, my friends. And, thanks to the generous support of their Patreon, err, patrons, they have just extended the show to an hour! So now you quite twice the awesomeness, which means more times for interviews and feedback. Hell yeah!

Atheists on Air

This is a podcast I have just recently come across, thanks to hearing about it from Paul over at Quranify Me. This is the first Atheist podcast I have heard that features the lilting drawl of my native land, that being the American South. Hailing from the Appalachian hills of North Carolina, Cash and his friend Professor Stephen give a Southern perspective on Atheism, and the unique place Christianity holds in Dixie. As a Southerner living in Tennessee, I can relate to the stories of outright hate directed at anything that even smells like Secularism or free thought. And Cash is the perfect guy for the job, a hard drinking, heavy smoking redneck (in the best possible sense) who isn’t afraid to tell these religious fucksticks just where they can go, and where precisely they can place their hypocrisy and bullshit. Along with periodic asides from the hilarious parody of a churchman, one Pastor Roy of The Catfish Creek Trailer Park, this show is the best thing to come out of the South since The Allman Brothers.

Well, that does it for my playlist as of right now. There are a couple of more that I have heard of that I would like to listen to, such as Prophetcast and Irreligiosophy, but frankly I only have limited time to listen to podcasts with two jobs: one job which I listen to the podcasts, as well as driving between jobs and home. The Atheist Podcasting Community as a whole is awesome, though, and I have found there to be great co-operation and camaraderie among the podcasters, especially when there is a cause close to their hearts. To me, this goes to show that one does not need to be religious to do good works, which religious fucktards would do well to remember the next time that want to call Atheists baby eaters with no morals.

As promised (and I know the wait has been excruciatingly difficult!), here is the second part of podcast playlist! :

Cognitive Dissonance

  If you like laughter, cursing, and disdain mixed in with your Atheism, you’ve come to the right place! Tom and Cecil present us with news stories, while mercilessly attacking the idiocy of those who they despise, which is mostly stupid right-wing religious types. I myself enjoy this sort of wilting sarcasm and copious fuckery, since I am a sarcastic asshole. Throw in some interviews with interesting guests, and Leviticus Mad Libs, and you have all the ingredients of a long-lasting podcast.

Skeptically Challenged

  While technically not an Atheist podcast, the host Ross Balch appears on Atheist podcasts occasionally, and has professed Atheist leanings. Nevertheless, if the subject of pseudo-science in all of its incarnations interest you, this is a great podcast. He has covered topics such as the anti-vaccine campaign, homeopathy, and self-proclaimed psychics. He also sometimes has guests to clarify and expand upon these topics further. If you’re a hardcore skeptic, or just curious about skepticism in general, it’s worth a listen.

The Herd Mentality

 This show, hosted by the irrepressible Adam Reakes, sees the intrepid host people he has only just met on twitter to get their views on subjects mostly to Atheism and Secularism, but sometimes other topics that interest him. He has also started doing skits such as “interviews” with various people, generally ignorant religious windbags, where he takes snippets from interviews the subjects have done in other settings to make hilarious answers to the questions he asks. Another one of his running gags is his portrayal of Ray Comfort, an Australian douchebag evangelist (did I mention Adam was based in Australia?), wherein we find out his love gold-plated buttplugs and his hatred of Atheists. Ray is joined in these skits by his assistant Raylene, portrayed by that saucy temptress Rah. Her voice and laugh are enough to make me spew milk through my nose. The production is top-notch, and I highly recommend it.

  Well, looks like I have run out of time again! Since I work two jobs, the only time I have to do these blog entries is at lunch at my main job, which is a measly one hour. Ah well, guess you’ll just have to come back to see the next part in this ongoing investigative series! Until next time, fuck God (figuratively of course. Don’t go around fucking statues of Jesus or anything)!

