Show 488: Naturalistic XMas Special!

Naturalistic XMas Special!

Audio here!

This Xmas, Arnell Dowret will host our annual program taking a humanistic, naturalistic view on the Christian holiday! The two-hour special will feature all the usual goodies including the Xmas meditation, our historic interview with Santa, and more…

This Xmas, we also had the pleasure of speaking with two members of the Freethought community! Dr. Dian Killian is a Certified Trainer with the international Center for Nonviolent Communication. We often hear that this is the season of goodwill towards all men/women — a noble humanistic ideal which should extend the entire year — and that in times of trouble, this sentiment takes on even more profound meaning. In the “Immediate and Personal” segment of this special program, we will speak with Dian about her work and how it can be useful when dealing with the recent and intense conflicts between the Police and the public.

Later on, in the “Vast and Futuristic” segment, we will speak with astronomer Carolyn Porco who is the leader of the imaging science team on the Cassini mission presently in orbit around Saturn, a veteran imaging scientist of the Voyager mission to the outer solar system in the 1980s, and one of the  imaging scientists on the New Horizons mission on its way to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. Here we will take a look at the cosmic view of a holiday — built on the scientific and intuitive awareness of the winter solstice — where even its religious endeavors are an attempt – albeit a weak one – to understand the universe.

So join us for this 2-Hour Xmas Special, and then come  back on Saturday for a special repeated program on the origins and continued existence of our policed society in America, with Kristian Williams!

Show 305: On Liberty, Freedom and the Policed Society

On Liberty, Freedom and the Policed Society w/ Author Kristian Williams

Audio here!

Humanism. According to the two documents which outline this philosophy, the Humanist Manefesto’s I & II, the goal of humanism is “a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good.  (A belief) in maximum individual autonomy consonant with social responsibility. (And that) alienating forces should be modified or eradicated and bureaucratic structures should be held to a minimum (because) people are more important than decalogues, rules, proscriptions, or regulations.”

How close are we to attaining these goals in today’s America?  Has capitalism and Jeffersonian democracy (as weak as they may be here in 2009), been able to realize some of these goals?  Any of these goals?  Or have these ideologies led to a society profoundly unable to become free, and indeed – against human nature itself – have found ways through propaganda and brute force to ensure such freedom never exists?

On this special one-hour Equal Time for Freethought, we will chat with author Kristian Williams about these questions, focusing on one of the key methods by which the nations elite “regulate” freedom… the Police.