Reasonable Doubts Podcast

From India to Iowa courageous men and women are speaking out and fighting back against religious intimidation and repression. For this episode, the Doubtcasters share some of these inspiring stories. PZ Myers, author of the science blog Pharyngula, joins us in the studio to discuss what needs to happen next in the struggle against dogma. Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.

On this episode we introduce a new segment called "get to know a fallacy." For the first installment we examine false analogies in the design arguments of William Paley and Dinesh D'Souza. But first join us for a new installment of God Thinks Like You where we explain why, to the brain, God is just another guy. Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.

Never before in the history of the show, have we received such a strong and mixed response from our listeners as we did with our two part series on the subject of free will and determinism. So for this episode the doubtcasters, as promised, respond to our listeners emails. Also, we take a look at "Ten Books that Screwed Up the World" and explain why President Obama is once again on Reasonable Doubts shitlist. Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.

To celebrate the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin Ed Brayton, author of ScienceBlogs popular blog Dispatches from the Culture Wars, joins us to talk about his new radio show and podcast Declaring Independence. He shares with us a fascinating interview with Ken Miller, critic of Intelligent Design and author of the new book Only a Theory. Miller explains the findings of a paper that was devastating to the notion of irreducible complexity, a paper written by none other than Intelligent Design advocate Michael Behe. Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.

This week we're going to take a break from our usual format to bring to you a lecture recently delivered to CFI Michigan by Reasonable Doubts co-host Luke Galen. Luke has just completed the most comprehensive survey to date on the Non-Religious. The results provide some answers to questions such as How are non religious individuals viewed by the broader community? What differentiates religious and non religious individuals within the same community? Are there sub groups within the non religious community, and are there any differences between atheists, agnostics and humanists? Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.

Barack Obama has been president for barely a week, yet the religious right has already ramped up their rhetoric to hysterical levels. For this episode we examine their claim that Obama�s reversal of the "Global Gag Rule" on family planning funding represents an assault on human life. Also we look to the New Testament and ask whether Christianity is more compatible with capitalism or socialism for another installment of the Skeptic�s Sunday School. Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.

According to the American Family Association's new documentary "Speechless: Silencing The Christians" Homosexual advocates are using sophisticated propaganda techniques to manipulate the public into accepting the homosexual lifestyle as normal and harmless. As a result Christians are now being stereotyped by the media as being intolerant bigots clearing the way for persecution at the hands of homosexual advocates who use hate speech laws to silence Christian's free speech rights and suppress their freedom of religion. For this episode the Doubtcasters set the record straight by exposing the exaggerated claims, cherry-picked evidence and anti-gay pseudoscience in the film speechless. Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.

Having argued for determinism, the doubtcasters now turn to its implications. Is moral responsibility possible in a deterministic universe? Could justice and self-knowledge still be achieved if free will is just an illusion? Tom Clark, Director of the Center For Naturalism joins us on the show to explain how adopting a consistently naturalistic worldview would transform our view of society and ourselves. Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.

Does every person possess a immaterial soul capable of making free choices or are we all just electrified meat--slaves to brute causality? For this episode, the doubtcasters draw upon arguments from philosophy and psychology to make the case for determinism. But if a naturalistic outlook rules out freedom of the will is morality still possible? Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.

Nica Lalli Author of "Nothing: Something to Believe In" joins us in the studio to talk about art, the holidays and raising freethinking children. Also in this episode are holiday editions of the "props/s***list" and "stranger than fiction" segments.

Does the New Testament provide a clear and accurate portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth? If the gospels provide the testimony of four independent witnesses who overwhelmingly agree on the details, as apologists claim, then we would have reason to trust these accounts. But modern biblical scholarship paints a radically different picture of the gospels, their origins and historical accuracy. In this, the second of a two part series, the Doubtcasters consider and respond to recent counter-arguments offered by prominent Christian apologists. Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.

Does the New Testament provide a clear and accurate portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth? If the gospels provide the testimony of four independent witnesses who overwhelmingly agree on the details, as apologists claim, then we would have reason to trust these accounts. But modern biblical scholarship paints a radically different picture of the gospels, their origins and historical accuracy. In this, the first of a two part series, the Doubtcasters draw upon the insights of biblical criticism to challenge the reliability of the gospel narratives. For part two of the series, the Doubtcasters will consider and respond to recent counter-arguments offered by prominent Christian apologists. Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.

Embryonic stem-cell research, assisted dying, human enhancements and genetically modified foods. Is it possible to have a constructive moral and legal dialogue about such controversial bioethical issues without being derailed by religious and ideological dogmas? Ron Lindsay, author of Future Bioethics: Overcoming Taboos, Myths and Dogmas joins us on the show to explain how we could resolve these controversies without presupposing either a religious or non-religious worldview.Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.

Zombies, demons, Satan, witches, ritual abuse, Mel Gibson and more...this episode's a nightmare. Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.

By popular demand, the Doubtcasters present their critique of Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN). This celebrated argument attempts to demonstrate that natural selection, if unguided by god, could not produce beings with reliable cognitive faculties capable of discerning the truth. But is EAAN all its cracked up to be? Also on this episode: The Doubtcasters consider William Lane Craig's rebuttal to Euthyphro's Dilemma, answer listener e-mails, and discuss Bill Maher's new movie Religulous. Reasonable Doubts: Your skeptical guide to religion offering news and commentary of interest to skeptics, atheists, humanists, apologists looking for a challenge and freethinkers of all persuasions.