Five Public Opinions

More additions to my list of iTunes subscriptions. The tough part is that ever since my iPod Shuffle started to malfunction, becoming reduced in the process to a glorified thumb-drive, I have to trawl through Windows Explorer and add each episode of the podcasts I listen to individually to my girlfriend’s non iPod mp3 player. Baby Jesus gets his revenge!

Apologia: Hosted by Zach Moore, this is a very intelligent and very listenable roundtable discussion between theists and atheists, covering a range of philosophical, political, atheist and apologetics-related topics. As an English teacher, I’ve always found the panel discussion, as opposed to the formal debate, to be the best means of grappling with an idea or argument in a substantive way; one of the keys of Apologia’s success is, I think you will find, its adoption of this format. (Indeed, one of its worst episodes featured a debate between a regular panellist and a presuppositionalist; the show took a nose-dive when it became clear that the presuppostionalist was participating in the debate with his fingers firmly planted in his ears, waiting for his turn to repeat the same argument ad nauseam.) One of the panellists also co-hosts a podcast with William Lane Craig; in spite of this, he comes across as quite reasonable on Apologia.

The Bible Geek: I can’t get enough of Biblical scholar and skeptic Robert M. Price, when his audio is freely available, of course. Unfortunately, he’s one of these podcasters who, like the Infidel Guy, charges for much of his content. So those of you who, like me, baulk at the thought of paying for internet audio will simply have to make do with the 5-minute free samples he doles out here, usually in the form of responses to listener’s questions.

Atheist Talk: No, not that “Atheist Talk”! This is the cable TV show, also produced by Minnesota Atheists, featuring interviews, lectures and debates, minus the cheesy promotions, buffet-restaurant commercials and amateurism of the radio show. (Is there anything more frustrating, or awkward, than hearing a well-crafted line of thought cut off in its prime because the presenters have to cut to “Hey Bjorn! Hey Jeanette!”) I can’t see a feed on the webpage, but you can subscribe to the audio component of Atheist Talk (the TV show) through iTunes.

The Philosopher’s Zone: I can’t believe I haven’t added this one to my sidebar already, but I did mention it in an earlier post. The format of The Philosopher’s Zone is almost identical to that of Philosophy Bites, though each episode is almost twice as long. The fact that a radio programme like this would in all probability otherwise not be available is part of the raison-d’etre for having a publicly-funded national broadcaster.