Thinking Unenslaved

A post in which I ramble a bit about what’s going on with me and the show, and why things are changing.

much love to you all.

Podcast: Embed

Who I mean by “we” is “us atheists”. And by “immune,” I refer to the fact that there are within our ranks persons of questionable morality and ethics who either prey on the inherent gullibility and open-mindedness of others, or who build a rather sad facade to attempt to obfuscate their own insecurities. On this upcoming episode of “Thinking Unenslaved,” I shall be talking about this unfortunate by-product of human nature, in addition to a discussion of what really makes atheists atheistic. Because often in our rush to try to make our point about the gross lack of evidence for the supernatural, or for gods, or for the innate problems with religion as a social control mechanism, we tend to fail to successfully describe ourselves as more than just a lack of belief in things.

Show: Thinking Unenslaved: We are not immune

When: June 8, 2011, 10pm EDT (9 CDT, 8 MDT, 7 PDT)

Who: I’ll probably be alone tonight unless something changes in the next couple of days.

Remember, persons of all faiths/creeds or lack thereof are most welcome. This might be a great show to dial into for conversation, as we don’t all necessarily approach these things the same way.

It’s the last Wednesday of the month, which means we’re holding a small contest for blog submissions on the topics noted below. This month is a little different, in that I’ll be going to be soliciting some of the big-name atheist, humanist, secularist, and/or liberal bloggers for permission to reference some of their material. Where relevant, each segment of the show will lead off with such content.

In addition to those authors, our panel will read (excerpts of) the entries aloud and discuss (no, not necessarily eviscerate if we don’t agree) them on the air in our Round Table format. We’ll choose one or two recent blog posts from each of the following categories:

Submission Categories:

1. Atheism or Agnosticism (note the change from last month)
2. (Secular) Humanism
3. Religion
4. Sociology
5. Philosophy

Minimum Requirements for Consideration:

1. Article is “recent” (within the past three months ~ exception might be made in deference to kick-ass authorship)
2. Article is comprised of at least 600 words
3. Article contents contain at least 75% unquoted content

Pretty simple, huh?

Authors of the selected articles will be asked to come on the show for a brief interview and to read and discuss their articles. Show participation is not mandatory. There is no monetary award for being chosen.

Submission Guidelines and Deadline:

1. Submit link(s) to blog post(s) in the comments below
2. Maximum of 5 links per contestant
3. Deadline is 10pm EDT April 26, 2011.
4. Selections will be announced by 10am EDT on April 27, 2011 via unenslaved.com and @Synthaetica (twitter).

Join us Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 10pm EDT for some unique and dynamic show content from great authors around the Internet!

I want to thank all our contributors and co-hosts for a great show last night. The content selected was wonderful, and sparked some great discussions. We even managed to gang up a little bit on Zach, but we still love him, and as usual, the conversation was diverse even between a bunch of people who basically agree.

So, that means it’s linky-link time!

Me and The Gang:

• Dawnne Gee ~ @Synthaetica | Until Again | un:enslaved
• Kile Jones ~ {no twitter, sniff} | Kile Jones | State of Formation (contributor)
• Paul Fidalgo ~ @PaulFidalgo | Near Earth Object | music
• Zach Garland ~ @Zachsmind | ~vyou | ~blogspot

Guest Callers:

• Guy ~ @TheGuyGD / @AtheistsStudio
• Packard ~ @PackardSonic

Selected Articles:

I’ve created gawd.us links to these, which are the same as bit.ly links, by the way. That way I can give you guys “metrics” on the “tremendous clickthroughs” you’ll get from being linked here….

1. @TheGuyGD ~ Watson Vs. House M.D.
2. @PackardSonic ~ Mooove it right along
3. @PaulFidalgo ~ Un-Americanizing Atheists
4. @JenTheHumanist ~ Humanism Does not equal Atheism
5. @rnistuk ~ What to do with the Religion Sized Hole in Your Life when You Become an Atheist…
6. @Pribbzilla ~ Let’s begin this conversation

The March Blog Party Episode is below (this is really the “most recent” episode player ~ they don’t make one for each episode):

So, last night’s show was a little different than the shows have been for quite some time. You could even say it got a bit acrimonious from time to time when a theist caller offered no more than spurious, callous, judgments as opposed to anything resembling reasonable discourse. I let that portion of the show continue on for about an hour, and I probably should have cut it short. It should have been no surprise to anyone that she was inclined to respond with dogma and the conflation of belief with fact.

