Freethought Radio

Jim McCollum, who at age 10 became the center of a huge legal battle against religious instruction in the public schools, will talk about the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, McCollum v. Board of Education, keeping schools free of indoctrination. The show will also pay homage to several other anniversaries of significant Supreme court decisions affirming separation between church and state. Listen for cameos of famed litigants Roy Torcaso, Ed Schempp and Vashti McCollum.

Elissa Wall, author of "Stolen Innocence," will talk about being married against her will at age 14 to an adult in her polygamous Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints community in Utah. Wall was the key witness in the criminal trial which convicted FLDS patriarch Warren Jeffs of being an accomplice to rape. The show will also feature Sarah Braasch, FFRF's legal intern, who will talk about her research into unlawful Christian prayers opening the Wisconsin State Assembly. Her interview will include sound bites of a legislator casting the "Evil One" out of the chambers!

Michael Shermer, one of America's leading skeptics, will be interviewed, along with Denver FFRF activist Mike Smith, about the "Imagine No Religion" billboard he helped get posted for two months this summer in Denver.

Author: "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power," Jeff Sharlet, contributor to Harper's and Rolling Stones, will be interviewed about his new book exposing a religious-right cult with tentacles reaching into Congress. Freethinkers Almanac will celebrate several musical composers and the hosts will discuss the biblical roots of the polygamy scandal involving the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints.

Author of the bestselling "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon," Prof. Daniel C. Dennett of Tufts University, will be interviewed. State/church activist Prof. Eric Barnes will also be interviewed about why he complained about ownership of a lighted cross by the Village of Holmen, Wis., and what has since transpired. Freethought Radio will update the continuing saga of pastors embarrassing the presidential candidates they have endorsed, in this case John McCain.

Freethought Radio interviewed leading geneticist and the lively science educator, Prof. Sean Carroll, author of The Making of the Fittest, about the evidence for evolution being found at the DNA level, and the ongoing controversy over creationism. China's devastating earthquake and Myanmar's cataclysmic cyclone were addressed in Dan's Pagan Pulpit, which discussed the age-old theological "problem of evil."

Freethought Radio will discuss the Freedom From Religion Foundation's newest legal challenge over school subsidy of the Child Evangelism Fellowship in a Wisconsin school, and will talk with the dad who originally lodged the complaint. (He is not being identified to protect his children.) Sound clips from John McCain and his pastor supporter relating to their views against state/church separation will be featured. And the show will conclude with an interview of internationally-known magician and exposer of hoax, the atheist and author, James Randi!

This weekend's show will feature an interview with Richard Sloan about timely issues involving the dangers of religion and prayer being prescribed as "medicine." Freethinkers Almanac will look at the nonreligious views of Irving Berlin and Katharine Hepburn, and the hosts will talk about a freethinking visit to New York City and Los Angeles.

Freethought Radio talks with Eugenie Scott about the rightwing antievolution film "Exposed." Hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor also speak with Jeremy Hall, who will be receiving FFRF's "Atheist in Foxhole" award.

Freethought Radio talks with Temple University professor John Allen Paulos, author of the bestseller "Innumeracy," about his new and amusing book debunking belief in a god, "Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up." The show also dissects what's wrong with a National Day of Prayer.