Atheist TV: Coming soon to a television near you

[rug]

Kimberly Winston | May 7, 2014

STANFORD, Calif. (RNS) Move over, Christian televangelists. Atheism is coming to television.

Speaking at a gathering of local atheists, humanists, freethinkers and other nontheists in a chemistry lecture hall at Stanford University, David Silverman, president of American Atheists, a national advocacy group for nontheists, announced Tuesday (May 6) that his New Jersey-based organization would launch the first television channel dedicated to atheism in July.

“Why are we going to television?” he asked the audience, a mix of about 100 students and people from the local community. “It’s part of our strategy of going where we are not.”

Silverman, 49, said the television channel, which will be available via Roku, an Internet streaming player that attaches to televisions like a cable box, will run atheist content seven days a week, 24 hours a day. He estimated it will reach 7 million households and will be free, at least initially.

http://www.religionnews.com/2014/05/07/atheist-tv-coming-soon-television-near/

[Politicalboi]

1. Atheist content?

I didn't know we had a special content. I just use the remote control. LOL!

[rug]

2. I hope it's better than this.

[AtheistCrusader]

3. "Punch your fat face in for jesus"

Sometimes I wonder if some of the callers are staged. Then they share the hate mail, and I'm convinced.

[rug]

6. That's pretty screwed up.

[digonswine]

8. Yes--they tend to get the same combative theists arguing the same points-

they lie to get on the air and spew their nonsense---it is usually caught quickly. Good show.

[digonswine]

7. The Atheist Experience--

is a great show.
They use well-reasoned arguments and logic.
I have seen many--and Matt Dillahunty can see a stupid argument a mile away.
I believe that one of the excerpts was from Matt's wife punking him on teevee, by the way.
Watch the show---it is quite intelligent--most of the time.
They want believers to define their words and parameters and point out the flaws in their arguments.
It can be a primer for nonbelievers in how to engage in conversation with believers.

If Atheist TV was this good---fine with me

[rug]

9. Maybe, but it has the production values of Wayne's World.

[digonswine]

10. It's actually pretty good now-

which has nothing to do with content-of course

[AtheistCrusader]

11. A lot of those clips are really old.

Also, it wouldn't help the content any if the production values were like CNN.

I mean, look at CNN.

[Prophet 451]

4. Sure, why not?

TV should be a marketplace of ideas. If there are enough atheists to make such a service viable, it just makes sense to cater to them.

[No Vested Interest]

5. My local cable agent was aghast when I asked if Al Jazeera was included

in any of their packages.

I can't even imagine what his reaction would be to The Atheist Channel.

[cbayer]

12. Go for it.

While most programming is not religious, there are a significant number of religious stations that seem to draw a large audience.

As I support organized atheism, I think good programming could advance that. OTOH, if it turns into the anti-theism channel, they are no better than the evangelists who use their air time to attack "others".

Another concern is who is running this. Mr. Silverman is a self-promoting conservative. If he uses this to promote his own political goals, then it will be something entirely different than what he describes here.