Important Links To Important People:

Angie Jackson: youTube | blogspot

Laci Green: website | youTube

After the show, I stayed up for quite some time. I actually listened to it in its entirety again, despite hating how my voice sounds on the air. Having done so, I have some observations I’d like to share. Feel free to denigrate me in the comments, as I have no doubt I will piss off people on both sides of the argument(s) here. Call it my insipid, unreasonable need to attempt to be objective.

1. Regarding Raissa‘s input: The conflation of belief with fact clearly does not serve her cause. She was asked on several occasions to provide evidence to back up (or prop up, as the case may be) her assertions, and willfully resorted to the exclusive expression of her faith. This is unfortunate, because the operative definition of “faith” is “belief in something which can likely be, or has already been, disproved.” There are reasonable, factual arguments which would sustain her position on adoption, for example. Refusing to research (let alone even so much as attempt to reference) the available material, deferring instead to religious dogma while declaiming its inherent “rightness,” made for sadly shallow and dispassionate listening. Unfortunately, she managed to relegate her entire thesis to irrelevance.
2. Regarding what Angie said on the issue of “making a rape victim carry to term is a form of rape.” I’m getting a lot of shit for this one from some acquaintances who happen to be rape victims who chose not to abort. The operative word being missed in the lectures I’m getting is “making” or “forcing” the rape victim to carry to term. The pro-choice stance is about choice. That my friends who happen to have gone through this scenario had the right to choose not to abort is exactly what people like Angie and myself are fighting to sustain. Bringing a child conceived in this manner to term is not being vilified as a perpetual rape. Being forced to do so, however, is.
3. Sciolism, to me, is kind of a cross between the Argument from Ignorance and False Equivalence. Raissa positioned herself as knowledgeable on the entire subject of the subsequent pregnancy of a rape victim. However, her friend’s experience only makes her familiar with her friend’s experience. A woman who is raped (or is the victim of forced incest if you don’t care to apply the term “rape” to that), can a) independently elect to, b) be forced via authority to, c) be shamed/coerced into, d) be encouraged via peer-pressure to carry the fetus to term. Obviously, Raissa’s friend can only fall into one of those categories, thus making Raissa’s experience a mere 25% of the whole, and second-hand at that. Most certainly (and obvious to all), her “experience” as a mere observer is dubious at best, and the argument from presumed knowledge and insistence upon that “knowledge” as “fact” (even though it was really “belief”) was sciolism in its most nefarious form. She was unwilling to listen to very persuasive arguments to the contrary.
4. At its most basic level, I respect the desire to preserve “life”, which presumably sits at the foundation of the pro-life side of the argument. The problem with it is exactly what Laci so brilliantly pointed out: By more than a factor of ten, people throughout the world are starving. By more than a factor of a hundred, people die needlessly, victims of the changing climate, government/nationalist conflict, failure and lack of local resources, and exploitation. If the debate is truly about preserving “life”, the continual focus on one of the relatively smaller contributors to “death” is woefully misplaced. Moreover, as a condition of individual choice as opposed to the results of hegemonic intervention, the anti-abortion manages to undermine its own moralistic basis. In her short time with Raissa, Laci managed to lay bare the oft-ignored hypocrisy of the pro-life movement: It’s not really about “life” at all, per se. It’s about the enforcement of one group’s definition of “rightness” over the populace for the rather petty purpose of possessing the self-referential invocation of the word “right”.

That all having been said, I must also say it was very difficult not to get caught up in Angie’s passion, Raissa’s sanctimonious presumption of precedence was beyond offensive, and Laci stole the show with a perfectly executed reduction of the anti-choice mission to control individual action under religious pretense.

I don’t yet know which of our great co-hosts we’ll have around for the show, but the show will be dedicated to discussing the various ways that sciolism defeats discourse.

Two things:

One: that last phrase is willfully plagiarized from my (Synthaetica) old post by the same title, which is basically the inspiration for tonight’s show.

Two: Sciolism: 1. A pretentious attitude of scholarship; superficial knowledgeability. 2. Rare The practice of opinionating on subjects of which one has only superficial knowledge. 3. A superficial knowledge, especially when pretentiously revealed.

