Unreasonable

In 2017, like many financial journalists, Gareth Gore went to Spain to report on the sudden collapse of the global bank, Banco Popular. And, like every other reporter, he missed the real story. 

That is, until he returned to Spain two years later. As he recalls, "It was sheer luck, ...that I picked up a newspaper and saw that there was this scramble from people to get their money back. And it was only when I discovered some of the more sinister links later on that it became a wider story about Opus Dei rather than the bank."

In his new book, "Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church" (Simon & Schuster) Gore explains how one man turned his "vision" from God into a mission to "reChristianize the world," and how the organization he created, with its bizarre rites and structure, first infiltrated Spanish society with the help of the country's dictator Francisco Franco, won the imprimatur of the Vatican, became a financial powerhouse, and today, wields influence in the halls of the United States Congress and Supreme Court.

If you thought the New Apostolic Reformation and Ziklag were disturbing, you will not be assuaged by Gore's revelations. Still, knowledge is power. Come November 5, we have the opportunity to reject the theocratization of America. #vote

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Early last week we recorded an interview with illustrator Jesse Duquette. Then we got the word over the weekend: Meta not only shut his account down, but permanently deleted its posts and eradicated his community of over 200,000+ followers. Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaminions decided Duquette’s incisive and hard-hitting cartoons were just too much for Instagram. (Meta is the company that started out simply as Facebook but now includes Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp as well as other properties.)

This is the same Mark Zuckerberg who in 2019 told students at Georgetown University that “Frederick Douglass once called free expression ‘the great moral renovator of society,’ and repeating Douglass’ words, ‘slavery cannot tolerate free speech’.”

Apparently Duquette’s style of cartooning was intolerable.

This episode is a twofer: Part One is a deep-dive into the life and times of an artist and political commentator at work. Part Two explores the aftermath, when the AI of the world’s most powerful social media company, proves incapable of discerning satire, and banishes a popular presence based on its own misunderstanding of what it thinks it knows. 

Support the show

Thanks for listening! Now follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Threads. And please consider becoming a Patreon supporter at www.patreon.com/podcastunreasonable. It's a small price to pay to help keep America from becoming a theocracy, dontchya think?

Pierce Watkins is a Zen-master of epistemology.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, epistemology is “the theory of knowledge and understanding, esp. with regard to its methods, validity and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion.”

In other words: how do we come to know what we know, and believe what we believe, whether it’s true or not? At what point do our inherent biases take control of our brains?

Pierce's current project, Compassionate Epistemology, is fascinating. He’s interested in having civil conversations around why people believe what they do and, more importantly, how they came to those conclusions. Even more importantly, how does one express an opposing view (based on, say, provable facts) without resorting to emotional violence. 

It's not easy. But at a time when America is a country of divided states each with their own belief system, isn’t it at least worth trying to understand where "those people" are coming from? (Maybe. I dunno…) 

As Christina asks, "How do you have a conversation with someone who would have stoned Galileo?"

Pierce has some ideas about that.

Support the show

Thanks for listening! Now follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Threads. And please consider becoming a Patreon supporter at www.patreon.com/podcastunreasonable. It's a small price to pay to help keep America from becoming a theocracy, dontchya think?

Just when you thought you had a handle on all of the Christian Nationalist efforts to reshape America into their biblical paradise (think New Apostolic Reformation, Seven Mountains Dominionism, Jericho Marches, The Federalist Society, The Heritage Foundation, TurningPointUSA, Project 2025), along comes Ziklag, a secret society of mega millionaires created to help sway our elections toward a Christian Nationalist agenda that's also, (get this!) a tax-exempt 501(c)3!

With a name right out of the Marvel Universe, you'd think it comical if it weren't for real. ProPublica reporter Andy Kroll (along with his collaborator Nick Surgey of Documented) engaged in good old fashioned investigative journalism to draw back the curtain on this nefarious group and the ultra-wealthy families (whose fortunes you likely contribute to) behind it. 

Support the show

Thanks for listening! Now follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Threads. And please consider becoming a Patreon supporter at www.patreon.com/podcastunreasonable. It's a small price to pay to help keep America from becoming a theocracy, dontchya think?

After a long long week of activity in Chicago, our friends Sarah Levin (Secular Strategies) and Hemant Mehta (Friendly Atheist), graciously agreed to connect for an exclusive conversation for Unreasonable listeners, recapping what they saw and heard at the Democratic National Convention, especially from a secular perspective, since over 30 percent of the Democratic party is non-religious.

There was a lot of god talk coming from the podium. And we get it: Democrats have the opportunity to draw in people of faith who’ve finally had it with their anti-Christ candidate. How many of those people actually exist? Who knows, but in this game of inches it behooves us to invite them to the party and feel welcome. As they should: honest people of faith do, for the most part, share the social and moral values of secular voters.

And though there’s still work to be done, tremendous strides have been taken by the party to acknowledge their reliable None voters. 

Sarah and Hemant walk us through them on this special DNC episode of Unreasonable.

Support the show

Thanks for listening! Now follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Threads. And please consider becoming a Patreon supporter at www.patreon.com/podcastunreasonable. It's a small price to pay to help keep America from becoming a theocracy, dontchya think?

The Black Church is as American as anything you can name. For so many, the promise of a glorious afterlife gave, and gives, succor to a lifetime of hardship here on Earth.

The influence of its sacred music is directly linked to the secular music we all listen to and enjoy today, from Jazz to Soul to R&B to Rock nd Roll. And for that we can be grateful.

But despite the prevalance of church culture in the African-American community, and American society as a whole, many Black people reject the idea of an afterllife and a god that oversees it. For them, Jesus was a salve foisted on their ancestors by slaveholders who needed their property to behave.

