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Welcome to American Freethought, an atheist podcast hosted by John C. Snider. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can send funds via PayPal to sniderishere@gmail.com.

Sep 6, 2018

Original release April 28, 2012.

Encore release September 6, 2018.

Encore release May 30, 2017.

That's right, 150 episodes. Yay us.

John gives a report on his (and Allison's) recent trip to London and Edinburgh. A good time was had by all.

We received lots of listener feedback on our interview in show 149 with Matthew Bowman, an admitted true-believing Mormon and author of the cultural history The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (hardcover or Kindle). Listeners opined Mormon attempts to overturn same-sex marriage in Maryland, the shocking suicide rate among gay Mormons, and expressed dismay that a seemingly thoughtful and intelligent person could believe in golden plates.

On to business...it looks like the religionists won Salazar v. Buono, the case to remove a Christian cross (erected by a private party in 1934) from Sunrise Rock, which is located deep within the federally-owned preserve in California's Mojave Desert. Rather than rule that a private cross on federal property is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court kicked the case back to the lower court. Now a federal judge has ruled that the cross can stay as long as the government swaps the acre where the cross sits for five acres elsewhere. It's a bad ruling and a bad outcome that sets a bad precedent. No secular (or no-Christian) symbol would ever have been show such deference.

Meanwhile, the Freedom from Religion Foundation has convinced Sylvania, Alabama to remove a blatantly religious Bible verse from its "welcome" signs. How anyone could think that "One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism" isn't hopelessly sectarian and plainly unconstitutional boggles the imagination.

Finally, the War on Christmas rages in April in Leesburg, Virginia, where local freethought groups are urging the county's planners NOT to allow holiday displays on the courthouse grounds. (In recent years, the park around the courthouse has turned into a tacky free-speech free-for-all.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

If you're in Atlanta on Saturday, May 26, come to the Atlanta Science Tavern to hear "The Christian Right's Assault on Public Education and the Science Curriculum," a talk by Katherine Stewart, author of The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children (hardcover or Kindle). The Tavern requests RSVPs, and since it fills up early, the sooner you reserve your place the better.

 

CONTACT

 

Visit our blog at AmericanFreethought.com.

 

Visit the podcast at AmericanFreethought.LibSyn.com.

 

Email us at john@americanfreethought.com or david@americanfreethought.com. (John and David are available, either together or separately, to speak in person to your group.)

 

If you like what you hear, take a moment and leave feedback on our iTunes feed.

 

Join our communities at FacebookAtheist NexusThink Atheist or Yahoo Groups.

 

Shop through us at Amazon.com or at CafePress.com.

 

If you’d like to donate to the operation of this podcast, you can contribute through PayPal to editor@scifidimensions.com. We promise not to spend it on beer.

 

April 28, 2012. Hosted by John C. Snider and David Driscoll.