You can probably imagine where I’m going with this. I recently was doing some maintenance on my website and came across some old posts on this topic which I did for the Blogswarms Against Theocracy back in 2007 an 2008. The subject matter still rings true today, and in fact, as I have more and more “discussions” with theists hell-bent on saving our godless “souls”, I see it as more and more of a problem: and one that is actually rather multifaceted.

Show Title: The Stupid. It Burns

Who (tentative): Dawnne Gee (@Synthaetica), Paul Fidalgo (@PaulFidalgo), Kile Jones, Zach Garland (@Zachsmind)

When: 10pm EST, Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Where: BlogTalkRadio.com/Synthaetica

What: The Stupid. It Burns.

My previous posts on this subject:

How Sciolism Defeats Discourse
The Roots of Sciolism
Because Theocracy Leads to Permissive Extremism

I hope to gather some additional insight from other authors/bloggers prior to the show. If you’ve got something to say about the subject, please don’t be bashful! Use the comments below!

It’s the last Wednesday of the month, which means we’re holding a small contest for blog submissions on the topics noted below. Our panel will read (excerpts of) the entries aloud and discuss (no, not necessarily eviscerate if we don’t agree) them on the air in our Round Table format. We’ll choose up to three recent blog post from each of the following categories:

Submission Categories:

1. Atheism (note: this category is not open to Agnosticism)
2. (Secular) Humanism
3. Religion
4. Sociology
5. Philosophy

Minimum Requirements for Consideration:

1. Article is “recent” (within the past three months ~ exception might be made in deference to kick-ass authorship)
2. Article is comprised of at least 600 words
3. Article contents contain at least 75% unquoted content

Pretty simple, huh?

Authors of the selected articles will be asked to come on the show for a brief interview and to read and discuss their articles. Show participation is not mandatory. There is no monetary award for being chosen.

Submission Guidelines and Deadline:

1. Submit link(s) to blog post(s) in the comments below
2. Maximum of 5 links per contestant
3. Deadline is 10pm EST on the day before the show airs.
4. Selections will be announced by 10am EST on the show date via unenslaved.com and @Synthaetica (twitter).

Join us Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 10pm EST for some unique and dynamic show content from great authors around the Internet!

um….wow.

Aside from getting kicked off Skype at random times and not being able to use a condenser mic where I live, I guess I’m doing at least some things right with the radio show. It probably has more to do with our co-hosts, guests, and Zach’s growing facility for taking over when Skype takes a poop on me, but the numbers pretty much speak for themselves.

Some of the numbers are a little “off”, in that, for example, a listener whose connection gets cut and they have to reload the page, that’s a count each time. And the “live” listener numbers are going to bloated in the same way every time Skype kicks me off and I have to dial back in. In fact, last night’s show has a count of 5 just for me alone!

On the other hand, the February numbers don’t include last night’s show or archive downloads after last weekend, no less.

I greatly appreciate your listening, and I hope that you enjoy the show and the subject matter we discuss. I refuse to get all gimmicky and shit, but I do have great plans for the show. Please share it with your friends! Use the iTunes link on the Thinking Unenslaved show page to add it to your iTunes and take us on the road with you! Play it on portable speakers in your churches! Scribble “Unenslaved” on your nephew’s forehead!

Wait…sorry…I was getting carried away there for a minute….

Truly, thank you. March will be interesting listening. At the risk of speaking for the other guys, we look forward to spending two hours with you every Wednesday night at 10pm Eastern. Join us for interesting topics, fun discussion, and the occasionally humorous lull.

On next Wednesday’s segment of Thinking Unenslaved, I’m holding a small contest for blog submissions on the topics noted below. Our panel will read the entries aloud and discuss (no, not necessarily eviscerate if we don’t agree) them on the air in our Round Table format. We’ll choose one (possibly two if it’s too close to decide) recent blog post from the following categories:

Submission Categories:

• Atheism (note: this category is not open to Agnosticism)
• (Secular) Humanism
• Religion
• Sociology
• Philosophy

Minimum Requirements for Consideration:

• Article is “recent” (December 1, 2010 or later ~ exception might be made in deference to kick-ass authorship)
• Article is comprised of at least 600 words
• Article contents contain at least 75% unquoted content

Pretty simple, huh? Authors of the blogs chosen will be asked to come on the show. Show participation is not mandatory. There is no monetary award for being chosen. Submission Guidelines and Deadline:

• Submit link(s) to blog post(s) in the comments on the Segment Website
• Maximum of 5 links per contestant
• Deadline Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 10pm EST.
• Selections will be announced Wednesday, February 23, 2011 by 10am EST.

