Thinking Unenslaved

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!

Ah, it’s good to be back! I apologize for the long hiatus, but I had to work my way through some things, most of which had to do with doing too much. In the week before the show, I’ll be frantically working on getting some things together (like a piece of intro music and some interstitial stuff that I’ve been threatening to do for the past fiscal quarter), but to be quite honest, the simple act of the getting the show scheduled for next Wednesday is a cathartic act in and of itself. I’m truly looking forward to it.

Wednesday is the day after the first Day of Ones for this eleventy-ish year (if you ignore the glaring “20″), which I suppose makes it fitting for a solo show with some very special guests. We’ll do some one-on-one conversations with persons whom I feel are influential in our world, taking on subject matter that is currently pertinent to the Atheist, Humanist, and Secularist communities. I’ll update this description with details when they’re solidified with my guests: I hope to have @Zachsmind, Paul Fidalgo, and Kile Jones with me, which, I suppose, means I should probably invite them!

Please note: “Thinking Unenslaved” is now an hour earlier: 10pm Eastern, and after a recent split vote on whether to continue on Wednesdays or switch to Sundays, I cast the tie-breaker and decided for Wednesdays. I pulled it back by an hour because I no longer dedicate Wednesday afternoons to my kids: we get to see each other frequently throughout the week, now.

Some of you know there was a bit of an incident a couple of nights ago between myself and another outspoken Atheist, who also promotes herself as a Humanist. This happened on Twitter, in the public stream. It was highly unproductive, and rather unfortunate. But it was the proverbial “last straw” for me in terms of accepting as “directive” what I feel to be a highly destructive approach to ourselves as Atheists when interacting with Theists, and if my inability to let that subject go makes me immature and/or intolerant in some people’s eyes, then more people than the handful who unfollowed me due to that event need to unfollow me.

The situation with that person goes far deeper than what was exemplified on Twitter, and it has thus been difficult for me to let it go on that level as well. I’m not going to bring that in the discussion tonight, but since that little confluence of actions has led to a minor separation between some of us on Twitter, I think that ideological separation is a valid subject to broach here.

Luckily, I’d already invited Kile Jones on tonight’s show. I can’t think of a better, more thoughtful and considerate person with whom to discuss these matters. So, following on a little bit from last week’s show on Humanism, Secularism, and Atheism, Kile and I will be discussing the potential dangers in all three of those philosophical approaches, and hopefully, we’ll talk about some strategies for those of us with different approaches to our interactions with Theists and Religionists. My discussions with Kile are always insightful, and I dare say even inspirational. I’ve managed to swing all the way from being a bit reticent to do a show tonight, to being completely stoked. I look forward to a great time with Kile, and those of you who choose to dial in!

Please join me tonight at 11PM EDT/10 CDT/8 PDT for “Thinking Freely: Overrated By Some” with Kile Jones.