This is the podcast for FriendlyAtheist.com
Jessica and I sat down to talk about several stories from the past week involving religious and politics. They included: -- The "Activist Mommy" who can't handle an article in Teen Vogue. -- An Appeals Court decision saying Christian prayers led by elected officials is unconstitutional. -- Eugene Peterson, the Bible scholar who inched toward support of marriage equality, then ran back to the other side. -- Pat Robertson's useless interview with Donald Trump. -- The "gay Muslim" marriage that's more heartbreaking than inspiring. -- Why Republicans dislike higher education. -- The worst possible explanation for why God allows suffering. -- The growth of the Flat Earth movement. -- How Jesus apparently needs gluten to transubstantiate.
Jessica and I sat down to talk about several stories from the past week involving religious and politics. They included: -- Hobby Lobby's owners smuggling black market Iraqi artifacts that may have helped ISIS. -- The Pakistani pizza shop owner who made sure his robot waitress wasn't offending customers. -- The Muslim woman who thinks ex-Muslims are just trying to cash in on apostasy. -- The sad rise of female genital mutilation cases in England. -- How some Hindus believe the Ganges River can't be polluted because it's divine. -- Ken Ham is still blaming others for the economic failures of Ark Encounter. -- The demise of Utah's irrational "Zion Curtains" law. -- An excellent episode of the Sawbones podcast dealing with vaccines. -- Amelia Earhart's apparent resurrection.
Jessica and I sat down to talk about several stories from the past week involving religious and politics. They included: -- Cardinal George Pell just became the highest-ranking Vatican official charged with sex abuse. -- Sarah Huckabee Sanders' irrational godly defense of Donald Trump's misogyny. -- The Christian who vandalized the new Ten Commandments monument outside the Arkansas Capitol building. -- Judge Sonia Sotomayor's eloquent dissent in the Trinity Lutheran case. -- How the Christian harassing an atheist lawyer defended himself by saying he's "man enough" to stand behind his hateful words. -- Whether hooking up really happens less often on Catholic campuses and what that really means. -- How the people buying products from Infowars and Goop are all irrational. -- The House Republicans' plan to use a budget bill to repeal the Johnson Amendment. -- How Canadians would rather see an atheist Prime Minister than an Evangelical one. -- There are no longer any openly atheist elected officials in the Republican Party. -- Upcoming talks, including one outside Ark Encounter.
Jessica and I sat down to talk about several stories from the past week involving religious and politics. They included: -- The Christian terrorist threatening atheists over a statue in Tennessee. -- The Christians harassing the atheist attorney who won a lawsuit in Florida. -- GuideStar's decision to highlight "hate" groups using the Southern Poverty Law Center's database. -- The woman who won a lawsuit against an Israeli airline because she didn't want to switch seats for ultra-Orthodox Jewish men. -- How the Catholic Church is forcing more people to suffer in Canadian hospitals. -- Why “Breatharians” aren't real.
Jessica and I sat down to talk about several stories from the past week involving religious and politics. They included: -- The rise of the Religious Left. -- Ken Ham is now blaming atheists for the failures of Ark Encounter and the local economy. -- Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader in the UK who resigned saying he couldn't reconcile his Party's platform with his evangelical faith. -- The Virginia church that wants you to pray for the resurrection of a man who died earlier this week. -- The pantyliner invented by a man who clearly doesn't understand female anatomy. -- Walgreen's absurd policy regarding pharmacists who don't want to do their jobs. -- Joshua Feuerstein's crusade against McDonald's rainbow-colored fry boxes. -- Can God love you if you're a woman with short hair?
Jessica and I sat down to talk about several stories from the past week involving religious and politics. But because the audio crashed after we recorded (oh, computers...), I recorded this brief episode to bring up two important events from the week. They included: -- Sen. Bernie Sanders' misguided questioning of an evangelical nominee to a major government position. -- A New York high school that accommodated Muslim students who wanted to pray during Ramadan. Did administrators go too far or were they making the right decision?
Jessica and I sat down to talk about several stories from the past week involving religious and politics. They included: -- Donald Trump's irresponsible decision to back out of the Paris climate agreement, and the conservatives who don't care because of Jesus. -- Trump's decision to allow religious employers, then all employers, to block birth control coverage for their employees. -- The evangelical women who use Planned Parenthood. -- The Keepers on Netflix. Watch it. -- Australian tennis star Margaret Court's anti-gay Christian bigotry, and whether the Margaret Court Arena should change its name. -- How Brio, a magazine for Christian girls, wants them to cover up so they don't tempt boys. -- The all-women screening of Wonder Woman and the people who get all worked up about it.
If you've followed the articles, movies, and TV shows about the Church of Scientology recently, you're probably familiar with the name David Miscavige, the man who runs the Church. His father is Ron Miscavige, and he joined the church in 1970. David was 10 at the time. It wasn't until 2012 that Ron escaped. Since then, he's worked hard to undo some of the damage caused by the Church, including their policy of basically shunning those outside of it. His book, now out in paperback, is called Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me. I spoke with Ron about whether his son knows that the Church's beliefs aren't real, why Scientology is so appealing to some people, and how he managed to break out of the bubble.
Jessica and I sat down to talk about several stories from the past week involving religious and politics. They included: -- The high school student punished by her Christian school for not having an abortion. -- How Ark Encounter has been bad for the local economy in Kentucky. -- The Manchester mayor calling the suicide bomber a terrorist who isn't a Muslim. -- Greg Gianforte, the violent Creationist who will represent Montana in the U.S. House. -- How Joel Osteen unintentionally summoned the Devil in the minds of his fans. -- Betsy DeVos' inability to say no to discrimination when it comes to taxpayer dollars funding schools. -- How Jesus isn't going to fix the offshore tax haven loopholes in the law. -- The Arizona Democratic Party's brand new Secular Caucus.
Maggie Rowe grew up as an evangelical Christian in the suburbs of Chicago. And for reasons we'll get into, when she was 19, she landed in a Christian mental health center where she spent three months. While parts of that experience were disturbing, some of it actually helped her eventually walk away from Christianity. She's now a comedy writer who has worked on the show Arrested Development and currently works on Netflix's Flaked. Her book is called Sin Bravely: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience. I spoke with her about the "spiritual terrorism" of teaching kids about Hell, what someone with a Christian upbringing notices in a comedy writers' room, and how long it took to finally overcome her faith-based guilt.
