Point of Inquiry (audio programme)

[teflon]

About the Program | Point of Inquiry
Here's the blurb

Point of Inquiry is the premiere podcast of the Center for Inquiry, drawing on CFI's relationship with the leading minds of the day including Nobel Prize-winning scientists, public intellectuals, social critics and thinkers, and renowned entertainers. Each episode combines incisive interviews, features and commentary focusing on CFI’s issues: religion, human values and the borderlands of science. Point of Inquiry explores CFI’s three research areas:

1. Pseudoscience and the paranormal (Bigfoot, UFOs, psychics, communication with the dead, cryptozoology, etc.)
2. Alternative medicine (faith healing, homeopathy, “healing touch,” the efficacy of prayer, etc.)
3. Religion and secularism (church-state separation, the effects and proper role of religion in society, the future of secularism and nonbelief, etc.)

It should probably be Point of Enquiry but Americans patently can't spell, even the clever ones who make shows like this.
This is a weekly show with great guests including the likes of Dickie Dawkins, Michael Shermer, Stephen Pinker, James Randi, Christopher Hitchens, various lesser known rationalists and even occasionally nutters like Chris Hedges.

Mostly it's whoever has a book out that week, but I'm sure some of you, like me, will be interested in the exclusive interviews with people like Dawkins, Pinker and Shermer.

You can listen via the website, new episodes come out on Fridays, or use iTunes to access the entire back catalogue and/or download new ones automatically.

If you believe in gibberish, I wouldn't bother though.

[Ashante]

sweet, is iTunes the only place to get a hold of it? I hate apple... nm

[Tagred]

Originally Posted by Ashante

sweet, is iTunes the only place to get a hold of it? I hate apple... nm

You will probably be able to get the dawkins interviews from his website.

Have they done PZ Myers yet?

[teflon]

Originally Posted by Ashante

sweet, is iTunes the only place to get a hold of it? I hate apple... nm

Yeah you can get it from the website

Originally Posted by Tagred

Have they done PZ Myers yet?

21st and 28th June 08. The second one is about that daft Expelled film.

[Tagred]

Originally Posted by teflon

21st and 28th June 08. The second one is about that daft Expelled film.

LOL

It was funny reading his blog when they expelled him from the movie.

[Ashante]

On a similar note, been watching some videos from Sam Harris' website, debates between him and various religious figures, a Rabbi, a Muslim author e.t.c.
Debates with Sam Harris :: Sam Harris

Also if anyone lives in or close to the Oxford university, Fixed Point are hosting a debate between Dawkins and John Lennox on October 21st. They're both from Oxford Uni, the topic is "Has Science Buried God?" Fixed-Point Foundation

[Tagred]

Sam Harris is too nice and so is Dennett but they do make extremely good arguments. Sam is probably the most eloquent of them all

[Ashante]

Yeah I like him, his was the first of that sort of book I bought last year - The End of Faith, really interesting book. I think his is an interesting perspective, coming from someone studying neuroscience, it's really the area that needs to be explored more if there is ever a definitive answer to be found from this debate.

[Tagred]

Originally Posted by Ashante

Yeah I like him, his was the first of that sort of book I bought last year - The End of Faith, really interesting book. I think his is an interesting perspective, coming from someone studying neuroscience, it's really the area that needs to be explored more if there is ever a definitive answer to be found from this debate.

I don't think there could be, even if there was some breakthrough in the subject as people of faith do not need any opposing proof. Faith is as faith does, it does not really on any sort of rational thinking, even when provided with irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

Its the odd definition of faith, as long as you believe in something being true then it is, even when it's not /

[Allanon]

Originally Posted by Ashante

On a similar note, been watching some videos from Sam Harris' website, debates between him and various religious figures, a Rabbi, a Muslim author e.t.c.
Debates with Sam Harris :: Sam Harris

Was enjoying that video until it decided to restart itself halfway through ¬.¬