Ask An Atheist

In this week’s look at the funny, the scary and just plain weird passages in humanity’s holy text, we revisit the Bible. This passage this week comes from listener Calladus from Fresno, California, from Genesis 2:18-20 New English Translation:

2:18 -  The Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I will
make a companion for him who corresponds to him.
2:19 – The Lord God formed out of the ground every living animal of the field
and every bird of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would
name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its
name.

2:20 -  So the man named all the animals, the birds of the air, and the living
creatures of the field, but for Adam no companion who corresponded to him
was found.

So, Adam is lonely. He needs a counterpart. With benefits. So, God’s solution is…to make a bunch of animals?

The words is now populated with all sorts of critters, and they all get names. But Adam still doesn’t have a companion because he doesn’t want to marry the turtle or the mandrill or the horse. And this really begs the question: Is God really so dumb that he can’t figure out the need for a second human, or does he want to see some sort of donkey show here?

Either way, Adam isn’t having it and is holding out for a mate with opposable thumbs.

“Oh c’mon, Adam,” God must be thinking. “You’re not supposed to have any shame until you eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil!”

As Sam aptly puts it, this calls into question the bogus line of reasoning that the Religious Right employs in their war on gay rights, comparing a legal union of same-sex partners to beastiality. The earliest parts of the Bible don’t seem to have a problem with the latter.

If you have a passage of holy scripture that you find funny, scary or just plain weird, send it our way. Whether it’s from the Bible, the Qur’an, the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Mormon, or even Dianetics, click on the big, red, shiny button at the top of the page and we may even read it on the show!

After a solid twenty-four hours of our second BlogTV fundraising event, the cast and crew of Ask an Atheist is exhausted. We’re going to crash now.

But first, we want to thank everyone who participated in our second online fundraiser, especially those who made generous contributions which will help keep our show on the air! Special thanks to friend of the show, Scott Imbeau who was our biggest contributor.

In total, we raised over $1,200, but it’s not too late to send in contributions of your own. If you like the programming you get from Ask an Atheist, consider sending us a few bucks.

Religious media in this country is ubiquitous. Throw a rock in any direction and you’ll hit a glut of religious television stations, religious websites, religious bookstores, religious magazines, religious radio stations, religious cable networks…and you’d have to search rather hard to find the other 16-20% of Americans without religion get any representation in the media.

As one of the very few shows on commercial radio with an atheistic point of view, our success means that the god-botherers won’t have a total media monopoly on the topics of religion, belief and skepticism. We like to think ourselves as a pebble on the other side of the scales of the public debate.

If you think that having a media voice for skeptical inquiry, freethought and reason is important, make a contribution to our homespun little blasphemous radio show and help make our proverbial pebble bigger.

Or something like that. Now, to sleep. Sleeeeeeep…

This is an audio announcement of the upcoming BlogTV Event and our entrance into the “Best of Western Washington” podcast competition.

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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!

It is HERE!

It’s that time again, folks!

We need to pay the bills to keep our godless heathen voices in the media, and to that end, we’re announcing our second BlogTV 24-hour marathon event. That’s right, we’re going to deprive ourselves of sleep from noon on Friday, September 2nd, until noon on Saturday, September 3rd in an attempt to entertain you, answer questions, interact with our listeners, debate, discuss and drink ourselves stupid on Sam’s homemade brew.

It’s like being invited to the cool kids’ party, except instead of cool kids, it’s the cast and crew and friends of Ask an Atheist! Come join us as we host our next BlogTV event! Even if you’re thousands of miles away, you can participate in this one!

For locals, we will be meeting up at Sam’s office, contact him for details. Drink list to follow.

For those of you who can’t make it in person, join us on BlogTV as we take questions from the audience, and slowly entertain you to our deaths over a non-stop period of 24 hours.

Contribute your time, enthusiasm and/or money to help Ask an Atheist continue on the air and on the Internet!