Join us Wednesday night for some unique and dynamic show content

Greetings, twitterholics, blogheads, twittervillains, and blogophiles!

O, was that redundant? O well….

On next Wednesday’s segment of Thinking Unenslaved, I’m holding a small contest for blog submissions on the topics noted below. Our panel will read the entries aloud and discuss (no, not necessarily eviscerate if we don’t agree) them on the air in our Round Table format. We’ll choose one (possibly two if it’s too close to decide) recent blog post from the following categories:

Submission Categories:

1. Atheism (note: this category is not open to Agnosticism)
2. (Secular) Humanism
3. Religion
4. Sociology
5. Philosophy

Minimum Requirements for Consideration:

1. Article is “recent” (December 1, 2010 or later ~ exception might be made in deference to kick-ass authorship)
2. Article is comprised of at least 600 words
3. Article contents contain at least 75% unquoted content

Pretty simple, huh?

Authors of the blogs chosen will be asked to come on the show. Show participation is not mandatory. There is no monetary award for being chosen.

Submission Guidelines and Deadline:

1. Submit link(s) to blog post(s) in the comments below
2. Maximum of 5 links per contestant
3. Deadline Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 10pm EST.
4. Selections will be announced Wednesday, February 23, 2011 by 10am EST.

Good morning, gentle peoples!

We had a great show last night. Many thanks to co-hosts Kile, Paul and Zach, and to Ryan and Marty for dialing in. The show’s available for download from BlogTalkRadio or you can listen to it right here on this page.

Thank you all for not being too unkind to MissRaissa, despite her unwillingness to do much more than preach.

Here’s the chat log!

Last week, we concluded our discussion of Secular Humanism in Western Society. Unfortunately (and as is often the case), the discussion really got going just as the show was ending. Ryan (@NewYorkCreator) joined in with Zach, Paul and myself in a conversation that actually extended well past the end of the show.

So, at Ryan and Zach’s request, we’re going to have another Round Table this week, but a slightly different format. As many of us co-hosts as are available are going to dial in Wednesday night, along with Ryan (and hopefully @AntitheistAngie). We’re going to cover a lot of hot-button topics for between us, and may or may not take callers as time permits. I’m hoping that Zach, Ryan and I can somewhat replicate our post-show discussion from last week. It got pretty interesting.

Some things we’re planning on discussing include, but are in no way limited to:

• Anti-abortion politics
• Intelligent Design education
• Free speech versus verbal masturbation
• Draw Muhammad Day
• Atheist Morality

The last topic there is a segue to next week’s show. I’m setting up an interview with Martin Pribble in regards to a recent poll on about.com which he was leading until it got pharyngulated. The poll results are now meaningless, as they do not inherently reflect the about.com readership, nor do they necessarily accurately reflect the beliefs of those who take the poll as much as they reflect the ability of poll-takers to submit the voting form several times just to make PZ Myers look more popular than he really is. Don’t get me wrong, I have much respect for the man and even consider myself a fan of his. And while online polls are inherently flawed in concept, there’s no benefit for us to prey upon each other even in the most innocuous of forms.

It’s funny how it goes sometimes. During the week, between broadcasts, if you asked me how the last show went, at any given time, you might get a positive or a negative response. That’s partly because I’m my own worst critic, and partly because given whatever else is going on in my head at the time, I may or may not immediately be able to recall how good the show felt.

Last week’s show, however, was a definite “good.” Even despite Kile’s absence (and Kile, I sincerely hope your girlfriend is feeling better, and kudos to you for placing her well-being first), we had an engaging, informative show which included a lot of great discussion. I was a little tapped for resources by the end of it, which I attributed at the time to the showing lacking Kile’s input and the time such would have naturally consumed, but really, I think it was because Paul, Zach and I gave the general, overall topic of “Secularism and Humanism in Western Society a fairly decent spin.” Having Kile’s scholarly input would have been great, sure, but the rest of us are by no means slackers when it comes to being able to think and being able to discuss our thoughts.

