WOTM Watchdog! Keeping Ray, Todd, and Kirk honest... because they don't know how to.

The origins of Halloween can be traced back to the celebration of the end of the harvest season on the old continent, but later it was imbued with ideas of convergence between the realms of the living and the dead and all sorts of other nutty ideas. Other boring historical data aside, the holiday was carried over into the United States along evil godless Irish people who were in dire need of some potato in the middle of the 19th century. As with so many other phenomena, it received the traditional americanization treatment and as of today it's a way to get the consumers moving about to buy ugly seasonal rubbish, much like many holidays.

I bet there's nothing more scary for a fundamentalist Christian than a pagan celebration such as halloween. Being exposed to non-Christian traditions will surely ruin the children's minds.

Mark this date on your calendars.

On October the 22nd, 2007 at approximately 3:00pm Eastern Standard Time, something amazing happened. Something so incredible that, if I were not an atheist, I would be tempted to call it a miracle.

At this date and time, Todd Friel actually acted in a rational manner.

I know, I’m shocked too! And I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears. In fact, I’m so sure that even you, our loyal readers, won’t believe me, that I’m going to supply the link. (It’s the first thing on the show, so don’t worry about searching for it.)

As an atheist, I can pretty much expect to be on the receiving end of abuse when listening to Way of the Master Radio every afternoon. Not direct abuse, of course. Todd and Ray always seem to be a bit reticent to actually come out and bad mouth their ideological enemies. They will, of course, glibly tell you that the bible says atheists are fools and that you're going to hell.

But that's not what I want to talk about. Instead, I want to hit on an interesting trend that has been occuring on the show. As much as Todd likes to go after the atheists, it's surprising how much time he spends going after other Christians.

Just the other day Ray witnessed to a Catholic at Seton Hall, but insisted on referring to it as Satan Hall.

Todd insists that former minister and current atheist Dan Barker was a false convert. Because, of course, had he actually believed he never would have changed his mind.

Anyone who comes to the show and speaks about Jesus' teachings on love and kindness is immediately labeled a liberal with no knowledge of the real Christ.

I want to take a few brief moments of your time to point out something that most freethinkers are attuned to when it comes to evangelical Christians: they are buying and selling... souls. The WOTM crew does it in a very clever manner and disguises it with a false sense of concern for the eternal destination of your immortal soul but, come on, can they even demonstrate that such a "thing" or "place" exists? Of course they can't; that's where their carefully crafted, finely honed sales pitch comes into play.

A quick internet search will reveal a great deal of interesting information on the perfect sales pitch. Here is the tried and true harangue:

* Start with conviction
* Winning against negative sentiments
* Preparations are the Key to Success
* Use emotions in the sales process
* Complete focus on the customer
* Objections are buying statements
* Closing thoughts

I've personally been off WotM for some time now, and actually find myself smiling at my podcasts directory, as I have a dozen hours of material to go through. Why I smile, I don't know. I'm weird that way.

A reader of ours sent the Watchdog crew a message concerning a recent gem in WotM news coverage. Yes, they do news. Science news when they disagree with the results, religion news, funny news, religious news, politics when they pertain to religion, etc. Inspired by this message, I decided to check the show out with my own ears. It's amazing! So let's examine the hour 2 news bit on WotM Radio on October 15th!
I can reed news reel gud

It's that time of the year again when the Nobel prizes start rolling out. Let's see how WotM's unbiased news hawks cover some items of this most exciting of ceremonies!

Click here to download WOTMWatchdog's blitz promo video, then post it on your YouTube account in response to this one! Help support your friendly neighborhood Watchdogs! Click here for the now-famous Monkey song! Yes, it's ours, and the WOTM crew knows it, despite their continued feigned ignorance!

Well that was bound to happen. After all, if you are going up against WOTM, you are bound to irritate enough people who will flag your videos and try to shut you down.

The offending video? A video that questions the motives of WOTM. They are indeed trying to silence their critics. Here's the video in question.

This list is taken from the Atheists for Human Rights web page. It encapsulates the philosophy, ideology, and goals of atheist activism as well as anything I've ever seen. I do take minor issue with one point it expresses, but we'll get to that later. While this has little to do with WOTM or our watchdog activities thereof, some of our readers may have questions about what atheist activism -- a movement of which we are proud participants -- is all about.

When you stop to think about it, you realize that Todd Friel really is a Renaissance man. He’s a radio and TV host, a comedian (or at least he tries to be), an interviewer, and a professional evangelical. But now we have a new label to give Mr. Friel. Psychologist!

While we can’t give him that title officially, Todd did a wonderful job of showing us how much he understands the human psyche. While visiting some churches in Scotland, he asked his tour guide (who had visited America and Canada) two questions.

1. Are European teens more depressed than American teens?

2. If so, why? (Extra points if you can somehow include The Bible in the answer.)

Now to be fair, the first is a very good question. If it hasn’t been done already (and I’ve looked), a study on the percentage of American teens that suffer from depression versus the percentage of European teens that suffer the same would be very interesting.