The Front Fell Off

Ask an Atheist with Sam Mulvey

Sam explains the extended gaps between recording sessions and teeth. He and Becky discuss cognitive dissonance, Roman history, dogmatic thought, and data backups as they respond to listener feedback.

Feedback

In the same way that Hitler is dishonestly labeled as a atheist, I know for a fact that modern Christians will also do the same mis-labeling when they decide to disown Trump. So, how do you godless weirdos generate income with the internet? This Coronavirus resulted in me losing my job as a valet driver.-Michael from The Internet

I and the rest of your audience were lucky to get what you so freely gave and shared with us.

It’s hard to reflect on the positives of your accomplishments when many times you can only see what still needs to be done while you’re on the inside.

You answered many of the questions both atheists and non-atheists struggle with in our personal struggles with religion, or at least addressed them so we could move forward to our own solutions from where we were stuck. You did it in an approachable format that had previously been unavailable to the general public.

I feel I’ve made a friend, even though we’ve never met. I’d never felt that way with other atheist leaders, though to be honest Madalyn Murray O’Hair and her family were not the highest bar to beat. But you were literally just another geeky, nerdy guy who happened to be an atheist and could intelligently speak to it. And your other discussions were fun, even when it went off on MLS or comic tangents that normally don’t interest me. But it’s also hard to relate to more modern leaders, intellectuals like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens or entertainers like Bill Maher and Penn Gillette. They’re good, but I doubt any could be half as entertaining while being relatable like you and Becky and the rest of your eclectic group of friends and acquaintances.

You’ve helped spread not only information about atheism, but rational thinking and showing how much religion and other personal philosophies often violates people’s rights because of its followers dogmatic thinking.

I especially appreciate your discussions of LGBT issues within religions as a retired gay man who’s been an atheist since 15.

You also helped me improve my knowledge on how, from a rational thinker perspective, to defend a woman’s right to choose, the problems with anti-vaxxers, the difference between being a culture with largely Christian origins vs being a Christian nation, the background of our founding fathers in their understanding of the importance of the separation of church and state, and even that some evangelists like Harold Camping can be friends even if you’re vastly different people with vastly different viewpoints.

Your guests have probably educated me on more general science than any media educator not named Neil deGrasse Tyson or Bill Nye.

So thank you Sam for these last ten years. -Steve from The Internet

In lieu of new episodes, I had been listening back to the most recent batch. Some of the episodes get funnier when listening back to them. Like hearing about Becky getting Sam season tickets for his birthday. D’oh! On the topic of backups; for the love of IBM, backup your data! -Odd from Norway