Anti-Intellectualism and SecTv's Atheist Teen Roundtable

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In case you haven't heard, I am producing a show on SecularTv on youtube called Atheist Teen Roundtable. It's been difficult keeping the show going at times for a variety of reasons. I have never produced a show before (Except for my own: Brunch with The Secular Parents) so I'm not all together certain what to do to improve the show, but I'm working on it!

The show is an open panel discussion between 3-6 kids, it varies from week to week. We have had some turn over of kids, though there is a central core of three kids who have been there from the beginning. They are working very hard on learning to lead a discussion, how to run a show, how to interview, etc and that work really shows as time goes on. I'm very proud of both John and Elizabeth in this last show. WOW, they sound great.

We are interviewing kids/teens who are interested in joining our Atheist Teen Roundtable. If your teen is interested in talking to us about being on the show, they need to contact me at:

Karen.thesecularparent@gmail.com

Interested teens should be: a TEEN, be able to commit to show times (Friday nights between 9pm and 11:30pm CST), be able to hold your own in a conversation, be informed enough to join in the conversation or be willing to prep for the show, and have audio/video capabilities.

Anyway, last week the kids did a show on Anti-intellectualism and I thought the show was interesting. Would you give the show a listen? I could use feedback in several different ways. 

• How can we improve the show?
• How can I get a few more teens interested in being on our panel?
• What are some good topics for the show?
• What are the good parts of the show?
• What sucks?
• Would your teens listen?
• Would you WANT your teens to listen?

The show is about 45 minutes long, contains profanity, and has some dead air.  LOL

I have a few other episodes of this show that I also found pretty good shows. I'll list a few in case you want to give a listen. 

• The Ten Commandments 
• 9/11 and Islam
• We're Holding Out for a Hero

If you take on my challenge, THANK YOU, I truly could use some input.

Atheist Teens TALK: The Ten Commandments

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I know I've talked about my secular parenting show that I started a few months ago, but I have another project that I've been working on and I thought I'd share it with you. I started a second show on SecularTv called Atheist Teen Roundtable. I'm not ON the show, but the show's producer...which I'm not at all sure what I'm doing.  :)

Tonight the kids on the show talked about The Ten Commandments.  If you can take it when kids are free with their language and thoughts, watch it!

Guest Post: ‘Why I Blog for Secular Parents’ by Me

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Gosh, I'm completely honored and excited to have a piece posted on Patheos on Wendy Russell Thomas's site called Natural Wonderers. Wendy has a blog that I've followed for years called Relax...It's Just God, a blog for atheist readers out there and an author of a book by the same name as her blog: Relax...It's Just God. If you are a first-generation atheist parent and looking for the book, this one is the book! Please do check it out. 

I highly recommend it. 

Seriously, in my years I have read dozens of atheist parenting books and Wendy's book is amazingly comprehensive and well done. One of the best!

My post on Wendy's Natural Wonderers Patheos blog is called Why I Blog for Secular Families. It's a blog of the nature that I've written here several times, a post about talking about why I think it is important for me to be an open atheist here on my blog. It's a thing for me, you know?

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I'm working on a new project that I want to share with you. It's completely fresh and undone. It is a project I'm doing with SecularTv again and I'm pretty darn excited about it. The new show is called Atheist Teen Roundtable. 

The title is pretty self-explanatory. I have a group of teenagers from various parts of the country who will be having roundtable discussions about everything and nothing. I can't wait for you to meet these kids!

Each of the kids on the show is so interesting and unique and informed. Their discussions are so interesting and engaging...I just can't wait for our viewers and listeners to tune in.

Atheist Teen Roundtable will broadcast every Friday night at 10pm CST (check your own timezone). I hope you join us, have your teens tune in, and leave comments on the youtube page to join in the discussion.

I would love your feedback on the show...

Gosh I'm excited. I would love to see it work out!
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You know, I realize I'm kind of one-track these days...I'm working on moving along.  LOL

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Posts You Might Enjoy:

My Children are Being Raised in a Religion-Free Home

Relax...It's Just God

Unsupportive Non-Secular Family Members

My Children are being Raised in a Religion-Free Home

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I wasn't raised in a religion-free home.
Our home had dried palm leaves tucked behind the living room mirror, a box of weekly envelopes for tithing sitting on the bookshelf, a tiny bottle of blue-capped holy water on the shelf, Sunday clothes in our closets, pictures or statues of bleeding hearts. We had parties for water dunking, we had people in our lives called godmothers and godfathers, we had special classes with our priest, and we had talk of miracles reported in places like Medjugorje and Guadalupe and Lourdes. We had Liguori magazine stacked on the end tables, Wednesday night dates with the catechism classes, nearly every single friend was also from our church, going to mass before going out on Saturday nights, fish on Fridays, and alcohol at every family event. We were Catholic. That is how my family identified. That is how I identified.

