We atheists have finally found ourselves under the hyperbolic propaganda radar of Fox News. It seems Air America Radio has picked up Freethought Radio, that long-running internet atheist program, for nationwide broadcast. Ever quick and desperate to manufacture controversy that the evil lib'ruls are going to throw all True AmeriKKKans into the gulags, Fox News breathlessly reported this development with screaming headlines that Air America has declared "War on God"! Lawks!
Allow me to declare myself thrilled with all this free publicity for Freethought Radio. I can remember years ago, hosting The Atheist Experience, being a bit melancholy over the fact that while the delusions of Christianity were being promoted nationwide on half a dozen 24/7 cable channels, the best atheists were able to muster was an hour and a half on local access. And even then, we'd get callers outraged we were on the air. Now, three years after I left the show, we've got several New York Times bestselling books, and our first nationwide radio show. And the Christian Right is freaking. Well, good.
Of course, this "War on God" language is the same kind of button-mashing hysteria that Fox employs every year when they dredge up their "War on Christmas" rhetoric, scaring the base into thinking Christians are all about to be lined up for the firing squads simply because some clerk at a retail store tells customers "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Baby Jesus's Birthday, My Dear Beloved Brother in Christ". But hopefully, it will have the effect of getting thousands of curious visitors to tune in to Air America and Freethought Radio, where one or two of them may actually learn something. With books by Dawkins and Hitchens excoriating religion still impacting public awareness, the time is ripe for a radio program that, at long last, views the delirium of religion through the calming lens of reason.
