Episode 22: Attack of the Theocrats!

 

Sean’s 10 point plan.

Sean’s book: Attack of the Theocrats! How the Religious Right Harms Us All- —and What We Can Do About It

Reviews:

Shocking! Will keep you on the edge of your seat! Sean Faircloth is doing such important work. There’s not a doubt in my mind that if he was (suddenly, inexplicably) zapped back in time to meet Thomas Jefferson, that the Founding Father would clap him on the shoulder and say ‘Thanks.’”

Adam Savage, MythBusters co-host and executive producer.

“Faircloth paints a sobering picture, but fortunately, as anyone who has heard his speeches knows, he also has an inspiring and invigorating vision to offer. . . . Readers will finish the book exercised, energized, and eager to join Faircloth in a bold rediscovery of the secular dream of the European Enlightenment and America’s enlightened Fathers.”

— Richard Dawkins, from the foreword to Attack of the Theocrats!

“I’ve devoted the last twenty years of my professional life to pointing out unscientific assertions that harm or swindle innocent people. It becomes particularly insidious when unsound reasoning is used to justify and apply unjust laws. This book describes this very real problem in American today, then offers a bold plan to do something about it.”

James Randi, Founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation

“What does the erosion of America’s noble separation of church and state the basis of the first secular government in the world have to do with your everyday life? In this lively and historically grounded survey of the way we live now, the author explains why the thirty-year-old assault on church-state separation affects all of us from children who are not getting a world-class education in science because of fundamentalist interference with the teaching of biology to soldiers subjected to evangelical proselytizing on military bases. Nothing could be more timely than this reminder that the founders left God out of the Constitution to provide citizens of every faith and no faith the freedom to act on their consciences. We ignore this historic liberty, the gift of America’s founding generation, at our peril.”

Susan Jacoby, Author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism and The Age of American Unreason

“Faircloth makes a compelling case for people everywhere to steadily reestablish Thomas Jefferson’s fundamental idea and keep religions out of politics. Read this, and you’ll become a Constitution thumper.”

Bill Nye the Science Guy

4 comments on Episode 22: Attack of the Theocrats!

  1. Sarah says:

    Great show and good interview! I listened at work and burst out laughing several times.

  2. Dumbass says:

    Malcolm Gladwell wrote in “Outliers” about people from “cultures of honor”, in which personal pride and honor ranks extremely highly. Personal insults and affronts in those cultures are, as they say, “fightin’ words!”

    They have very strong ideals about things like what it means to be a man and how all-important it is to make sure that everybody understands that you won’t take any insults lying down.

    Much of Southern US culture seems to be based on this kind of culture of honor. They’ve tamed down over time, but the basic idea is still there.

    If this idea of cultures of honor is true, then that helps explain these kinds of “honor killings”.

    I found an audio excerpt from Gladwell’s book about these cultures of honor that you might be interested in. It’s fascinating stuff:

    http://community.whyihatethejoneses.com/_Outliers-Culture-of-Honor-by-Malcolm-Gladwell/audio/345996/52850.html

    1. Dumbass says:

      My favourite quote from that audio, by the way:

      “He wouldn’t be much of a man if he hadn’t shot them fellers!”

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