Therefore we also had confessing our sins, rosaries to ask Mary to help us get our sins forgiven, guilt for missing mass, shame over all things sexual (including sexual maturity), embarrassment over celebrating Christmas just for the presents and Easter just for the candy. We had fear of demonic things, and an expectation your beliefs will be the exact same as your parents, and a very black and white way of looking at issues: saint or sinner, right or wrong, good or evil.

Were there good things about being raised in my home? Absolutely. I always felt a sense of belonging a my church. The community was something we could count on. Elders of the church who were willing and able to listen. For me, the true benefit of religion for me was the community.

When I asked my son about being raised in a religion-free home he replied It's way better than being raising in a sugar-free home!

This week on Brunch with the Secular Parents on Sunday at Noontime CST we will be exploring ways that we think our kids benefit from being raised in a religion-free home. Your comments below would help!

Also, I hope you listen and JOIN IN THE CONVERSATION.

The God Gene

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The Secular Parents have a special showtime this week:  Saturday, July 4, 2015, NOON CST. 

We plan on talking about the human predisposition to believe in magic and The God Gene. Children go through normal phases of magical thinking, a phase that can upset first-generation atheist/humanist/secular parents who want to raise freethinking skeptics. Learn more about what to expect and how to handle this normal phase of our child's life.

Did you know that you can comment to the live broadcast while watching the show?  :)

 The God Gene

 Is there a "god gene"? Does magical thinking in kids interfere with developing skepticism? What do we, as parents, do to encourage and support imaginary play? Check out the discussion.

RELAX...it's Just God!

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Being a freethinking parent even ten years ago was such a different proposition. Books, public role models, and an openly secular vibe did not exist...anywhere! Those days were so different; what a difference a decade makes. We parents who worked so hard to find our way out way out of religion's grasp back in those days had very little published support. So atheist parent and blogger Wendy Russell Thomas did what so many of us wish we had done: she wrote the book that she would like to have read.

Wendy is the author of an eponymously named blog that I have read for several years now called Wendy Thomas Russell, Relax...It's Just God. Her comforting and informing voice hasn't been on her blog lately though because she has embarked on an exciting new adventure as an author of a book for first gen atheist parents, a book called Relax...it's Just God: How and Why to Talk to Your Kids about Religion When You're Not Religious.

Since Wendy and I are driving similar roads, writing and creating projects for secular parenting, it has been my pleasure to have some time in her busy life for a lovely chat about what is going on with her and what is meaningful for her. I'll pass that conversation on to you soon.

I'm reading RELAX... now and I
HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT! 

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Other posts you might enjoy:
It Takes More Faith to be an Atheist

On Being Religion-Free

I Took John to Church

One of my Worst Parenting Days: Making Mountains

Raising Atheist Children

ACK! Parenting Wars

Phil Zuckerman

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Phil Zuckerman, author of the study mentioned in this article: http://jezebel.com/godless-parents-are-doing-a-better-job-1682844001 , will be on our show The Secular Parents later this month.

Any questions or issues you think we should ask him about?

Gateway to Reason

Dear Secular Parents in the Midwest:

Join The Secular Parents for a live taping of our show at Gateway to Reason, the skeptical convention that will be a three day event in St. Louis, Washington University in St. Louis with speakers representing Comedy, Science, Politics, and Philosophy. Dates are July 31 to August 2, 2015.

Be-Asia McKerracher and I, Karen Loethen, (and entourage) will be recording a show with an audience of secular parents.

We would love to see YOU in the audience!

The Secular Parents will give away two tickets to Gateway to Reason on on upcoming show...tune in. 

And I have to mention, my particular FANGIRL CRUSH, Seth Andrews of The Thinking Atheist podcasts will be there...I will FINALLY get to meet him!!!!!
I think he's thinking, GREAT, I FINALLY get to meet Karen.

Get your tickets and information here:
http://www.gatewaytoreason.com/g2r-main-page.html

 

Ēostre and Ostara

secular parenting

I'm curious.

