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Easter Review: ‘The Real Easter Egg’

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Evangelism is alive and well.  Chocolatey, chocolatey evangelism.

The Real Easter EggMany of you may have noticed ‘The Real Easter Egg’ gracing our supermarket shelves, adorned with the promise of telling the ‘true’ story of Easter.  Not to mention the proclamation of ‘charity’ plastered all over the packaging.  Ever wondered what it’s all about?  Probably not.  But I’m going to save you the £3.00 and tell you anyway.  You’re welcome.

Given the fact that there are now a few variations of this product on the shelf this year, I would be inclined to believe they’ve been selling well (It is chocolate after all), or perhaps they’re simply happy to pour ‘God’ knows how much of whoever’s money into a failing enterprise for the sake of filling some impressionable child’s noggin with superstitious nonsense.  Indeed, I’ve had images tweeted my way to show these packaged humpty dumpties, sitting tragically alone on the shelves, remaining long after the other non-indoctineggs have been snapped up.  If anyone knows how to obtain sales figures on these tasty propagandeggs, I’d be pleased to have them shared my way.

The egg I’ll be taking a look at is the one shown in the image above.  If you’ve picked up one of the other variations, please feel free to let me know of any differences in the comments below.  I must say on a personal note, I was incredibly disappointed to discover the sticker set was absent this year.  Arranging Jesus in imaginative positions amongst the other characters filled my entire Sunday last year.  I’ll do my best to avoid egg puns, but I’m not promising anything. Read more

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The Godless Spellchecker Podcast was downloaded over 11,100 times this March.  That’s far exceeded my wildest expectations from when I started out in November 2013.  Thank you!

Podcasting, especially as a first time amateur, isn’t something you become an expert at over night, but I feel I’m learning the ropes and finding my feet.  I’m really confident that there will be lots of great content and guests to look forward to for the remainder of 2014.  It’s really only just begun in that respect.

Noticeable improvements to sound and production quality have already been made, and I’m confident throughout 2014 the #GSpodcast will grow and become an even better listen.

As well as continuing to reach out to known & notable speakers within the atheist/secular community for guests, I will also continue to seek out interesting voices that may be unheard of.  If you feel you have something to say in this respect, please let me know here.

I’m also looking into the logistics of taking the show on the road in order to cover exclusive content from events, speaking engagements, debates and conventions.

I very much want this to be a listener’s show too.  An interactive experience for people with shared interests.  I’ll be placing a greater emphasis on audience interaction in the coming months, making the show an outlet for anyone with something interesting or entertaining to contribute.

This is currently a one man operation.  In the limited time outside of my regular 40 hours a week day job, I’m scheming, scheduling guests, recording, editing and producing.  It’s definitely become a second ‘job’, but it’s a huge privilege to get to speak to and learn from so many interesting people.

The show lives or dies on the support of the listener however.  If you’ve enjoyed the show, there are a number of things you can do to support and promote it:

  1. You can contribute to the hosting/production costs by becoming a patron for the show here.
  2. You can subscribe to, rate & review the show in iTunes.  This helps the show climb up the charts.  This will not only increase the audience, but give the show the clout to attract prominent figures as guests in the future.
  3. You can add the show to your Stitcher playlist, review and rate it.
  4. Share the show on social media.

The Godless Spellchecker Podcast is available on iTunes, Stitcher and direct download here.

Thanks for listening,

GS

 

 

 

 

 

Podcast – Cosmos Edition – Voices Needed!

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Stop Stars

Specifics
Show Title: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
UK Airdate:  Sunday 16th March
Time: 7pm – 7.50pm GMT
Channel: National Geographic
Podcast recording time: Sundays 8.50pm GMT

March 16th marks the start of a new updated version of Carl Sagan’s classic TV series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage”. The brilliant Neil deGrasse Tyson and the hilarious Seth MacFarlane will be on hosting/narrating duties, and it promises to be stimulating both visually, mentally, and I suspect, entertaining too.

To celebrate the occasion, and hopefully engage people in some beautiful, beautiful scientific discussion, I intend to record a companion Podcast episode an hour after the UK broadcast has ended. We would, as a group, talk through some of the points of interest from the current episode.  I shall then slave away in order to have it available to download within 24-48 hours.

This is where you come in.  Will you be watching Cosmos? Have you watched it in the US/Canada already? Do you have an interest in cosmology/physics?  Do you think you could lend a lively voice to a relaxed discussion concerning the contents of the show? Read more

Team #GFGS raises £22,773.69 for charity in 2013

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Image Created By @Wavish

What a year!  Team Good for Good’s Sakes’ WaterAid fundraising finally came to an end on Christmas day, finishing on an astonishing £11,843.03, smashing our £11,000 target goal.

This also completely obliterated our previous £10,930.66 record for Red Nose Day earlier in the year.  This brings the total amount raised for charity by Team #GFGS in 2013 to an incredible £22,773.69.

This was achieved because a significant, but by no means huge, group of people decided that contributing to charitable causes was a worthy idea for its own sake, regardless of what you do or don’t believe about anything else. This was done without media, financial or corporate support of any kind.  That’s incredible, and I think everyone who played a part should be proud of themselves.

