[irrelig] The long wait is over … we return with an episode discussing the various arguments for the existence of God, including a new one given by Mormon Apostle Boyd K. Packer, who claims he got it directly from God himself. Join us as we trash the ontological, cosmological, kalam cosmological, and teleological arguments for God’s existence and offer a refutation of Packer’s pro-God argument with a dope counter-argument we got straight from our boy Satan.

In addition to the Mims Carter Skunk Dick of the Week (sponsored by the Bacon Gospels), this episode also features the debut of a new pilot episode screenplay, written by Leighton and myself, which we hope will be picked up by a major television network or motion picture studio. It’s called “Martyrman.”

Give it a listen here. And don’t worry, we’ll be back with the Scientology episode next week (hopefully).

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[irrelig]Episode #51 is where we talk about the LDS church’s penchant for fortune-telling, in the form of a “patriarchal blessing” typically given at age 14. This blessing lays out the future life of the recipient. Unsurprisingly, it usually says the teenager will grow up to be a good Mormon.

Well, we dug up Leighton’s patriarchal blessing and we assess its accuracy, as well as compare and contrast to a few other patriarchal blessings we found floating around on the internet. And here it is.

[irrelig]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.

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[irrelig]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.

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[irrelig]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.