In our family the kids are pretty old, teens now, kind of old to really enjoy the family traditions of the Easter holiday. But when they were younger we had them wake up to a basket next to their bed full of gifty stuff and some candy and eggs to find in the yard or house. One year I remember that there was too much snow to hide eggs outside so the house would have to do.

We usually have family over for a nice ham luncheon and family games inside or out, weather permitting. It is a fully family holiday.

The kids used to open their little plastic eggs and count out the change and candy inside of each one. And I would be appalled with myself for the amount of candy that I had just bestowed on my children. 
OH, and I would steal their Reese's Easter Eggs.  MMM MMmm MM

What about your family?
Do you have any neat secular traditions that are unique to you?

This weekend on The Secular Parents show on the SecularTv Channel on Youtube, Sunday night, 8pm CST, we will be talking about the many ways to enjoy these spring days in our show called Celebrating the Spring Holiday.

Yes, I hope you will join us, but I would also love to hear from you here on my blog. 

What are YOUR traditions?

Inform me!

If you are interested in the show, join in on Live Chat this Sunday night at 8pm CST and share your stories, questions, and ideas for how to bring the fun and focus of these days of reawakening and rebirth to our families.

Ostara (1884) by Johannes Gehrts. The goddess flies through the heavens
surrounded by Roman-inspired putti, beams of light, and animals.
Germanic people look up at the goddess from the realm below.
Thanks to Wikipedia

Total Inoculation: Fables, Folk Tales, Mythology

secular tv, atheist parents

JOIN US on this week on The Secular Parents this Sunday night at 8PM CST as we explore how reading and discussing fables, folk tales, and mythology with our children is an excellent tool to inoculate them against believing in stories of magic. 

Total Inoculation: 

Fables, Folk Tales, Mythology

 

The Essential Secular Family Bookshelf

SecularTv, Secular parenting, atheist parenting

Be-Asia, Rayven, and Karen invite you to join us this Sunday night at 8pm CST for The Secular Parents where we will talk about The Essential Secular Family Bookshelf.

Join in live on CHAT and share your favorite secular titles!



What are your essential titles? 

Both for parenting and for books for the kids to read?

CHECK OUT:
Books and Other Things for your Lively, Lovely Young Heathen Children

The Secular Parents...In The News

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Have you seen the new episode of The Secular Parents?
Did you know our show can be found on SoundCloud as a podcast?

SecularTv: Secular Parenting Myths...BUSTED

secular tv, atheist parenting

Thanks to my excellent guests on tonight's show!

I have this amazing opportunity to cohost an online tv show for secular parents and I'm thinking, DANG am I lucky!
I have already met wonderful human beings that I love. And I'm experiencing an astonishing side effect of the show... I feel this tremendous upsurge of creativity and growth and ideas and inspiration....a rebirth of sorts.

I've been feeling kind of wrung out, even empty for awhile now. Like I have nothing new to say...but this new venue is getting the imagination churning and...WOW, I'm excited again.

I hope you check out the show. We are working on getting them formatted into podcasts that will be available here through my blog.

I hope you join me in this endeavor.
I welcome your stories, your passions, your involvement, your participation on the community!

Unsupportive Non-Secular Family Members

secular tv, atheist parenting, secular parenting, atheist coming out of the closet

Special Invite to my friends here at My Own Mind blog

The Secular Parents: Sundays, 8pm CST/7pm ST: EP 2: Dealing With Non-Secular Family Members

We're diving into the deep end of secular parenting issues here on our second show at the SecularTV channel on Youtube and discussing the struggles of handling push back to our secular parenting lifestyle.

( Think Grandma cornering the kids in the hallway to talk about the Lord and Hell...which is what happened to us a few times!  Don't do what I did! lol)

What do you think of our show's little icon thingy?

I hope you click this link to join us this Sunday evening and

JOIN IN THE CONVERSATION!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-qznfFlG9M

For my post on Dealing With 

Unsupportive Non-Secular Family Members,

click here.

"The Secular Parent" Episode One!

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Here's my first episode of 

"The Secular Parent" 

on the youtube channel SecularTV!!!!

I was nervous as heck and it went OK.
I'm only posting this question in a few places; next week we are looking for a guest for our show regarding how to deal with religious family members. If you have Google+ and a set up at home for video and would like to be considered as a guest, please let me know in the comments below.  I only need one person so I will be looking for a person with the necessary technology and a good story.  ;)

Watch it on Youtube

The Secular Parent: Episode One: Why "Secular Parent" and not just "Parent"?