June 14, 2009

Speaking of Torture

On the way home from the Atheists Talk show today, Mike had Speaking of Faith playing in the car. This is actually pretty common among the "active" atheists I know, this listening to religious radio. I, perhaps because I'm not one of the deconverted, don't really get it.

However, today I was lousy company for the ride back home. I was engrossed in the show.

The topic? Torture. But this wasn't the torture conversation that's been going on: Who approved what when and did anything useful come of it and/or will we prosecute? This was actually a discussion of torture, how it moves through organizations and society and what it does to the people along the way, how modern torture has been informed by our advances in understanding the human mind so that "nonviolent" forms are nothing of the sort.

I don't understand why this was on Speaking of Faith. Maybe they lumped it under ethics. Whatever. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that people listen to this show, preferably before they try to discuss the topic again.

Seriously, go listen.

6 comments:

Mike Haubrich said...

Actually, I keep MPR tuned in as a habit. Sometimes I can only listen to "Speaking of Faith" for a few minutes before I have to change.

But, yes, it was a good show today.

Jason Thibeault said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jason Thibeault said...

I need to get me some satellite radio. The closest thing to intellectual radio around here is the CBC's classical station, and what talk is on it, is mostly uninteresting pretty well every time I've managed to catch any of it -- regular newswire feeds that you could find on other CBC channels, a few radio dramas, and a talk show or two, none of which giving me anything new or novel. Consider yourselves lucky that you have a mostly-listenable public radio station, even if it's infested with gooey squishy faith stuff.

Curious as to the difference between an active atheist and an inactive / less active one, in your opinion. I wonder which I'd classify myself as, given that the most I've ever done is talk about it online or with my one religious friend that's willing to debate.

Oh, and sorry about the deleted comment, I thought I could just delete and repost and that would be like editing. :p

Stephanie Zvan said...

Mike, I don't think you've ever changed it while I was in the car. Of course, if Bing's along, he demands music, so my sample size is limited.

Jason, I'll have to see whether I can find you a link to the Morning Edition (National Public Radio) segment in which they were explaining cap and trade for carbon emissions in terms of Hollywood suddenly needing to curtail its use of the word, "dude." Not that they're always or even often like that, but that bit was very funny and very informative.

Stephanie Zvan said...

Oops. Active atheists, right.

The MN Atheists are our local group that arranges educational, political and social events. By active, I generally mean the people who organize and run any of that. I'm counting myself by virtue of my involvement in the radio show.

Jason Thibeault said...

Found it -- http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/06/dude.html

Man, I'm like master of the interwebs tonight. Too bad I have to go to bed now.