Geeks Without God is all New!
Another Tuesday morning means another Geeks Without God podcast! This week we talk about The Contender, a fine political film that happens to feature an atheist protagonist.
The film led us to a conversation about all sorts of topics including, at times, the actual movie. I really enjoy the in-depth movie episodes because it involves watching good movies and then seeing where the film takes us.
You can listen to it here.
Understanding the Difference Between Stupidity and Apathy
There. Are. THIRTEEN stripes!
This weekend, I decided that we’d play a game called “Are you more American than a Vilifer” with our audience. I figured I’d ask two audience volunteers questions about Minnesota and American politics to see which one of them knew more.
Several of the questions I asked are standard questions on the naturalization test. They are things people who want to become citizens of our country are expected to know.
Now understand, I expected that they would do poorly. I had several “easy” questions prepared just to ensure that they got a few answers right.
The results were worse than I expected.
I’ve Written and Recorded more Stuff you can Listen to and Read!
New content day over at Vilification Tennis. I’ve written a new Movie Dick article about the upcoming “Oscar season” in the movie theatres.
Additionally, I’ve recorded a new podcast with a few of the vilifiers in which we discuss disparate topics like the price of Brazilian virginity, the most badass American Presidents and Halloween costumes. It’s a pretty funny podcast, which is good because that was the goal.
So please, listen and/or read! Thanks!
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 10/26
Yes, that’s right, let’s discourage people from being seismologists by threatening them with imprisonment if they don’t do a good enough job predicting Earthquakes. You know, because their job is to be perfect about something we know we can’t accurately predict.
And when they get it wrong, we can hold them accountable when people die.
By god, someone will PAY FOR THIS!!!!
You know, because it makes sense to hold people accountable for an act of nature.
The next time some idiot decides to jump into freezing cold rapids at Yosemite National Park and they die as a result, we should sue the Federal Government because they didn’t give the guy an IQ test at the gate, right?
Alphabetical Movie – Jurassic Park
Life finds a way.
So we are told by Dr. Ian Malcom in Jurassic Park.
We will ignore the problems with the fashion in which this happens in Jurassic Park – it is Science Fiction after all – because I’m really intrigued by the concept that life finds a way.
Alphabetical Movie – The Jungle Book
When I was young, there was no such thing as home video. If you wanted to watch a Disney animated film, you went to see what was in the theatre or watched edited chunks of them on “The Wonderful World of Disney.”
What we did have was record albums of the movies. Specifically, I remember a recording of The Jungle Book that I listened to repeatedly to the point that I knew every sound in The Jungle Book. Literally every sound. It was not a record of the songs from the film. It was a record that was literally the entire film.
Alphabetical Movie – Juno and the Paycock
Around Christmas last year, there was a good deal on a collection of all of Alfred Hitchcock’s British films. I’m a big fan of his work but his British period was pretty much a blank slate for me. Aside from The 39 Steps, I’m pretty ignorant of his developmental period.
I don’t remember the exact price but it was less than $2.00 per movie. As far as I was concerned, it was a great deal if all I’d gotten was The 39 Steps and The Lodger.
Decisions like that are one of the reasons I’m doing the Alphabetical Movie project. I have something like twenty Hitchcock films on four discs. Left to my own devices, I would probably watch one or two in the next five years.
Geeks Without God is Getting all Political this Week
This week features an episode we recorded back at the Renaissance Festival. We sat down with Tony Miller (Shamus the Insulter) to talk to him about being raised as a Menonite. I still think we need to back to talking about him about that because we ended up getting sidetracked by the upcoming gay marriage amendment.
Obviously, I’ve spent a lot of time writing and talking about the amendment but I really liked a lot of the things Tony said in this episode. We decided to schedule it a couple weeks before the election in hopes that it might change someone’s mind. Even if it doesn’t change your mind, I’m hoping that we can inspire a few people to talk about it to family and friends who are still going to vote “yes.”
People who vote “yes” don’t want to talk about it. At some level, I believe they understand that their decision to vote “yes” is a hurtful act and they don’t like to be told. This isn’t an ideological conservative vs. liberal issue. It is a “fucking over a minority issue.” I don’t have a problem with people who are going to vote for Mitt Romney. I have a big problem with people who are voting “yes.”
All righteous indignation aside, I’m pretty proud of this episode. Please listen.
Life isn’t fair. Anyone who says Differently is Selling Something.
Over the weekend, I went to a Minnesota Atheist meeting in Minneapolis to hear Stephanie Svan speak on justice in a “just world.”
Her talk coincided with a Christian posting a comment on my Inherit the Wind blog in which she said, in part:
I don’t feel my children are growing up ignorant because we teach them that they are gifts on loan from God to us, and they are loved and cared for by parents and a God who loves them dearly and has an awesome plan and purpose for their lives.
If I had a fundamental objection to religion, it is this idea that god has a “plan” for us. It plays into this idea that the universe is inherently a “fair” place. Yet the facts suggest that this is not the case.
Grail Diary 