Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Patricia on January 22, 2013 at 12:32am

I've said that for years......good grief the religions have channels.....where is the equal time????

Permalink Reply by Earther on January 22, 2013 at 1:52am

Thank you!  I wonder if existing establishments like the ACLU would be interested?

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on January 22, 2013 at 6:32am

Certainly, this would be a fantastic idea.  One issue, though: it would require MONEY.  The churches that put up their own stations do it through member tithes, and that money in some cases runs into the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.  It will take a healthy fraction of that to put up something more than ACA's "Atheist Experience" on public access.  We might get help from the ACLU and the FFRF and other organizations, but in the final analysis, having an actual secular broadcasting system would require individual atheist contributions.

Something at this scale would need atheists to join together, as I discussed here.  Again, I have to ask the question: can we do this without a major anti-atheist incident, or do we have to have our collective noses bloodied before we can act as a group?

Permalink Reply by Kent Randi on January 22, 2013 at 7:13am

I think we could get it started by purchasing blocks of time from an existing channel.  Something like Current TV which has original content but for much of their day is repeats of the same shows.  I think Al Gore is the developer of the station.  

I know it broadcasts 24hrs daily on Directv channel 358    

Alternatively there is FreeSpeech TV which is also a fulltime channel on Directv systems.  

We could fill our blocks of programming with science education like those seen on BBC1 and Europe's Channel 4.   We could have Atheist-Experience and other original content, debates, etc...  

As it grew, we could possibly get grants and donors to help us achieve a fulltime channel.  I would be behind this and would be happy to make monthly contributions.   

Permalink Reply by Earther on January 22, 2013 at 6:19pm

I think this conversation is going in the right direction here.  Obviously there are many hurdles but this is how we evolve.  It takes a lot of supportive roles to see growth.  Many atheist, freethinkers, anti-theist are already specialized and can find an area of expertise to engage in and make a collective goal.  I would say most of us do understand and desire separation of church and state in whatever government we have.