It was truly an enjoyable time.

Towards the end of the show, Ryan (@NewYorkCreator) joined us on the air, and we started discussing several things that had to be cut off short as our allotted time ended. In fact, Ryan, Zach and I talked for almost another half-hour until Skype kicked me off again. I may take up my cable provider on the offer to “bundle” my services, including a VOIP line, for even less than what I’m currently paying. It’s funny how they work their prices, but that’s another story.

Anyway, after our post-show conversation, I’m looking to have an “enhanced” round table discussion on some very interesting topics—controversial topics, even. I’m hopeful that @AntitheistAngie can also join us next week, if she’s feeling better, because we’re going to start with Abortion Politics, and move through several other hot-button topics until we conclude with a recap on last year’s “Draw Mohammed Day”. Wouldn’t it be nice if it could be a large Round Table?

I think so.

Because, yeah, it’s getting kinda fun, and I really wouldn’t mind a little issue-advocating/vocal activism going on via the show. Nope, I wouldn’t mind that at all.

By the way, the song excerpt with which I started the show, and woefully neglected to inform my listeners about was from Civil Twilight‘s “You Will Leave a Mark.” Buy their album. They’re good kids.

Please join us again next week, 10pm Eastern, over at my site on BlogTalkRadio. Next week will be a very good time.

By the way, I’ve submitted the show to iTunes, but it has still not been approved. If you search iTunes under the name “Synthaetica”, you’ll find the old TalkShoe versions of the old ThinkAtheist Radio Show, but Thinking Unenslaved still doesn’t come up there or under its own name yet. Apple doesn’t give a clear way to make inquiries about the approval status, so I guess I have to wait a while. Sigh.

The most recent show streams are below.

Last week, our Round Table discussion was largely devoted to this same subject, but there were several questions/scenarios I’d left on another computer and sadly didn’t bring to the discussion. As well, this is a fairly broad subject with far-reaching implications, and the 47 minutes or so we spent on it last week really didn’t do the topic justice. So, this week, Kile and I will talk about this some more.

Some of the sub-topics we’ll discuss tonight include a) Moving beyond the impact of religion on the Arts, b) Social services without religion (or, uncompelled social services), c) Is it possible to teach strict humanism in education when historical examples mostly involve religious motivation d) Is not Secular Humanism just as likely to fall victim to the vagaries of human character as religion.

The list above is by no means everything we intend to discuss. Zach and Paul will join us if they can, and may well have their own questions for Kile, too.

Please join us for another interesting and dynamic segment of our ongoing discussion on secularism, humanism and atheism in society at 10pm Eastern Standard Time this Wednesday, February 9th here on BlogTalkRadio.

yeah, okay, so using the show to get me posting more frequently was kind of a lame idea when all I do is post about the show, huh. okay, so i suck and i admit it. carry on.

it’s not that i don’t enjoy writing, it’s just that i always have an excuse to do something else, not the least of which is spending time with my lady. but her school has started back up, so maybe…just maybe…i’ll make some additional time to sit down and write.

anyway, i have a show coming up this wednesday. here’s the run-down.

Secularism & Humanism in Western Society Revisited

Who: Dawnne Gee (@Synthaetica), Paul Fidalgo (@PaulFidalgo), Kile Jones, Zach Garland (@Zachsmind)

When: 10pm EST, Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Where: BlogTalkRadio.com/Synthaetica

What: Secularism & Humanism in Western Society Revisited

See you there!

(the most recent episode will play below. so for the week after the show, this link will be relevant!)

Well, I screwed up in setting up tonight’s show, managing to actually set it up for March 2. I luckily got that straightened out in time to kick off the show when I actually wanted it, but changing the time screwed up the show link. I’m a dork, I guess. Shoot me.

Kile, Zach, Paul and I had a lively discussion tonight that ranged from Secularism in Western Society through to the Atheist Agenda’s “Smut for Smut” program at the University of Texas at San Antonio. We had a great time, as usual, and I think the subject matter involving secularism was pretty enlightening. A big thanks to Kile, Paul, and Zach for participating in another great show.

