Pilot Episode of the AtheistAus Podcast

Something different in the Token Skeptic podcast feed – this is the pilot episode of the AtheistAus Podcast. The official feed will be out soon!

Accepting death is never easy. But we don’t need religion to find peace, comfort, and solace in the face of death. In her new collection of essays, Comforting Thoughts That Have Nothing To Do With God, prominent atheist author Greta Christina offers secular ways to handle your own mortality and the death of those you love.

Greta Christina is a blogger on FreeThought blogs, an author of a number of atheist and freethinking books, including “Coming Out Atheist” and “Why Are You Atheists So Angry?”. Greta Christina has been writing professionally since 1989, on topics including atheism, sexuality and sex-positivity, LGBT issues, politics, culture, and whatever crosses her mind. Greta Christina’s book Comforting Thoughts That Have Nothing To Do With God is available in print, e-book and audio book format. Find out more at Greta Christina’s Blog at www.freethoughtblogs.com/greta

Paul Fidalgo is the international correspondent for the AtheistAus Podcast – you can find more secular and atheist news and cutting edge blogging by Paul at iMortal on Patheos blogs and on the The Morning Heresy – follow Paul on Twitter at twitter.com/PaulFidalgo.

News items discussed include:

• Kaiser study shows parents opting out of vaccinating their kids – and it’s also influencing Disneyland employees.
• Religious freedom advocates are apparently offering themselves to be flogged in Raif Badawi’s place.
• USA and the State of the Union speech
• Discussion of UK rates of belief in religion dropping

In Australian and AFA forum board news:

• Guardian newspaper on journalists covering the Australian government’s asylum seeker policies.
• Meredith Doig, President of the Rationalist Society of Australia, in the Commentary section of the Age newspaper.
• In ABC news, the rarely sighted frilled shark.
• Science Alert on two Earth-sized planets.

The AFA Magazine – The Australian Atheist, issue 47 – has been released this week – highlights include investigations into Human rights, cherry picking chaplains and Je Suis Charlie. If you can think of a story that may be of interest to others, or if you’d care to write and submit a story yourself to the Australian Atheist Magazine, send an email to TAA@atheistfoundation.org.au.

There’s also advertising for the Unholy Trinity Downunder tour, with Matt Dillahunty, AronRa, and Seth Andrews, coming this March to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

The national Australian tour of Robin Ince is happening this April, heading to Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.

More details for both of the forthcoming AFA tours at www.atheistfoundation.org.au/unholytrinity and http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/robinince

All Atheist Aus Podcast episodes are under the Creative Commons license. You are free to distribute unedited versions of the episodes for non-commercial purposes. If you would like to edit the episode please contact us.

The views expressed are not necessarily representative of the Atheist Foundation of Australia, its affiliates, sponsors or advertisers.

Continue the conversation with atheists, the like-minded and the not-so-like minded at the AFA forums, found at http://atheistfoundation.org.au/forums or tweet us at twitter.com/atheistaus.

Contact the show at atheistauspodcast@gmail.com.

“Backed Vibes Clean” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

“Base Walker” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/