Ask an Atheist with Sam Mulvey

Satan, coming to a Tacoma elementary school near you!  Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are risen!  Muslims in space! Also, an election happened.  I hadn’t expected to hear terms like “political arsonist” and “racist adjacents,” but Sam, Ranjan, and Josh talk about it all.

News

• After School Satan Clubs courtesy of Seattle’s Satanic Temple
• UK parents hesitant to pass on religion to kids
• Peter Cook and Dudley Moore: blastphemous from the pastphemous

Video Sam Mentions

• Christopher Hitchens Interviews White Aryan Resistance leaders John and Tom Metzger in 1991.

Emails

Good morning Sam (and the crew),
Voices like yours have suddenly become far more important both in the US and in the rest [of the] world. Hang in there, keep doing what you do and if an atheist can ever receive a calling from a higher power – this is it. Good luck, friends.
Pat from Ottawa, Canada

My friend and I came to the after party last Sunday. My friend had been excited to meet you all since he moved to Seattle a few months ago but I must confess I had never listened to Ask An Atheist. I have been binge listening since Monday and I really love your content. Keep up the good work!
My Best,
Philip
Philip from Seattle, WA

On some recent episodes, the AaA hosts have pondered how devout Muslims, who generally pray facing Mecca, might pray if they were on Mars.  Joel from Facebook writes:

A Muslim on Mars may have fewer problems than a Muslim in orbit around Earth given the speed of the ISS. But that had already been addressed.

Joel linked to an article describing a fatwah that was issued in 2007 after 150 Muslim scientists and scholars were called upon by the Malaysian Space Agency to interpret Muslim practice given weightlessness, orbital speed, washing protocol, and other complexities of being on the ISS. The result is that Muslim astronauts on the ISS don’t have to wash their face and hands with water, and may prostrate themselves to the extent allowable by a spacesuit or gravity conditions.  Regarding where to face, they have 4 options:

* Face the Kaaba on the land (which will move relative to the ISS)
* Face the projection of the Kaaba in the sky
* Face the Earth
* Face anywhere

Fasting is done according to the timing of the place of launch.  This all came to the fore in advance of Malaysian astronaut Sheikh Muszaphar Shukoor’s service on the ISS in 2007.  He was reportedly the ninth Muslim in outer space.
Joel from Facebook