Freethought Radio

18-year-old high school senior Matthew LaClair, who received the Thomas Jefferson Student Activist Award last year from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, talks about his latest headline-grabbing complaint about religion in public schools, this one involving a biased text used nationwide. The hosts go after CNN-TV for the media imposition of a religious test for public office, imposed on Democratic candidates in a April 13 "faith forum," and object to public financing of the pope's visit to America.

In addition to speaking with the intrepid editor in chief of the irreverent Onion weekly newspaper, this weekend's show will thoroughly dissect what's wrong with the Ten Commandments (listen for cameos from The Ten Commandments), in response to a Senate resolution pending to declare the first weekend in May "Ten Commandments" weekend.

The unnecessary, tragic deaths of two children last month whose respective parents let them die of preventable diseases in the name of faith will be discussed with Shawn Francis Peters, author of When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children and the Law. Dan Barker's "Pagan Pulpit" exposes the biblical admonitions to rely on faith to heal. Also featured: clips from "Fitna," the controversial Internet movie about Islam by Dutch parliament member Geert Wilders, an update on a Congressional probe of prosperity preachers, and a recording of Tom Lehrer, born April 8, singing his classic "Vatican Rag."

Journalist and freethinker Susan Jacoby, author of the new book, The Age of American Unreason, who also wrote Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, is interviewed on this weekend's show.

Evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard, is the featured guest, discussing both his nontheistic views, and his concerns about the current administration's attacks against science in order to placate the religious right. "Theocracy Alert" discusses the Rev. Wright-Rev. Hagee fallout on the presidential campaigns. The hosts discuss the problem with Easter, and also pay tribute to nonbeliever Arthur C. Clarke, who died this week.

Freethought Radio's Theocracy Alert discusses the unseemly mix of religion and politics in presidential actions and the presidential race. The former reverend Dan Barker's Pagan Pulpit examines the biblical role in sanctifying torture here on earth, and Dan, with co-host Annie Laurie Gaylor, in a segment on "being good without god," addresses the tired old myth that nonbelievers are immoral. The rejection of dogma by Albert Einstein is featured in Freethinkers Almanac.

Freethought Radio devotes its entire program to an interview with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, author of the bestselling blockbuster, The God Delusion.

Freethought Radio discusses exciting new statistics from a major study released this week showing that the nonreligious are the 4th largest sector by religious (or nonreligious) identification in the United States today. Guest is Greg Smith, Pew Forum on Religion. The show also examines the role that women freethinkers have played in making women's history, in honor of women's history month.

Freethought Radio reports on a state/church violation involving a city with a mission to "strive to serve God," plays a fun TV interview of Julia Sweeney ("Letting Go of God") and interviews Christoph Wilcke, a researcher with Human Rights Watch about its campaign to save the life of a Saudi Arabian woman who has been convicted of a nonexistent crime: witchcraft. The show also celebrates the birthdate and achievements of freethinker W.E.B. DuBois, cofounder of the NAACP, and play an ode to the coming of spring and peace, "One Sweet Morning," by lyricist E.Y. Harburg, author of "Rhymes for the Irreverent".

A "war of the billboards" brewing in rural Pennsylvania over the Foundation's "Imagine No Religion" billboard will be discussed, and a religious billboard defaming atheists as "hating America" will be debunked. The special guest is a local atheist from the area who hosted the billboard to counter the ubiquitous religion on the roadside in Chambersburg, Penn. Host Dan Barker will talk about the "anti-Carnival" in Brazil he took part in, as an invited guest representing American freethought. Tune in for some other surprises.