WateraidTotalWaterAid is a fantastic organisation.  I need not waste your time explaining why access to clean water is such an imperative, so please visit them to see exactly how they will use the money to do good. From setting up sustainable water access in the poorest of places, to creating communities which are educated and trained in the skills required to maintain that infrastructure. Please consider choosing WaterAid should you be considering a charitable cause to fundraise for in the future.

I honestly didn’t think we could surpass our Red Nose Day efforts.  It’s such a pleasure and privilege to be continually surprised by the passion, intelligence, activism and good humour of those that engage with my Twitter feed.  Thank you.

A massive thank you to everyone that donated money and shared the fundraising page around. I’ve no doubt what we have achieved here together will help change lives for the better.  And why would we like to do that?  Because it’s a good thing to do.

I don’t really think about my Twitter shenanigans much further ahead than the present. This is due to understanding that my digital lifespan is also finite, with a limited shelf-life and therefore I don’t take it for granted that people will always be interested in what I have to say.  It’s for this reason that I am cautious about making plans for another charitable drive so soon, but if I’m still around in April and people are still interested I will consider setting up another cause for us to get our teeth into.  Up for the challenge?

Obviously, I understand the chances of reaching these heights again in 2014 are unlikely.  But I said that last time too.  And I’d be ecstatic to be wrong again.

Have a great New Year. Be Good

GS

Download Certificate (PDF)

Podcast Thanks, Support and the Future

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GS-Podcast-1small

Thanks to everyone that has listened to my Christmas Podcasts and sent some positive words my way. Also, a huge thanks to all my brilliant guests.  At the time of blogging this, the show has had over 15,500 listens and rising. That’s far exceeded my wildest expectations. Thank you.

It’s been a huge pleasure to speak with such funny, smart and lovely people. If you’ve enjoyed hearing from my guests, please let them know by Tweeting some love their way.

It’s been a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. If I’m honest, I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard on anything in my life.  I’ve quickly learned that releasing 7 podcasts in 20 days, whilst maintaining a full-time job is…mental.

I’m currently weighing up the idea of another regular fortnightly show in the New Year.  I’m brainstorming some ideas to try and make it funny, informative & engaging.  Whether I do produce a new show largely depends on whether or not the audience support outweighs the server costs (£110/US$180 per year) plus production costs.  I don’t want to charge for content, so I would have to rely on the generosity of voluntary contributions from the listeners to supplement the costs.

If everybody that enjoyed the show donated a dollar, a pound or a….Yuan (I don’t really know China), this would help supplement the costs involved and could even go towards new equipment to improve production and audio quality. If you’ve enjoyed the Podcast and would like to hear more, please consider making a contribution amount of your choice by becoming a patron.

If that’s something you can’t do right now, please take a minute to review/rate and subscribe to the show on Stitcher & iTunes.  This will improve the ranking of the show, and enable it to reach a bigger audience.  Because my show is listed in the category of “Religion & Spirituality” the majority of my competition are evangelical religious shows.  Listening, rating and reviewing will help me knock a few of them of their perch.  This thought makes me happy.

Thanks again,

I hope you’ve laughed and learned something.

Have a great Christmas

GS

Are Students Required To Accept Islam Is A Religion Of Peace? The BBC Thinks So..

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Religion of Peace

The BBC is not unaccustomed to criticism. Some of it is merited; some is simply due to their stature.  People love to take a swing at a giant once in a while. I hold no agenda to single out the BBC as frequently as I have this year; it’s just that they seem to be going out of their way to mock the gods of reason.

From the censorship of satire in response to a chorus of bleating from a humourless Christian minority, to refusal to re-think the increasingly outdated and less than inclusive format of its ‘Thought For The Day‘.

There was also that nasty business whereby a ‘journalist’ was able to assert something as utterly irresponsible as “men are raised to hate women” on the flagship BBC news programme, without so much as a follow-up question. Poor editorial indeed.

Throw in the BBC’s unquestioning promotion of Atheism Plus’ odious Block bot and we have an organisation that has truly earned itself a spell on my naughty step.

Imagine then, the look of unrefined exasperation on my face, as I completed a “Practice exam” on their High School revision service, GCSE Bitesize.  You could have driven a school bus into the gaping negative space created by the rapid expansion of my oral cavity.  I still have jaw ache.

For the uninitiated, GCSE’s are qualifications awarded to high school students (age 14-16) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The BBC’s ‘bitesize’ service aims to provide revision tools and practice exercises relevant to the current school curriculum. In this instance, the subject in question is Religious Studies, with a focus on Islam.

Upon taking the two minutes required to answer the questions in question, it soon became clear that the BBC, or the relevant educational bodies do not give a flying horse about objectivity where the ‘Religion Of Peace’ is concerned.

As you can see from the below, two questions in particular, or more specifically, what the exercise deems to be the correct response, caught my eye:

RelOfPeaceIslamEquality

If you’re unsure as to my gripe at this point, it may be best to return to your bubble.

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