Freethought Radio

Topic: 50 Reasons Not to Believe in a God Guy P. Harrison, author of the new book, "50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God," will gently debunk some of those reasons. The latest twists in the epidemic of religion in politics and church politicking will be discussed. As an antidote to all that religion, the hosts will air the 2008 "Moment of Bedlam" from FFRF's annual national NonPrayer Brea...

Topic: Society Without God Prof. Phil Zuckerman talks about his hot-off-the-press book, Society Without God, which refutes the myth that religion is necessary for happy citizens and moral societies. Zuckerman, an FFRF member, cites statistical evidence showing the "happiness index" tends to be much higher in godless societies, and offers Scandinavia as a prime example. The broadcast also looks at...

Annie Laurie and Dan talk to author Larry Beinhart about his new book Salvation Boulevard. Plus, details of ffrf's new "Day of Prayer" lawsuit.

This week's show will preview Bill Maher's irreverent film on religion, "Religulous," and play audios of the infamous "witchcraft" prayer by Gov. Sarah Palin's Kenyan minister-friend and her response. For a change of pace, "Women Without Superstition" will be showcased in an interview featuring Annie Laurie Gaylor, as editor of the first anthology of women freethinkers.

Journalist and Newsweek contributing editor Eleanor Clift will join Freethought Radio to talk about her new book, "Two Weeks of Life." The book is part memoir, tracing the last days of her husband, Tom Brazaitis, who died of cancer in 2005. Mr. Brazaitis, a well-known journalist, was a longtime FFRF member and, as Ms. Clift writes, "an unwavering atheist." She parallels Tom's last two weeks, with...

Feminist icon and atheist Robin Morgan will be interviewed about the 40th anniversary of the first Miss America pageant protest, which Robin organized in 1968, among other free-ranging topics. Ms. Morgan is Ms. Magazine's former editor, now consulting editor and author of the classic "Sisterhood is Powerful," as well as "Fighting Words: A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right." Religion seepin...

Dan Barker will change hats from interviewer to interviewee to talk about his new book, "Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists" (Sept. 2008, Ulysses Press). And Freethought Radio will be joined by a member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation in Phoenix who helped FFRF place five billboards saying "Imagine No Religion" to talk about both the censorship en...

Topic: Abortion and the Religious Right This week's Freethought Radio will interview the campaign manager of the organization working against Measure 11, a nationally-watched referendum to ban abortion which will be on South Dakota's Nov. 4 ballot. The show will also cover more religion in politics at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, and analyze the Assembly of God beliefs of Mc...

Freethought Radio interviews Denver attorney Robert R. Tiernan about why religion should stay out of politics. Bob, who has taken many lawsuits on behalf of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and is a lifelong Democrat, got a lot of media attention for protesting the interfaith worship service at the Democratic National Convention. FFRF co-president Dan Barker's new book, Godless , is announced,...

This week Freethought Radio will talk with Nebraska's most famous state senator, Ernie Chambers, a nonreligious legislator and peoples' advocate, about what's happening with his lawsuit suing "God" over "acts of God." Also interviewed will be The Nation's columnist, Katha Pollitt, about her recent religion in politics piece, "Flocking to Faith." The Saddleback church "debate" will be briefly parse...

This week Freethought Radio will talk with Julia Cicci, a University ROTC cadet and unbeliever, who recently delivered a nonreligious invocation at her ROTC commissioning ceremony. Also interviewed will be FFRF's articulate legal intern, Sarah Braasch, who will talk about growing up in the Jehovah Witnesses church and why she left it.

This week Freethought Radio will talk with state/church litigant Steve Trunk about a recent development in the Mt. Soledad cross challenge, including the bogus attempt to disguise the 43-foot-tall cross in San Diego as a war memorial. The cohosts discuss the grave implications of a hostile ruling by an appeals court in the Freedom From Religion Foundation's important challenge of pervasive religio...

