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Show 270: The Big Religion Problems…Solved!

“The Big Religion Problems…Solved!” w/Gregory S. Paul

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As an interesting follow-up to our October/November two-part program with Ronald Inglehart and David S. Wilson – found here and here – we will discuss with scholar Gregory S. Paul the big questions of religion (not theology) – mainly, why was religion invented, why does it still exist in the 21st century, and what is the future for the religious impulse?  A short summary of Paul’s “answers” to these questions found in his essay – Religion, the Big Questions Finally Solved (Free Inquiry; Dec. 2008/Jan. 2009) – goes as follows:

“(The threats to religion today include) the contribution by naturalistic science, socioeconomic security, and corporate-consumer culture, (all of which) combine to form the ‘Triple-Threat Hypothesis of Democratic Secularization … Religion is-a superficial, primitive, and dysfunctional condition … Religious belief and activity are-superficial coping mechanism(s) that (are) easily cast off when the majority of a given society enjoy democratic governance, and a secure, comfortable middle-class lifestyle.”

Gregory S. Paul is a paleontologist, artist and author. In 2005 he made headlines with his studies indicating that religious societies are worse off than secular ones.

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Show 269: Lori Lipman Brown On The Inauguration

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While many Americans are hoping for change with an Obama presidency, humanists and other nontheists are seeing the same old cow-towing to religious interests on Capitol Hill.  What does an inaugural invocation from the Reverend Rick Warren, who has compared same-sex marriage to incest and said he would never vote for an atheist, mean for Freethinking America?  Who will represent nontheists on the Inaugural dais?  And just how many members of Congress are hiding in the Nonbeliever Closet?  Michael O’Neil will discuss these issues and more with Lori Lipman Brown, Director of the Secular Coalition Of America, on the next Equal Time For Freethought.

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Show 267: Naturalistic Christmas Special!

Equal Time for Freethought’s Naturalistic Christmas Special!

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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.

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Show 266: Morality without Gods: An Exchange!

One-Hour Fund Drive Special!

Morality without Gods: An Exchange!

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Has religion gotten out of hand; have we become truly Religulous?

Is religion itself really as dangerous as some now claim?

Can science and religion coexist in a healthy society?

And, what is the best way to defend science and democracy from fundamentalist religion?  Via a “militant atheist” critique of religion and religious believers (as with the “new atheists” both on the left and right), or via a sociopolitical and psychological analysis of religion in society and a holistic approach to making lives better?

Or both?

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Show 265: “The Dialectical Biologist: A Discussion w/ Dr. Richard Levins”

“The Dialectical Biologist: A Discussion w/ Dr. Richard Levins“

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Richard Levins studied agriculture and mathematics at Cornell. He was a tropical farmer in Puerto Rico before getting his PhD at Columbia University. He later moved to Harvard with the sponsorship of E. O. Wilson, with whom they had later disputes over sociobiology. Levins was elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences but resigned because of the Academy’s role in advising the US military.

Levins is John Rock Professor of Population Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health. During the last two decades Levins has concentrated on application of ecology to agriculture, particularly in the less developed nations.  He has also written on philosophical issues in biology and modelling.

An influential article of his is “The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology”. He has influenced a number of contemporary philosophers of biology. With the evolutionary geneticist Richard Lewontin, Levins has written a number of articles on methodology, philosophy, and social implications of biology.

This interview, conducted by Professor of Philosophy Paul Eckstein (Bergen Community College, NJ), focuses mainly on Levins’ contribution to the text, Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health (w/ Lewontin).

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Show 263: “After Atheism… Humanism?” A Chat with Mark Vernon

“After Atheism… Humanism?”

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In ‘After Atheism,’ Mark Vernon confronts the lust for certainty found in the dogmatism of conservative religion and militant science. He believes that a committed even passionate agnosticism is vital for the future of our planet and our souls. But how can you be an agnostic and why does it matters? The key to wisdom, Socrates said, is understanding one’s own ignorance. A similar thought lies at the heart of all good theology, since God is nothing if not unknown.

‘Teach Yourself Humanism‘ is a comprehensive guide to an important and diverse philosophy. Generally seeking to define itself not as a negative response to religion but as a practical and ethical way of life focusing on common human needs and seeking rational ways of solving human problems, this book will delve into the history and development of humanist thought and address the many questions that surround humanism today. Why is humanism important? Is it possible to ‘believe’ in humanism after Auschwitz? What implications does humanist thought have on our society as a whole and the way in which it is structured? How does humanism deal with birth, marriage and death?

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Show 262: Ann Druyan on Carl Sagan and Cosmos

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Contemplating the infinite; while firmly committed to defeating our bias, knowing ourselves and our universe through an evidence based lens- No one’s ever conveyed these essential ideas, more powerfully than the late Dr. Carl Sagan.

For 20 years Ann Druyan was married to astronomer Carl Sagan, and was a full partner in his mission to make science understandable and exciting for everyone. She was one of the writers for the television series Cosmos, and a producer of the feature film Contact. Ann Druyan is the CEO and co-founder of Cosmos Studios.

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Show 261a: “Beyond the ‘New Atheism’: Religion and Politics Worldwide”

Part 1 of 2 of “Beyond the ‘New Atheism’: Religion and Politics Worldwide” w/ Ronald Inglehart and David Sloan Wilson.

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Seminal thinkers of the nineteenth century — Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud — all predicted that religion would gradually fade in importance and cease to be significant with the emergence of industrial society. The belief that religion was dying became the conventional wisdom in the social sciences during most of the twentieth century.

During the last decade, however, the secularization thesis has experienced the most sustained challenge in its long history. Critics point to multiple indicators of religious health and vitality today, from the continued popularity of churchgoing in the United States, to the emergence of New Age spirituality in Western Europe, the surge of fundamentalist movements and Islamic parties in the Muslim world, the evangelical revival sweeping through Latin America, and the widespread ethno-religious conflicts in international affairs.

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Show 259: Dagmar Herzog – Sex in Crisis

Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics

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From the Publisher:

“The Religious Right has fractured, the pundits tell us, and its power is waning. Is it true – have evangelical Christians lost their political clout? When the subject is sex, the answer is definitively no. Only three decades after the legalization of abortion, the broad gains of the feminist movement, and the emergence of the gay rights movement, Americans appear to be doing the time warp again. It’s 1950s redux. Politicians – including many Democrats – insist that abstinence is the only acceptable form of birth control. Fully fifty percent of American high schools teach a “sex education” curriculum that includes deceptive information about the prevalence of STDs and the failure rates of condoms. Students are taught that homosexuality is curable, and that premarital sex ruins future marital happiness. Afraid of sounding godless, American liberals have failed to challenge these retrograde orthodoxies.

“The truth is Americans have not become anti-sex, but they have become increasingly anxious about sex – not least due to the stratagems of the Religious Right. There has been a war on sex in America – a war conservative evangelicals have in large part already won. How did the Religious Right score so many successes? Historian Dagmar Herzog argues that conservative evangelicals appropriated the lessons of the first sexual revolution far more effectively than liberals. With the support of a multimillion-dollar Christian sex industry, evangelicals crafted an astonishingly graphic and effective pitch for the pleasures of “hot monogamy” – for married, heterosexual couples only. This potent message enabled them to win elections and seduce souls, with disastrous political consequences.”

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