I note, however, that I sound a little like Kermit the Freakin Frog through my headset. Unfortunately, I’ve had massive problems getting a “Real Microphone” (condenser mic) to work in this place. I’m apparently bombarded by AM frequency bleed-over. Meh.

The revised show link is Round Table: Secularism in Western Society

The most recent show streams are below.

Tonight’s show is another round table with Kile, Paul, Zach and myself. The general theme is Secularism in Western Society: I’m hopeful that we can … er … “faithfully” represent the European perspective and not make the mistake of equating “western society” with “the silly stuff we Americans do.” Perhaps we’ll get lucky and have one of our European friends dial into the live show.

I’ll be twitter-begging for participants throughout the next couple of days. Other topics we may also address include: the problem with religious-based public education, and relationships between theists and non-theists. Please listen in for a lively discussion of pertinent topics this Wednesday night at 10pm EST. We’d love to take questions and comments from persons of alternative points of view, so don’t be bashful! Give as a call and join in the discussion!

Wednesday’s show will be another round table with Kile, Paul, Zach and myself. The general theme is Secularism in Western Society: I’m hopeful that we can … er … “faithfully” represent the European perspective and not make the mistake of equating “western society” with “the silly stuff we Americans do.”

Perhaps we’ll get lucky and have one of our European friends dial into the live show. I’ll be twitter-begging for participants throughout the next couple of days. Other topics we may also address include: the problem with religious-based public education, and relationships between theists and non-theists.

Please listen in for a lively discussion of pertinent topics this Wednesday night at 10pm EST. We’d love to take questions and comments from persons of alternative points of view, so don’t be bashful! Give as a call and join in the discussion!

Who: Dawnne Gee (@Synthaetica), Paul Fidalgo (@PaulFidalgo), Kile Jones, @Zachsmind

When: 10pm EST, Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Where: BlogTalkRadio.com/Synthaetica

What: Round Table: Theificationisms

See you there!

Hey, everyone!

I just wanted to take a little time out today to thank you all for a great month of shows (all three of them) over at Thinking Unenslaved. Our listenership is way up over the first couple of shows, and indeed way up over my old ThinkAtheist solo shows as well.

Right now, we’re doing right around 30 live listeners during each show, and just under 250 archive listeners. I’m really quite honored, although I don’t doubt the increase is due largely to the participation of my co-hosts, Paul, Zach, and Kile. Those numbers may not seem like much; I’m certainly not anywhere near the “big time,” but I greatly appreciate each and every one of you.

I’ll be posting the announcement for next for the upcoming show shortly. Thank you all again, and please spread the word! Wednesday’s show will be another round table discussion on some really interesting topics.

Last week’s show wasn’t too bad, I don’t think, despite the fact you heard a lot more from me than you did from our guests. I greatly appreciated the contributions via links and chat from Martin Pribble, and I think Paul Fidalgo’s contributions were totally relevant. This show was a good example about how what I do (and what WE do) as human beings isn’t at all relegated to our atheism, and I do believe the tenor of this show, and all our shows, makes it clear that we’re by no means perpetually angry atheists, too.

Big thanks to Kyle and Paul who closed out the show for me after Skype died on me. Sorry to leave you guys with the landing. I was not amused, to say the least, but we’ve been pretty lucky that Skype hasn’t done this previously, anyway. Thanks for hanging in there.

The most recent show streams are below.

This week, I’ve planned a “solo” show, which is actually designed to elicit callers-in. Yeah, I’m sneaky like that! You’re stuck with me, in other words, but you’re not really just stuck with me. Luckily, though, thanks to the not-so-mysterious workings of my brain, my famously notorious co-hosts will probably be dialing in anyway. That’s because I’m focusing the show recent articles by some of my favorite bloggers, a couple of whom are, guess what….Paul and Kile!

As I set up the show, I have selected recent contributions from Paul Fidalgo ( http://bit.ly/fpRvbO ), Martin Pribble ( http://bit.ly/gGE4Va ), and Kile Jones ( http://gawd.us/hEl7Lx ). I’ve asked these contributors to dial in while I’m discussing their content. Martin may not be able to join us since he’s in Australia, though.

