[chuck]I’ve gotten a few emails asking about what’s going on and when can the new show be expected. Currently I’m working three to four 12-hour shifts per week in addition to the regular 8-hour shifts in an attempt to pay down the debt incurred last year. I’m not sure when the new show will start, but 1) I’d like to build up a backlog of episodes before it launches, and 2) it’s a low priority for me right now. Priority #1 is getting rid of the debt, which I think I can do but it’s going to take a while.

That having been said, feel free to drop some episode ideas in the comments, if anyone is still reading here. So far, I plan to do a show on the resurrection, mythicism vs historicism, CS Lewis, and the witch hunts.

Adios muthafuckaaaas. My last post will be a link to the new podcast, if and when.

[chuck]I don’t know why anyone would bother now, but we were hacked a few days ago (February 21 at 2:32PM according to the logs). You may have noticed being redirected to some random porn site or being told by your browser that Irreligiosophy was a “dangerous site.” True enough, I guess.

We’re back up and running, and I’ll look for some ways to harden the default WordPress install. The forums are not going to make it, because the hacker injected code into every php file, and I don’t really want to go back and remove it or even bother to reinstall phpBB. Everything else should be up and running. But if this becomes too much of a problem — if I’m going to have to come back here frequently and clean up some script kiddy’s mess, or if it takes too much of my time hardening the site, it will go away too. I have too much to do to babysit a site that isn’t really active any more. So save those mp3s now, because who knows what some asshole will do in the future. And by “some asshole,” I mean me.

And if you haven’t signed up already, here’s the Unapologetics Announcement List:[ALO-EASYMAIL-PAGE]

[chuck]The good folks over at Church of Awesome (some of whom you may remember from the Mormon Missionary and Temple episodes) had a round table on the absurdity of the Atonement and invited me to join in. The result can be found here: The Atonement.

I think I was a little fuzzy from the beginnings of a sinus infection mixed with an off-brand energy drink, but I had a good time. Give it a listen for the rest of the crew in any case.

[chuck]Well, my hard drive crashed while I was editing episode 111, so I am raising the white flag and closing up shop on Irreligiosophy. I’ve locked the forums and will lock the site up within the next week or two. I’ve left a link to a mailing list — for those who are interested, sign up for the list and I’ll use it exactly once to email an announcement when Unapologetics goes live. Thank you to everyone who donated, it helped more than you know.

All of the episodes will remain available here and at iTunes for the foreseeable future, unless it starts costing me extra money to do so. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Unapologetics Announcement List:[ALO-EASYMAIL-PAGE]

[chuck]I almost titled this post “I found myself in the goddamn ER again …” but thought better of it.

My wife had exploratory surgery yesterday to find a reason for the daily bouts of abdominal pain she’s been suffering from for the past three years. The good news is the surgeon found some possible culprits and addressed them. The bad news is she had some pretty severe nausea after discharge and couldn’t keep her pain medication down, so we ended up back in the ER last night. She’s doing fine now, and we’re optimistic for the future.

Episode 111 “What Is Truth?” co-hosted by Matt Wakefield has been recorded but I haven’t had time to edit it. I may not have time in the near future, but I will get to it when I can. The book is divided into two sections: a treatise on why science is wrong about evolution and why True Scientists™ support intelligent design, and a section on why Kirk Hastings’ religion is true and every other religion on the planet is false. We covered the first section (briefly — honestly this part is so filled with garbage we could have spent months trolling its depths) in Episode 111. I think we’ll try to do a 112 on the second section before closing up shop here.

[chuck]I’ve narrowed the title ideas for my podcast to “Unapologetics” and “Chuck Tracts” and acquired both domain names (unapologetics.com is registered to a cybersquatter). In typical Irreligiosophy fashion, I’ll ask for your feedback and then promptly ignore it and choose whatever one I want.

Also, we’ve finished recording the next episode, so I’ll be editing that over the next week or whenever I can get to it. Be on the lookout for that.

EDIT: Apparently the poll crapped out at 163 votes. Final tally was 70% for Unapologetics, 27% for Chuck Tracts, and 3% for some blank option that somehow popped up in the last day or so.

[chuck]There’s a thread right now at the Irreligiosophy fan page about favorite episodes, and it got me thinking: now that the show is nearly complete, what were your favorite moments?

To get the ball rolling, I’ll list some of mine: telling my pullup story for the first time to anyone during the “Advice to Young Men” episode (at that point I didn’t think very many people would ever listen to the show), laughing at Hovind’s poem and letter to the editor that he stuck inside his doctoral “dissertation,” interviewing Robert Price about Mormonism, way overpreparing for the second E4F debate (the debate itself was excruciating, but in prepping for it I read a lot of good books and essays), coming up with new ways to annoy and berate our listeners (the Bonerderm commercial comes to mind), and finally just getting to vent publicly about all of my frustrations with religion in general and Mormonism in specific.

It’s been a fun ride.

[chuck]So it looks like Matt and I will be getting together some time this week to record — look for the podcast to appear some time next week.

And then I’m not sure what to do. I’m thinking of wrapping up Irreligiosophy and leaving it as is, with the RSS feed intact and all the content in place. That way it will stand as its own body of work without a “second coming” that regardless of quality, will never be the same as the first.

If I do start a new podcast, I’ll be needing a new name. It seems the podcast community is all about puns, so any suggestions would be appreciated. If left to my own devices, I’m sure I’ll come up with another name equally obscure and difficult to pronounce as Irreligiosophy.

[chuck]While resting, gathering steam, and considering my future podcasting plans, I was contacted by Dumbass of the Invisible Sky Monster podcast to join in on a roundtable discussion on a host of issues pertinent to the skeptical and atheist communities. Give it a listen.

I’m pretty much settled on providing a fair and balanced review of Kirk Hastings’ “What is Truth?” for the next and final (?) Irreligiosophy podcast. I have randomly selected Hovindologist Matt Wakefield out of an infinite array of possible co-hosts; fortunately his expertise in Hovindology qualifies him to tackle nearly the exact same “arguments” from Kirk. Look for that podcast to pop up in the next few weeks.

[irrelig]Although listening to it I’d hate to go out this way. It’s basically a beta version of the Loftus interview. I’m a huge fan of Dan Barker, but I seem less engaged in this one even though it was done way back in February. Leighton actually has a clue who Barker is since I loaned him my copy of Losing Faith in Faith in preparation for the E4F debate, but he’s still Leighton.

I need a break. But I am toying around with the idea of doing another episode gently critiquing Kirk Hasting’s magnum opus What is Truth? (since I’ve already finished half of the work on it) maybe with expert Hovindologist Matt Wakefield as cohost. That might be a more fitting exit for Irreligiosophy than a poorly-done interview — although come to think of it, poorly-done interviews are what we’re known for.

No matter what happens, the site and existing podcasts will remain up and available.