Hey everyone, good news. I was on Radio 702 last night for a whole hour (11.00 to midnight) as the guest on Kieno’s show. Afterwards the producer said she’d put the topic onto their site as a podcast (it should be there quite soon).
I found out about the show too late to let you guys know so you could tune in - sorry (really sorry - we had waaay too many woo-woo nuts phoning in and I could have done with some more intelligent calls from you guys).
Once the podcast is on their site I’ll see if I can put a link to it onto this thread.
Yay! It was awesome to be on air for so long and to speak at length (and, if you know me by now, with passion) about atheism and my book.
Fundies always annoy me - regardless. My daughter recons I was sooo diplomatic though and actually, I’m ashamed to say, I remained calm and professional the whole time. I have, in the past, delivered some choice gems of sarcasm to annoying Fundies (e.g. “How old did you say you were? And you still believe in an invisible Being floating around the universe? Bwuahahahahaaah!”), but on Monday I kinda kept my cool. The producer said that if I did well, they would start using me on a regular basis as a spokesman for atheism on 702, so it was kind of an audition.
One of the callers said something along the lines that she believes that God brings the sun up each morning and puts the moon out at night, and then she started going off about the book of Revelation and how people like me (saying such nasty things about God) are proof that we are living in the end times. Kieno got a little sarcastic but I just said, in effect, that she can believe what she likes but I prefer to think all those things are natural. Oh SO friggen diplomatic.
Heheh. Anyway, I passed the audition so it was worth it.
I’m pleased to hear of this success, Steve, well done. Radio is the medium where the religions stand very strong in SA, with various religious channels as well as religious programmes on SABC channels. We should welcome inroad being made here.
I was so exited when I heard you on my favorite radio station Steve, That was excellent and your arguments were fantastic. You really had them all by the balls.
Awesome - you heard the show? Cool. Sorry about not posting about it (it all happened too quickly, officer) but if there is a next time, you guys will be the first to know.
And Tele, are you STILL going on about God not being an entity who actually exists? Would that not make Him a “spiritual” Being who exists in the real physical sense of the word? Or do you concede that He is merely a figment of people’s imagination and therefore doesn’t actually, physically exist? Are we not talking about definitions here? Surely if you say God is a “spiritual” being and not a “physical” being, then you are also saying He doesn’t exist in the real world as an actual Being - which would make God a myth, a figment of human imagination. I guess you’d need to listen to the show and decide for yourself (heheh).
Sterling job, Steve. Hats off to your calm, gentle, restrained and – perhaps therefore all-the-more – persuasive demeanour and presentation. Some of the apologists and defenders of the faith seemed to become agitated, even petulantly confrontational, when straightforward reasoning tripped them up in clear counterpoint to your indulgence and leniency. The basic issue again emerges as a fundamental parting of the ways concerning essential analysis and approach to knowledge. Live transmission notwithstanding, I doubt I could have retained my composure even half as well as you did with some of the ill-informed nonsense that several callers managed in all earnestness to espouse.
Well done, Steve. You covered a lot of ground and many of the issues you raised may be familiar to us on the forum or to people who have read books on the topic, but would be new to the general listening public. By contrast the religious callers’ responses were not convincing at all. May it help to sell your book.
Well done, Steve. Got to listen to it last night. You speak eloquently and from the heart.
One bone of contention, at around 13 minutes you say Christianity is not a true religion (and I don’t quite know what you mean by that) but you also say that Jesus never existed and that this is supported by scholars.
It is my current understanding that most scholars actually content that there was a preacher called Jesus around 1 AD on which Christianity is based.
There were several very interesting debates on dawkinsnet and now on rationalskepticism where the Jesus mythers have been shown wrong in my opinion.
I also sat and listened to it last night and I have to echo everyone else; well done Steve.
I’m afraid that I wouldn’t have had the patience either to listen to some of those people; especially the woman who insisted that god put the sun up in the sky every morning. ???
@cyghost
I think what Steve was saying about Jesus not existing is that the Jesus of the bible never existed.(That’s the way I read it anyway, I may be wrong in what Steve meant).
I’d also like to hear what he meant by Chritianity not being a true religion.
One suggestion for next time is to challenge the presenters’ position, and some of the callers, of believing in God because it makes him feel comfortable.
As the Son of God with miracles and stuffs? Bah, we all know that, only crazy people believe otherwise
Steve also said he was in his 50ties but he sounds much younger!
ETA: yikes, listening to it a second time. At around 43min Steve says “Evolution is no longer just a theory, it has been proven”. Evolution is a fact. The Theory of Evolution is a theory and will remain a theory, and is basically a model we have explaining the fact of evolution. A small bone to pick but damn I have had so much problems with this in the past, I’d rather we have it 100% right all the time.
;D.
