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Show 341: “Naturalistic Christmas” Special!

Equal Time for Freethought’s 2-Hour “Naturalistic Christmas” Special!

Audio here!

Experience Christmas as only WBAI can offer with a naturalized, secular, and faith-free twist; including a very special Christmas guided meditation, and our exclusive Christmas morning interview with Santa Claus, who as it turns out is a skeptic himself.

And, as on many a Christmas past, we’ll be taking your calls to hear how your Christmas is going and where you see hope for tomorrow.

Okay, now, if Christmas for you is all about religion, then you may prefer to listen to something a bit more devotional – but for everyone else, tune in and let the Naturalistic Christmas fun begin!

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Show 300: Arnell Dowret’s “Naturalistic Holiday Special!”

Naturalistic Holiday Special!

Audio 1 Here!

Audio 2 Here!

The holiday season is officially here and though many nonbelievers might spin an index finger and mutter “Well, whoopty do!,” the period from Thanksgiving to Christmas need not be problematic for people who don’t believe in Jesus, nor need it be joyless for people who do not believe in god at all.

During this one hour special Arnell Dowret offers a naturalistic take on the holidays – and he’ll explain how those who are secular may want to celebrate the holidays for the significant benefits they have to offer.

He’ll start out wrapping up thanksgiving weekend by asking listeners to call in about what they are grateful for in their lives.*

For the bottom half of the hour, he’ll talk about the upcoming weeks and ideas for having a Naturalistic Christmas Day.

And while not everyone’s response will be to run out, get a flu shot, and go visit a Santa (probably a good thing) – you may find the holidays just a little more fun!

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Show 267: Naturalistic Christmas Special!

Equal Time for Freethought’s Naturalistic Christmas Special!

Audio here!

Well that time of year is here again!  And despite all the pronouncements of faith in speech, song and public display, a majority of people who celebrate Christmas in America are disinclined to believe that the only person who can save our world was born and died about two thousand years ago.

In reality most Americans understand that the people who can help humanity ring in an age of social justice, stable environment, global peace, and fair access to resources for all, are walking among us today, and this is reflected in the fact that at Christmastime most people who have children in their lives spend far more time fussing over them than they do praying.

There’s no need to believe in supernatural ideas to participate and enjoy the holiday that celebrates and indulges children, and the hope for a better tomorrow which they embody, and looks to the ever longer days of sun light, which now begin, as a symbol of better times ahead.

Continue reading “Show 267: Naturalistic Christmas Special!”

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Show 229: Naturalistic Christmas Special

Audio here!

Long, long before anyone ever heard of Jesus, people all over the world knew that this time of year was special. The winter solstice is a completely natural event, which is loaded with significance, both symbolic and real.

On Christmas Day, Equal Time for Freethought will show how and why Christmas can, and should, be a fully naturalistic holiday… And what a great time we’re going to have doing it!

We’ll be featuring a replay of our classic Equal Time for Freethought’s “Christmas with Santa Claus” interview; we’ll have a look at the history of Christmas and from where its traditions are derived; we’ll be taking your calls, and if that wasn’t enough- we’ll be venturing out to the cutting edge as we offer a special Christmas guided meditation in which everyone can participate!

And you don’t even need to be non-faith based or non-supernatural to benefit from tuning in; in addition to our traditional non-faith-based listeners, Muslims, Jews, Astrologers, Roman Catholics, Baptists, and others can get a lot from the elements of a Naturalistic Christmas…

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Show 228: “Was Jesus Left Behind?” w/ Dr. Robert M. Price

Audio here!

As Christmas approaches, and the religious Right try to force everyone to say “Merry Christmas,” and mean it, the rest of us may want to know why they protest so much. What is the relationship between the religious Right, the Christian Church, and the gospel story of Jesus of Nazareth; where do they intersect, and where to they part ways?

Robert Price, a professor of Theology and Scriptural Studies, and a fellow of biblical criticism’s most activist research groups, The Jesus Seminar, has asked these questions (and more) of himself and fellow researchers, and has published his opinions in a host of controversial books and papers. He has taken on Pastor Rick Warren with his book, The Reason Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth For?; Dan Brown, with his book, The Da Vinci Fraud: Why the Truth Is Stranger than Fiction; discussed his own de-conversion in Beyond Born Again; and even addressed the question of whether an historical Jesus ever existed in Deconstructing Jesus. His answer to that dangerous question…? No.

For Equal Time for Freethought’s one-hour special this Sunday, we will speak to (and take calls for) Dr. Price regarding two of his most recent books; Jesus is Dead (a collection of essays discussing both the historicity of Jesus and the Resurrection), and The Paperback Apocalypse: How the Christian Church got LEFT BEHIND (a critical look at myriad apocalyptic novels, including what one reader called, “the biblical errors and theological absurdities in the Left Behind series”).

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Show 227: Having a Merry Naturalistic Christmas

Audio here!

No matter how secular or naturalistic you are it’s impossible not to notice that Christmas time is here. To avoid getting a whiff of Douglas Fur should atheists, agnostics, and other non-believers hold their breath until mid January when the sanitation department guides the once noble icons to their transition into wood chips?

Looking beyond its association with faith and beyond the way it has been co-opted by the merchants of crass consumerism, are we left with anything about Christmas worth celebrating? With nine day until Christmas, Equal Time for Freethought will be discussing why “Having a Merry Naturalistic Christmas” is not only possible, it’s desirable.

But what would be the philosophy behind a naturalistic approach to Christmas; and what would activities for a naturalistic Christmas look like?

To facilitate the participation of widely different groups of people that the church wanted to assimilate early church fathers adopted a wide range of local traditions into Christmas. The result is that today’s Christmas celebration is essentially a pan-regional, best of traditions past collection. Rather than denying Christmas, if like the Church fathers of the past, naturalists could find ways to build upon some of the existing holiday traditions and make them their own, it may go a long way to helping establish naturalism as a popular practice.

Hear why, when it comes to Christmas, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.