Happy Independence Day to all of our viewers in the United States. I hope all of you in the states enjoy some time with your family with barbeques, fun at the park, and maybe a few fireworks as you wave the stars and stripes. But am I wrong to hope that? There are plenty of people who say that celebrations like this are part of the problem. We live in a world filled with ethnocentrism, racism, tribalism, jingoism, extreme nationalism, and supremacism. Given the current political climate and the issues caused by overt national pride, is it really ok to be patriotic? In this episode, we will do our best to look at this question honestly, not only for Americans but with regard to every kind of national heritage across the globe.

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Created by: The Free Thought Initiative (2019)

Welcome to part 3 of our series on Stargazing. In this episode, we will find the stars of Ursa Minor, the Small bear, also known as the little dipper, enjoy an alternative mythological origin of this constellation from the one shared in part 2, and learn how explorers, mariners, and pioneers have been able to use this constellation to find North for thousands of years. So download this episode, step outside, and listen along as we turn to the most northern constellation in the northern night sky!

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Created by: The Free Thought Initiative (2019)

We have some mail! Many of you have accepted our invitation to continue the conversation in the comment sections across our social media, and I really do appreciate you adding your perspectives on each issue, especially when they deal with current or controversial ideas. In this episode, I will reply to a novel of a comment we received on Reddit responding to our Episode about Rationality Rules, Trans Athletes, and the Atheist Community:

https://youtu.be/1VIVF1-YVAM

That has more likes and dislikes than any of our episodes, which is to be expected, since, in it, I covered a few really controversial current political issues. It isn’t the controversy that draws my attention, it is the subject matter, and the role these ideas play in our culture. Join me as we continue the discussion about political correctness, intent vs. outcome, presuming ignorance before malice, political thought policing, online misinformation, social justice, Atheist Conservatives, and more.

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Created by: The Free Thought Initiative (2019)

If you haven’t yet listened to part 1 in this series, then what are you waiting for? It gives some great advice on how to plan and prepare for a good night of stargazing:

https://youtu.be/NPAGIPufcgw

If you are up to speed, then it’s time to jump into part 2! To get the most out of this episode, download it onto your phone, step outside, hold your phone up to your ear, and follow along as we find and learn about the Big Dipper, the Big Bear (Ursa Major), Bode’s Galaxy, and the Pinwheel Galaxy. If you are listening indoors, then I hope you enjoy this dive into mythology and astronomy.

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Created by: The Free Thought Initiative (2019)

Tonight’s brief primer episode will help you get started with good stargazing techniques. You will learn when and where it is best to explore the stars. After that, it will be a piece of cake to use the next episodes in this series to find dozens of constellations, planets, galaxies, and more!

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Created by: The Free Thought Initiative (2019)

In this episode, we continue our examination of the evidence behind the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. If you have missed part 1 of this series titled, “Evolution (Part 1) Intelligent Design and Darwinism,” be sure to pause this episode and give it a listen.

There is a popular idea that many fundamentalists and young earth creationists share. This is the idea that all of the evidence of ancient life on this planet, including all of the fossils older than 6,000 years (or so), don’t actually come from this planet. You see, many people believe that the story of Adam and Eve literally happened. They believe that Adam and Eve literally lived in the Garden of Eden some 6,000 years ago, and it was their “fall” that introduced death into the world. Adam acts in Christianity like an opposite to Jesus Christ. Adam and Eve bring death into the world and Jesus Christ brings everlasting life into the world. It is a poetic idea, but it leads to a massive problem: fundamentalists Christians don’t believe that anything could have died before Adam and Eve, even when we have mountains around us filled with fossils!

Rather than admit that their idea of the history of the earth is flawed, several creationists double down and insist that all of the apparent death in the fossil record could not have possibly come from a pre-human earth. They are left with no choice than to claim that all dinosaurs are aliens. What does the fossil evidence actually show? Can there be any truth to extraterrestrial dinosaurs? Today, we will go over all of that, and more!

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Created by: The Free Thought Initiative (2019)

When many of us leave spirituality, dogmatic belief, and religion behind, we tend to throw the good out with the bad. We think of our past religious beliefs like a pie in which we found a worm. Do we really want to eat any of it now that we see that it contains flaws? Well of course religion has flaws. All religions and belief-systems we have are man-made. But I compare them to ancient ruins. True, the ruins would be a terrible place to live, but does that mean we can’t find anything valuable inside? Are there still treasures worth preserving from the ancients? I think so.This episode is the third part in a series in which we explore moral teachings from Christianity that even non-Christians can value.

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Created by: The Free Thought Initiative (2019)

I can remember when I was first taught about evolution as a teenager. In my Salt Lake City High school Biology class, my science teacher was openly religious and was dismissive of Charles Darwin’s revolutionary idea. He presented a flaccid depiction of the evidence for the theory, and was quick to mention that there are alternative theories such as “Intelligent Design.” The all too common “But you should study all the ideas out and then decide what you believe” came up a few times. This was in 2004, and soon, the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial would take place across the country. Is Intelligent Design just as valid a theory as Evolution? Is Evolution just “Darwinism,” a cult-like belief in one man’s ideas? Is Evolution, in fact, just an anti-God theory or an atheistic conspiracy? In this episode, we will answer those questions in Part 1 of our new series: “Misconceptions about Evolution.”

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Created by: The Free Thought Initiative (2019)

As we continue our search for powerful moral lessons that anyone can follow without having to belong to any religion or ideological group, we turn again to the most successful religion on earth: Christianity. We soon will study other things such as the teaching of Plato, the Japanese code of the Warrior: Bushido, and Sikhism. But today, we are continuing on from our past episode, “5 Life Lessons From Christianity.” Now it’s true that Christianity has its bad ideas, but does it have a few more good ones? In today’s episode, we will see if we can find more moral teachings from the Christian Bible.

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Created by: The Free Thought Initiative (2019)

There is a YouTuber who I consider to be a fellow advocate for science, rationality, logic, reason, and skepticism by the name of Stephen Woodford. Although I don’t always agree with him, his channel called “Rationality Rules,” contains, in my opinion, several masterpieces of reasoned argument and careful thinking. But he has now come under fire and has become something of a heretic within many circles of the atheist community. He has been shamed, denounced, and harassed by many of his heroes, friends, and fellow atheists. Why? Because he recently made a video on the ongoing debate surrounding Transgender Athletes.

If you are not interested in YouTube drama or in the schisms of the atheist community, I can totally understand that. Feel free to give this episode a pass. But I wanted to add my voice to this conversation because it reveals the ugly underbelly of a community that has traditionally been accepting, inviting, and nonjudgmental.

In my opinion, Rationality Rules didn’t do anything wrong. He doesn’t deserve this kind of harassment and slanderous abuse. In this episode, we will briefly explore the Rationality Rules Trans issues debacle, and the growing problem of thought policing, deplatforming, ideological purity tests, and political witch hunts within the Atheist community.

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Created by: The Free Thought Initiative (2019)