For our 50th podcast, who else could we have on but the guy who gave us our lowest iTunes review ever — our very own Mims Carter, of the Mims Carter Skunk Dick of the Week Award, which has only been won by Mims Carter. Mr. Carter takes us through his experiences as an out atheist in the most religious state in the Union, Mississippi. The discussion is wide-ranging as always and includes politics, family life, and Leighton’s nearly-always irrelevant experiences.

For those of you who can’t access US iTunes reviews, here is the text of Mims Carter’s review in its entirety:

Not Funny   ★★
by mims carter – Dec 17, 2009

A couple of snarky, immature young male atheists who take cheap shots at religious people and have fun accusing other snarky, immature young male atheist podcasters of being snarky, immature young male atheists. As with other atheist podcasts of this ilk, the only redeeming feature of this podcast is that they are atheists, and they occasionally interview someone with something to say. The podcast featuring tall penguin was actually informative when they let her talk. Fewer skunk dick jokes and more substance would be nice.

Catch the fireworks here.

In this episode we discuss the rest of the story: how when Christians gained power in the Roman Empire, they took Christ’s teachings about being meek and turning the other cheek to heart, and immediately put the sword and torch to pagan temples, books, priests, and people in a persecution so widespread and thorough it put the Diocletian “Great Persecution” to shame.

Plus, we read reviews, discover who this week’s Skunk Dick is, and play a commercial for our sponsor(s). You can listen to it all here.

For the 48th podcast, we look into the persecution of Christians by pagans in the first three centuries after Christ. How often were they persecuted? What was the extent of Imperial involvement? Was Christianity always illegal in the empire? What was the Christian reaction to their persecutions? And why were these meek and mild Christians being persecuted in the first place, in a world usually so tolerant of divergent religious beliefs?

The answer, of course, is obvious: Satan was behind it all.

Ahh, the 47th episode, in which we discuss Kent Hovind’s fabulously informative doctoral dissertation, for which he received his PhD in Christian Education from Patriot (Bible) University. Now, neither of us here at Irreligiosophy currently hold PhDs, so we were ill-prepared to tackle such a great work. Of course, that’s never stopped us before …

The results can be found here.

Well, we ran into a bit of a snag, so we’re going to take a timeout and try the podcast again soon. The subject: Kent Hovind’s “Doctoral” “Dissertation.”

Good times, I promise. It should be up this Wednesday the 6th.

Anthropology Professor Ewa Wasilevska returns to discuss the content of a few classes she teaches at the University of Utah, including Anthropology of Humor and Laughter, Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, and a class on Death Rituals and Mummification. The result is quite interesting as we introduce Dr. Wasilevska to new ways to offend.

Catch it here.

Just in time for the season, we cover the angelic annunciation, Jesus’s trip down Mary’s perpetually virginal birth canal, Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, the Magi’s visit, Joseph and Mary’s flight to Egypt, and Jesus’s rocket ride from Krypton.

All in one nice little tidy package wrapped up in a bow. Merry X-mas!

In this first guest episode in a long while, we discuss Jehovah’s Witnesses with former JW Tall Penguin. We discuss crazy doctrines such as the whole blood transfusion garbage, sexual behavior that is allowed, frowned upon, and downright verboten, the JW practice of shunning former members, and nearly everything else. The only thing we didn’t discuss is why the JW organization is padding its member rolls with penguins.

Give it a listen here.

Due to our episode on the Jehovah’s Witnesses we received a comment from a very special woman who we were able to convince to come on and speak with us concerning her experiences. She enlightens us much more than any research we could do and we’re glad to have her on to discuss her experiences inside this religion. If you would like to read more about her experiences you can visit her blog. We will be posting this interview for this week’s podcast.

Tall Penguin was raised a Jehovah’s Witness. At the age of 31, after a series of events and realizations, she formally cut ties with the religion. Through her blog, she details the aftermath of leaving the JW’s and the subsequent journey into a life without God and belief. When she isn’t devouring books, Tall Penguin spends her time writing, painting and generally enjoying life.

Listener Rick got me off my fat, lazy ass to set up an Irreligiosophy group at Atheist Nexus, which you can find and join here. Join away. We may even put up some extra content on there, or something.