Mandisa Thomas is the founder and president of Black Nonbelievers, an organization that promotes atheism among the Black community, and provides  communal shelter from a world that often ostracizes nonbelievers.

She is a happy warrior in the battle of certainty vs. skepticism.

Listen now, and then check out these resources to learn more.

Black Nonbelievers

Pew Research:
History of Faith Among Black Americans

gOD-Talk Film and Web Series

”Black Nonreligious Americans” Survey by
Black Nonbelievers and American Atheists
Black Nonreligious Survey

Black Christians vs. Black Nonbelievers Debate

Cringe Alert: Kent Hovind Debate

Black Freethinkers by Chris Cameron

Dr. Tony Pinn

Candace Gorham

Support the show

Thanks for listening! Now follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Threads. And please consider becoming a Patreon supporter at www.patreon.com/podcastunreasonable. It's a small price to pay to help keep America from becoming a theocracy, dontchya think?

Ten weeks ago Joe Biden was still the Democratic candidate for president and Donald Trump was…well…still Donald Trump (and he’s only become a more extreme version of himself since).

Yet somehow, these two — one, a decent career civil servant, the other a loathsome career self-servant — were neck-and-neck in polling. And Democrats were losing their shit.

It was then, in mid-May, that The New Republic magazine convened a group of academics, lawyers, journalists, activists, politicians and pundits in Philadelphia for their Stop Trump Summit. It was at once illuminating and comforting for an audience desperate to be talked off the ledge if only for that one afternoon. 

The event’s theme song might well have been “How Do You Solve a Problem Like The Donald?”

Now that Kamala Harris is the presumptive nominee, it is still worth revisiting that event, because it wasn’t so much about Biden as about the other guy. And though Biden’s handoff and Harris’s launch have gone off fairly smoothly and met with tremendous early enthusiasm, the problem of Trump, like a bad case of impetigo, persists. 

Panels ranged from the threats to democracy posed by a second Trump administration (who only this week promised "my beautiful Christians" that if they voted him in it would be the last time they'd ever have to vote), to the impact of the Dobbs decision, to voter registration strategies. 

Among the speakers: PA State Senator Vincent Hughes, and podcaster and pundit Molly Jong-Fast.

Support the show

Thanks for listening! Now follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Threads. And please consider becoming a Patreon supporter at www.patreon.com/podcastunreasonable. It's a small price to pay to help keep America from becoming a theocracy, dontchya think?

Last month, David and Christina attended the annual Secular Student Alliance conference, held this year in sweltering Little Rock, Arkansas. 

It's a gathering of college students from campuses around the country seeking community and inspiration. That opportunity is especially important at a time when, being reason-based, one feels increasingly outnumbered. 

They presented our “So You Want to Be An Organizer” workshop and conducted a series of run-and-gun interviews, collaring speakers like author Anne Nelson and "The Thinking Atheist" Seth Andrews, as well as student attendees.

What you'll hear from the students may disturb you. The students they spoke with are struggling, trying to calibrate their own moral compasses in a world where morality seems to shift with the tide. 

What to make of a world where pious churchgoers worship the anti-Christ, where the "good guy" signs off on arms in support of genocide, and where so many of the lessons they learned in American history class turned out to be deeply biased at best, or just wrong?

You may agree or disagree with what you'll hear, but attention must be paid. Because their vote – or non-vote – may be the difference between keeping our democracy and the end of the American experiment.

Support the show

Thanks for listening! Now follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Threads. And please consider becoming a Patreon supporter at www.patreon.com/podcastunreasonable. It's a small price to pay to help keep America from becoming a theocracy, dontchya think?

This was an especially nutty week in America. And none of it had to do with a particular televised debate or even the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity. 

This week the state of Louisiana mandated that The Ten Commandments be displayed in every one of its public school classrooms.

In Oklahoma, in the wake of the state’s Supreme Court decision to disallow the establishment of the country’s first publicly-funded religious charter school, Ryan Waters, the state’s education superintendent, issued a requirement that the bible be placed in all public school classrooms. 

We parse the immediate and long-term implications of both of these issues with Alison Gill, Vice President for Legal and Policy at American Atheists.

Alison also helps us understand "the Chevron deference” in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo to ignore the expertise of federal agencies in favor of politically-appointed and inexpert judges with their own ideological leanings. 

So much to unpack. 

Support the show

Thanks for listening! Now follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Threads. And please consider becoming a Patreon supporter at www.patreon.com/podcastunreasonable. It's a small price to pay to help keep America from becoming a theocracy, dontchya think?

Kadida Kenner and her organization The New Pennsylvania Project — modeled after Stacy Abrams’ New Georgia Project — is focused on engaging with and registering voters in communities whose doors are rarely knocked. NPP is doing a tremendous job across the Commonwealth, and her insights into the current mindset of voters, particular minority voters 35 and under, is an important one that you should hear. And that, hopefully, will inspired you to get involved.

Links to references from this episode:
https://www.newpaproject.org/npp-team/
https://powerinterfaith.org
https://www.ncjw.org
https://www.pahouse.com/McClinton/
https://radio.foxnews.com/2024/03/28/scott-presler-on-early-voting-amish-voter-impact-and-his-luscious-locks/
https://www.badfaithdocumentary.com
https://whyy.org/articles/jayz-pennsylvania-legislature-private-school-vouchers-jeff-yass/

Support the show

Thanks for listening! Now follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Threads. And please consider becoming a Patreon supporter at www.patreon.com/podcastunreasonable. It's a small price to pay to help keep America from becoming a theocracy, dontchya think?