skepticality: Is Secularism a Bad Word? Come Find Out!

[dcolanduno]

Interview Show #8 (Tom Flynn, editor: Free Inquiry)

web: http://www.skepticality.com/
feed: http://skepticality.libsyn.com/rss/

We have on our show this weekend, Tom Flynn, editor of Free Inquiry Magazine, member of CSICOP, Center for Inquiry, as well as an accomplished author.

Tom discusses with us the definition and goals of Secular minded individuals. Join us for an interesting discussion about our current social climate, and the blending of religion and politics.

[kickasspodcast]

Secularism is one of my favorite words and concepts, I will look forward to hearing the show.

It is the misunderstanding of secularists (imho) that leads to so many problems.


Jack

[dcolanduno]

Look forward to the feedback Jack.

Part of this show is an experiment... our first 'hate mail' came in last week, from of all shows, our Crop Circle interview.

That floored me, we hadn't had that show up for 2 days and Crop Circle junkies were sending us all sorts of wacky 'evidence' to prove that the people that 'say' they do crop circles are all liars because they want the publicity to get paid to do the commercial work, like the big-foot, or the olympic rings.

<sigh>

We had 6-7 episodes before that where we covered some pretty controversial topics, and all our feedback was really great, or nice level-headed commentary on our stuff...

You talk about a woo-woo topic like Crop Circles... not THAT brings out the hate!

Hahah, go figure.

I hope you enjoy the show!

[Hittman]

I love hate mail. I especially love hate mail that tells me I'm an idiot and a moron, and is full of spelling, grammar and capitalization errors.

I've only received a few pieces of e-mail from my cast, and they've been positive. My web site, though, generates various waves of love an hate mail. The Facts (which debunks the second hand smoke myth) runs about 50-50. Half the writers send me gushing praise, the other venomous hate mail.

Every once in a while a True Believer in something or other will find an old page on my site that pisses them off, tell all their buddies about it, and I'll get a wave of venom. This happens most often with an article I wrote on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity back in 2000. (http://www.davehitt.com/june00/sents.html) After explaining that it's an imaginary disease, I go on to make fun of the hypochondriacs that think they're suffering from it. I can tell when a group of them have discovered it – the hate mail comes in all at once, a half dozen within the space of a couple of days. I can usually tell, from my logs, what forum their dissing it in, and sometimes even log on to watch the fray. In one of them, one of the True Believers exclaimed "This man is dangerous! He must be shut down!"

True Believers are a hoot.

[dcolanduno]

True Believers are a hoot.

Love that story. Yea, that is what happened with our Episode on Crop Circles. I even went to a couple forums I tracked down to find out where it all came from.

Those Crop Circle folks were going off on the interview like it was the end of the world. The best post... ever;

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Posted by a guy named 'Cropist_NL':

"We can't let people, or shows like this get away with spreading the message of mis-information. We have discussed this before as a group, we knew that the members of the worlds governments would use all forms of new media to spread their message.

I dare a show like that to put on 'REAL' scientists, not artists, or people that claim to make designs that any sane person knows cannot be done overnight with a bit of ply from the store. People like Irving perpetuate the lie to make money off the Olympic committee and companies like Nike or Mountain Dew, they probably don't even realize they are a tool of the global government.

Even if they don't people like the circlemakers are lairs and vandals, so we can peruse them using the law, unlike that 'skepticality' show, which can conveniently hide behind manipulated American laws like the 'first amendment'.

I can just hope that any sane, rational human, will not take someone with the name 'Swoopy' seriously. I think the 'big thinkers' in the machine made a mistake using someone with a name like 'Swoopy' as the mouthpiece for a global brainwashing experiment."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I couldn't even reply to that... so many different parts of that post made me realize this was a group of people that have lost touch with any form of reality.

[allthewhile]

I'm gonna take a stab in the dark here and just guess. This is a guess mind you. A wild one. I'm gonna put down the wacky weed for a second and guess that you propose secularism is not a bad word, or even a "bad idea".

:lol:

[dcolanduno]

I'm gonna take a stab in the dark here and just guess. This is a guess mind you. A wild one. I'm gonna put down the wacky weed for a second and guess that you propose secularism is not a bad word, or even a "bad idea".

Now if I told you, it would ruin the whole reason to listen to the show! ;)

Actually, you ask a good question, because, there are some folks that do truly believe that the idea of secular government, living, etc, is a bad idea. Heck, I have run into people that believe it is a 'bad word' in the sense that it is used as a 'slur' in their circles of friends or the groups they associate with.

Would love to have the feedback from someone like yourself. I actually listen to your show when it comes up in my rotation. (I basically subscribe to about 40 podcasts, so you are on the list)

One of the major points in the interview that may be overlooked is how philosophy about world or governmental effects can seem like political affiliation at times.

Even with some of the seemingly 'political' over/undertones of our last episode, the entire conversation was more about the philosophical differences in people, than the political connection.

Wow, I should do a whole show just on that alone!

I still maintain ZERO love for either side of the political isle, and I honestly have equal distain for both sides about many issues.