 I only got into listening to Atheist podcasts fairly recently, but I’ve got some favorites that I listen to on a regular basis. Being how I don’t have any money to give them through Patreon (which allows you to contribute so much money per episode), I thought I would do the next best thing and plug it on here. Granted, only me and a couple of others even know of this blog’s existence, but, hey, maybe one day it will big and influential! Yeah, I doubt it. Anyhow, here are some of my favorites:

 My Book of Mormon Podcast

  Ever wanted to read the Book of Mormon (and who doesn’t?), but you didn’t want to actually go through all the work of actually reading it on your own? Then this podcast is the one for you! Listen to the dulcet tones of David Michael guide you through the LDS holy book with a unique brand of humor, wit, and insight, all while not saying one fuck or shit! I don’t know how he does it, honestly. He also does special shows where he interviews people, which, so far, have included ex-Mormons and the head of an organization that helps out ex-Mormons who are trapped in their situation and need help to get out. You can donate to this organization, called the Taylor Scholarship, by going here. Did I mention David is super nice? Great show.

Quranify Me

  Another podcast that also reads through a holy book, but this one concentrates on the Quran. Paul Q. has expanded his show to include interviews with Atheists who have had harrowing experiences trying to escape Islam, as well as doing various skits on some his shows. Paul has taken the cause of the harm Islam does to everyday people and has made it his own.He doesn’t shy away from using blistering criticism to get his point across, and his righteous anger shines through like fire in the night. Not for the easily offended, but definitely for those who believe in freedom from Islam’s damage to the human condition.

Thomas and the Bible / Atheistically Speaking

  Completing my “holy trinity” of holy book podcasts comes Thomas and the Bible, which, strangely enough, goes through the Bible! Imagine that! Thomas has been doing this for a while now, but I just now picked up on recently. I’m only on Exodus right now, and he is all the way up to Proverbs I believe right now. I find his constant incredulity at the absurdity of the claims the Bible makes a constant source of hilarity. Recently, he has said he may stop doing it if he doesn’t receive more pledges through Patreon, simply because he is concentrating his time mostly on another podcast he does, called Atheistically Speaking. This show is more of a general show concentrating on Atheism. He offers “Tomentary” (sp?) on Atheist/Secular issues, and also does interviews with various guests, including some rather prominent names in the Atheist community. Both of these podcasts are well worth a listen.

  There are more podcasts, but you’ll have to wait with bated breath for the next installment of my playlist! 

 From The Friendly Atheist blog (via The Nashville Scene) comes this story, which piqued my interest because it’s from my neck of the woods, so to speak. Oak Hill, TN, a snug, wealthy satellite city in Metropolitan Nashville, TN, held an election for city commissioner recently, and one of the candidates was a lady named Heidi Campbell. The main issue she ran on was stopping commercial development in the “wooded hills” of her environs. Apparently, this was a rather controversial issue, because some dirty tricks were used to try to defame her, in the form of anonymous fliers sent out to area residents. Steven Cavendish of the Nashville Scene posted pictures of these fliers, and they would be funny if they weren’t so pathetic. On one flier, we are informed that Mrs. Campbell “liked” a secular humanist group on Facebook. Horrible! But as if they weren’t enough, we flip to the other side and see that Secular Humanists want to drive all the churches out of Oak Hill! Say it ain’t so!

 Well, these tactics were for naught, because she ended up getting a seat on the commission when the election was held a few weeks later. The drama is not over, however, because Mrs. Campbell has vowed to find out who was responsible for smearing her (you know, because it’s horrible to be a secular humanist!), and has filed a John Doe defamation suit to find out the culprit.

 Now, I think it’s worth mentioning that she un-“liked” the Secular Humanist group on Facebook, but she still likes a “Free Thinkers” group. Aside from any of that, though, is the fact that it is fucking ridiculous that this is even an issue. It’s not like she said she was a raging Atheist, and that she masturbates to Richard Dawkins photos every night. She simply liked a Facebook page! I guess it just goes to show, even in a relatively blue county like Metropolitan Nashville – Davidson, this type of stereotyping and loathing of anything that even has a whiff of free thought is dismissed summarily.

So I’m sitting here at McDonald’s ingesting something that they claim is “food”, but I suspect is some variant of Soylent Green, simply because I need the Wi-Fi to kill time before my phone is fixed, and I come across a reference to an article written in regards to the new discovery of significant amounts of water in the Earth’s mantle. This is in itself is not significant, but for the author of said article being Answers in Genesis.