A good portion of the show will be a follow-up to the end of last week’s show, which we didn’t get enough time to spend on. I’m working on cleaning up the “management” portion of what I do, but in the mean-time, I felt the combined topics of Raising Hellions and Atheist Evangelism (under the general umbrella of Teaching Atheism) were worthy of more formative discussion. The articles I’ve selected play heavily into this topic.

Please join me at 10pm EST this Wednesday for a healthy discussion of these topics!

This week, I’ve planned a “solo” show, which is actually designed to elicit callers-in. Yeah, I’m sneaky like that! You’re stuck with me, in other words, but you’re not really just stuck with me.

Thinking Unenslaved: Blog Talking

Luckily, though, thanks to the not-so-mysterious workings of my brain, my famously notorious co-hosts will probably be dialing in anyway. That’s because I’m focusing the show recent articles by some of my favorite bloggers, a couple of whom are, guess what….Paul and Kile!

As I set up the show, I have selected recent contributions from Paul Fidalgo, Martin Pribble, and Kile Jones, plus a recent YouTube video from Antitheist Angie. I’ve asked these contributors to dial in while I’m discussing their content. Martin may not be able to join us since he’s in Australia, though.

(I’m at work right now and can’t get to the locations of all the links I need to put into here. I’ll edit this post this evening with the links ~ sorry! ~ dg)

A good portion of the show will be a follow-up to the end of last week’s show, which we didn’t get enough time to spend on. I’m working on cleaning up the “management” portion of what I do, but in the mean-time, I felt the combined topics of Raising Hellions and Atheist Evangelism (under the general umbrella of Teaching Atheism) were worthy of more formative discussion. The articles I’ve selected play heavily into this topic.

Please join me at 10pm EST this Wednesday for a healthy discussion of these topics!

Last week’s show was a great trial run of our round-table format. I think everyone really enjoyed it, and even though we didn’t keep strictly to time constraints, we learned a lot from Kile, and had a great set of discussions. I’m really looking forward to having more round-table discussions in the future.

The most recent show streams are below.

Tonight, we’ll have our first round-table discussion! Three topics have been suggested, so the format will be as follows:

Kile will start with “secularism and religion in a liberal democracy” and how that works within the framework of the Establishment Clause and Free Enterprise. This should lead to some lively discussion between the panelists, and segue’s nicely into an anecdotal discussion on the “theification” of American and British politics at all levels of government (and its accompanying deification of conservative politicians), presented by yours truly. From there, we’ll get into Paul’s topic of “teaching atheism” from the parental perspective, which will probably naturally transition on its own into any of several directions.

The expected format is for each of us to present our thoughts on our chosen topics for 5-10 minutes, followed by a round-table discussion between the panelists for another 15-20 minutes, and then take callers before moving on to the next topic. If we have no callers on a particular subject, we’ll simply move on.

I’m really excited about tonight’s show and the subjects we’ll be covering. This is a great opportunity to talk to all the co-hosts together (I *think* Zach will be there, too, I just didn’t get a topic from him and there’s plenty here to work with), so I’m hoping we’ll have some good callers with differing opinions on the subject matter.

Please join us at 10pm Eastern for a lively discussion!

Tonight, we’ll have our first round-table discussion with Paul and Kile. Zach will be with us as well, riffing off my chosen topic, which can pretty well insert itself anywhere in the conversation. This format is a bit different from previous shows, and it’s the first time we’re doing it this way, so expect anomalies! I’m looking forward to a great conversation with Zach, Paul, and Kile tonight, and we’re hoping for some callers of disparate points of view to join us as well.

From the show page:

Kile will start with “secularism and religion in a liberal democracy” and how that works within the framework of the Establishment Clause and Free Enterprise. This should lead to some lively discussion between the panelists, and segue’s nicely into an anecdotal discussion on the “theification” of American and British politics at all levels of government (and its accompanying deification of conservative politicians), presented by yours truly. From there, we’ll get into Paul’s topic of “teaching atheism” from the parental perspective, which will probably naturally transition on its own into any of several directions.

I hope you’ll join us for a fun and informational time tonight!

Who: Dawnne Gee (@Synthaetica), Paul Fidalgo (@PaulFidalgo), Kile Jones, @Zachsmind

When: 10pm EST, Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Where: BlogTalkRadio.com/Synthaetica

What: Round Table: Theificationisms