A South African Skeptic Podcast – A First of its Kind

[kelltrill]

A friend of mine recently turned me on to this incredible site, Primordial Soop. Its hosts, Deon Barnard, Suzanne Patterson, Basil Polydorou, and Brian Coughlan are all intelligent, well-spoken, and well-read South Africans or former South Africans who hold biweekly debates around South African religious issues, from Evolution to the lack of separation of church and state in South Africa.

Their podcasts are relatively new, with about one podcast being recorded every second week. They recently recorded their seventh podcast and they are slowly but surely getting more structured, more organised content, and audibly more confident in their program.

For every podcast they discuss a hero of the week, a retard of the week, and offer some interesting statistics on the state of religion in South Africa and, more broadly, the world. They openly confess to structuring their podcasts on Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, a podcast many atheists view as the benchmark for all skeptic podcasts to aspire to.

Even Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe (SGU) started slowly, with a lot of rambling in the beginnings of podcasts leading up to the nitty-gritty content as the speakers became more confident with their medium. Judging by the most recent podcast by Primordial Soop they are quickly heading in the same direction as SGU, gaining momentum quickly and hopefully moving towards becoming a powerful and influential force in South Africa.

If this is the first you are hearing about them, retweet/tweet about their webpage, whether you’re in South Africa or not. Let your local skeptic groups know about them, send emails to relevant listserves, play sound clips of the podcasts on local radio stations, drop a mention everywhere you know how, be it forums, blogs, or word-of-mouth. Skeptic groups in SA need all the help they can get, that's for sure.

South Africa is saturated with religion and to hear this whisper of skepticism amidst the roar of religions is really rare and exciting. Their are several growing skeptic and free-thought organisations in South Africa, such as the Free Society Institute, but this is the first South African skeptic podcast I have ever heard of. They've just started out and I want to do everything possible to get them up and running at a decent pace, even though I'm not involved with them.

They encourage email respondents, be it good or bad criticism. Drop them a line to let them know what you would like to hear discussed on the show or simply comment on aspects of their discussions. Join the discussion on their webpage, or email Deon at deonb@learningstrat.com.

[terranus]

Cool. So atheists don't have their own radio programs/talk shows/etc. down in South Africa?

[kelltrill]

Wow, no, not a chance. That's actually quite a surprising question to be asked. The very idea seems absurd. Atheists here keep the lowest profile possible.

[terranus]

Wow...that's crazy. Guess we're a bit spoiled up here in the States.

BTW, having trouble getting some of those episodes to load, anyone else experiencing difficulties?

[Whitney]

Cool, the more shows the world has like this the more normal it will be....When these shows are no longer any more controversial than any other religious or political show then we've done our job.

does anyone know how to get my blackberry podcast app to recognize the podcast feed?  That's the only way I easily keep up with podcasts.

[kelltrill]

Wow...that's crazy. Guess we're a bit spoiled up here in the States.

BTW, having trouble getting some of those episodes to load, anyone else experiencing difficulties?

You guys definitely are spoiled. All of the podcasts and shows I listen to are American. It makes hearing these podcasts in a South African accent really bizarre and fascinating.

Episode 7 took me to a 404 error page but I complained and they've since fixed the link. If you're having problems with some of the others comment on the blog and they'll fix it up.

What I like about these shows is that they discuss religion in SA and SA politics, which is really such a pleasure. American politics are so far removed from SA politics.