Anyway, the reason we didn’t go into any further detail about them is because they had very little to do with the actual topic being discussed. In fact, the only reason I gave any information about them at all was because Eli wasn’t familiar with them.

If he left a single dollar in his bank account, that shows doubt, and if he didn’t share that doubt with his followers, it is clearly fraud.

Thanks.

- The rabbis condemning the dog to stoning thing was a hoax. The stray dog was actually just picked up by the local dog catcher: http://www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/jewish_techs/jerusalem_dog_stoning_hoax_went_viral

- I have to wonder how people like Rick Perry or Mayor Linda Thompson of Harrisburg, PA (who has called for prayers to resolve the city’s debt) harmonize their professed belief in capitalism as the One True Economic Model with their belief that money can be wished into existence by the Old Man in the Sky. Well… I don’t really wonder: they just don’t harmonize those beliefs at all. But it’s an interesting dissonance.

Meanwhile, let’s save this comment area for actual comments about this episode. Thanks.

I don’t know. Have you changed something?

On my phone, if I click on the link for your latest episode and then click on ‘save link’ (which for every other podcast I listen to allows me to download the mp3 file) I get a file called 628.bin. When I download and open that I just get taken back to the podcast page.

If I try the same thing on my laptop/pc (and I’ve tried this on a Macbook, Windows XP PC and Windows 7 laptop) I just get a page of code headed with the message: “This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below”.

I can download through iTunes, but I rarely use my iPod any more because the headphone socket is knackered, so the only other option is to listen from my laptop. And, anyway; I hate iTunes!

I used to download your shows on the move and listen to them on my travels, but I’ve not been able to do that for ages.

Cheers,

Lol

I don’t know what you’ve done to your site, but I haven’t been able to download any of your mp3 files for at least a year, possibly longer. I usually download podcasts direct to my phone, and that can be a bit flaky sometimes, but I can’t even download Chariots to my PC or laptop any more.

When I try on the phone I get some kind of html file; if I try to subscribe to an mp3 RSS on the PC I get an error message (This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below) and a page of code. Only way I CAN download you is to log in to iTunes on my laptop, and not only do I hate iTunes, but I’m very often out and about and can’t access it.

What gives? I used to love Chariots, but I haven’t been able to listen to it since last year!

Cheers,

Lol

We atheists don’t need conformist, fascist bullshit like “community,” “family,” or “people.” We don’t need sentimentalist garbage like “ritual” or “tradition” to coddle the planet’s dullards. What we need is embrace the truth.

You sound like a complete wingnut. If you actually have a point you have failed to make it here.

The very notion of a “Secular Christian” (or “Secular Jew,” or “Secular Muslim,” etc.) should be spurned as the oxymoron that it is. I have no respect for the cowards who think that we must ape the very institutions that repress them just so they can can feel like they belong with the rest of the sheeple. We atheists don’t need conformist, fascist bullshit like “community,” “family,” or “people.” We don’t need sentimentalist garbage like “ritual” or “tradition” to coddle the planet’s dullards. What we need is embrace the truth.

That truth is this: There are no deities. There is no afterlife or cosmic justice to be doled out to the “just” and “unjust.” Reality operates on materialistic, scientifically-demonstrable processes, not the primitive superstition of the “supernatural.” “Good” and “evil” are merely biologically and socially created myths to keep the cowed human herds from destroying themselves. Our lives, the universe, and everything ultimately has no purpose or meaning.

To those who can’t handle these facts without sugar coating them in ceremonies and songs, I have this to say: TOUGH!

Just a correction, Australia does have a separation of church and state:

“The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.”

- Section 116, Australian Constitution

I do listen to other atheist / humanist podcasts… three regular ones at the moment, but always on the lookout for others.

I’ve listened to a few Chariots of Iron ‘casts and so far so good :)

I’m a Brit and live in UK, and it’s interesting to hear all the news from USA and your responses to these. Good, intelligent comment (mostly, ha ha). UK has less of the fanatical Christian types than the States, but we also have to deal with the Europe Union and his Popeness.

Looking forward to listening to more of these.

You mean ὄρνις [ornis]?

The main meaning of that word is “bird,” but its metaphorical meaning is “omen.”

On the other hand there is οἰωνός [oionos].

It refers to a large bird, but its metaphorical meaning is also “omen.”

Which word did you have in mind? I am just curious.

- Ian Andreas Miller

I love the Claim of the Day idea, have a pseudoscience claim to ask about, and a question. First the question: Where’s the best place to post questions/responses to episodes — here, the Atheist Nexus page, or the Atheiskeptihumanist forums? (I might put this same question in one of those places if I don’t get a response here.)

Now for the pseudoscience question: “EMF stands for electromagnetic field. The theory is that ghosts affect the electromagnetic field, and yadda yadda yadda.” This gets repeated so much on paranormal shows that it’s taken for granted. Switch your dial over to the skeptical podcast channel, and if this idea comes up, it’s immediately guffawed away as ridiculous.

I recently taught a course on logic, argument and conspiracy theories, and the material tilted into this direction, and I just didn’t want to deal with the ghost in the gaps arguments — we already had enough tin-foil-hat material with the Illuminati and ancient alien astronauts, Glenn Beck and chupacabras. But I’m a bit disappointed that for all the times I’ve heard skeptics take on paranormal claims, I have yet to hear a good explanation for WHY an EMF detector just can’t work in the way they’re claimed to work.

I understand that if you start from the position that ghosts don’t exist, then ghosts can’t be affecting any fields, electromagnetic or wheat or otherwise. I also understand the risk of the ghost-in-the-gaps counter-argument that it’s simply beyond current science. Let’s call that a wash; what I want to know is why such detectors couldn’t possibly be picking up what ghost chasers claim to be picking up, and tangentially if we then just write off instances where meters seem to spike in response to direct questions as hoaxes. (I have searched for this a bit, but didn’t find much more beyond wave-of-the-hand dismissals and a few claims that they’re simply picking up on normal everyday fluctuations.)

A second claim that might be kind of interesting to deal with has to do with the Science Channel’s new series with Morgan Freeman — Through the Wormhole, I think it’s called. The first episode tried to tackle the question of a creator. I was a bit put off by the build-up to the episode that suggested if we can’t find what came before the big bang, it just may be god — more spooks-in-the-gaps arguments. But the episode itself was fairly even-handed in presenting non-theist and theist perspectives. It even took on the claims that we were created, but not by any god, rather as part of a software program that we’re all living within. The scientist who discussed this (I can’t find his name) went so far as to suggest that the beings who wrote the program may be us from the future.

Anyway, the title of the first episode was “Is There A Creator?”, and it might be interesting to view and take on some of those claims.

I’m here in Virginia where they recently held a gun-owners rally in a national park north of where I’m at — it was the closest they could legally get to Washington, D.C. with a loaded weapon. They brought semi-automatics, hand guns, rifles, shotguns, etc., the works, a gun show fire sale parking lot. They did it as a warning to the president to be wary of taking their guns. The irony is it was illegal for people to bring guns into a national park like they were doing until the Obama administration passed legislation making it legal. So if it wasn’t for the administration they were threatening from that park with those guns, they wouldn’t be able to go to that park and threaten the president with those guns.

Thanks for taking the time to tell your story here, interesting to hear about the legal wrangling that has to go on just to protect from the intrusion of religious dogma into our legal system. I would personally like to thank you for aiding this case, I find it somewhat disturbing that when you have such a blatant violation that one would still have to “show harm”, “it’s unconstitutional” should be enough.