Since no Mormons were man enough to talk to us, we decided to round up some news of interest to atheists. We found plenty.

For reference purposes, here are the articles we discuss in the podcast:

Special Olympics takes on use of the “R word”
Texas School Board members really, really stupid
ICR wants to award advanced degrees in science
Religious dying patients most likely to delay their trip to Heaven

[adsense]

So I’ve been working the whole morning on editing our brilliant news roundup podcast, and the thing decides not to save. But that’s not all! It also refuses to recognize any commands that will allow me to export my work or cut and paste into a different program. And then it decides to just crash entirely.

No worries, though, I still have the original file — I’ve been backing them up immediately ever since the Wakefield podcast fiasco. So the upshot is that I have to go to work now, and there won’t be a podcast until probably tomorrow morning at the earliest.

In entirely unrelated news, if anyone has any suggestions for a Mac-based audio editor, I’m in the market.

The board members got together and made an executive decision: we’re going to hold off on this week’s A.N.N. because there’s so much to talk about. Instead, we’re going to do another Atheist News Roundup where we spend a whole hour tearing apart the stupidity in this week’s news.

And there is a lot of it. Texas wants to grant the Institution for Creation Research the ability to award graduate level degrees in science. Vermont’s legislature has granted homosexuals the legal rights to marry, but the bill may be vetoed by the state’s Republican governor. The Texas school board, led by a creationist dentist who believes the earth is 6,000 years old, is set to change their science standards so that “weaknesses” of evolutionary theory have to be discussed. As usual, nothing is included about the “weaknesses” of, say, quantum mechanics or linguistics — no, curiously enough, only the “weaknesses” of a theory that directly contradicts the Texan simple-minded reading of Bronze-age mythology has to be discussed.

That, and a lot more, this Friday!

[leighton]

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Podcast Summary, Episode #12: Mormon Problems, Part Deux

In part deux of our sleep-inducing series on Mormon doctrinal problems, we discuss Brigham Young’s controversial Adam-God doctrine and the legacy of 150 years of institutionalized racism within the LDS church. On re-listening, I’ll go ahead and correct myself now: it wasn’t Spencer W. Kimball who made the “little tricks of history” comment, it was Gordon B. Hinckley, on Larry King Live.

Give it a listen if you have already emerged from the coma induced by part one.

[adsense]