Ask An Atheist

The results are in for the Best of Western Washington, and well….it’s not us.

However, we’re incredibly proud of our strong Second Place showing in a contest that had us beating out a number of popular and well-established local podcasts and radio programs.  We’ve known for sometime that it was going to be a tortoise-and-the-hare contest.

In this case, the hare woke up and noticed that there was a race and sped to the finish line in the last two weeks of the voting period. Congratulations to TBTL with Luke Burbank for their win!

The entire cast and crew of Ask an Atheist want to thank all of you who took the time to vote, promote us and share your votes on Facebook and Twitter. We’re consistently floored by the number of people who tune in to our show *ahem* religiously.

We may not have won this year, but this is an annual contest and I see no reason why we can’t be king of the hill in 2012!

However, if it’s any consolation, our little godless radio show’s vote total completely eclipsed the total won by the podcast of the fundamentalist Mars Hill mega-church run by the same bigoted assclown who recently claimed that masturbation is a form of homosexuality. So be relieved that the junk-obsessed fanatic who wrote this pearl of wisdom…

“…Masturbation can be a form of homosexuality because it is a sexual act that does not involve a woman. If a man were to masturbate while engaged in other forms of sexual intimacy with his wife then he would not be doing so in a homosexual way. However, any man who does so without his wife in the room is bordering on homosexuality activity, particularly if he’s watching himself in a mirror and being turned on by his own male body.”

…came in 11th Place. And damn, if that last bit of information isn’t a wee bit too specific.  He’ll be in his bunk.

Thanks again for your votes!

One of the many times I fell in love with Sam revolved around him being head chef for a 22-person seder hosted in my 800 sq ft apartment, attended by 2 Jews, a hindu, a Morman-Pagan intermarried family, some agnostics and buddhists, lapsed Christians, and a whole mess of other folks whose religious predilections are second to their desire for food, friends, and family. We’ve hosted first-time Thanksgiving dinner for an ex-Jehova’s Witness and a vegetarian Easter brunch on a Passover Seder plate. Christmas usually involves socializing with the Mulveys, a windfall trip to Vegas (complete with a Christmas Eve Penn-&-Teller-show-cum-Star-Trek-Experience), or a ritual viewing of Santa Clause Conquers the Martians (MST3K version, of course) with take-out Chinese food. I’ll polish my oil lamp and light wicks for 8 days during Hannukah.

These holidays, observed by the vast majority of people in some religious sense, are easy to adapt for atheists thanks to a combination of commercialization, fun objects, seasonal rhythmic association, distinctive food, and a heavy emphasis on family unity and goodwill–very much human, and humanistic, qualities.  The Jewish Days of Awe (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) are not.

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“Andy Bernard does not lose contests. He wins them, or quits them because they’re unfair.” — Andrew Bernard, the Office

It’s our sad duty to inform you, our listeners, that tomorrow’s Skeptic vs. Truther debate is cancelled. Case is in his corner being egged on by Burgess Meredith, but in the end, we couldn’t find a local 9/11 Truther who wanted to debate him on our show.  We asked a lot of local and vocal 9/11 Truthers to step into the ring over the past couple months and got silence, rationalizations, condescension, equivocations, and in one instance, accusations of being in on the conspiracy!

We do, however, exempt Susan, who until she dropped out, exhibited more courage and backbone than all of her local counterparts combined and had originally agreed to debate with only two days notice! Say what you will about the dubious veracity of her claims, at least she was willing to back them up in a debate

However, if you’re a 9/11 Truther who thinks you can prove your assertions, we’ll still be happy to take your calls on tomorrow’s show. Or give our show a call at (206) 420 – 0997 or send us an email and see if you can be the first person to back up your conspiratorial claims with something other than negative evidence, conjecture and baseless assertions.

Hello, everyone!

This week, we’re doing something very different on Ask an Atheist. As we’ve talked about the conspiracy theories that have popped up regarding the September 11th, 2001 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania more than once, and that this Sunday’s show will happen on the tenth anniversary of those attacks, we’ll be taking a one-week break from our usual show format and will be hosting a debate on the following question:

“Is there compelling evidence to doubt the official narrative of the 9/11 attacks?”

Debating the question will be:

Case, president of Seattle Skeptics and frequent contributor to the show

and Susan, a member of the local atheist community.

We’re attaching a poll to this post and will include one on a post that will appear at the debate’s conclusion to get your thoughts. What do you think?

We’ll be taking your live calls during the debate and will give you an opportunity to toss in your two cents. Let us know what you think and join the discussion!

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Take a second and cast a vote for Ask an Atheist in this year’s Best of Western Washington contest! The businesses, people and organizations that win these things get a lot of positive local attention, which make keeping our show on the air even easier so that we can bring you restaurant quality blasphemy every week.

Currently, as a write-in option on “Best Local Podcast”, we’re in 9th Place, so winning is not out of the question! Follow this link and cast your write-in vote for our program. Evening Magazine, the local television show that hosts this annual contest will put a huge media spotlight on our little show if we pull off this surprise upset. Our winning is good for the show, good for local and regional atheism and good for atheist media visibility!

Thank you for all the support you’ve given our show in its first year and for the support you continue to give it! It only takes a moment and the impact for Ask an Atheist could be tremendous.

Also, it would really make the local fundamentalists angry if you did.

Vote now!