For those of you who have been in suspended animation and haven’t heard of this group, AiG is the organization that runs the creationist museum in Kentucky. Its leader, Ken Ham, debated Bill Nye (of Science Guy fame) on Creationism vs Evolution. His entire argument was “well, there is a book that explains [insert any claim here].

Anyway, AiG believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible, which includes thinking Noah’s Flood really happened, and that somehow a pair of every species on  Earth was able to fit on a big wooden Ark. I’ll come to the significance of the Flood belief in a moment.

Now, this article on the discovery of water in the mantle played it pretty straight for a while, describing the crystalline rock that enables the water to be stored and the process by which it is formed.

But then we come to this passage:

As we examine this discovery in light of the history of the global Flood documented in God’s Word, we see that water not only changes everything about the way a planet works in the present, but also about 4,300 years ago at the time of the global Flood. Dr. Snelling explains:

What is the profound significance of this discovery? It confirms the capacity of the mantle to have housed the water that was released when the fountains of the great deep were broken up to commence the Flood, and the huge volume of water that was released through these fountains for as much as 150 days, providing more than enough water to help submerge the whole globe, just as described in Genesis 7:11–24 (NKJV).

That’s right, all that water below the surface explains the Flood! Why didn’t I think of that?

And then a little later there’s this:

Pearson’s conclusions about the explosive rapid transit that delivered the little diamond to the surface also have implications for our understanding of geological events at the time of the global Flood. Dr. Snelling says:

Interestingly this study also concluded that the diamond hosting this ringwoodite inclusion must also have come from the 410–660 km zone.  This in turn means that the explosive volcanism responsible for blasting diamonds in volcanic rocks into the earth’s upper crust and even to the surface within a matter of hours, must have in at least some instances started from this 410–660 km zone. Similar explosive volcanism could therefore have potentially been responsible for releasing and catapulting water from this deep mantle storage reservoir up to the earth’s surface during the Flood.So this study seems to confirm a major component of the catastrophic plate tectonics model. The break-up of the earth’s crust into plates and the resultant continental sprint was initiated by the cataclysmic release of the waters for the Flood through these fountains of the great deep.

Though we were not there at the time of the global Flood, God in His Word, primarily in Genesis chapters 6–9, has provided us with an eyewitness account of the violent events that remodeled the earth’s surface. The geology we see today has been strongly influenced by the global Flood, and Bible-believing geologists like Dr. Snelling note that what we see is consistent with biblical history. The Bible’s history helps us understand what we see in nature and to understand that our world did not require billions of years to take its present shape. This latest discovery is likewise completely consistent with biblical history.

Catastrophic Plate Tectonics, in case you didn’t know (and no halfway intelligent person would know) is the Creationist theory that the Flood somehow caused all the shifting of the continents that actually occurred over millions of years. But, hey, when God’s involved, he can make that shit happen instantly.

Anyway, I thought it was funny and sad the way the Creationists try to twist any real scientific discovery into their own mythological framework. Pretty fucking pathetic, really.

Here’s the link to the original article if you want to try to power through it.

  I’ve been thinking about doing an Atheist/Secular/Progressive blog for a while now, but I have finally got around to actually starting one. I had started a blog previously of a general sort, but only posted twice and then gave up. I have a bad habit of starting things and not finishing them, but I’m hopeful that this blog won’t fall into that category.

  My main goal with this blog is to try to post some thoughts on stories and happenings from an Atheist point of view, but also to do some incisive, witty commentary on political issues the an “extreme progressive” point of view. I can only hope that I don’t make a complete fool of myself, for I fear that my writing skills, such as they were/are, have atrophied to the point of incoherence. I have taken up tweeting lately, and those 140 characters pretty much exhaust my limited brainpower. I need to exercise that brain muscle, though, so maybe with time I’ll be able to express my thoughts more expansively than a kid with ADD. We shall see.

  Anyhoo, just sit back, relax, and witness my slow descent into self-humiliation. If nothing else, it should be interesting.