[irrelig]Ah, youthful memories of gamemaster screens, weirdly-shaped dice, cheetohs, and a tableful of nerds. To hear it from the fundie Christian perspective, it was all about recruiting new witches into the coven, casting real spells, summoning demons as if they were Pizza Hut delivery boys, and playing with forces of darkness beyond our mortal ken. In our latest podcast, we talk about our RPG memories, the history of RPGs, and the strange fascination certain evangelical Christians had with our weird little hobby.

Plus, we discover Jack Chick’s illicit desire for bondage.

[ann]In this week’s ANN, we discuss Mark Tapscott’s inane article about Joe Biden’s recent use of the name of our lord and savior Jesus Christ in vain. The horror! We also give a tribute to our personal hero and the new mascot of Irreligiosophy, Mike the Sea Lion, who became another tragic victim of sex exhaustion during the grueling sea lion mating season. Mike, we’ll miss you.

Our 20th episode of Atheist News Network centers around a nine year old girl in Brazil who was carrying twins as a result of being raped by her stepfather. Her mother took her to the courts (abortion is illegal in Brazil, but exceptions can be made for the health of the mother or if fetal demise is inevitable) and a judge ruled that an abortion would be appropriate in this case, given the horror of the crime against her and the terrible ramifications on her own health should this pregnancy be allowed to come to term. She underwent a therapeutic abortion.

The Catholic Church heard about the case, and through its infinite wisdom excommunicated everyone involved (with the single exception of the girl — but she was spared only because she was too young!). Recently Pope Benedict gave his blessing on the decision, cementing the fact that the Catholic Church is made up, top to bottom, of cold-hearted bastards who couldn’t find a moral compass if it was lodged up their collective rectums.

[chuck]Oklahoma Representative Sally Kern is up to her old tricks once again, this time kindly letting us know that our current economic woes are actually the wrath of God, punishing the USA for supporting Sally’s favorite sins like homosexuality and divorce. Thank Vishnu we have Sally to interpret God’s will for us, otherwise we would never have drawn that connection.

Also, gay demons are being indiscriminately freed from their hosts in Connecticut. Who knows what havoc will ensue. Catch our take on the whole thing here.

[chuck]For our guest podcast this month, we have Reverend Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution and “evolutionary evangelist.” Reverend Dowd is an itinerant guest speaker who travels the country stumping for the marriage of evolution/naturalism and religion. Listen for the first half-hour as we circle each other warily, trying to feel out the other person’s viewpoints, and then having achieved a sense of the other’s worldview, we become more comfortable and can actually engage in a discussion in the second half hour rather than merely a Q & A session. Although we agree in large part, we do succeed in finding a few spots of disagreement here and again.

Reverend Dowd is a fascinating speaker whose unique perspective deserves a much wider audience. If you’re interested in doing some further reading, the first fifty pages of Thank God for Evolution is available at his website, and I’d highly recommend it. He is also available on Facebook and Twitter, and even has a blog!

[chuck]In this episode, Leighton and I comb over the evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus (which is actually pretty small) with two pairs of skeptical eyes. We discuss the pagan sources of Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and the possible reference in Suetonius and then move on to Josephus and the documents in the New Testament. It’s a wild ride through first- and second-century Judaism, Christianity, and the Roman Empire.

You can download it through iTunes or directly here. For my part in this conversation, I relied heavily on Bart Ehrman’s discussions in Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, Misquoting Jesus, and Jesus, Interrupted as well as these three sites on the Josephus question.

Pardon my hacking, one of my patients gave me a nasty virus, which I hope to have passed on to Leighton.

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