This week Freethought Radio talks with Jon O'Brien, president of Catholics For Choice (not all Catholics are alike), about his broad investigative indictment of William Donohue's obnoxious Catholic League, and with Ryan Valentine of the Texas Freedom Network about the troublesome plan to teach bible classes in Texas schools.

Since it's summertime and the living is easy, Freethought Radio will play an excerpt from Julia Sweeney's hilarious CD, "Letting Go of God." After a quick Theocracy Alert, Mike Christensen of Seattle will be interviewed. Mike, 28, is an FFRF Lifetime Member who will talk about why he is a freethinker and is sponsoring the current "Imagine No Religion" billboard in Seattle.

Tune in to hear the inside story about the young Orlando student whom Catholics have accused of committing a "hate crime" for not eating a communion wafer! And listen to Sarah Braasch talk about how some public-funded senior centers are imposing prayer on senior citizens and why that is illegal.

Guest: David Mills Author: Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism Freethought Radio will discuss "atheist in a foxhole" Jeremy Hall's federal lawsuit against the military, charging that it is promoting Christianity and has discriminated against his rights as a nonbeliever, as covered by CNN this week with Anderson Cooper. Journalist and science writer David Mill...

Freethought Radio will analyze Barack Obama's controversial decision to rename and expand Bush's "faith-based initiative," using clips from his announcement this week. It will also interview southern activist Pat Cleveland, who is in the midst of the annual 4th of July bash in the heart of the bible belt sponsored every year by the activist Alabama Freethought Association. Author Nica Lalli will b...

Jim McCollum, who at age 10 became the center of a huge legal battle against religious instruction in the public schools, will talk about the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, McCollum v. Board of Education, keeping schools free of indoctrination. The show will also pay homage to several other anniversaries of significant Supreme court decisions affirming separation between church an...

Elissa Wall, author of "Stolen Innocence," will talk about being married against her will at age 14 to an adult in her polygamous Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints community in Utah. Wall was the key witness in the criminal trial which convicted FLDS patriarch Warren Jeffs of being an accomplice to rape. The show will also feature Sarah Braasch, FFRF's legal intern, who will talk about her research...

Michael Shermer, one of America's leading skeptics, will be interviewed, along with Denver FFRF activist Mike Smith, about the "Imagine No Religion" billboard he helped get posted for two months this summer in Denver.

Author: "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power," Jeff Sharlet, contributor to Harper's and Rolling Stones, will be interviewed about his new book exposing a religious-right cult with tentacles reaching into Congress. Freethinkers Almanac will celebrate several musical composers and the hosts will discuss the biblical roots of the polygamy scandal involving the Fundam...

Author of the bestselling "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon," Prof. Daniel C. Dennett of Tufts University, will be interviewed. State/church activist Prof. Eric Barnes will also be interviewed about why he complained about ownership of a lighted cross by the Village of Holmen, Wis., and what has since transpired. Freethought Radio will update the continuing saga of pastors emba...

Freethought Radio interviewed leading geneticist and the lively science educator, Prof. Sean Carroll, author of The Making of the Fittest, about the evidence for evolution being found at the DNA level, and the ongoing controversy over creationism. China's devastating earthquake and Myanmar's cataclysmic cyclone were addressed in Dan's Pagan Pulpit, which discussed the age-old theological "problem...

Freethought Radio will discuss the Freedom From Religion Foundation's newest legal challenge over school subsidy of the Child Evangelism Fellowship in a Wisconsin school, and will talk with the dad who originally lodged the complaint. (He is not being identified to protect his children.) Sound clips from John McCain and his pastor supporter relating to their views against state/church separation w...

This weekend's show will feature an interview with Richard Sloan about timely issues involving the dangers of religion and prayer being prescribed as "medicine." Freethinkers Almanac will look at the nonreligious views of Irving Berlin and Katharine Hepburn, and the hosts will talk about a freethinking visit to New York City and Los Angeles.